"It's very you!" & New Addition...

I went in to AAA yesterday to finally get the insurance on my car transferred over into my name, and off of State Farm. The lady I worked with was very nice and seemed very interested in me and my personal story. About mid-way through the process, she motioned to the pewter dire wolf skull necklace I wear and said, "I like your necklace. What is that?"

I hadn't yet mentioned that I was in school to be a Paleontologist - I had only told her that I was currently an Anthropology major, however, and slated to transfer as soon as I finished the last 3 classes and got my AA. I held up the necklace and turned it the proper way, saying it was a dire wolf skull, and that I'd gotten it at the La Brea Tar Pits a few years back. She smiled, shared that her daughter liked that museum, and then gave me a compliment that's stuck in the back of my mind ever since. Now for a full 24 hours.

"It's very 'you'."

Oh, if only she knew.

And, in other news, a new friend has entered my taxidermic collection as of yesterday. Her name, as she has informed me thanks to my brother's boyfriend mentioning the name and her liking it, is Constance, and she is a silver badger. Check my facebook for pictures.

As I am still bonding with her, she's sitting on my desk as I type this - both physically and spiritually, though the spiritual version keeps going around and exploring the house. She's beautiful, and had a very vivid way of getting my attention. I didn't know she was roadkilled, and when I first picked her up, I literally heard a squeal of brakes and felt... well, what can only be described as a "thud" against my spine. It's the first time I've been greeted by an animal spirit by it informing me how it died. I'm not sure if she was looking for confirmation or what, but it was very vivid and I'm glad I'd braced myself for some sort of experience before touching her, or else I might have been knocked off my feet, or at least into my chair.

However, she's very true to the badger's spirit, in that unlike my roadkilled coyote, Trevor, she isn't at all traumatized by her experience. She's curious and steadfast, and very interested in learning about this new life she's been tossed into. I respect her a lot, and even after we've bonded, I might keep her on my desk for awhile, jus because she has a wonderful energy that I'm very much enjoying having around.

To give you an idea, here are some things about Badger, the totemic spirit, that I found this morning during my research.

"In Native American mythology, a sighting of a Badger or Badger tracks was a message that all things are possible when we tap into our inner creative powers.

The badger stops at nothing to get what it wants, and this is a lesson for us to be persistant in our pursuits. Specifically, those who attract this spirit's attention do so because they have difficulty finishing what they start. The badger is here to help with that aspect in life. Call upon badger's strong, stubborn nature to help you complete any project you start.

The badger is also a sign that it is time for us to come out of hiding - it's time to let the world know that you are here, and that you mean business!"

Lastly, the symbolism of the badger also includes individuality. The badger is a unique creature, well equipped to meet all the challenges it faces. It lives life quite effectively, and, although it's methods might seem unorthodox, the badger doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks about it. Perhaps the greatest lesson that badger imparts to us is to walk your own path at your own pace, nevermind what others may say. Have faith in your own abilities and know that you are well equipped to take on whatever challenge you may face."

If that isn't the universe giving me a kick in the pants to get started on the rest of my life and have confidence, as well as a confirmation that I'm on the right track and that my positivity is working, I don't know what is!!

Welcome to the family, Constance!

I Seem To Have Made My Peace...

I seem to have made my peace with the primate bones in the Anthropology classroom. I was approached by some sort of small prosimian today that I believe was probably a lemur. I didn't get a good look at the spirit - it kept moving out of the corner of my eye, but I got enough of a look at it to know it was a prosimian.based on it's size and the way i twas moving around. It has approached me about five times in the last hour or so.... there it went again. Ok. It's sitting on the counter behind me. I'm going to try to get a better look at it if I can move slow enough not to startle it.

It's the tarsier! Oh, how cute! The spirit sitting behind me looks like this:

It's messing with my purse and my laptop case. I'm taking this as a good sign that the primates are starting to accept me a bit more. That's a huge relief to me, actually, based on my previous experiences with these creatures. I get the feeling the baboon still doesn't like me (I keep feeling it glaring at me from across the room), but this is still nice. And at the very least, the tarsier is very cute.

I might post again later today, but right now I'm kind of just having fun in Anthropology, and I need to get back to listening to the teacher now.

Adventures In Baking Part 2

I have had cookie success!!

I managed to salvage the dough from last night's cookie disaster, and the cookies came out awesome!!

In honor of that, have a picture, AND! The actual recipe (with the correct amount of flour so you don't end up with flats! :D)



Peanut Butter Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1 ½ Cups PACKED Brown Sugar

2 Cups Granulated Sugar

1 TSP Baking Powder

3 ½ Cups All Purpose Flour

2 Large Eggs

1 Cup Softened/Melted Butter

1 ½ Cups CREAMY Peanut Butter

2 TSPs Vanilla Extract

1 Package Peanut Butter & Milk Chocolate Chips
-OR 1 Package Milk Chocolate Chips



Procedure:

Preheat Oven to 375®

Spray cookie sheet/sheets with non-stick spray, or otherwise grease.

