Are you selling something!?
See the thing on the sidebar saying "pop down the shops"? See how it has but a scanty couple of links? Want yours there too? Go on, t-shirt making folk-- sp am me. Now's your chance.
Thursday, February 27, 2003
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Cunning Plans.
I've been trying to formulate a sensible plan for when I get to Spain, but I can't be bothered. I'm sick of making sensible plans for the future. I've spent the last ten years making sensible plans for the future. They always go pear-shaped on me.
I think that when I commenced this blog I was up to Plan Q, having exhausted the rest of the alphabet. Plan Q was to complete a foundation year in electronics and then move on to a degree in electronics and music technology. What actually happened was the closure of the entire department, technicians who so busy listening to the footie and surfing the net that they would only come out and actually do their jobs if you threatened them with physical violence (okay if you're a strapping six-footer with muscles on your muscles, not so easy if you're 5'5" and just want to get your work done) lecturers who didn't give a tinker's cuss because they were all retiring or looking for new jobs, and my going partially deaf in one ear (not helpful when half your course relates to sound engineering). Also much amusing falling over and twitching, oh so funny.
Plan R related to my getting some kind of technical journalist type thing whilst picking up the missing credits part-time, but then the whole leaving the country thing came up.
So now I'm on Plan S. Plan S is as follows: Get some shitey wee job out in Barca, and be learning the Spanish whilst finishing off my degree via the OU. I will have this degree. Oh yes. Furthermore the writeyness will be large and unstoppable, for my novel is still trickling out in dribs and drabs and I shall soon be punting out another short for a certain webzine (fingers crossed).
In the abscence of anyone jumping up and down and begging to pay me to write for them, I'm hoping that I can find some really freaky job this time. Then I could write about my freaky job. They still make those schlock-horrors in Spain, right? I could go and be a gopher. I could write about being a gopher. That would be a Thing.
Ignore me. I'm all flu-ey and probably delirious.
(PS: Kernow, we all miss you at the Mudshow. We're sorry. Pleaaase come back!)
I've been trying to formulate a sensible plan for when I get to Spain, but I can't be bothered. I'm sick of making sensible plans for the future. I've spent the last ten years making sensible plans for the future. They always go pear-shaped on me.
I think that when I commenced this blog I was up to Plan Q, having exhausted the rest of the alphabet. Plan Q was to complete a foundation year in electronics and then move on to a degree in electronics and music technology. What actually happened was the closure of the entire department, technicians who so busy listening to the footie and surfing the net that they would only come out and actually do their jobs if you threatened them with physical violence (okay if you're a strapping six-footer with muscles on your muscles, not so easy if you're 5'5" and just want to get your work done) lecturers who didn't give a tinker's cuss because they were all retiring or looking for new jobs, and my going partially deaf in one ear (not helpful when half your course relates to sound engineering). Also much amusing falling over and twitching, oh so funny.
Plan R related to my getting some kind of technical journalist type thing whilst picking up the missing credits part-time, but then the whole leaving the country thing came up.
So now I'm on Plan S. Plan S is as follows: Get some shitey wee job out in Barca, and be learning the Spanish whilst finishing off my degree via the OU. I will have this degree. Oh yes. Furthermore the writeyness will be large and unstoppable, for my novel is still trickling out in dribs and drabs and I shall soon be punting out another short for a certain webzine (fingers crossed).
In the abscence of anyone jumping up and down and begging to pay me to write for them, I'm hoping that I can find some really freaky job this time. Then I could write about my freaky job. They still make those schlock-horrors in Spain, right? I could go and be a gopher. I could write about being a gopher. That would be a Thing.
Ignore me. I'm all flu-ey and probably delirious.
(PS: Kernow, we all miss you at the Mudshow. We're sorry. Pleaaase come back!)
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Epilepsy Action: The Mozart Effect I'll belive it when the pretty coloulours tel meee it's 302€vt1Z;;@LLs, *thunk* *twitch*
(Via bagpusscoffeeshop.)
(Via bagpusscoffeeshop.)
Okayyyy...
