Happy Halloween!

I hate you and I hope you all get fed spiked punch and wake up to find you've been Godnapped by the Jesus Army.

This has to be one of the best T-shirt slogans I've seen for ages.

While you're there, check out the other bits and bobs. The slogans are more dyke-specific than I could carry off with the Bearded One on my arm, but they made me chuckle. Oh, and for those of you from Barbie's Undies-- this is Cholister's new enterprise. (Must get around to sorting out my own Cafepress thingamajig.)

"Aw Blah Erspanyol?"

Yes. I'm finally biting the bullet and learning Spanish. I've bookedmarked a ton of online courses but this looks like the most promising: Learn Spanish - Spanish for Beginners. I'm also going to get down the library in the morning and borrow a couple of tapes. My unilingual days are nearly at an end.

Creativity ground to a halt? Can't think of a rhyme for "death-knell" that scans, or just the right minor chord for that gawdawful dirge you're trying to churn out? Does your elven princess need a name ompounded out of two other words one of which is a plant and the other a weather condition only you don't know many plants and they don't have weather in your parent's cellar? Then stop being such a dull, unoriginal little prune and download I.M.P., the Ideaspace Mining Program. This stripey wee servitor will have you churning out new doom rock and derivative sword'n'sorcery in no time! Now all you need is a servitor that makes you actually finish shit!

(From here.)

It's "Finally get around to blogging GIRLS ARE PRETTY" day!

This is 'orrible, this site is. This is foul. Mean, painful, unlovely, cruel, and hideously, hideously funny. I'd have linked to it ages ago, but I couldn't decide whether the number of readers it would amuse would be exceeded by the number of people is would piss off.

I'm sure now. Enjoy.

Samizdata.net - Big Brother is watching: Not in 1984 but in 2002

Looks like I got out just in time...

Shopping and fucking up.

Went out shopping yesterday. Checked out the English Market, then hooked up with a couple of folks (friends of Lurid The Bearded One's from when he was doing his Ph.d). They were in town for the jazz festival that's currently in progress. Had a couple of beers and a pleasant chat. After they went to catch their bus, we wandered around a bit more, ending up in the Paul Street shopping centre. It was pissing down, and all these dear little kindergoths had gathered just inside to hide from the rain. (Think we've found the local kindergoth nest.) Bought the New Scientist and a Laurel and Hardy video, and then met S. for coffee.

There's a couple of dinky little freak outlets in the shopping centre, one catering for the fishnets-and-pewter side of things, another for the funfur and dayglo type stuff. However, there's a larger shop round the corner with a better selection and, more importantly, flyers. We ajourned there to laugh at evil T-shirt slogans and sniff joss-sticks. The boyf got himself a new shirt, a simple Nepalese job in black linen with teeny-tiny brass buttons; haven't seen one quite like it before.

Then we got chatting to the staff. I mentioned that we were new in town and asked about pubs and clubs. They were very friendly, which is refreshing after London. (The scene in London can be a bit cliquey-- nah. That's not fair. The scene in London can be unbeliveably fucking cliquey, which is why I'd gone into semi-retirement even before we left.) We grabbed a couple of flyers for an event that was schedualed for the same night, and then went to score some new DMs for Lurid.

Later on, we got toffed up in our bestest goon rags and went in search of the event on the flyers. The locals in Cork seem very impressed with me. I think they've decided I'm the Second Coming-- everywhere I go, people scream "Jesus CHRIST!". S'pose they're a bit light on bald chicks with facial piercings in this neck of the woods.

We eventually tracked down the venue, only to discove that the "darkbeat/indie/alternative" event had metamorphosed into a drum'n'bass night. So we sulked for a bit and then buggered off home to play Neverwinter Nights.

I am undeterred, however. The shop folks gave me a couple of other leads, which I will be following up shortly. You can only substitute a high polygon count for socializing for so long.

I could have done without this, frankly. It's vile and it distresses me. The only way to relieve my feelings is to inflict it on you:

George H. Bush and His Family Paper Dolls in Full Color

(From here.)

Beer.

Fuck, I'm bored of not having a bloody social life. Much as I like the Bearded One's math-buddies (luvverly people that they are) hanging out with them socially tends to mean that I spend a lot of the time with a rabbit-in-the-headlights face on, waiting for the conversation to leave ninteen-dimensional spheres or what some guy I don't know said to some woman I don't know about something I don't understand anyway and get back to Buffy or Blake's 7. Now that I've got some of the teejus crap sorted out (PPS number in post, list of temp agencies in knapsack, etc etc) I'm going to start heading into the local alternoweird hang-outs.

Can you hear me, Goths of Cork? Stop yer grinnin' and drop yer linen-- I'm comin' for ya.

Trouble with this gig is, it's sort of travelling and sort of being stuck in one place. If you're travelling and you're going to be somewhere for, say, a couple of weeks, you can usually find a few bods who speak your lingo to knock around with. Six months, and you've got to sort out jobs, tax, banks... the claws of grey and dismal Reality sink deep into your flesh, while just beyond your reach fun is being had and BEER is being drunk.

One of the things I've promised myself while I'm here is a new tatt. I want something to remind myself of my stay here. Haven't decided what to get yet, but I'm leaning towards a design of hops.

Trouble.

And another thing: I think I'm in trouble, magickally speaking. I mentioned in a previous post that I'd been neglecting that area of my life of late.

Now, when this has happened in the past, I've been allowed to coast along without any hassle for months at a time. The magickal universe will stroll up and tap me on the shoulder when it wants me.

This time, it's different. I'm not going to be allowed to let things slide. Stuff is happening to me: I have dreams where I've lost something, dreams where I was supposed to do something important and I failed. And I'm getting lost. This is a tiny city compared to London, yet I'm still getting lost after two weeks. I can't seem to follow a map anymore. I just get turned around. The magick wants me back and it wants me back now. I don't know why it's become so bloody important all of a sudden. I think something big is going down soon.

