Say you want a resolution.

I've been having a bit of a think about what this site is for. Other people's criticsm has never bothered me ("Adolscently angsty and self-indulgently cynical"? Yeah. That's right, fucker. Watchoo gonna do about it? Eh? Eh?) but after the break, I came back and read the last couple of months over and realised that I'm starting to sound like someone I really don't like very much.


When I first started journalling, it was about going Oh, look, I can get a site and write on it every day if I can be bothered. Then it was about venting my permenantly overloaded spleen. Now... I'm not bored, exactly, but a new direction would be good.

It's like this, see: my job sucks. I'm tired. I'm epileptic, asthmatic and half-deaf in one ear. I don't have a degree and I'm fucked off with being treated like a second-class citizen because of it. I'm fucked off with bigots, rightwing dickwads, lazy-arsed wannabe revolutionaries, racists, sexists and all of you shitheads. Actually, I'm fucked off with everything and everyone*.

But see, that doesn't matter. It's small stuff. The world is full of crap, crap like you wouldn't belive, so starting now-- and I mean NOW-- things are gonna change around here. I'm elevating my sights from you itty little fools: the self-satisfied wankers, the smug rich so-and-sos who jude a person's worth by what kind of car they drive, the petty little gits who spend their time fishing around for any nibble of attention they can get. I'll slag you off now and again for old time's sake because everyone needs some light relief, but it's just not that important. My hate is too big for you, too hot and bright and hatey.

Ave atque Vale, tiny fuckbakes. I've got bigger fish to fry.


*Except possibly marmots.

Flash!

Huzzah for days off! Spent the morning installing and tinkering with Flash. Made a dancey blue circle thing and stuff. Can exploding mole-rats be far off? I say NO! There must and shall be exploding mole-rats! RAHHH for EXPLODING MOLE-RATS!

It's probably going to take a while to get the hang of it properly, but I've already worked with Flash a little. I'm trying to think of ideas for cartoons so I've got summink to shoot for. When you're getting to grips with a new medium it's always good to have a pet project to work towards, even if the end result isn't quite what you had in mind. I'm really excited about this, as it goes. It's cool.

It might seem a bit demented to start learing yet another new skill when I've already got so much on the boil, but I really need some pointless and fun thing to muck about with. Everything else (writing, studying, singing) is such a big deal, even if I genuinely enjoy it. If I'm going to avoid doing things that I should be doing, then at least my avoidance tactic can be something semi-constructive. Beats getting all obsessive over computer games, anyhow.

Life imprisonment for publishing Internet article

Aren't you glad you don't live in the Maldives? (Via Amnesty International. )

Twelfth Night.

First day back at work today. Not too bad. Thought I'd be more bored/anxious/generally cheesed off than I was. I've been sucking up shamelessly to Fotamecus, which might explain why it sucked less than I expected. Everyone else was complaining about how long the day seemed, but I found it was okay. My consciousness has been on a slightly different level than what I think of as "normal" for the last few months, something I only realised recently.

I've abandoned sigils as a way ov moving everything forward, and gone back to affirmations. I write my goals out,like so:

I, Mordant Carnival, will complete and publish a novel

I, Mordant Carnival, will get a job I like

Each affirmation is repeated fifteen times a day. The guy who does Dilbert swears by 'em.

"The radical Goth trend has become a contradictory product of bullshit in its purest form", according to the Insta sentence generator for the obnoxiously hip.

Stuff.

I had an okay break, apart from some stuff I don't really want to put on a public blog as it involves other people. Both me and the bloke were sort of viral and blehh so it was fairly quiet, but we did mamage to catch up with some mates. It was nice just slouching around, watching vids or downloading stuff off Kazaa. Watched loads of Tenacious D and I'm now pretty much up-to-date with BtVS 7. And I got a Bagpuss mug and Flash and GIN and loads of cool stuff, so Rah.

Oh, and write? Did I ever. Once I got over a brief bout of writer's block I worked on my novel pretty much every day. I've put a serious dent in the opening chapters, and licked the outline into shape. I also spent some time getting to know my characters, which I hadn't managed to do before; now I know who the story is about, who we're focusing on. I was also kicking around some promising short story ideas with Lurid which I hope to write up soon. I've got a couple of good articles on the boil, one about how revolting you people are and one about the Dow Chemicals press release (which should be finished today). All-in-all, a good festive season.