Being as how years of overindulgence, years of mental atrophy, and years of... well, just years of years have left me with a leaky collander where my BRANE should be, I'm terrible with b/days and stuff. Over the last few weeks, a number of excellent and hate-exempted folk have had a happy return, and I'd just like to wish them all a good'un.
Also one of my buddies is going in for a cancer test today :( . It sounds foul. Any magickal readers want to send Stoatie some good vibes? Ta!
Being as how years of overindulgence, years of mental atrophy, and years of... well, just years of years have left me with a leaky collander where my BRANE should be, I'm terrible with b/days and stuff. Over the last few weeks, a number of excellent and hate-exempted folk have had a happy return, and I'd just like to wish them all a good'un.
Also one of my buddies is going in for a cancer test today :( . It sounds foul. Any magickal readers want to send Stoatie some good vibes? Ta!
Monkey does bunk from biodefence lab
The tiny rhesus macaque monkey was "being used for breeding purposes" and wasn't carring any diseases. %So that's all right then.%
The tiny rhesus macaque monkey was "being used for breeding purposes" and wasn't carring any diseases. %So that's all right then.%
Monday, February 24, 2003
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Another annoying autobiographical abeyance
So like I said the other day, I'm stopping working at the end of the month; next Wednesday, to be precice. I have mixed feelings about this. Mad sickness cover and lousy pay aside, my current job hasn't been so bad. It's relatively varied compared to assembly-line work*, and has a minimal gross-out factor compared to fishing used condoms out of bushes* or scrubbing dried-on shit out of toilets in a bail hostel.* My co-workers are fun to be around and my boss is, as bosses go, a joy to work for. On a scale of zero to ten, where zero is the hinge factory** and ten is writing my 15th bestselling novel while Nicholas Brendon gives me a neckrub, Alan Rickman pours me shots of cognac and my personal shopper, Eddie Izzard, picks up my latest tailor-made outfit from House of Harlot, it's about a three-and-a-half.
See, I really do need to take a month off to sort out the packing and the bills and liase with the removal guys and learn Spanish and so on, but I hate being out of work for any reason. I know I complain about the kind of jobs I have to do but deep down I'm very grateful to be in work at all.
Once you've experienced long-term unemployment, you fear it. Even a brief spell of enforced joblessness can be an utterly crushing experience, and I was on the jam roll for nearly three years (interspersed with periods of sick-ticket when my health packed up). That's three years of sending out as many as thirty applications in a week, only to get rejected or completely ignored. Three years of working through phone books, cold-calling potential employers. Three years of never having quite enough money. Three years of going up the job centre and finding out that every other card in the window is actually out of date. Three years of being told that I was too young, too old, too underqualified, too overqualified, or-- surprise!-- too inexperienced. Of waiting on tenterhooks for a giro that didn't come because someone lost a box of sign-on tickets, of pointless re-training for mickeymouse certificates that meant nothing, of getting my application forms sent back crossed through with red pen or torn into pieces, of boredom, of eating the same cheap crap every day, of insomnia, of ill-health, of crappy, insecure accomodation, of being told every day in a hundred small but important ways that I was lazy, stupid, and worthless. Oh yeah, and of being called Clive by electronics firms. Funnily enough, anything that reminds me of that time in my life depresses the hell out of me.
I still consider myself to be one of the lucky ones. I'm childless, so I never had to watch my kids go through that. I was young, so I never entirely lost hope. And I was able to make the move to London, where I finally found work and lived happily ever after cheers cheers cheers.
Hence the nagging discomfort at the thought of taking this time off; hence the increasing trepidation at the thought of trying to find work in Spain. It's natural that a person would be having those feelings. What it isn't is rational.
I can always get money. Got plenty of experience under my belt, and I'm not all niminy-piminy about doing dull or messy jobs. Barcalona is a big and vibrant city, with plentymuch opportunity for pint-pulling or floor-mopping. Ergo, no joblessness, and in the fullness of time I bet I can find something really fun and memorable to do for my dough. Even if I fetch up in the usual minimum-wage grind, it won't be a total loss as any job I do will present me with more opportunities to learn and practice my Spanish.
