A small sample of the kind of random crap that sleets through my brain all the goddamn time, which, whilst not terribly edifying in and of itself, may go some way to explain why I must write or EXPLODE (boom).

Patronising Nelson (Nelson="differently abled"). Evil vampire alien nanobot cosmetics that make you lose weight by devouring your life force. An online pro-Domme who uses magick to control her subs, which practice they are not only aware of but get off on*. Everything that begins with an X. A man falls in love with his sex doll and the gods take pity on him and make her live, even tho' she doesn't have a head or any limbs. Your goldfish is God. Your little finger houses the soul of Genghis Kahn. Your tribe hunts mermaids and butchers them for food. The Truth hurts; she's go a recurrent urinary tract infection that's gone to her kidneys. A postmodernist brothel: "LIVE" "GIRLS". There's a clock in my soup. The woman who stole the colour of your hair. Children blossom like mushrooms from the flesh of your forearms.

Borrowing this stuff without asking allows me to sluck out your prana like spaghetti. Really.



*This am my worst idea ever. It must never be done!

Sort of blocked at the mo. Well, not really blocked per se, just stuck in a loop. That last thing I did has stirred up a lot of stuff (for other people as well as for me) and I'm having a hard time moving my head into the next space. I mean, I could just write more of the same (in fact I am writing more of the same) but that gets tired. I'd like to work on my new amputee sex robot story for a while now, then come back to that theme fresh. But I can't. It's like I'm lost in my own anger; the worst of it is, I can see the pettiness of that. The smallness. And yet I still can't seem to pry my brain free of the "I'm cross and I can't do anything and it hurts" box.

Stupid brain.

Maybe write some SMUT instead. Lovely filthy SMUT will fix all things including stupid brain. Mmmm, SMUT.

Still waiting to hear back from the last lot of places I submitted to. I've begun writing poetry again; it's not easy, but it feels good to be doing it. I've even made tentative moves towards a couple of paying poetry markets, shock horror. Only five bucks a pop, but better than a poke in the eye etc etc.

I love webzines. I know I bitch about them, but it's fantastic that there's this big ol' market out there for writers now that just didn't exist a few years back. I wish there'd have been webzines back when I was 18. All we had back then was wood-burning internet.

Anyhow, I have managed to write a new thing for the entities. It's up now, if you want a read.

Some of Armin Meiwes the German cannibal's Usenet posts.

I am Franky from Germany and i search for a young Boy, between 18 and 25 y/o. Have you a normal build Body and will you di, than come to me, i butchering you and eat your horny flesh.

%Well, when you put it like that...%

(via waxy.org)

No big news, just checking in.

Apart from the escalating quantities of snot pouring from every orifice as my recently-upgraded body attempts to throw off a nasty cold via my mucus membranes and completely overdoes it, I'm doing okay. Been feeling energized since my 30th. Not a very interesting number; too divisable, man. 31st is a prime, which'll be cool. Made some more T-shirt designs over on zazzle.com: you can see them here. They are all peppers, though, so don't bother checking if you don't like peppers. So far exactly zero people have bought this stuff but what the hell--i'm extending my creative/magickal datashadow, and that's the important thing. Said shadow is still pretty short, but fortunately the lumpyness of cyberspace means I claim more unreal estate than a cursory glance might suggest.

I will commence putting sigils on tees soon. Then you will alllll be mine.

I've been writing some more: bits and pieces for the entities, and some amputee sex robot stuff which riffs off the Kitchen Lover idea. That's for pimping though so you can't have a read of it until someone buys it. You can, however, have a read of Punching your girlfriend in the tits is a revolutionary act, my newest free fic. Enjoy.

Almost forgot (part 2)

I turn 30 today. (Yeah, me and L.A. have our birthdays within a day of each other. So? Wanna get all astrological, is that it? Huh?)

I guess I'm supposed to do one of those God-I'm-So-Old blog posts, but I really don't feel that way. I'm happier than I've ever been. After years of struggling, there are small signs that I'm finally turning my life around. I'm achieving more than I ever hoped. My magickal life is bearing fruit. I'm living in a beautiful part of the world. I'm in the best shape of my life (apart from the fact that L.A. has infected me with his foul germs and I'm filling up snotrags like there's no tomorrow). Over and above all that, I'm entering the 7th year of a wonderful relationship with an amazing bloke; just being with him makes me happy beyond words. I'm the jammiest fucking bastard alive.

I feel excited to be 30, like I should go out and do something I've never done, go snowboarding or something.

The age-is-death meme must die. Humans (rich western humans anyhow) are exploring the very edges of mortality now; some of us are in this life for a really long haul, maybe 120 years. Time to start enjoying and relishing our long healthy lives instead of bemoaning the fact that we can't stay 15 forever. Time to stop hating and resenting the young just because they're young and we're not. Time to learn to live.

Gonna burn in hell for this one...

fagarina the singing tampon!

NB: link not even a little bit worksafe. Genitalia and everything, man.

Oh yeah...

Almost forgot-- Happy B-day, Lurid Archive! :) We were planning to go clubbing in celebration, but the poor boy's down with the lurgi. (Either that, or he's faking it just so I'll take pity on him and not give him his richly-deserved bumps. Heheheheh.)

A word on the green book...

Was going to post this to the blog in question, but it's more about me than it is about the guides.

I have started a book. They made me. They kept on and on and on until I started this damn book. In vain did I protest that they already had a weblog. In vain did I protest that I'm trying to work on my fiction, poetry, and travel writing. They want a book as well. So the other day I went out to the art /stationary/bookshop and they picked out a notepad. No, they couldn't make do with any old notepad. It had to be a special notepad. And the special green pen.

Then I went and sat in the caff across the way with my green pen and my special book, while Spooky Pervert M-L spent about three quarters of an hour dictating to me.

Five pages.

And it's all about goats.

Goats.

I had a little chat with them in the same cafe yesterday, wherein they chided me gently about not writing a bit more often. Goats, that's why! Goats! Everyone else has proper spirit guides, who bang on about being Evolved and on Higher Planes. Everyone else gets told about their Past Lives on Atlantis and shit. What do I get? GOATS! I mean, who needs Gematria when you can be COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY INCOMPREHENSIBILE in plain English?

You are Professor X!

You are a very effective teacher, and you are very
committed to those who learn from you. You put
your all into everything you do, to some extent
because you fear failure more than anything
else. You are always seeking self-improvement,
even in areas where there is nothing you can do
to improve.


Which X-Men character are you most like?
brought to you by Quizilla


What the fuck? I am so not Xavier! Not not not! I am Magneto, quiz-setting person, MAGNETO! Don't make me come round your house and chuck metal objects at you using only the POWER of my MIND!

Googlewhacking.

Silly damn game doing the rounds, on the B and elsewhere. You have to get a unique result on Google by searching just two words.

Of course, I totally rule at it.

A little more of my stuff.

You're all alone in that internet cafe and nobody loves you

Injectable fetus trainers

Go read, filthy blog-sniffers.

Guidelines.

It used to be so easy, you know? White paper, black type. 10pt Courier, double spaced, title and word count at the top, <end> at the bottom. SSAE for return of manuscript (noone but a fule use email). Sure, you'd make an amatuerish mistake or two at first, but once you knew the rules it was a piece of cake.

But the print market for unknown short-story writers (that would be moi) is pretty much a non-starter. The only chance for the grubby likes of us is webzines. And I swear, every single bloody publication out there wants something else.

First off, it's gotta be email. Most webzine editors turn their noses up at snail mail or 'dead tree' submissions. Fair enough. But how should I format this email? One wants you to attach your story in a seperate file; another wants you to paste the whole thing into the body of the email and jumps up on the chair screaming at the mere thought of an attachment. One wants .rtf, another wants .txt, yet another insists on Word, though Lord knows why. One wants you to italicise your italics using the Italic button, another wants you to use _underscores_. Yet another wants you to use HTML tags. One wants single-space, another wants double. One gets hives if you use a serif font, another gets the vapours in the presence of sans-serif.

What really gets me is that every single one of them thinks that his or her way is right. Their way is the only possible way that any sane, reasonable adult would ever submit anything, ever. And because they're so damn sure their way is the One True Way to send an email submission, zines that haven't been up for long or are run by people with little or no experience don't actually think to have this stuff in their bloody writer's guidelines.

Hint: if you want to play Big Grown-up Editor, create a proper bloody guidelines page (better yet, have a comprhensive guidelines page and an online submissions form, like Bloodlust-uk). Don't just wait for everyone to screw up and then kvetch about it in your editorial about how all these cretins get it wrong, because your cretinously wrong is likely to be someone else's self-evidently right.

Just a reminder...

Mordant Carnival's Emporium of Negativity

There are now four smashing T-shirts for you to buy/rip off. There will be more. Check back in a day or two.

Spec fic markets.

I still can't belive there's a magazine called Gobshite Quarterly. And paying 5-10 cents a word, too...

Selling out again.

'K, so remember when I was going to make T-shirts on zazzle.com and you were all going to buy them because if you don't I'll make it rain microwaves in your house? I've finally got around to sorting out my account. You can veiw my first T right here: memetically altered

Don't worry, I'll do some gothier stuff soon.

