[MISC] Correspondence With The Goddess #2: Letter the Second

[mrnelson007 at gmail.com]

And I'm back!  Thanks for the kind words, I hope I can keep things interesting going forward.  From here on, I will also be including a select couple of questions from the Tumblr site, the important (or most amusing) ones, that you can read after the letters.  However, if people would prefer, I could also pull those out into their own posts or just leave them out altogether.  Let me know.  But, of course, you can always just read by following the site itself, http://goddesscorrespondence.tumblr.com


We had a talk. I’m not really sure if she’s feeling any better, but this letter is at least less of a downer. Maybe it’s a sign. At the very least, I think she’s trying. Probably just for my sake, but trying at all is a start. We’ll see what happens. One step at a time. And hey, look at that. She’s even trying for jokes. That’s a sign that she’s loosening up. Right? Maybe we’re getting somewhere. I hope. Me, I’m just glad my last class that day got cancelled.

- Elana



So, here I am again. I am once again questioning why I agreed to do this. But, I already started and I don’t like to leave something hanging. Haha… yeah, right. Follow-through is another of my many weaknesses. But it’s something else we I am trying to work on. Elana doesn’t need the help. She doesn’t need much of anything. I really don’t know how she does it. I guess she doesn’t have the weight of the universe on her shoulders, but hell. She probably could handle that and not even blink.

So. Let me talk about that headache. It was early in Elana’s sophomore year at the university. Studying hard all the time, no doubt. As for me, I was actively studying the deliciousness of Twinkies when paired with lousy soap operas. Let me tell you, my results were promising. I’ll write a thesis on that shit someday.

Anyway. That morning when things started screwing up all over, I was following my usual morning ritual of not getting out of bed. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Elana was cooking breakfast. Also her morning ritual. Honestly, I don’t know why she did all that stuff for me, then or now. I didn’t deserve it before, and I certainly don’t now.

Bacon is a hell of a drug. I think on this, both gods and mortals can agree. It certainly worked its magic on me, prying me from my blanket cocoon as early as 8:15. Which, by the way, is a bullshit hour that should never exist.

I wandered down the hall, musing on the great secrets of the universe, such as why ridiculous nonsense like 8:15 was allowed to exist. If I was in charge it sure as fuck wouldn’t. (Sorry about that, by the way. You all don’t even remember that bit, but I tried changing the clock. Turns out removing all that just makes a hollow void of emptiness. Not the desired result.)

Anyway. Bacon and, far less vitally, eggs in hand, I sat at the table and munched. Elana sat down across from me and we had a talk about what the fuck was it again? This is starting to piss me off… random bullshit. Probably all about me, I’m sure. Most of our conversations back then were like that. I suppose it makes more sense to focus on me now, but maybe if I didn’t have such an ego from – yeah. That is no one’s fault but my own. Not fair to blame her.

After breakfast, Elana cleaned up the dishes – yes, I made her cook and do the dishes too. I know. I’m half-surprised I didn’t make her pre-chew for me. She left soon after that, heading off to class. Meanwhile, I resumed Operation Soaptwinkie. Fuck why would I name it that? Wow that’s dumb.

It was about 3 hours in to a Days of Our Lives marathon that the headache started. At first it was just a dull throb, like feeling my heart beat in the back of my mind. Headaches are a fairly odd thing for me to get. Elana used to get them a lot, with school stress and all, but I suppose that’s an advantage of the laid back style of living. Still, it wasn’t anything serious. A quick trip to the medicine cabinet would clear that up right away. 

I headed over to the bathroom, pulling on the mirror in my quest to retrieve its hidden contents.Two aspirin later, I closed the door, my own face greeting me as I rubbed my forehead slightly. I looked like shit. Well, no, that wasn’t true at all, but at the time I distinctly remember thinking that it was. I needed a new dye job. Irish ancestry is fine and all, but seeing the red hair starting to show on the roots was frustrating. How was I supposed to adequately express my frustration with the farce of existence without hair as dark as the world we inhabit? The crimson locks I shared with my sister were not going to cut it.

