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!)

Just your average blog post.

My day was sort of crap. I refuse to bore myself by rehashing the details; suffice it to say that I am sick of the metro, banks, phones both mobile and immobile, and getting lost. I am now headachy and somewhat enervated. However, I am energized and sustained by my Hate of You, a warm little light in the darkness within.

I am also cross with my entities who are Not Helping at the moment. They've put some long-term stuff in motion, but I want stuff to happen NOW, dammit! I've been playing with the idea of doing a really big, impressive ritual working to get myself a job, but that's never gone well in the past. I always end up doing something which fills all the specifications of the spell and yet is utterly foul and not what I meant at all. I mean, how am I supposed to take over the world when I'm picking up littler in Hyde Park?

Stupid magick.

I meant it about becoming a hardcore skeptic, you know.

"...sometimes something gets into your head and you just gotta break some rules, shake it up, and see that the damn thing gets out there into everybody else's heads and kicks their heads right in the nuts."

Indeed it does, Mister X, indeed it does.
I want Spiderman to come to my party now. I keep thinking of past parties that would have been vastly improved by a strange man in primary colours who liked to stand on fire hydrants. Oh, and who 'loves "playing with the kids" (young & old!)'.

I want short, disturbing Spiderman! NOW!

Next day...

Thanks for nothing. Stupid entities.

I think I may give this up. I mean, I've got an excellent stall now, loads of different stuff, and still no-one's buying. Feel like I gave it a fair shot. I'm going to start flypitching down on the beach (on a smaller scale, so I can cut and run if the police turn up). Also going to try selling stuff to shops. Still want to do the eBay thing, but that might take a while to set up. If anyone has any experience of doing that kind of thing, drop me a line.

Time to start putting cards up, advertising for things like cleaning work and English conversation. Or childminding-- rich parents here always want English-speaking childminders. I've also been letting my hair grow back; I hate it, but it seems I need to be more acceptable to Them if I'm going to get a job.

I'll prolly still go to the park on Sundays, I'll just stop expecting to sell anything. There's loads of reasons to go there anyway. It's a nice atmosphere, you meet interesting people, there's lots to see, there's drums and sundry assorted noise. And there's the dogs-- I really like the dogs that the traders bring to the park. They're so lively and so full of personality. There's the occasional incident, but generally they're hardly any trouble, most of them having been trained from puppyhood to not run across people's stalls and stuff. They'll scamper all over the place, and never put so much as a toe on the groundsheets.

Then some bloody tourist'll come by, let their stupid mutt off the lead, and stand there like lemons while it trashes everything in sight.

In which the diarist yet again invokes a Higher Power.

Dear spooky invisible voyueristic pervert angelghostalienmonsterrightbrainhigherselfwhatevers,

Tomorrow is market day. Make me sell things pleasepleasepleasepleasepleeeeeeease? I want some money to happen. And make it be a nice day, not too hot but without loads of wind or rain.

Or I'll go evil. Really evil. With all tentacles and stuff.

Thankyou.

Business as usual.

Went job-hunting again yesterday. No dice. Got kind of fed up, as you do. Met Lurid Archive in town later, and had a chat with him about changing my approach. We went to see Pirates of the Carribean, which put me in a much better temper. It's a really cute little film, lots of over-the-top fighting, great SFX, and Johnny Depp in lots of eyeshadow strolling around, idly stealing most of the scenes. Is is me, or do Dismal films suck less these days?

Anyway, change of approach. This whole pounding the streets looking for want-ads and signing up with temp-agencies plan of attack would have been a surefire winner back home, but here it's just not working. All that happens is that I get utterly cheesed off with everything. The time would be much better spent improving my Spanish and trying to find inroads into other kinds of employment.

I need to network more (yeah, cringe, but needs must ect chiz chiz), and to use my alternative skills. (Which reminds me, I have to get on the phone to someone from the Barcelona healer's network. They emailed me ages ago and I never got back to them.) I also need to find a magick shop-- I need a public tarot deck if I'm going to do readings for money. Don't want to use my own personal deck; I've had it since I was 12 and over the years it's developed a rather quirky personality. Great when reading for myself or for close friends, not so good for strangers. Plus I might end up reading for some skanky-auraed creepazoid and getting all invisible yuck on it. I hate that. You just keep getting the same damn cards time after time, no matter who you read for, until you sort the deck out. Bad enough when it's your public tarot but when it's your own personal deck, it's really very icky.

Or palms. I can do palms. I'm not great at them, but I'm okay.

On the handicraft front: I finally got around to painting the pebble pendants I made. They look well smart, if I so say so myself as shouldn't. I'm going to make a few more today; the epoxy putty should be nice and hard tomorrow morning and I can paint them them. A quick coat of acrylic varnish, et voila.

I also got this excellent dress yesterday. Pink fluffy bridesmade's frock, full-length, with artificial feather trim, just begging for some MC-style vandalism. Not quite sure what I'm going to do to it yet. I've got a few ideas, the most obvious of which involve pearls and safetypins. We shall see...

Me am bizzaro Julie Andrews.

Can't remember where I found this, but it was so cute I had to make up a little song about it...

Girls in black PRO-keds and effin strap dresses,
Three-row spiked wristbands and ball-chain necklaces,
Industrial leg-cincher skirts and D-rings,
These are a few of my favourite things...

You=

Mr. Pooter pretending to be Tyler Durden
Roderick Spode pretending to be Tyler Durden
Mary Whitehouse pretending to be Tyler Durden
A forgotten member of Take That pretending to be Tyler Durden
Some cheese pretending to be Tyler Durden
A small terrier cross pretending to be Tyler Durden
David Brent pretending to be Tyler Durden
Jack Hargreaves pretending to be Tyler Durden
Noel Edmonds pretending to be Tyler Durden

Pick a role model from something that isn't out on video for five nintey-nine at the petrol station.
Live in it instead of pinching a few of its accessories.

