Last Night in Oregon

Well, my friendly readers, this will be the last blog I submit from the…interesting…state of Oregon. I fly out for flatter land tomorrow, and will kiss the ground when I land. I’ll smell the salty, marshy air and hug my dog and call it over.

Before I get too sentimental, I’ll go over my day. I got up, got packed, got coffee and got my keister to the school. I was early (typically) and wandered around the building, taking in the students and faculty, the notes and notices on the boards. I met with the admissions advisor and…well, I think I scared her.

We sat down, she handed me a sheet of paper with the curriculum on it (which I’ve had in my possession, long since downloaded from the internet) and asked me if I had any questions.

I grin and open my book.

She blinks, “Oh,” and looks at me like I’ve grown a second head.

Now I’ll admit I look a lot younger than I am. At least that’s what many people tell me. So perhaps she was taken aback by the fact that, while I was no baby-face, I was not wet behind the ears, either. It was rather amusing, really.

I asked my questions and ended up interviewing them more so than they interviewed me. And this is supposed to be a premier institution! Eh, well, perhaps they’re just more laid back up here, as I’ve observed in the town and traffic.

The verdict? I think it can work. I think it’ll work better than Massachusetts or Kansas, but I haven’t been to those places, so I’ll withhold that judgment for now. I think that they focus more on the same things I want to focus on, here, rather than what I’ve seen at the other places, so I’ll give them a greater consideration.

The hard part is going to be deciding if I can handle going back to school. It’s a lot to sacrifice, both in pay and free time. I’ve got my dog to consider as well, so that means most likely living off campus. Which means more money necessary to make it work. Hmm. I’m still not sure about it all. I think this is the best candidate, but there’s still a lot to consider.

Perhaps I shall consult a coin-toss? Nah.

I will admit however that this trip has been something of a self-seeking journey. I’ve pushed my fears and boundaries to the limit and realized things I’d not known about myself.

I am most definitely a flatlander. Even the way I walk is for flatland.

I am a sea-level kinda gal. Taking that elevator 200 feet down within a few seconds made me realize that the great feeling I had in the bottom of that cave had a helluva lot more to do with the lack of pressure in my ears than that wonderful cool mineral feeling one only gets in a cave.

I love the mountains. They’re great for visiting. Yeah.

I am afraid of mountain roads that twist and twine up a paved horse trail from hell that’s less than two horse-butts wide. That’s where that white-knuckle-death-grip comes in handy. And going down? Make sure if you have an automatic, that it also has second gear. Third ain’t gonna cut it.

I will never own a Pontiac Grand Prix. Good gravy that car’s a BEAST. It drives like an old V8 but it’s merely a 6-cylinder! If you like your car purring like a tiger about to strike down a gazelle, this car’s for you, but not me. I like my acceleration predictable, thank you.

I like pumping my own gas. Having some random kid pop up at your window out of nowhere is disturbing and food for my already-existant paranoia. That and I always forget to have ones on hand so I feel guilty about not tipping. Dammit.

I hate squeaky beds. Nothing much else to say about that.

I do not know how to moderate spending when I’m away from home. Note to self: budget like hell when you get home.

All in all, I’ve enjoyed myself. Not immensely, but this is also my first trip anywhere by myself. I do not recommend it on the whole unless you’re just into that whole monophilia thing. Me? Next time I take a trip will be with someone.

That’s another thing that bothers me. If I do this whole school thing, the only person I’ll be able to take with me is my dog. And I’ll only be able to visit home once a year if I take summer terms.

There are pros and cons to that, really.

So I’m going to enjoy my last view of snow-capped mountains, my last night in unfamiliar territory, my last night of stressful aloneness. The next time I deign to blog, I will be happily ensconced in my wonderful little home at sea level, breathing salty, marshy air and hugging my dog.

The End.

The University of Oregon

Well, dear readers, I have not much to report today, not even photographs. I spent my day traversing the campus with the most adorable sophomore you’ve ever seen. His name was Cody. Take a little surfer, a little skater, a little shy geekiness and there ya have him. I was actually quite glad he was giving the tour because he needs the practice speaking in front of people. Don’t get me wrong, he was very informative, helpful, had answers to all our questions, very patient…but he needs some speaking skills. I admire him for doing it. And he was just a cutie, so I hope he does well.