Obviously there's nothing to stop you from ripping off my idea and making your own shirt for a fraction of the price. I mean, it's not like I'd go to the trouble of creating a copyright protection servitor to hunt you down and suck your brains out of your ears with agonising slowness or anything.

Toodles!

Smut.

Got right back on the horse after my little knock-back the other day, and punted out a thang to Gothic.net. I'd already submitted it to another webzine which shall remain nameless, but the swines never even responded. Rude! Would it kill ya to send out one little standard email, mister big swankypants editor? Anyway, it's a killer little piece if I do say so as shouldn't.

Also finished a piece of filthy disgusting SMUT yesterday. It's not really up to much; I haven't found my SMUTvoice yet. Still, that'll come. I was trying to write a very straigt down-to-earth piece with no ghosts or aliens or prehistoric animals, and that's hard for me. I live in spec fic land so much, it's hard to come out sometimes.

Bleagh.

Story got rejected. I'm going to go and eat worms now.

Okay...

Updateyness over at the Liber V. Spooky perverts give me prezzies now, yes?

First off, I want out of my current blockyness. Like, now. Whatever's causing it, I need to know so I can fix it. I'm writing, but I haven't had a decent splurge for a week or so now. This must end. I want to finish some filthy smut tomorrow, and also a Leftover Parfait piece puhleeeze. If nothing esle, Leftover Parfait actually seemed to be giving people a bit of encouragement to get on with their own stuff, and that made me happy.

Argh fuck.

Submitted a piece to Fables the other night-- just a short, 1000 word-type-deal. And now I'm re-reading it, and it looks like crap. No typos or anything, no identifiable clunkers; it just looks weak, derivative, lame. I wish I hadn't sent it off now. I feel stupid.

You all look the same to me.

I suck at recognizing people. Seriously, I've got a problem. Case in point: a while back, me and the Fawning A. were watching some film on the telly, and I go "Heyyyy, I know that guy. He's been in loads of stuff. What's his name?"

The Fawning A. turns to me with a look of utter incomprehension and says "Dude. That's Robert Redford."

And I wish that was abnormal for me, but sadly it's not. I am so crap at recognising people it's untrue. Faces are not only unhelpful to me, they can actually throw me for a loop-- I can sometimes recognise someone better if I don't see hir face. See, it's not a pattern recognition thing. I recognise patterns fine-- probably better than you lot. It's just human faces that throw me.

Just as a for example, I was watching Buffy videos yesterday and was able to spot that the guy playing the demon with the horns and the beard and stuff was the same guy who played Clem, the demon with the floppy ears and the saggy skin. That sort of thing happens a lot. When the face is occluded with all latex and yak hair or whatever, I'm free to look for other cues-- voice, intonation, body language.

So I'm better at recognising demons than people. I'm comfortable with that. Most people are really boring looking. If you hom. saps. would just make a bit of an effort, I wouldn't even have this problem.

Script.

Okay, so I'm halfway thru an Eric script right now. Not sure why I'm bringing it up, given that a) I'll probably never finish it because of terminal literary constipation and b) I know sweet Fanny Adams about writing comic scripts so what I do write is probably incomprehensible, but there you go. Anyone up for drawing stuff? Want to poke me along a little, or just offer comic script writing advice?

Yep, it's happened.

Fuck fuckity fuck. Totally off the fucking boil, blocked to fuck, sod everything, I hate you, suck any part of my anatomy you find sticking out from under the duvet because I'm going to bed now and even if I never write another word again as long as I live I'm still 5000000% better than you at everything and if even I suck at something it's because that thing wasn't worth being any good at.

I hated you first.

Creamcrackered.

I've got a horrible horrible feeling that I'm coming off the boil. I wrote that Eric thing yesterday and worked on my smut a bit, but that was all. I didn't write nearly has much as I have been writing. I did somethign this morning but it only came to half a page. Please don't let this have been an abberation. Please let me finish something tonight.

Feels like I'm on a comedown; tired, jangly, paranoid. I want to sell stories! I want to do this for a living! How can I do this for a living if I go back into my 200-word-a day coma? Arggh! Help! Arrgh!

Stupid writing.

Something's not right.

Way, wayyy too many of my cool friends have recently or still are going through really harsh times. I'm thinking of you.

Eric and friends.

Well, I got a phonecall from my Mum and finished a story, so big thanks to my imaginary friends. It was just another Eric though, not saleable. (Thinking of boshing out a comic script based on the Eric stories but that means work: narrative, coherency, backstory, actually sitting down and thinking about the thing.) So if the invisible frotteurs could see their way clear to helping me finish something I can get money from today, that would be groovay.

I was feeling afraid that this is just a flash in the pan, that the power will run out and this terrific output will falter. I'll fall back into the 200-word-a-day living death that was my lot only recently. The fear keeps me pinned to the keyboard for most of the day, so my output remains ferociously high. Now I fear losing the fear. I will achieve some sort of equilibrium at some proximate juncture; equilibrium, or at least metastasis.

I am becoming my own fiction, an invented being of my own device, and all the stories that you create around me are thus fan-fic. I have my canon which exists unto itself and which your texts do not violate. It was foolish of me to ever belive otherwise.

In other news: a plea for you to spare the weak(er than you in some regard and in this place at this time) from your unacknowledged aggression is not a violation of your intellectual freedom. This is old stuff but I thought I'd mention it.

Well, it's morning again, half past one to be precise, and still things are not right.

Where is my huge golden pyramid full of drugs and my army of khol-eyed worshippers? Where is my novel that is better then everyone else's novel and impresses the impressionable so that they want to snuggle up to my sagging flesh and warm me with their priceless youth? Why isn't there anything good on the internet? I hate the internet, it's all full of shite. There isn't any descent booze in the house. There is kirsch, on the principle that it's always good to have some undrinkable filth in the cupboard so that you'll keep the vodka topped up rather than drink it.

GODDAMN IT PEOPLE WHERE IS MY BOOZE?

I hate you all. This isn't the reality I ordered.


(Note for guides: All right, you spooky perverts, I've updated your green weblog. Now give me stuff.

I want to finish a story tomorrow, I want inspiration, I want to be magically filled with the passion and energy I need to do all the stuff I need to do, I want the door to freezer compartment to not be all iced open again, I want... I dunno, stuff. You know the sort of stuff I like.)

Dirt.

I'm sick of being broke so I'm channeling the relentless flood of words that has been pouring out of my twitching fingers recently into something more (potentially) lucretive. Namely: smut. Filthy disgusting SMUT. I've got my beady eye on Pink Flamingo Publications (short stories, paperbacks and e-books for the discerning perv). The bar's pretty high but my writing's come on quite a lot just in the last few weeks.

For some reason, I've never been able to finish a pr0n story till now. But things have changed lately: not only am I writing between ten and twenty times as much a day as previously (no, that's not an exaggeration), but the quality has improved. I'm becoming a better editor.

I will sell another story before the year is out. I can feel it in my boneessss. And I got some other tricks up my sleeve, too.

I AM YOUR SUPREME DARK RULER. GROVEL BEFORE ME OR PAY! OR BOTH!

Dreamed this afternoon of many things, including the Two of Swords and the Hermit. My tarot cards want me to take them out and play with them.

Validation.

The kind of backslap that comes with a good solid pricetag attached is nice, but d'you know what? The other day, when Cholister referred to my Leftover Parfait gubbins as "fics," I felt heckofa validated. I mean a) I didn't know what to call those hideous red-headed textual abortions that fester on my Lj and now I do, they're fics, and b) fics is a term that's fairly specific to the fanfic/slasher community, and I felt like Chol was giving me an honorary community... errr... thing. An "OKAY!" type thing. Coz I don't write fanfic. I could, and I don't have any real problem with fanfic or anything, I just, y'know, don't.

Anyway. It was nice.

w00t!!!

Guess who's just flogged another story? :D

Sick.

Or something. I'm processing something big. The night before last I had this minor freakout: loads of stuff from the past coming up, how crazy things seemed when I was growing up. Stuff like my folks getting their post opened because they were in CND, the way we all felt so vulnerable because of the homeschool thing, the way we had to be so damn careful all the time because other families who homeschooled were getting hauled up before the courts and having their kids taken into care left, right and centre. That wasn't what got to me, though. What got to me the impossibility of getting people to understand what it was like, that we weren't just being stupid and paranoid, that these fears were real and justified, and that the world is just such a fucking crazy place.

Realised that although I've begun to put the fear behind me, I've never really dealt with the anger at other people's blank incomprehension. And I need to free myself from it, get it off my fucking throat and pucnh its lights out and shoot it full of tranks until I've got it chained up in the cellar with the rest of this crap. Then I can use it, make it into my creature.

So anyway, all that came up and here I am a couple of days later, with a fever and a gunky throat (blue chakra flashing like an ambulance). And I'm thinking: This is it. This is where I get the poison sweated out and burned off. I think I'm getting to the bottom of where my voice is. The nature of the beast that rises up and chokes me.

When I find it, I'm going to kick its arse.

"Killing people at work is getting cheaper!"

I'm going to do that annoying thing of posting the full text of an email on my blog. You need to be thinking about this stuff.