Place brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and peanut butter in a large mixing bowl. Microwave for 1 to 2 minutes, until butter is softened, or mostly melted.

With spatula, mix melted mixture until an even consistency (will be watery at this point). Add eggs and fold in, gently.

SIFT Flour and baking powder together into mixture, a cup at a time, stirring it in with spatula after every cup.

Add Vanilla Extract and package of chips of your choosing. Stir until mixture is dough.

(OPTIONAL: Dough can now be refrigerated for approximately one hour to aide in the shaping of the cookies. Or proceed directly to next step.)

With spoon and fingers, shape cookies into balls approximately 1 inch around, and press onto cookie sheet. Leave space for spreading.

Bake at 375® for 10 minutes, 11 minutes for crisp cookie bottoms.

Remove cookies from pan and let cool on baking rack.

Makes approximately 3 Dozen cookies.

Let me know if you make them, and send pictures! I'm all excited - I invented cookies!

Adventures In Baking...

I have learned a valuable lesson today. Put simply, it is do not attempt to bake while one of your core soulbonds is grieving. I can't think of any other reason why I would have failed my attempt to make cookies quite so badly tonight.

The truth is, I'm good at baking! No, really, I am. I make yummy things. I have recipes, I follow them, and edible things come out at the end of the process. Usually fairly tasty edible things.

Tonight, however, I made burned "flats" (they do not in any way qualify as cookies), and... warm mush.

Appetizing, eh?

Yeah, well... For the last 3 days, I've been wanting to make peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips in them. I finally got around to doing it tonight when I was pretty much the only one home, and had nothing to do other than game and TV. So I decided to bake. Thing is, I couldn't find a peanut butter cookie recipe that I liked. So I printed four of them, picked what I felt were the best things of each, and combined them into a WHOLE NEW COOKIE EXPERIMENT!!! I was very excited about them at the time.

Now, through all of this, I'm listening to the Doctor in my head, who's... well, listening to this song over and over again, flipping randomly through the incarnations who knew Sarah Jane, and just generally being morose. I'm trying hard not to let it effect me, but it isn't really easy to separate that far from someone who's become such a core piece of my inner-workings. The sad thing is that I've come to depend on his bouncy, happy personality in the last year or so, and having him upset is effecting me a bit more than I'd really like it to. Though I'm not going to let it make me lose my positive. That's for sure. However, I did have a bit of a break down tonight.

See, our oven door has had one hinge that's been threatening to break for awhile. You had to lift carefully and set the door on it's hinges every time you closed it, or else it might not close all the way. I made my EXPERIMENTAL COOKIES, and put a batch in the oven, closing the door like normal. Twelve minutes later, I returned to find that my EXPERIMENTAL COOKIES had turned into... well... a flat pan of slightly burned mush. But I was able to cut them apart and put them on a cooling rack. I realized that I hadn't put enough flour into the batter. However, I had already fixed a second pan with the current mixture.

Looking back on it, I could've just scooped them back into the bowl, put more flour in, and then tried to bake another pan full. However, what I DID was go ahead and put the pan in, figuring I'd add more flour to the rest of the batter, and the next batches would come out good.

I put the pan in the oven, and as I went to close the door, the blasted hinge finally broke. The door fell. The 375 degree door, fell. The 375 degree door fell into my hands. My unprotected hands - because I'd been putting a cold pan into an oven on which I thought I only needed to touch the door handle.

I yelped, cursed, grabbed a pot holder with one hand and then the oven door, transferring my other hand to the handle... and shouted for Mom to come help. It took the two of us together to wrestle the oven door back into some resembalence of normal position (and it was leaning against the wall on the side with the broken hinge, just to keep it from hanging off and breaking the OTHER hinge). We turned the oven off, and decided to come back and check on it when it had cooled.

I left the not-cookies in there, hoping the residual heat would do something. An hour later (and four renditions of Stairway To Heaven, and Bright Eyes from the Doctor), I went back and checked. I had... slightly warm, flattening mush. Yum.

I couldn't even get those off the pan. In frustration, I grabbed the bowl of dough, the flour, and started mixing, trying to make something I'd be able to cook once the oven door was fixed. I stirred too violently. I slammed my elbow into the cooling rack that housed the "flats" I'd made earlier, and sent them cascading onto the floor in a very dramatic way.

Upon hitting the floor, they shattered. They didn't break - they SHATTERED. And I found myself barefoot in the kitchen, surrounded by cookie shards that looked DANGEROUS. I carefully put the bowl back on the counter, cursed, and then carefully picked my way around the cookie spikes on the ground into the laundry room, where I grabbed a broom and a dust pan, and proceeded to carefully clean up my now dangerous COOKIE EXPERIMENT. Which, I believe, we all can now safely agree was a FAILED COOKIE EXPERIMENT.

