MY ECCENTRICITIES
- I'm ambidextrous.
- I'm writing a vampire novel, but I pass out when I get blood drawn.
- I never finish an entire beverage.
- There are several words that give me the creeps. The worst are: slacks, lap and coin.
- I'm allergic to raw fruits and veggies.
- Foghorn Leghorn (from the Looney Tunes) is my hero.
- I like to dip french fries into chocolate milkshakes.
- I can't pronounce the words "squirrel" or "walrus" unless I really concentrate.
- I love to study languages! So far I've studied German, Spanish, French, Italian, Danish and Ancient Greek.
MY EXTENSIVE AND EVER-EXPANDING LIST OF PET PEEVES
- People who ask questions and don't listen to your answers.
- Driving through Connecticut.
- When a person uses the word "them" when he/she should use "they."
- people who type with no capitalization spell check or punctuation so you never know what they mean when they send you an email
- Writers who use CAPITAL LETTERS to emphasize a word. Italics, people, italics!
- When I tell people that I'm writing a novel about vampires, and they say, "Oh, another Twilight."
- Drivers who smoke so much that their back window is covered in a slimy film.
- Hotel shower curtains that cling to you.
- Carpeted bathroom floors.
- People who drive around with a ton of mail shoved between their dashboard and windshield.
- Disrespectful teenagers and their parents.
- Parents that blame teachers for their kids' bad behavior.
- People who wear pajamas in public.
- People who sample food from salad bars.
MY FAVORITE QUOTES
I am not a morbid person. In fact, I am quite the opposite. However, while writing my book, I came across many amazing quotes about sacrificing one's self in many different ways. Here are some of my favorites:
"The strength of the vampire is that people will not believe in him." Garrett Fort
"The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but an immense altar on which every living thing must be sacrificed without end, without restraint, without respite until the consummation of the world, the extinction of evil, the death of death." Joseph de Maistre
"The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." Charles Du Bos
"No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close." Chuck Palahniuk
"Blood will tell, but often it tells too much." Don Marquis
"What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal." Albert Pike "It is an unwise man who thinks what has changed is dead." Anonymous
"...Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream, and lo! The shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls." Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, October 3, 1886
"'Tis true; 'tis certain; man though dead retains part of himself; the immortal mind remains." Homer "When one creates phantoms for oneself, one puts vampires into the world, and one must nourish these children of a voluntary nightmare with one's blood, one's life, one's intelligence, and one's reason, without ever satisfying them." Eliphas Levi
"I have never met a vampire personally, but I don't know what might happen tomorrow." Bela Lugosi
WORDS OF WISDOM:
There's nothing I love more than a good laugh, and for me, some of the best quotes come from the Looney Tunes. I know. I'm odd. I told you that from the start.
Foghorn Leghorn
Daffy Duck
Buggs Bunny
Frenchman to Pépé le Pew
- Nice girl, but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice.
- That dog's as subtle as a hand grenade in a barrel of oat meal.
- Boy, you cover about as much as a flapper's skirt in a high wind.
- That, I say that dog's busier than a centipede at a toe countin' contest.
- Now who's, I say who's responsible for this unwarranted attack on my person?
- You're makin' more noise than a skeleton dancin' on a tin roof.
Daffy Duck
- What a way to run a railroad!
- Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin.
- Wow! You're brighter than Las Vegas at Christmastime!
- You got thirty-two teeth. Would you like to try for sixteen?
Buggs Bunny
- Here we are! Pismo Beach and all the clams you can eat!
- Shhhh! I'm about to defy you.
- I knew I should'a taken that left turn at Albuquerque.
- Let's blow this popsicle stand!
- What an embezzle! What an ultra-maroon!
Frenchman to Pépé le Pew
- Sacré cerise!
- Where are you, my little object of art? I am going to collect you!
- You are my peanut, I am your brittle!
- Permit me to introduce myself. I am your new lover.
