Kayla's graduation party was today. She had a cute little setup in her backyard. I wasn't really able to capture it in my crappy iPhone 4 cameras, but it looked nice. They definitely don't do the place justice since it looked REALLY good, but here, have my pictures anyway.
Here you can see just how unbelievably massive Kayla's backyard is.
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| Her entire yard is bigger than my house and I am jealous. |
She had a cute little area reserved for photoshoots, even though we never really used it the entire day. Still, it's nice to have.
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| She even planted those two trees yesterday so it would look picturesque. |
Here's a close-up of the banner they set up, courtesy of Angela.
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| Ignore the tampon lying on the ground in the background, I forgot that I left it there. |
She also had a dartboard, but we were total GARBAGE at playing it.
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| Those darts were planted there, 90% of our shots hit the tree instead of the board. |
She had cake too, and some delicious pie that Kayteal baked herself. White chocolate raspberry moose or something, I don't know, she threw a bunch of words at me and I didn't have very much time to process it.
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| Felt weird eating cake without having to sing "Happy Birthday" though. |
Christina brought a Bluetooth speaker with a big ol' suction cup on the back of it. So we did the logical thing and played music with it
...While it was stuck on Gwen's head.
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| Like the rhinoceros and the narwhal, Gwen derives most of her energy from the horn on her head. Here, she has reached full power. |
It stayed there for about 20 minutes before Gwen decided that she didn't want an eternal boil on her head and told us to get rid of it. So we did.
And here was what we ended up with.
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| "It is the Gwen, and her forehead is the sun." -Shakespeare |
Afterwards, it started getting cold and a little bit dark, so we decided to get the campfire going and make a few S'mores. While we did than, we played a game called Paranoia. It's hard to really explain, but basically we all sit in a circle and in a clockwise direction, one person whispers a question to the person next to them. The person next to them answers out loud, and then the two play rock paper scissors to see whether or not the rest of the group could hear the question.
It sounds confusing on text, but just ask Ken how it's played, he'll probably give a better explanation. The questions you ask are supposed to target the people in the group so that everyone gets curious as to what the actual question was. That's why it's called "Paranoia." When you hear someone you aren't super close to say your name followed by a bunch of laughing from the two people in the question, you will be dying to know what the question was.
Later, Ken told a little campfire story from the Internet called The Life in the Machine. You can read it in its entirety here and I won't throw a synopsis here since I know I can't do it real justice, but it is a pretty interesting and philosophical read. And also, wow, I'm a huge square for using the word "philosophical" in a summer blog.
Have some pictures of the campfire instead, they might take away from my squareness.
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| Gwen, the concerned parent, looks at her child, as if challenging her to continue playing with fire. Phoenix is intrigued. |
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| Squad |
Then we went inside because the fire started dying and it got REALLY cold. Angela gave all of us these AWESOME wooden letters as a graduation gift. Mine was a big "M" with a bunch of pictures from Kamichan on them and I LOVED it.
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| Just imagine how it looks when you set it to Wumbo. |
She got one for Kayla too and she went OUT OF HER WAY to make Kayla's amazing. I won't post exactly why Kayla's letter was incredible since it might not be something she wants on the Internet, but let's just say it involves an orange-haired lad on the other side of the ocean.
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| Mhmm. (via independent.co.uk) |
But then after that, things started getting really freaky. Really, really freaky.
First, I was Phoenix's guide. Her first exploration was pretty tepid and involved her entering a toilet bowl as a door, but that's probably because I was a pretty irresponsible and stupid guide. I got her the hell out of her subconscious as soon as she said she saw a ton of people staring at her though, so at least I wasn't that irresponsible. Everyone was still laughing and stuff during this supposedly evil ritual, so the mood in the room wasn't entirely one of fear yet.
Christina suggested we try this ritual out called Doors to the Mind. You can click on the link to read the full rules of the game, but essentially, one person acts as the guide and the other acts as the subject. We all put the subject in a trance, and the guide asks them what they see. Then, they progress through their trance, walking wherever the guide tells them to go, opening whatever color doors they can, and basically just exploring their own subconscious. Definitely read the link because I watered down the rules a ton.
Christina warns that most of the people you see in the game are, nine times out of ten, evil, and if you die in your subconscious you could die in real life, so yeah, this wasn't some little Bloody Mary level ritual.
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| "You're scared of this? Wow. Pussy." (via liquor.com) |
First, I was Phoenix's guide. Her first exploration was pretty tepid and involved her entering a toilet bowl as a door, but that's probably because I was a pretty irresponsible and stupid guide. I got her the hell out of her subconscious as soon as she said she saw a ton of people staring at her though, so at least I wasn't that irresponsible. Everyone was still laughing and stuff during this supposedly evil ritual, so the mood in the room wasn't entirely one of fear yet.
It's when we flipped roles that my, as well as everyone else's opinion about the game changed entirely.
So I went under, with Phoenix as my guide. I went into it with the mindset that I was gonna mess with everyone. I wasn't gonna take it too seriously and I was gunning to freak everyone out.
I closed my eyes and the group all chanted while Phoenix massaged my temples and waited patiently for my arms to drop down, signaling that I was entering the trance.
