My son Garrett and his roommate Randy (both college students in their 4th year) decided to be “normal” this morning.
Hey, we’re Vampires. We do do well with carbs and sugar, and most food for that matter. So we’re creative. Everyone should be creative.
Happy October. Happy Parenting. Happy Vampires.
~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
“I feel like a Ghost most of the time.”
I listened as my brother Val talked about our family. He is the forth of five children, less than two years my senior. Nobody does listen to him, or to me much. The elder children caught the attention of our parents and wore them out before we were born. They give us bad advice, stupid advice, ignore anything we say, and pretty much discount our opinions.
I always tell my children: Marry an only child who is an orphan. Of course if you’re a Vampire that is pretty easy to do. And you know I’m just joking.
I’ve heard my brother Aaron, the middle child express the same thing. Arron is at a disadvantage in that he is trapped between the elder two, and the younger two. I’d say more in the shadow of the elder two.
I tell Val not to stress, not to worry, and to go on with whatever it is that he is doing. I listen. He listens to me.
Val usually is the most confident of us all and never complains about anything. In his own way he quietly observes the world around him, then he stands back, then he takes action.
So to hear this man, the most loyal and chill, and in many ways strongest, of us all, say he feels unseen makes me wonder what I’ve missed. Actually I haven’t missed anything – I just haven’t said anything.
I spend a lot of time listening to my children. We interact. I listen. I make an effort to engage them. Maybe we need to do that to the adults in our lives more as well. We need to teach our kids to engage, interact, and listen.
A King might have loyal subjects but only if he listens and shows that he cares. Loyalty never comes from fear. It comes from understanding.
I’d like to say that of my loyal followers. I love you and I appreciate you in ways you’ll never know. And I will try to continue to be loyal to you with entertaining posts about parenting, relationships, Vampires, and love … and all that scary stuff too that we love this time of year.
Val and I sat on my back deck under the night sky talking about what we’re up to these days. He has reconnected with a woman he first met in the 80’s – the 1880’s when wewere in London. She wasn’t a Vampire back then, but she is now, and living in San Francisco. He hasn’t told our brothers. I tell him about the kids, and about the books I’m trying to write. He listens. He really listens. He never gives me plot ideas or tell me my stories suck.
So that is it for now for my morning musings. I’ll have more Halloween shenanigans and other silly stuff later this week, plus Vlad has will have a new “Vampire Diary” post.
Thanks for dropping by, xoxoxox.
~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
Val – this song is for you.
This is Werewolf Week here at Vampiremaman.com
I’ve been posting stories of Werewolves, in relation to Vampires, the modern world, friendship, and the never ending quest of trying to understand each other.
It has also been a week of horrors that nobody can explain or understand.
Over the past few years I’ve written too many posts about how to try to explain to my children, and talk to my children about mass shootings and other unbelievable acts of violence. Sandy Hook was the hardest. You can’t explain why, or anything else. Nothing about it makes any sense. No good can come out of something like at, or any shooting. Even a day after 9/11, my two year old looked into the sky and asked, “Mommy, where are the airplanes?” We’d always looked in the sky where I pointed out the planes that flew over our home.
I don’t know a soul who isn’t still shaken from what happened in Las Vegas on Sunday night.
My friends in Las Vegas are deeply shaken. One is painting a mural in honor of those lost. I’ll post photos. The community has come together to help, and heal.
A few weeks ago I received a text message from the college my daughter attends about a gunman at one of the locations. I went cold. Nobody was hurt. No shots. The asshole was caught. Still, it chills even me to my bones.
With the three terrifying storms, and now the Las Vegas shooting we are numb, but also we are called to help. Unlike in a lot of movies, when things go bad people help each other. People mourn for those they have never met. We are one in our humanity, at least most of us are.
Nobody will ever know why a man decided to kill people at a music concert. Nobody will ever know why he decided to murder people who were parents, high school students, friends, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, good people…
I find myself without any original words, only sorrow and the feeling that I’m going to cry.
Nobody can understand that kind of evil, in a world that seems to be so full of evil and hate. Nobody can understand that kind of evil in a world so full of goodness and hope.
I write about the paranormal world, those who are Werewolves, Vampires, Ghosts, etc. I don’t try to horrify but write about the day-to-day existence of such beings in the modern world. I write about what it is like to be a little different, or unique, or strange compared to everyone else.
For example – Werewolf myths and stories have been around as long as humans and wolves. Some cultures believed that all it took was a wolf skin belt to make one become a Werewolf. Some said it was a form of witchcraft. Snopes worthy Werewolf stories have abounded for centuries.
