The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Okay, well, maybe it’s not ACTUALLY obligatory, but that’s what you’re getting anyway! So, uh, sorry about that. LINKS GO!

I found a new tumblr to follow! It’s about ponies! Again! Please pretend to be surprised, okay? Oh, and I guess I have these pony pictures to dump on you too, while I’m at it.

There are also secret plans to be revealed.

Here’s some important data.

I hope you remembered your Wassail yesterday!

Pokemon are cool.

Oh, right, here’s an important quiz that I hope you all can manage to pass! Maybe!

Here’s a reason why I need to get around to playing Skyrim sometime.

And finally, you know… that’s a picture.

Have a Merry Boxing Day, everyone!

IT’S CHRISTMAS!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

But no, seriously, it’s Christmas.

Christmas is a time of overwhelming waves of nostalgia. I remember walking downstairs late at night during December for so many years, seeing that tree, and wanting to cry, sometimes doing just that. I was remembering happy times, times when I wasn’t depressed as fuck, times before I really understood that Santa Claus, God, or whatever the hell else wasn’t going to make me the girl I was anytime soon. Christmas was a moment of pure happiness that I could hide in. Christmas was always happy.

I get older. I work retail, and goodness, Christmas sucks during retail. I get busy, and it gets harder and harder to just relax and enjoy the holidays, and let myself be happy. There are family tensions. There are gift-giving issues. Things just pile up.

But things are still happy.

This year’s Christmas is so different than the past, but I’m still with my family. They haven’t disowned me yet. I’m still with my friends. They haven’t disowned me yet. What’s more, I don’t have to hide in nostalgia anymore. I don’t have to grip so desperately onto moments of happiness that just being reminded of them makes me cry anymore. I don’t have to.
I’m pretty damn happy.

I hope you enjoy all your gifts, and time with the family. I hope that you have a spectacular and relaxing day off. But I hope most of all that your wonder, joy, and happiness aren’t trapped to just one togetherness-filled day of the year. I hope that this day is just one of many awesome things in your life, that continue getting more amazing. I hope that you’re happy.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

It’s Christmas Eve, but I guess Christmas already happened for me? It happened Thursday. And I guess it’s going to happen again next Thursday? I dunno. Because of Jonathan and Shauna leaving town things have gotten different this year.

I mean, it was just on a different day. It wasn’t that different otherwise. My mother wanted to take a million pictures, but was also not very good at taking pictures and was never happy with them and wanted them posed but also spontaneous, so I tried to take over as usual to get her something she’d like. There were lots of dogs running around. We had a nice dinner and opened presents in the traditional manner. You know. Christmas stuff.

I was worried the whole me being me thing was going to be a big deal. It didn’t go as well as I had planned, but I could at least tell my mother tried, which at least seemed an apology for the many times she called me by my old name during the same celebration. I mean, she had Alexis written on all the gifts and everything, which is a decision I’m sure she had a hard time coming to, knowing her. She also bought me a very nice pair of female PJs, which is awesome, as I have seen the light on PJs recently and I will wear the crap out of them.

All the gift giving went well, I think. I seemed to give good stuff, which is, well, good. I always worry. I also got plenty of nice stuff. New Kirby and New Layton and New Dominion Expansion… Well, and a Boxee Box, but I already discussed how well that went and I will be dealing with that soon.

What really made me laugh and smile, though, was the other gift Jonathan and Shauna gave me. They got me this sweet My Little Pony throw. When I opened that I just laughed out loud. How silly and how perfect! Jonathan was like “That’s your favorite one on there, right?” and I’m like “Yeah, that’s Twilight Sparkle on there.” It only occurred to me later how much that question meant, really. I later tried to think of when I’d actually had a conversation about that with my brother. I had made off-hand references to stuff like John DeLancie being in the show and whatnot because I thought he’d find them vaguely interesting, but we never really talked about it seriously. However, I remember when we were shopping for my mother’s birthday present, way back in October, I saw the My Little Pony in Canterlot display in his store and mentioned something about seeing a similar display up in St. Louis. There was this frightening-looking Twilight Sparkle plushie, and I commented, more to myself than anything, that if that wasn’t so terrifying, I’d buy it, because she’s my favorite. I cannot remember talking about liking Twilight Sparkle around him any other time. Somehow he remembered that this long. That’s a brother who cares about his sister enough to know about her incredibly pointlessly obsessions that are probably just an attempt to have all the girly things she couldn’t have in her youth. Heh, I dunno. Recalling that just made it mean all the more to me.