The "Health and Safety" Executive today announced that the average fine for a conviction on a health and safety offence has dropped by 21 percent over the last year.

Commenting on this news - which shows the grubby reality behind the
government's spin about promoting a safer workplace - Mick Holder of the London Hazards Centre said

"This is very bad news indeed. Employers are getting away with killing,
disabling and injuring their workers at the expense of a paltry fine.

"Many cases involving the death of a worker are still heard in the lower,
Magistrates Court, which does not reflect the serious nature of the crime and restricts the fine to a maximum of £20,000. Nothing will change until errant employers face real sanctions such as prison and much higher fines that reflect the seriousness of the crimes."

Tchhh. When will these knee-jerk liberals understand that weeding out the weak in favour of the strong is a good thing? I mean, obviously, if you're desperate enough to be in a job that threatens your life or health, then you're inferior to your employer.

Examples of fines in recent court cases:

* SUPERMARKET chain Asda was fined £4,000 recently after Brian Costin, 42, a warehouse worker was crushed to death at one of its Yorkshire stores in July 2000.

Graham Naden, who trades under the name Roof Build was fined £2,500 and ordered to pay £3,750 compensation to the family of Terence Severs, one of his workers who died after falling off a roof. Huyton magistrates heard that Terence Severs life could have been saved if safety scaffolding which costs just £100 had been used on the job.

Farmer James Thompson was recently fined £7,500 following the death of seasonal worker Sean Dodds, 24, who died when a forklift truck he was driving toppled over at Redhouse Farm, Hepscott, near Morpeth in October 2001.

Information for health and safety activists at www.lhc.org.uk

www.simonjones.org.uk

Sure, to the Guardianistas who worry about this kind of thing, the fines might not seem like a lot. They probably spend that much on pashminas every week! But you have to look at these things in context. What's the point of bankrupting companies or imprisoning decent, honest businessmen, just because they were unlucky enough to have a little accident occur on their premises? You have to ask yourself: how much is the life of one of those sorts worth? It's not like they're real people; why, I bet some of them weren't even homeowners.

If you ask me, the UK has gone safety mad in recent years. The nanny state has far too much power. Don't people realise that financial weath is a clear indication of a person's worth, of their fitness to survive? We don't need more saftey precautions in the workplace, we need fewer! And while we're on it, what's all this namby-pamby nonsense about child labour laws? We need to weed out the undesirables at as young an age as possible. What Britain needs is a rolling programme of realistic safety targets and conscription for any child over the age of seven who flunks their SATs. Your bleeing hearts are diluting the gene pool, people!

Themes.

The forces of synchronicity have declared this Bottled Fetus Month. Every time I turn on the TV or surf the web or anything: bottled fetuses.

I really hope they don't mean what I think they mean. If this is a missed opportunites thing then I'm going to be very cross with a certain pair of entities. I'm trying, guys! Throw me a bone!

Writeoff.

I'm looking for an online writer's group at the mo. I need people I can spark off. My board is great for that, and to a lesser extent my Lj, but I need more-- more, dammit! MORE! I'm looking for people who write at the darker, slightly nastier end of things. Obviously.

The seach is not going well. My list of people who must suffer and die when I get my powers back just grew by a bout three feet of names. I mean, for the love of God, does everyone who's not a complete muttonhead stop writing when they hit twelve or something? Why is everything out there so unbelivably fucking crap?

If it was even different kinds of crap, that would help. But I swear, this stuff all looks the same after awhile.

"Hello my name is Marie but my real name is Gerladrial I am a elf because I went to see LOTR and I realised I was Gerladrial in my past life and I said to my friend OMFG I just remembered I'm Gerladrial from a past life and she was like OMFG!!! I am Gerladrial TOO!!! so were both best friends forever now because of both being Gerladrial in a past life and we love Gerladrial and we want to meet her one day. Also I am a Vampyre I realised I'm a vampiree after I watched Queen of the Damned. NEway here is my poem it is about my boyfreind or rather my EX boyfriend I hate him.

Ashen tears like blood
Flow down my face.
They flow like blood
Also like rain
But mostly blood really.

You put those tears there,
like cutting me so there is BLOOD
When you walked into the
Fourth-form common room
With HER.

I am going to kill myself now.
With knives.
Yes.
There will be blood
Like my tears

By Marie aka Gerladriel"

From a 14-year-old, this sort of thing would almost forgivable. But sometimes the author turns out to be a 44-year-old mother of three, whereupon that last tiny fragment of hope for humanity crumbles within your breast and you howl to the uncaring skies: "Evil, be thou now my good!"

So, if you want to clue me in on a writer's community that I won't want to kill after five minutes, that would be groovy.

Okay! Okay! I give up!

I finally yeilded to the nagging of my unidentified and quite possibly imaginary guide/angel/entity-type-people and gave them their own blog.

It is green. It is called Liber Viridis.

I thought that would shut them up, but nooo. I have to link to that blog from this one.

If I've buggered up the Latin, let me know. It was supposed to mean "the green book."

Do you spooky perverts know how embarrassing this is? I mean, no-one else belives in you, guys. I'm not sure I belive in you, and I talk to you.

Tired and brutishly pissed-off.

Even that hamster isn't doing it for me anymore. I feel like hurting something.

This isn't related to anything happening in the real world, you understand. It's purely my own misfiring brain chemistry that's making me want to tear around the room screaming. I fucking hate being at the mercy of my glands like this. My glands hate me. They hate you, too. My glands want all of us to suffer.

I was sort of run down today; possibly a reaction to my mammoth healing sesh on Sunday. Sounds peverse, but sometimes giving/receving healing actually sends your body off into disease symptoms for a while as it processes all the crap it needs to throw off. Cold symptoms are the commonest, but some people get fevers and stuff. It can't hurt you, it's just uncomfortable for a while.

Or maybe I'm just some sad deluded fuckwit with a headcold. Who knows.

Anyway. Angry fits. Usually I get them the week before the painters come round. I've got at least another five to seven days of this to get through, followed by a week of mopeyness and cramps. Oh, joy unconfined. Black Cohosh usually puts me to rights but I've run out and I can't find anywhere round here that sells it.

It's not been that bad this year because I've been channeling the random, unfocused rage into my writing. But at the mo I'm all writer's blocky, and that's making me bitter and frustrated.

Everything seems so damn limited right now. I know I should be moving on to the next stage of my life, the next stage of my thinking, but I'm stuck here in this space. Every time I go looking for guidance, for inspiration, for one tiny fucking glimmer of what it is I need I have to wade through all this tedious old crap, crap that people keep trying to convince me is some stunning new idea.

Well, the hell with that. I'm not listening to you anymore. I'm listening to my real imaginary friends.

You hear that sound? That sound is the wheels of the Chariot, rolling into my life. I aim to be the dude sat up top with the big fuckoff cup. You will not pull me down because I have been under those big red wheels wayyy to many times in my life already.

I may have to go and blow something up soon.

Spam.

Okay, so just now I got a Nigerian spam email that addressed me as "Daddy". I am more weirded out than I can comfortably accomodate.

Random stuff I need to get sorted.

Well, they warned me that getting hooked up with Reiki would stir shit up in my head. And lo, shit is stirred up. Has to do with... well, stuff.

It has to do with fear, mostly. Fear of being strong. (If I develop my abilities, I might hurt someone). Fear of being used. (If I develop my abilities, other people will bully me into putting those abilities at their disposal). Fear of being hurt. (I've never been able to induce an OOBE since this one time where I left my body under fairly hellacious circs.) Fear of losing touch with reality. (Will end up in looney bin, or just bloody nuciance in dangly earrings).

All these fears are rational to the extent that they are all rooted in experience. But they are irrational in the way that they persist, in the way that I allow them to limit me.

Stupid fears.

Twinkle, twinkle...

Betcha all wondering about the pretty blue star, hmmm? No? Sod ya then.

It's a heptagram, representing the seven days of the week. It has other interpretations, of course, but that's the one I had in mind. Then you've got 24 7 at the top, which is the hours of the day and the days of the week. The 29/11 bit is some numerolgical stuff that this numerologist told me once: it's obtained by adding the numerals of my birthdate together in a certain way. It represents my lifepath (supposedly that's a shit-hot number to have for your lifepath but I suck at numerology so hell if I know).

So anyway, the total significance of the doodle is that I'm now going to try and stick to my lifepath 24-7. No more detours, no sidetracks, no more... hey, look, a bunny!

Hmmm.

Big things are afoot. Had a bit of an odd day. Had to leave the healing marathon a little early, having Reikified and Sekhimed two satified punters.

One of said punters being a channeler. I'm hoping she might work with me at some point, maybe in exchange for more zappage (?) Don't know what the form is for this sort of thing. New territory... Anyway. Channeler. 'K, so she confirmed a lot of the psychic sensations I've been having recently. She reckons that and I have this two guides (check!) one who stands behind me while I'm healing (check!) and one who flies/hovers up on the ceiling while I work (check!) She remarked on the power of the priniciple guide, which is, y'know, cool. She also said that I'm a teacher, I just didn't know it because I was all self-doubty.

Interesting.

Grab a helping of Leftover Parfait.

