A Witch and Her Garden.

The garden has been neglected for weeks. I admire the rose, the hibiscus with blooms as big as my outstretched hand, the Oregano That Ate The World, the little balloon flowers. But I haven't weeded or pruned or tended in far too long.

Husband didn't work today, due  to the ridiculous storms this morning, so the chores aren't all on me today. I do need to get a few dinner things. I do need to find out where the hell all my work-appropriate t-shirts have gone.

But.

I need to go outside, stick my hands on soil, get dirty. Remind myself that this job and the lousy commute and living in the Trailer Park of the Dammned won't last forever.

Outside, witch.

Please Shut Up About BTW.

If you're not a member of a family, you probably don't really know Jack about it.

You could find out a decent amount about my family from my Facebook page, if you're that bored/stalkerish/aspire to become a misanthropic old bastard like yours truly. Where we're from. Who's related to who. What some of us do/are interested in/will eventually be arrested for.

You won't find out the old feuds, the secrets we're ashamed of, the ones drummed out or adopted in or why any of that happened. Because we don't share that shit with outsiders. We don't spread the private family business everywhere.

This doesn't mean my family is better than yours - necessarily. Maybe mine is. Maybe you've got white supremacists and rapists and child molesters and people who send their gay children to deprogrammers in yours. I think that shit is bad, and therefore will consider mine better than yours.

Maybe you think so too, and through time and the magic of non-biological family, become part of mine.

Or maybe you don't. Fine. But don't start spouting crap about "Irish upstate NY families" that has no resemblance to our reality and expect us to stay quiet. And don't then be a chickenshit who says, "who says we're even talking about YOU, you Irish upstate NY families always think we're talking about you and we could be talking about all Irish families blah blah bullshit".

What I find weird, all metaphor aside, is the amount of time people spend talking about traditions that they say aren't for them. Asatru, Thelema, Buddhism, Hinduism, Blue Star, Black Forest, Reclaiming, and a host of other trads/faiths are not for me. Notice I don't spend much time talking about them or responding to their adherents' blogs?

If you can't shut up about BTW (which is a specific thing bearing very little resemblance to a lot of things/people calling themselves and what they do "Wicca"), at least ask yourself why you're spending so much time criticizing us instead of dancing to the drum whose rhythm moves your soul.

Strange Things Afoot At The Trailer Park Of The Dammed.

Driven by Deb's most recent post, Husband's car problems, and the deluge afflicting Texas, I was intent on cleansing the Trailer of Doom tonight.

Was the whole place going to be clean, tidy, and ready for the banish/bless double whammy? No. No, it was not. But given everything going to Heck in a hand basket, I thought doing something was far better than doing nothing. I mean, this is a place where no longer having a kitten under the bathroom sink is a major improvement. We have odd standards here.

Five minutes before we started, I found the very first pentacle I've ever owned. On Husband's desk. Where it has never been before. I am very certain it has never been there before because I have not seen it in years and, frankly, thought it was lost.

Freakishness. The Desk does not appear things. It disappears things.

What to do? Wear it? Put it on the bike? In the car? In the house? What to do?

Why, whip out the pendulum and hold it over the choices above and see where it's supposed to be.

It is now tied to the horseshoe over the door. I suspect we have somehow agreed to MOAR WITCHCRAFT. I suspect Protective Guilt Trip Of the Gods. I suspect "Well, I didn't see that coming".

We'll see.

AHS - Coven Gives Me Ideas.

The primary one is that every witch needs a Spaulding. I should put an ad on Craigslist.

Brief Update.

New job is less-than-wonderful, but thanks to St. Expedire for making Annoying Co-Worker leave within a few months. I'll take what I can get, I suppose.

Vile Neighbors, on the other hand, are an ongoing issue that the landlord swears he'll deal with, but I sincerely doubt it, Even if he does, if he throws them out, there's nothing to say they won't come back and destroy things. These people are such trash that they're a landfill. In desperation this morning, I bought a St. Jude candle and lit it and said the little prayer on the back. The landlord did at least then text The Husband and say that he's told them any further issues will get them evicted. We'll see, but thanks to St. Jude for what I have to say was definitely swift action.

Now to find black mustard seed so that I can GTFO powder their miserable asses just to be on the safe side.

Those Who Know, Don't Speak...

...if only those who don't know would also not speak, we'd be in business.

See, while having coffee this morning, I checked out my usual websites. Among which is Fetlife. There's the feed...there's my friend, X, saying he looks forward to seeing this new guy at some event. Why does the name of New Dude seem familiar?

OH SHIT. IT'S MR. LEFT-HAND-PATH FROM A FEW YEARS BACK.

Mr. LHP and I butted heads most vigorously during one of my sad little forays into the Houston pagan community. He kept insisting that he knew this and that and the other about traditional, oathbound Wicca. But, of course, was not an actual, vouchable initiate.

Needless to say, my protests that if you are not an actual part of an oathbound trad, you do not know the oathbound stuff you're claiming to know and are therefore wrong, fell on ears firmly plugged with fingers and unicorns and white light and shit.

Now he's likely to be hanging out with people who are my friends, but whose minds are sometimes just a leeeeetle too open. Explaining to them that this dude is a moron and should be ignored posthaste is unlikely to garner anything but "Well, he's not that bad...". Which he is.

Oh, come on, you say. He's not hurting anyone. The hell he's not. If you claim to know shit that you can't possibly know, then you are a liar. Or delusional. In the one case, you should be shunned. In the other, either ignored or have it suggested that even the Dragonriders of Pern could probably use some therapy.*

This is why I refuse to have anything further to do with "the community" - the kinky one or the pagan one. Too much drama. Too much bullshit. Too many people who feel, rightly or no, that their lives are sad, meaningless, and mundane - and think that being a Dominant/vampire/Grand High Poobah Clergy Pagan/animal-human hybrid will make everything better. Especially if we mix everything together!

Yes, ladies, gents, and others. The day has come. The ocelot has turned into the kind of Old Fart who says shit like, "Y'know, that's great and all, but I really think they're taking this just a little too far."


*I kid you not - there were people in Colorado who really, truly thought (or told everyone they did) that they were Dragonriders of Pern. This despite the fact that they were one of the most out-of-shape bunch of weenies it has ever been my misfortune to slap eyes on.

Civilized?

I was reading Deb's most recent post, and thinking about being civilized.

My boss has suddenly taken a dislike to me. I have ideas why. They're boring and are more about her being mad at her boss than anything else. The neighbors where the Baba Yega Trailer used to be are rapidly becoming a pain in the ass. The neighbor across the way's literally mangy dog* and his belligerent refusal to put her on a leash is becoming an even bigger pain in my ass. Never mind his refusal to put on a shirt while in public and the subsequent lowering of the aesthetics of the Trailer Park of the Damned.

What is my reaction to all this?

The desire to start taking people's heads off with a katana.

Now, I ask you - what on earth are They thinking, that They want some crazed, only half-civilized creature whose general reaction to others being mean, rude, and/or unreasonable is to re-start the Cult of the Severed Head in front of her trailer with the aid of Quickcrete and cinderblocks?

I somewhat doubt this is what is meant by Mysteries.


*I feel bad for the dog. I also do not need my dog getting it.