Then kill it. KILLITKILLITKILLIT.

(Evolve or die.)

Additional.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about this other thing. Which was remiss of me, because it's one of the coolest bits of news I've had in ages: A couple of guys in Australia are soliciting submissions for their upcoming anthology, the working title of which is Daikaiju! Yes, it's an anthology of stories about GIANT MONSTERS! You know, like King Kong and Godzilla and those guys. Here's what they say:

We're not talking mere dinosaurs or eagle-sized mosquitoes here; these monsters must be unreasonably huge -- larger than the laws of physics can comfortable accommodate.

Nothing in my slush-pile really fits the bill but the deadline's not till November of next year, so I should be able to whip up something tasty. Anyway, the simple fact that there's going to be a book of stories about giant monsters makes me really, really happy.

Bugs.

I'm still trying to get a handle on the insect situation round here. Its all very well during the day, when you're gazing raptly at a swallowtail butterfly sailing lazily past on huge creamy wings, or tiny dust-coloured crickets that reveal a flash of blue wing as they fly off. When the sun goes down, though, it's a different story. I first moved here in April and the main problem was mosquitoes; chewing bits of me I'd rather not have chewed, bringing me up in massive lumps, trumpeting in my ear all night so I got shag-all sleep, and generally putting a dent in my mood. Lashings of insect repellant and one of those plug-in gadgets seem to have resolved that problem, but as soon as the mosquitos were taken care of all these other beasties came crawling, flying, and buzzing into my gaff. If you're not careful about pulling the blinds down when you turn on the lights at dusk, it takes about five minutes before the place looks like a set from Indiana Jones. Moths, cicadas, more moths, giant gnats, even more moths-- are moths supposed to squeak? Because I was trying to flick one out the window with the mop once and it kept squeaking at me. Really loud. It was weird. And I had a mantis in here the other night, just a little one, about two inches long. I was torn between two distinct and powerful emotions: Wonder ("Hey, look! A leeetle tiny mantis! Wow, never seen one in the wild before!) and Arrrrgh ("Arrrrgh! Bug! Bug! Weird leggy bug in flat! Arrrgh arrrgh arrrgh!")

But that's nothing to what my arch nemesis has to put up with. Bwhahahahaaaa.

In other news: Started wrting a promising rant today about transhumanism as it relates to why I hate everyone, but then I decided to go shopping and by the time I got home I'd gone off the boil a bit. I'm determined to finish it though.

Blaaahh.

I'm all blah today. Painting? Blah. Writing? Blah. Jobhunting? Blah. Stayed at home and worked on my Castillian, then played a little Baldur's Gate II. Killed goblins. Blah.

I was going to write about something, but I've forgotten what.

Blah.

Entities.

You do know that when I talk about entities that might be angels or aliens or spirits or just some guys that may or may not exist but nevertheless I direct weblog posts towards, you do know I mean entities that might be angels or aliens or spirits or just some guys that may or may not exist but nevertheless I direct weblog posts towards, and not actual people people, right?

Not everything is about you.

In other entirely nonworksafe but if you didn't already know that before you came here you deserve to get fired and never find another job again ever news: The Ministry for Depressingly Stupid Referrals has seen fit to drop this into my reluctant lap. The answer, my curious chum, is No they don't. Not as a rule. You could get the individual in question all addicted to some expensive drug, and then maybe they'd do what you're suggesting if you gave them a lot of the drug or lots of money to buy the drug. Or if you held someone they cared about to ransom and the ransom was doing that thing you just asked about, then yeah, maybe they'd do that thing you just asked about. Or if they were in some desert place and going to starve to death and the only person with food wanted them to do that thing you just asked about, then again, yeah, maybe.

The point I'm trying to make here is that the answer to your question is NO. Under normal, everyday sort of circumstances, a normal, everyday sort fo woman will not do that thing you asked about. Most women would be all "EWWWWWWWW!" The fact that you asked about it suggests that you're all messed up about women in some serious way, and that you should get help. Or just stop eating paint. Either way, learn to use a search engine so that you don't bother me with this kind of faith-in-human-nature-wrecking thing in future. I want to go on deluding myself that not everybody is messed up in the head, and you're making it really difficult.

I'm gonna start making my search referrals public, I think. Then people who know how to play with the internet properly can find out where you live and make all your shoes melt from h4xx0r powers.

Took the stupid quiz again.


paranoid


Which Personality Disorder Do You Have?
brought to you by Quizilla


That's better.

"Hitler sexier than a space ninja"-- you people

I am disturbed, but somehow unsurprised. I knew your heads were full of that yecchy stuff at the bottom of the soapdish, but now I have PROOF. You all fancy Hitler and I DISTAIN you.

borderline

Which Personality Disorder Do You Have?
brought to you by Quizilla

WHAT? How dare they! BPD? I'm a paranoiac, people! A paranoiac with a tiny side order of schizotypal! Eveyone knows I'm a paranoiac! People who've only known me for a couple of minutes know I'm a paranoiac! I'm good at paranoia. How dare this stupid quiz suggest otherwise?

I bet the person who designed the quiz hates me and wanted to make me all grumpy.*



*SEE?

"Take that, rat munchkin."

Spooky.

Really, I have got to get out of the habit of getting all excited every time my magick works. The Powers the Be have just delivered, big time, and my adrenal glands are being all weird about it. They're bouncing up and down like a couple of puppies.

