This is Cheyenne. I generally call her Kitty. You'll see reference to her here, on Twitter , and Facebook as The Stripey One, or Stripey for short. She was my first non-imaginary or non-fish pet and I love her, even though she's stand-offish and prefers to stare at you from across the room or attack your feet from underneath the bed. I spent the first year experimenting on what people food Cheyenne would eat. Surprisingly, she eats a lot of people food. This includes pineapple. With the feeding of people food, Stripey developed a people mindset. This is the only explanation I have for her hatred of cat collars. When we got her from Animal Rescue League, they already had a collar on her with a huge tag. It was bigger than her. I replaced it with a different collar which she pulled off with her teeth. Teeth. If you have a cat with a collar and an ID tag, go take a look at the location of the tag in relation to your cat's mouth. Go ahead, I'll wait. ... Welcome

Zombie Thursdays is a weekly feature with guest blogger, Miranda. You can read more about her here . This week on Zombie Thursday I bring you another musical selection! I’ve been anxious to share this one in particular because I find it absolutely hilarious, and hope that you will too. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of you have already heard this song or others by the very cool and talented Jonathan Coulton! Mr. Coulton is a singer/songwriter who in 2005 left his day job as a software programmer to pursue music full time. What initially came from this endeavor was a project called “Thing a Week.” He literally wrote and released a new song every single week for a year! That’s fifty-two songs in one year. Very impressive considering some bands can’t even release an album of ten songs in over five years. Now, his songs are not all about zombies and horror and death. Most are about geeky, nerdy things as he is a self-proclaimed geek (referring to, of course, someone who i

Work has exploded all over my desk again, so this was not the blog I was planning for today. (Maybe this is the blog gods way of telling me to blog ahead of time? I didn't think so either.) Confession time: I work for a big publishing house. Before you get all excited, no I can't help you with that. I'm not anywhere near the book end of things at said house. I work in sales. As an admin. As far away from literature as possible. I'm in the technology division. In the technology division, I do such wonderful things as learn about new products and get software installed on my desktop here. I get advance notice of some things and have sometimes even get freebies from the book-side of things. (Also, I walk to work - how awesome is that?) I spend more time than I ever imagined in Excel, but I rarely get to use my creative streak. That's been changing. Last month, I got to wear my editor hat and help out the marketing department. Today I get to use the writer hat

You've seen the stares. The strategically placed cat toy. You know what your cat is thinking. You're not alone in this, as my cats think the same thing. I took a quiz to see if the cats were plotting my demise, and it turns out that they are. It explains why Stripey won't let me trim her claws and why The White One races me to the bathtub. I'm on to you kitties. I know your plan. I will prevail. Cat owners, is your cat working with mine to kill and overtake the world?

You know it's bad when you read a letter from your imaginary daughter's teacher and have the urge to tighten up the language. I have more important things to do than edit Beth's emails. (Like the eight submissions I have to edit and critique.) Subject: Team fundraiser Hello parents, Tomorrow your children will be learning about our upcoming team fundraising event to benefit Good Friends located in Islanda .  Good Friends is a therapeutic riding facility for disabled children and adults.  We will be selling assorted rubber duckies during lunch periods on February 10th and 11th. Information about this fundraiser is posted on my eBoard as well as the team eBoard.  We are looking for parent and student volunteers to assist us.  If you can come in for an hour or so, please fill out the parent volunteer form that has been posted and send it in with your child as soon as possible.  If your child is interested, they should fill out a student volunteer form and return that

  Alicia's Week in Review Image compliments of verydemotivational.com My brain is fried after an extremely busy week. To be fair, it's been a busy week since January 1. (Who knew that the sales cycle picks up after the holidays?) Monday Holiday. Birthday lunch with good friend and blog reader, D. Tuesday My work Monday - the busiest day of the week. Also trying to finalize a 3 day orientation schedule that by today completely got thrown out the window. Wednesday My actual birthday. New hire orientation at day job. This translates into "Alicia, please host the new hire." Downside: working on birthday. Upside: complimentary lunch. Birthday dinner with ICE CREAM. (I will always take ICE CREAM over cake. The exception, as always, is ICE CREAM cake. Take note.) Thursday Continuing new hire orientation. Today Completing new hire orientation plus wrapping up end of week stuff. Birthday dinner number two tonight. This time with Hubby. Through this a

Zombie Thursdays is a weekly feature with guest blogger, Miranda. You can read more about her here . I often watch horror films and think, what would it be like to really be in that situation? I have this thought more often when I watch zombie films. Most horror movies, however terrible and cheesy they are, focus on survival. Survival of the Final Girl, survival for the monsters/villains, and often even the survival of the franchise, because let’s face it-- is it really worth watching if there aren’t eight sequels and at least a remake/re-imagining or two? I always wonder what it would be like, what would I do? How would I fight to survive? Would I be able to get myself safely out of a horrific situation and lead a group of others to safety as well? To date, I have luckily never found myself in a situation with a psycho killer, supernatural or human (unless you count my creepy “neighbor,” but that’s a long story and not really zombie related). And sadly, I have not yet found my

It was brought to my attention that tomorrow is Squirrel Appreciation Day . I have mixed feelings about this, as I sort of fear a squirrel uprising where they will overtake the world. Yes, this is irrational, but I've seen the Eastern Gray Squirrel in action and it's not pretty. Reasons Squirrels Will Overtake The World 1. They're small enough that they can sneak into places and nibble on important wires. 2. They have aggressive tendencies, especially when it comes to feeding, that would help push squirrel power to the fore. 3. I believe that Harvard is doing experiments on them. 4. They're nests are indestructible. 5. They work in packs. And just like a sea of rats, there is no doubt that these little critters will. fuck. you. up.