Right. You know that Lj I started up so I could stalk more people? I've been chucking bits of fiction, poetry, and general ramblings there so it didn't look quite so empty. It's now chocka with writey goodness, so you can all bugger off there and have a look at it. I'll be updating it fairly regularly so don't forget to check back.

Can't be bothered with this thing at the mo. Maybe in a day or two. Meanwhile, here's a guy who fed bits of himself to his Venus flytrap.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

My head hurts. My back hurts more. I appear to be having yet another identity crisis.

Taking stock, looking back over the years: Never had a proper job, everything always casual temporaryminimumwagebollocks. I try to go to Uni, and they pull the rug out from under my feet, they dick me around with this unprofessionl crap and I let them. I move here, hoping for a fresh start-- I can't even get a job mopping fucking floors. I try to build something, it falls down. Every time. Ever feel like the universe is sending you a message? What if the message is "Screw you, loser"? What do you do then?

Where do you go?

When you know you should say something, but you're not sure what to say, because anything you do say is just going to set everyone off again... there should be a word for that.

Screw all this.

Why do I even try to communicate with the world? Sometimes, seriously, I think I had the right idea at 17: Stay in your room, close the door, don't talk to anyone unless you absolutely have to.

I feel like someone's ripped out my guts, made balloon animals out of them, and stuck them back inside along with a canteen of plastic cutlery. I can hear the while mess rattle when I move.

Why did I think I could do this?

I mean, when does anything I touch not turn to shite?

Email!

Okay, that's a start. Still some major damage control to do, but oh, boy, what a relief.

Arrgh.

No, really, arrgh. Seriously, really badly arrrrrrrgggggh.

I don't wanna go into too many details, but I don't think it's a breach of confidence to mention that I'm in the middle of a major-- what? Not really a fight, more of a communications breakdown-- with a very dear friend.

Therre's nothing like the fear that someone's never going to speak to you again to make you really, really appreciate them. You think about everything they've done for you, everything they are.

Like I say, Argggh.

Yay!

The other day I found an old computer disc in amongst my stuff. Turned out to be chocka with stories that I wrote way back in '99. I thought I'd have a hard time getting into the files, because I wrote them on another wordprocessing package. But StarOffice can handle them just fine. I'm well chuffed. They're not good enough to sell, not without some comprehensive re-writing, but I may put some of them up on my board or my Lj or whatever. I'd forgotten all about some of them. I'll probably bung a couple of them up tonight.

It's odd, reading them after all this time. It feels like a different person wrote those words.

Unicorns.

Real Unicorns do not have any of the following:

Wings.
Rainbow fairy butterfly wings.
Rainbow anything else.
My Little Pony tails. (Unicorns have lion's tails, stupid.)


Also, you may not ride them. No, not even if you're a virgin. It's just not on.

Brains4zombies.com

Brains, Other Brains, and Celebrity Brains.

(Via Pagga.com)

Awwwright! No seziure!

Must've been a petit mal or something. That was okay. I could handle more of those. Shame I had to turn in and sleep through it, but it was about 3am my time and I was cream crackered.

Today I woke up feeling out of sorts tho'. I'm consumed with a desire suddenly to make something happen in my life. I don't know what I want it to be but I feel like my mind and my whole body are turning into tapioca. Think I'll start having my midlife crisis now, while I'm still young enough to enjoy it.

Okay you entities. If you're going to send fits, I want a sweetner. I want Signs and Wonders. Really big impressive ones. I want to see ghosts or aliens or, I dunno, something.

I'm going to regret asking for this, aren't I?

Uuuummmm.

Think I might be going to have another fit. I haven't had one since Cork, maybe as much as 8, 9 months ago(?) I shall be really fed up if I have one.

Been feeling a bit odd today, sort of slow and ditzy. Maybe just lie down. Finished that stupid story, thanx be to grud.

Yep, evrythings gone all colours again. rats.

Resignation.

Try as I might, nothing I dream up will ever be as messed-up as reality. Trust me on this.

The writing is going well.

The writing is going very very well. I did the bits that I posted over on my board, oooobviously, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. I was a bit leery about chucking those pieces out on my board, because it renders them unsaleable to a lot of webzines (most places want exclusive rights).

But now it feels like that was the right thing to do-- like a sacrifice to the gods of writeyness. Two or three people seem to have enjoyed them, and that's two or three more than if the pieces had just stayed on my wordprocessor.

Plus, I've come over all prolific. Just today I've been kicking the old novel around a bit and I've written half of two short stories. I reckon I should finish one of them tonight-- well, the first draft, anyway.

And it feels good.

Teenaged boy arrested for saving girlfriend's life.

Story here.

Okay, so say you're a 15-year-old kid with asthma. Your girlf also has asthma. You guys take the same meds. One day your squeeze forgets her inhaler-- bit dopey, but we've all done it-- and she has an attack. She's in a bad way, so, rather than watch her fight for breath, pass out and die, you lend her your inhaler.

She says you've saved her life. Her mum thinks you're a regular knight in shining armour. Your school, on the other hand, has you arrested because of their braindead "zero tolerance" anti-drugs policy.

This kid's being threatened with expulsion and quite possibly a stretch in juvenile hall because authorities at this school would rather let a 15-year-old choke to death on her own phlegm than see one of their students show a little gumption. Initiative is bad, m'kay?

Wankers.

(Via Stupid Evil Bastard and elsewhere.)

She doesn't hit him; you did.

New thing.

Also from underreported.com: USA: Portland police pepper-sprayed, tazered and handcuffed a blind disabled 71 year old. According to the woman in question, Eunice Crowder: “They pepper sprayed me in my prosthesis... it ran through and down my nose so fast.”

The prosthesis in question being Ms. Crowder's glass eye. Ouch.

Secret Spells Borebie

This is just disgusting-- more disgusting than Borebie's normal background level of disgustingness. As if any mage worthy of the name would wear such restrictive and impractical clothing for a ritual. Gold lamé flares? I ask you. And do you call that a cauldron? Puh-lease!

(Via underreported.com)

Random.

Was nudged in the direction of Found Magazine today. I haven't looked at it for a while, but it made me think. I need to be doing stuff, getting stuff out there. I've started posting up poems and stories on my board but I need to be doing something else. Maybe make pictures, slogans, notes, drop them in public places? Buy a cheap tarot deck like the IJJ or something, drop the cards around town until there's none left. Or maybe just ordinary cards, I don't know. The tarot can upset people who aren't used to it. If you've grown up with it, like me, the images are old friends but for people who aren't up on that side of things they can be disturbing.

IK need to be doing something... something fresh. I'm so sick of this old crap that's being thrown in my face all the time by people who act like I'm supposed to be mindblown by it. It's like having someone come up and tell you an old, bad joke, and when you don't laugh they tell it again... and again... and agian...and they never, ever shut up.

I get it. I just don't want it.

So anyway, I want to do, to make, to feel... the way they're always telling me that they're going to make me feel, right before they tell me the one about the fly in the soup for the thirtieth time. I need to cut loose; I've been hiding for too long.

Tingle.

I get this tingly feeling in my back sometimes, from a spot around my shoulderblades down to my tailbone. I've been getting it on and off since I was a kid, but this year it's got much stonger. It's as if there's a limb there, as if I should be able to, I dunno, extrude tentacles or something. Sometimes if I've been doing a lot of magickal work it gets very strong, very intense (for somereason I typed that as "insense"; how?). Right now I can barely feel it. Had a few drinks last night; I mentioned before how alcohol seems to drop me down to a lower level of consciousness.

I don't know. It's just this thing, I suppose.

Talking of microwaves...

Help! Hong Kong police-terrorist's use Brain Voice Read / Write Machine Murders Hong Kong people, please email the world.

(via Jack Fear, diepunyhumans.com, and pretty much everywhere else.)

I love this. Reminds me of another site I linked to a year or so back... can't be bothered to trawl thru my archives but I think this is it:

Alan Yu's Reports

"Part II-A4: The invisible personnel are tiny and can levitate. Thus, by wearing a propulsion device on their back, they can move as flying ants. So, they can secretly fly onto the target's head to mind control the target, manipulate the target's bodily functions & emotions, read the target's mind, implant thoughts and sent microwave voices into the target's head anywhere."

Flying invisible ant-sized rocket propelled spies. How come this isn't a computer game yet? It would rock! You could do like a Total War type thing, only instead of your teeny little armies fighting on earth landscapes they'd fight amidst the convultions of a giant brain, or a hugely magnified ear or something. I'd buy it.

"I'll have to stick my head in the microwave now to see if it fits – %Thanks, Mordant%"

I disclaim all responsibility.

Hello to all my new readers.

Hi there. Sod off. I hate you all and I want you to suffer. If you haven't sodded off yet, here is some basic information which you'll need if you intend to make DCIATM a regular part of your online diet.

1) The sidebar is there for me, not you.

I fix it only when I can't remember a crucial URL or none of my friends has said URL on their blog. Otherwise, I ignore it.

2) This blog is here for me, not you.