I closed my eyes and the group all chanted while Phoenix massaged my temples and waited patiently for my arms to drop down, signaling that I was entering the trance.
Before I continue, the next few paragraphs are gonna be me detailing my experience in the trance in detail. If you wanna skip over it, go until you see the italicized text that says "I woke up."
Okay, here we go.
Red door, yellow door, any other color door.
Red door, yellow door, any other color door.
Red door yellow door...
I drooped my arms down because they got tired of staying up. Keep in mind at this point, I was still trying to freak them all out, I still wasn't really taking it seriously.
Red door, yellow door, any other color door.
Red door, yellow door, any other color door.
Red door yellow door...
I drooped my arms down because they got tired of staying up. Keep in mind at this point, I was still trying to freak them all out, I still wasn't really taking it seriously.
Phoenix asked what I saw. Obviously, I didn't see anything because my eyes were closed, but I just imagined something in my mind and it was a white hallway. A plain white, endless hallway with walls on both sides and a ceiling, stretching to infinity.
She asked me to turn around and there was a blue door. I entered it, and I saw a cozy little living room with a single red couch in the middle of it, facing a TV. I turned it on and there was nothing playing but static.
I went back through the door I came from and the white hallway turned into a big green room with a single oak tree in the middle of it, with a canopy that touched its ceiling and all four walls around it. A single tire swing hung from one of its branches.
She asked me to turn around and there was a blue door. I entered it, and I saw a cozy little living room with a single red couch in the middle of it, facing a TV. I turned it on and there was nothing playing but static.
I went back through the door I came from and the white hallway turned into a big green room with a single oak tree in the middle of it, with a canopy that touched its ceiling and all four walls around it. A single tire swing hung from one of its branches.
At this point, I was completely into it. It's a hard feeling to describe, but just imagine how it feels to be in a lucid dream, a dream where you know you're awake. The things I saw were pretty vivid now. I knew it was all in my mind, but again, it was like a dream.
Phoenix asked me to sit on the tire swing and spin around on it. With every revolution I took, the tree's leaves changed color, as if the seasons were changing from spring to summer to fall to winter.
When the tree was bare, I walked to the other side of the trunk and saw a carving of a house. I entered the door in the carving and saw myself in an elementary school classroom. There was a single desk in the corner with a notebook on it. I sat on the desk and in the cubby of the desk, I pulled out a watch.
I left the room and saw the school's hallway. The hallway had green lockers all against its walls, all of them unlocked.
Phoenix asked me if any lockers stood out to me. I said locker 20. So I opened it and saw a calendar on its wall, a large notebook on the ground, and a black coat hanging from the center of it.
I flipped through the notebook. All of its pages had a drawing of a single stick figure in the middle of the page, but when I flipped through it like a flipbook, it looked like the stick figure was getting bigger, like it was getting closer to me.
I flipped to the back and all I saw was a circle. Its face was right against the paper.
Phoenix asked me to wear the coat. It was several sizes too large for me and I felt tiny while wearing it. I looked at the tag on its collar and read the text.
"Emily." Written in Sharpie over the manufacturer information.
Phoenix asked me if I could imagine what Emily looks like. And I imagined a small girl, a little shorter than I am. She had a black ponytail and she was wearing normal clothing.
Her face unnerved me though. It was neutral, expressionless, but the sort of neutral that makes you feel uneasy. It's hard to explain, but it made me feel really scared.
Phoenix told me to stop imagining her, so I did. I turned around.
Emily was right behind me, exactly how I imagined her. The same, soulless stare, the same blank, unfeeling face.
I did not want to be there anymore. I took the coat off and put it back in the locker. Phoenix told me to walk away, but Emily followed me. I didn't want to be there anymore. I wanted to wake up.
I woke up.
Everyone was circled around me now. I felt tingly all over, the kind of nervous tingly that you usually get when you have goosebumps.
Honestly, I was pretty freaked out by this entire ordeal, I didn't expect it to be that immersive. Like I told you, in the beginning I had low expectations but after awhile you just get into it, it's hard to describe. But if you know me in real life, I'll definitely be your guide if you ever want to go under and experience it yourself. And I'll promise that I won't make you go down any toilets or anything.
If you still don't really believe me, I'll briefly tell you Ken and Phoenix's attempts at going under (Phoenix went under a total of three times with different guides, including me).
Ken saw a hospital with two endless hallways. He picked between the left and right one and he chose right. He saw windows all around him and when he looked through the windows, he saw an eyeless figure with a huge smile staring at him. He was pretty freaked out.
Phoenix's was incredible though. She got operated on, she saw the high school, she saw everyone she knew around her laughing at her, she felt like she didn't exist, she felt like everyone hated her, she saw her grandmother's grave. And she started crying by the end of it. We reassured her that we all cared for her and that she was important afterwards, but it was AMAZING. She was actually moved to tears by it and if you looked, at the more troubled parts of her trance, her arms and legs were actually SHAKING.
It's probably gonna be hard to sleep tonight. That was way more realistic than I expected.
RFotD: We found this game on Tumblr. So that's pretty conclusive evidence that Tumblr is pure evil.