Mom came in as I was finishing putting the "fixed" dough in the fridge, having cleaned up the floor, and asked where the flats went and if I was OK, because... well, when I said I cursed, I kind of meant that I shouted a curse and hit my fist on the counter. My burned fist. Yeah, I was a bit frustrated.

We worked together to try and fix the oven door a bit more, but it still isn't... ah... right. No. It won't close. So... no more baking for me tonight. My hands hurt, my back hurts, and I still have a bond in mourning in my head.

However! Despite these set-backs, and the day just not going the way I planned - I DID do really well on my Anthropology Lab exam today, and I found out that I aced the multiple choice portion of the Anthropology exam that I took on Monday. So today has been wonderful and amazing, despite the setbacks that came at the end of it.

Now, I'm going to relax for an hour before I have to do dishes and finish cleaning up the mess I made in the kitchen with my not-cookie-splosion. And you know what? I'm still ok. And that is fantastic.

A Song Is Ending, But The Story Never Ends...

I am a big fan of Doctor Who. I came in to the series with the 2005 revival, though the first bit of the show I ever saw was the very end of David Tennant's run as the 10th Doctor (yes, my introduction to the show was the regeneration scene in End Of Time pt 2). However, I recognized from the moment I saw her in School Reunion, an episode of the 2006 series, that the character of Sarah Jane Smith was a very important person from the Doctor's past.

Not even taking soulbonding into account here, as that adds a whole other dimension to this that I'm barely dealing with right now, let alone how I personally am feeling. However, this entry needed to be written.

Today, at age 63, Elisabeth Sladen, the actress who portrayed Sarah Jane Smith in all her numerous appearances on Doctor Who (old and new), and who starred in the aptly named Sarah Jane Adventures since 2007, passed away of cancer she had been battling for awhile.

When I read the news article, I cried. My stomach twisted and my heart hurt - all this for a person I'd never met in real life. With so much loss in my life recently, maybe it's not surprising that I got this upset. With my bond of the Doctor, it certainly isn't surprising. And I've been dealing with his personal memories all afternoon (remembering things you never watched is always strange - this is no exception). But for whatever reason, this has hit me very hard. It's brought some quotes from the aforementioned episode of Doctor Who to mind, as well.



"Their lives are so fleeting... So many goodbyes. How lonely you must be, Doctor." - Mr. Finch/Krillitane Leader, School Reunion.

But, perhaps most poignant, from the great woman herself:


"No. The universe has to move forward. Pain, and loss... they define us, as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world, or a relationship - everything has it's time. And everything ends." - Sarah Jane Smith, School Reunion


To paraphrase Ood Sigma... Sarah Jane Smith, your song has ended. But rest assured that the story never ends. You are beloved and missed by Whovians, young and old. Have fun in your new adventures.

*gasp* Artwork?! From ME?!

Ancient Tradition - Contest by ~tygerwolfe on deviantART

Yes! I actually made an art piece! And even rarer - one that isn't digital at all.  This was a contest entry for a contest over on DeviantART, but given that what I had to work with were crayons and printer paper? I think it came out really nice.

I don't usually ask questions, so here goes: If you could have a conversation with any person or animal, living or dead, who would it be and why?

I don't usually ask questions, so here goes: If you could have a conversation with any person or animal, living or dead, who would it be and why?

Answer here

Wonderful Student/Horrible Student...

There are times when I am an absolutely wonderful student. There's no doubt in my mind that I am, at the very least, a NATURAL student. I am most at home when I'm learning new things, for whatever reason, and I take to information like a duck to water. Or a dire wolf to cold weather, as the case may be.

However, there are times, especially when it comes to time management, when I am an absolutely horrible student. Case-in-point. I have an exam this morning, and I chose to update my website yesterday rather than reading the articles assigned.

Now, I'm excellent at speed-reading, and this IS an open book test. However, that doesn't change that it's a horrible habit to get in to, and in any other class it would probably get me a failing grade. But this is Anthropology - I know this stuff. I just need to work a bit at... well... focus on studying.

This weekend, I HAVE to write my Zoo Project paper. I need to. It's very important. I will NOT let myself be distracted by ANYTHING.

That's another thing. I'm bad at getting distracted... Like right now. I should be heading off to school, not writing a blog entry. But it's Monday, and as I have a test, I won't have time to write an entry from class the way I usually do. So I'm determined to keep my posting schedule on track - therefore, I'm posting.

However, this DOES beg the issue of WHY my website and my blog have priority over my school. The honest answer is, they don't. I am, however, horrible at time management.

That being said, I'm wrapping up this post and heading off to school now. Wish me luck on the exam!

My Site Is COMPLETE!

