bladderwrack

Most abysmally depressing thing I've read since Never Let Me Go. By which I mean, it's brilliant.

I'm not accustomed to reading play scripts, but I find I like it; spare and dense at the same time, in the same way that poetry is.

There are so many rules in my head regarding politeness and directness, delicacy and transparency, good faith and bad grammar, that a single simple email takes half an hour of something approaching physical pain.

(edit to add) sometimes i think really all i would like in life is to be able to write some sentences without wanting to punch myself, in general that would probably be some kind of boon, it would at least make me a little easier to live with all things considered.

^
this, this, this. Even when the communication of whatever type is only like two sentences long, orz.

little brother has an offer of a place at Oxford; wld be less grating had he obtained it via anything other than facile social charm.

The library is amazing at 6:30 AM during the final week of school; you wander inside in a sickly daze and there is life, what a wonderful feeling, you’re not alone. Aggravated students connected in a mad dash to beat deadlines. And finding a good one-third of your classmates from one class there in a collective hysteria, trying to finish. It makes me wish I hadn’t already. It’s something ineffable and fun only in retrospect when the poisonous taste of energy drinks is far gone and you’re well-rested enough to forget the misery of a sleepless night. But it still means something, all that effort put toward a goal; a dream, maybe.

-

I stared at this entry for a while because I am in more or less the same position as the OP, and it seems like a terrifying void. It really is a matter of affect.

How hard for a dead man to pretend to be
alive and lusty among living ones!
But he must worm his way into society
hiding, for his job's sake, the rattle of bones.

The living sleep. The dead man climbs from his coffin,
and goes to the House, the bank, the bar...
The paler the night, the blacker his chagrin,
and pens scratch triumphantly hour by hour.

All day the dead man drafts a memorandum.
The office doors are closing. Watch him, hear
him whispering -- wagging his bottom --
whispering smut in a deputy's ear.

Evening draws on, with rain and soot splashing
the passers-by, houses, and all that trash...
To other filth the dead man is dashing
in a taxi-cab with a creaking spring.

The dead man hurries to a ballroom full
of people and pillars. He is wearing tails.
His hostess, a fool, and her husband, a fool,
receive him at the door with gracious smiles.

He is tired by a day at the office slaving,
but the rattle of bones is drowned by the band...
He must pretend to be one of the living!
Firmly he takes hold of a friendly hand --

Beside a pillar his eyes encounter
those of his partner -- she, like him, is dead.
Behind their conventional party banter
you can hear the truth that remains unsaid:

'Exhausted friend, in this room I feel foreign.'
'Exhausted friend, the grave is cold as snow.'
'It's twelve already.' 'You haven't asked N.N.
to waltz with you, and she loves you so...'

And there is N.N., searching with a wild look
for him, for him. There's thunder in her blood
and in her face, beautiful but childlike,
the meaningless rapture of living love.

He whispers words that have no meaning,
enchantments that the living so desire,
and he observes how her head is leaning
on her shoulder, how her cheeks catch fire...

The old familiar and malicious poisons
he pours into her ear with more than malice.
'How much he loves me. How clever he is!'

She hears a strange unearthly clatter -- his
castanet rattle of bones on bones.

"A recent anthology on postmodern sexualities, entitled (probably inevitably) Pomosexuals(Queen & Schimel 1997), begins with a remark on language. The editors recall that at the 1996 Lambda Literary Awards ceremony, a lesbian comic suggested that a new term was needed to replace the "lengthy and cumbersome yet politically correct tag currently used by and for our community: 'Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Friends' ". The word the comic offered was "Sodomites." Why not? the editors wonder: "[i]t's certainly more succinct, and is actually less glib than it seems upon first reflection, for that is what most people assume LGBT&F actually means, anyway""

After Babel

Having learnt how to scan to a certain size, I'm annoyed that I didn't go back and do it properly; the slight pixellation from the image compression is bothering me (couldn't be fucked doing it after having cleaned the specks off the existing too-big scan with a trackpad, go figure). Ho hum, will know for next time.


OH MY FUCKING GOD IT IS FUCKING FREEZING HERE
[/then go put the heating on, fool]

left a jumper on the floor for a couple of days and it has gone mouldy, this house is disgusting.

well--

this is going to be more or less of a ghetto cosplay

  



but i kind of dig the tiara

This time last year, or more or less, I'd never lived in a place where it is normal to have snow on the ground throughout the winter. Well, now I have. What's odd is how unconsciously one adapts to conditions that one has no prior model for imagining.

[unconnected] (Someday maybe I will do more than just endure).

---

To Reduce Your Likelihood of Murder

Do not go outside. Do not go outside, on dates, or to the store, alone. Do not go on dates with men. Do not go on dates with men who drive. Do not drive yourself to dates, because that may anger the man you are dating who may wonder if you’re too good to step foot in his new custom chrome baby-baby car. Do not date men who sit in or lean on cars. Do not sit in cars or sprawl yourself against the seat, or lean up against the metal skin of the door while you are being kissed. Do not date at night. Do not walk at night. Do not walk at night alone. Do not be alone. Walk with a girlfriend or someone else. A man you trust? Do not spend time with men, men friends, or boys. Do not spend time with any kind of men at all. Do not spend time with friends at all. Most women are killed by someone they know. Most women are killed by someone they know intimately.

Install alarm systems on every window, every doorway in your house. Better, do not live in a house. Go apartment. Go co-op. Go someplace where you can be heard, where someone can hear you scream. Do not venture out in public (at night, alone). Do not stay at home. Do not wear black. Do not wear the dress your boyfriend likes so much. Do not date your boyfriend whom you like so much. Do not like so much. Do not say like so much. Everyone is a potential murderer. And murderee. You are the murderee. You are single, seventeen, and thin. You are a thing made for television, for the nights of drama crime. Do not watch crime shows on TV or DVD. Do not open the door for anyone. Do not tell your mother that you don’t know when you’ll be back. Do not frustrate. Do not comply. You must lie somewhere in-between.

Do not sleep deeply.

Do carry mace, or pepper spray, or a bowie knife. Do carry guns if you can get them. A crossbow. A blowgun. Do subscribe to the Shotgun News and carry it wherever you go. It will be a totem, will keep you safe from harm. Armor yourself: plate mail, chain mail, studded leather armor. Helms and chain-link gloves. Keep away from the windows at all times. You must be surprising: Always travel in a crowd, in a cloud of smoke. Cover all your tracks. Keep an eye behind. Switch cabs. Duck into dead-end streets and wait for cars to pass.

Still you will be killed. You’re born for it. Your life is a tree meant to be torn apart by weather and electricity.


- Ander Monson
http://otherelectricities.com/