But now it's over. I've got an eight till six shift on Monday, and part of me is actually hoping for a bout of pneumonia.

I'm BAAAAAAAAAACK!

Didja miss me? Didja? Course you did. For some reason the PC where I was staying wouldn't let me to log on to Blogger, so I took an enforced yet much-deserved break.

More soon.

Mummy's Curse unravells in a big pile of manky bandages if you check the figures, says BMJ

Yes, that's right. Someone has sat down and conducted a statistical analysis of Tutankhamen's supposed curse. I love people like this.

(Via Neil Gaiman's journal.)

Runic Hands

Further to the events detailed here and mixmage's comments thereon, I decided to look into a runic interpretation of the minor injury to my right pinky. For those of you who've not come across mixmage's Runic Hands concept, here's some edited highlights:

Elder Futhark = 24 runes = 3 groups [aettir] of 8 runes.

human hands = 8 fingers = 8 groups [digits] of 3 sections [phalanges] = 24 sections...

*Use location of short-term injuries/blemishes [minor burns/scratches/etc] as runic divination. Itching in digit section as "HEADS UP" early warning.
Use Location of permanent scars [eventmemoryloop?] for "life-path" divination/history examination.

An illustration can be found here.

Using mm's layout, the injury would relate to Laguz. My runcraft is rusty enough to inflict tetanus-- I had a bit of a falling out with the associated pantheon a few years back and sort of let it slip, plus I don't use tools for my divinatory stuff that much these days (unless you count Google). However, I took a quick shufti round various rune sites. Superficially at least, this site seemed the most resonant (relevant?).

From here:

Letter : L
Meaning : Water
Element : Water
Deity : Njord, Baldur, Nerthus
Galdr-sound : llllllll

From various other places: Well, the rune Laguz is associated with Water so most of the sites went on about renewal, rebirth, Age of Aquarius, alla that sloppy stuff; the flipside of course being floods, the dangerous ocean that must be braved in order to gain sustenance, life, new territories.

It's also associated with leeks. Stop laughing! Look, the whole onion family is very important in herbal medicine and it's not funny! There was this thing where if a warrior had an abdominal wound you fed him garlic and... oh, why do I bother?

Cream crackered.

Today sucked. Every other customer that came in seemed to be soused to the eyeballs. I swear, I think I actually got slightly tipsy just breathing in the fumes. The manager is off so everything was all arse-about-tit. And some bloke said my labret was stupid and there was a humungous delivery and cleaning and I had to make up a huge stack of rolls and that made me have to stay late and my feet hurt and rghghghghghh. (Mad props to Fotamecus for speeding the day up. Long may he kick Chronos' backside.)

Anyhow. It's over for a couple of weeks. I get to go to London, see my mates, kick back. I still haven't seen Donnie Darko, y'know.

all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girlall work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girlall work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girlall work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl all work and no play make Mordant a dull girl

I'm going to regret this in the morning...

..but then I regret everything in the morning. That's what mornings are for.

Okay, so here's the thing: You know the whole magick deal, yeah? Then possibly you know how you can be a fully-functioning magicko without even a smidge of innate psychic ability. You may also know how I always said I fell into that particular category.

I was fibbing. A bit. Nearer the truth would be to say that I am horribly horribly suggestable, and have therefore been studiously ignoring any and all psychic sensations in case I happened to be deluding myself. There was always the thing with the tarot: when I read tarot for someone, I get flashes of their future. I also get hugely tired, which is why I only read tarot once in a blue moon these days.

Just lately I've been getting these flashes: tactile and visual sensations relating to individuals of my aquaintance. They've been strong enough for me to make cautious enquiries of the "this might not mean anything to you, bu-u-u-t..." variety, and every single time I've been right.

This is new, and disturbing. Maybe it'll wear off, or maybe it's a case of a blind squirrel turning up a few nuts. Just thought I'd mention it.

Ultralove Ninja

You have to watch this or I won't be your friend, ever.

(From the 'Lith, natch.)

In which the diarist goes postal.

Mordant Carnival's eyes narrowed. From her vantage point on a hill of snow, she saw a rotund white figure approaching. Her heart beat a little faster-- the quarry was in sight. She took careful aim with the shotgun and fired, both barrels. There was a small, localized blizzard. As the flakes settled on the ground, corncob-pipe, button nose and eyes made out of coal dropped on top of the sad little heap.