In the Old English Werewolf means man-wolf. Sometimes the Greek term Lycanthrope (wolf-person) is used to describe someone who changes their shape from human to wolf, either by full moon light, on demand, or by some other sort of trigger.
There is also a condition known as Hypertrichosis in which a person is covered with hair – face and all. This is a genetic condition that has nothing to do with shape changing. It is just excessive hair (as far as I know.)
If you look at the history of Werewolves, and especially Witches you’ll find a world of blame.
Nobody could believe that someone would kill fifty-nine people for no reason, or injure more than five hundred so they explained it away with accusations of shape shifting and witchcraft.
They burned people alive, tortured them, and locked them away in the name of godliness. There was horror on both sides, with more innocent people caught in the middle. Ignorance and hate for some reason always seem to come up on top. To be crass, shit floats to the top along with dead things.
We can’t blame the modern horrors here in the United States or elsewhere in the world on Werewolves, Witches, Demons or Ghosts. The horror is human. The horror can’t be explained away.
The fact that people are trying to make all of this political has to stop. Yes, there are going to be assholes who are going to say and even do stupid things. They need to feel important. They aren’t. They need to blame and hate because that is where they find their power. They are broken. Stay good. Stay true. Keep your heart on healing and love.
The true monsters are those who kill, who hurt the weak, who subject women and children to slavery like conditions and keep them from their God given human rights, and who prevent others from the freedom of thought, religious belief, and prevent others from loving who they love.
About the love part. Why do people prevent same sex people from loving each other? Why do they force young people into loveless marriages? Why are transgender people beaten and murdered? Why do people abuse their spouses, children, and the elderly? There is no reason for it, except for monsters who are really human. It is control. It is evil and the cult of ignorance and control. It is every dystopian story ever written come true.
As Pogo said, “We have me the enemy and he is us.”
Then again, little possum, there is hope. There is always hope, because there are always those who hold the hand of a dying stranger, who wait in line for eight hours to give blood, who donate to build homes for people they’ve never met, who adopt shelter animals, who comfort those in need, and who feel in their hearts for others.
I’ve been writing for a while but I still don’t think I’ve come up with the right words.
Hold close to those you love, and keep your love light burning for all to see, especially for those who are in their darkest days.
~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
Jo Jo the Dog Faced Boy, aka Fedor Jeftichew. The most famous example of someone with Hypertrichosis.
Mars was exceptionally bright in the sky last night. The moon was less than full but still exceptionally bright.
This morning I dropped the kids off to school. Garret’s car is in the shop so mom gets to drive. Anyway, I drop them off behind some temporary classrooms (that have been there for 45 years) because Clara doesn’t want to have to walk by the large group of “Stoners” who hang out every morning at the logical drop off point. So this morning she tells me she over heard one of the Stoners saying “That woman stops and turns around every morning. Weird. I guess she doesn’t want to stay here.” They had no idea I was dropping off kids. Sigh.
So the moon, teens, clueless thoughts… what does that all lead to? It made me think of a distant memory of when my brothers Val, Aaron and I were teens.
Go back to 1873. We lived in a city that had regulairly flooded, burned down, flooded again and survived illness and lawlessness and all sorts of disasters (Sacramento of course.) It was enough to make anyone want to leave, but instead people thrived and it grew. Railroads made kings. Agriculture was starting to boom. It was a city with growing art and culture and the new capitol building was almost finished. But to us it was home and our concerns were not those of adults or even most people. We were teens, comfortable in our own skin, a little less Victorian than most our age, a little more independent than most. My brothers and I lived in a tight knit community of Vampires, part of the Modern Vampire Movement. But you already know that.
One night, under a full moon, my brothers Aaron (age 17), Valentine (age 14) and I (age 13) were taking a stroll along the Sacramento River. We were always out looking for vagrants and activity from any riverboats. We were on the prowl, three well heeled Vampire kids who could use our innocence and charm to get in and out of any situation before our prey ever knew we were there.
With our stomachs full and our dark little souls throughly amused we walked home through a grove of trees on the edge of the riverbank. There we came upon a camp. Two figures were hunched over half a dozen large fish, I believe stripers or maybe steelhead. They grunted and tore at the fish. At first glance we thought they were coyotes or large dogs, but then we realized they were something else.
“Werewolves,” whispered Aaron holding his hand out to signal us to stay still.
We watched in fascination, with a bit of disgust, as the two turned back into their human form – a young man and a young woman. They were about our age and completely naked. He was skinny, unlike my muscular brothers. His skin was pale under the moonlight like the bellies of the fish he’d just devoured. She was also thin with ribs sticking out and knobby joints. Her grayish unhealthy looking skin was covered with red welts. Long dark hair hung below her waist. But what surprised us most was the hairless tail that hung down about 6 inches on the end of her spine.