Y'know the other day, when I mentioned to the Entities that I was thinking of selling my evil dollies on line, and that it would be nice to have a way of taking pix of them? Well, guess who's getting a digital camera in a few weeks' time. Turns out that my Mum has a spare one going begging, which will be mine when next I see her.

Which brings me to my next bit of news: I will soon be back in the UK for a spell. There's this wedding in Ireland, and a birthday in London, and some other stuff. I'll be around from early- to mid-September; details of pub crawls and sundry debauchery will be announced through the usual channels as and when I can be bothered.

It's been a funny weekend. There was this huge storm on Sunday morning, which kept popping back for curtain calls all day long. I gave the park a miss. Feel a bit guilty, but I don't imagine that very many people would have turned out anyway. Still looking for safe places to fly-pitch during the rest of the week. Somewhere the police wink at such mildly illegal behaviour; somewhere untrammelled by licened traders who are likely to cut up rough if they observe a distinctly unlicenced MC setting up shop; somewhere inhabited by other fly-pitchers of a gentle and non-territorial bent. Somewhere with lots of rich beadwork fetishists. I haven't found it yet, but I will search on, bold, resolute and unfaltering, until the Eldorado of flypitchers appears before my weary gaze. Or until I get all hot and fed up and decide to go and sit in the internet cafe for a bit.

Anyway, I'm off to Google for pictures of harpies and stuff.

(PS: Thankyou for the help, spooky invisible people. Much appreciated.)

"...this rich, stupid, superficial, selfish woman, who sneered at Jews and blacks in an upper-class accent, was fawned on by the establishment right up to her death. ". (Excellently vituperitve article on the recently dead Lady Mosely).

Jeeze, how stupid are these Grauniadistas anyway? Don't they know that it's just not cool to bash fascism anymore? All the really hip kids are into it these days, y'know.



*Incidently, have you noticed how certain phrases have the power to lift your spirits, whatever your mood? "Wow! It's a lovely day-- Let's go to the beach!", "Great to see you! Now, what'll you have to drink", and "the late Lady Mosely". I'm just going to sit around saying that to myself for awhile. "The llllate Lady Mosely." Mmmmm.

Idi Amin dies.

According to the article, President Yoweri Museveni's spokesman called Amin's death "good." Nuh-uh. Not good. Good would be if it had happened a bit sooner, like before he murdered about 500,000 people and totalled Uganda's economy. Dying in bed aged 80 after you've perpetrated the crimes that Amin perpetrated isn't "good".

Here we go again...

From my site tracker it looks like people have suddenly started emailing my blog's URL to each other. Why? What've I done this time? Go away, you freaks.

If your're reading this because a friend sent you here, stop speaking to that person immediately except to prank-call them in the middle of the night. Every night. For at least the next year or two.

Apart from the prank calls (which should be vulgar and distressing), you must never, ever, ever have any contact with them again.

Is your pathetic mutant brain full of flaccid nerves?

Attentioooh, look at that...

I have the attention span of a brain-damaged gnat. I go online to check my email, and half-an-hour later I'm doing a quiz to see what colour my pants would be if I was an anime character, or something.

Anyway, that's not what I was going to go on about. What I was going to go on about was this: I'm trying to get abducted by aliens again and it's just not happening. (That's trying again, not being abducted again. This would be my first abduction.) I've tried re-tuning my temporal lobe as a communications device, but either a) nothing happened b) the aliens didn't want to tell me anything, or c) the aliens want me to do stuff like pop out to the shops or make a cup of tea.

I want to write a story about an alien abduction for this SF webzine, and I don't want to just cobble one together from existing sources. If I was back in the UK, I'd obviously hit some out-of-the-way place with a reputation for that kind of activity. You know, airy mountains, rushy glens, etc.* However, I'm not up to snuff on Spanish folklore... really must try and get a handle on that.

*Yeah, I knopw that's fairies, not aliens. They didn't have aliens back then. The fairies had to handle that whole side of things till the aliens got here. Ever noticed how nobody gets stolen by fairies anymore?

Stalling.

Stayed home today to work on a new line for my stall. I'm hoping the new design will appeal to that all-important 20-something male stoner demographic. Last Saturday I bought a bag of polished black pebbles, and I've been making them into pendants by putting a blob of epoxy putty on the top with a hole for the string. I've modelled shapes into the putty (faces, hands, leaves, spirals etc) and when it's dry I'll add some colour. They've mostly come out okay. I plan to make some more with runes cut into the putty. I mean, who doesn't love a good rune?

Still need to buy some thongs for them tho'. Mmmmm... thonnnngggggg.

I'm rapidly running out of doll parts. I need a steady local scource of cheap spoof Barbiealikes to dissect. I'm thinking of making doll part jewellery (for that all-important teenaged goth chick demographic); by my reckoning, doll part jewellery has been over so long that it's now retro.

I'm doing other stuff too, like buying cheap notepads and painting the covers with gouache (you say that gwash, apparently). I've got some acrylic varnish spray to give them a durable finish. I'm going for a scattergun approach, finding out what goes over and what doesn't.

This whole situation both rocks and sucks. On the downside, I'm fed up with the no-job-having, and I want the stuff on my stall to sell and SELL NOW, goddammit! On the upside: money's tight but not a huge problem yet, and I'm rediscovering a whole slew of skills, abilities and drives that I'd almost forgotten I had. I'm in a fairly high-energy mode right now, fuelled, I belive, by the fact that I'm actually making stuff again. What with one thing and another, the arty-crafty side of things had to go on the back burner over the last four or five years; in retrospect, that may not have been such a great thing. Never mind. Spilt milk, now.

