Pickled Egg. (No, I'm serious.)

I don't know why this kind of thing happens to me. 

I was at the check-out line in Walmart with my groceries for the week, minding my own business, and then I saw It.

I don't even know if there are words for this.

That's right. A Pickled. Egg.

Frankly, it looks nightmarish. What was once a healthy snack or breakfast food has now irreparably become this half-squished, violently pink, ....thing.

I don't even know what to call it besides "scary beyond all reason".

Have any of you ever seen one of these?

Have any of you ever eaten one of these?

If so, don't tell me! Oh gosh I don' want to know! 

Archetypes and Vampires

Ok, so in my Dracula post, I mentioned that sparkly vampires don't "fit the archetype". I also said that I might go back and explain that sometime. I figured now was as good as any other time, so before I dive into the murky world of folklore vampires. let me just make sure no one has eaten recently.  If so, please take this opportunity to ensure that you have no problem with gory details.

What do I mean by "archetype"?

An archetype need not mean anything more than a repeated motif or pattern in stories and cultures from around the world. It is not bound by time or geography, and it doesn't change. For example, nearly every culture has  Trickster character, whether he be Tortoise, Fox, Raven, Coyote, or even Bre'r Rabbit (who comes from both African American and Cherokee stories).

Ok, so what do vampires have to do with archetypes?

The vampire of pop culture is smooth, sexy, immortal etc. He is also an embodiment of death, darkness, and dismemberment according to Guerin's "A Handbook of Critical Applications to Literature". That would be because he belongs to an archetypal group known as the Demon Lover. Cheerful sounding, isn't it? The Demon Lover archetype is the male counterpart to the femme fatale character, a classic example of appearances being deceiving. If I were to merely list the character traits of the Demon Lover, it's probably a pretty safe bet that the first characters you'd think of would be vampires. That's Bram Stoker's doing, you can thank him for Twilight. 

Here's the thing, though: the stories about vampires are far older than Stoker, or even John Polidori's short tale The Vampyre (which is most likely the first portrayal of the vampire as the demon lover in fiction). Tales of vampirism in Eastern Europe can be found even in the 17th century, and they certainly didn't sparkle or say "Bleh, bleh bleh!"

If a typical vampire of folklore, not fiction, were to come to your house this Halloween, you might open the door to encounter a plump Slavic fellow with long fingernails and a stubbly beard, his mouth and left eye open, his face ruddy and swollen. He wears informal attire--in fact, a linen shroud--and he looks for all the world like a disheveled peasant.

-Paul Barber, "Vampires, Burial, and Death", page 2 

Gross-out Warning now in effect

Just in case you're still thinking "Vampire=Pretty", this is a list of some of the common "symptoms" of  vampiric corpses...and the reasons behind them.

Keep in mind, during these early centuries, medical and scientific knowledge were limited.

1. His hair and nails are still growing! When bodies start to decay, the skin pulls back from the follicles and cuticles, making them appear to be longer. 

2. The body is not stiff! Rigor mortis is a temporary state: the body isn't supposed to stay like that.

3. There's fresh blood around the mouth! Okay, there's two different reasons for this one. In some cases, it was acid from the stomach leaking and making blood come out the mouth. In other instances, the blood in the mouth could be from leftover symptoms of tuberculosis, which I'm fairly certain was incurable back then. 

4. He's plumper and redder than ever! Uh, no. No he's not. That's the gases of decomposition swelling him up like a balloon, and there's a fair chance that he might explode. (all together now, EWWWW!)

5. We dug him up and he didn't even smell bad! Ok, first of all, why would you even do that?! What are you, ghouls?! Second of all, I refer you to the account of Pitton de Tournefort from the beginning of the 18th century in Greece.  Mass hysteria led to the claims that the body had no odor, even when the medical staff were so overwhelmed by the noxious stench that they had to burn incense, which only made it worse.

Gross-out Warning ends here

Now that we've endured those lovely descriptions, do vampires still sound like Prince Charming? I should very well hope not, but that is unrealistic. The fact is that some authors are just going to keep writing vampires as something akin to a re-telling of Tam Lin. Vampires aren't scary anymore folks, they're just another inhabitant of Faerie--where we send all our folk heroes and domesticated monsters.

Adventures are Funny Things

ad·ven·ture: an exciting or very unusual experience.

I'd say many parts of my life qualify as "exciting or very unusual" experiences. Take, for instance, what happened to me a few hours ago. I was down in the deep woods with my dad.

By "deep woods", what I mean is, "Take a flashlight and a weapon, because once the sun goes down there is NO LIGHT".

Don't be fooled by the pretty forest: it's out to get you. You know those trees that looked so inviting and surreal while you headed in? Well they're just waiting until the sun goes down so they can turn into that opening scene from Jurassic Park.

I'm joking, there were no Velociraptors. I had a lot of fun just being down there with my dad. (If you read this, Dad, thanks for taking me!) 

Also, the trees aren't really out to get you. 

Unless you're an arsonist, in which case I suggest hiring a lumberjack bodyguard.

I spent several hours in a deerstand, just watching nature. I got to see four does (one still a fawn), eight turkeys (notoriously hard to sneak up on, apparently), and two reeeeeally big spiders. (Could've done without the spiders.) Also, I learned that when you hear a flock of ducks quacking at high speed from a great distance, it sounds like maniacal laughter. Or maybe I'm just weird. That is a distinct possibility.

After the sun went down, we ended up hiking back up to the truck in pitch darkness with only one flashlight. Yay? Tell you what though, you can see more stars out there than you can in the city. I felt like a nincompoop for staring at the sky thinking, "Where's Ursa Major again?" My brain got to redeem itself later.

