QotD: Ghost Story

Do you believe in ghosts? Have you ever seen a ghost?
Submitted by Nancy.

I believe in ghosts, but I also believe that if you are afraid of them, you will never see one. So, since I am afraid of ghosts, I will never see one.

While I haven’t seen them, several members of my family have, or have had spirits come to them in dreams.

My sister saw my father in a dream shortly after my father died. She dreamed that the two of them were doing all the fun things they did while he was alive. Boating. Driving in my dad’s Jeep. (Other things I don’t remember since it wasn’t me that it happened to.) The whole time they’re doing stuff, my father kept saying “I have to go. I have to go.” Finally she asked him “Why do you have to go? We’re having so much fun!” He said (and I’m probably paraphrasing here since it wasn’t my dream) that he couldn’t be there anymore, and that he had to go. I think that was the point that she realized that he was really dead and not coming back. A very powerful dream for a ten year old.

My mom says that she spoke to her mother once. She saw her and was frightened at first, then realized “Why am I afraid of my own mother?” then they had the chat that my grandma wanted them to have.

The ghostly encounter that freaks me out the most is the one my brother-in-law had. Right before he and my sister got married, he apparently had a dream that my dad was giving him the pre-wedding talking-to. “You better treat my daughter right” and all that. What spooks me out about that is that he never met my father – my dad had died about seven years before my sister even met her husband. He had seen pictures, and I’m sure my sister has told him a lot about our dad, but apparently the dream was pretty dead-on.

*shudder*

Good lord, that stuff freaks me out.

QotD: My First Kiss

Tell us about your first kiss. Who was it with? How old were you?

His name was Fin Madden. I was sixteen years old. I was so relieved that I had finally gotten kissed.

We met during a high school band exchange (he played clarinet, and I played bells and percussion, otherwise known as “toys and whistles, without the whistles”). After the official trips to each other’s towns with our respective school band (we lived about 4 hours apart), we spent a summer writing letters to each other and racking up our parents’ phone bills. (I paid my mom back for every single one of the calls I made.) We visited each other once that summer – he came to my house once and I went to his house once.

After his trip to my house, and hanging out with my family and friends, things began to fizzle. He suddenly wasn’t able to talk on the phone as much or for as long, and the letters got shorter. The timing of this was not lost on me. Finally, after a couple weeks of this, I finally phoned him and said “So, are we done?” I don’t remember his exact answer, but we were definitely done.

I’ve never seen or heard from him since.

Two good things I got out of this relatonship. Travelling to see him marked another first in my life – my first train trip taken alone, something I enjoy to this day. That train trip was also when I read one of my favourite books for the first time “The Robber Bride”, by Margaret Atwood.

Vox Hunt: It Makes Me Nostalgic

Show us something that makes you nostalgic.
Submitted by ngocaroo.

This is a picture of my family that was taken when I was four or five years old, so it was 1982 or 1983 (remind me to ask my mom sometime – isn’t that awful that I’m not sure!). My dad, Marty is holding my sister Kyla, and I’m sitting next to my mom, Faye. I even had that huge toothy grin then.

This picture makes me nostalgic cuz it feels like a completely different life. My father died 15 years ago, and while I was old enough to remember him for the rest of my life, the details get fuzzy sometimes, and that makes me sad.

My mom told me once that I would have gotten along with my father really well if he had known me as an adult. I was just heading into TeenageGirlLand when he died (just before I turned 13), so I was probably becoming pretty weird to him. I just wish I could have found out.

This is a picture taken on my wedding day. Kyla was my matron of honour, and my mom Faye and my stepdad Doug hosted the reception at their home.

I’ve only been married since June 2004, so this picture doesn’t make me nostalgic yet, but it does show the passage of time, and how things can change so quickly.

I love my stepdad very much, but sometimes I just wish my father had been there too.

I’m tired of this domain name. After over five years of owning geeKsuperstar.org, I don’t feel that I connect with it anymore. I feel like I have to hide it from most people – family and coworkers in particular. I’ve never made a big deal about the site, but I’ve never liked explaining the meaning of “geeKsuperstar” to people. It means something to me, I just don’t want to explain it.

As everyone and the dog gets more interesting in blogs, either opening one themselves or reading others, I don’t like publicizing mine. A way to get around this could be to write under a pseudonym, but I’ve always felt for me, that that would be dishonest. I’ve also always liked the idea of someone Googling my name, finding my site and dropping me an email. There are a lot of people from my past I would love to say hello to, but I have no way of knowing where they are, or who they are now. So I put myself out there, rather than contact other people.

I love having a personal website. However, it’s been really neglected for close to three years – really since I started working at my current job. My job is much more job-like now, and I don’t have time to update here multiple times a day like I used to. Even once a day is hard cuz I don’t always like turning on the computer once I get home – I’ve sat at a computer all day at work, why would I want to do that all night at home too, even if it is for a project that is all mine?

I want to buy a new domain. I even know what domain name I want. Problem, is, I can’t seem to find the cash to purchase it among all the other things that one needs to purchase. I’m also afraid that if I purchase it, I still won’t update and that it won’t be worth my money.

I’ve said to myself that I would buy the name in the new year, no matter what my credit card statement looks like. I really like having an outlet that’s my own, and I want to continue it.

Now that I’ve put this in writing, I hope that I will commit to it. I should probably do the truly geeky thing and put a reminder in my email or something “January 1st, 2006 – buy new domain – start new internet life!” Or something like that.

Edited to add: I had forgotten that I had posted an entry with similar content that never got published. At least my thought pattern is consistent.

happy new year!

It’s not that nothing has been happening, it’s more like I’ve been too busy to talk about any of it.

Lots of things have happened!

  1. I learned to knit, and after showing my first project to both Sean’s and my mothers, they were quite impressed. It was supposed to be a dishcloth (since it is basically a square of straight knitting), but I decided I should keep my first project nice so I don’t know what to do with it yet. Ideas are welcome. My next two projects are already planned – another square (but this one will sit on my aromatherapy cabinet), and a scarf that probably won’t be finished until spring time.

  2. I got a new tooth! No, I’m not still teething, but I have a crown where one of my front teeth used to be. Actually the front tooth is still there, just underneath the crown, and filed down to fang-width. This was done because old Chomper was hit with a baseball when I was 11 and the resulting root canal and bleaching resulted in a gray tooth years after the bleaching wore off. The new tooth looks very real, and I’m very happy with both my dentist and the dental lab that made the crown for me. Hooray for them!

  3. My sister and her sweetie moved into their new house at the end of November. I helped move them and bought them a duvet for their housewarming gift. They are still pleased with both house and gift nearly 6 weeks later, so I assume all is well. She hosted some of the family Christmas festivities, which were very nice, but that will take some getting used too. Fortunately, I’ve turned my house-envy into constructive work in my apartment. I’ve been organizing, cleaning and tossing things out like crazy. I also stencilled my bathroom cupboards and bought some new bathroom accessories to make my teeny-tiny bathroom more appealing. It worked cuz I like being in there more, so yay for that too.

  4. My next course (in Adobe Illustrator) starts early next week. I love working in Illustrator, so I’m really looking forward to improving my skills in it. Writing this has reminded me to check my grades for my other two courses, so hold on a sec…never mind, they aren’t posted yet, even though I finished both courses by the end of November. Bummer

  5. Christmas went well. Everyone was happy with what they gave and received, and that says something.

I don’t have any concrete resolutions, but lots of ideas on how to be better. So I guess just “be a better all-round person” is my resolution. Oh, and to post to this site more. Maybe a redesign will help. Hmm… ideas, ideas.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada
This work by Melissa Price-Mitchell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada.
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