Anyway, I guess that was Christmas! Of course, actual Christmas will be tomorrow, but I’m probably just going to go over to the parents’ and have dinner and go watch Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows with them. Not that that will be bad. But it’ll be different. Difference! Lots of difference in this year.

The latest pony episode, Hearth’s Warming Eve, really just brings up more questions than it answers about society in Equestria. Sure, we learn some things. Equestria being an actual country, as opposed to a planet or plane of existence for instance. There’s also some silly, obviously incorrect bits in there, like Equestria’s original flag having Celestia and Luna on it before they existed, but I can give that one to the nature of the play being put on with little trouble. What really makes me interested, though, is that this episode takes my general idea about the caste system inherent in Equestrian society that I formed back when I was first watching season one and makes it canon.

The episode basically clearly states that, in the past, this caste system was in place: earth ponies were farmers and laborers, pegasi were warriors and controlled the weather, and unicorns were aristocrats and sorcerers. This… hasn’t changed much, even though the play that was put on would like to suggest it is. Pegasi are still in control of the weather and are the soldiers, I’ve never seen anything but earth ponies working on farms and such, and unicorns are mostly still the representation of high society and the elite. There is some level of social mobility, of course. Example off the top of my head is Photo Finish, representing high society and being an earth pony. But because you can’t practice magic without being a unicorn, and non-Pegasi can’t even get to and stand on Cloudsdale to help with the weather stuff, it just doesn’t allow for as much movement as one would want, realistically. You are severely hindered by your birth, and the talents granted by it, and that’s that.

In any case, even though these systems are still basically in place from back then, it caused a civil war, basically, back in the day, which the play depicts. While we learn that it is friendship that keeps a society together, it’s really unclear how Equestria was rebuilt so that the same ire wasn’t simply recreated in everypony. Clearly the founding of Equestria brought with it a proper economy, as ponies do have money, called bits. This would certainly alleviate some of the issues involved with demanding food from earth ponies that the play depicts, but does it really completely diffuse the situation? I’m not really sure.

One thing I am sure of is that Hearth’s Warming Eve is a propaganda holiday that works to make sure that everyone THINKS these sorts of pressures have been resolved, even if they haven’t. It’s an interesting comparison to Christmas, as they’re clearly meant to be compared, since both holidays use similar decoration and the like. Our Christmas tends to use a holiday that’s supposedly based in togetherness and generosity (outside of the obvious potential religious angle, which I’m not counting here) to power consumerism. It’s exploiting those nice feelings for greed’s sake, which is certainly something I think our society understands, even if we think it’s shitty to do. We can recognize it happening. Their Hearth’s Warming Eve is using a holiday based in togetherness to power some sort of political agenda. It comes off as a bit more sinister, I guess, which is something that kind of struck me throughout the episode. It seemed a little off for this world for this play to be done basically every year, everywhere in Equestria, that everyone went to see. To keep these ideas so firmly in the mind just seems… it’s strange. Because while it’s a reminder that we should be friends, it’s also a huge, huge reminder of the big gaps and issues plaguing their society. I don’t know why a different heart-warming story wouldn’t be told unless that was all part of the message. Songs are sung about how friendship keeps everyone together. Everyone learns the lesson they are required to learn, and nopony seems to question that this is something being fed to them for some reason, although what reason is unclear.

Or maybe I just think about a children’s television show too much.

I am completely failing to write anything coherent right now, so, you know… I’m just going to throw up some links and call it a day. Sorry! Blame spending all day writing on Christmas-related creative projects. Or just me, for being lazy. Either way.

This is the first part of a Let’s Play you should most definitely watch if you’ve ever enjoyed Link’s Awakening.

This is a thread you absolutely must read about dating pigeons.

And this is a trailer for a game I am really looking forward to playing.