All in all, it was the same as any campus you might see in a movie or in your hometown. Some old buildings, some new…some trailers. There’s always trailers. This campus has something unique, however. A cemetery. Yes, a graveyard is in the middle of the south end of campus. It’s not active, mind you, just…walked through.

Being a Savannahian, that just gives me the creeps to see gravestones walked OVER and not AROUND. Where I’m from, you don’t even walk over the grassy part where the person was buried. Significantly BAD JUJU! But the squirrels there were amusing. Larger than our gray squirrels in Georgia, they were adventurous, playful…one was bouncing around a little bush like he was protecting it from me. It was rather adorable so I excused myself and went on.

Yet more hippies abound to the little streets just west of campus, but there was the most fantastic little bakery where I got a bagel sandwich to DIE for! Basil, spinach, tomato, avocado and mozzarella on an herb bagel. YUM! :9 The funny part was when I asked for an Italian soda and the guy asked me what flavor. I blinked and said no flavor. Straight? …Yes… Um…do we sell it that way? The other guys says, um, I think so…

Regardless, I got my Italian soda (sparkling mineral water basically). Then I wandered around campus a bit, poked my head in the Architectural building, listened in on a lecture and a studio…It seemed normal school stuff.

Tomorrow’s the big day! I meet with the graduate counselor for the program, then head back to Portland for the night. If I have enough time (and room) then I’ll stop at the Clear Creek Distillery in Portland for a whiskey tasting…but we’ll see.

Wish me Luck!

From The Sea Caves to Three Sisters

Wow. Now I understand wool socks, fleece lining and second gear.

I spent the morning in Central Oregon, on the McKenzie Pass in the Cascade Mountains. I drove up a paved horse trail from hell with a white-knuckle-death-grip on the steering wheel to 5,300+ feet and saw Two of the Three Sisters, Mount Washington, Mount Jefferson, Black Butte, and some other mountains I can’t remember the names of. It was a completely different world up there! Black lava rock was EVERYWHERE along with silver-dead conifers that were twisted and knarled from the strong winds up there.

It was breathtaking. Literally. You can’t breathe that high, in that wind, with that cold. I’m not in the best of shape, but I can at least BREATHE.

So. I have to go to the potty right? And conveniently the only one is atop the pass… You know where this is going, dontcha? YEP, I took a seat and WHOOSH! Cold draft up the wazoo! It was a definite experience…one which I will not be repeating unless absolutely necessary. I know you wanted to know that, but there ya go. ;)

Check out pics here. Not of the potty, I promise. All good mountain-y pictures.

Amazingly, I’d planned on spending the day, but was done by noon. I hem and haw and think, well why not. I’ll just go to the coast! It’s only three and a half hours in the other direction…why not.

So off I go, now getting the hang of the mountain roads and sluicing down them like I’m driving Monte Carlo. I make it back in no time and stop at this little restaurant in Eugene where I had an omelet FRIED IN REAL BUTTER!!! With REAL cheese! And the syrup for my pancakes was served HOT…the waitress looked at me like I was nuts when I grabbed the container and went “ow”. Yeah.

I then head off to Florence, which is a much easier drive through Wine Country! Very beautiful. I felt like I was in Tuscany or something. Not that I know what that’s like, but nonetheless. And (gasp) Oregon has MARSH! It’s nothing like Savannah, but it was there! I took pictures (albeit crappy ones of that because I couldn’t stop) and commenced on to the Sea Lion Caves. Ah, the Oregon Coast was beautiful.

The waves were so LOUD. They boomed against the rocks, against the sand, against each other…I was 200+ feet above the beach and it sounded like cannons. The salt air was SO GOOD to smell! And it smelled different than Savannah. I notice that when I’m away, I miss the methane and salt overtone that Savannah has. I literally crave it and get homesick when I can’t smell it. To smell that salt today was just heavenly. And then taking the elevator down 200 feet… I could FEEL the relief of pressure on my body. Yeah, I’m definitely a flatlander. Stepping into that sea cave, smelling the minerals and conifers and salt…it was a little off, but close enough to home that I couldn’t stop smiling.

Today was a big plus. Oregon’s Bounty is in its natural beauty. I shall dream of mountains and rocky shores with booming waves tonight…

Day Two in Oregon: Eugene

My God, the culture shock.

I spent the day exploring downtown Eugene and the University of Oregon campus, just to see what things are like, if I like it, could I live here, or what. And survey says: Or what.

This town is not for me. I am SO completely different than the people that live here. Push it back into the country a bit and that’s just fine, rather nice, actually…but here in Eugene…Nah.