The really annoying thing is, I'll probably never know what.


Still if we're playing hardball now...

You want me back, Magick? You want me to make with the chanting and the candles and the doodles and the running round like a looney and the stinky incense? You want moi to dedicate large chunks of this brief mortal life to mucking about with vous?

Fine. You've got it. But here's the deal: You want my life, you fix my bloody life.

You stop leaving me to rot in cruddy jobs that are so far below my skills level that I get vertigo just thinking about it. You know what I'm good at. Give me a living I can live with.

You stop making me spend a disgustingly large chunk of my paltry income on rent. I want a place that's cheap and not too grim. A fixer-upper will do. I want to buy a huge disused factory for a dollar, like in The Blair Witch II: Book of Shadows. Only without all the, y'know, death and blood and dead owls. And death.

And most importantly: I want to be here for other people. No making me be a bad friend. Got that?

Do we have a deal, Magick?

This just in:

Psst! C'm'ere. I need to tell you something. Come close. Closer. Closer still... RAGGGGH!

You're wrong, you morons--WRONG! You want to know why you're wrong? Because you never pay the slightest bit of attention to what's going on around you. I don't mean the big stuff like war, famine, death, and plague. I've given up trying to persuade you slack-jawed gawpers to watch the bloody NEWS with one ounce of the drooling, detail-hungry attention that you lavish unquestioningly on Eastenders. No, I'm talking about the stuff that's going on right under your noses.

I realise that the complex interplay of human relations can be a dauntingly complex thing, never moreso than in the nebulous text-based realms of Cyberspace™. However, I put it to you, dear reader, that if you OCCASIONALLY PAID ATTENTION to what's happening rather that percieving everything through a thick obtenebrating layer of UNINFORMED LAZY ASSUMPTIONS AND UNSUBSTANTIATED RUMOUR you might actually glean some tiny inkling of WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON.

And no, making Bambi-eyes and saying "but what did happen? Please tell me so that I may understand!" doesn't count. Everyone's sick to death of you doing that. Everyone's very likely sick to death of the whole subject anyway so explaing what happened in minute and tedious detail really doesn't appeal. Either go and find out for yourself or stop shit-stirring. You're not making any friends here, bucko.

Or you could just swallow the sodden compost of lies, half-truths and self-pity that you're being fed by manipulative scumbunnies whose tiny minds (lazy and atrophied from lack of use as they may be) are somehow just that little bit more agile than yours. Go on. Cram it into your mouth, smear it on your lips and cheeks. Mmmm. Nummy compost.

(No, I don't have any particular event/sequence of events/person/people in mind. I wish I did. I wish that your compost-guzzling habits were not as widspread-- nay, universal-- as they seem to be. I'm not talking to you personally. You can take your hand out of your underwear now.)

I hate you all.

Wankers.

"Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes..."

Out bevvying properly last Friday-- the first time since arriving in Ireland. V. was celebrating a successful viva (yay her!). Had a great time, and no pesky nightbus home afterwards. At the party I met some cool peeps as well; it's high time I began constructing a social life. All this stewing indoors really doesn't suit me.

Apparently there's a good Akido class running nearby; myself and the Bearded One are planning to sign up. I've been meaning to take up a martial art for yonks, and now seems like a good time.

Ah, it's all change here. Change is good. I've been getting tired, bogged down. Need to shape up again, get some focus, some direction, some motivation. The trouble with this Renassaince Man/Scientist Mage/Art of Electronics shtick is that you end up spreading yourself too thin. If I've got just a dozen projects on the boil, I'm doing better than usual. Apart from the fact that I really and genuinely love all the things I'm into there's this: I get scared. I get scared that I'm going to miss something, scared that I'll fail at something and have no fallback position, scared that the finished article will be weighed in the balance and found wanting.

The move's over now; I don't have all that crap to worry about (hide behind?) anymore. I really need to shape up and start working seriously again.

So here's what I need to do at the moment...

1) Sort out my bank/tax stuff so I can get a job.

2) Get a job.

3) Sign up for a Teaching English as a Foriegn Language (TEFL) course.

4) Get my magick back on track. I've been a naughty little magicko lately-- haven't been doing my meditations, haven't been doing my chanting, haven't been keeping my dream diary. Slap wristies. You know what? I think I'll buy a drum.

These being accomplished, there are odds-and-ends that need to be completed. Little side projects for other people that got put on hold because of the move or whatever. I'll get to 'em. There's also my bass, which I haven't touched for months, and my painting. I've been being a bit peculiar lately. Staying in too much, slacking on my chores, that sort of thing; these problems must be adressed now before they get out of hand.

I've made a start by shaving my head properly instead of just using the clippers. There are no sockets for my electric shaver, so I treated myself to a long hot shower and a proper razor cut. Nice and smooth.

The bitch is back.

Help buy Tom Coates a new camera to replace the one that got nicked when his house was burgled.

I'm sure most of the people who'd be interested have already contributed, but I'm bunging the link here anyway just in case.

I trust I'm not alone in finding this sort of thing rather disturbing?

Seriously. It gives me 57 flavours of the creeps. I mean, babies, cute, yes. Babies rock cutedom, stinky nappies notwithstanding. Kids in animal costumes, yes. Many kids like animal costumes and will request or manufacture said costumes as part of creative play, free xpression, ect etc.

But this whole dressing babies up as stuff... it's just yuck.

Atrophy?

My writing muscles seem to have gone into cramp. I'm hoping that this is only down to the relatively lengthy period of enforced non-writeyness while the computer was in transit and I was in The Land of Interminable Packing. Those of you who are waiting for emails, letters, diatribes, or slashtastic sitcom treatments: please be patient. I'll get to you eventually.

I'm more homesick than I expected. I miss my old haunts and my mates, especially Marianne. But I'll be popping back to London in a few weeks for Dolly Wilde's visit, so I'll be seeing everyone again soon.

