Annabelle.

I'm not sure if I ever recorded my thoughts on last year's haunted-house movie The Conjuring, but in case I didn't I'll sum it up here: it was half of a good movie.

(The first half, to be precise - the 70s vibe was funky, the haunting was creepy, and the characters weren't horrible. Buuuut then we got old grandma leaping off a wardrobe like Spider-Man and the super casual glossing over of "oh, the original house owner was a witch who KILLED HER BABY FOR SATAN and hung herself" and I was just done.)

In the film, our first introduction to our 'demonologists' is when two 20-something girls are explaining that they are being terrorized by a haunted doll. Apparently someone thought that this was scary enough to warrant its own movie despite the doll not being voiced by Brad Dourif.

Now, like The Conjuring and indeed The Amityville Horror, this movie - Annabelle - is supposedly based on a case investigated by Ed and Lorraine Warren.

Ed and Lorraine Warren were, by most accounts, full of shit.  More so than your average ghost hunter, even. Ed has been described as a bully, and was clearly not remotely interested in any serious research - apparently he had a copy of the Simon Necronomicon in his Occult Museum, and would tell people it was one of the oldest and most evil Books of Shadows.

Oh yes, the Occult Museum in The Conjuring is real. And Annabelle the haunted doll lived there! Here she is:

Image source. Oh yeah, baby.

It's a motherfucking Raggedy Anne.

Have you SEEN the doll they're using in the movie?

THAT'S PRE-POSSESSION. While I understand that the idea of Raggedy Anne chasing you down a hallway is pretty goddamn stupid, who in their right mind buys that terrifying piece of shit for his unborn child? If the father of my child walked into the nursery with that thing I'd be like, "fuck, I might be having a moron child because its dad is so stupid..."

Trailer here. Like, really dude? And she keeps the thing. I realise this is set in the 60s or 70s, but no WAY were you high enough to think that monstrosity was appropriate for a newborn.

At any rate, the film will no doubt continue to cast the Warrens as intelligent do-gooders instead of the attention whoring nutbags they were. (Lorraine, let's not forget, went on to appear on Paranormal State as Ryan's mentor. No wonder every case turned demonic.) I'm not going to list the accusations against the Warrens, because other people have done it already! Here a few podcasts which feature some people who are more in the know than I:

Monster Talk - the Warren Omission

Irreligiosophy - Ray Garton Interview.

Seriously, though. Fuck that doll.

A change is as good as a rest.

Miss Frances the cat has a favourite sort of toy: foam balls. She likes them because she can pick them up with her mouth, and she can bat them easily with her little clawless paws. The problem is that she would roll them under the bookshelf under my window, and so get them caught under the radiator. I'd have to pull the shelf out to rescue them. Today I was trying to find a place to move the bookshelf to that would solve this problem. Buuuut....

When you have a small apartment, there's only so many places you can put things. So I wound up moving the entire apartment around. Of course.

There also happened to be a thread on the pagan forum I frequent about "your faith in your home decor" today. I'm not a hugely religious person, but there's ample evidence of the shit I'm into all over the house.

This is where keys and spare change go. Cheap plastic tray + modge podge.

ice age

The Capricorn full moon can mark the end of a long run or dry spell. Perhaps you’ll feel it as the end of a personal, social, or professional era and the crystallizing of a new reality. 
- via Rose Marcus

I spent all of last night catching up with a friend I had not seen properly in ages. Without going into details, I will say we had a falling out and consequently we both backed away from the friendship. I am pleased to find, however, that the entire bloody stump of the past has been neatly cauterized by time and I can now enjoy this person's company with no weirdness, no ache in the chest, no misgivings whatsoever.

I walked home at five in the morning. The sun was turning the sky shades of rose and pale blue, and I was still drunk. It was a wonderful morning - maybe the best of the summer so far.

Then of course I got home, collapsed, got woken up by Frances the gremlin cat, slept far too little and eventually got up with a raging headache. My sister was kind enough to bring some painkillers down to my place and then let me lay about like roadkill for another hour before dragging me back outside.


Tonight the house needs cleaning and cleansing; tomorrow I'm hosting a candle-making party.

I stopped in Michaels craft store to get wicks a few weeks ago now, and found a whole candle making kit marked down from sixty bucks to under twenty. It comes with normal wax, but I also have some soy kicking around here somewhere. I own lots of essential oils - mainly blends, but some pure - and of course I have the herb cupboard. The kit comes with dye too, so if anyone wishes to colour their candles to match their intent they can.

By tomorrow night I will also be recovered enough to want wine. Because alcohol and melting wax are the world's smartest combination.

Apparently, John A. Macdonald would get drunk and yell at his dead relatives.

So, happy Canada Day on that note.