When you ask someone who Edgar Allan Poe is, they'll usually respond back with The Raven. Maybe The Tell Tale Heart. (Coincidentally, Tell Tale Heart was my introduction to Poe back in elementary school when we went to see a performance of it. My pants were never the same.) With these dark and somewhat twisted works in mind, it's not surprising that this is the image we associate with Poe: somber expression and dark clothing. There's a reason why so many people don black and quote him, but I won't be getting into a discussion about whether or not quoting Poe is enough to make you Goth. Whether Poe makes you don the black eyeliner or not, gothards who believe it does are going to cry in despair when they see what was released by some guy named Cliff Krainik yesterday. It's Poe. In Technicolor. Poe. Sans moustache. Poe. Not looking miserable. Poe. Looking like any other writer of the time. Why is this so important? I'm not sure, but if Associated Pr

We're heat-waving in Boston with balmy 40 degree weather. That makes me think of spring and all the good things that come with it: sun, flowers, lawns, lawn decorations... Totally awesome, right? I'm not one for lawn decorations, even if they are tacky. (And if you've been following around, you know how much I love tacky decorations .) But there is something about the Gnome Be Gones assaulting the flamingo that just makes me laugh. It's in my non-professional opinion that they're trying to shove the entire bird in the hole. Like it? You too can have metal destroy plastic at Perpetual Kid .

Zombie Thursdays is a weekly feature with guest blogger, Miranda. You can read more about her here . Zombies are the coolest! I think I’ve made that point quite clear. But in reality... they are dangerous killing machines. As cool as it may seem to have a zombie hanging around your house, or chained up for your entertainment, that could lead to all sorts of deathly scenarios. When the zombie outbreak occurs (and I reiterate what many other publications have stated... *when* the outbreak occurs, not *if*) one must be absolutely prepared! I pulled out my copy of The Zombie Survival Guide because, after all, it claims to offer “complete protection from the living dead.” Rather than just summarize what all the different weapons are (since, by viewing this blog, I am assuming that you know how to read and therefore can see the book for yourself), I wanted to see how I would personally stack up in a world full of zombies! First up, we deal with the lack of weapons. Hand-to-hand comb

I'm seeing the ultimate of my fangirl crushes tonight. The understatement of the month would be saying I was excited. I might even summon up the courage to tell Wednesday that this was my birthday present to me. I'm pretty sure they will be playing this since it's what the tour is for: It took me a couple of listens before I really got into it since it was such a departure from the horrorpunk sound I've always associated with Wednesday 13, but Gunfire 76 sounds a lot like the non-growly music I listen to. It's another busy day at the office. If you liked the video, go to their MySpace page to listen to the rest of the album while I'm doing that 9-5 thing. Then, come back here and leave a comment.

Bradford Literary had in their Twitter feed yesterday a cannibal quiz. So, of course I had to check it out. It's about twelve no brain questions and ate up maybe 5 minutes tops. I taste like mesquite chicken. [Update 2/6/10: after retaking it, I now taste like undercooked chicken. Something my uncle Bob knows a thing about.] It's a sick quiz, but still funny. Of course, this had me wonder if this applies to what humans taste like to zombies, if they still had taste buds. I'm sure this is something that our resident zombie expert could answer. I'm thinking that I might taste like mesquite chicken to zombies as well as cannibals. Go take the quiz over at  Recipe Star and then come back and tell me what you would taste like.

Today is shaping up to be as busy as last Tuesday , so again I'm letting the fangirl take over. You're getting a different version of Wednesday 13 as I gear up for the Gunfire 76 show on Wednesday. (Yes, I'm seeing Wednesday on a Wednesday and it's the 13th. I think this is a sign for things to come.) This video is from his band Murderdolls. I found them while browsing through Newbury Comics waiting for Hubby to finish up whatever he was doing. The band name intrigued me and when I saw the album title plus the song listings, I was in love. (This turns out to be not a very effective way to go music shopping. I have had some extreme misses. Will blog about that later.) Anyway, this is their cover of Billy Idol's White Wedding. Enjoy. Thanks Metal Video!