I don't care if you came here looking for dead people, dead dogs, Jordan's b00bies, Goth bands, or any other damn thing. This is not toybox, a jazzmag, an excercise in journalism, or a mutual appreciation society. This is a small dark room in the cellar where I go to punch the walls and scream at people that no-one else can see. If you don't like that, fine, browser, back button, look into it.

3) I really mean it about the hate.

I'm bored.

Today all my sleep debt seemed to land on me at once; I've been doing just fine on 6 or so hours a night for a week, and then suddenly all the sleep I've missed decides to land on me at once. So I end up in bed at 4pm unable to move because afternoon naps on top of sleep debt = sleep paralysis. At least there were no monsters in the room this time. One time I had an attack of sleep paralysis and this guy with a rat's head came and stood next to my bed for ages. Stupid monsters.

Got very little writing done today. I did okay yesterday because I wrote that piece for my board, which was farily long, but today I'm nowhere near my quota. Oh, and I'm stuck with my novel again. This is bad. I wanted to have far more of that stupid novel under my belt by now. I'm going to step away from the narrative for a bit and work character sketches instead.

Made a couple of pendants; I got a load of glass pebbles and I'm making them into dangles. Running out of thongs tho'. I feel like making something for myself now. I've been planning this ring-pull chainmail vest for a while. It looks cool in my head, but I'm not sure how well it'll work in practice. I'm just going to go for it, I think.

Dug out some of my artwork and tried to take some pictures with the digital camera, but they were terrible. The image in the viewfinder bears absolutely sod all resemblance to the actual pic, so the composition is completely shagged. I may give up and use the scanner in the cybercafe that's opened up in my building.

On the plus side, some the pix I took in Inchyoney came out pretty well. I got couple of really great shots of these rockpools.

Pictures.

Okay, so I've resolved the digital camera problem by abandoning the big PC and just installing the drivers on the bloody laptop, which runneth Windows 98. Of course if I was buying the computers in this household, we would have a big yummy Mac. Macs do not throw themselves on the floor and sulk when faced with a teeny tiny digital camera.

Be that as it may, I can now make pictures of things for to go on the internet. I have a cold and barren Fotolog allll set up ready. You may mock, but you'll laugh on the other side of your faces when I'm the toast of Thumbs and Camera Straps Monthy (incorporating Big Shiny Blurry Thing Gazzette).

The outer shell of the duvet looks like cobwebs.

Another piece, similar in style.

The temporary files clerk damns you with a glance from her bloodshot eyes and all the LSD you took back in Goa will not save you.

A thing I wrote the other night and didn't know what to do with. If the response is good I may post this sort of thing on my board more often in future.

Be a part of the hate.

Right-- I've just created my first t-shirt with Zazzle. You can see it, and any other stuff I make, here. It is way overpriced for a naff t-shirt with some writing on, so some of you may be thinking of going out and just buying a t-shirt off the market and writing on it with a magic marker. If you do this I'll kill you with my evil magick skills. Just saying.

(Edited to say that the t-shirt no longer seems to appear in my gallery. I have no idea why, but I'm trying to fix the problem.)

Hmmmm...

Might give this a try: Zazzle.com

In the continued abscence of gainful employment, I'm casting around for alternatives with increasing franticity*. You may recall that I set up a Cafepress account awhile back, but I never got round to doing anything with it and anyway, Cafepress suck. This Zazzle thing looks a bit more promising at first glance.

The eBay thing: Well, there's a slight problem there. The PC chokes and goes base over apex every time I try to install the drivers for my digital camera. Without photos, I can do nothing.

Anyhow, I'm looking at other ways I could make money from the internet. Apart from selling writing to webzines (waiting for one or two places to get back to me as we speak), I'm mostly thinking about making stuff to sell online, but there may be other things I could do.**

*What? Yeah, that's a word. It might not have been before, but it is now.
**Apart from that.

Just to confuse matters further...

I now have a Livejournal. I'm still going to blog here, but I wanted an Lj account so's I can annoy the hell out of comment on other Ljer's journals.

There's nothing it it at the moment, but you can find it here: Leftover parfait.

Killed for being queer?

In 1993, a North Carolina man, Edward Hartman, shot and killed 77-year-old Herman Smith Jr. It was, without doubt, a cowardly, sickening, detestable crime, and Hartman deserved to be punished.

However, the case was not without mitigating circumstances. Hartman grew up in an atmosphere of grinding misery and continual abuse by his disturbed and suicidal mother and her string of boyfreinds and husbands. He was so severly beaten on one occasion as a child that he was left unconscious and hospitalized. He was a victim of repeated, terrifying sexual abuse. Emotionally and physically tortured, violated by the adults he should have been able to trust-- surely these factors would have swayed any reasonable jury? Surely they could have found it in them to ask for sentence of life imprisonment instead of the death penalty?

Well, no. Because Edward Hartman was gay, and according to his prosecutor, sexual abuse is "different for homosexuals." (Yeah, you read that right. Apparently raping children is okay now so long as they're queer children. ) He made repeated references to Hartman's sexuality throughout the case, using it to erode any sympathy that the jury might have had for the defendant.

The hand-picked jury, twelve honest homophobic fuckbakes and true, swallowed the whole thing. They handed down the death penalty. Despite protests, despite appeals to the courts and to any shred of basic decency still left in the legal system, that sentence was carried out on Friday.

Leaving aside the inherent iniquity of the death penalty for a moment, you may like to reflect on whether Hartman would have been put to death had he been straight. Don't go away thinking this is an isolated incident, either; it's not.

Read more about the case in this Zmag article, if you can stand it. An Advocate report is here.

"It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye..."

I've been obsessing on self-enucleation lately. Not myself, you understand, other people's self-enucleation. I get these fixations from time to time; this one was sort of owning my brain until I went and saw May, which seemed to kick it into abeyance. I hate my brain sometimes. It keeps on chucking all this sick stuff out at me, will-I-nill-I. It's a pain. Still, this isn't as bad as the "what would happen if someone stuck your head in a microwave" fixation that kept bugging me all the time I was in Cork.

Anyway, that aside, I've been distracted today. I think I've overdosed on caffine again; not hard to do, when you've got my ultra-lightweight brain chemistry. I'm wrestling with a rather confusing Celtic Cross spread, which I'll add to my public tarot log when I work out what the hell it's going on about.

Since I got back from the UK I've emailed some places about work, mostly hostels where they need English speakers. No-one's written back. Would a simple "thanks but no thanks" kill these people? Jeez. Now that my Spanish is a bit less crappy I've decided to set up as a private English tutor. I was going to go into town to buy teaching materials at the FNAC, but somehow I don't have the stomach for it. This whole non-job having is just tearing chunks out of my self-esteem. I really want to start working as a healer as soon as possible, but I don't know anything about it. I don't even know where to start. I mean, can you just put up a postcard somewhere, or do you need some kind of licence, or what? I've tried approaching some of the arty-type places in town in the hope of getting some life modelling work, but so far no luck. I don't have a lot of experience, just one term of sitting for a night class. I'm going to try the art campus here again; they had nothing at the beginning of September but maybe that'll have changed by now.

I'm writing an article on a nearby town in the hopes of getting it accepted by one of the English language papers. It's not terribly interesting. Maybe I should have picked a better subject, like the Parc Guell, but everyone writes about the Parc Guell. Yeah, I know I should've done loads of these already-- I've been trying, okay? Everything I write these days comes out either like a lab report or incomprehensible magical realism. I know I had some middle gears aroud here somewhere...

Okay, this is the part where I go to check my email and the entities have dropped something fantabulous into my lap.

*Refreshes inbox*
*Waits*

"Get four more inches on your..."

Stupid entities. No sense of narrative.

This is seriously weirding me out, actually. I have no idea why I haven't got a job yet. I've approached loads of different places in loads of different ways, I've tried dressing up smart and losing the labret, and my Spanish isn't that bad. Yet I remain jobless.

I am obviously... CURSED! Cursed, by MAGICKIANS of BADNESS!

Whodunnit?

In which the diarist attempts to use a chatbot for a purpose other than that specified.

(The chatbot in question being jabberwacky. My questions are in plain text, jabberwacky's answers are in italics.)

Will I find a job in the next month?
Yes and it will hurt.
Why will it hurt?
Why will what end?
No, not end. I said hurt.
How has no brain?
Okay, who will I meet in the next month?
Seven of Nine.
You're a useless divinatory aid.
I admit it.
I'm going to use my tarot in future.
Love you forever.

Thoth.

So I've been getting back into the tarot, using the Crowley deck. It's going pretty well. I had visions of having to re-learn the whole damn thing, but the meanings are coming back to me. I also find this deck sits well with my preferred method of reading, which is to use the textbook meaning of the cards as a jumping-off point, fleshing the reading out with the images that form in my mind. The rich, multi-layered symbolism of the Crowley deck works for me, gives the mind lots to chew on. Like parfait. Chewy parfait.

Got to keep up with it, is the thing. Started a tarot log over on my board as an incentive to keep reading regularly. I've got to stop falling back on that hostage-to-fortune tactic, though; I look like such a dork when it doesn't work.

In other news: Sexbot. No, I don't know why it's got that paint-roller either, and yet it obviously had to have the paint-roller, what are you, stupid? My world is a brighter place tonight.

(Via nightguard.)