I also have some images for you. For example, this is an animated gif. So is this. This is not animated, and not a gif, but is still an image. This will also count as an image, as I’m sure you’re aware.

And now, the bedding begins. The dog has been wanting me to go lay down for awhile anyway. Guess I should get to that. Later, blog.

Adventure!

I dunno, I’ve been really trying to do more interesting cooking these last few days. I’m not sure why. But on the way home from work on Friday, I went, “You know, I bet I could make something like that Zuppa at Olive Garden.” Of course, I knew nothing about it, really, besides there were potatoes and some sausage in there. I also knew that even though I was saying I was going to make something like that, I would probably end up making something that was nothing like that. But my vague plan sounded tasty, and Brer agreed that while I’d not be anywhere near my “target,” it would probably be a good meal. So, you know, I tried it. I fried some sausage, and mixed it in with some potato soup, which I then put a bit of cheese in. It was not bad at all! I ate it.
Then Brer is like “You should season shit,” and I’m like, “Fine, Mr. I Know How To Cook.” So I took the rest of it and added this Red Pepper Garlic seasoning I had. Then I taste-tested.
Man, that made the world of difference! It was fantastic! I stored that newly seasoned stuff for later.

Anyway, so that went well, and today I was like, well, I need to make something, and I vaguely remember reading about how you could like… fry ramen noodles and shit that I read when on an internet ramen quest for no real reason. So I just kind of made things up. I boiled some noodles, drained them, and threw them in a skillet with some chopped-up chicken and some oil and cooked that shit. I mixed in the seasoning from the ramen and some of the Zesty Lemon chicken flavoring stuff I had, and let the noodles get all brown, then ate. It was pretty tasty, I have to admit.

Am I learning something about cooking? I still say no. I dunno, it never feels like I’m really doing anything special. But I guess I am technically cooking, and to be honest, it’s all pretty fun to do. I don’t think I’ll ever be a particularly fantastic cook: my tastes are too bland and I am too much of a carnivore for that. But I can clearly fend for myself. That’s pretty awesome, I must admit.

For years, internet scientists had imagined it. Why else would they draw all that art depicting it? The Genderswap universe clearly existed, and I was finally on the cusp of proving it. The machine was set up, and all I had to do was pull the lever. My hand hovered over it, shivering a little. “Let’s do this,” I mumbled, and pulled. Machinery clacked to life, and an overwhelming whine of electrical discharge pelted my ears. Before me, I could see a light forming, growing bigger by the moment. The portal was being made.
Without warning, there was a person there, my height and my build, shielding eyes from the light. I gasped as this person took a step forward. I flipped off the machine. The instant silence was deafening. I looked across the room, and I saw… him. He looked… well, a lot like me, from the past, but not attempting to be an amorphous blob. He was clearly going for that sort of stubbly but not full beard look, with short cut hair.
“You’re a man?” I said, surprised.
“You’re a woman?” he said right back, in a voice quite similar to mine.
A beat later, and we both burst into laughter.
“Of course we’re both transsexuals in the other dimension as well. Just our luck, right?” he said, trying to catch his breath.
“Mm, so you know what happened? Where you are?”
“Of course, I was building the same machine. Genderswap Dimension, right? I guess I just took the first step before you. I’m Matthew.”
“Heh, of course you are. I’m Alexis.”
“Of course!”
We hugged.
“Lunch?” I asked.
“Sure. My treat, as long as your dimension doesn’t use some sort of crazy bizarro money.” Matthew said.
“Heh, I’m betting it is off. Your Presidents and whatnot should be women, right? Different pictures?”
“Eh, maybe they won’t notice.”