The other thing to bear in mind is this: Why, given that I was stuck on the dole, did I not do something exiting like sign up with the VSO? Because the bloke at the youth advice place said I couldn't. Why didn't I get my arse down the local uni and sign up for a foundation year? Because the people at my old tech said I couldn't. Why didn't I try and get an apprenticeship with a local firm? Because the people at the dole centre said I couldn't. Now, I can either sit around and go "Oh, those bad bad people who crushed my youthful ambitions! How thoughtless and rotten they were!" or I can look at the common factor here, which would be moi. Sure, I've been given cruddy advise by a number of egregious wankers in my life but I was the one who took that advice-- I was the one who sat and listened and did exactly what they said.
So I'm going to treat moving to Barca like being 17 all over again, and I'm going to try all the things I never tried back then, see if I can't wrangle myself that really cool job I've been hankering after. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't; the important thing is giving it a fair shot.
Why am I telling you all this? So that whatever age you are and whatever you want to do, you never just take someone's word for it when they tell you you can't do something. So that you give it a fair shot, so that you don't miss out on an opportunity by giving up before you've even started.
I hate you, but not even I hate you that much.
*Yes, I really do have to do stuff like that for a living. Incidentally, I had probably just come home from doing one of those things the last time one of you twerps accused me of browbeating you with my superior education. You accused the cleaning lady of intellectual elitism. You are funny and I laugh at you. Loud and long.
**It's been brought to my attention that when I talk about the whole hinge factory thing, some people assume that it's a Schindler's List reference and that I'm comparing my situation to that of a Holocaust survivor, leading them to the inevitable conclusion that I'm a really big fuckwit. The truth is that I worked in a hinge factory. When I talk about the hinge factory it's not a metaphor. It's a factory. That makes hinges. Where I worked.
If I was comparing myself to a Holocaust survivor, I would indeed be the biggest fuckwit in the entire known universe.
So like I said the other day, I'm stopping working at the end of the month; next Wednesday, to be precice. I have mixed feelings about this. Mad sickness cover and lousy pay aside, my current job hasn't been so bad. It's relatively varied compared to assembly-line work*, and has a minimal gross-out factor compared to fishing used condoms out of bushes* or scrubbing dried-on shit out of toilets in a bail hostel.* My co-workers are fun to be around and my boss is, as bosses go, a joy to work for. On a scale of zero to ten, where zero is the hinge factory** and ten is writing my 15th bestselling novel while Nicholas Brendon gives me a neckrub, Alan Rickman pours me shots of cognac and my personal shopper, Eddie Izzard, picks up my latest tailor-made outfit from House of Harlot, it's about a three-and-a-half.
See, I really do need to take a month off to sort out the packing and the bills and liase with the removal guys and learn Spanish and so on, but I hate being out of work for any reason. I know I complain about the kind of jobs I have to do but deep down I'm very grateful to be in work at all.
Once you've experienced long-term unemployment, you fear it. Even a brief spell of enforced joblessness can be an utterly crushing experience, and I was on the jam roll for nearly three years (interspersed with periods of sick-ticket when my health packed up). That's three years of sending out as many as thirty applications in a week, only to get rejected or completely ignored. Three years of working through phone books, cold-calling potential employers. Three years of never having quite enough money. Three years of going up the job centre and finding out that every other card in the window is actually out of date. Three years of being told that I was too young, too old, too underqualified, too overqualified, or-- surprise!-- too inexperienced. Of waiting on tenterhooks for a giro that didn't come because someone lost a box of sign-on tickets, of pointless re-training for mickeymouse certificates that meant nothing, of getting my application forms sent back crossed through with red pen or torn into pieces, of boredom, of eating the same cheap crap every day, of insomnia, of ill-health, of crappy, insecure accomodation, of being told every day in a hundred small but important ways that I was lazy, stupid, and worthless. Oh yeah, and of being called Clive by electronics firms. Funnily enough, anything that reminds me of that time in my life depresses the hell out of me.
