Sunday, February 29, 2004

Wow.

It's snowing out. Big and small flakes, fast and slow, coming and going in waves. White petals drifting past the deep green conifers. The sky is yellow-grey, lit by the occasional lightning flash. The distant mountains are hidden by cloud; the woods are a mystery. An afternoon to dream on, all right.
Blah.

Which is odd, you know, because I had a pretty good night last night. Went out with L.A. and one of his work buddies, who's a cool guy. Went to Gracia and had Lebanese food, then flicks. (Monster.)

Turns out there's this 5-year postdoc going here in Spain, which L.A. is going to apply for. Man, I'd really love that. Well, I'd love to be anywhere for a whole five years, but being able to stay in Barca would be awesome. Might actually be able to get some teaching quals., and hence a job.

Which brings us to the thing that's really bothering me, as it always bothers me: the writing. Seeing my story up there made me feel grand for about 2 seconds. Then I actually re-read the horrid little abortion and wondered if maybe I shouldn't just chuck it all in and learn to love hosing down public toilets for a living.

I don't know. I mean, I write, I submit, and I get... not very much, frankly. I know this was always going to be hard. I know about the grinding persistance required. I know about Phillip K. Dick papering his study with rejection letters and blah blah blah. But I've been trying, really trying for the past 3 years. And I've been trying in a half-arsed way for far longer-- half my life, if anyone's counting. I submitted my first story when I was 15. Paper my study? Hell, if I was the kind of person who hoarded rejection letters, I could BUILD a flaming study.

The thought of quitting fucking slaughters me. When I think about giving up writing, I feel like I'm contemplating the amputation of all my limbs with a blunt breadknife. I feel sick, dizzy, breathless. It literally, physically, hurts just to contemplate the idea. But on another level, this is a huge drain on my time and resources. I'm pouring hour after hour into something which brings hardly any money into my household, while my partener is forced to support us both. Is this the way a responsible adult would behave? Sure, I'm still trying hard to find work, but maybe if I wasn't spending so much time at the wordprocessor I could try a little bit harder. Maybe I'd already have a job by now.

I need to write. Fall-back positions and sidelines and all that aside, I need writing to be my career. I need this, all right, but do I have to have to have it? More to the point, do I deserve to have it? Or am I just one of those no-talent losers that real writers bitch about, the nobodies who keep on banging their heads against a brick wall of rejection and never seem to get a clue?

Thursday, February 26, 2004

Toiiz

Forgot to tell you guys-- one of my stories is up. Thanks to all the lovely people at Bloodlust-UK :)
I want to get abducted by aliens again, again.

And by "again" I do not mean "I have previously been abducted by aliens and wish to repeat the experience," but "I have previously wished to be abducted by aliens, and now find myself experiencing a resurgence of that desire." And by again, I mean that I wrote a post exactly like this one a few months back.

Aliens, ghosts, moving stuff by the power of my mind-- anything really. I'm easy. I want ET to phone. Or Mothman. I just want something to happen. I don't want to do any more donkeywork in my magickal life. I want a sudden, dramatic paradigm shift, with loads of smoke and a blue filter and flashy lights. And I want to be played by some hot chick.

Stuff has been happening since last Spring, of course, but it's too slow. You know what it's like? Puberty, that's what. Weird changes, mood swings, tons of diarys, odd stuff popping into my head that I can't really talk about without a sense of acute embarrassment-- puberty. My wisdom teeth have even started growing again. Stupid magick.

At night I dream of coastlines: mostly rocky shores and stormy seas. The significance is not lost on me. Interfaces, places between places-- I've had a foot in two worlds for so long, I think I'm getting groinstrain.

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Hunting.

Still don't have a job, by the way. I'm still trying; emailing, writing, phoning, pounding the streets. No dice. I can't even get a cleaning job. Why can't I get a fucking cleaning job?

I'm trying not to get too frantic about this, but to be honest it's really kind of getting to me. I've never had anything other than menial, casual, minimum-wage type jobs and now I'll also have a big chunk of unemployment glaring out from my CV, which doesn't look good.