I started the day sleeping (what I thought was) absurdly late (and actually turned out to only be 9am) then planning out my day’s itinerary. I didn’t want to over-do it, so I planned on just Eugene and UofO. I got directions, wrote them down, memorized them (like the freak I am) and set off around noon.

Eugene/Springfield actually reminds me a lot of Savannah. There’s a riverfront, there’s a huge cultural base in downtown, and the rest looks like you should avoid it like the black plague.

Mind you, I said LOOKS. Looks are apparently deceiving, here. I saw quite a few people waltz right into buildings I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole in Savannah. The way I was raised, and the way things are in Savannah, you didn’t go into a building or even a part of town that HAD that kind of building unless you wanted to get raped, robbed or murdered.

MAJOR culture shock. My itinerary had me going to UofO first, then to City Market, then to a brewery (which I shall not name) all within about seven miles of each other. Technically, I could have taken the bus. That’s another humdinger for me, ‘cause in Savannah, locals don’t take the bus unless they absolutely HAVE to.

You know, I’d better tell you about it from the beginning.

The roads really are marked horribly up here (I think I shall write to the local DOT with some advice). I finally arrive at UofO and park. Nothing’s going as planned, seems Murphy’s Law is alive and kicking and riding along in my backpack, but that’s okay. I take it in stride and start exploring.

My LORD, the TREES!!! I could spend a decade taking pictures of the trees just on the UofO campus alone. Not to mention the surrounding areas. Some of the architecture on campus is really quite lovely and dates back to the Victorian Era (youngin’s to us Savannahians). I have loaded up another slideshow for your enjoyment here. (yay, link!)

So I wander around the campus, taking photograph after photograph and I start asking myself: Do I see myself here? Is this where I want to be for two years, at least? I think back to myself: Well, it’s gorgeous and a perfect place to write a story. I could sit in the parks for days on end and soak up the fabulous coniferous smell that permeates every step taken (Pine Fresh! Whee!).

I look around and think, yeah, I could do this. But then I realize it’s not everything. It’s not perfect. It’s not fantastic. But it’s college. It’s a vehicle to get me from point A to point B. Should I really care that much about how the campus LOOKS?

Considering I’m looking into Architecture (Interior Architecture, to boot) then I’d say: Yes. Yes, I should wonder whether I’m in love with the campus. I should be able to know whether or not I’d feel comfortable here. Wanna know something funny about that statement of feeling comfortable? I about jumped out of my skin when this tiny, cute little asian female asked me where something was. What’s funny is that I was looking at her like she was a rabid animal. I am so unused to people approaching me in strange places, so unused to just general amicability to one’s fellow human, that I’ve become the epitome of paranoid.

If anyone stopped for a moment and looked in my direction, I glared at them until either they walked away or I did. I couldn’t be on the same path as someone else for thinking they were following me or them thinking that I was doing the same! I was constantly whirling about, watching my reflection, shadows, listening to my environment…All because I am THAT accustomed to being ALONE. Yes, I have family and I work in the Big Orange Box and I live in suburbia with my boyfriend and dog and neighbors… But I have closed myself in. I have become BOXED up, unable to simply be comfortable in an open air market.

Which is where I went next. Hippies abound in this place…and I mean the Savannah definition of Hippie. Loose, comfortable clothes, crazy hair, tattoos, piercings, pottery, tie-dye, hemp clothing…you name it, it was there. I did get a rather lovely recycled bracelet made from a belt, plus some wonderful organic soap. But I didn’t see anything I couldn’t have gotten back home. This place is literally as if you slapped Savannah, GA and Huntsville, AL together, mixed it all up, took out QUITE a few of the demographics and plopped it in a valley in Oregon.

People MOVE at a different pace, here. You can drive and not feel like you’re on your death bed on wheels. In fact, most of the town is 35mph or less. And people drive that or less. It’s very relaxed. If you need to get over, it’s okay, they’ll let you in. There’s no rush. It’s not neck-or-nothing like it is in the Southeast. I’ve driven in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. If you don’t pay attention and grab the wheel in a white-knuckle-death-grip with your foot flat on the floor against the gas pedal, you’ll end up like the possum on a half-shell you just passed (otherwise known as an Armadillo).