I haven't really been out much, just the odd quiet pint with mates. Still finding my feet, you know how it is. I need to get set up with a temp job but I've found myself in one of those Catch 22 situations: to get a job I need a bank account in Euros, and for that I need proof that I'm living where I say I'm living, and for that I need some sort of official looking document. A bank statement or a payslip would do nicely, but for that I need... you get the picture. The landlord's going to give us a new rent book with both our names on it tomorrow (intead of just Mandy's), so all may yet be well.

I've spent my time mostly trying to unpack and exploring the city. Cork's great. I've never lived in an area with such a high pub density. There's scores of them, mostly offering live music too. Aside from pubs I'm about five minutes walk from two major breweries, a big ol' cinema and an opera house (and a rather yecchy-looking strip club, but you can't have everything). Next time I'll give you a few links to online stuff about the city, so you can feel all envious and resentful. Bwahahahaha.

Did a bit of shopping today; I bought myself a book to serve as a journal-cum-sketch pad. I want to keep a record of my general impressions while I'm living abroad so that I can refer back to them later on. I got a set of Chinese brushes for Christmas, but what with one thing and another I haven't done any painting for months. Now seems like an ideal time to get back into it. I usually paint in acrylics, but they're very bulky and I'm trying to travel light-- plus you can't really use acrylics with Chinese brushes. Can't wait to get started!

One good thing about the move is the way it's made me pare down my projects. One art medium. One musical instrument (bass guitar, if you really neeeed to know). One electronics project (yes, the laser harp). I almost left the electronics stuff behind: I'd got so cheesed off with the subject what with all the bollocks that my moribund degree course put me through. I was just going to shove the breadboard with my prototype circuit into a box bound for storage, and then suddenly I remembered how much fun all that stuff is when you're just doing it for the sake of doing it, rather than for someone to grade. So, the Laser-Driven Pokemon Autopsy Harp rides again! I won't be able to make the housing yet (too bulky to take to Barcelona when we go) but I can tinker with the guts.

Unpacking my leccy stuff at this end, I thought for one ghastly moment that I'd neglected to pack any linking wire. I felt... emasculated.

(Sorry for the paucity of updates, but-- what the hell am I talking about? I'm not even slightly sorry. I've been busy and you're not important. Deal with it. Here's some of what you missed while I was doing grownup things...)

The Flight

It was only a short journey. There were no hitches to speak of apart from my setting off the metal detector at Stanstead Airport. I was duly separated from the rest of the herd and frisked. "What's THIS?" demanded the security woman, minutely examining a bottle of black nail varnish which I'd had in my coat pocket.

"It's my nail varnish," I explained. She unscrewed the lid and peered inside, with a distrustful Hmmmph. The bottle seemed to be a source of some peturbation for her. Admittedly it was the right shape for a bomb, being spherical and black, but the lettering read "Spectacular Nail Varnish" rather than "BOMB" and the whole lacked the traditional fizzing fuse. (My silver mascara was also solemly opened up and inspected. I'm obviously going to have to invest in some non-scary cosmetics for the next time I travel.)

Anyhow, nothing else untoward happened and me and my suspicious toiletries were soon on our way to Cork.

My first ever night-flight rocked. Take-offs are one of my most favourite things in the world in space anyway, and when you add watching the city lights drop away beneath the plane you get an extra dose of super wrongly dark. The clouds were like long smudges of charcoal, the lights were twinkly orange like little embers, and sometimes the angle of the plane and a thick bank of cloud would conspire to create the illusion that there was a city in the sky. All the time I lived within her clutches London never looked pretty to me-- although she has some fine features, the overall look is ugglesome. Now at last I found her lovely, her flaws erased by darkness, distance, and water-vapour.

The flight got in five minutes ahead of time. When I finally dragged my luggage into the Arrivals lounge, Mandy was there waiting for me.

More soon.

Shut up whining and PRETEND

I meant the kind of tomorrow if we had a 48-hour day. I can do that if I want.

New flat's nice. It's smaller than the old gaff, but we've got nowhere near as much crud lying around so it doesn't matter. Cork's good, I'm good, and I'll do you a proper post when I get a mo.

Hello.

I'm in Cork.

More tomorrow.

Peace.

Some of you may remember that I came across a site/message board run by my That Ex. (Everyone's got a That Ex. You know what I mean.) I was disturbed and upset and generally unhappy about the content.

Well, today, completely at random, I located a site related to my That Ex. But... it was all change, y'know? It was freshness, and maturity, and freedom; it was leaving behind the whole horrible mess that was his head when I was around.

It was beautiful. It gave me hope: not for me, because I've put all that behind me. Hope that this person might one day become the man I fell in love with. Not so I can fall in love with him again, but so he can be there for the love of his life.

See, that was the hardest part. I walked on knives for that man, and the only good thing I could take from it was that I'd never do it again. But now... it's like he's becoming secret hero he always wanted to be.

I hope so.

Eeeewwwww.

I can see myself reading Ladybird books to a great army of red-haired stepchildren, if I'm not careful.

Over.

This is it (well, almost). The removal people are coming tomorrow morning to cart away all the stuff that's going to Cork.
Bloody hell. It's really going to happen, isn't it? I'm really leaving. I'm really going to shuck this skin. Didn't feel real before.

I'm afraid.

Aces and Jacks.

Back once again. More comedy neurological malfunctioning. Out of sorts and anxious all day today, which is often one of the signs. But I put it down to the move. Then just now I was playing Demon Patience on the computer and picturing what to do next in my head, Eight of Hearts on the Nine which frees up that King so you can move the Queen, etcetera, etcetera. Eight or nine moves ahead, all lined nicely in my head, and then the pattern shattered. Like a wind springing up out of nowhere and blowing away the cards.