I should clarify here. I’m not really into the whole goth scene or anything. I mostly just used that as my own personal joke, given my choice of hair dye. While I’m not the most appearance-obsessed person and generally kind of a slob, I took good care of my hair.

It sort of came about by accident.I remember getting teased for my hair back when I was little. At first Elana would stand up for me so it wasn’t so bad. But after the divorce, I didn’t have her to fall back on. I tried to stand up for myself, but like most things, I wasn’t as good at that as she was. The first time someone gave me hell at my new school, I punched her right in the mouth. I’m not the strongest girl in the world - or, well, I wasn’t. Now it’s not really a fair comparison - but I could be pretty nimble. By the time the teachers broke us up I was tugging on her hair until she cried. I’m not proud of that. …Actually, no, that’s a huge lie. I’m really proud of that. I just know I shouldn’t be.

Anyway. While I was suspended, I decided maybe I should just dye it. I wasn’t a huge fan of it anyway, in spite of my violent defense of it. I had the fiery temper that belied my heritage, but I wasn’t exactly a fan of the attention. Dad didn’t care, but then again, he never really did. He let me do whatever I wanted for the most part, even when I theoretically was grounded. Never even took away my credit card once I was old enough to have one. I want to say he had the patience of a saint, but really he just didn’t care. So a week later I came back to school with my hair jet black, and I never looked back.

Ugh. I have such a knack for getting off-topic here, don’t I? Anyway, as I was saying. I frowned at myself, then finished what I had come in here for, swallowing the pills and washing them down with some water. I headed back out to the living room to resume my couch surfing, confident that the medication would serve its purpose.

Except, of course, that it didn’t. Within an hour the previously light throbbing was becoming a dull roar, pounding at the inside of my skull in its quest to escape. While it had been generally ignorable before, at this point it was impossible to do that. Further compounding the problem, it refused to respond to any of my treatment attempts, such as cursing at it, or calling it fucking stupid. This one was going to be tough.

The rest of the afternoon was spent trying anything else I could think of. I lay down for a nap, but I couldn’t get to sleep with the pounding. After half an hour of staring up at the ceiling, I rolled out of bed, sighing and stumbling to the kitchen. I vaguely remembered something about a hangover cure that involved drinking a raw egg. And… some other stuff too, I was pretty sure, but that probably wasn’t important. I didn’t have a hangover, just a headache, so just the egg should work, right?

Salmonella be damned, it was worth a shot. Retrieving an egg from the fridge, the experiment was on. I cracked the egg against the counter, tilting my head back and prying it apart. As the egg splattered on my face, it occurred to me that perhaps I should have used a glass instead. Literal and figurative egg on my face, I went and retrieved a glass, and a new egg. And also a paper towel. Wiping my face clean, I realized that this was the kind of story that I would never want to tell anyone. And here I am writing it down for everyone. Go me. The next egg went into the glass properly, and I was ready to go. Wait seriously why did I write this? Stupid.

As it went down my throat, I distinctly recall feeling stupid about the whole thing. Did the egg thing even work? Why would I just do that? Well, whatever damage was done was already done, and nothing I could do about it now. Time to just cross my fingers and hope that salmonella was on vacation, at least. Thankfully, the egg never caused any problems. Or, hell, for all I know maybe the egg was the trigger, or it would have caused a problem if not for the other stuff.

Regardless, in spite of my best efforts, the pounding continued its slow ramp-up in intensity. Eventually, it felt like a jackhammer was drilling its way into the inside of my skull, and it was all I could do to keep from passing out. I was laying on the sofa, groaning and grabbing my head. Elana wouldn’t be home for another hour at least, so I was going to have to hang on until then. I could do this.

Then I did something entirely uncharacteristic for me. I concentrated, at least as much as I could with the pounding. Just focused on the pain (not exactly hard) and thinking about it going away. And then, well, I started to pray. “Dear God, if you can help me with this, I promise to, uh… I don’t know just fucking get rid of it please! I just want this shit to stop!” Yes, I know. Some prayer. Praying was never something I was real big on. Seemed pointless, and besides, I knew no one was out there listening.