Then there's the writing, which frankly isn't going well. I mean, I'm writing tons and submitting like mad, but all I'm getting is rejection, rejection, rejection, punctuating the deadly silence of those editors who don't even bother to write back. I know this was always going to take time, but I'd hoped to be selling stuff more regularly by now.

I'm becoming increasingly afraid that sweeping streets and mopping floors is all I'll ever have. I don't know how I'd cope with that.



(Of course, if a certain pair of spooky perverts would help me out here, none of this would be an issue...)
A state of uncertainty.

Well, my remote viewing is still an utter shambles but the micro PK is going a lot better.

But I'm anxious. What is actually happening here? See, when I'm going to have a good day, I have this sort of sense of peace and clarity. I just know that the pointer is going to move the right way.

And there lies the rub. See, whilst my precog is utterly weak, I can't rule out the idea that what i'm actually doing is looking at the data with my mind rather than letting it arrive unknown. In that scenario I would be basically 'fixing' the results because observing the data in any way means that it becomes fixed rather than being in a state of quantumy uncertainty (a la Schrodinger's Cat, doncherknow). Apparently this is a real consideration for people trying to design micro-pk experiments.

I'm trying to avoid this possibility by selecting the same goal over a number of experiments, but I'm not sure that's the best way to safeguard against the sort of thing I'm describing. Perhaps I should alternate, aim for ones, then zeros, then ones...

Or maybe this whole thing is baloney and I'll give it up in a week or two. Whatever.

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Killlllllll.

(The only possible silver lining in all this is the faint hope that people aren't as narrow-minded, pig-headed and reactionary as I sometime belive, and that Dubya may have shot himself in the foot with this worthless bigot-snogging.)
You see what I mean?

Camera strap. Camera. Strap. CAMERA. STRAP!!!
Make plans. Eris likes a laugh.

Yes! Finally! I've finally spoken to someone at canned fish U. who was able to tell me how much I owed and where to send the cheque. I'm so relived. Of course, I'm not out of the woods yet, since they could still screw up (lose cheque, send stuff to the wrong flat, etc). I won't be entirely happy until I have that goddamn certificate in my hot little hands.

Of course, after the initial rush wore off I was immediately plunged into a dirty great slough of despond, coz even when I get my certificate I still won't be able to sign up with the OU since I'm flat broke. It looks like I'm going to need at least another year or so to get the money together, which depressed the hell out of me until a tiny fragment of sanity surfacedin my brain and pointed out that, look, you don't even know for sure what you want to do your course in yet.

Which is true. I mean, my initial plan was to do, well, electronics. But then I thought: why? Why not try a new direction? Broaden your net, sort of thing. So then I'm thinking, hmm, maths... Eng. Lit... jounalism... physics... engineering... hmmm. But then at the back of my mind there was this little voice saying that none of those was quite right.

"Hello! Strengths, playing to! What's a subject that we've been interested in since we were ten?"
"Ummm... writing?"
"Not that, dufus! We're already doing that. We can do that just fine without studying at all."
"Ummm... maths?"
"Well, we're good at maths but we have an unfortunate tendency to FREEZE LIKE A LEEEETLE BABY RABBIT IN THE FUCKING HEADLIGHTS OF AN SUV when we're asked to actually do any. Think again."
"I dunno... art?"
"We failed the A-level. Twice. Don't even go there."
"Ummm..."
"LOOK! We're buggering about with micro PK experiments! We're studying energy manipulation! We're trying to become a Reiki master! We're always hanging around magick and paranormal sites on the net! HELLLOOOO!"
"Ummmm... Ohhh... you mean parapsychology."
"YES! BINGO! God, we're an idiot sometimes."

And so here I am, thinking seriously about becoming an academically certified, professional wacko (instead of just an amature wacko of Olympic standard). I don't know, but the idea has some things to recommend it. Parapsychology would be a way to tie some of the disparate strands of my life together. It's a subject which I know quite a lot about, and which interests me. It's a qualification which would help in a career as a complemetary therapist. But I don't know, I mean there's reasons why I shouldn't do it too. But like I say it's a long way off. I'm going to have plenty of time to weigh up my options.

Sunday, February 22, 2004

"Climate change will destroy us"--Pentagon

Full story here.