We discussed our dimensions over pasta. We had both been successful, it seemed. Besides the differences in physical bodies, pretty well everything had been the same between our two universes. We knew the same people, though the names were slightly different, and we had both, for the most part, done the same things. There were, of course, minor differences. For example. we shared dating experiences, which were pretty different before we both met our respective Brers. (His was named Bridget, apparently.) Growing up had a similar amount of despair, but of course, different problems based on the physical sex situation.
As we were finishing up eating, though, I dropped the question that I had been planning on asking my other self the whole time. Just because my other self wasn’t happy being born female like I had thought didn’t mean I shouldn’t ask it. “Are you happy?”
Matthew blinked. “Well, yeah. There’s been a lot of rough parts, of course, but I’ve got this family I’ve always wanted, my own house, I’m myself… thinking about having a kid… heh…”
“Lucky,” I said, smiling.
“Yeah, I guess we have that slightly easier than you two, huh? But yeah… happy. I’m happy. Are you happy?”
“Totally. Totally and completely. My life has had a lot of suck, but it’s all worked out. I am happy.”
“Good.”
“Heh, we better go before they realize the money you paid with has a different face on it.”
“Ladies first.”
As we stepped out of the restaurant, a shockwave rippled through the concrete. I lost my balance, and fell against Matthew, which did him in. We toppled to the ground. Other pedestrians didn’t fair much better.
“What the fuck was that?” I asked, getting up.
“…shit. Alexis, look.” Matthew pointed to the horizon. In the direction of my house, a giant beam of light was cracking towards the sky.
“The portal device…” I said softly.
“Probably,” he said. “Was your Brer back from work yet?”
I shuddered at that thought. “Shouldn’t have been.”
“Good. Keys, let’s go.”
I tossed him my keys and we raced to the car, to the house, and to what we’d find there.

Then there’d be adventures! Me and genderswapped me, doing, uh, whatever English Majors who somehow have a portal device do on adventures!
Man, this was a stupid idea. But I just couldn’t get the appeal of talking to myself, but a male version of myself who wasn’t miserable, out of my head. Something in the back of my head kept saying there was something there of value, but after like literally a week of trying to figure out what that kernel of genius is, I sure as fuck don’t know. I’m unsure there is one. I think simply there was some appeal in having a “Matthew” who was not the villain. So often in my mindscapes, male me has been this evil entity, this fake person who is attempting to keep me from being happy. He’s trying to take over my mind, make sure I’m never myself. I’m past all that now, and I guess I want to make amends to the person I could have been. I’m sure I would have made a fine male, but that’s just not what I got dealt. I don’t need to be jealous of this person who could have been, who doesn’t have the problems I’ve had. I just need to be myself.
Anyway, it’s out of my head now. I wash my hands of it.

I am sitting here, shivering, though I am not cold. My dog is asleep under the blanket at my feet. I feel bad for him, because he responds to “Dog” much better than to his name, which makes me feel like a bad dogmom. Still, he likes me, and I like him. We played earlier. He made little happy yips as we ran up and down the hall. He’s a good dog.

I’m mostly thinking about how limited my taste in food is. For whatever reason I have been reading descriptions of food all night, and how fantastic it is. Much of it looks fantastic, but much of it looks like it involves many vegetables, which has never really been my thing. Always more of a carnivore. But as I try to think of what I could eat like that which I would like, I really fail at it. There’s very few “food adventures” I can go on, because I just don’t like so many things. I have the fucking worst kind of palette. I eat the same foods over and over again, and while I really don’t mind that, it’s moments like this that make me wonder if there wasn’t something better I could do. I really don’t know.
I flipped through the holiday cookbook at work, and most looked unappetizing or just obscenely time-consuming to make. I want something that has recipes like the silly but delicious Tater Tot Casserole my sister-in-law taught me to make. Something where you’re combining a bunch of pre-packaged items for excellent results. I really don’t know if those things exist. Also, how lame would I be for owning a cookbook like that?

I have so much to do tomorrow. So much to do. Gotta do that thing, and another thing, and I am also working. It feels like I am always working. It’s not true, but the way I could be working at any moment, at any time, really doesn’t help things. Maybe next semester will be better. I suppose I can hope.

I almost have my Christmas shopping done. My finances are doing very well. If I can afford my house payments in the middle of Christmas shopping, I feel like I’ve got this covered, but who knows. I’m making a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. More pills for me, hopefully. I may be screwed super quick. Life changes.

I shouldn’t worry.

I’m still shivering, and while my nose isn’t running any more, the way that I can’t, like, breathe very well really means I am probably sick. I bend over to pick up something at work and I just have to stop and gasp for awhile. I should make a second appointment for that. More to do.

I should take my dog to bed. I should rest. I haven’t really gotten any serious rest in awhile. At least my hands are healing. They don’t hurt near as bad anymore, which is nice. I’m glad I bought lotion.