POETRY
Normally, I don't care for poetry. I can't seem to read deeper meaning into a Dr. Seuss book, and I will never understand the point of haiku. However, there are a few pieces (especially about ghosts and vampires) that I would like to share. Poems may have been translated (not by me) with modern spelling.
Metamorphosis of a Vampire
Charles Baudelaire (1857)
Meanwhile, from her red mouth the woman, in husky tones,
Twisting her body like a serpent upon hot stones
And straining her white breasts from their imprisonment,
Let fall these words, as potent as a heavy scent:
"My lips are moist and yielding, and I know the way
To keep the antique demon of remorse at bay.
All sorrows die upon my bosom. I can make
Old men laugh happily as children for my sake.
For him who sees me naked in my tresses, I
Replace the sun, the moon, and all the stars of the sky!
Believe me, learned sir, I am so deeply skilled
That when I wind a lover in my soft arms, and yield
My breasts like two ripe fruits for his devouring-both
Shy and voluptuous, insatiable and loath-
Upon his bed that groans and sighs luxuriously
Even the impotent angels would be damned for me!"
When she drained me of my very marrow, and cold
And weak, I turned to give her one more kiss-behold,
There at my side was nothing but a hideous
Putrescent thing, all faceless and exuding pus.
I closed my eyes and mercifully swooned till day:
Who seemed to have replenished her arteries from my own,
The wan, disjointed fragments of a skeleton
Wagged up and down in a new posture where she had lain;
Rattling with each convulsion like a weathervane
Or an old sign that creaks upon its bracket, right
Mournfully in the wind upon a winter's night.
******************************
La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad
John Keats (1820)
O what can ail thee, knight at arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing
O what can ail thee, knight at arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.
I see a 1ily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful, a fairy's child;
Her hair was long. her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A fairy's song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said--
I love thee true.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh'd full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream'd--Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream'd
On the cold hill's side.
I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death pale were they all;
They cried--"La belle dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!"
I saw their starv'd lips in the gloom
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here
On the cold hill's side.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
******************************
The Apparition by John Donne (1633)
"When by thy scorne, O murd'ress, I am dead,
And that thou thinkst thee free
From all solicitation from mee,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
And thee, fain'd vestall, in worse armes shall see;
Then thy sicke taper will begin to winke,
And he, whose thou are then, being tyr'd before,
Will, if thou stirre, or pinch to wake him, thinke
Thou call'st for more,
And, in false sleepe will from thee shrinke,
And then poore Aspen wretch, neglected thou
Bath'd in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie,
A veryer ghost than I;
What I will say, I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,
I'had rather thou shouldst painfully repent,
Than by my threatenings rest still innocent."
******************************
*This poem is very long, but please read it. It's incredible!
The Vampire
Conrad Aiken (1914)
She rose among us where we lay.
She wept, we put our work away.
She chilled our laughter, stilled our play;
And spread a silence there.
And darkness shot across the sky,
And once, and twice, we heard her cry;
And saw her lift white hands on high
And toss her troubled hair.
What shape was this who came to us,
With bailisk eyes so ominous,
With mouth so sweet, so poisonous,
And tortured hands so pale?
We saw her wavering to and fro,
Through dark and wind we saw her go;
Yet what her name was did not know;
And felt our spirits fail.
We tried to turn away; but still
Above we heard her sorrow thrill;
And those that slept, they dreamed of ill
And dreadful things:
Of skies grown red with rending flames
And shuddering hills that cracked their frames;
Of twilights foul with wings
And skeletons dancing to a tune;
And cries of children stifled soon;
And over all a blood-red moon
A dull and nightmare size.
They woke, and sought to go their ways,
Yet everywhere they met her gaze,
Her fixed and burning eyes.
Who are you now, --we cried to her--
Spirit so strange, so sinister?
We felt dead winds above us stir;
And in the darkness heard
A voice fall singing, cloying sweet,
Heavily dropping, thought the heat,
Heavy as honeyed pulses beat,
Slow word by anguished word.
