Good Omens

In fact the only things in the flat Crowley devoted any personal attention to were the houseplants. They were huge and green and glorious, with shiny, healthy, lustrous leaves.
This was because, once a week, Crowley went around the flat with a green plastic plant mister, spraying the leaves, and talking to the plants.
He had heard about talking to plants in the early seventies, on Radio Four, and thought it an excellent idea. Although talking is perhaps the wrong word for what Crowley did.
What he did was put the fear of God into them.
More precisely, the fear of Crowley.
In addition to which, every couple of months Crowley would pick out a plant that was growing too slowly, or succumbing to leaf-wilt or browning, or just didn't look quite as good as the others, and he would carry it around to all the other plants. 'Say goodbye to your friend,' he'd say to them. 'He just couldn't cut it...'
Then he would leave the flat with the offending plant, and return an hour or so later with a large, empty flower pot, which he would leave somewhere conspicuously around the flat.
The plants were the most luxurious, verdant, and beautiful in London. Also the most terrified.

From Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

MORE about ME

The x's are for things I HAVE done. (From Rishone's blog ----> click over there, you know you want to)
( ) smoked a cigarette
( ) smoked a cigar
( ) crashed a friend's car
( ) stolen a car
(x) been in love
( ) been dumped
( ) shoplifted
( ) been fired
( ) been in a fist fight
( ) snuck out of your parent's house
(x) had feelings for someone who didn't have them back
( ) been arrested
( ) made out with a stranger
( ) gone on a blind date
(x) lied to a friend
(x) had a crush on a teacher
(x) been to Europe
( ) skipped school
( ) slept with a co-worker
( ) seen someone die
(x) been to Canada
( ) been to Mexico
(x) been on a plane
( ) seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show
( ) thrown up in a bar
( ) purposely set a part of myself on fire
(x) eaten Sushi
( ) been snowboarding
(x) met someone in person from the internet
( ) been moshing at a concert
(x) had real feelings for someone you knew only online
( ) been in an abusive relationship
(x) taken painkillers
(x) love someone or miss someone right now
(x) laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by
( ) made a snow angel
( ) had a tea party
( ) flown a kite
(x) built a sand castle
(x) gone puddle jumping
(x) played dress up
( ) jumped into a pile of leaves
( ) gone sledding
(x) cheated while playing a game
(x) been lonely
( ) fallen asleep at work/school
( ) used a fake id
(x) watched the sun set
( ) felt an earthquake
(x) touched a snake
( ) slept beneath the stars
(x) been tickled
(x) been robbed
(x) been misunderstood
(x) petted a reindeer/goat
(x) won a contest
( ) ran a red light
( ) been suspended from school
(x) been in a car accident
(x) had braces
(x) felt like an outcast
(x) eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night
(x) had deja vu
(x) danced in the moonlight
(x) hated the way you look
( ) witnessed a crime
( ) pole danced
(x) questioned your heart
( ) been obsessed with post-it notes
( ) madeout with a member of the same sex
(x) squished barefoot through the mud
( ) been lost
(x) been to the opposite side of the country
(x) swam in the ocean
( ) felt like dying
(x) cried yourself to sleep
( ) played cops and robbers
(x) recently colored with crayons/colored pencils/markers
( ) sung karaoke
( ) paid for a meal with only coins
(x) done something you told yourself you wouldn't
( ) made prank phone calls
(x) laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
( ) caught a snowflake on your tongue
(x) danced in the rain
( ) written a letter to Santa Claus
( ) been kissed under a mistletoe
(x) watched the sun rise with someone you care about
(x) blown bubbles
(x) made a bonfire on the beach
( ) crashed a party
(x) gone rollerskating
(x) had a wish come true
( ) humped a monkey
(x) worn pearls
( ) jumped off a bridge
( ) screamed penis in class
( ) ate dog/cat food
(x) told a complete stranger you loved them
( ) kissed a mirror
(x) sang in the shower
( ) have a little black dress
( ) had a dream that you married someone
(x) glued your hand to something
( ) got your tongue stuck to a flag pole
( ) kissed a fish
(x) worn the opposite sexes clothes
( ) been a cheerleader
(x) sat on a roof top
(x) screamed at the top of your lungs
( ) done a one-handed cartwheel
( ) talked on the phone for more than 6 hours
(x) stayed up all night
( ) didnt take a shower for a week
(x) picked and ate an apple right off the tree
(x) climbed a tree
( ) had a tree house
(x) are scared to watch scary movies
( ) believe in ghosts
( ) have had more then 30 pairs of shoes
( ) worn a really ugly outfit to school just to see what others say
( ) gone streaking
( ) gone skinny dipping
( ) played ding-dong-ditch
( ) had someone moon/flash you
(x) cheated on a test
(x) have a Britney Spears CD
(x) forgotten someones name
( ) slept naked
( ) French braided someones hair
( ) grown a beard