I really hope this make-and-sell thing could work out eventually. It's definately me. I think that one of the best things you can hope for in this life is the chance to express yourself, your beliefs and ideas, through the way you live-- something that few people ever get the chance to do. Also, if I could make a living (or even half a living) doing something creative, it seems likely that my head would be in a better place writing-wise.

Which brings me back to the writing.

Ah, yes. The writing. Hoom.

I've been coasting a bit lately. I haven't been contributing to my writer's group, I haven't been giving The Novel any love, I haven't been sending out stories to magazines. There was that virus, then I got all caught up in the making of stuff, and what with one thing or another I've not been working as hard as I should. Need to get back on the horse. Firstly, new word-per-day target: 500 words, min. Secondly, and rather painfully: blog posts no longer count towards the daily target. Blogging sometimes gives me a false sense of security, makes it feel like I'm on top of the writing when... well, really not. I've touched upon the perils of work-flavoured nonwork elsewhere, and sometimes blogging can fall into that category. This measure should help draw a line between really writing and just braindumping.

Hot enough for ya?

Today I have been mostly wandering aimlessly around Barça. I love wandering aimlessly round Barça, but damn! It's hot. Hot hot hot. Mind you, it's apparently hot back home in London. This is sick and wrong. London should not be hot.

The evil dolls are looking good. I'm making a freind for Beauty Queen: a red devil doll with horns. Next up is a murderous housewife poisoner. Then I thought about paintings-- when I was, like, 15 or so, I used to really like doing these stylized, almost kiddy pictures of mythical creatures (harpies, dragons, stuff like that) in watercolour. Very bright, clear colours, pretty much as they come out of the tube, unmixed: cerulean blue, chrome yellow, madder rose. Fine lines of black Indian ink. I plan to do a few of those, little ones, about the size of bathroom tiles. Spray 'em with acrylic varnish, see if they sell.

This is all very strange. I seem to be going back in time, skillswise. Once I started doing the beadwork all these other abilities, which had been allowed to atrophy because they weren't deemed important, gradually started to creep back. All well and good, all well and good. I'm currently thanking whatever providence it is that watches over the likes of me that I didn't put all my eggs in the electronics basket. You really do need more than one sort of skill these days, or you're screwed. (The next time someone sneers at your "lack of focus", reader dear, just ignore them. Or kill them. Actually, kill them. Slowly. Especially if they use the phrase "Jack of all trades and a master of none", the sure sign of a ridgid-brained git. Have you ever noticed that people who use that particular cliche never have an actual trade? They can't make tables or put in windows or mend boilers, or anything useful. They're always careers advisers or personnel officers: futile and toxic. Really, kill them I'll give you an alibi.)

When not wandering aimlessly around Barça, I've been ensconced in the mercifully air-conditioned bowels of the internet cafe reading eBay tutorials. I reckon I could sell some of my dollies on eBay, and maybe some other stuff too, but I have no idea as to how one goes about it. Looks fairly easy though.


Which brings me to my latest begging letter to the nameless and incomprehensible (and possibly completely nonexistant) entities:

Hello, your spooky intangiblenessess. Guys, I'm going to try really really hard with the art and crafts stuff like I think you (or your bosses, I don't know how this works) want, but you have to help me along a bit, okay? Firstly, help me find an appropriate outlet for my stuff. This could be a craft fair or something, perhaps. The eBay thing might be a good idea, but I'd need a way to take pictures of my dolls and put them online-- preferably fairly cheaply. I'm not saying that you have to give me a free digital camera (it'd be nice, but I'm not that crazy), just point me in the direction of a scanner or something.

Thanks.

P.S.: I'm trying to do the right thing here, but you know I get sullen when you don't throw me a bone once in a while. Remember that time I spent a whole year being a hardcore skeptic? Yeah.

Please read. Matter of life and death.

Plums has read my mind, or summink. Was just going to post on this very same topic:

Amina Lawal, a 30 year-old Nigerian woman, sentenced by a Shari’ah court to death by stoning, has once again had her appeal adjourned. Amina’s appeal will now be heard on 27 August 2003. According to the registrar of the Shari’ah Court of Appeal of Katsina State, the hearing could not take place because there was an inadequate number of tribunal members to hear the appeal. Two of the judges were reportedly serving on ad-hoc elections tribunals, constituted after general elections in April and May 2003.

Amina confessed to having had a child while divorced. Pregnancy outside of marriage constitutes sufficient evidence for a woman to be convicted of adultery according to the new Shari’ah-based penal code for Muslims, introduced in Katsina state.

Yes, you read that right. Amina Lawal is going to be stoned to death for having a baby. I'll repeat that for the hard of thinking: Amina Lawal, a breathing, feeling, thinking, human being, is going to be buried up to her neck in the ground and get rocks chucked at her head till she dies because she's had a baby.

Please sign the petition. It'll take about two seconds and your input may help save Amina.


Sorry; that's probably put a crimp in your lunch break, hasn't it? I get all worked up over stuff like this all the time. Sometimes it gets written up; sometimes it's so horrific, so painful to even think about, that it seems wrong to put it up here. I know that I should, but I don't want to keep ripping everyone's guts out all the time, y'know? Thinking about creating a seperate blog for things like this. Just put up the petition links here, along with a distress warning, and then a longer commentary on the subject at hand on the Scary Blog. Hmm.

Should've picked a different title for this baby, maybe. Every day in every way, I feel more and more like an lefty anarchist version of Rorschach.

The fine art of mutilation.

Okay. It's Sunday, and as you should all know by now Sunday is stall-in-the-park day. I've been busy over the past week, making kewl things to sell.

I've made a ton of those little daisy rings, because people seemed to like them so much. Need more of the smaller sizes, though. I also finished a few wire trees. They're well smart, if I do say so myself as shouldn't, especially the smaller ones. They looked a bit bare so I started hanging little bead thingys from the ends of the branches, and now they look proper.