So imagine my surprise when it actually worked. All of a sudden, my head cleared up. And I mean instantly. Jackhammer shut down and it was like it was never there at all. It was beautiful, and everything seemed at peace for a brief eternity, a fleeting instance that lasted a lifetime. But suddenly I was really tired. More than that. The most tired I had ever been in my entire life. It was impossible to not sleep, but I felt so much better that that didn’t even matter.

The last thing I remember before drifting off was Elana opening the door, then gasping and rushing over to me. She mentioned later that her last class had gotten cancelled, but at the time I don’t remember being surprised that she was home early. I just smiled at her before closing my eyes and entering the best sleep of my life.

- Lydia


Q & A:

Q: If you have such incredible power... can't you go back in time and make your life less of a train wreck, saving us all a lot of trouble?

A: Yeah. I could. I could change the whole fucking timeline if I wanted, no problem. But I don’t want to. No, not because I’m lazy. Imagine you have a migraine. Like someone jabbing your face in a blender with a blade made of acid. Then imagine that your temples are the size of galaxies. That’s the level of headache we’re talking about here. Not to mention the risk of a paradox that disrupts everything by changing who I am and fucking things up even more. It’s a lot less of a pain in the ass to just blow this all up and start from scratch. Except you wouldn’t be here to ask me questions like this. You’re welcome.

- Lydia

Q: When you say you are "all-powerful" which definition of the word do you mean? Are you limited to only actions logically meaningful? Could you, for example, make a 2-dimensional triangle with 7 sides? Or are you simply saying you are "maximally powerful" or "most powerful?" I guess what I am asking is: Could you create a rock so heavy even you could not lift it?

A: So is this one of those “gotcha” type questions? I remember this shit from back in high school, because it actually sounds like me from then. Right, so I’ll break this down slow. I mean, all-powerful means I can do whatever I want. This really isn’t a hard thing to wrap your head around, I don’t think.  For example:

The triangle thing is basically just semantics bullshit. Could I make a figure with 7-sides two-dimensionally? Yeah, of course, anyone can do that. What do you call that? A sextagon? Something like that. What if that was called a triangle? Obviously it’s not right now, but if I wanted to I could make it so that it was. So, yes. I could make a 7-sided figure and make it be called a triangle. Under the current definition no, but changing the definition is also easy.

So for the rock thing: Yeah, I could. I could make a rock that weighs infinity pounds and make it so I can’t lift infinity pounds. “Aha, but then you can’t lift it so that means you can’t do ANYTHING”, I can hear you thinking that right now. But then if I decide I want to lift it, then yes, I can make myself lift it now. If you’re asking can I do both at the same time, then no, because that is a paradoxical statement. You cannot have a thing be true and untrue at the same time, but that doesn’t mean I can’t choose to change its truth on a whim.

So short version: Yes, I can, and I can lift it afterwords. I can’t simultaneously lift something and not lift something because these are contradictory terms. So, I guess if you absolutely must play the semantics game, then I can do anything, but I cannot do multiple contradictory anythings at the same time.

…holy shit I sound like a fucking theology professor or something. Man, I’m smarter than I thought I was.

- Lydia

I’m pretty sure that’s the most I’ve ever seen you talk about something that isn’t television.

- Elana

Q:  Lydia--what are the exact limits of your knowledge? You said you're not omniscient, but you seem to be aware of a lot of things in the universe. Can you see the past? What about the future?

A: That’s a more complicated question. Hey, look at you, you asked a good one. Have a cookie. Seriously, go do it. Now. No, I’m not going to get it for you, do it yourself.

Done? Okay, good. Now then. I don’t really actually know anything more than you do. Well, I do, but in my defense, you’re pretty fucking stupid. But I don’t automatically know anything special. Omnipotence does not imply omniscience.

What it does imply, however, is that I can go and see these things for myself. I know about what’s on other worlds because one day I got bored and went and looked. There are plenty of places I haven’t been to yet and I don’t even know if there’s anything there to see. If I want to know about the past or the future, well, I can go back and look. Haven’t done it yet, but nothing is stopping me.

I’m not worried though. It’s a big universe out there, and I have plenty of time to see it all. Not like I’m going anywhere.

- Lydia