Happy Halloween to one and all!

Trick or Treat,
Smell my feet,
Gimme something good to eat.
If you don’t,
I don’t care,
I’ll pull down your underwear!

Okay but seriously, hope everyone has a fun Halloween. Emily and I are headed out to The Bates Motel tonight, which is a haunted house, haunted hayride and haunted cornmaze all in one.

I’ll post photos of the costume put together as best as I can this weekend.

So I found out yesterday that my class for the spring should be a go! I’m about to order some ethnographies to read through that I might want to use, as well as text-books to evaluate. Since I know some of you who read this are in college right now, and others went; I have decided to get some advice from you all. You can be guinea pig students 🙂 Official professional disclaimer: this post about my class is for feedback and planning purposes only. I have no intention to blog about the class, student’s, etc . . . I’m no fool 🙂

The class is “The Anthropology of Religion and Magic.” So what I want to know, if you were to take this class (heck some of you might have), what would you expect to learn about in it? Now for some who might not be familiar with anthropology, it’s the study of human culture, past and present. It’s heavily focused on the “other,” usually with cultural anthropology this means non-western cultures. However in later years this had been relaxed and many anthropologists study sub-cultures here at home. With this said, the major religions like Christianity, Islam, Hindu, etc are not going to be the focus of this class. It’s going to be the other, aka “the exotic.”

Now the focus of the class, from the description, is just what I stated above; a focus on magic and religion in “primitive” non-western cultures. I’m sure it’s an older description on the books for awhile tough. I’ve been told I can choose to teach what I want, there aren’t restrictions. My plan is to keep a heavy focus on this with a text book that covers the basics (shamanism, trance states, totems) and uses ethnographic examples to illustrate them. I’m adding a healthy dose of archaeology to all the examples though, to give them a foundation of how ancient a lot of these practices are. Finally to bring it home, I plan to challenge them to realize these ideas aren’t “primitive” and even in our civilized western culture you can find examples (good luck charms, horoscopes, etc).

So far I have the following planned to do for sure . . . .

– VooDoo –
Probable ethnography: Mama Lola (A VooDoo Priestess in Brooklyn)
Alternate: Traditional ethnography on Haiti
To Lecture On: New Orleans, Marie Laveau, history of VooDoo
Film (may be optional extra credit): Serpent and the Rainbow (with possible report on comparing and contrasting the film version of VooDoo with what they’ve learned in class)

-Witchcraft-
Probable ethnography: Neo-Paganism in America (study of a group of witches in San Francisco)
Class Lecture/Video Segments: Accusations of Witchcraft in America (contrasting the Salem Witch Trials with the Anasazi (Native Americans))
Film (again possible extra credit): The Craft (with possible report on comparing and contrasting the film version of Wicca with what they’ve learned in class)

-Superstitions-
A lecture on superstitions, their origins, origins of popular ones. To facilitate a class discussion to get students involved talking about their own beliefs in superstitions, to show them how many in fact originate with fears of death and evil spirits.
Film/Film Segments: ??? I know there are films out there about bad luck and stuff, I’m sure Jim Carey made one.

-A Healthy Dose of Death-
Haven’t given this one too much thought yet. Definitely a focus on different burial rites, the belief and fear of spirits and ghosts, exorcism.
Film/Film Segments: Oh “The Exorcist” for sure, “Poltergeist.”

Okay now with all that intro, what would you as a possible student expect to get out of this class or hope to learn subject wise that I haven’t listed? Or given the few things I’ve listed; suggestions ?

So this is in response to a meme Jackdaw listed me on to answer. I have to list 5 addictions of mine. I have to limit it to just 5 🙂 That’s tough.

1) Horror movies . . . I figured since it’s that time of year, I’d list this first. I actually did an entire post a week ago about my addiction to horror flicks and how I got into them, so I won’t repeat it.