Key Pentagon findings here.

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world...

'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life...

Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network...


In short, we're all fucked.



Friday, February 20, 2004

Changes

Got rid of the tag board. It was generating pop-ups whenever I logged on form the laptop. Use the comments system if you simply must pollute my mindspace with your hideous drivel.

Thursday, February 19, 2004

I'm bitter.

And fed up of things. Moreso that usual, I mean. I've been downloading and listening to some of the songs over at diepunyhumans.com, and it's making me all teared-up and frustrated.

I want my voice back. Year on year, it's been eroded. Every time I try to sing I feel the hand of memory rising to squeeze me into silence. The more I fight, the worse it gets. The other day I woke up with total laryngitis; I could hardly speak. I feel like I'm choking, like there's an arm round my neck and I don't know where my attacker's nads are to kick'em.

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Not worksafe.

I've got this uneasy fascination for reading the websites of online Dommes. My favourite by far is the terrifying evil genius known as Princess Sierra. I began by thinking she was way too extreme, but over time I've come to realise that dude, there are just some guys out there who have an honest-to-goodness Having Their Lives Trashed fetish. Who am I to say that the object or facilitator of said fetish is somehow wrong?

I guess it's always going to be a contentious area: where does informed consent stop, and coercion begin? Is there an inherent sexism in the use of feminization to humiliate, to say nothing of the homophobic aspect of said feminization when it includes sexual interactions with other men, these being presented as inherantly humiliating acts. And what of the fetishization of the financial transaction, the sexualization of Capitalism itself? It's a vast, tangled moral briar in which we could meander for hours, hopelessly lost.

In the meantime, here's a grown man simulating sex with an inflatable toy alien.

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Heavy psi.

Yesterday's z-score was pretty good (for me), but I had an off-day today and trashed it. Again. Also, I made the mistake of googling for psionics sites.

Stuff me with a wombat and call me Gertrude, what a load of tosh. Most psionics sites fall into one of two categories.

Type one: SheriLynn's Faerie Psionic Realme. SheriLynn's Faerie Psionic Realme will have loads of crappy animated gifs of rainbows, bunnies, doves, twinkle-stars and shit, with either a baby-blue or magenta background. The page will be so full of crap it will take like half an hour to load, and there'll be about three lines of text o it. The text will be crap. The text will be about how FifiTrixieBelle, SheriLynn's Faerie Guide, taught SheriLynn to move a compass needle with the power of her mind.

Type two will be called Lorde RavenGrimm LeDarque'z Castille of Psionic Myght. It will be done out in tasteful red'n'black with day-glo green text. There will be roughly four million lines of text, relating how Lorde RavenGrimm discovered his psionic powers when he came into his Vampyre Heritage whilst live roleplaying. Lorde RavenGrimm will eschew animated gifs, preferring instead to personalise his site with his Vampire: The Masquerade clan badge and a song of his own composition, entitled Glory of the Undead Psi Lord's Might.

You'll be hoping against hope that these two are teenagers, but no. Both will freely admit to being in their early forties. They'll even put up pictures. With their cats.

I need some decent psi links please. Oh, and I also need to move some bodies. Bring a shovel.

Sunday, February 15, 2004

Ragggh!

So I've finally finished that stupid story I was stupidly hoping to send to stupid TSR, and it sucks, and I'm going to have to do half a ton of stupid re-writing before I can send it anywhere, and I hate it, and I hate you.

I'm just going to leave it alone for a few days. Maybe if I come back to it with fresh eyes... something.

Had an idea for a vampire thing which I might be able to sell to one of my fave fanzines. I'm getting pretty fed up of the way that the only goddamn things I can sell are vamipre stories. I don't even like vampire stories that much. They're really, really boring. Got an idea for a vampire story? It's been done, pal. Vampirism is a disease? Been done. Vampirism as an addiction? been done. Priest vampires, detective vampires, mafia vampires... mafia priest detective vampires... been done. Everything has been done to death. It's boring. Boooorrrrring! And it's the only freaking thing that anyone will buy off of me! Even Anne bloody RICE has quit writing vampire stories! It's not fair!