This isn't one of those euphoric jobs like last time. I don't know why they're different sometimes. So, sorry kids, it's not November the Fifth yet. And I probably won't stay online this time. Been there, done that. But this is my weblog and I get to be an exhibitionist. If you don't like it, read somthing else.

This is not a good one. I don't like this kind. My past catches up with me. Time breaks, slips, back and forth. And you're there, if only for an instant. Moments rising like blood from the tongue, thin, meaty, distasteful. I laid down some bad things back there, and year by year they seem to grow more sour. Why did I? Am I still there, her, the person who acted like that? Am I here? The immediacy gives the illusion that I could reach out, reach back, and change it. Fix it. That the shards of the cup will rise and become one. That really hurts, that instant where you think you're back and you can make it right, and then you realise you can't and you never will. Moving finger have writ or whatever.

And all the patterns wash away, watered down into nothing. All going down the drain, isn't it?

RAIN
STOP
PLAY

I am not good. Did I start out like this? Never quite able to make my peace with the damage I do, never quite able to stop doing damage. Corrosive. He says it doesn't matter-- but it might one day. You get a build-up. Maybe it looks worse from where I'm sitting, in a shower of fractured time. Aces and jacks.

They call it making good, when you fix everything back up after a repair or an alteration. To: One single-glazed window, re-glazing and making good. Can you make good? Churn it out like dough, like plaster, scoop it into the hollows and let it dry. Could I ever make enough good, or will the hollows always be there, under the smooth surface? Breeding insects, blooming with rot.

There was blue fire before. Now all the colours are shading into unity, lightless. The face cards accuse with their blankness. This deck never gets shabby, never gets frayed at the edges or grimy. You lay it down new each time. In real life the cards fray. Jack of Diamonds. Ace of Hearts. I heard the red ink was poisonous. Clubs are Wands. Spades are swords. Espada. The ace a death card, like a syringe. Kill or cure.

Who cares for you? You're nothing but a pack of cards.

The Peace Pumpkin Project

Pacifist Jack'o'lanterns. Neat!

"Show me the MONEY!"

Okay, so I've set up a CafePress account. However, their basic price for a T-shirt is $14.99! I'll have a bit of a Google and see if I can find anything less steep. Even worse, they only seem to do a white or grey shirt, which is just not acceptable. I mean, they should warn people before subjecting them to a full page of non-black clothing. I feel all dizzy now. I think I need a lie down.

The dance of capitalist supremacy

I've decided not to reinvent myself as a motivational speaker after all. At least not yet. Instead, I shall flog T-shirts. I shall have the I-hate-you thing from my blog description on the front, and "Mordant Carnival Hates You" on the back. Or maybe the fit thread on the front, and "Mordant Carnival Hates You" on the back. Or both.

However, I cannot sort this out till I know where the cheques should be sent. Which is a bugger.

But it must and shall be done.

cameron-stewart.com The inestimable Mr. Stewart has got a new website. He draws in some proper comics like Catwoman and stuff; he's a bit good.

Don't give up the day job

I've decided to re-invent myself as a motivational speaker.

D'you want angst with that?

People occasionally ask me why, if I'm this git'ard chaos magickan and all, my life is still arguably bitchaboutable (with sucktastic interludes). They suggest that if I really want to improve my lot I should git my 'ard on and sort it out, or admit that the whole magick thing is a flatulent bubble of methane gurgling up from the delusional mulch at the bottom of my brain. Why, if I can in theory get anything I want (within certain ill-defined boundaries), how come I've not got it yet?

Because unless I force myself to sit down and think really really hard about it, I don't rightly know what I'm after. See, my ideal, totally unrealistic, dream-on way of making a living wolud be to write sf/f/h&det/mys about prehistoric mammals and werewolf dryads who are accountants and things and stuff. I want to write about any damn thing that floats through my cranium and get paid for it, too.

Now, I understand that this ideal version of events is unlikely to transpire, barring some huge violation of the laws of probability. I accept that. However, having recognized that Scenario #1 is unlikely, I do not then substitute a more reasonable one. For example, a reasonable ambition would be to write books in my chosen genre puddle for a living. This would be time-consuming and I'd have to deal with-- dah dah DARRR!-- editors, but it's both workable and desirable. It's a reasonable compromise between my ideal and reality.

But I don't stop there. Oh, no. Before I can even properly observe the processes involved, I've mentally compromised myself down to writing the instruction manual for ZarggGlubYuth's Infant Adrenal Gland Extractor MkII (or teen romances, whatever comes first) and then I get all glum and have to get drunk and eat yoghurt raisins until I feel better.

I have got-- got-- got to stop this whole compromise ad absurdum stuff, and get some really realistic Plan.

When I have my Plan, I will do Stuff.

Fear me.

But enough about me...

Odd. I've been voted in as the subject for this week's Barbinterview. Given my relentless narcissism, I'm surprised there's anything about me that people didn't know. Still, there ya go...

"Ah, Ultra Magnus. Dear, dear Ultra Magnus."


I fear for Dan. I really do.

Heads up.

One from the inbox:

Dear supporter of MoveOn.org's 9-11Peace campaign,

An American war against Iraq grows more likely with each passing day. But there is still something important you can do to help stop it.

President Bush needs the United Kingdom's support for a war, because your country is a member of the United Nations Security Council.

John Hodgson, a British citizen, recently proposed taking the message below to your national leaders. Please contact them at:

Prime Minister Tony Blair
020 7219 5676
or 01429 882202

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
020 7219 5070
or 01254 52317

M.P. Tam Dalyell
020 7219 3427
or 01506 834255

M.P. Chris Smith
020 7219 5119
or 020 7607 8373

Or try the main number for Parliament: 020 7219 3000

Make sure their offices know you're calling regarding the possible war on Iraq, and urge them to ensure that the U.K. opposes any U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing an attack on Iraq.

Your own words are always best, but you may find it helpful to use some of the arguments made below by John Hodgson.

