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[alivemagdolene]

The fabulous meaculpa_g has given me the following words (which remind her of me) and in return I offer my explanations of their respective significance to me.



Magdolene
This isn't a misspelling. It's how Mary Prankster pronounces "Magdalen" in the song "Mata Hari", thus why I spell the word that way. The various stories of Mary Magdalen are chock full of Goddess imagery and her existence and identity (virgin? Whore? Devoted fan?) is debated amongst theological scholars still. I liked the idea of someone graffiting somewhere "MAGDALEN LIVES!" as a sort of twist on "The Goddess is alive and magick is afoot". I twisted the spelling to Mary Prankster's version and kept the lives and thusly my most favorite internet moniker was born.



Glamor
Oh, glamor, you confusing thing! To me, glamor is a lot of things. There's glamourbombing (different spelling, but related origin), one of the things I think the world definitely needs more of. There's a glamour, which is a spell/working to create an illusion/façade about something, usually yourself. And then there's the hazy definition involving make-up, high heels, fashion... something else? And to be frank, I like all that, too. And I think that people that think feminism is antithetical to any of that has the wrong definition both of glamor and of feminism. All gender is a form of drag. Men can be glamorous just as easily as women can be and I'm not talking about drag in this sense. I mean, as much as I loathe this term, metrosexuality, men grooming themselves and making almost as much effort as women do in our very lookist (against women) society is somehow comforting to me. Glamor can be decoration. Why not decorate what you've got? Clean your nails and add polish if you like. You have hair, why not do something interesting with it? And your face is what you show the world, why not have some fun? When I do my make-up, I'm getting ready in more than one sense. Ready to face the world, whatever variant of it that it is I'm approaching. I can do a simple job, a bit of concealer and some powder, or I can do A Big Deal, generally aiming for Marilyn Monroe and on rare occasions, Sophia Lauren (love that black eyeliner). Generally, I skew somewhere in the middle, up or down that scale depending on my mood. What does glamor mean to me? A million different definitions, probably. But most of them are good.



Moon
I'm a Witch. The Moon is our satellite, our nucleus. One of them, anyway (welcome to polytheism). When the moon is void-of-course, I try not to do anything big and I definitely don't do any Workings or have Ritual. I keep in step with the moon as much as I can. The moon fascinates me as it's this giant chunk of rock that for thousands upon thousands of years has fascinated our species and others, the very same chunk of rock. I tend to refer to the moon as She, or occasionally with a capital M. Some of the Goddesses I most identify with the most happen to be moon Goddesses. When I started studying Paganism, I began to wonder what sign of the moon I was born under. Short of finding an astrological calender from 1983, I figured I'd never know. I was lousy at astrology (houses? What?) and didn't realize I could get my chart done and know. A friend of mine heard my musing a year or so ago and did my chart for me. Saturday, 6:06 AM (my mother said the hospital had a huge digital clock over the bed) Eastern Standard Time, June 18th, 1983. That makes me born under the sign of Libra. I was born under the sun sign of Gemini. Two air signs... it's probably no wonder I'm an artist. I get a grounded feeling looking at the Moon, almost as though it's my homing device, my heart, my battery, the divine Mother watching over me.



Art
I've said it before, I'll say it again, and I'll continue to say it. Art is the one skill I have that can't be taken from me. Seriously. Call me stupid and I'll believe you (probably). Call me ugly and I'll name more flaws than you can. But say I'm not an artist and I'll laugh in your face (or snicker to myself). Art's the only thing I've got. If something isn't good I just wasn't trying that hard. But it's not just graphic art, it's everything. I've acquired the identity of an artist, as bullshit (and Geoffry Jellineck) as that sounds, in the sense I tend to let the right side of my brain do the talking on most things although I do struggle to keep balanced (which turns into an art project: My Balanced Brain). My retail career was art (I brought creativity into even the most left-brained of tasks). I can find art in anything. Deep down, we're all artists, really. How many times have you said "What a work of art!" about something that wasn't likely to turn up in the Guggenheim or the MOMA or the Walters'? Mechanics are artists with their hands and skill. Mathematicians are artists with numbers and theories. I've gotten to where if people ask what I do, I say I'm an artist (that comes in handy when you're unemployed, as I am) since it's the truth. Like I've said, no matter what job I've held, I've been an artist of one form or another.

Tori Amos Raspberry Swirl
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Raspberry Swirl
I tend to like "hidden meanings" in songs, or maybe not-so-hidden. Tori's "Raspberry Swirl" is a fabulous song (one of her more quickly paced ones) and here's where it gets dirty: I've heard "raspberry swirl" is actually a euphemism for a sex act, or maybe a sex happenstance: orgasming on one's menstrual period (get it?). "If you want inside her, well, boy, you better make her raspberry swirl." "Raspberry swirl" apparently can also be a euphemism for oral sex on one's period or cunnilingus in general (to me, the first definition makes the most sense). Of course, Tori's lyrics aren't known for necessarily "making sense" to us mere mortals based solely on interpretation of the lyrics alone and just about any song of hers can be said to have a "hidden" dirty meaning (as opposed to those with happily outright dirty meanings). But even if the lyrics are just a jumble of words she liked to express a particular point(which I suspect it is), even if "raspberry swirl" isn't a sexual term at all, I've appropriated it as such.
Example:
Raspberry swirling makes me enjoy my period.
I knew he was the one during a raspberry swirl.
Some people think raspberry swirls don't exist but I've been a witness to many.

ADDENDUM: I like to think most of the time, my hair resembles Tori's in that video. I'm not worthy, though.


YOUR TURN!

Da Rulez
Reply to this post by yelling "Words, you glorious thing!" and I'll give you 5 words that remind me of you, and you have to explain what they mean to you.