What about my amputee sex robot stories, huh? What's wrong with amputee sex robots? Who will buy my amputee sex ro-o-bots? Nice ripe amputee sex robots!

Saturday, February 14, 2004

213.234.225.182

This looks like the next wave of spambotage, doesn't it? Seems that a vast number of wikis have been trashed and replaced with porn links, and all the damage has been done from a Russian IP address. I can't really imagine anyone being sad enough to sit down and go through thousands of wikis this way, so it must be a bot.

How vexatious. I wonder how you could stop this kind of thing? Short of declaring open season on spammers, that is.
http://www.wonderfarms.com/

"Cooter likes exploring small dark places with his eye, and has a tendency to get into trouble."

"Pinky is a loving creature that likes to be played with. She has a stretchy eye that snaps back into her pocket. If you rub her special spot, she can give magical powers."

You know. For kids!
Psi. Balls.

Okay, so I'm three days into my latest stab at psionics. I'm doing visualizations, and going through the experiments over at the RetroPsychoKinesis project. I was going to do a week, but I spoke to the imaginary friends yesterday and they said I should go for two weeks at least.

And nothing's happening. My results are terrible. I'm supposed to be banishing my doubt for the duration of the experiment (I can have it back when the two weeks is up), but that's really hard when nothing is happening!

Is any of this real? Are we all, as I sometimes suspect, a bunch of delusional losers who want to belive that our tiny minds have some influence on the world so badly that we'll pick lunacy over the truth?

Answers on a postcard please.

Oh, yeah-- and my remote viewing still blows goats as well. I feel forsaken and mopey.

Thursday, February 12, 2004

Stuff that gets me irrationally pissed off and which I should learn to chill out about yet somehow can't.

#342: Really stupid 'ghost' photographs. No, I don't see a face. No, I don't see the hooded figure. No, I don't see a damn thing. Why? Because there is nothing to see! That's a gatepost, you muppet! That's a reflection, puddingbrain! That's dust! That's cigarette smoke! That's your own thumb, you UNBELIVABLY CREDULOUS FOOL!

I was looking for info on channeling last night, and I came across a whole bloody page of pictures taken by some woman. They all had this white fuzzy stripe across them. According to the person taking the pictures, this was the image of her spirit guide.

Yuh, huh. Just out of curiosity, dear--your camera wouldn't happen to have a white strap, would it? BECAUSE I CAN SEE THE GODDAMN WEAVE in the FABRIC! There were like twenty or so pictures, all with this really obvious camera strap across them, all solemnly labled as images of this strangecase's 'spirit guide'. I mean, I've heard of people's guides taking odd forms before now, but not A PIECE OF FRIKKIN' NYLON RIBBON.

If I end up like that, you guys'll slap me or something, right?

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

Crackpots.

With a bit of prompting from a friend, I think I've worked out the significance of the potsherds. To cut a long story short, I belive they relate to an incident in my past, and represent the destruction/twarting of hard work by (buried) fear and humiliation. From this I can extrapolate that this is something I need to fix properly both for my own good and for those around me (rather than something I've brought upon myself and therefore ought to just suck up and deal with).

So. Brain donors. Form an orderly queue...
Just updated Liber V.

Haz click aqui.

Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Brainsss.

Ah, it's about time we had a proper one of those barking mad magickal ramblings, isn't it? Haven't done one of those for a little while.

So. 'K. Current status.

The last Really Big Thing I did was about a week or so ago. I was sick of having random self-loathingy shit pop into my head at odd intervals. You know, Gazpacho soup moments? I seem to get more of them than the average freak.

So I decided to do a visualization excercize to try and fix my head a bit. I sat down and zombed out into a trance, and found myself looking at my brain. I dosomething like this fairly regularly anyway, as a means of controlling my epilepsy. I have an imaginary magick zappy stick thing for fixing the busted circuits. Anyway, this was a bit different. Instead of my brain appearing as a complex chunk of circuitry, I was instead presented with a huge blob of decaying brain tissue. Gangrene and everything, man. You should have smelled it! Beyond gross.