Wednesday was the throwback to the teens day it seems. First, Nathan Bransford's You Tell Me and then YA Highway does their road trip back to teen writing . So while digging out the photos Thursday night, I also unearthed the journals. The thing you should know about me and journaling is that I've never done it right. I usually did the laundry list or spewed tons of hostility onto the page that never creeps out my pie hole. (And after reading a few entries from early 10th grade, be glad that it hasn't.) After a while, I would get bored. Number of journals I've tried to keep and ultimately failed: 3. The longest time that I kept a journal: 10 months. During this 10 month span, I managed to complete almost two volumes in neon pen with my overly large D'Nealian cursive. It was these journals that I pulled out last night. I found notes from my two best friends in high school plus little souvenirs from shows, trips, and anything related to boys I crushed on. The

Or will be on today. Subject: Upcoming events Hello and Happy New Year ! I just wanted to take the opportunity to keep you informed of upcoming events.  This Friday , we will be completing a lab on protists.  Live protists are on order and the children will have the opportunity to view them under the microscope.  Our S B Nature Center in school visit is scheduled for Monday, January 11th .  This coincides beautifully with the beginning of our study of vertebrate animals . There will be a quiz on Friday, January 15th covering classification and invertebrate animals . Warm regards, B. Fisher I had no idea what Beth was talking about in regards to protists so I had to look it up. But now I'm powered with a little more biological knowledge. (It also turns out that I had looked at these little buggers under a microscope once upon a time.) I hope that Phantasma doesn't get  Tessa Wolstein as her lab partner. The odds of a fight happening between the two are pretty high.

On Wednesday, number 1 agent crush, Nathan Bransford, blogged asking us about favorite books and worst outfit/ style as a teenager. Over 300 people shared their books and their now-horrifying, once-cool hairstyle and/ or outfit. I'll admit right now to reading every single comment and clicking through to the pictures. This got me a little nostalgic. So last night instead of working on FALLING TO NORMAL, I poured over old pictures to scan and upload. (Old = 1993 - 2004ish.) I think I might do a couple of posts over the next few weeks showcasing some of them, but right now it's all about the bad teen hair and fashion sense. For your viewing horror, I present the three worst on-profane pictures of me from the teen years. I hated my straight hair and wanted it curly. Don't mock; it was a trend. Back then, I wanted to be trendy. We couldn't afford for me to go get my hair permed so my mother bought a DIY kit. You can see the awesome end result here. Complete with hu

Zombie Thursdays is a weekly feature with guest blogger, Miranda. You can read more about her here .   Zombies are social creatures. The undead, much like their living human counterparts, thrive on interaction with one another. They walk, er... shuffle, together. Some special zombies even run together. They eat together; they go on hunting trips together. Together. What a close bond of friendship zombies share! Now of course there are those few zombies who end up being loners. They go out on their own, try avoiding their friends. But what ends up happening to those? They get shot. In the head. And die. Again... The moral of the story is, zombies, like living breathing people, need to stick together. They need to hang out. Alone, they will die. Just like being alone, humans will die at the mouths of zombies. But there has to be more to life than just chasing humans, eating humans, and hunting zombies, then killing zombies. And there has to be some middle ground for the living and th

Phantasma has been shelved to later this week, because I have a more important entry today. My friend Dana is going into surgery tomorrow for a kidney transplant that wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for her sister, but I'll let her tell you the rest: Dear friends, For those of you who know me well, know that I received a new heart in July of 2000. To make an incredibly long story short, I was born with a heart problem and after years of multiple surgeries to "correct" the problem, my heart finally gave up and said I'm done. If it were not for the untimely death of a 14 year old Tennessee girl and her incredibly generous family, I would not have survived the summer. Cut to this past August, when my doctor told me that my kidneys weren't functioning very well and I need to see a specialist. The Nephrologist told me that I was in End Stage Renal Failure and that a transplant was imminent. The failure was caused by a few factors, mostly from the an

Today at the office is shaping up to be busier than yesterday, if that's possible, so I don't have time for an in-depth blog. Instead, to sate the fangirl in me, I'm giving you a Wednesday 13 video from the album Fang Bang. I love this video. I love Wednesday 13. Each time I see them live, it makes me more driven to complete my various writing projects. You're probably asking, "why?" Because there's a 2 year age difference between Wednesday and me. He's toured the world; I can definitely get agented. Would I be able to vocalize this if he was standing in front of me? Hell no. I would stare and stutter like a jack ass. Or I would be totally lame and say "you're awesome." (I have done this to Joe Perry each time I've met him. Alicia = lame at witty comments.) So this fangirl will stay away from speaking to musicians for their benefit and my face-saving. For tomorrow, I can talk about Stripey or Phantasma. What would you like t

I gave up doing New Year's Resolutions a long time ago because I never had the commitment to follow through with whatever it was I resolved not to do like eating ice cream for breakfast.* Why bother resolving yourself into action because everyone else on the planet is doing the same thing? Because of my history with them and because I find it pointless, I'm still not doing resolutions. Instead, I have come up with some goals. (I know that resolutions are comprised of goals, but humor me by thinking they aren't related. Thank you.) Goal making and I have a tumultuous affair and I never know how it will all turn out. I've been working on these goals for months a few weeks and while they're large in scale, there are baby steps in there. Today is the first time I'll be putting them in writing too. The logic is if I publicly announce them, I can be called on it. (I hope you do call me on them!) So while the drum roll goes off in my head, I present you with Ali