I also started making some messed-up zombie-type dolls. I bought four or five of these 60c spoof Barbies, and I've been rearranging their smarmy faces with a Swiss Army knife. Eminently satisfying. My favourite is Miss Psycho Killer Beauty Queen, a pageant runner-up gone bad with bloodstains all down her dress and her rival's arm in her handbag. I'm also making a proper Zombie, but some of her green paint is still sticky so I might have to save her till next week. Going to try for €15 a pop for these babies, because they're a lot of work.

Can't belive I didn't buy the dolly with the suitcase, though. Or the miniature kitchenware. WTF is wrong with me?

Braaaaaaaaiiiiinnnnnnnnnssssss! Get'em while they're hot.

(Via diepunyhumans.com. Not so much work-warning as lunch warning.)

6/8/45 8:15am

On this date 58 years ago an atomic bomb, known as "Little Boy", was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.


Hiroshima

Survivor's stories

Hiroshima Peace Declaration

Ra.

Having spent the best part of a decade taking the most exaggerated precautions against the sun (for tedious medical reasons that I can't be bothered to explain here) I decided, on arriving in Spain, to begin desensitizing myself. I started slow and careful: limited exposure, heavy sunblock. One of the first things I did was visit a pharmacy for advice. I was going to go for a 15, but the pharmacist went off into a long and (to me) largely unintelligible lecture in which the words "mas pallido" and "blanco" cropped up with alarming regularity. I left bearing a bottle of paediatric sun-cream and feeling a bit dispirited. A certain bearded individual thought it was all verrrry funny, especially when I decided to put some of the stuff on while we were taking the metro.

I've also been charging a little sun pendant that my Mum gave me as a solar talisman, in the hopes that I might start absorbing some of the energy rather than being fried like a big streaky rasher. It's been working pretty well, too; I've been able to move onto factor 15 and I don't always have to wear my shades. I even bought a few little crop-tops. I was responding quite nicely to the sunlight. It feels like it's shifting my consciousness somewhat-- I'm definately in a different mindstate when walking around on a sunny day. (Stop muttering about sunstroke. It's not sunstroke. It's a magickal altered state of consciousness. Shut up.)

'Course, I couldn't just carry on with the softly-softly approach, could I? Oh, no. I had to get all cocky. So, last Sunday I go to the park and sit there with my display of jewellery from 2 till half-eight. I mean, I did put sunblock on, I just didn't reapply it. Because I'm all hard and sunproof now, and I can sit in the Spanish sun for six and a half of the hottest hours of the day.

Do not mess with Ra, people. Ra is not to be mocked. Ra sees you mock him with your teeny crop-top and your one application of factor 15 sunspray, and Ra smites you. He smites you between the waistband of your skirt and the hem of your top with the dread Curse of the Stripey Back, and you rue your temerity. DO NOT MESS WITH RA!

I did sell a couple of daisy rings tho'. Daisy rings seem to be a bit of a winner.

Booooored now.

Repetition, man. It rubs you raw eventually. Even the lightest caress, repeated for too long, will begin to chafe.

Got stuck in normal human consciousness all this week. Felt weird, grey, nasty. Linear, linear, linear. Hard to think outside the box; the box is everything, the box is me. Starting to pull out of it now, thanks be to [insert deity/angel/superhero/forgotten servitor grown fat on your obliviousness]. Sick of the same old minds in the same old grooves, the same old songs: We've shiny-new, you're old hat/we're wise and mature, you're young, dumb and full of spearmint gum. Shouldn't let it make even the smallest blip on the radar, but some people should know by now: when you slag off a set of people that includes me, you slag me, yeah? You get that, yeah? You get that you didn't give me or anyone like me a magickal Slagging Exemption Chitty before you went off into your latest hissyfit? And incidentally, could you please make up a new song? All I'm getting from you are remixes, and the tune wasn't that great in the first place.

So, having got over the sickies enough to take an interest in the world once more, it's off to look for inspiration. No inspiration. Not even a little bit. The Dalek squawk-- "IM-IT-ATE! IM-IT-ATE!" resounds louder and louder. People aren't even looking outside themselves for stuff to rip off anymore, they're just looking at their old shit and regurgitating it, a copy of a copy of a copy, dwindling and losing colour with every iteration, until all that's left is a blank surface onto which all those vacuous minds can broadcast the one thing they really want to see: Their own faces, staring back, love in their eyes. Narcissus, kiss your clone.

(I'm finding text a little awkward today. I need something else, something where I can branch and extend without losing cohesion. A 3-D wordprocessor.)

me=

TEACORE.

TEA.

CORE.

Your homework for the coming week:

EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE
EVOLVE or DIE



(There will be a test.)

Sick.

I'm sick. Woke up this morning to find that I'd lost my voice. Currently dragging around with a temperature and many achey bits. Been a while since I've had a fever, and I've been hoping to get one; I belive that running a temperature now and again is good for the body. There's some research to indicate that fever can protect one from cancer. Fever is the breath of Sekhmet, a hot wind purging the body of poison.

Which doesn't make me any less fed up, of course.

Last night I got a sign from the entities. I found a tarot card in the street near Placa Catalunya; The Chariot, to be precise. One of the local fortune-tellers must've dropped it. Lurid's been encouraging me to try reading the tarot for money, and that night we'd had a lengthy discussion about it. I give good readings, but I haven't done any in so long, I feel nervous about it. Plus there's the practicalities-- I don't speak enough Spanish to read for people yet.

WTF?

Should prolly do a post about yesterday in the park, but right now I've only got one thing on my mind.