So, lackadaisical driving aside, I mosey on over to the brewery that was holding a hop-tasting festival. I arrive and drive right on by. The people looked normal, fine, same as I just left the market, but that part of town is something that my daddy and my boyfriend would NOT want me going into. So I didn’t. Like the good little Southern girl I am.

I drove away and realized that this was NOTHING like Savannah or Huntsville. There, my judgment would have been sound. Here, I’m not so sure. I don’t regret not stopping there, it looked like a bunch of college guys and I would have felt like a grasping old woman amidst them. (Insert sarcastic remark here) I just started thinking, that’s all.

In Savannah, and other places, you can tell a woman’s station in life by what she wears. Here in Eugene, it’s anything goes. Literally. I saw a child that looked to be about maybe six or eight years old with ORANGE dreadlocks. It was all I could do to only blink in response. My mouth was glued shut, I promise you. Here, there is no telling station or occupation by clothing or hairstyle. It’s literally whatever you want, however you want to be…just do it. No one blinks.

I’m both afraid and jealous of that. So used to definitions and stereotypes am I that this utter lack of them is shocking, to say the least.

So here I am, in my hotel, writing this out and planning my excursion to either the Three Sisters or Florence and the Coast tomorrow. I still haven’t decided which. For now, I’m taking some ‘me’ time and writing my little fingers off on a fanfic I’ve been chomping at the bit to get down.

Oh, and the score for the day? Oregon’s still down by two.

Ta!

About 1/3rd of the Pictures I’ve taken so far:

http://s264.photobucket.com/albums/ii181/azaleacharles/?action=view&current=e139f6a3.pbw

if this doesn’t link, just copy and paste into your browser! :D

Oregon…Undecided?

Here I am, sitting in a hotel room with not much more than a great deal of travelling to show for the past two days.  Firstly, I was astounded and pleased that I arrived in Portland, Oregon after three flight changes with all of my luggage.  Yay!  Point for Oregon!

Second, I was amazed at the efficiency of the Portland Airport.  There was plenty of nice things to behold within it’s Oregonian confines.  Many fine sundry shops.  Point Two for Oregon!

Then…I go to rent a car.  Mind you, I’ve already made reservations (months in advance).  I get in an absurdly long line for midnight PST (yes, that’s 3 AM for us East-Coasters!) and proceed to receive multiple glares from a disturbed hispanic man in front of me.  He must have been a doctor or something for he was very well dressed, and in my opinion, only doctors dress that well on an airplane.  Either that or he was extremely full of himself (which was probably the case anyway from the exasperation he randomly emanated in my direction).  Remember, I’m BEHIND him in line.  I have no idea why he’s glaring at ME.

So, after about thirty minutes, he finally gets called up and I’m like “Hurray!” I’m next in line so this is good news.  I get to the desk and everything’s confirmed…she reminds me I’ve reserved an ECONOMY car.  Remember that.  ECONOMY.  This usually means 4-cylinder, probably a Prius or Hyundai, right?  Well, I’d requested this for a reason.  I planned on a lot of driving so therefore reasoned it would cost less in fuel.  Right?  Right!

Wrong.

Hertz gave me a Pontiac Grand Prix, a 6-cylinder…which is positively the hardest BEAST to drive!  I’d rather drive my father’s diesel Chevy pickup.  It at least would have more headroom.  Minus two points for that.

Score = Oregon Zip.

And so, after that grueling and odd process, I finally and after much waiting arrive in my vehicle, almost run over a motorcyclist because the roads really are THAT different up here from Savannah, and finally, after only 6 miles but much confusion, arrive at my hotel.

It’s locked.

Greeeaaaaat.

Oh you can guess on the points for that one.  Not only is it locked, but once I actually get inside and check in via the LAUNDRY attendant, I find that they’ve SHUT DOWN the elevators for the night.  Not only shut down, but LOCKED UP BEHIND STEEL DOORS.  Other than the steel doors you enter the elevators through.

Oregon’s waaaay behind by at least 5 or 6 points by then.

Okay.  So, I schlump up a flight of stairs with my three bags and an extremely ungainly set of car and hotel keys and enter my abode for the evening.  It’s cute, it’s clean…the bed squeaks like a rusty car shock.  Yay.

Take another one off for Oregon.  Okay, make that at least two.

I go to sleep, get up at 7am (PST) and make for the Starbucks up at the corner.  Yay! Add a point! Alas, they were confused with my order, and gave me WAY too much mocha in my mocha.  BUT I did have the most excellent home-made doughnut.  Yes, I spelled it doughnut, not donut.  It was that good.  No point exchange.