I still consider myself to be one of the lucky ones. I'm childless, so I never had to watch my kids go through that. I was young, so I never entirely lost hope. And I was able to make the move to London, where I finally found work and lived happily ever after cheers cheers cheers.
Hence the nagging discomfort at the thought of taking this time off; hence the increasing trepidation at the thought of trying to find work in Spain. It's natural that a person would be having those feelings. What it isn't is rational.
I can always get money. Got plenty of experience under my belt, and I'm not all niminy-piminy about doing dull or messy jobs. Barcalona is a big and vibrant city, with plentymuch opportunity for pint-pulling or floor-mopping. Ergo, no joblessness, and in the fullness of time I bet I can find something really fun and memorable to do for my dough. Even if I fetch up in the usual minimum-wage grind, it won't be a total loss as any job I do will present me with more opportunities to learn and practice my Spanish.
The other thing to bear in mind is this: Why, given that I was stuck on the dole, did I not do something exiting like sign up with the VSO? Because the bloke at the youth advice place said I couldn't. Why didn't I get my arse down the local uni and sign up for a foundation year? Because the people at my old tech said I couldn't. Why didn't I try and get an apprenticeship with a local firm? Because the people at the dole centre said I couldn't. Now, I can either sit around and go "Oh, those bad bad people who crushed my youthful ambitions! How thoughtless and rotten they were!" or I can look at the common factor here, which would be moi. Sure, I've been given cruddy advise by a number of egregious wankers in my life but I was the one who took that advice-- I was the one who sat and listened and did exactly what they said.
So I'm going to treat moving to Barca like being 17 all over again, and I'm going to try all the things I never tried back then, see if I can't wrangle myself that really cool job I've been hankering after. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't; the important thing is giving it a fair shot.
Why am I telling you all this? So that whatever age you are and whatever you want to do, you never just take someone's word for it when they tell you you can't do something. So that you give it a fair shot, so that you don't miss out on an opportunity by giving up before you've even started.
I hate you, but not even I hate you that much.
*Yes, I really do have to do stuff like that for a living. Incidentally, I had probably just come home from doing one of those things the last time one of you twerps accused me of browbeating you with my superior education. You accused the cleaning lady of intellectual elitism. You are funny and I laugh at you. Loud and long.
**It's been brought to my attention that when I talk about the whole hinge factory thing, some people assume that it's a Schindler's List reference and that I'm comparing my situation to that of a Holocaust survivor, leading them to the inevitable conclusion that I'm a really big fuckwit. The truth is that I worked in a hinge factory. When I talk about the hinge factory it's not a metaphor. It's a factory. That makes hinges. Where I worked.
If I was comparing myself to a Holocaust survivor, I would indeed be the biggest fuckwit in the entire known universe.
Fixer-upper.
I have a problem: my favourite coat is getting really manky. I mean, really really manky, mankier than even I can put up with.
Thing is: it's a full length PVC trenchcoat. I just love the way those words roll off the tongue, don't you? Full. Length. PVC. Trenchcoat. I got my Full. Length. PVC. Trenchcoat. at a thrift store for five quid. No, I'm just telling you that to torment you-- it's relevant! Really! Sort of. A bit relevant. Well, okay, it's completely irrelevant, I just enjoy tormenting you all.
I suck at ordinary shopping, but I rock at op-shopping. The trouble with buying stuff from thrift stores, even really cool stuff at prices that make people hugely and disgustingly envious, is that someone else has already had a lot of the wear out of them. The coat in question needed a lot of work when I bought it: bare patches had to be disguised with acrylic paint, buttons had to be sewn on, the lining had to be replaced with an old purple satin dressing-gown. Since I wear it all the time, it's now looking distinctly threadbare. I don't think the acrylic paint trick is going to work this time. I should really chuck it out and replace it, but there's just no way I am ever going to afford anything nearly as groovy. Gaffertape isn't really durable enough for outerware, and patching with PVC or leather is likely to give me librarian elbows (not the look I was going for).
So... I dunno. I'm thinking of sewing a textured fabric over the bald patches, like lace or this fine crochet-type stuff I've got lying around, and then maybe going over that with the acrylic to give it durability. I could just ditch the coat altogether and go back to my trusty BLJ, but I'd feel bereft.