Why can't I get a job? Why? WhywhywhywhywhywhyWHYYYYYY? I'm getting turned down for everything! Every damn thing! The stupid burger joints don't want me! The stupid shops don't want me! The stupid bars don't want me! The stupid cafe in the stupid station doesn't want me! Screw you job-giving people! I hate you! You suck! All I wanted was some shitey little job washing up in a kitchen or something, and you can't even let me have that? I hate you! I hateyouhateyouhateyou! You stupid uptight jerks!

And nobody's buying my stupid jewellery! I work really hard at that stuff and the guy next to me with a big pile of mass-produced crap made at gunpoint by child-slaves in Indonesia which which looks exactly the same as any other piece of mass-produced crap made at gunpoint by child-slaves in Indonesia is doing a roaring trade. Karma be damned: next week I'm just going to go down the wholesalers and buy a bunch of mass-produced crap made at gunpoint by child-slaves in Indonesia. You want crap? Fine! Here, have some crap! Have a big pile of crap that looks just like the next pile of crap! Look, you can have the exact same "unconventional" earrings that all the other "unconventional" people are wearing. (That's how you know you're unconventional, you see.)

You know what? Screw this.

Screw walking around town all day, screw tweaking my CV, screw pouring my energies into a bottomless pit of futility, screw having to go home every day and tell my boy that he's still gonna have to support the five-and-a-half-foot long leech that's stuck to his bank-book, screw flypitching, screw snotty tourists who come over and peer at my stuff and look like there's a bad smell under their noses. Screw this whole pointless existance.

And most of all, screw you.

Oh, and I started a thread on my board with a review-y thing of May.

Make up your own title, you bone-idle gits.

Hrmmmm. Been slack on the blogging lately. Not had much to write about; everything that's been happening lately is happening inside my head.

The language exchange night went fine, and I shall definately return next Tuesday (hopefully dragging Lurid along this time). Still can't understand nine-tenths of what everyone is saying, but it'll come. It'll come.

Having a bit of a crisis of confidence about the writing. I feel I lack the proper discipline; I'm still punting out stuff that's poorly developed, flawed, often containing glaring errors in grammar or spelling (which I somehow manage to miss until the piece is already winging its way to some webzine editor's inbox). Don't know what's wrong with me; how'd I get so damn sloppy? Repetition, cliche, typo, roaming comma, repetition, missed apostrophe, Attack of the Spurious Adjectives, repetition repetition rgrgrgrgrgrhhHH...

Mordant Moral Faliure: Beserk
Mordant Go for the eyes, Boo! Go for the eyes! RAGHHHHHHHH!

I'm trying to put together a couple of articles at present: some kind of travel thing with which I hope to temp the local English language publications, and something on teenage boot camps, which I will either punt out to emergencyPARADIGM or the new and improved Disinfo... that's if I ever get it finished. There's just too much data, and it's all really horrific data too. I read this stuff-- the articles, the court transcripts, the messageboards-- and I run out of places in my head to put it all. I start wanting to puke, or cry, or hit people, or call down the wrath of Freya, or just run out into the street and start punching the ground because of the complete impossibility of doing anything about these terrible, horrible places that torture vulnerable young people for money. Some reporter I am, huh?

But I've got to persevere. The more articles that are out there on the Web, the greater the likelyhood that these clueless rich tosspots will stumble across a little smidgin of truth inamongst all the glossy brochures.

A lot of people reading this will probably be thinking "yeah, well, the boot camps are nasty but what about all the other stuff? Iraq, Liberia, war, famine, torture, death, cash crops-- how come you've fixated on a bunch of rich American kids?" And they'd have a point, of course. The thing is... I know about all those things. And I don't just know in my head, I know in my gut, too. I'm haunted by them. They flutter round inside my head: the ghosts of all those people who have died and will go on dying in my name, who are enslaved in factories and on plantations so that I can buy cheaper goods. And I do what I can to change that. I write letters, I boycott this brand or that brand, I pass on information, I march, I do whatever. Every so often I give up (because I know I can't change anything, who am I? I'm nobody!), but I always begin again. You have to keep going, keep trying, even when you know intellectually that it's all pointless. It's not about what you do or don't change, it's about being someone you can stand to look at in the mirror.

The boot camp thing, though... that, I feel, could change, and change rapidly. There should be a change in the law, there should be legal protection for the kids concerned, there should be an end to the criminalisation and pathologisation of adolescence, sure, but you don't need those things to make the boot camps and the house-arrest programmes and all of that disappear. The way I see it is this: the boot camps are a product. All that needs to happen to kill a product is for people to stop buying that product.

('Course, then you've got to worry about what they buy instead...)

Okay, you ethereal types...

Heads up.

I'm off to my first ever language exchange night at a certain bar in about half an hour, and I'd like to make a couple of requests puhleeeees.

1) Give me my GUMPTION. I must and shall have GUMPTION.

2) I do not wish to get chatted up. This happens less frequently than it used to for I am an old boiler and I have divested myself of my crowning glory. And I dress funny. However, there are still some who won't take the hint.

3) I would like to meet some fun people, with whom I have stuff in common. Preferably these would be vaguely arty folk who could help me with path-y stuff.

4) I flat out DEMAND... that you accept my gratitude for your help today, including those nice bits of cheap fabric remnant you helped me find, and for pointing out that want-ad in the sushi bar. Thanks, guys. Or girls. Whatever.

Making stuff.

My consecrated hematite Wealth bracelet broke the other week. It was just hematite chips on elastic and the elastic snapped when I was having a beer in the Placa George Orwell. (Remind me to stop consecrating cheap jewellery in future.)