I elbowed Aaron and he gave me a quick look that said “don’t move.”
“She has a tail,” Val whispered a little too loud. Aaron put his hand over his younger brother’s mouth.
The Werewolves put on their clothes, plain and worn compared to our fashionable togs. We had a home and parents. These two were obviously strays just trying to survive their miserable condition.
Val and I wanted to approach the Werewolves but Aaron was against it. He said we should just let them be and they’d be dead more sooner than later. There was a prominent pack of well-heeled Werewolves in town but we had little to do with them and it was obvious that these strays were not part of their pack.
Occasionally my parents would deal with the Werewolves, but always held them at a distance and with considerable contempt. One thing that stood out about the well to do Werewolves was their fondness for velvet. No kidding. Those Werewolves loved their velvet.
This isn’t going to be a moral story where we went back and helped the young Werewolves. We went back and they were gone. None of our friends had ever seen them. We told our parents about them. In turn they mentioned the strays to the pack leader in town and he had never heard of the young Werewolves.
It was just one of those weird things. Ships that pass in the night.
I asked my friend Adam, who is a Werewolf, about the pair when I stopped by his studio this morning (he is a photographer by trade.) He’d never heard of them. The tail on the girl turned out to be something extremely rare, just like a tail on anyone who is remotely human like.
“Why didn’t you help them?” Of course he had to ask.
“I don’t know. We were just kids. We thought they were dangerous. Beside that, maybe they didn’t need or want help. My parents asked around. Nobody knew anything, or if they did they weren’t telling us about it. I’m talking both Werewolves and Vampires. Nobody knew anything.”
I knew there would be nothing online about them but I after I left Adam I checked anyway. There was nothing.
This story has no moral or reason behind it. Just a story of something that happened a long time ago that I’ll tell my kids about and maybe they can find a moral in it.
It might be a mystery forever. But I have a knack for finding people and things so you never know. You never know about anything, not really.
~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
This was first posted in 2014.
Werewolf Moon
I looked at the muscular, almost beautiful, naked body on the bed and the folded up sheriffs’ uniform on the chair. The badge seemed to sparkle saying “look at me, look at me.” A white and pink orchid flower was behind his ear.
Holy crap, this wasn’t how I’d planned on starting out my week.
I was three years old and he someone throwing me up in the air and I laughed so hard I could hardly breathe.
His hands are warm and I cling to him to put my ear next to his chest and hear his heart. I hold him tight feeling the heat radiate from his body. I keep laughing. He is so different from everyone else I know.
Thirteen years later, he takes my hands, I laugh. Then my best girlfriend says “He’ll marry me and I’ll be his wife forever.” No way would she get the most handsome man in the world to marry her. I laughed in her face and everyone yelled Happy New Year. Someone lit up lights to spell out 1865. We were in California and in love with men we have silly school girl crushes on. Who cared about the war? We were safe.
I woke in a cold sweat from my dream, on the back deck, my book on the ground, the cat staring at me. I heard my son’s voice.
“Mom, Uncle Val is on the phone.” My son Garrett stood at the sliding glass door holding my phone out at arms length.
My brother Valentine, 13 months my senior said I have to come right now. It was an emergency. Nobody else could come. None of our three older brothers could make it. Everyone else had suddenly vanished off the face of the earth.
I arrived at the farm house, my two teens in tow, slamming the door as hard as I could when I got out of the car.
I’m usually pretty calm but I lit into my brother when I saw him walking towards us. “Nobody ever consults with me. I’m the one with the kids and the husband and my own business. I’m on fucking call 24/7 for everyone in this family and nobody ever asks me what I want or need. Nobody.”
“Are you done?” Val asked this in an uncharacteristically sarcastic tone.
“No. What is going on?”
My brother scowled at me and shook his head. “Why are you yelling?”
I went into the house leaving him in the yard. I could hear my son saying “Bad day to mess with my mom.”
Dealing with the sick and elderly is something we do. We do it for love or obligation or family bonds or whatever the reason it is usually on autopilot fueled by guilt and frustration. I’m so saint but sometimes I want to play that saint card so much it hurts.
Eleora stood at the door in a yellow bikini top and a tie-dye skirt, her brown curls done up in red bows. She fluttered around then kissed me on each cheek. Tellias gave me a big hug. He was wearing a green shirt with yellow parrots embroidered on the back. A patch on the front said Dave in large script letters. His white blonde hair was pulled back with a green ribbon.
