I am back. And hoo boy, do I have entries galore to put up. I'll probably string 'em out over the next few days so as to give you more to read, plus I'm trying to NOT leave the house and have fun this week (so I won't spend more money), so this'll give me something else to do.

Okay. How the hell do I begin this?

Some of y'all have known me online for awhile now. Or have met me in person. Or have no idea who I am, but got bored and clicked on the link someplace. If you're not the latter, you probably thought I was relatively normal, huh? Well, okay, not normal per se, but perhaps fairly conventional. Or um, not freakishly unusual.

Folks, this entry and some of the ones after it are um, going to upset some sensibilities. I am fully aware that at least some people Will Not Approve. And that many of y'all will think people in this story, including me, are smoking crack. (Amazingly, I am sotally tober.) Believe me, I have heard it before. Please don't e-mail me to complain or preach, as it is unlikely that you will change my mind. Just go click the back button and disappear and try not to worry your pretty little head about the disturbing things you've read. Thanks.

For those of you that are left, gee, was that enough suspense-building for ya?

Anyway. I'm going to start this. Really I am. Welcome to the train wreck! (Okay, maybe I don't qualify quite yet, but I may be shooting in that direction for pure drama...)

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The first thing you have to understand here is this: Strange things happen to me. Not often (most of the time), but sometimes. When I started writing the beginning of my NaNoWriMo novel, I wrote the prologue based on some of the weird experiences I have had. Like the time my grandmother's ghost attended her memorial service, and my mom and I were the only ones to notice. Or the time I made a really unlikely wish and it came true the next night- what a Wiccan friend of mine once upon a time called "manifesting." Or the billions of times I've had some kind of intuition about something and it's happened. With some teachers I could predict pretty easily who would get called on, or at least to the area where they were looking. And I knew for years before my dad got sick that he would get sick somehow after he turned 50. And let's face it, when I start getting paranoid about something, it always turns out that I had good reason for my paranoia.

I never really did anything about this ... whatever it was. Or at least, I couldn't, really. I bought up the occasional spellbook (Mom didn't mind. She's really a conventional person, but she's never objected to this kind of thing, which makes me wonder about her.) and tried some spells, but they never worked. And growing up, of course I didn't know anyone who'd ever done spells/witchcraft/what have you, and my parents didn't get the Internet until my senior year of high school, and at any rate they chased me off the computer pretty often.

College wasn't all that much better. I had the one Wiccan friend, Zoe, who wasn't all that much into explanation or teaching as far as I could tell. She'd talk about manifesting spells, or this one or that one she'd done to catch a guy's interest (they worked, oh did they work), and she took me to a Wiccan retreat and to a couple of rituals, but we never really talked about power or anything like that. And while hanging around with her I met more Wiccan folks, we didn't really make lasting connections, if you know what I mean.

So anyway, where I left y'all last was us going out for Chinese. I bet you didn't think that was a suspenseful stopping point, but it was. Because this was the point where Scott felt comfortable enough with me to declare me "family" (I don't think I can explain that one in great detail, but I think it amounts to people he's simpatico with) to start telling me stuff. And oh, the stuff. Plenty of personal stuff, sure, but also that he was a druid. With um, actual magical mental powers.

(Just another reminder here that none of us in this story was smoking any crack, drinking any booze, or on any severely mind-altering medication.)

Apparently it was hereditary, as his grandmother had started teaching him how to do stuff at the age of three. He does have a coven, which Demma (among others) is in, and he's teaching her how to do stuff. I had never known Demma to be particularly into trying magic before (not that she mentioned to me, anyway. She has been known to not mention quite a lot of things), but I wasn't exactly surprised given her love of things Celtic/Renaissance/vampire/fantasy, etc. It all goes together, doesn't it? Stuff he mentioned was mainly reading rune stones, going into people's dreams and mind reading, the latter two of which sparked some interesting conversations between him and Demma at the table (her: "Don't go into my mind or you'll find out your Christmas/birthday presents!"). Honestly, I have no idea how he does the mind reading (I did not get up the nerve to ask, since I suspect this is one of those things that comes from years of experience), I'll let you know if I ever find out. I was tempted to try an experiment of "Okay, what number am I thinking of?" or something, but eventually did not ask because it just sounded too tacky. At any rate, I found out stuff later.

