Squeaking In A Rant

It's nearing midnight. I have to type fast in order to get this post done before the day is up and someone points out how I dropped the ball. Kidding. No one is paying that close of attention. Still, I set personal goals and like to stick to them.

The reason for the last post is my desire to rearrange furniture late in the evening. At eight, I thought I'd do a little bit of cleaning. Three and a half hours later, I'm exhausted and wondering if this was really an appropriate day to spend my Saturday evening. Yeah, it is. Because I'm an adult. And it's my responsability to clean and crap.

Fine, I am not being very eloquent with my words. If you're expecting easy, breezy and beautiful, you best pick up a magazine and check out the latest cover girl. On a side note, Cover Girl fired Ellen? Why is this news? Even more, why are we so fixated on what celebrities look like without their makeup? Who really cares? I mean, anyone with a handful of brain cells knows celebrities don't even look like celebrities. 

It's called photoshop. You too can look manufactured and flawless. But if you think about it, isn't being flawless kind of a big flaw? 

Personally, I think either way she's beautiful, but I would really love to see some more realistic women out there on television and on covers of magazines. Can you imagine a world with cellulite, stretch marks and *gasp* muffin top? I can. It's called my life. And most of your lives too. 

Anyhow, the rant part? It comes from being angry with Facebook and Google. Pretty much one of the same. And I only have ten minutes to spit this out. So, here we go. 

I have been wanting to drop the 'That Girl' persona for awhile now. I've outgrown it and I want to make something just a little bit more me. You can probably tell what I've gone with if you're reading this because my entire blog is completely different. Well, my twitter, tumblr, YouTube, Instagram and everything else has changed too. Trust me, it was far too much work to do. 

So, what's the problem? 

Well, the problem is that there are two things I can't change because I don't have the power to do so. The URL on my YouTube account and my Facebook fan page's name. I hate having my freedoms limited in these ways. There are no reasonable reasons why this would be something I couldn't do, except maybe Facebook and Google (the jerks!) want to hold some sort of control over me. Are we in a power struggle that I didn't know about?

Like I know I don't make a billion dollars a year, or more, but I would like to just do what I want to do with my stuff. Okay, fine, it technically isn't MY stuff, it belongs to Google and Facebook, but I like to pretend my fan page and YouTube account are my own. I effing hate these sorts of restrictions. 

After a little more thought, I have come to the conclusion that social media isn't for me. As someone who hates restrictions, I can't handle all these limitations, which all seem pointless to little old me, who just wants everything to be uniform. 

Big sigh. And two minutes until midnight! Win. 

M Is For Midnight

Not too long ago, I was conversing with a friend, and we got on the subject of 'the witching hour'. No, not the book, the term. While I thought the witching hour meant midnight, she thought it was three in the morning. After a bit of research (meaning googling), I discovered that I was right. So, I did a little dance and one or two fist pumps, then reported back to her. Even though I was correct, three AM is also an important time. This is often called the Devil's hour, as opposed to three in the afternoon, which is said to be when Jesus was crucified.

That said, I don't know if 3 PM is considered Jesus' hour or not. 

But why is midnight referred to as the witching hour? 

Well, it's though to be the time of day when supernatural creatures, like werewolves, ghosts, demons, are thought to appear. Not only that, but the rumour tells us this is the hour in which they are most powerful. It is also said to be a time when black magic is most effective. 

And while I was right about the specific hour, people often use the term 'witching hour' whenever they refer to a time when there is a higher chance of bad luck. 

So, where did this term come from? 

Well, we can thank Washington Irving's short story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow for that. This story was published in 1820 and uses the terms 'witching hour' and 'witching time' interchangeably. Both are used to reference midnight. Of course, we all know about the story of Sleepy Hollow and the headless horseman, if not for this story, then because Johnny Depp portrayed a bumbling and queasy Ichabod Crane in Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. 

And who can forget Christopher Walken as the headless horseman? I mean, the dude only had his head for all of a minute and a half, but the image is imprinted on my memory. Talk about pretty smiles.

To me, there has never been anything scary about midnight. While some people view it as the end of the day, I tend to think of it as the beginning of a new one. In a way, it almost calms me. Usually it's quiet, almost peaceful. Not many people are out. There's no traffic. It's just a nicer time of night. 

No wonder all the monsters choose this time to come out and play. Less humans to be annoyed by.