-----

No justification

Mr Blair:

You constantly speak of building a better Britain and a better world. But we cannot do that by illegal attacks on a sovereign state that has not attacked us and shows no plausible intention of doing so. It is clear that the US feels itself justified to engage in global bullying for economic interest, but our role is to show that there is a better
way to world peace. That way is by respecting the rule of law, the autonomy of other states, and the importance of the United Nations.

- John Hodgson, Higher Education (September 20, 2002; Bristol, United
Kingdom)

-----

Your voice really counts here. Please make these important calls today.

Also, please let us know you've called, by clicking here:

http://www.moveon.org/callmade_iraq_uk.html?id=777-1215852-R9REJR0S5vXP5bp0j2NmRw
Keeping a count helps make this work more effective.

Thank you.

- Eli Pariser
International Campaigns Director, MoveOn.org
Founder, 9-11Peace Campaign
September 26, 2002

Harassed Jordanian woman flips out!

Okay, I'm anti-violence and so forth, but this still made me grin a bit. Apparently three guys had got into the habit of bawling sexual obsceneties at this woman whenever they saw her around-- till the day she ripped off her cloak and her veil, and proceed to kick seven kinds of hell out of them. Apparently she'd been sitting on some serious martial arts skills.

Heheheheh.

(Snaffled from Sarcasmo's Corner)

Ananova - Edwina Currie reveals four-year affair with John Major

I'd just like to say "eeeeeewwwwwww".

Gay

I note that I am still getting upwards of seventy-eighty hits a day from Solonor's (good and colour changey and toyfilled) blog. This is fine; I always need fresh minions. However, every single one of these hits relates to Spiderman Will Make You Gay. I have a couple of things I really have to get off my chest about this:

1) S.W.M.Y.G. is not that funny.

It's funny in a philosophically absurd sorta way (Concept: sexual orientation. Percept: watching Spiderman dance will permenantly change said orientation). One can entertain oneself by comparing and contrasting S.W.M.Y.G. and the attitudes of people who think that Clause 28 is all that protects our children from growing up to be bulldykes or nancyboys. It's funny because... well, Spiderman, dancing, you know, it's a thing. But it's not amazingly hugely terrifically funny. (Unlike, say, a troupe of plastic skeletons dancing to a cover of Y.M.C.A., which was that funny and still had some funny left over for a bag of chips.)

2) Am I the only person alive who doesn't find the word "gay" inherently funny?

Why is "gay" funny? It's not funny. It started out not funny and it got less funny from there. Here's a little known fact: Every time you say "gay" like it's funny, it gets less funny. Saying "gay" like it's funny is now so far into not-funnyness it's become a source of superdense not-funny. It is Weapons Grade not-funny. You could hurt someone with that. Terrorists could get hold of it.

Here's why "gay" seems funny from a certain angle: "Gay" has become a random derogatory term, as in "that game is gay", "your shoes are gay", "this Counterstrike map is gay". There is much absurdity to play with here and we're all about the absurdity. I understood that part. I also got the part where the randomly cruel and vile things that kids say to each other in the school playground are cripplingly funny, given a certain distance.

Here's why the "gay" thing isn't that funny after all: Pretend it's you. Instead of "gay", insert whatever you got or still get the piss mercilessly ripped out of you for. Then pretend that the prejudices against this thing, whatever it was, were hedged around by laws and rules and clauses. Pretend that many powerful individuals agreed that you were wrong and peculiar, and made laws accordingly. Pretend this trait could get you turned down for jobs, or even fired. Pretend that it seems as though it's okay for everyone to hate you.

Assuming that some or all of this is already true, add "being gay" to the mix and see if things would improve much. Still laughing?

Girl's night out: an open letter to female bloggers


Prompted by something kookymojo wrote recently, I've been hunting around for interesting blogs by women.

I've found the whole excercise really disturbing.

Apart from some notable exceptions (see Kooky's list and my sidebar), the writers seem so damn limited in what they'll allow themselves to think or to be. It's as if there's a tarot hand of possible identities that women bloggers feel forced to choose from: The Bitch, the Diva, The Mother, the Domestic Goddess, the Divinely Damaged Girl. At best, w.b.'s permit themselves to blend a couple of these flavours together: the Bitch who is also (ta DAH!) a Diva, the Damaged Girl who's also-- get this-- a Mother...

"Hey, bet you didn't see that one coming, didja? Bet you're shaken out of your complacent view of women by the fact that the writer has managed to combine TWO meaningless gender stereotypes in ONE handy blog. Look how complex and multilayered I am! I bet you're really impressed! Arencha? Arencha?"

Well... no, as it goes. Very no. You've enlarged your cage a little, but you're still locked up. I know that's ultimately true of all of us, but these are such tiny, tiny confines to write within. I'm beginning to suspect that one reason male bloggers are more prevalent or more widely read is that men are (very generally) less willing to buy into stereotypes, or at least less likely to occupy them full-time.

You are not a cartoon character. You contain worlds. Everyone does.

NOW SORT YOUR SOPPY SELVES OUT, YOU BIG LEAKY EMBARRASSMENTS YOU, BEFORE I'M FORCED TO GET A SEX CHANGE OUT OF UTTER SHAME! YES, YOU HAVE HORMONES AND YOU CAN USE A COMPUTER! JOLLY GOOD! WE'RE ALL TERRIBLY PLEASED! NOW, PERHAPS YOU'D LIKE TO FIND SOMETHING ABOUT YOURSELF THAT YOU COULD WRITE ABOUT THAT ACTUALLY DISTINGUISHES YOU FROM FIFTY-ODD PERCENT OF HUMANITY, IF IT'S NOT TOO MUCH TROUBLE?

I swear. I get PMS that could strangle a sodding goat and d'you know what? I still find other things to talk about. If you're eighteen or under you might reasonably be forgiven for thinking that you're the first person since Marie Curie to combine oestragen and higher brain functions, but when you hit thirty it starts to look a bit daft. You have a voice, now stop trying to be an echo.