Scott's assessment of me (I don't think I had mentioned this earlier) was that he could tell I had power, but it was starting to erode (oh crap). He said that this sort of thing needed to be worked on with others, and that spells don't work if you cast them alone- you need help, I guess. Which (a) explains a LOT, and yet (b) is infuriating when you want to cast a spell without assistance, especially when you're not so stocked on the Wiccans living around you these days. I mentioned something about tarot cards (which I own a few packs of and have tried to do readings, but everything is off when I do it), and he said he could check that.

After those revelations, we then went off to the movies, as they hadn't seen Monsters Inc. and were dying to see it. (I caved.) As you perhaps saw before, I still thought Boo was totally adorable, and I remember distinctly thinking during that time, "I want one!" I meant of Boo herself, since she's a damn cute kid, not that I wanted a kid of my own, though.

So we go home and I dig up one of my tarot decks, and he gives me some advice on how to do it (don't put tarot cards on the table directly, put them out on cloth, readings apply to you for about six weeks unless you specify otherwise, use these as a starter deck and get nicer ones later, it's good to get cards as a gift, etc.), then has me do a layout, read one of my books and tell him what I think each card means, then he tells me what he thinks it means. For the curious, my cards were The Sun (past), Temperance (present), the ace of swords (hidden influences), King of Wands (advice) and Queen of Pentacles (possible outcome).

Honestly, I was just not doing at all well with this (in MY opinion). I'd look in the book and read a bunch of one-word suggestions and then come out with something like "Okay, this is indicating that in the past, everything was going well, I had a good job, everything was fine and happy." Then HE would come out with this very long, very accurate and profoundly deep analysis of what was going on with me. I mean, holy crap, comparing me to THAT... I will VERY generally summarize what he said in total as (a) things were good, (b) then it all came crashing down, lack of boyfriend, then you thought the job (I got a promotion in August) was going to go well, and it was just so-so, then started going downhill, (c) this is the time where you get forged into a better person, though you may have to do crap jobs for now, (d) you'd better learn to become more optimistic, trust, etc. (same thing everyone tells me- though I have to admit that I have yet to be convinced by anyone's argument that being trusting and optimistic brings good into my life. So far um, it hasn't worked even close to that way and this is why I am cynical), and (e) if all of the good things come to pass and you direct it that way, you can end up having a good job/good boyfriend again.

Folks, it gets even odder, if you can believe that at this point- just in a different direction. Because after Demma went to sleep, Scott and I ended up talking. He invited me into the coven, which I accepted (I have been in need of a teacher, obviously). And then, um... well, I'll summarize it as we ended up with what's commonly known as a "friends with benefits" relationship.

Yes, I know I just made myself sound like total sleaze. It ain't quite like it sounds. In other words, guess who else has a poly relationship? Surprised me a bit, though I don't recall Demma having a problem with my having one in the past (our other high school friend Anna, on the other hand... if she ever goes poly I will laugh and laugh and laugh). As it was told to me, the two of them both make out and possibly more with other folks from time to time, but only have that kinda sex with each other/are primaries. They don't do that in front of each other/talk about it all that much, but yes, she does know and doesn't have a problem with that. Scott and I are not gonna get married, folks. At any rate (remember that mindreading bit?), I guess he picked up on the bit about Boo during the movie and is now convinced that I want kids, and he can't have any. Thus he wants to find me a decent fellow who can or something. (I really couldn't convince him otherwise on the kids score. Sigh.) Well, if he finds one I like, perhaps. I dunno how that'll go, though (more on that later). At any rate, I'm really not much of a girl with casual affections, so this isn't er, going to go very far.

I have, however, been so frozen on the coupling scheme of things for ages that it was like I had to be broken in again. (I hadn't kissed anyone since January.) So breaking in is fine, but it's not going further than that. And since neither of us drives, this is likely to be occasional at best. Which is just fine by me.

He tried a dream spell kind of thing on me at the end of the night, but alas, we went to bed (not together) at around 3 a.m. and I was way too awake after that. Drat, I was curious to see if that would work. There will be more tomorrow, folks, just you wait. And guess what-- it's going to involve tawdryness and tackiness! Whee!

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