Uh... Sort of. I have all the base pages converted over to Wordpress, but I have yet to put in most of the fanfiction archive (in fact, the Animorphs section is the only one that's complete, at the moment). However, this is also to test my crossposting abilities, because as Tygerwolfe.com is now a wordpress, all my blogs should also post there as well! I'm actually fairly excited about that. :)

So here's to Wordpress, and this dire wolf finally moving into the 21st century of website building!

She said it best...

Trinitylast's Blog: April 14th

The above link is my fiancee's blog regarding her dad's birthday a few days ago. You know, I know it gets confusing, but I'm going to refer to him as dad in this as well, because that just makes things a little easier.

She really epitomized how I was feeling in that post, though I admit I hadn't made the connection that she did with what Leon said at the memorial service and the way we felt. I don't think I can type up anything nearly as long without crying, hence the link to hers, but I felt the need to say something and have been feeling it for days. I just haven't been able to gather my thoughts. So here's my attempt.

The "a year ago" things I was worried about are happening in full force. It doesn't help that we just lost AJ, a little over a week before dad's birthday. Now, I want to make one thing clear - I see animal spirits. I have never seen dad, but I, as everyone else in the house is, am aware that he's very much still here. How, if I don't see him?

Well, he has a tendency to comment on things, just like he did when he was alive. He'd overhear a conversation from another room, and shout his 2 cents in. Now, though, it's in our heads. And more than one of us have heard him at the same time, which is kind of the proof, as far as I'm concerned. So again, I have the odd juxtaposition of missing someone who I am aware of on a spiritual level still being very much here. But I miss him.

Like Lona said in her post - all the annoying things he did... I miss them. All the times he yelled and blew up and shouted at everyone in the house because he was having a bad day, I miss. But when it comes down to it, what I miss the most is the knowledge of his physical presence. I miss his hugs. I miss sharing our interest in action movies (I haven't really been able to watch action movies since he passed, and I only just now realized that's probably WHY), and history. I miss him giving me advice for dealing with my schoolwork, and I miss the fact that he had planned to show me around Cal State Fullerton when I transferred... He still will, I suppose, but I'll be the only one physically there. I miss him bragging on me to his friends over the phone, telling the story of the misplaced bone in a museum that I identified and brought to the attention of the staff. (That hall was closed for renovation the following month, and reopens this summer, so I'm looking forward to seeing if they FIXED that, and part of me wonders if I was part of the reason for the renovation.)

I miss the TV on all night, and him sitting essentially right next to me - the couch is next to my desk. His comforting presence there, even when he was asleep. I miss him talking in his sleep (one memorable time, he quoted something from a James Bond film, and another he went on for over an hour about how the plant seed pods were going to get us all, and it was all "your" fault... We still don't know who he was talking to). I miss him coming in while I was doing dishes or making a sandwich and commenting on the careful, deliberate way that I do things, then hugging me or patting me on the back.

I only knew him for five years. But he was a huge part of my life, just by virtue of being... dad. And even though I was afraid of him when he got loud, when I first moved in, I later came to recognize what came from a chemical imbalance, and what was actually him. And while I hated his chemical imbalance... I loved him. No matter what.

And now I miss him. Every day. In every way possible, I miss him. On an almost daily basis I think, "Dad would be so proud of me for _____", or "I wish dad was here to see this...". Even when he didn't understand what I was talking about, he listened to me. He really listened to me - and that was a huge thing for me.

So, yeah... Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and time doesn't heal all wounds. Some wounds stay gaping and open, and there's nothing you can do to heal them. In time, you learn to live with the pain.

Things you learn as you get older, I suppose. And things that are just common sense. Everyone says goodbye. Goodbyes always hurt. And the holes that are left are never filled.

I miss you, dad.

A Learning Curve - Even For The Dead...

I know this blog is being used far more than I intended for it to, but something's happened 3 times in the last 2 days, so I feel the need to document it.

As you all know, AJ passed away week before last. He's been gone a little over a week now. And he's very much still in the house, as I also mentioned in a previous post. The other cats have settled down and relaxed, the ghosts are content with his presence...

Only, AJ hasn't seemed to have gotten the hang of being non-corporeal just yet. See, in the last two days, I've had to let him OUT of the pantry three times. I don't know how he got in. I don't know if he walked through the door or the walls, or actually followed someone in. What I DO know is that after doing that, he doesn't seem able to get out.

Another issue is that he was always an incredibly quiet cat. He didn't meow unless he was VERY upset (IE, shoved in his box and into the car), and even then that was incredibly quiet. So if he's making any sounds in there, I'm not hearing them. All three times I've let him out of the pantry, it's been because I was going INTO the pantry to get something. Yesterday it was oatmeal to make oatmeal raisin cookies, and then it happened again about an hour later when I went to put the oatmeal back. This morning, he came out when I got out the other cats' can of food to give them breakfast.