I’ll sleep. Getting videos cued up on my iPad is kind of a pain, but it’ll do for now. I should curl up and disappear into bed. Maybe. At least for awhile. At least until tomorrow. Not forever. I’m past that point.
Yeah.

It’s time again for another RAPID FIRE RAMBLINGS, the show were I talk about a lot of little things on my mind. Also, it’s not a show. It’s a blog post.

My knuckles have been bleeding. It’s ridiculous. I can’t move my fingers without my finger joints hurting, and there’s little breaks in the skin all over the backs of my hands. I really don’t know quite what I did wrong, but here’s my theory. My pills are making me use the bathroom a lot more than I used to. When I leave the bathroom, I wash my hands. This dries out my hands, and now that cold weather is here, it’s just gotten really terrible. I have bought some lotion to attempt to deal with this, but if you see my hands for awhile, uh, yeah, they look bad. It’s frustrating.

If there’s any wonder why I want to fix my work situation, it’s because of the silly crap like the last night or so, where, to get enough hours, I had to drive to St. Louis, drive back, immediately work until midnight, and then be back at work at 7 am the next day to work another eight hours. This, combined with me being passed over for promotions and being basically told the reason was me being overqualified? Well, that’s all pretty frustrating to me. I am frustrated at my job. Yep.

Recently, Gamefly has been having a lot of deals. I get a discount from them, too, being a long-time member, so it can get pretty cheap for older games! I’ve ended up buying a lot of mediocre games with split-screen co-op, like Hunted: The Demon’s Forge and F3AR. Why? I keep seeing them and thinking “Brer and I could have fun with that on the couch.” And I’m sure we will. I probably shouldn’t keep buying these things and planning like that, but I just can’t believe he’s going to be here in a month or so. Living here. With me. In a month. I want things to be fun. I want to have all the fun with him, as well as do all the things. We like video games. We should do them together. But yeah, maybe I should stop buying them… I have a stack of quite a few at this point.

There’s a small leak in the tubes leading to my washing machine. It’s not really a big deal. It makes the smallest little puddle after like… running it twice. But the location of that puddle is what is really annoying. You see, it is literally RIGHT IN FRONT OF the door to the dryer. I pull out some clothes, you know, to hang them or whatever, and a stray sock caught in the clothing will fall out and land right smack in the middle of that puddle. After I just dried it. That is frustration.

I am going to go to bed now, since I have to proctor a test in the morning. Goodnight. I’ll write something more substantial later.

I know why you come here. You come here for the cold hard facts. You want to know what’s really up in the world of toothpaste.

I’ve got you covered.

Freed from my mother’s house and the toothpaste she would often purchase for me and place in my bathroom like an extremely nice parent, I was free to buy any toothpaste I damn well pleased. When my tube was running out, I was excited by the prospect of a new, thrilling dental hygiene adventure. I went to the store, where I spied my normal toothpaste. Screw that! I looked lower on the shelf, and there was Crest Complete Citrus Splash toothpaste! It called to me. I have always been a citrus-loving person, and the idea of a toothpaste that did not taste like mint intrigued me. I had to find out. I purchased it.

Then, of course, my current toothpaste didn’t run out for like another month! This is the danger of those tubes that you don’t roll up like I was using. My dog even tried to eat the box the toothpaste was in during that month! Luckily, he was unsuccessful.

Anyway, I finally got to try it and, uh, wow. That was a mistake.

The taste is okay. It’s kind of like a watered-down orange soda? There’s nothing wrong with it. It is inoffensive on that front, and I am certainly going to use the whole tube. But I just didn’t consider how strong the mental connection of “Mint=Clean” is. It feels extremely wrong to brush my teeth with this stuff. Not to mention that, moments after I brush my teeth, I am normally using some minty mouthwash, which just kind of kills the orange taste in my mouth anyway. Add all this up, and realize that it’s not like I hate the taste of mint or anything, and I just really don’t see why I would need this sort of flavored toothpaste.

This has been one of my most boring posts to date! Stay tuned tomorrow, where I write about my experiences with a new brand of freezer bag! (Not really.)