And through the night strange music went
With voice and cry so darkly blent
We could not fathom what they meant;
Save only that they seemed
To thin the blood along our veins,
Foretelling vile, delirious pains,
And clouds divulging blood-red rains
Upon a hill undreamed.
And this we heard: "Who dies for me,
He shall possess me secretly,
My terrible beauty he shall see,
And slake my body's flame.
But who denies me cursed shall be,
And slain, and buried loathsomely.
And slimed upon with shame."
And darkness fell. And like a sea
Of stumbling deaths we followed, we
Who dared not stay behind,
There all night long beneath a cloud
We rose and rell, we struck and bowed,
We were the ploughman and the ploughed,
Our eyes were red and blind.
And some, they said, had touched her side,
Before she fled us there;
And some had taken her to bride;
And some lain down for her and died;
Who had not touched her hair,
Ran to and fro and cursed and cried
And sought her everywhere.
"Her eyes have feasted on the dead,
And small
and shapely is her head,
And dark and small her mouth," they said,
"And beautiful to kiss;
Her mouth is sinister and red
As blood in moonlight is."
Then poets forgot their jeweled words
And cut the sky with glittering swords;
And innocent souls turned carrion birds
To perch upon the dead.
Sweet daisy fields were drenched with death,
The air became a charnel breath,
Pale stones were splashed with red.
Green leaves were dappled bright with blood.
And fruit trees murdered in the bud;
And when at length the dawn
Came green as twilight from the east,
And all that heaving horror ceased,
Silent was every bird and beast,
And dark that voice was gone.
No word was there, no song, no bell,
No furious tongue that dream to tell;
Only the dead, who rose and fell
Above the wounded men;
And whisperings and wails of pain
Blown slowly from the wounded grain,
Blown slowly from the smoking plain;
And silence fallen again.
Until at dusk, from God knows where,
Beneath dark birds that filled the air,
Like one who did not hear or care,
Under a blood-red cloud,
An aged ploughman came alone
And drove his share through flesh and bone,
And turned them under to mould and stone;
All night long he ploughed.
Charles Baudelaire (1857)
Meanwhile, from her red mouth the woman, in husky tones,
Twisting her body like a serpent upon hot stones
And straining her white breasts from their imprisonment,
Let fall these words, as potent as a heavy scent:
"My lips are moist and yielding, and I know the way
To keep the antique demon of remorse at bay.
All sorrows die upon my bosom. I can make
Old men laugh happily as children for my sake.
For him who sees me naked in my tresses, I
Replace the sun, the moon, and all the stars of the sky!
Believe me, learned sir, I am so deeply skilled
That when I wind a lover in my soft arms, and yield
My breasts like two ripe fruits for his devouring-both
Shy and voluptuous, insatiable and loath-
Upon his bed that groans and sighs luxuriously
Even the impotent angels would be damned for me!"
When she drained me of my very marrow, and cold
And weak, I turned to give her one more kiss-behold,
There at my side was nothing but a hideous
Putrescent thing, all faceless and exuding pus.
I closed my eyes and mercifully swooned till day:
Who seemed to have replenished her arteries from my own,
The wan, disjointed fragments of a skeleton
Wagged up and down in a new posture where she had lain;
Rattling with each convulsion like a weathervane
Or an old sign that creaks upon its bracket, right
Mournfully in the wind upon a winter's night.
******************************
La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad
John Keats (1820)
O what can ail thee, knight at arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing
O what can ail thee, knight at arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.
I see a 1ily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful, a fairy's child;
Her hair was long. her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A fairy's song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said--
I love thee true.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh'd full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream'd--Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream'd
On the cold hill's side.
I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death pale were they all;
They cried--"La belle dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!"