I just watched him this morning. He took a few steps away from the pantry, turned his head and looked up at me, then walked another few steps and dematerialized. Which lead me to a theory - the other ghost cats seem to primarily still get around via walking/running/jumping. AJ, though, seems to move more like... Well, more like I've felt Tom moving around the house. He phases from place to place. I have no doubt that when I saw him dematerialize that he showed back up somewhere else in the house.

Which makes me think that he's ending up in the pantry without MEANING to. It's just... kind of happening. He's a little like Nightcrawler, if he couldn't quite control his BAMFing. He poofs one place, reappears another. And I don't know if he's doing it on purpose, or if he literally doesn't have the hang of being a ghost yet and hasn't figured out how to control it. Or, even, what if he IS controlling it, but once he poofs into a closed room, he is so confused he can't figure out how to poof out again?

But then, why haven't I found him in any OTHER of the closed rooms - the back porch, our bedroom, our bathroom? He only locks himself in the pantry....

Oh. Headdesk moment. The cats' dry food AND their canned food is stored in the pantry. He's going in there to look at/eat the ghost versions of food that I ALSO store in there. (Yes, I maintain spiritual cat bowls, putting "food" down the same time the food is put down for the other cats. It's only fair - but as a result, I have to visualize where I'm KEEPING the food... And I keep it in the pantry.) He's going into the pantry for the food, but as he can't get INTO it, he's just... waiting until I open the door.

Oh, wow. I can't believe I've been wondering about this all night and I just logic'd it out in text. Well, I suppose that's one use for this blog, at least.

Anyway, now that I've typed this all up, I need to go take a shower and then start my laundry. I've been putting it off and it's a level of frustration now that you cannot believe, trying to find clothes in the morning.

So here I go to shower, feeling a little more content that perhaps the learning curve of the dead isn't as steep as I was thinking it was.

I Write Like...

And for this blog:

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Scientific Perspective

I'm sitting in Anthropology, listening to the lecture on what happens after we die, physically. I can't help but notice that for the first time in almost a year, I'm able to view this detachedly again. I suppose that's a very good thing as far as my scientific career goes.

However, I attempted to watch Bones this last weekend and felt a bit overwhelmed. I couldn't get through the first episode. I can't help but remember that I used to love things like NCIS and CSI, and I was fascinated by the coroner's scenes in both shows. Now, having had close encounters with Death, I find it harder to view these shows from the perspective of scientific examination. I was enjoying the show, but something (I don't even REMEMBER what it was now, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing of a bad thing) went triggery in my head and I had to stop watching the episode.

I miss dad. I miss AJ. I miss my old pets. I miss my aunt. Death doesn't agree with me, I discover. Not really a surprise, as while I work spiritually with dead THINGS, the spiritual side is very much alive. It makes things easier. I don't know, though. I feel like my brain is a bit disconnected right now.

I have school work to do, lots to think about, tests to prepare for, books to work on, gaming goals to reach... In other words, I have quite a lot to do and a lot on my mind.

However, my positivity is still fully in place. I feel happy and amazing generally. I love getting up in the morning, I'm loving doing everything I can to help around the house. I'm loving taking care of the kitty cats we still have, and getting back into my hunting games. I'm healthy and happy and throughly loving everything I'm doing.

I have to get gas on the way home from class today, and I'm STILL incredibly happy. I'm going to end this entry before I babble myself into nonsense.

Farewell, A.J....

Goodbyes are never easy, and for someone who's spiritually sensitive they can be even more confusing.

Today, we had to put one of our cats down for chronic bladder stones - there was nothing they could do that had any possibility of his survival for more than a month or two. He was suffering, and the choice was made to do the kinder thing, no matter how difficult.

AJ wasn't your average housecat at the very least. From his build and sheer weight, as well as from other factors established throughout his life, he's been believed to be half bobcat, half domestic cat. He was never completely comfortable in his own skin, and it showed.

His purr was like that of a big cat... more of a "urrr urrr urrr urr" on his exhale than the steady "purrrrrrrrRRRRRRRrrrrrr" of a normal housecat. He wasn't graceful - he fell off of almost everything he jumped on. He ate enough for two or three cats -  including that which belonged to them, regularly nudging other cats who didn't eat their food fast enough away from their bowls so he could have all he wanted.

But he was a loving, and incredibly wonderful cat who'd been going through a hard time the last few months. It started with him peeing in places not the litterbox, but when there didn't seem to be anything else wrong with him, we started giving him Uriflow to clear up anything he might've had growing. But he just kept peeing everywhere... and yesterday, we found blood.

He was rushed to the vet's last night, and they thought it was a urine crystal. So we paid for the procedure that was supposed to save his life, and went back this morning to move him from one hospital to another so he could go on fluids for a few days and recover.

But it was not to be.