I have a problem: my favourite coat is getting really manky. I mean, really really manky, mankier than even I can put up with.
Thing is: it's a full length PVC trenchcoat. I just love the way those words roll off the tongue, don't you? Full. Length. PVC. Trenchcoat. I got my Full. Length. PVC. Trenchcoat. at a thrift store for five quid. No, I'm just telling you that to torment you-- it's relevant! Really! Sort of. A bit relevant. Well, okay, it's completely irrelevant, I just enjoy tormenting you all.
I suck at ordinary shopping, but I rock at op-shopping. The trouble with buying stuff from thrift stores, even really cool stuff at prices that make people hugely and disgustingly envious, is that someone else has already had a lot of the wear out of them. The coat in question needed a lot of work when I bought it: bare patches had to be disguised with acrylic paint, buttons had to be sewn on, the lining had to be replaced with an old purple satin dressing-gown. Since I wear it all the time, it's now looking distinctly threadbare. I don't think the acrylic paint trick is going to work this time. I should really chuck it out and replace it, but there's just no way I am ever going to afford anything nearly as groovy. Gaffertape isn't really durable enough for outerware, and patching with PVC or leather is likely to give me librarian elbows (not the look I was going for).
So... I dunno. I'm thinking of sewing a textured fabric over the bald patches, like lace or this fine crochet-type stuff I've got lying around, and then maybe going over that with the acrylic to give it durability. I could just ditch the coat altogether and go back to my trusty BLJ, but I'd feel bereft.
Friday, February 21, 2003
So...
So there's this bloke, right? And this bloke used to be on this BB quite a lot. He gave Your Humble Narratrix some much-needed advice and general encouragement with the writey stuff. Which was, y'know, cool, even though he's probably come to regret it. Then this bloke went through a rough patch, and there was some out-of-character spikeyness, followed by a prolonged abscence from said BB. So I send him a PM; no response. Which might mean nothing because hey, not always very good at responding to PMs myself.
Now, this bloke's abscence has been noticed and remarked upon by others, but nobody has said anything to indicate that they know what, if anything, is going on. And I don't want to make a big fuss, because there might be a stroppy feudy Thing going on, and you know what happens if you go poking a Thing.
In the unlikely event that this guy is reading this, it would be nice to get a Yo. Even if it's accompanied by a "leave me the hell alone, I've gone to a remote desert island to paint rocks!"
So there's this bloke, right? And this bloke used to be on this BB quite a lot. He gave Your Humble Narratrix some much-needed advice and general encouragement with the writey stuff. Which was, y'know, cool, even though he's probably come to regret it. Then this bloke went through a rough patch, and there was some out-of-character spikeyness, followed by a prolonged abscence from said BB. So I send him a PM; no response. Which might mean nothing because hey, not always very good at responding to PMs myself.
Now, this bloke's abscence has been noticed and remarked upon by others, but nobody has said anything to indicate that they know what, if anything, is going on. And I don't want to make a big fuss, because there might be a stroppy feudy Thing going on, and you know what happens if you go poking a Thing.
In the unlikely event that this guy is reading this, it would be nice to get a Yo. Even if it's accompanied by a "leave me the hell alone, I've gone to a remote desert island to paint rocks!"
Thursday, February 20, 2003
You're staring.
You know you shouldn't be doing this.
Openly, amongst freinds, you mock me. You've flamed me in cyberspace, dissed me in meatsville. You complain about my oversensitivity, my PC gone maaaad Feminazi politics; you speculate hilariously on the state of my lovelife. You tell your mates (and yourselves) how worthless my opinions are; how many typos and HTML glitches you counted in the last entry.
Yet you still come back, don't you? You've tried to stop. You've told yourselves, over and over again, that you really don't care what I think, what I say. You've told yourselves you won't spare me another minute of your time, won't give me the satisfaction of one more hit on my counter. You've erased me from your bookmarks time and again. It doesn't help. The URL is graven into your tiny, rancid minds in letters of flame. No matter how hard you try you can't quite prevent yourselves from taking just one more tiny peek.