I saw their starv'd lips in the gloom
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here
On the cold hill's side.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
******************************
The Apparition by John Donne (1633)
"When by thy scorne, O murd'ress, I am dead,
And that thou thinkst thee free
From all solicitation from mee,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
And thee, fain'd vestall, in worse armes shall see;
Then thy sicke taper will begin to winke,
And he, whose thou are then, being tyr'd before,
Will, if thou stirre, or pinch to wake him, thinke
Thou call'st for more,
And, in false sleepe will from thee shrinke,
And then poore Aspen wretch, neglected thou
Bath'd in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie,
A veryer ghost than I;
What I will say, I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,
I'had rather thou shouldst painfully repent,
Than by my threatenings rest still innocent."
******************************
*This poem is very long, but please read it. It's incredible!
The Vampire
Conrad Aiken (1914)
She rose among us where we lay.
She wept, we put our work away.
She chilled our laughter, stilled our play;
And spread a silence there.
And darkness shot across the sky,
And once, and twice, we heard her cry;
And saw her lift white hands on high
And toss her troubled hair.
What shape was this who came to us,
With bailisk eyes so ominous,
With mouth so sweet, so poisonous,
And tortured hands so pale?
We saw her wavering to and fro,
Through dark and wind we saw her go;
Yet what her name was did not know;
And felt our spirits fail.
We tried to turn away; but still
Above we heard her sorrow thrill;
And those that slept, they dreamed of ill
And dreadful things:
Of skies grown red with rending flames
And shuddering hills that cracked their frames;
Of twilights foul with wings
And skeletons dancing to a tune;
And cries of children stifled soon;
And over all a blood-red moon
A dull and nightmare size.
They woke, and sought to go their ways,
Yet everywhere they met her gaze,
Her fixed and burning eyes.
Who are you now, --we cried to her--
Spirit so strange, so sinister?
We felt dead winds above us stir;
And in the darkness heard
A voice fall singing, cloying sweet,
Heavily dropping, thought the heat,
Heavy as honeyed pulses beat,
Slow word by anguished word.
And through the night strange music went
With voice and cry so darkly blent
We could not fathom what they meant;
Save only that they seemed
To thin the blood along our veins,
Foretelling vile, delirious pains,
And clouds divulging blood-red rains
Upon a hill undreamed.
And this we heard: "Who dies for me,
He shall possess me secretly,
My terrible beauty he shall see,
And slake my body's flame.
But who denies me cursed shall be,
And slain, and buried loathsomely.
And slimed upon with shame."
And darkness fell. And like a sea
Of stumbling deaths we followed, we
Who dared not stay behind,
There all night long beneath a cloud
We rose and rell, we struck and bowed,
We were the ploughman and the ploughed,
Our eyes were red and blind.
And some, they said, had touched her side,
Before she fled us there;
And some had taken her to bride;
And some lain down for her and died;
Who had not touched her hair,
Ran to and fro and cursed and cried
And sought her everywhere.
"Her eyes have feasted on the dead,
And small
and shapely is her head,
And dark and small her mouth," they said,
"And beautiful to kiss;
Her mouth is sinister and red
As blood in moonlight is."
Then poets forgot their jeweled words
And cut the sky with glittering swords;
And innocent souls turned carrion birds
To perch upon the dead.
Sweet daisy fields were drenched with death,
The air became a charnel breath,
Pale stones were splashed with red.
Green leaves were dappled bright with blood.
And fruit trees murdered in the bud;
And when at length the dawn
Came green as twilight from the east,
And all that heaving horror ceased,
Silent was every bird and beast,
And dark that voice was gone.
No word was there, no song, no bell,
No furious tongue that dream to tell;
Only the dead, who rose and fell
Above the wounded men;
And whisperings and wails of pain
Blown slowly from the wounded grain,
Blown slowly from the smoking plain;
And silence fallen again.
Until at dusk, from God knows where,
Beneath dark birds that filled the air,
Like one who did not hear or care,
Under a blood-red cloud,
An aged ploughman came alone
And drove his share through flesh and bone,
And turned them under to mould and stone;
All night long he ploughed.
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