Adopting a bird-form, I started to fish around in the icky mess. I found several fragments of a hard, dark-greyish substance, which seemed to be the root cause of the infection. They were like bits of ceramic or stone. I fished out a lot of them, but there were too many for my bird-form to deal with before the trance began to break up under the effort. (Holding a bird-form in a trance is hard for me, since I'm not really a bird person.) When I lost the trance, there were still all these little bits like BB shot.

So, anyway. That was not a pleasant surprise. Didn't realize how much of a mess things were in that part of my mind. Whipping out the fragments isn't the half of it, either; even if I get all of them I'm going to need something to kill the infection, and some way of replacing the dead and rotted 'tissue'. (Anyone got a spare brain I could cut up for parts?) Also, I don't know why one would have a headful of potshards anyway; I'm at a loss as to their significance. I usually see stuff in terms of electronics, like I said. If I'd seen a big pile o' loose wires, I'd know what to do with it.

Things are a bit funny generally in that department. I've gone all rabbit-in-the-headlights about everything. Tarot? Arggh! Freeze! Talk-To-Guides? Arrgh! Freeze! Meditate? Arrrgh! Freeze! I know what it is, of course: various nasty little aspects of my current self are facing death and they're going to fight for their lives. It's hard to fight something when half the fight is just picking up the weapon-- nay, walking to the weapons cabinet.

I will win, though. I always win.

Monday, February 09, 2004

I'm bored.

And we all know how ugly that can get.

My friends have gone home. I'm sulking now. Sulky sulky sulk sulk.

Been on a big shutdown since the festivities, but the ol' writing on the wall says it's time to get back into the swing of things.

UJnconsciously, I've been stripping everything down: no frills, no adornments, just the bones of a life. Even my attire: the same black combat trews, the same t-shirt. No makeup. No jewellery apart from my labret. My hair allowed to grow in will-i-nill-i. Now I think it's time to start rebuilding: Spring is in the air, the trees are in blossom here in Spain (and have been for a couple of weeks).

The guides have been almost silent in my mind. I can feel them, though: waiting for the right moment. I need to get out there, out into the woods and the hills, out into the wild places. It is spring, and I begin again.

If the spooky perverts are listening, and they always are: I appreciate the break but I'd like to get a move on now. We were going great guns before Crimbo, and I think we should get back to it. Ready for the next stage!

Saturday, February 07, 2004

Toys and stuff in sidebar.

I put some name generators and stuff like that down in the sidebar so I don't have to spend like half an hour thinking up a name every time I want to write about an Elf who is also a Dragon who is a Cleric. And then another forty minutes thinking up sword names for all the big swords.

Swords should always have cool names, like "FrostFang the BloodSpurttastic Blade of OrcDoom." It's that level of craftsmanship that makes me a superawesome writer of Fantsy, like Tolkien only with strong female characters. Who have swords, nopt just any swords but named swords. That is how you know they are strong. I should write a book about what a superawesome fantasy writer I am, but all you less awesome writers would steal my ideas.

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

Attention foes!

I have just had a very tasty tortilla de patates* with frozen peas, and earlier today I saw some odd kind of cobwebby nesty things high up in the trees which must be made by some kind of huge spider or something, I don't know, I've never seen them before. Also, the other night I saw this thing that looked a Wild Boar, but I thought Nah, that an't be a Wild Boar, surely. But just now I looked it up on the internet and apparently this place is PRIMO wild boar territory and I probably saw a Wild Boar after all! I am therefore Happy.

Eat the Happiness of Mordant, foebeasts! HA!


*Spanish omelette, not a flour tortilla like you use for fajitas or wraps. With potatoes in.

Sunday, February 01, 2004

More on Canned Fish U.

Since the last time I wrote about this, I have heard nada from these guys. Zip. Zilch. So much for "Someone will email you in a day or two." It's been over a week, and no one's contacted me.

Once again: I am trying to give these people money. Give. Them. Money. And they won't let me.

If this doesn't get sorted soon, I'm naming Canned Fish U. I'm going to post a link to the web page, and tell anyone who'll listen what a fucking shambles their institution is. I've fought shy of doing this in the past because I thought they might be petty enough to deny me my qualification, but if they won't give me my qualification anyway then why shouldn't I out them? Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.
No comment.

My comments system went kerflooie once too often, so I've replaced it.