Chromosomally yours,

MCxx

PS: And how come we've all ended up with the same sitemeter? That's... that's scary, that is.

PPs: No yodelling, either.

Optical illusion

Have a look at this-- it's a bit good.

(From (the same place I always get stuff like this).

Again you have failed me!

I give you wretched wretches the simplest task (winning me the Grauniad's bloody stupid weblog compo) and you FAIL ME! Do not try my patience, puny ones. I can always get new minions-- can you say the same for your internal organs?

*Feeds tidbits to pet mutant piranahgoatdonkeycat from gauntleted fingers*

If finding this funny makes me a bad person, I don't want to be good.

(Put it down-- you don't know where it's been.)

Doctor Fish

Jesus H. Christ in an all-male jaccuzzi, but I am TIRED. I am a tired wee Gothling. Did I mention that I hate packing? I did? Repeatedly and at length? Good. Hope you're all really bored.

So, magick. Haven't written anything on the ol' magick for a while now.

I'm currently working on some health magick because what with evil stomach bugs and some other stuff, my health is not very healthy. I've been trying to re-jig my immune system (utilizing trance states and visualization) but that seems to have backfired; I'm still coming down with foul things and my allergies are raging out of control. Still, I will persevere. The fact that I'm seeing an effect, any effect... well, that's reason to continue, no?

What I've done is, I've adapted the visualizations to include some more specific "repair" scenes. I've constructed a mystic gunk-tank in mindspace, sort of like the bacta tank from The Empire Strikes Back only with purple goo and just generally cooler-looking. Tonight I'm going to add some luminous silvery fishy things whose job it will be to swim around in the purple goo and nibble away at any negative stuff, physical or otherwise, that might be messing with my health. (I got the idea from "doctor fish".) If this pattern works well, I'll improve on it so that I can be all like a superhero and stuff.

Oh, and I've decided to spend next week EVIL. (Strictly for research purposes, you understand.) Unless I get bored.

emergency.PARADIGM has some excellent photos by Dinnie Corvidae. They are B&W images of graffiti from New York. Check'em out!

Oh, please. Look, I know everyone wants to get a "haunted" item on Ebay these days but this is just silly: wanna buy a haunted crap paperback edition of Atlas Shrugged?

(From Cruel Site of The Day)

Real-Time Testing of Internet Filtering in China

I'm obviously not trying hard enough.

(Via just about everybody, really.)

The beginning of the end...

Just saw off the Bearded One, plus a huge suitcase, rucksack and laptop. I miss the little pervert already *sniffle*. He's going to our new flat in Cork, I'm staying here to pack, sulk, eat too much junk food, and recover from various farewell bashes. I shall be joining him in a couple of weeks if all goes to plan.

I haven't been doing much writing lately, not even posting here or on the messageboards that I haunt in my various guises. I have got to pull myself together and finish something new this week. S'just, at the moment, nothing's really pushing the old writey buttons. I don't have any short story ideas at present and my novel is well and truly stalled; here's hoping that moving will unstick something.

Obligatory random whinge

Oh, bloody hell-- just realised I haven't updated since Friday. Aughhh.

Okay. Life in boxes. Floor covered in crud and old copies of New Scientist. Many things I would rather not have to chuck out/leave behind will have to be chucked out/left behind. Hate moving. Gah.

Hugs to all those who made the big farewell bash last Sat., and to Luke who phoned in at 4:00 am Oz time and wished us happy trails. (Missed ya, dude. The sooner we get that website up and running, the better.) For those who couldn't be there: fret ye not, seperate arrangements will be made soon.

The bathroom ceiling is still in a state of romantic ruin. There are now even more holes in it, thanks to the surveyors. Stringy tendrils of fungus wave languidly in the draughts between the joists, and little showers of rust-coloured spores and perished plaster rattle down onto the heads of unwary bathers. I have visions of the whole building imploding a la Poltergiest just as the removal van pulls away from the curb.

Gaze upon the glory that is A Tribute to Ray Harryhausen! It-- it-- it's... wonderous!

(Snaffled fromLuke.)

The plot thickens...

Y'know I'm moving to Ireland, right? Well, a couple of days ago the folks up at Barcelona phoned up the Bearded One to offer him a job out there. So now we're going to be in Cork 'till April, then we're gonna do BARCAAAA!

I'm a bit nervous, for various reasons. Chief amongst these is that I don't speak Catalan, or even Spanish-- or any other languages, really, apart from this one. You've all heard the joke:

"What d'you call someone who speaks three languages?"
"Trilingual."
"What d'you call someone who speaks two languages?"
"Bilingual."
"What d'you call someone who speaks one language?"
"English!"

I am that joke. I've no excuse, either; I do pick languages up fast, but I drop them again even quicker if I don't practice.

The recent paucity of updates is due largely to the mad packing and chucking frenzy currently eating up my life. I'm trying to condense a whole flatload of stuff into something that'll fit in the back of a garage. It's not easy. I'm going to really miss my books; I plan to offload or store everything except a few novels and some of my electronics textbooks. I shan't be able to buy any new ones for months, which is going to be a bit Arrrgh. Oh, well. If I want something to occupy me I'll just have to get writing, and hard.

Orange Monkey and pals frighten me. (B3ta.)

The Barbelith Underground is open for new members.

Actually, it's been open for new members for a while now, but I didn't tell you lot before because you're not cool enough to join. And anyway, secrets make me feel all warm in special places.

While I'm at it...

Decided to change the title to the non-mangled version of the Watchmen quote. Bit nastier, but I stopped short of all the stuff about burst stomachs.

New email addy!

Right, since hotmail won't cough up my password and I'm sick of their lousy non-functioning spam filters anyway, I will henceforth be using the far more appropriate MordantCarnival@istillhateyou.com. Make a note.