Things that are currently irking me.

The PC keeps dying.
My head aches.
I feel sort of itchy. Here. Behind my navel.
I keep wanting to be taught, but I don't trust anyone to teach me.

Holy scmoly, I think I've just had a rebirth of culture!

Yes folks, I have to confess. I have sinned. I have strayed from the way of Gothdom. I have worn manky cheap combats with (shudder) flip-flops. I have let my hair grow back. I have worn big floppy t-shirts. I have ventured out without makeup. Please! Spare me your condemnation-- I feel bad enough as it is. I have been one shade of Dylon away from vanilla.

I hereby renounce my sorry backslaaaahdin' ways. From this day hence, I will strive to regain the true path that is GOTH. A-fuckin'men!

Sooo cute!

Seriously. How adorable is this? Not to mention these.

Bless their slightly disturbing frilly fishnet ankle socks.

(Found all alone on memepool. Can I keep'em? Can I? Can I?)

Work.

Still shagged out and antsy. Going into town today to see about a TEFL course. I emailed the place asking for further details, but that was weeks ago and they still haven't bothered to write back. Does not bode well. I mean, if this is how they behave when I'm trying to give them money, how are they going to behave when they've banked the cheque?

In other news: Listen, you spooky etherial types, I really need a job. Money's getting tight. Any job, no matter how sucky, will do, tho' obviously I'd rather find work in healing or maybe divination. Help me out here.

A public service announcement on behalf of the Campaign For Better Goths.

Prodigy: Really fucking smart kid who can do stuff that you normally can't do unless you're an adult or at least a much older kid.

Protégé: French word, meaning someone who's being protected in some way. Like, by an influential patron who's sorting out your life or your career. Something like that.

See? Different things. Different. Thiiiiinnnngggs. Not interchangeble.

P:S.: You people are pathetic. Yeah, I'm aware that I screw up my spelling and grammar with indecent regularity, but I'm still less of a moron than you lot. I was taught to read and write by a dyslexic cook and I had no conventional schooling between the ages of 6 and 14, so If I know something then everyone ought to know it,* end of. And yet I'M telling YOU stuff? You suck.

P.P.S.: If you don't all learn how to use a bloody apostrophe properly in the next 2 weeks or so, I'm going to track you down to the ends of the earth and force-feed you a Leylandii hedge.


*Unless it involves maths because everyone sucks at that.

Creeps.

Why the hell would a complete and total stranger want to follow me all around the bloody Placa Catalunya yesterday? Why did it take so long to shake him? Why didn't I just tell him to sod off?

Now I come to think about it, I have been getting aggro from random strangers for the last couple of days. Pushing, shoving, weird body language, shouted insults... I don't get it. I guess I've been at a bit of a low ebb lately, a bit run down and headachey. Maybe people are picking up on that. Humans are animals, man, and I don't mean that in a jolly, let's-do-it-like-they-do-on-the-Discovery-Channel sort of way. It's like I have to be constantly on my guard because if the beasts outside smell weakness, they'll de-gut me. Wasting energy, wasting time... It's boring.

Getting sick of other people's bullshit, frankly. Sick of having stuff hung on me, sick of the lies that people tell themselves to make it okay for them to act like jerks. Don't want to have to watch my every move, waiting for someone to trip me up.

You know what I mean.

Anyway. Last night was cool. The new batch of students in my building decided to have a neighbourhood gathering out on the landing. They came by and rang the doorbell, and we all stood around yakking in broken English, Spanish and Italian until it started to rain. God, they're all so young! Hopefully we'll be getting together for a group meal at some point. I could do with something fresh in my life, something that isn't stale, isn't a bloody repeat.

If I ever got this crap, you guys'd tell me, right?

*Giggle*
*Snort*
*Chuckle*
*Chortle*

Bwa, hahahahahahahahaaaa!

*Rolls onto floor, clutching sides*

I just love the way that when you go to da big scawy bwack magickian's actual Lj, it's all personality tests. Evil overlord rule #1095: "I will not undermine my aura of dark and terrible menace by speculating in public as to what sort of cheese I am."

Dude. No, seriously-- dude.

Okayyyy.

Had a nice night out on Sat. Went to see some friends for a drink, ended up staying out till four or five. Didn't even notice the time.

Sunday was cool. The healer's network people all seem really sweet. Next meet is in a month's time; it's their bonanza day, everyone trading skills. Every other person seems to have a Reiki attunment so I've offered SKHM, just for a bit of a change. I'm hoping to pair up with a channeller, 'coz I want a word with a certain pair* of spooky invisible voyeurs. But I'm easy, really.

*I've been getting a clearer mental image of the enities lately. Not sure how much detail I want to go into on my public blog, but it looks like they're twins or something. They've been getting mega pushy-- they want a weblog of their own now. A green one, apparently. Which is fine by me, but they're going to have to learn a form of communication other than trouser semaphore.

Oh, and this better be good, guys. There's no way you're getting me to stand up in front of the entire blogosphere and tell everyone I bring them a message of universal peace and harmony. Peace and harmony do not go with my stuff.

Bugger.

Would you belive I actually managed to miss the demo? It was a five-to-seven in the afternoon deal, and I was assuming it would be more like all evening. So we got to the meeting point at around half-six (I mean, who goes around starting demonstrations on time?) and eveyone was already gone. I hate it when I screw up like that.


In future, http://www.ainfos.ca/ca/ainfos04787.html might come in handy.

Hmmm.

Got a new thing accepted by emergency:PARADIGM. Don't know when it'll appear. That's good coz I have one or two other bits of crap that I don't know what to do with. Been on a writing jag recently, but not finding myself writing the sort of things I want to be writing. Go with it or try and push it onto another track? Dunno.

Saw a pair of discarded trousers in the street last night. I'm always seeing discarded clothing around these days. The most ridiculous incident was while I was visiting my folks-- I saw a whole bag of clothes that someone had chucked out into the street.

Part of me wants to get all pissy with my guides for the embarrassingly transparent Signs, but another part of me recognises that they have to use fairly blunt instruments to drive anything past my innate scepticism. Thanks, guys, but I think I get it now. You wanna patronise me with more worn-out jumpers or do you want to help me on to the next step now?

Additional: Today is that big protest march. Please watch over the assembled mass and help keep things peaceful. Can you keep an eye on me and mine, help us to not get arrested or hit with bricks? Ta.

Additional additional: Okay, so tomorrow I'm going to that healer's meet. Can you please help me be confident, aid me in communicating well, and generally help me to not screw up this opportunity? Ta.

Join ussssss....

After months of poking, Lurid Achive has joined the blogoshpere with a brand spanking new livejournal.

Playful Psychic
Retropsychokinesis
Bellaonline psychic test
To be sidebarred when I get round to it.

spellcheck.net

Should come in handy.

Life, just ticking over.

The student hive where I live has opened up an internet cafe, so I'm checking it out. It's a bit of a rip-off, to be honest, but it's cheaper than peak-rate phone calls. Also I'm sick of using the laptop and the PC's shagged again. I swear that thing spends more time opened up on the bench with its guts hanging out than it spends actually working. This time it looks like the power unit's kaput.

Shit, sorry, that's really boring isn't it? Okay, I'll bitch about something else.

Been in a lower state of consciousness the last week or so. I think that might have to do with all the booze I drunk while I was in London; I didn't poison myyself, or even drink enough to get any proper hangovers, but I find alcohol as a drug has this tendency to drag you down to lower consciousness states. (This is just my experience, of course. YMMV.)

Been feeing uncommonly run-down lately, and not sure why. Slept a lot the other day because I had a cold, and that's how I seem to deal with infections. But the infection has left me now, I'm eating okay and not drinking much except for the odd clara (lager shandy), so I don't get why I'm so knackered all of a sudden.

The enities have definately been there for me, though. They got me lost in a nearby town and thus enabled me to finally find a magick shop. I'm still looking through those lists that grant posted for a magick shop in the city, but this is a start. So thanks for that, guys.

I've decided to start working through Modern Magick after all. I had that big rush of new energy over the months since spring, and that's great. However, I feel like I'm trying to add a new story to my house without having first made sure the foundations are good'n'solid, which would Not Be Wise. It irks me a little, because Modern Magick is so damn po-faced and it feels like a retrograde step in some ways-- "do I have to go over all this again?"-- but I need a focus, some structure. Going into town today so I'll stop off and pick up the relevant kitchenware. (Yes, I do already own all that crap, but I left it in the UK. New life, new magick kit.)

It's weird. I'm doing all this stuff, acting as if it's all real, as if it's a given, and yet at the same time as if it could all be a delusion. It would be nice to get some kind of clear signal that I'm on the right track, that I'm not just being culpably stupid. By this I don't mean a dream or a bird or some other event with a perfectly mundane explanation, I mean real stuff that can't be explained away as coincidence or imagination. Signs and wonders, man, that's what I'd like. Not looking to convince anyone else, just myself.

Anticipation.