Your mouth is hanging open ju-ust a little; there's a glazed quality to your eyes. You don't realise it, but your breath is coming in short, silent hitches. Your muscles tense up and the sound of a door opening somewhere else in the building makes you leap out of your skin. You twitch guiltily at the thought that someone might catch you reading this. You couldn't be any more strung out if you were actually choking your chickens.
But that's what this is, isn't it? That's what you come here for.
Hate porn.
You know you shouldn't be doing this.
Openly, amongst freinds, you mock me. You've flamed me in cyberspace, dissed me in meatsville. You complain about my oversensitivity, my PC gone maaaad Feminazi politics; you speculate hilariously on the state of my lovelife. You tell your mates (and yourselves) how worthless my opinions are; how many typos and HTML glitches you counted in the last entry.
Yet you still come back, don't you? You've tried to stop. You've told yourselves, over and over again, that you really don't care what I think, what I say. You've told yourselves you won't spare me another minute of your time, won't give me the satisfaction of one more hit on my counter. You've erased me from your bookmarks time and again. It doesn't help. The URL is graven into your tiny, rancid minds in letters of flame. No matter how hard you try you can't quite prevent yourselves from taking just one more tiny peek.
Your mouth is hanging open ju-ust a little; there's a glazed quality to your eyes. You don't realise it, but your breath is coming in short, silent hitches. Your muscles tense up and the sound of a door opening somewhere else in the building makes you leap out of your skin. You twitch guiltily at the thought that someone might catch you reading this. You couldn't be any more strung out if you were actually choking your chickens.
But that's what this is, isn't it? That's what you come here for.
Hate porn.
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
I'm becoming increasingly fucked off with the idea that because I'm anti-war, I must be pro-Saddam and pro-Ba'athist. However, it's obvious that if you're anti-war, you ought to be offering some sort of reasonable alternative to invading Iraq. So have some linkage. More as I read it. Feel free to bung your suggestions in the comments box.
openDemocracy
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Jonathan Freedland: What would you suggest?
openDemocracy
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Jonathan Freedland: What would you suggest?
Word.
As you may or may not have noticed, I've been increasing the linkage in my sidebar. There are lots of nice little looker-uppers there now, so you dog-oglers have even less of an excuse than usual to not sod off and do something more useful instead of wallowing in the bile.
Among other things, I've included a couple of Word of the Day sites. I like Word of the Day sites. They are fun. I don't expect everyone around me to have huge ginormous vocabularies leaking out of their ears but having heard some people who (I think) read this blog lamenting their lack of word power, I thought that some of you might fancy a way to give your onboard dictionary a quick boost. When you've found a word you like, get the pronunciation and sp. down and start using it as soon as possible so that it sticks.
There's a high probability that some git will turn round and be all "huh, that was Word of the Day on whenever, and you read Word of the Day sites!" The implication here is that the git has the word for everso long and is way cleverer than you; that furthermore you're a thicko to not have known that word in the first place and your attempts to better yourself are a huge doomed joke. Because you're so thick, see? A big thicky thicko, that's you!
Ignore them. They are gits. Spill coffee on them or something.
As you may or may not have noticed, I've been increasing the linkage in my sidebar. There are lots of nice little looker-uppers there now, so you dog-oglers have even less of an excuse than usual to not sod off and do something more useful instead of wallowing in the bile.
Among other things, I've included a couple of Word of the Day sites. I like Word of the Day sites. They are fun. I don't expect everyone around me to have huge ginormous vocabularies leaking out of their ears but having heard some people who (I think) read this blog lamenting their lack of word power, I thought that some of you might fancy a way to give your onboard dictionary a quick boost. When you've found a word you like, get the pronunciation and sp. down and start using it as soon as possible so that it sticks.
There's a high probability that some git will turn round and be all "huh, that was Word of the Day on whenever, and you read Word of the Day sites!" The implication here is that the git has the word for everso long and is way cleverer than you; that furthermore you're a thicko to not have known that word in the first place and your attempts to better yourself are a huge doomed joke. Because you're so thick, see? A big thicky thicko, that's you!