I saved all the bits, but I'm not sure what to do with it next. I was just going to restring and reconsecrate it, but something stopped me. I suspect that it wanted to be free. Bloody iron ore-- these metallic doobries are a bugger for getting ideas.

So I plan to redesign the bracelet. I'm going to use most of the hematite chips and some other suitable materials and remake it from scratch. A few of the hematite chips will of course be incorporated into my next batch of beadwork, to be offered for sale on Sunday. So that's another chore to look forward to this week.

Stupid magick.

Mmm, swords.

Oooh, they're so shiny and pointy! I want all of them. Lovely lovely pointy swords. Mmmmmmmm. Swords. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Also I want a flowing cloak and a swordsman's shirt, and some nice pointy boots. Some personal mist that would swirl about me on demand so's I could always make dramatic entrances would be good, but the costume people don't seem to sell that. I already have a long-haired bloke to stand next to me and look all brooding, so that's a plus.

That's...

Countess Junior Grade of The Flobee Hair Suction System, Mordant Carnival, L.C.S.W, to you lot.


(Random name & title generator robbed off of Solonor)

Heh.

Quote:

It's like saying something like, "Well yeah, I sent that mind eating demon after that guy, but it's ok because I practice white magick and he practices black magick. He does bad evil nasty things and I'm a happy fluffy fairy bunny witch who does good deeds, like helping old women cross the street".

Trijhaos made me eject fluid from my nose again. It's not fair.

Another open letter to the Entities.

Okay, guys. I think I've finally got myself pointed in the direction that you want me to be pointed in. Doing the jewellery, check. Making the ickle pritty wire trees, check. Keeping my eyes open for cool stuff to nick from skips, check. You have my gratitude for helping me sell that necklace on Sunday.

No, I'm not being sarky. I didn't really expect to sell anything, so the necklace was a plus. Thanks. You guys have been great, and I'm sorry that I needed so much poking to get me on the path. What can I say? You knew what I was like when you took the gig.

Now then. In order for me to keep to the mission, I need a little more help. Obviously I need to sell more stuff than that, but what I need right now-- like, tomorrow-- is a hint as to what I can be doing money-wise for the rest of the week. Can't just sit around from Monday to Saturday, hoping that this Sunday will be the charm.

So I'm asking you ethereal types once again: Help me out. Introduce me to someone who can point me in the right direction, show me where I can set up shop. See if you can't find me a job that works for you. Above all: give me the gumption I'll need to make the most of the chances I get.

Throw me a bone, eh? I can't go on like this, no money coming in and all that. It makes my stomach hurt.

The lost afternoon.

Inbetween those last two posts there should have been a little something on how I had a really great time on Saturday. Lurid and myself went to the Parc Güell to meet a 'Lither and a couple of said 'lither's mates. We had a great time, eventually fetching up on the beach to drink sangria. It was loads of fun, and I really hope they enjoyed it too.

Sold out.

Got to the park about 5pm, stayed till 9. Sold one (1) necklace. Ho, hum.

It was nice in the park tho'. Sort of like a mini-festival. There were jugglers, loads of really good jugglers, people playing guitars, a human pyramid, stands selling burritos, lukewarm sangria, herbalized tortilla and suspicious chocolate cake, people walking round with cool boxes ("AguacocacolacervecaAAAAA!") , cyclists, unicyclists, bemused tourists who'd come for the geological museum, and drums drums DRUMS. The drums were awesome beyond words. There were little knots of drummers all over the place, creating this thick sonic tapestry. It drew you in, made you part of it. After a while I found I was humming happy little made-up tunes to the rhythm of the drums.

I really want a drum now. And a sword.

Anyhow. I'm not totally gutted about the whole "one necklace in 4 hours" thing. It was my first time out and I reckon that with better presentation and a wider variety of stock I could do loads better. Hey, if I can sell one necklace when all I've got's an old pillowcase with my stock Sellotaped to it, what couldn't I do with a proper display?

Been thinking about how I might vary my stuff a little. I reckon that I should try and go for the wannabe mage market; pentegrams, chaostars, planetary symbols, etc etc. Also, I'm really good at making those kitschy little wire "bonsai" trees, so I might do two or three of those. Then there's "found object" sculpture; I used to really enjoy making semi-arty stuff out of crap that other people had chucked out. Not saying it'd sell, but it might get people interested.

But this is only a Sunday thing. What about the rest of the week? Well, getting a licence to sell stuff here is pretty much a nonstarter, but there's still the street-theatre option. Admittedly I'm no good at juggling, unicycling, dancing, or playing music, but I'm really really got at staying dead still. No, really. I used to be a life-model for a beginner's art class. I can hold a pose for forty minutes straight. So I'm thinking, human statue. Hmmm. Of course one would need a suitable costume, but I'm pretty inventive in that regard.

I would like a costume with a sword. A big shiny pointy sword. Then all you sword-having people would have to stop laughing at me.

If I had a drum and a sword I would be invincible, and nobody would ever tell me to file anything again.

...mark out the losers in your office so you know whose opinions you can safely ignore.

fridgemagnet puts his finger on one of the main reasons why I really hate working with other people: you're all a bunch of know-nothing, style-over-content bozos. I hate working with other people because work, like justice, must be seen to be done. So what if you've been slaving in the file room since 7:30am? Your upline manager doesn't get in till nine-thirty, and she won't see you. Worse, if you're so busy trying to put some order to the chaos that her lousy management has created that you don't come up for air till 10:30, you'll have to put up with the smarmy bint asking you if your alarm clock's broken. Attempting to reason with her is a waste of time. She'll just nod and smirk. Most people grasp the concept of object permenance in infancy but not your upline manager, oh no. You don't exist if she can't see you. Someone who does no work but makes a lot of work-flavoured noise, on the other hand, will be showered with praise and get promoted over your head and then get the perm posting they've been fucking promising you for the last three months which is the only reason you've been coming in at 7:30am and RGHGGHGHGGGGGFUCKINGBASTARDS!