They look like they’re 19 or 20 years old but they’re ancient – two of the most ancient Vampires known. They were pioneers and founders of the Modern Vampire movement. It is hard to see them like this. It literally breaks my heart.
Steel guitars were hissing away on a scratched up old record playing on a wind up phonograph in the corner.
“We can’t find the car keys,” said Tellias.
“We’re being tropical tonight,” said Eleora as she danced around and put an orchid flower behind my ear.
I was ready to scream. “Again? Where did you last have them?” I asked slowly and calmly.
“If we knew that we’d be driving,” said Tellias, as he took the ribbon out of his hair and shook it out on his shoulders.
“We’d take a road trip to Montana and Maine and Michigan and Maui!” Eleora sang as she danced around again.
“How long have the keys been gone?” I asked.
“Two or three weeks. Val won’t let us use his car,” Tellias said.
“He says we drive too creatively,” Eleora giggled.
“Yes, he said we drive too creatively,” added Tellias.
“Creatively,” said Eleora, this time more seriously.
“Creatively. That was a nice way to put it,” I said more to myself than to the Elders. “What about food? Is Val bringing you food?”
Tellias patted my hand. “Val has been a darling but we like delivery. We call and they come to the house. Amazing. We should have done that a long time ago.”
Delivery? What in the world were they doing? I looked at the hanging chandelier in the entryway. “Nice fixture. Is it new?”
“A couple of nice men came and installed it,” Tellias told me. “It should last for years. The old one was fitted for gas and ugly. Remember?”
“We had them for lunch,” Eleora proudly told me.
“You shouldn’t do that. They’re help,” I told them.
Eleora just smiled. “We liked them Juliette. We wanted them to stay.”
“Are they still here?” I asked not knowing if I wanted to know the answer.
Tellias answered this time. “No, they left. Then we called the County Sheriffs and asked them to come out. We said someone tried to break in. Eleora sounded scared. They sent two good-looking strong young men right to our door.”
“Right to our door. Good looking healthy young men,” Eleora echoed.
I glanced out the window and saw the black and white car on the side of the house. Oh no.
“Where are they?” I asked trying not to panic.
They both looked to the ceiling. I ran up the stairs.
In a bedroom done in high Victorian style, I found a golden haired well-built man face down and naked on the bed. His uniform was neatly folded in a chair. He was alive but in a deep sleep. The name badge was Murphy, as in Officer Murphy.
Another handsome muscular young man was in the next bedroom over, shirtless on his back, asleep. I noticed a wedding ring on his finger. The name badge on his shirt had the name Garcia. His sleeping eyes moved a little under long dark eyelashes.
I called down the stairs. “How long have you had these guys here?”
“Since yesterday. We jammed the GPS on their car.”
I sat down on the top step, almost in tears. They couldn’t find their car keys but they could jam a GPS signal. I thought about the guy with the wedding ring. His wife must be sick wondering where he is.
In most popular novels ancient Vampires are powerful creatures of the night. In my life they are silly creatures that forget all rules about consequences or right and wrong. They act like senile teenagers, with occasional flashes to the wise, powerful leaders they once were.
Tellias sat down next to me. “We thought about keeping them for a while. Then you and Val wouldn’t have to worry about us.”
Eleora slid down on the other side and stroked my face with a cool hand. “Why are you so upset? Everything will be fine. It always is.”
We dressed the nice handsome patrol officers and positioned them in less provocative poses. An hour later another patrol car and an ambulance arrived. Two officers had become ill with an unexplained illness. Not knowing what to do a young couple took them in to their home. All was well. The officers recovered with no memory of what happened. Both mentioned an overwhelming calm and sense of well-being. Imagine that.
Tellias took my hand, like he did when I was a child. “Juliette, my dear child, we weren’t going to turn those young men into Vampires. You know we wouldn’t do that.”
“I just worry about you two,” I told him.
“You care too much for those Regular Humans,” said Eleora. “You have to distance yourself.”
“I’m married to a man who used to be a Regular Human,” I said quietly, but ready to scream.
Tellias squeezed my hand again. “And if it wasn’t for Eleora and me he would be dead.”
I went back to the bedroom where the married officer had been. Years ago my husband lay in that bed, a phantom between two worlds, that of the humans of the light and those of us who favor the dark. An unwanted conversion that had turned those warm hands cold forever, but given me…
“Mom?”
I looked over to kids standing next to me. A 14 year old daughter and a 17 year old son. They shouldn’t have to see all this, but I don’t believe in sheltering them. I never have.
I guess I should do my famous parenting blogger bullet points but there is no point in this story. It is just one of those things, on one of those nights.