Ignore them. They are gits. Spill coffee on them or something.
Lines.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
I will stop using mediocrity as a yardstick.
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
Sunday, February 16, 2003
Day after day
I have got to get back into updating this thing regularly. This once-a-week business is getting pathetic. And my sidebar is stale; I've had pretty much the same fiddling little handful of news links in place for almost a year now. Keep meaning to add some more, but I never get round to it. Plus I ought to include some general reference links for you chattering zanies in the vain hope that you might one day bother to fill the vacuum in between your pink'n'shell-likes; Dictionary.com, Wikipedia, that kind of thing. Got to sort that out. I'm jacking the job in at the end of the month, so maybe I'll find time in between all the packing to fix dog carcass up a bit.
So what have I been doing? Okay, on Thursday I got a Seichim attunement to go with my standard-issue Reiki. I don't know that much about it, but from what I can worlk out it's basically the same sort of deal as the basic Reiki (big mysterious healing energy thing uses you as an interdimensional extension cord) only based on this, uhhh, ancient Egyptian wisdom that someone "channelled" *cough*. (I'm not saying it's all made up and fake and worthless, far from it; just that I don't think the people who get these things get them from where they think they're getting them.)
The Seichim attunement was a bit weird. The room we use for the class is always overheated but I got really cold, a bone-deep chill that made me feel like I'd never get warm again. It was as if I was submerged in running water. Apparently this is a good thing. It means that something you don't need anymore is leaving you, some energy is being banished. (Damn, I always choke when I use the e-word in this kind of context. I'm trying to see it as a model that we're using to visualize something that we don't properly understand.) The healing went well; my hands were drawn to my client's upper chest (I was working on the teacher) and she informent me afterwards that she had indeed been coming down with a chest infection and had felt the area warm up. One of the other clients dropped off to sleep during his sesh and woke up from a falling dream with such a start that he scared the hell out of his healer-- not to mention the rest of the class.
On Friday myself and Lurid travelled down to Dublin, as planned. The coach journey took about 5 hours, but it wasn't too bad. I went over my Spanish homework, then just dozed off for a while. We stayed over with an old mate from London who I haven't seen in ages. It was great to catch up. She finds herself in a similar position as me; same age, stuck in a crappy minimum-wage shop-job, trying to scrape a living and build a career at the same time. It was great just getting pissed together and griping about our respective stores-- I feel like much less of a loser now. And fuck, she's just such a cool and amazing person to hang out with anyhow.
On Saturday there was the anti-war demo. I was expecting to be part of a gathering of a couple of thousand people; the actual turnout was more like 50 or 60,000. At first it was a bit crappy, because there were all these passionate, determined people, many of whom obviously dedicated their lives to this kind of thing, and I was all why-bothery and apathetic. I felt like a walking corpse surrounded by the living.
"No to Oil War!"
"Bush go home!"
"Give peace a chance!"
"One, two, three, four-- we don't want your fucking war!"
"Braaaaiiiiiinnnnnnnnssssss... waaaaannnt braaaaiiiiiiinnnnnssss!"
As time wore on though, the scale of the protest became clear. All sorts of people, many of them obvious march virgins, had turned out. The centre of Dublin was at a virtual standstill. Myself and L.A. shuffled along for a few hours, eventually calling it a day and going to check out some news sites in an internet caff. My apathy took a much-deserved kicking as I read the about the sheer number of people who'd turned out against the war. I grabbed a few tracts, even got some bumf about forthcoming demonstrations; I'm keen to take part in a demo at Shannon airport in a couple of weeks, but I want to find out more about the organizers first.
I have got to get back into updating this thing regularly. This once-a-week business is getting pathetic. And my sidebar is stale; I've had pretty much the same fiddling little handful of news links in place for almost a year now. Keep meaning to add some more, but I never get round to it. Plus I ought to include some general reference links for you chattering zanies in the vain hope that you might one day bother to fill the vacuum in between your pink'n'shell-likes; Dictionary.com, Wikipedia, that kind of thing. Got to sort that out. I'm jacking the job in at the end of the month, so maybe I'll find time in between all the packing to fix dog carcass up a bit.