Meat or Accident?
Lovely. My continued vegetarianism is ensured. (Music and grossness warning.)

(From the B3TA newsletter.)

Arggghhh!

I'm locked out of my hotmail account! Please don't use the MordantCarnival@hotmail acc. until I get it sorted.

Moving on

As some of you already know, I'm going to be leaving London in a few weeks and moving to Cork. Yes! The Bearded One has finally got a job! At Cork Uni! I'm so chuffed! I've broken out in a nasty rash of exclamation marks!

He's off in a few days to find us a place to live. I'm going to sort things like packing out from this end (which means no more repeat-until-insane temp job for at least a few weeks). Yayness abounds.

There's stuff I'll miss, mostly my mates, but having been here for eight years I sort of feel like I've done London, y'know? There's always a lot going on here but it's so pricey you can't afford half of it. I'll miss the clubs and so forth ('specially the TG), but to be honest most of the best times I've had here have consisted of slouching round somebody's flat and playing computer games or watching videos, or slouching round in the pub and talking about playing computer games and wathcing vidoes. All of which I can still do in Cork. Plus I'll prolly be able to come back few months-- flights are cheap as chips.

It's funny how quickly things change. Last Tuesday I was feeling trapped and fed up and all cheesed-off generally, then a couple of days later I find out that we're leaving the country altogether in about three weeks' time.

I've been taking stock, remembering what it was like when I first moved here: not yet twenty-one, few friends, no money, no job, and no prospects. Now I've got half a degree, a sprawling social circle made up of excellent people, and I've started to actually sell stories. Best of all I've got the Bearded one, who helped make all the good stuff possible.

I'm still brassic lint, but hey.

Jive turkey takes epileptic for £3500

Perth, Scotland: An epileptic has been ordered to pay ludicrous amounts of compensation to a woman who claimed she suffered post-traumatic stress after seeing his face during a seizure.

Edwin Young has been told that he must cough up three and a half grand to compensate ripoff merchant Yvonne Rennie for the "trauma" she suffered as a result of seeing his face during a fit.

Young apparently suffered an epileptic fit while driving. He crashed into the vehicle that self-centered histeronic Rennie was driving, causing her slight injuries. Suspected prat Young owned up to having caused the accident and was duly ordered to pay a reasonably hefty fifteen hundred for Rennie's injuries, plus another grand to hire her a counsellor.

Sheriff Michael Fletcher, who one sincerely hopes was on glue or something at the time because if he makes this sort of judgement straight there's no hope for him, said: "The defender's face was contorted and this led the pursuer to believe that he was having a heart attack and was dying... The image of his face upset her." Presumably if Young really had died, this bozo would have ordered his grieving relatives to pay double.

Grade-A dillweed Fletcher admitted that Rennie was probably exaggerating the psychological impact of the incident, saying "For instance, although the accident happened at traffic lights and none of the vehicles was travelling excessively fast, the pursuer indicated she thought she was going to be killed." However, he still ordered Young to give the scrounger another three and a half thousand quid.

What the hell an epo was doing driving a bloody car in the first place is a mystery to those epileptics who haven't even been on a bicycle since they got diagnosed. Young is suspected in some quarters of being a complete prat who deserves everything he got and of being bastard lucky he didn't get himself killed.

Mrs Rennie said: "You cannot write anything about this. I will be contacting Tony Blair about this."

Mr Young said: "She can get stuffed."

Chronic epileptic Mordant Carnival said: "After witnessing this disgusting spectacle of greed, selfishness and total stupidity, I have post-traumatic stress. Can I have three and a half grand, please?"

Mordant Carnival's boyfriend, who has seen her have upwards of a hundred fits, remains strangely untraumatized. And he has to wipe up the drool.

Silence

There's a fire-station across the road from me. I looked out of the window today, and saw the crew all lining up outside. They were in what I suppose to be their dress uniforms. They were shuffling their feet and checking their watches as they were inspected. Then they stood to attention, looking straight ahead; invisible behind net curtains, I looked on. The roar of the traffic didn't change. Buses, cars and lorries came and went; people bustled up and down the road. The workers digging up the street outside paused only for a few seconds.

The fire crew stood to attention, in silence. I watched as they paid their respects to their collegues, under a bright Autumn sky. I watched them and then I went back to my keyboard; they went back to risking their lives.

Just another ordinary day.

Grr, arrgh.

Nothing to say except that I spent today angry. I don't know why. I was feeling angry last night, and then I sort of chilled out, but then I woke up and I was angry again.

Being angry all day when you've got a job like mine is very uncomfortable. You need to be very calm to cope with it, to lull yourself into a state of placidity. If you're in a bad mood there's nothing in your work to distract you from those feelings; they just run rampant.

So there was nothing I could do except be angry, all day long. Angry because I'm still working for five pounds an hour, angry at the fact that my entire job seems to consist of creating pure trash, angry because I've worked so hard to learn, to move, to better myself, and yet the only use the world seems to have for me is to do those jobs too fragmented for a robot, angry at the news on the TV, angry at the women's magazines in the staffroom, angry at everything and everyone. And it wouldn't stop.

Then they told me I didn't have to come in tomorrow because they've no work. No work for the rest of the week, and probably no work until the middle of next week. And so I'm still angry.

I submitted a story today, to a webzine. There's no way are they're ever going to accept it (they're much too classy for me) but at least I sent it out.

w00t!!!

"0wnz0red" R0x0rz!
Got this deadly little yarn from Sashinka. Without giving too much of the story away, it's about hacking your body at a cellular level. Put all manner of ideas in my bad bald bonce. Werl, I say put; they were sort of already there, just needing a bit of a nudge. Anyway, I strongly recommend "0wnz0red" to my chaotic readers.