Unfortunately for me, however, as I am walking to that Starbucks, I realize: HEY!  It’s really foggy!

(Insert deadpan expression here)

It’s foggy in Portland, Oregon?  NO!

You know what? No, scratch that.  It’s not foggy.  Foggy is wispy fluffiness that slips over the earth in cool little clouds.

This was SOUP.

I swim through that soup, searching for…Oh wait, no I have to build this one up.

I fly 3,000+ miles to go where my first stop?

WAL*MART

You read it correctly.  And I got lost in Vancouver (right across the river from Portland) looking for a Walmart that was LESS than a mile away from the hotel.  The fog was THAT thick.  In fact, the only reason I found it was because I saw the looming shape of a Hollywood Video sign (which is usually situated in a Walmart parking lot) and went to investigate.

I go in, I get the USB cord and DC converter for my computer, along with some water, beef jerky, almonds, and carrot juice–just in case–of what I don’t really know…maybe the fog monsters attacking the car.  I could live for a few days off of that, right?  Yeah.  Just in case.

Okay.  So I get on the road after that, heading south back into Portland and looking forward (an hour and a half late) to driving to Tillamook, which is on the northern coast.  I’m stoked!  I’m driving and looking…and can’t see the freaking signs.  I can’t see the supposedly beautiful skyline of Portland.  Dammit!

I get lost AGAIN.  I’m driving by my happy little lonesome, thinking: You know, it’s okay, I’ve got time and this will let the fog burn off so I can see Mount St Helen in the distance.

HA!  Fat chance.

I’m lost until I just give up and drive into a Fred Meyer’s parking lot.  Much like a Walmart.  Anyway, I park I go in, I ask what the address is.  Huh?  What’s the address here?  Um, I just work here.  You don’t know the address?  No…Uh…Hey, do you know what the address is here?  No… Ohmigod. Finally a customer turns around and yells it out.  Great! Thanks! I run out to the car, hook up my computer and get surfing!  I find where I am, I get going, I get lost again.

A-freaking-gain.

So.  I take matters into my own tentacles.  I decide, screw Tillamook, it was only a lighthouse and an Octopus Tree, I’ll just find Interstate 5 and head south to Eugene.

Minus a gazillion points for Portland.  Percentage-wise, I think that works out to about 3 more points in the hole for Oregon.

Until I cross the Columbia River…Oh! what beauty!  By this time, the hell-spawn Fog has lifted somewhat and I can see the river.  That’s not what grabs my attention though.  I’m captivated by the BRIDGE!  It’s this amazing industrial celebration of iron or steel or something, and it’s laced with power lines and spanning the Columbia River with such grace and pomp… Add at least 5 points onto that tally, Bob.

I mewl in disappointment because there is no turn off or stopping point to take a picture!

So I decide to celebrate the moment and get lost again.

I finally get to I-5 South to Eugene.  Four and a half hours wasted and I’ve gone 70 miles. Yay!

I think the score for Oregon is around 5 or 6 points in the red.  Anyhoo.  I’m driving along, yay! boring interstate!  and it looks like any ole highway in the Appalachians.  I’m rather disappointed…again.

Okay…I’m driving in a valley, maybe those hills in the distance are distorted or it’s still foggy or something.

Yeah.

Those hills are the Cascade Mountain Range.  They’re huge!  They eclipse anything in the southeast!  A little one makes Brasstown Bald look like an ant mound.  WOW!  AND they’re covered in Firs and Spruce and these OAK trees.

I’m from Savannah, where Oak trees DO NOT change color and the leaves are rather shaped like Olive tree leaves, hard, tiny, green all the time.  Nu-uh.  These suckers are ORANGE and brilliant GOLD.  And the trees are HUGE.  I’ll link up some of the pics I took after I finish here in a bit.  You’ll see what I mean.

So I decide, alright, God wanted me to just drive to Eugene and not take the scenic route along 101 today.  That’s okay, I’ll look for fun stuff along 5.  I come across this adorable little bitty town of about 1300 people (said so on the sign) called Brownsville.

(sigh)

I’m in love!  It’s like Mayberry!  I took oodles of pictures!  You’ll see!  Plus 80 points for Oregon! As I was taking pictures of this lovely little church on a hill, there’s this man on an electric wheelchair that yells across the street in a quite-friendly tone:  Don’t take my picture, I’ll stick my tongue out at you!