They took an x-ray of him to make sure his catheter was in properly, and to their shock they found a HUGE amount of bladder stones in his bladder - more than they'd ever seen in another cat. Long story short, they could've done a surgery, removed the stones... but they would've been back in a month and we would've been back in the same position. The decision was made to save him from the suffering he was obviously in... At nine years old, at about 9:45 this morning, AJ went on to his next life.

Here is where the spirituality part of this comes in - I'm very connected to animal spirits. I made sure he knew what was going to happen, as best I could. I made sure he was prepared for it. I talked to the other cats before I left the house this morning to make sure they'd know.

AJ beat us home. I walked in the door to see him sniffing around the bowls in the kitchen, looking for the breakfast he missed. I started laughing - and thank goodness my mom and fiancee were there and KNOW about me and what I can do - all I had to do was point and say "he beat us home," and suddenly everyone felt much better.

The fear, of course, when putting an animal to sleep outside the home, is that the spirit may wander or be unable to find it's way back. AJ had NO such problems. He's already fully integrated into the ghost cat society in our house (no, seriously... Squeak, Moe, and Flake are always around, and I'm sure they welcomed him), and... he isn't in any pain anymore.

However, the juxtaposition of reality is that... I can see him, but I can't pet him, hug him, or touch him. I'm aware that he's happy, but I can't interact with him anymore. So as strange as it sounds... or maybe as not strange as it sounds... Even though I know where he is and that he's happy... I still miss him. I miss him horribly. And I guess part of me feels like I don't have the right to cry, since of all of us - I can see him, I can still interact with him in some way. But... I miss him. Horribly.

I'm sorry if this blog has been depressing today, but it needed to be documented.

Goodbye and hello, AJ. I love you.

Body Knows Best (Possible TMI)

I love spicy food. I love mexican, and Italian (mmm, garlic...), and... well, pretty much anything spicy. My body, on the other hand, keeps informing me that I should NOT be eating that stuff as often as I do. Every time I eat it, I have to go to the bathroom half an hour later. And it's usually uncomfortable. But, I'm stubborn and I usually feel like it's worth it to have had the yummy food.

My body got fed up with me, though, and decided to kick me in the teeth about it yesterday.

The day before, all I'd eaten was a couple of Hebrew National hot dogs, and a few tacos from Del Taco (california only chain of mexican restaurants - cheap, fast, and yummy). The hot dogs were also eaten by everyone else in the house that night, so I know it wasn't them that set me off.

I woke up at six thirty yesterday morning and REALLY had to go to the bathroom. I was frustrated because it was one of the few days I would have gotten to sleep until 8, and I'd been enjoying that concept. However, I listened to my body, got up, and went to the bathroom.

My intestines were unhappy, and showed it in the way that only intestines can. Needless to say, I figured I should feel better when that was done with - I was wrong. It started getting WORSE. In fact, it progressed to full nausea to the point that I was worried that I was going to have to leap off the toilet and turn around so my other end could utilize it - which also wouldn't be good because the aforementioned end didn't seem to be done yet. This could only lead to a large mess, either way.

I managed to calm myself enough to get cleaned up, and to go grab a bag for the trash can - one to empty it into, and another to LINE it with, even as I sat back down. My body continued to betray me, but I thought the nausea would go away eventually - I was wrong. And I'm SO glad I listened to my instincts and prepared that trash can. Let's just say I wound up needing it more than I'd have ever liked to.

This cycle repeated itself for the next nearly six hours, with the last time my digestive tract decided to work backwards being around eleven thirty that morning. However, I continued to feel nauseated and dizzy for the remainder of the day. I couldn't lay down, so I spent the day and then the night on the couch, which did NOT work well for my back.

I've been eating a lot of spicy food recently - quite a lot. And my body got fed up with it. I'm now relegated to  bland foods only for the next 2 months at the very least. I'm getting older, and I need to remember that my physical body can't eat the way I feel like it should be able to anymore.

Frustrating, for a wolf who's used to eating anything she can get her fangs into. But as annoying as it is, body knows best.

Nothing Like An Energetic Greeting

This energetic greeting was literal, too.

I finally found the time to move my taxidermy collection and ritual supplies from the plastic storage bin they'd been in, to the lovely wood chest that my fiancee gave me. I opened the plastic, began pulling them out, and was immediately astrally glomped.

Robert, my bobcat, was first. I lifted him out of the plastic bin and showed him the new chest, and I felt paws kneading at my arm where his paws were draped. I heard his half-purr, and I smiled, then went on pulling everyone out. It was then that my pack of coyotes noticed me. Mikey, the classic coyote, Clay, the red coyote, and Trevor (oh, he has come SO far from how frightened he was when I first got him, the poor roadkilled pup), as well as Silver, who is only taxidermically represented by a tail with silver tipping. They swarmed around me, I felt bumps, licks, nips.. I could hear them yipping excitedly, and I finally had to pull them all out and cuddle them all at once. I miss being able to have one of them draped over my desk chair at all times, but one of our cats has taken to leaping up onto my chair and sharpening his claws, and they would rip right through the leather of whoever was up there. So no pelts on my chair anymore.