A Certain Person

Everyone has a best friend.
Well, most of the time is best friends, plural, but there's always one you feel attached to the most, the one who understands you the best.
I found mine in Grade 5. I remember clearly I immediately envied her blonde, straight hair. Why couldn't I have straight hair? It wasn't fair.
We had so much in common, yet we were so different. We were both book-worms, spent most of our time in the school library. In grade 5 we were very similar. It's now that we changed.
I can't say who was the "leader" in this frienship. I guess neither was. We made all our decisions together, and most of the time it wasn't a problem, we usually agreed on everything. But at the same time we didn't. It was a strange relationship.
Now she's definitely more out-going than I am. It used to be the opposite. We both like to speak our minds. And she's brutally honest. Like if you're wearing something that's not very nice, and ask me about it, I'd say "It's OK", she'd say, "NO WAY, take that OFF".
It was also the kind of friendship where we hardly ever fought. Yes, obviously, we had our little arguments, but it was never very serious. I don't know how we managed as we were, or rather are, very stubborn.
And even though we left our separate ways, (well, I did, anyway), she's always the first one I call when I need advice. She never refused to listen when I talked on and on about this and that. I think I was always the talker, and she, the listener. She knows me best, and she knows what kind of things I need to hear to calm me down.
We'd been through a lot together. But that was never a problem, because everyone has problems once in a while. It's telling your friend about them that's really important, because keeping them to yourself would never help.
Believe me, I know.

Desire, Despair, Destiny, Delirium, Dream, Death

Let us pause for a minute, as they descend the great steps towards Destiny's banqueting hall, to consider the Endless.
Desire is of medium height. It is unlikely that any portrait will ever do Desire justice, since to see her (or him) is to love him (or her)- passionately, painfully, to the exclusion of all else.
Desire smells almost subliminally of summer peaches, and casts two shadows: one black and sharp-edged, the other translucent and forever wavering, like heat haze.
Desire smiles in brief flashes, like sunlight glinting from a knife-edge. And there is much else that is knife-like about Desire.
Never a possession, always the possessor, with skin as pale as smoke, and eyes tawny and sharp as yellow wine: Desire is everything you have ever wanted. Whoever you are. Whatever you are.
Everything.

Despair, Desire's sister and twin, is queen of her own bleak bourne. It is said that scattered through Despair's domain are a multitude of tiny windows, hanging in the void. Each window looks out onto a different scene, being, in our world, a mirror. Sometimes you will look into a mirror and feel the eyes of Despair upon you, feel her hook catch and snag on your heart.
Her skin is cold, and clammy; her eyes are the colour of sky, on the grey, wet days that leach the world of colour and meaning; her voice is little more than a whisper; and while she has no odour, her shadow smells musky, and pungent, like the skin of a snake.

Destiny is the oldest of the Endless; in the Beginning was the Word, and it was traced by hand on the first page of his book, before ever was it spoken aloud.
Destiny is also the tallest of the Endless, to mortal eyes.
There are some who believe him to be blind; whilst others, perhaps with more reason, claim that he has travelled far beyond blindness, that indeed, he can do nothing but see: that he sees the fine traceries the galaxies make as they spiral through the void, that he watched the intricate patterns living things make on their journey through time.
Destiny smells of dust and the libraries of night.
He leaves no footprints.
He casts no shadow.

Delirium is the youngest of the Endless.
She smells of sweat, sour wines, late nights, old leather.
Her realm is close, and can be visited; however, human minds were not made to comprehend her domain, and those few who have made the journey have been incapable of reporting back more than the tiniest fragments.
The poet Coleridge claimed to have known her intimately, but the man was an inveterate liar, and in this, as in so much, we must doubt his word.
Her appearance is the most variable of all the Endless, who, at best, are ideas cloaked in the semblance of flesh. Her shadow's shape and outline have no relationship to that of any body she wears, and it is tangible, like old velvet.
Some say the tragedy of Delirium is her knowledge that, despite being older than suns, older than gods, she is forever the youngest of the Endless, who do not measure time as we measure time, or see the worlds through mortal eyes.
Others deny this, and say that Delirium has no tragedy, but here they speak without reflection.
For Delirium was once Delight. And although that was long ago now, even today her eyes are badly matched: one is a vivid emerald green, spattered with silver flecks that move; her other eye is vein blue.
Who knows what Delirium sees, through her mismatched eyes?

Dream of the Endless: ah, there's a conundrum.
In this aspect (and we perceive but aspects of the Endless, as we see the light glinting from one tiny facet of some huge and flawlessly cut stone), he is rake-thin, with skin the colour of falling snow.
Dream accumulates names to himself like others make friends; but he permits himself few friends.
If he is closest to anyone, it is to his elder sister, whom he sees but rarely.
He heard long ago, in a dream, that one day in every century Death takes on mortal flesh, better to comprehend what the lives she takes must feel like, to taste the bitter tang of mortality: that this is the price she must pay for being the divider of the living from all that has gone before, all that must come after.
He broods on this tale, but has never questioned her about its truth. Perhaps he fears that she would answer him.
Of all the Endless, save perhaps Destiny, he is most conscious of his responsibilities, the most meticulous in their execution.
Dream casts a human shadow, when it occurs to him to do so.

And there is Death.

From Sandman by Neil Gaiman, Dream Country, Season of the Mists, Prologue.