~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
Note: This was first posted in 2013. My kids are older now (18 and 21.) Eleora and Tellias are still getting visits from Murphy and Garcia. Sigh.
There are real monsters in our world and you need to talk to your children about them. You need to tell them where the phrase “Drink the Kool Aid” came from.
I hate cults. Be it religious or some other sort of group who blindly follow a crazed charismatic leader, I loathe them.
They don’t fascinate me as much as I am appalled. I am appalled by the people who start and run them. Most of all I am applied by the people who join them. And of course there is a very special place in Hell for people who bring their children into them.
The same goes for con-artists, so called psychics and clairvoyants who tell those who mourn that they can contact the dead. It isn’t going to happen. They’re nothing as horrible as predators who prey on the emotions and desperation of others.
If you’ve read any of my other work you’ll find patterns where I bring up cults, and those who claim to speak to the dead, hear angels, and other bull shit. I have the same opinion for those who say they’re prophets, or have a direct line to God, or lead others on religious journey’s and enlightenment – which really means control of assets, power, sexual abuse, and assorted other bull crap.
When I think of anyone from Branch Davidians and David Koresh, to Bo and Peep of Heaven’s Gate, to Jim Jones, and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, and those like them, it makes me sick. And don’t think it is just religion. Many multi level marketing groups work on the cult model. Far too many political groups work on this model. They all break down potential members then bring them up in a sick and twisted feel good way – taking away the free will of the new member and replacing it with a perverted sense of belonging, awe, and fear of not belonging.
The leaders take away the member’s money, they isolate them from their families and friends, and they demand complete obedience.
Sex and sexual abuse seems to be a huge part of most cults and cult-like organizations.
It isn’t always on a grand scale. There are far too many small groups and organizations that we never hear about. They also prey on the innocent, lonely, and those looking for answers.
Often they use someone of the opposite sex to luer young people in, disguising their hunt as romance, or a connection with a kindred spirit.
When kids go off to college, or out into the world on their own for the first time it isn’t always easy. They will get lonely. They will have times when they feel like they don’t fit in. This is when the preditors go on the hunt after your children.
The preditors hunt the college campuses, often disguised as smiling peers just sharing information. My mind goes back to a girl I met in the late 70’s on a large college campus. She sat smiling like a bride on her wedding day, at a table, giving out information about “The Young Spartins.” This was back in the cold war days. She was from a communist group. I questioned her. She was all glassy eyed wonder. I didn’t have the heart to ask her if she’d ever heard the word “Gulag.”
Another story I’ll never forget is from a sweet young man who had his heart broken by one of the preditors. Fortunately he was smart enough to follow his head and heart, and not his dick. My young friend, a twenty one year old man in his forth year of college, had met a beautiful young woman at a party. They talked all night and watched the sun come up together. He was floating head over heels in love. He’d met his soul mate. Then two days later he was home early from his next date with her. She wasn’t intersted in him. She was only interested in him joining her “religion.” Her religion was something he (a Catholic) didn’t even consider a religion. He was horrified and heart broken. She didn’t give a crap about him, just about making her quota of converts and mindless followers.
Soon after that I was persued by several men of the same cult. They’d always ask me what I wanted to change about myself. I’d tell them “nothing.” They were total losers. I also met someone who had escaped from that same group that claims to be a religion, only after everything he loved had been taken from him – including his musical talent which he gave up for the cult. One is always expected to give something on loves up to prove their loyalty.
I’m not against religion or belonging to a group. I’m not against anyone having strong beliefs. What I am against is those who prey on the innocent and the young in the name of religion or political group, or other sick and twisted belief.
I tell my kids to question everything. I tell them to be skeptical. I tell them not to follow. Even when they don’t want to lead they should never follow, and never do anything blindly. Blind faith is a dangerous thing. Nieveity is a dangerous thing.
Cults are like abusive relationships. They will take everything from you until you are nothing. And they want to own you – both physically and mentally.
Discuss this with your young adult children. If anyone convinces them to stay away from their family and friends they need to RUN. If anyone tells them their family and friends don’t love them they need to RUN. Anyone who wants to break them down, then bring them up is BAD. They are evil.
Cults, con-artists, abusive assholes – it is all the same. They want your children.
I don’t know what else to say about this. Just continue to talk to your kids, even your older children about preditors. Your kids grow up but stranger danger is still an issue.
I speak from experience. A long long time ago I worked for someone who was trying to start a cult. It was scary. It was sick. It was sad. I saw first hand how the leader manipulated his followers to the point of blindness and deafness to reason and the outside world. I hate those people. I hate it when people are so weak that they follow such people.
That’s all. For now at least.
~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