This also means that while they're all constantly energetically aware of me, and I see them wandering the house astrally a lot, the physical piece that they're tied into isn't close to me anymore. This translated to them missing me as much as I miss them. It was doubly nice to see and feel them all again when I've been so wrapped up in school and everything that I haven't had TIME to spend with them. I spent longer than I had to moving them from box to box, and just generally enjoying their company. I set up the box so my ritual materials are far more accessable, too.

Just, in general, that was REALLY nice to do, and made me resolve to spend more time with them as often as I can.

Anthropology + Therianthropy = Epiphany

In Anthropology lab last week, I had my first exposure to primate bones other than human bones. So far, the human bones that we'd worked with seemed fairly indifferent to me. Residual energy, but no spirits attached - probably long gone once they realized they were study specimens. Or, even, perhaps as the people donated themselves to science, they knew better than to stick around.

Silly me, I was expecting something similar when dealing with the bones of lower primates. I could NOT have been more wrong. And what's worse - they did NOT like me.

I almost dropped a baboon skull (the first primate I held), because the moment I picked it up and turned it to examine the skeletal feature the teacher was talking about (grooves in the canine teeth that allow for blood spray without forming a vacuum in the animal's mouth) and suddenly I had a flash of a baboon (much like a real life version of this) coming right at my face. I jumped, inhaled sharply, and nearly dropped the skull. The other people at my table asked me what was wrong and all I could do was shake my head and claim to have had a chill.

Baboons are notoriously mean, however, so I just figured I'd gotten a P.O'ed baboon, and passed the skull on to the next student. (One other person in the class squicked when they held the skull and the reaction looked a lot like mine, from what I noticed. So it's possible there's another sensitive in the class, and that baboon really IS just a jerk.)

The chimpanzee didn't react as violently, but the moment I touched it, I felt uncomfortable. Like the energy of the bone was trying to push me away. Essentially sending the message "I don't like you. Put me down." The same thing happened for the other primate skulls I touched, until we got down to the primitive pro-simians (lemurs, etc). They just seemed more curious than anything, when there was any energy attached to the bones at all. The Aye-Aye skull the school possesses is dead, energetically. It felt like holding a rock - and not a charged rock, either. A couple of the skulls in that room are like that.

At first, I wondered if the reactions were because I'm a dire wolf, and it was some sort of instinctive dislike of large predators. I've had other bones and spirits react to me because of that before - my energy is ancient and doesn't necessarily work well with every creature I try to deal with. And, of course, spirits are also individuals, and they may just personally not like me for one reason or another. Personality is personality, alive or dead. But I've never experienced so many in a ROW that disliked or rejected me.

I wasn't doing anything different from the way I normally deal with bones. I approached them with respect, handled them carefully, and said a silent prayer of thanks to the individual who's bone I was working with for allowing so many people the opportunity to learn so much from their corporeal remains (in the case of my personal collection, I always thank them for working with me and make sure they know that if they ever wish to leave, all they have to do is let me know and I'll find them new homes.) I was doing this for each bone I'd come into contact with in the class before.

This included the human bones, and the animal bones we used for comparative anatomy (a dog, a deer, the Aye-Aye that feels like a rock). All that had something attached to them had reacted favorably before this point, if not even with an air of boredom. Kind of a, "Yeah. Yeah. We're educational specimens. Thanks for the thanks, but it isn't like we haven't been through this thousands of times before.."

But not the primates.

The only bone that didn't outright try to shove me away was the male gorilla, and I got the impression that he was more interested in my human body than my wolf spirit. That was a bit disturbing in it's own right, but not really the purpose of this blog, so maybe more on that later.

I was talking to my fiancee about the weirdness in class via text messages once I'd completed the lab assignment and was just waiting for the rest of the class to finish to the teacher could go over the answers with us. She suggested that perhaps the primate skulls were reacting to the fact that I'd spent the majority of my life essentially rejecting the part of me that's primate, and the energy of the bones was sensing the blockage that had created in my aura that I'm only starting to work on, and therefore the skulls were rejecting me because they felt rejected BY me.

It brought me back to the personal experiment that I ran a couple of years ago, off and on, to try and connect more with my human self and realize what it had to offer me rather than focusing (as many therians seem to do) on the fact that I am not on the outside what I am on the inside and therefore no matter what I do, humanity will always be the enemy. And I started thinking about how I've seen things differently since those experiments - understanding, more, honestly.