So what have I been doing? Okay, on Thursday I got a Seichim attunement to go with my standard-issue Reiki. I don't know that much about it, but from what I can worlk out it's basically the same sort of deal as the basic Reiki (big mysterious healing energy thing uses you as an interdimensional extension cord) only based on this, uhhh, ancient Egyptian wisdom that someone "channelled" *cough*. (I'm not saying it's all made up and fake and worthless, far from it; just that I don't think the people who get these things get them from where they think they're getting them.)
The Seichim attunement was a bit weird. The room we use for the class is always overheated but I got really cold, a bone-deep chill that made me feel like I'd never get warm again. It was as if I was submerged in running water. Apparently this is a good thing. It means that something you don't need anymore is leaving you, some energy is being banished. (Damn, I always choke when I use the e-word in this kind of context. I'm trying to see it as a model that we're using to visualize something that we don't properly understand.) The healing went well; my hands were drawn to my client's upper chest (I was working on the teacher) and she informent me afterwards that she had indeed been coming down with a chest infection and had felt the area warm up. One of the other clients dropped off to sleep during his sesh and woke up from a falling dream with such a start that he scared the hell out of his healer-- not to mention the rest of the class.
On Friday myself and Lurid travelled down to Dublin, as planned. The coach journey took about 5 hours, but it wasn't too bad. I went over my Spanish homework, then just dozed off for a while. We stayed over with an old mate from London who I haven't seen in ages. It was great to catch up. She finds herself in a similar position as me; same age, stuck in a crappy minimum-wage shop-job, trying to scrape a living and build a career at the same time. It was great just getting pissed together and griping about our respective stores-- I feel like much less of a loser now. And fuck, she's just such a cool and amazing person to hang out with anyhow.
On Saturday there was the anti-war demo. I was expecting to be part of a gathering of a couple of thousand people; the actual turnout was more like 50 or 60,000. At first it was a bit crappy, because there were all these passionate, determined people, many of whom obviously dedicated their lives to this kind of thing, and I was all why-bothery and apathetic. I felt like a walking corpse surrounded by the living.
"No to Oil War!"
"Bush go home!"
"Give peace a chance!"
"One, two, three, four-- we don't want your fucking war!"
"Braaaaiiiiiinnnnnnnnssssss... waaaaannnt braaaaiiiiiiinnnnnssss!"
As time wore on though, the scale of the protest became clear. All sorts of people, many of them obvious march virgins, had turned out. The centre of Dublin was at a virtual standstill. Myself and L.A. shuffled along for a few hours, eventually calling it a day and going to check out some news sites in an internet caff. My apathy took a much-deserved kicking as I read the about the sheer number of people who'd turned out against the war. I grabbed a few tracts, even got some bumf about forthcoming demonstrations; I'm keen to take part in a demo at Shannon airport in a couple of weeks, but I want to find out more about the organizers first.
Friday, February 14, 2003
March.
Going to Dublin tomorrow (well, today, strictly speaking, since it's after midnight). Originally I was just going there to hook up with a mate of mine, but as luck would have it the anti-war demo is on the Saturday.
I'm going on the march, I am. Maybe fix up a placard. Meet up with the crowd, become part of it, show my face, make a stand. I just can't recall why. It doesn't matter what I say, what I do; the futility of it all feels like a lead weight nestling in my gut, but somehow this is a gesture I'm compelled to perfom.
I want peace.
Going to Dublin tomorrow (well, today, strictly speaking, since it's after midnight). Originally I was just going there to hook up with a mate of mine, but as luck would have it the anti-war demo is on the Saturday.
I'm going on the march, I am. Maybe fix up a placard. Meet up with the crowd, become part of it, show my face, make a stand. I just can't recall why. It doesn't matter what I say, what I do; the futility of it all feels like a lead weight nestling in my gut, but somehow this is a gesture I'm compelled to perfom.
I want peace.
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
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