I really hope this fly-pitching thing takes off. Much as I want a job, the thought of working with you losers again fills me with nausea.

Yeah...

Still jobless and still broke. You got it.

Didn't go into town job-hunting yesterday. Thought I'd stay at home for once, give my Castillian some love. Spent most of the day going through this book of grammar excercizes and listening to Spanish telly. I prefer DVDs-- it's easier to follow what's being said if there are subtitiles because I read Castillian better than I speak it.

I think I'll do the same again today. I've got an SF novel which I keep meaning to work through with the dictionary. I'm going out later, but not till this afternoon.

Okay, post over. You can get back to making snide comments about people who whine about their lives and then don't try to fix them now.

I still don't have a job. Why don't I have a job? This is beyond merely depressing or annoying. This is Kafkaesque, is what it is! Give me a sodding job! I've lost count of the number of CVs I've handed out, calls I've made, streets I've walked down, temp agencies I've signed up with, and nothing. I don't even get a rejection letter or anything. Just... dead silence. It's not even as if I'm setting my standards too high. All I want is some crappy little minimum-wage thing, mopping floors or waitressing or machine-minding. This sucks. I go into town every day, I check the noticeboards, I check in with the managers of the bars that have my CV, I do everything I can think of to find work. And still nothing. Nothing. What the hell is wrong?

Having been denied legal employment, I've decided to try fly-pitching. No joy there, either. Went to the Parc but everyone there was asleep. Put my stuff out but nobody bought anything. Then there was this big police lorry driving around, and the park keeper kept wandering past, and I had to keep stuffing everything back in my bag. (If they catch you fly-pitching here they take your stuff off you and you have to pay €100 to get it back.) In the end my paranoia got the better of me and I went home. I'm going back on Sunday, because I've heard that everyone fly-pitches there on a Sunday. Nobody gets busted because there's just too many people: buskers, jugglers, traders, dope-dealers, all sorts. Sounds like fun.

Bloody furious again.

This time it's Magical Aqua that's got me all riled up. Not, I hasten to add, at the author, but at what she's being put through by her L.E.A. (Local Education Authority).

Magical Aqua's author, Lucy, is a teenaged girl who suffers from M.E. From what I read in her journal she's fighting the disease tooth and nail, but she can't really attend school. This is because her symptoms (which vary over time but often include severe pain, fatigue to the point where she can barely sit up for any length of time, insomnia and nausea) are too severe.

But physical disability should be no barrier to a young person's eduaction, right? I mean, there's laws and things, right? This is what you pay your taxes for, right? Wrong, according to the relevant L.E.A. They've been stringing this young woman along since 2001, failing to provide home tuition, failing to explain why. Same old story: "You're someone else's problem, we've lost your files, it's not my department, blah blah blah." I suppose they were hoping that the problem would disappear when she hit 18.

This is a disgusting way for a bunch of supposedly responsible adults to behave. I had a lot of contact with various L.E.A.s and their so-called education advisors when I was a kid and I have nothing good to say about them. I'm sorry to see that the callousness and incompetence that I recall is still alive.

The BabyInk thing was a hoax.

Whew. Now I don't have to go all the way to America just to kill them.

Just time for a quickie...

I still don't have a job.
I am sick of non-job-havingness.
If I do not get a job soon I will release a mutant strain of athlete's foot into the El Corte Ingles zapateria.

This is your last warning. Job me, you CV-eating gits, or things round here are going to get... itchy.

There was supposed to be a post here.

And the links had proper names and stuff. Then blogger ate them. Make up your own damn post and your own bloody titles. Then go and boil your collective noggin.

http://www.anotherealm.com/

http://www.darkecho.com/darkecho/links/4zines.html

http://www.ravenelectrick.com/writersguidelns/index.htm

http://www.theroseandthornezine.com/

Search refrerrals: Yet another reason to hate your putrid guts.

"macaque choking pictures". I kid you not. Someone came to my blog and tracked stupid all over the floor again.

Oh, and the person who came here looking for "barcelona sex shops": did you find any and where are they?

More lousy parents.



Hey, mums! Is your offspring insufficiently adorned for your taste? Is slathering your kid with designer lables no longer doing it for you? Don't feel that Junior expresses your personality adequately? Never fear, Baby Ink is here! Real permanent tattoos for infants as young as 6 months!

(link via kookymojo.)

Come close, people, while I explain something to you know-nothing, more-money-that-sense-having, baby-torturing bloody morons: A CHILD IS AN AUTONOMOUS ENTITY! A person. A small, smelly, annoying, mewling, puking, noisy person, true, but a person nonetheless. Not a billboard, not a prizewinning extension of yourself, not a punchbag, not a bargaining chip in your mindless, pointless battles with your mindless, pointless ex. Get that concept into your self-absorbed brains before I have to come down there and SMACK it in.

God, I hate Homo Sapiens. Pollution, Boot camps, Guantanamo Bay, more pollution, nukes... you're a bunch of shaved apes who haven't leared not to shit where they eat and devour their young. No wonder I'm going bonkers-- I've had to share a planet with you freaks for nearly three decades. I wish you'd hurry up and kill yourselves.

More psi fun

Further to yesterday's entry: I will use the Recorded Experiment setting instead of constantly chickening out and using the demo setting just because I intened to make my scores public. It doesn't matter if this doesn't work. It's not like everyone's going to dance round me singing "You've got no psi powers! Nyahh, nyahh nayhh nyahh nyahh!

This is a game. Fun. Playing. You remember fun.