2) Videogames . . . I’ve been a videogame junkie since I was a kid. The first videogame console we had was some Radioshack thing that basically played Pong and a few other games. I remember I used to play bowling a lot on it. I used to have all consoles Sega, until they died out and just started making games. Then I got into the other consoles and slowly the handhelds. This past few years, with school as well as the soap page that seemed to take over every waking hour of my life, well I never had as much time for videogames. I’m getting back into them more and more. I can’t wait until the time comes when I can sit in front of the TV all weekend long playing them knowing I don’t have something else I should be doing 🙂 BTW, I have all the systems, so drop me a message if you want to add me online as a friend. These days I’m on my PS3 more than anything though.

4) The internet . . . I’ve been addicted to it since Al Gore invented it 🙂 Seriously, I found it in undergrad and my life has never been the same. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. However I’ve made some of my best friends through it, so I know I’m better for it.

3) My iPhone . . . How did I ever live without this? Seriously, I love it. I’m constantly downloading free apps for it to try them out, and I love that I can get on Twitter from it anywhere I am. Now if I could just get some of the aforementioned friends on Twitter the world would be perfect 🙂

5) Pizza . . . I have too many “junk” foods I actually like, so I had to go with the top. Pizza! I love pizza. I am pretty boring with my pizza, usually just going for cheese, sometimes adding some veggies. I usually avoid meats, they make it too greasy. I love extra sauce and hate places that skimp on the sauce. Pizza Hut is nothing but a giant lump of dough with way too much cheese, that in fact tastes like no other cheese on the planet.

So I have some unhappy news to report. My Halloween weekend with my friends is off, due to personal issues one friend is having. The point was for us all to actually be able to get together, myself and the other decided not to go on our own or together.

It sucks, but what can I say, life happens sometimes. To be honest, while as fun as it would have been, I’m not going to admit in some ways it’s a tiny bit of a relief. With trying to get stuff turned in for school this coming week as well as my ongoing stresses about finances, this is a relief on both ends.

I will still put the costume together though and take a photo. Well, I’m not putting on sparkle lip balm and eye shadow hehe. I’m working on alternative local plans for something fun to do that weekend.

So this is NOT the rare political post I mentioned in my curse-filled post a few back. This is more of a me venting about stupid people’s political chatter in public.

So today I had an amazing run at the gym, my best one yet. I think I did 5 miles! Woot. So afterwards I wanted to relax my poor legs in the Jacuzzi. This is where I unfortunately was exposed to politics. All the stress I had just washed away was shoved back on me.

These two guys who I guess were in their 40s/50s were talking about a third guy, some friend of theirs, who was in earlier in the week and was upset. They were asking if the other had seen him around lately. They mentioned he was a vet and pretty upset that day. Well I started listening in, silly me I was thinking veterinarian and maybe something horrible had happened at work. No, they meant war vet.

It seemed the issue was he had read something in a paper about a bill that McCain didn’t support, and it upset him. I assume it was military oriented. One guy explained how he was sure there was a reason, those damn democrats always sneak tons of stuff in there, so you had to read the whole thing to understand. Also he was sure it was some liberal newspaper that took that one little line out of context and blew it up to make McCain look bad.

The two chatted about how they were both military (well one was from a military family) and how they hoped they had calmed this poor guy down. One guy also said his problem was he needed to get laid, so he actually set him up and sent him to a “massage parlor.”

Now up to this point none of this actually bothered me. Two of my best friends are republican, so I’m used to hearing venting about democrats and crazy liberals 🙂 What annoyed me was a little tidbit that came up next. Seems the guy has been in a bad way for awhile, he’s been having problems at home with the wife. That’s when I flipped and bit my lip, but oh did I want to say something. Yes this guy was married.

Next week two states will vote to ban gay marriage, one being California, where many could lose the current right. Meanwhile these two asshats, clearly republican and bashing those crazy libs, sent their married friend to go get a massage and a “happy ending.”