Mordant smiled grimly. It would take more than the magic in that ol' silk hat to bring Frosty back now-- assuming they could ever find it.

The noise had attracted some unwanted attention, however. A group of diminutive blue creatures were scurrying up the hill. Mordant dropped to her belly behind a snowdrift, waiting.

"What the smurf was that?"
"I don't know, but it was smurfing loud!"
"I don't like this. One minute we were smurfing in our winter wonderland, the next--"

Mordant stood up. The shotgun again? Nah. This was a job for the M16. Pieces of rubbery blue flesh spattered across the pristine whitness of the snowfield. Mordant paused, scanning the hillside. Had she got them all? No! A single survivour was wheezing his way up the hill, oblivious to the fate of his fellows. The lone gunwoman waited until she could see the white of Papa Smurf's beard. Their eyes locked.

"Oh, smurf--" was the last thing the evil blue geriatric said before a short burst of automatic gunfire turned him into a stain on the ground.

By now it was growing dark. Drawing her PVC trenchcoat more tightly around her she strained her eyes, trying to see if anyone else was coming. Out of the dark sky, a single spark of red appeared. Mordant pulled an antique Derringer from her stocking top and aimed a couple of inches above the light. There was a satifying thud as the reindeer plummeted to the ground. Santa would just have to get foglights, she reflected.

A satisfied smirk flickered across Mordant's face. The night was young, and she hadn't even broken out the grenades yet. She cocked her Smith & Wesson and waited for the red, red robin to come bob, bob, bobbing along.

61 hours.

That's how long I'll have worked between my last day off (Thursday) and the first day of my hols. Only three more ten-hour shifts to go. Yeah, I'm going on about work a lot lately. Yeah, I know your job sucks too. Hard cheddar.

I'm tired, tired in a strange, distant kind of way. The world looks cold and glittery and odd, unreal. The days sort of blur into one another; it's getting harder to differentiate between stuff that happened this morning and stuff that happened last week. I know what I had for breakfast today, but only because I've had the same thing for the last few days: a marmite sandwich. Brown bread. I get paid the minimum wage: six Euros and thirty-five cents an hour (in English money that's about four pounds ten. One Euro is roughly the same as one American dollar, I think).

Bottle of coke, bleep. Loaf of bread, bleep. Chocolate bar, bleep. After a while the world is just one big barcode. When there's no customers around I clean, or stock shelves. Walking home, I feel robotic, corroded.

Yet I'm still writing. By the end of the day I'm dog-tired, freezing cold and hungry as a hunter, but I spend that last interminable half-hour dreaming not of a hot meal or a cosy bed but of popping open one or other of the documents I'm working on, the various novel fragments, an article, anything. When I get indoors I don't fire up the microwave, I fire up the PC.

I think I may be losing my mind.

Ooh, get her.

Betty Woo's got a new weblog, and very nice it is too: Or.Kill.Me

Had.

I had an eight till one shift yesterday (Sunday), right? And I was all tired and hungover and generally out of it. During the course of the morning a couple of people seperately told me that I'd given them the wrong change, that they'd given me a note of x denimination and had recieved change for a note of y denomination, with x being less than y. They were shirty and aggressive about it; there was much irritable brandishing of change and a general suggestion that yours truly was a little reduced in the hat department. So I gave them the damn money.

I gave them the damn money because they acted like they should have it. I gave them the damn money because they leaned in over the counter, because they barged and pushed and held up the queue, because they talked to me like an idiot and that made me feel like an idiot so I assumed that they were right and I was wrong.

You'd think I'd never seen a David Mamet film, wouldn't you?

This morning, my supervisor told me that the till from yesterday was short. We looked everywhere, but there was no sign of the money. Which means that those guys from yesterday pulled a scam. Ordinarily it wouldn't have worked-- ordinarity I'd have rung for the supervisorand had her come and check my till to see if it was over what it should be. Ordinarily. But it was Sunday, I hadn't had enough sleep, the shop was busy, and I fell for it.

Now, I don't know if you know this but when you pull a scam like that, the loss is not painlessly absorbed by the Corporate Entity that you have so boldy robbed. The money comes out of the member of staff's wages. In this case, mine.

I don't know who I'm more fucked off with, the con-artists or myself. The moral of this story, kiddies? Never let anyone intimidate you into doing anything. Trust your own judgement.

(Oh, and never rip off a mage with a foul temper...)

RIP FIST.