I blink from around my camera…Ah, yes, he was travelling right across my line of sight.  I laugh at the unexpected call and rejoin with: Well, that’s incentive!

He laughs, stops, and lets me take his picture with his tongue sticking out at me.  Adorable!  You’ll see.

So I had parked in front of an Organic sundry shop (which if you know me, is instant attraction) and because I parked there (uh huh) I went inside.  (blinks) What.  It was only polite…  And, therefore buy some fruit and honey, just because I wanted to.  I look at the floor (because really, why wouldn’t I?) and ask the lady if it was Pine.  She blinks at me (strange person that I am) and says, no, it’s Fir.

Which is the most beautiful shade of golden whiskey you’ve ever seen.  Pine mellows, but couldn’t dream of this color without stain! Not with a hundred years behind it!  I know! I live in Savannah!

So I get in my car and head to Eugene with notaclue as to where in Eugene I’m supposed to be staying.  I have the reservations, but didn’t get directions from the direction I’m travelling.  Remember what I said before about nixing Tillamook?  Yeah.

I end up in Alton Baker Park.  You will see.  Gorgeous to the Nth degree, plus waterfowl.  Wheee!

I take pictures, get my bearings and arrive at the hotel.  It’s small, but CLEAN.  Omigod is it clean!  I think they BOIL the room after every inhabitant.  And the walls aren’t that cheap wallpaper anaglypta, they’re really textured.  And the floors are terrazzo and carpet.  Go figure!  Ah, but the bed squeaks (see above sound reference).  Ah well.  I sleep like the dead anyway.  Hopefully the person beneath me does too.

To complete my day, I head to a local restaurant which sported excellent Salmon (honestly, I couldn’t resist) and then came back to the room and wrote this.

I am exhausted, to say the least, but I’m determined to keep a journal of this.

I’ll see you tomorrow!

Strangled — Optimus and Megatron (Slashy)

I heard this song right after reading Cyndi’s Optimus and Megatron series of fanfiction at www.fanfiction.net.  I just had to make a video.  Especially since I’ve now been introduced to TF: Armada.  Gah!  It makes me shiver!  I wish I’d taken a bit more time with some of the arrangements of the stills, but I’m pretty happy with it anyway.

testing 1,2, 4…

just trying out a little trick, but in the meantime, enjoy a little video an excellent fanfic writer came up with over on youtube

A little something I cooked up overnight…

 

Ach! Whatever! I can’t get the damned video to upload…or did I? heck I don’t know. just click on the link… 

Poor Optimus!

Corner of Sight

It’s so hard to ignore it.  That little flash of dark or light out of the corner of your eye.  Something moved or was there and now is not. 

You know what I’m talking about.  That little tingle up your spine, the tap on your shoulder, the whisper in your ear…that unaccountable feeling that something or someone else is there.

Watching you.

They may not mean you harm or any interference at all.  They may simply be watching out of curiosity or an inability to understand whatever strange thing it is you’re doing at the moment.  They may be listening to you talk about them or the possibility of “them”.

Whatever the cause, they’re there.  They are.  You may feel it, you may not.  Or, like a friend of mine, you may even get other senses involved.  Touch, taste, smell…

It’s all electrical signals to the brain translated into perception.  So if you believe that energy, once created, never dies…well, then it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that “they” are an energy signature left on the fabric of time.

It’s only a matter of time until you deny they exist, you go crazy, or you accept them.  It’s rather hard to accept them.  I’m always afraid that I’ll not be able to turn it off.  It intrigues me to be able to communicate with the “other” in this reality, but it scares the hell out of me, too!  There are some things that I just might be better off NOT knowing!

All this thought is actually starting to hurt my brain this early in the morning, and I’m tired, so I’ll part…but just think about it.  What should my reaction be when I see/touch/taste/feel/smell these “others”?  So far, I’ve politely asked them to leave on the grounds that it was impolite to stay at the house when I wasn’t there, and that when I came back, I wanted to get ready for bed and that was entirely improper to have them there for that.  :D  I think it worked, at least on three of the four.  I think the fourth may be a little stubborn, but that’s okay. 

He spawned an amazing son whom I love very dearly. (boyfriend’s deceased dad!)

So I’m going to go now, and if you read this, no matter if you’re a stranger or not, it’s okay.  I’d appreciate your input.  Should I tolerate THAT ghost?  his dad.  We shall see. :D