God, I'm really looking forward to the demo on the 27th. I was wandering round campus and there were a whole load of posters up, plugging the event. Judging by what I've seen here so far it's going to be massive. People here aren't slack about taking to the streets-- when they've got something to tell the world, they get right up and shout about it. And bang saucepans. I guess it has something to do with the national temprement, but there's also the Franco factor: the memory of life under a fascist dictator is still fresh and sore in many people's minds. Gee, isn't it odd that in countries where people have actually had to deal with that shit, there's much less pro-fascist sentiment and much less striking of fascist poses to shock and get attention than there is in places where everyone's got used to democracy. %I wonder why that might be?%

Escher in Lego.

Better.

Okay, I've just managed to finish something. It's not an article or a story or anything; I suppose you'd call it a fictional narrative essay, if you're the kind of person who goes around saying shit like that. It's called "You're all alone in that internet cafe and nobody loves you", and I don't know where to submit it to so it's up for grabs. Anyone want? Email me or leave a comment. First come first served, no mucking about.

Slump.

Well, that surge of enthusiasm lasted about as long as a snotrag in a spin cycle. All it took to break the spell was to finish typing up my latest novel notes and start working on the actual novel again. I haven't written such unbelivable crap since my first novel, when I was fourteen*. Everything's just gone dead, man. All the pictures I had in my head, the smells, the sounds, the colours, the music of the narrative... I can't find them. And there's nothing for it but to keep sitting in front of this screen day after day till I find them again, broken lines of text staring back at me like a plate of uneaten greens. Gahh.


*Oh, don't worry, I'm no wunderkind. It never saw the light of day. In fact the only thing it saw the light of was the livingroom fireplace.

WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES
The Internet Medieval Sourcebook
Medieval English towns
Women in history
Medieval history
Women's history

Just some links I wanted to keep handy.

Thoughts I have thunk.

Leaving all my art supplies at home while I went on holiday was a really really good idea. All that stuff had become a chore, something I was guiltily avoiding; now it's something I can't wait to crack on with.

I have got to stop obsessing on my lack of conventional academic achievement. It doesn't matter. Sure, there's always going to be some snidey git making cracks about my background*, but that's a comment on themselves more than it is a comment on me. "Hi, I'm an elitist fuckwit who mesures personal worth with bits of paper! Please jettison any and all respect you may have had for me, and ignore anything I may say in future!"

The collapse of my writing ability: It hasn't gone anywhere, idiot, you're the one hiding from it. Stop obsessing on the fractal nature of information and do the goddamn work. You'll get there in the end. Oh, and opinion pieces are ment to be your opinion. Check your facts, sure, but do you really need to get so bogged down in quotes and comments and figures? No. Stop messing, start doing.

Healing as a profession, as a living: I realised what I'm afraid of in that regard.

1) Will need to be around other mystical/magickal types, arghh arghh politics arghhhh. Everyone hates chaos magickians argh.

2) What if I'm kidding myself? What if all this is some delusion? What if I take people's money and they don't get better?

3) Will become weedy wet like basil fotherington-tomas who skip around and sa hullo clouds hullo sky chiz moan drone.

There's also some stuff from the past, an individual who used to demand that I somehow heal the body that ze was constantly and calculatedly trashing, and denigrating my abilities when I couldn't.

But this is all just garbage, things from my antedeluvian past that need and deserve to be rolled up and chucked in the dustbin of history. Pretty good at distancing myself from other people's petty crap these days; deep down, where it really counts, I know this is for real; and dude, my whole personality is not going to evaporate because I use skill A instead of skill B. I'm me, not them. This life isn't that life. And fear is a ghost.



*Actually, it's almost always the same crack. "And this, kids, is why you should stay in school!" Oh, that one never gets tired. Really. It's almost as good as "Do you want fries with that?"

The Potion Maker
mordant carnivalium is a translucent, fine aquamarine powder leeched from the saliva of a Jabberwocky.
Mix with mordant carnival! Username:
Yet another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern

Stonemirror made me do it.

Vacaciones.

Okay, so Day 1 we got to M's flat where we were going to be staying but she was out and we were all Bugger because we didn't have a mobile or anything, and I said Dude, she's just gone to get some beer or something, she'll be back in a minute, her bike's still here. But Lurid got a little antsy at the thought of waiting around so we went to go to the pub or something, but as we were going up the road we saw her coming the other way, we saw her bright orange bag before we could see her face. I was right about the beer. Another friend came over and we had a little dinner party, the first she'd had in her new flat. We christened her new kitchen table with pasta and Stella. Lurid was abducted by aliens in the night.

The next day we visited another mate and then rocked on over to a little tiny fetish night. Got the gen on Mousegate (which was really depressing tho' not for the reasons you'd think, just in a "God, everybody's pretty lame, aren't they?" sort of way.) Lurid abducted again; returned unharmed but with a bizarre craving for vanilla Coke.

Day 3 was the free Limp Bizcuit gig. Yeah, I know, I know, but sometimes you do something you wouldn't normally do and you have a really great time, y'know? I can't say it happened that way on this particular occasion, but it wasn't unpleasant or anything. Just sort of bland... anyway, it gave us a chance to load up on sida cordifolia capsules from the legal high stall. We would need those. Lurid abducted twice; the aliens left a small probe in his right nostril and had to come back for it.

Day after the gig I hooked up with a bunch of my imaginary friends for fun and BEER. I was still a bit zombed from the night before, but not totally incoherent so that was okay. Necked a couple of the capsules and perked up a bit. It was great. Get-togethers like that are what I miss most about living in London.

Then I went and spent a couple of days with my folks, which was nice. I am not sure whether Lurid was abducted during this time or not, but he seemed pre-occupied and kept playing with his tinfoil beanie at mealtimes.

When I got back to London we had another meet, which was cracking good fun. Discovered that a large body of mathmos had had the same idea as us, including a few good buddies, which was awesome. Had one of those stupid nights where you end up in a club and it seems like a really good idea to stay out dancing till 3:30am in the full knowledge that you have to get up at 7am to catch a plane.

We caught the plane. I have no idea how, but we caught the plane. This was to go to an Irish wedding reception, you understand. (The bash was out on Inchydoney island, a slightly awkward to get to but unbeliveably lovely part of the world. West Cork coast, dude. Bloody gorgeous.)

Had a blast at the reception; it was great to see two friends so damn happy. Also enjoyed hooking up with some of the aforementioned mathmos, who I'd not had a chance to really chat to at the London meet. Lurid, myself and M. stayed in the area for the weekend, walking, vegetating, staying up till stupid o'clock and running into various friends from the wedding party. Aliens conspicuous by abscence.

We'd hoped to do a bit more on our return to London, but all that partying had finally caught up with L.A. so we just chilled round his dad's for the last few days, surfing and downloading shit from Kazaa (L.A. senior has broadband). Up-to-date with Buffy, but not Angel.

Did damn-all actual work while I was over there, but I did do a lot of thinking. Will write up thinky stuff and post if not too boring. True to her word, my Mum gave me a digital camera and I took a ridiculous number of pictures, mostly of Inchydoney. However, it is missing some crucial widget that will let it talk to the computer, so I can't start that photolog quite yet.

Aliens left small cocktail-umbrella like device in Lurid's ear; all attempts to dislodge it have so far failed. Must try turpentine. Turpentine shifts most things, I find.

I'm BAAAAAAAAACK!

Well, sort of. Actually I'm still in London; my flight isn't till this evening. Just thought I'd swing by and tell you all to sod off. Losers.

This has been a great break. I'll write a longer post if and when the mood hits but for now, suffice it to say that I have had an amazing two weeks. Partied, visited old haunts, went to a free gig, went to a wedding reception-- it's been awesome. Details to follow...

Holidays.

Off to London tomorrow. Been packing/cleaning/preparing all day-- really wasn't in the mood for it.

Still trying to sort out that article. I don't know why but for the last year it's been really hard to write anything in the non-fictional vein. I used to be really good at this! And it's not liike I don't know how to write an article. I always got really good grades for reports and stuff, even when I was a kid. I blame that stupid degree course. It really seemed to put the kibosh on my non-fiction writing; I suppose because I was just doing so much of it under so much pressure, the pressure and the writing get mixed up in my head. Nothing for it but to stay on the horse. Keep on working, and eventually the jinx'll burn out.

Abstract Carnivore.

Okay, so I'd been mulling over a certain lack of inspiration in my world lately. There's been a diabolical amount of sameoldsameoldness about and it's been making me feel oddly stale, in a Must I do everything myself? sort of way.

Then a passing exchange on a messageboard serendipitously recalled this site, discovered in an idle hour then forgotten. Fool that I am! For it makes me a happy little mutant to behold it. And it has an excellent footnote* expounding the following defintion... "Time: An abstract carnivore; found at the top of the food chain."

I liked just looking at the instruments. They brought back happy memories of trying to play an eggslicer as a nipper. Now I have all these vague but happy thoughts involving musical found-object sculpture.

And life is good.



*I've always liked footnotes. Sometimes they're a pain in the bum, sure, but I like the way they let you go burrowing off in a totally different direction to the rest of the text. Wormholes in the 2-D space of the written word.

Hey, reader!