We were driving away, and we had to stop suddenly because a smallish animal was sitting in the middle of the dirt road. At first I thought it was a cat because of the size, but then it moved and it was very clearly not a cat. It was, in fact, a Barred Owl (Strix Varia: I looked it up) and I was unreasonably proud of myself for being able to correctly identify it.

So, yeah. Adventures. Had any of your own, recently?

Thoughts on Dracula

I've been trying to read Bram Stoker's Dracula for about five or sixth months now. Note that I said "trying". Every so often, I'll have to put the book down because it's time for another "Erin-is-grossed-out" break. Can I just say that I really dislike vampires? And I'm not talking about the sparkly ones, those don't even fit the archetype. (more on that later) (maybe). The first time I ever tried to read the classic book, it was a word-for-word adaption into a graphic novel. I was eleven years old. 

Can anyone guess how I reacted? If you said "She freaked out and threw the book down", you're probably right! (I think that's what happened, but I don't exactly remember). Going back and reading it as an adult meant that I was able to pick up on a lot more than "This is the Count, he drinks peoples' blood, he just killed this person!" Reading it as an adult meant that I could see how popular culture has domesticated the vampire.

The vampire of Bram Stoker's work is charming, of course, and handsome in his own way, just like most pop culture vampires. Here's where he's different from most of them though: he's absolutely, irrevocably evil. Even the sight of something with connotations of holiness pains him and drives him away! He's not nice, he's not misunderstood, and he most certainly does not sparkle! He's an icky, tricky, master of deceit. Popular culture can't handle that, it would seem. Ghosts have been pushed down to the level of Casper, Frankenstein's monster is a big old softie, and the Wolfman just wants to be scratched behind the ears. If we can't handle something, we tend to change it into something that suits us better. They wanted Dracula's charm and immortality, but not his unadulterated darkness. So they sugarcoated him, dusted him with glitter, and market vampires to teenagers.

This probably would never have come up if I hadn't decided to write a literary criticism paper on Stoker's book. Or maybe I'm just tired of seeing all the Twilight derivatives flooding the shelves of bookstores. Take your pick, I've got some garlic with their names on it.

Aside from the vampires, though, I find myself genuinely enjoying most of the book. The way that Stoker writes really keeps you guessing sometimes. Since it's completely in the form of letters, journal entries, and newspaper articles, the reader never knows more than the characters in the story do. Bram Stoker builds up suspense in such a way that by the third or fourth chapter, I was feeling as claustrophobic as Jonathan Harker! I also love the way he writes language. If someone speaks in a different accent, he writes it out phonetically so you have a pretty good idea of what it sounds like. If you end up with a different accent just be reading something out-loud and phonetically, I think that's pretty cool.

All that being said, I still haven't finished the book. (Spoilers) A certain someone is a vampire now, and I don't want to be there when that vampire is...dealt with.

The World Optic live: Superstition/Funky Music

My Life in a Sitcom

During my sophomore year, the crowd I hung out with was almost exclusively made up of senior guys. I would sit with them nearly every lunch time, because my sister had a lot of lunch classes and we didn't get to see each other very often.

One time, I was sitting with them, and my brother was joking that he was the token black guy in the sitcom, after I'd made a comment somewhere along the lines of "my life is too weird to be reality." Then this happened.

Yep.

I was that token girl character in the sitcom who is supposed to be the voice of reason and roll her eyes at weird comments. Except for the part where I didn't. Except for the part where I learned to be just as weird.

Welcome to college life: may it never be boring.

The Dreaded Quote Wall

At some point in your life, have you ever thought to yourself, "I can't believe I/she/he/they just said that!" and wished you could write it down for posterity?

I did. As I have told my friends and family for at least two years, I evidently live in a sitcom. Therefore, the things I hear on a daily basis must be seen to be believed. That's why I began "The Quote Wall". There are far too many things on it for just one post, so I'll probably just put up 10 quotes at a time.

Make of these what you will, they're usually taken best without context.

I am not responsible for any insanity that may occur after reading these.

1. "When your stomach sounds like a jet plane coming in for a landing, that's bad, right?"

2. "No, sis. You may not fire your pinky toe."

3. "My mouth! My braiiiiin! This must be a form of Hades: spicy ice cream."

4. "Murder is never age appropriate!"

5. "I said form of Hades! Not dorm of Hades!"

6. "Yeah? Well at least my mom has a face!"

7. "Either these jeans are very slimming, or my legs are shaped weird."

8. "Y'know, if we were dumber people, that would be really awesome!"

9. "All's fair in love and murder." (Actually, my mom said that, watching me chase my older brother through the kitchen with a rolling pin after he stole something from my plate. Word to the wise: don't steal my food.)

10. "Ah, I fold. I know you, you probably don't have anything, but you're crazy!"

This is stuff I hear all the time. You never know what's going to show up on The Quote Wall.

The Beginning

I am a human being.

Look directly at me in the sunlight, and you'll probably see an average young woman from the South with short blonde curls and wide blue eyes.

Look a little closer, and you might think I look like the stereotypical damsel-in-distress from a 1940s movie. (I've been told that I have a quality somewhat approaching retro innocence about me)

Stand near enough to hear me speak, however, and the previous ideas may die a horrible death.
I can be excruciatingly bizarre.

What can I say? I cannot safely place myself in one personality stereotype or another. One day, I'll look and act the part of the 1940s woman, then next I'll wear my Skyrim shirt and talk Transformers with my friends.

I named this blog "Apparently Unexpected", because I have accidentally shocked one or two people by saying the strangest things at possibly inopportune times.

Expect no sanity on this blog: we're all mad here.