Now some of you on here reading this might actually support “traditional marriage,” I don’t know. Others I know support the right of gays to marry. The next time your able to vote on the issue, or it comes up in a discussion you’re involved in, think about this post. It seems straight people are doing a fine job of their own ruining “traditional marriage” without any help at all from the gays. Perhaps what we need is some laws not to prevent gays from getting married, but laws to prevent stupid people from getting married.

I can’t believe I’m ACTUALLY posting these photos, as they are ones I never intended anyone to ever see of me. However I said I would, and after my last post . . . Well, um, I feel the need to eat some humble pie 🙂 I probably need to de-offend some people, and what better way than to humiliate myself even more! BTW, if you were offended by the last post, um, it’s probably best we never meet in person. After the initial awkwardness of meeting, I would surely offend you in some way 🙂

So this WAS me back in January of this year. OMG I’m as big as the castles! The first photo is on the beach in Miami. The second at Disney World. I absolutely hate that this is the one photo I have of myself on my first trip to Disney World in front of the famous castle. I feel the need to go back and take a better photo. Plus not only was I huge, we were squinting into the setting sun as well.

Here I am sometime around April or May, when I dyed my hair blue-black. Ugh, I had just started with the Wii Fit around here I think, as well as CalorieKing.com. I remember cause I used this as my “before” photo actually.

And here I am today! I clocked in at 151.8 pounds this morning. I’m modeling my “little black shirt” in this photo. I bought it 6+ years ago. It’s an Express for Men shirt and it’s a size small. If you have ever seen their small shirts, you know they are smaller than small. I could not even have put this on months ago without looking like a blimp. Even if I sucked my gut in, which BTW I’m not in these photos, I still would have looked huge in it.

Oh yeah, last night a blood vessel under my eye burst. That’s why in these photos it looks like I have a black eye.

So I’m currently composing a rare “political” post for my blog, which I tweeted about. Sadly Janelle informed me she’d have to read it at home, because I’ve been fucking banned at her shitty ass workplace! Are you mother fucking kidding me? What in the holy hell did I do to get banned at anyone’s work place?

I mean seriously? I rarely curse on here, aside from this fucking forsaken post, in which I’m doing so to make a fucking point. Sex? Porn? What sex and porn? Oh wait I showed a fake tit on my blog this week constructed of styrofoam. Quick, hide the kids! Are you kidding me? My mommy reads this blog, you think I’m going to be dirty and nasty on it? You think I’m going to talk about nasty dirty gay sex and show a bunch of nekkid men on it? Well okay, my mom lets me curse and fart in her presence, and hell she let me watch “Porky’s” when I was in like the 3rd grade, but please; if I cursed, farted or said nasty shit in public she’d fucking bitch slap me upside my head. Hell she yells at me if I burp outloud!

So this leaves me wondering why I’ve been banned? 1) it’s a gay thing or 2) it’s a youtube video posting thing. Hmmm, I’m pretty sure given what I know about corporate workplace, it’s fairly easy to ban youtube videos without banning a whole site. I could be paranoid, I don’t know. Then again, hello, me getting married could spell the end of the world, but any straight man can get drunk and marry Britney Spears in Vegas and it’s okay in God’s eyes (sorry Britney, I love you! Don’t flame me Chris Crocker!).

Maybe Janelle just stalks my blog at work and therefore they banned it because of her only 🙂 Yes, I think I like that explanation the best, other than accepting that our government and workplaces have resorted to some serious freedom of speech issues. No, not our government! We are “tolerant” peoples! (insert laugh track here).

But hell, seriously, if I’m gunna get banned, then I’m gunna get mother fucking banned in STYLE bitches! So ladies and gentlemen, and flamboyant gentlement (Cher quote!), I give you some “porn.” Oh yes, you read right, here is some nasty, pale-assed, URGLY Janet Jackson Superbowl Titty! Suck on this “National Geographic!”

So I’ve been “tweeting” about this lately, but haven’t done a blog in awhile. For years now I’ve wanted to get into better shape, and have finally been pretty dedicated to doing it. Now I just have to keep it up!