Therians call humanity unnatural - in reality, we're just as natural as anything else. We don't create things out of nothing - the things we use to make our tools and our habitats, are all perfectly natural, in their base states. Humans simply take everything steps further - making and using tools? Other primates do that. Birds do that. Other animals create and fashion tools from objects in their environment to aid them in their every day life. Humans do that, too. We just do it on a more grandiose scale because of our personal species' evolutionary adaptation - our brain. Other animals are intelligent, they have culture and use language. But humans, again, take these things to the next (and sometimes the next next next.. etc... ) level. We envision, we mold, we shape. And yes, we do show very little regard for our other species with which we share the planet - as a whole.

But you can't tell me that any other creature shows "regard" for the others around them. Not living, anyway. But we're stepping back a moment from spirituality and looking at the scientific world and what it encompasses. Humans aren't the top of the food chain - but we know how to defend ourselves from predators. This has not eliminated all predation on humans world-wide, because we are a favored food of large cats and other creatures.

We have a rich mythology that has colored our opinions of other creatures in the world. But if other creatures could think on the same level as us, would they view us the same? I visit in my head the scene from Brother Bear in which the two bears are standing in front of a cave painting of a stick figure, standing up to a huge roaring bear. The younger bear remarks that the monsters are scary... Especially when they carry those sticks. In the bear's eyes, the human is the monster. In the human's eyes, the bear is the monster. When we endow animals with human-level intelligence (as we do when we read, write, or watch things like the aforementioned movie), we can't help but put ourselves in their paws and realize that perhaps, to them... we're just as bad.

Taking the anthropology class and the connected lab has just opened up in my mind a wealth of other possibilities, and realizing the animal-ness of humans... and the human-ness of animals. It's been pointed out to me, time and time again, that thanks to my self study and perhaps even in part to the fact that I am not just a therian, I am an EXTINCT therian, I am in a position to help people with my writing and my knowledge.

Over the years, people have sought me out personally for my advice. Everything from helping them realize whether or not they are a therian or are simply experiencing totemic communication, or perhaps something else, to helping them sort out what their theriotype might be, and even beyond into how to cope with their animal-ness in a human society. Time and time again since I published my first definitive essay on the topic, I've been sought out, pointed out, cited, praised, and, yes, ridiculed. However, that's something that's unavoidable, and I've come to accept that. I read something someone pointed me to the other day that touted me as up there with Lupabitch and Ravenari when it came to people who know what they're talking about in a spiritual, neopagan, therianthropic sense. I was completely shocked - I know both of these people, of course, and I look up to them. But I've never considered myself on the same level.

I've thought for years that my calling to help people and what I wanted to do for work had to be essentially mutually exclusive. I want to be a paleontologist - I've wanted to be one since I was young enough for form the concept of what it was (kindergarten age). But beyond that, I didn't know. Work in a museum, maybe? Help design dynamic exhibits to bring people's attention and respect to the creatures long gone from this world? But that ultimately wouldn't really "help" people in any way, since those who visit a museum are already looking for the knowledge and trying to do it themselves - they aren't looking for a guru, or someone who might be able to explain it to them - they're looking to witness the proof for themselves and form or enforce their own opinions. They aren't looking for help, unless it's to gather information for writing a paper, or something similar.

But therians, or people who might be therians, or people who have been directed to me by other therians, etc, are looking for help. And it happens so regularly that I've realized people have begun to consider me a guru of sorts. And while daunting, it opened up a new can of worms for me in realizing what I want to do with my life.

I am an artist. I am an author. I love writing and creating as much as I love learning. What if I could do something with my life that kept all of these aspects? I could write self help books, for therians and those who are trying to understand them. I could get them traditionally published. I could establish my credibility with my anthropology and paleontology degrees, and beyond with my years of research and LIVING with being a therian myself. I could help people - and be able to still attend school and keep learning and living on my own time in the mean time. It has aspects of everything I want to do in it... And my positivity says that all I have to do to make it a reality is to simply DO it. It feels right.

And if there's one thing I've learned, it's to go with my feelings.

I did, once I realized what might have been causing the primates to be upset with me, "broadcast" an apology for the way I've acted most of my life to the spiritual room at large, and I sent images and thoughts of the way I think NOW. Now that I've managed to essentially force myself into contherianthropy, as I understand it. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to interact with the bones again after offering this apology, so I won't know until week after next if it was effective.

Not this week, because (and I'm excited about this), my lab class is going to the zoo this week to observe the primates. Living creatures, in action. I can't wait... And, honestly, it's just another point at how my thinking has changed. I went to the Santa Ana Zoo once, about 3 or 4 years ago. My impression was, literally, "It's ok... but it's all monkeys!" I was so bigoted against primates that I didn't see the POINT of a zoo if all they were exhibiting were primates.

I look forward to this chance to form a new opinion of the zoo, much as I have of primates in general.

However, on another note, right now, my primary feeling says that I'm hungry. So eating is next on my plate... ah... so to speak.