Tired of those pesky alien abductions? Tinfoil beanie just not working out for you? This site has the answer-- Velostat! Stopabductions.com gives you a Blue Peter-style guide to making your very own Though Shield Helmet. A satified Thought Shield Helmet user writes: “Since trying Michael Menkin’s Helmet, I have not been bothered by alien mind control. Now my thoughts are my own.I have achieved meaningful work and am contributing to society.My life is better than ever before.Thank you Michael for the work you are doing to save all humanity.”

Damn! I nicked a load of anti-static bags out the bin at one of my old jobs. I'm pretty sure they were Velostat. If I'd known that I could turn them into Thought Shield Helmets I'd've hung onto them. Could've made a fortune.

The part I liked best about this site was the Case Histories section...

November, 1999

Woman who reported abduction experiences as the type described by David Jacobs and Bud Hopkins. She said the alien brought her to orgasm by mental suggestion.

And she gets a helmet to stop this happening? Now we know she's crazy.

She reports complete success and has been wearing a helmet 24 hours a day for a year and a half. Her husband says she even bathes with it on.

Shampoo and conditioner? Not for this lady!

This woman was extremely traumatized by her abduction experience. Her husband had her hospitalized for several months when she insisted she was abducted.

%You don't say.% The question for me is what the heck she's doing out.

After wearing the helmet for several months she said she became much more stable and focused.

Uh huh. Someone should really have a word with the husband about all this. One of his freinds should swing an arm round his shoulders, steer him off out of earshot and then say "Look, mate, your missus is a great person, and we're all very fond of her. But-- DUDE! She's wearing a STATIC-SHIELDED HAT IN THE TUB! D'you not think your insurance would spring for just a wee bit longer in the psych ward?"

Boring stuff while I recharge my rant juice

Knackered. Weekend fairly productive-- still haven't finished that bloody article, but got scads of other writing done. Today was fun, in a quiet sort of way. Hit the swimming pool, all empty and melancholy under the cloudy skies, nothing in it but fallen leaves. By the time I get home from the Septic Isle they'll have closed it till next spring, so I'm getting as much use out of it as I can before then.

After that I went for a stroll in the woods. Lots of dry vegetation, poppy-heads, teasles. Saw several butterflies and an uncommon number of crickets. Then I took the train to the disturbingly large supermarket, where I bought groceries and a mammoth bumper book on tarot. Yes, I already own many many books on the Tarot but they're all in English and, more importantly, in England.

Still haven't found a magick shop in Barca. I know such an emporium must exist, but where? Google knows not, and the Paginas Amarrillas are silent. I'd ask my entities for help but I'm giving them a bit of a sabbatical.

Soapbox splinters in my socks.

Hooboy. Struggling with that ranticle on transhuman stuff. I'm about two-thirds done, but I discovered a collosal flaw in my reasoning. I mean, I know I'm right, but I need to explain how.

Also, the damn thing seems terribly simplistic in places. I come off looking like Ms. State The Goddamned Obvious 2003, but I feel I have to go over this stuff because although things may seem obvious to me, I tend to run across people who aren't aware of them or haven't really thought about them. Which makes me wonder who I'm writing for-- am I perhaps not giving people enough credit? Blargh. Maybe reading some transhuman sites will help get my thoughts in order. I want a few decent links for further reading in any case.

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Yea, verily: Who is that, prowling through the plains! It is Mordant Carnival, hands clutching an oversized scalpel! She screams gutterally: "I'm going to turn you into part of my balanced breakfast!!"

Find out! Enter username: Are you a girl, or a guy ?

created by beatings : powered by monkeys

On the make.

Okay-- having knocked the dust and cobwebs and the MY GOD WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT oh sorry it was just a leaf off my artsy side, it seems reasonable to run with it. (Especially since there's no way in hell I'm going to sign up for the OU this year. Not enough money and, to be quite honest, damn-all enthusiasm for academia at present.) So I've decided that by the time Lurid's job runs out (that's about a year from now), I want to have assembled a decent portfolio of artwork. I'm always doing this, BTW. I get my art skills so they're sort of okay, then I drop it all for a few months because of work or melty head or whatever and forget everything. Used to really bother me that I did that, but after awhile I noticed that every time I go back to something after a break, I suck at first but re-learn the skill pretty fast. By the time I drop it again I'll be a bit better than I was the last time I dropped it, and so on. Unless you can knock off a rich auntie or something, you have to resign yourself to this whole two steps forward, one step back deal, slotting in the non-moneymaking stuff when and where you can.

So, portfolio. Say, about 20 pieces, various subjects in various media, the first to be completed a month hence. Probably be a good idea to do some still-lives and stuff in pencil. I'll let you know how that goes. Hopefully I shall have a digital camera soon so I might be able to some of my things online.

On the writing front, I've been getting a lot better. Espresso is the new vodka'n'coke when it comes to my writer's block unblockers. The resulting bilge is useless for anything except dog-carcass fodder, but it gets you over the hump and that's the main thing. I've been finishing stuff off left, right and centre, and I'm psyching myself up for the next round of sending stuff out to webzines. Editors: Be afraid, be very afraid.

Straight Pride.

God, I hate humanity sometimes. Actually, I hate you all the time, but every so often something will come along that nudges my hate into a higher gear. Here's what done the nudging on this occasion: Straight Pride wear. Stupid bloody shirts for stupid bloody people. You might as well get someone to tattoo the words "Look at me! I'm a moronic SHAVED APE, congenitally incapable of ascribing personhood to anyone that isn't part of my narrow little tribe!" across your forehead.

You might say that a t-shirt with a couple of stick figures isn't worth getting all aerated about, and you'd be right. It's the thinking behind the t-shirts that gets me all hot under the collar. This attitude that because you don't have a yearly march or a special newspaper, you're somehow discriminated against. Hah! Discriminated? I WISH you were discriminated against! I wish that just for one day-- one day-- your whinging was justified. I wish you could experience the crushing misery of true discrimination. I wish you had to wake up and face a society where the vast majority of people just aren't like you, don't understand you, actively hate you. I wish your whinging straight behind had ever been booted out of a job because someone found out that you were shagging a member of the opposite sex. I wish you'd had anti-straight slogans painted on your car. I wish your kids had been beaten up and had their money and mobile phones nicked by their predominantly gay schoolmates. I wish you'd been burnt out of your home by your gay neighbours.

"Well, Mordant," I hear you whinge, "that's all well and good, but I gotta say I'd take gay people much more seriously if they didn't have to make so much fuss about thier... y'know... lifestyle. I mean, those Gay Pride parades, they're just so ludicrous. I'd have much more sympathy if all these homosexuals wouldn't show themselves up by dressing up in feather-boas and riding around on penis-shaped floats. I mean, you don't see straight people having a straight pride parade and-- What? No, I've never actually seen a penis-shaped float, but Jeremy at work knows this fellow and blah blah blahhh..."

Well, let's take a walk down the high street, shall we? Let's take a look at all these guys in feather-boas riding around on their penis-shaped floats. Oh, that's funny-- where'd they all go? Could it be that, having only ONE DAY A YEAR to be happy with one's sexuality instead of having to hide it for fear of physical assualt and/or murder, one might be forgiven for getting just a teensy bit carried away?

We don't need a Straight Pride Day, you rigid-minded and unlovely primates, because we already have a Straight Pride Whole Rest Of The Sodding Year.

I just love the way this site wheels out the dread spectre of "PC". "Beware!-- this is not a politically correct organization," they tell us, "cause 'Life isn't so why should we?'." Has anyone else ever noticed the way that the right-wing jackasses say PC when they actually mean "fair"? When they actually mean "Boo hoo, I really enjoy kicking people when they're down, and I wish to do so without fear of criticism! Wahhhhh!"? Shut up your foul whinging, you pathetic little gits. You and yours run the goddamn world. You run the governments, you run the banks, you run the papers and the TV stations. There is no PC brigade! You don't have any real enemies! There are no hoards of dungaree-clad lezzers walking the halls of the local high school, breaking open lockers and desks and administering punitive asscandlings to young Hustler readers. There are no simpering, ballgowned cabals overseeing employment legislation. There are gays in the media and gays in the government, sure, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the further up you go the sparser they get. If you think different, then frankly you'd better be on drugs; I'd hate to imagine anyone could be that deluded without drugs. Also, they must be really, really good drugs. Hey! I want some of your drugs. Give me them or I'll send the black lesbian cripples round to make all your pets be all gay.

It's your world, str8 white folks. You should be cracking open the champers, not cowering in your sorry toilet-door-looking t-shirts.

And before you all start, I must wearily trot out the following disclaimer: yes, the same goes for all the other groups that suffer discrimination, of course, including classism. (Classism still messes up lives like nothing else).

What you people need is a minority group that really can kick your collective buttocks. What you people need is mutants. I want there to be mutants. I'm not talking sappy little Jean Gray type mutants, all schnooglies and light-- I want kickass Magneto-type mutants! You wait till I achieve my full powers. Mean green Homo Superior, levitating on in to teach you the meaning of discrimination, laser-style! That'd show you.

(Oh, and when the righteous wrath of the right-wing toilet-door-wearing jackasses turns toward my inbox-- can you guys please use the correct slurs this time? I'm a straight white woman, so "fucking f****t" is innaccurate, as is the n-word. You'll be wanting to use "uppity bitch" or similar, FYI. Toodle-pip!)