After the cruise in January I think I finally tipped the scale at 182/3 pounds. When I went over 180 is when I finally said enough, as I was adding on 5-10 pounds each year for a few years. Yes I realize to many this is not heavy, but at 5’6″, thin framed and weighing 135 up until I was about 26 (when I quit being a vegetarian), it was a lot to me.

So I started using MyFoodDiary.com again around April of this year, which I had success with 3-some years back. Using it to chart what I ate (holding myself accountable) and exercising, I actually got to 145 by November of that year. Of course I also went home for 3 weeks that year, ate poorly, and by time the annual cruise came around I had packed all the weight I lost back on. Since then I also added more on (I think I was around 170 that year).

After using MyFoodDiary.com for a bit, I switched over to CalorieKing.com, mainly because they had a program I could buy for my PC and use without having to go online. I liked that a lot, plus the larger range of foods in their search engine.

I also as many of you know got the Wii Fit back in May. I was using it pretty regularly, but stopped. I haven’t stepped on the thing in months, and I know I put my birthday in September as my first goal date. I missed it and haven’t even checked in. I’m skeered of it! It’s going to yell at me for not being around for so long, I just know it. I have been saying for a month I’m going to pull it back out. I think I will tonight and put in a new goal date, our cruise in January.

One of the reasons I stopped using Wii Fit so much is because I started running at the beginning of the summer. I was introduced to the whole “Couch to 5K” podcast running program, which gets you into running through interval training. I got up to week 6 or 7, which had you running fairly long stretches and then got bored with it. I had a few more weeks to go, but at that point felt I was running distances enough to just use my own best judgement (and music!) and went from there. I’m now up to 4 miles at about 40 minutes on the treadmill at the gym. Outside though it’s a bit less, due to weather conditions, hills and hard pavement which gives more of a shock to my legs. Still, I’ve never been able to run like this, not even in high school. I hated running the mile for PE, I could never even do that.

So after many months, I’m currently weighing in at 153 pounds as of this morning. I’ve lost almost 30 pounds since the beginning of the year. Woot! I have to get to 145, which pretty much every program/weight tracker has told me is my ideal healthy weight. That’s my goal to get to and stay at by January for the cruise.

I know I have a “fatty” photo of me taken earlier this year. I’ll take a few other photos soon to put up as a comparison. I actually need new clothes! All summer my shorts had been too big and falling off my ass. Now that we are getting cool enough for jeans, the same thing is happening. I bought 2 new pairs of jeans in April for a Vegas vacation. They are so big on me now that it’s not funny. I need to get at least one pair of skinny jeans soon 🙂

This is the final clue, but not the final piece of the puzzle. This is my ghetto fabulous red wig. It’s ghetto fabulous cause I bought it for 25 bucks at a very ghetto wig shop in Philly.

This will go together with all the other clues below, as well as some fancy (ie cheap) sparkle blue eyeshadow from Rite-Aid and some sparkle lip gloss (I refuse to wear lipstick, yuck).

The final piece, my weapon of choice, will remain a mystery until Halloween. Oh and it really is the best part of the costume!

Anyway, Lori guessed correctly when she said a cross dressing serial killer. I don’t know where I got the idea, it came to me late one night. But that is what I plan to be!

Here is another part of my costume. First up, I apologize for the wrinkled appearance of it. I have not yet de-wrinkled it. Given it’s cheap polyester I’ll have to tumble dry it on low heat or steam it I’m sure, I’m afraid ironing it might actually melt it 🙂

The (cheap fake) knife came with it, but isn’t going to be part of my costume. I’m replacing it with another weapon. However I included it in because it might help make what the costume actually is from a bit easier to figure out.

The original plan was for me to just wear a pair of undies under this, so I could slash it up a bit and show some skin. I also watched to strategically slash to reveal parts of my soft supple breastases. However this could be changed depending on how cold it is on Halloween night. Like I said, it’s cheap polyester and I don’t want to freeze my ass off in this thing.