Never been, never gonna go now, never really felt the need. However, I feel that I just had to say WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE PLAYING AT, YOU BUNCH OF HOMOPHOBIC PILLOCKS? I mean to say, even if you don't approve of the concept... what was the point? Hey, look, there's nothing going on in Safe London except a child murder or several, let's go and close down a club in case gay people have sex in it.

Wankstains.

I leave the last word to bengali/plums/umeboshi:

People, poor innocent people, who manage to accidentally find their way to places that are never advertised, then along dark alleys, down three flights of stairs, past alert security, and suddenly, mysteriously find themselves surrounded by perverts.

Fuck Off.

Amen.

Okay.

Right. I'm going to Spain in a few months. Another move, another starting over. However, this time I will be prepared...

"We must be nothing less than fabulous."

First impressions are where it's at. I've always relied on my silver-tongued charm to sway an audience. That will no longer be possible when I am Incomprehensible ExPat Woman. Ergo self-expression by other means, mostly sartorial. I can't afford to buy tons of cool clothes but I did bring quite a lot of clothes-making gear. Time to get creative.

Bod-mod is my buddy. I must and shall invest in more peircings/tatts. I want to depart for Barca with lugholes like shower-curtains.

Confidence building is a must. Coz I'm such a shrinking violet, me.

Strengths, playing to. In the abscence of academic quals, a good portfolio of work seems like a plan. Much writing, painting, drawing and sundry noisemaking shall ensue.

General skill brushing-upping. You never know what's going to come in handy.

Other stuff as and when I think of it.

(And if all else fails, there's always this... The I Can Eat Glass Project)

Tired and Emotional

I'm starting to get used to the fact that I'm probably not going to do half the things I planned to do while I'm in Ireland.

I was going to hang around on windswept cliffs and let my Titian locks blow about my porcelian complexion while I waited for inspiration to strike. However, my busy schedual and the fact that I don't actually have a porcelain complexion and Titian locks, or indeed any sort of locks, militates against this. And my face gets all chapped when it's windy. And it hasn't really stopped raining here for weeks. So that's out.

I'm supposed to be learing Spanish, but my Spanish For Dummies book is gathering dust on the shelf because I'm so tired when I get in from work I can't think straight. Ditto writing, singing, painting and everything else. Well, I mean obviously I'm writing. I can't stop. It's like sneezing or something, it just happens. However, I'm not really producing anything you could call coherent, nothing I can send off to a publisher.

And I'm stuck with this job. See, after Christmas, there's only going to be another couple of months or so during which I can reasonably be working full-time, ten weeks at the outside. Which means I can't really get another job, because by the time I start I'll be about ready to stop again. I wouldn't mind really but when I get to Barca I'm going to have to get a job in a bar or something, which will be more of the same. It's unlikely I'll get anything particularly good out in Spain because I don't speak the language and I don't have a degree.

Which is a bit depressing, really. If I'm realistic, it's starting to look like I'm going to be doing this kind of work for... well, for ever. Certainly I can write, certainly there are things I could be doing to improve my situation, but when am I going to find the time or the energy? People keep giving me breezy encouraging suggestions, but when I remind them that-- HELLO! I don't have a degree! And I'm going to be living in a country where I don't speak the native language! For a year and a half! And I'm not a kid anymore, I'm 29!-- they go sort of quiet.

I know my situation could be much worse, I really do. Counting blessings like nobody's business over here. It's just that the thought of wearing a name-tag for the rest of my life has a rather limited appeal.

Yeah, I know what you (or some of you, anyway) are thinking. "Oh, but she's got a male pard'ner who's working! What's she worried about?"

Well, where to start? First off, I'm an independant sort. I don't like the thought of needing to rely on anyone for anything, because in my experience that never ends well. Secondly and hugely more importantly: I signed up to be a life partener, not a fucking bracket fungus. I don't see any particular reason why a guy should support me just because he's a guy. (I know that in general the situation is not that simple, that there are all kinds of socioeconomic factors swooshing around and complicating every little thing. I'm not in general. I'm me.) I'm a Feminist with a great big hairy capital F, and I reckon that if I'm going to stamp around demanding my Rights I should show a little Responsibility. Which is how come I'm doing these sucktastic jobs instead of whining at my boyf to get himself a job in a bank. True, he does earn more than me, but I think I work longer hours. Plus he's got a career doing something he loves and is good at, while I have... a name tag.

Large or small coffee? *simpers*