See, I'm a still a hopeless dunce when it comes to the 'puter. But magick, that's different; when it comes to magick I am fast becoming d4 l337 h4x0r. I can use magick now like I would use my arm, or my language. Or a possibly a spoon. It's all a matter of knowing just how to express things so that your [higher self/temporal lobe/guardian angel/insert pet theory here] can understand it and get working on the problem. (Oh, and kicking my obsessiveness in the nuts, which is where it all falls down, of course.)

For my next trick, laydeez'n'jentz, I plan to reprogram my immune system, inna CM stylee-ah. I have hayfever and allergies, yet I still get colds. I need to convince my immune system to stop chasing after feathers and pollen and dust-mite crap, and start taking out germs instead. It's like having a supermean guard dog that eats postmen but leg-humps burglars. I'm going to go in and Have Words. If it works it'll be really great 'coz then I could fix it so I never get cancer.

Also I want a left-handed can-opener. I've just gone three falls and a submission with a catering-size tin of ratatouille, and it's really buggered up my mood.

Hello again, you pack of charmless imbeciles. God, I hate you. Why don't you all sod off? Go on, go and get lives.

I found a snail in the bathroom. I find them fairly often, as it goes. I don't know if it came up through the drains or through a crack in the wall, or what. My flat is just shot, man. Rotting ceilings, wierd little brown beetles in the carpet, silverfish, clothes moths nibbling holes in the t-shirts... the place is alive.

At least we got rid of the rats.

I still 0wn the search gizmo at work, BTW. I'm getting a bit tired of playing with it now, though, and I'm ready to move onto something a bit meatier. Since I have very little reliable data on psionics I don't really know what can and can't be achieved by your average Joe. I realized today that I've fought shy of trying anything I wasn't reasonably sure would work, in case my fwagile confidence got a nasty boo-boo.

This is, of course, codswallop. You have to keep pushing those limits, man, in this as in everything. Screw all this faffing around-- I'm never going to get anywhere if I let fear-of-faliure do the driving. I am tuff and mean. Yer.

Anyhow, I'm now casting around for a suitable project. I'm thinking of something involving Brownian motion.

Monkey makes fabulous sorbet in a sack is all about making fabulous sorbet. In a sack. Terrycloth monkey optional.

(From the BIMBO rejected links pages)

Refit

I'm planning a bit of an overhaul of my blog over the next few days. Frankly, it's become a bit of a mess over the months since I started it.

I want to have three columns instead of two, so I can put the Victims and the 1p Chews on one side, and the Errant Foolishness, the tagboard and various odds & sods on the other. I'm going to ponce a skin from Blogskins.com, but I'll have to tweak it a bit because I want to keep this typeface & colour scheme. Plus, I keep meaning to put the haunted piccy back up. People liked the haunted piccy.

I plan to add a quick bio , and maybe an FAQ. Eventually I'm going to bung a little piece on the side explaining that I'd quite like to write for a living and would welcome advice, job offers, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to take a leaf out of Sasha's book, and put some of my writing online for interested folk to peruse.

Another change I'm thinking of making is the title. The pre-zilla version, "dead dog in alleyway this morning..." is derived from the opening lines of Watchmen. The actual quote runs: "dog carcass in alley this morning", but I prefer alleyway to alley and felt that "dog carcass" was a bit harsh for a blog title. But now I'm thinking, fuck it, I feel harsh some days.

Great Pan is dead...

...and now, so's Hanuman: Mortality check for monkey 'god' - smh.com.au

I feel sad. The Barbelith Underground made me sad again. Go and punch them in the thigh for me.

"What were they thinking?"

Oh, boy. I'd never have believed it if I hadn't seen it. Here's what they're saying about the Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 Broom on Amazon:

"Enhancing the excitement are the vibrating effects and magical swooping and whooshing sounds the broom makes..."

"Even my daughter's friends enjoy playing with this fun toy. I was surprised at how long they can just sit in her room and play with this magic broomstick!"

"My only problem I see with the toy is the batteries drain too fast..."

"My oldest daughter (17) really likes it too!"

Are you going to tell them, or shall I?

(Via the Barbelith Underground.)

"These aren't the droids you're looking for..."

Went back to work today. Got the anticipated pi-jaw: "Oh, yes, we know you were ill, but we need to be able to rely on you or we'll have to let you go, blah blah blah." I was expecting something like that, but it's still a bit stressful. Hopefully things will be a bit more stable now.

It was easier today. Still the same mind-meltingly tedious and repetative tasks, but I'm getting into the groove now. The work is intruding less, and I'm using the unoccupied slots in my conciousness more effectively. Today I was able to use the spare processing power to work on a couple of stories, one of which I hope to complete in the next two or three days, and to run through some visualization exercises. Principally these have been geared toward building up my psionic muscles.

See, we've got these random search devices at work, one at each exit and one by the bogs. If you leave the workplace or go to scrub up, you have to press the search button. If you get a green light and a *bleep* you can just walk past, but if the light's red a shrill buzzer sounds and you have to wait for Search Bloke to come and wave a metal detector at you. Since I am neither a moron nor a klepto I have no intention of nicking anything from my nice employers, ergo being searched is all beneath me and things. So what I do is, I picture the innards of the random search gizmo in rough schematic form, with the green lamp lit. As I approach the device I fill my head with green, green, green, and the bleep the device makes when it lets you by unsearched. Since I started dickering in this way I haven't been searched once.

Okay, so I'm not shooting lightning out of my fingers yet, but it's a start.


The one about the Polish starlet

The other day I found myself thinking back to a conversation I had about six (seven?) years ago, with this writer friend of a friend. He suggested basically flogging a few stories off to the film industry. I considered it, but eventually ditched the idea. At that time in my life I had my work cut out just keeping my head above water; writing anything resembling a coherent story was a very rare event. And even if I got something accepted by a studio, what then? Once the story was handed over, I wouldn't get to play with it anymore. I like the way that I can have an idea, write the story, realise it sucks, stick it in a drawer, ignore it for years, come up with another idea, do the same thing... and then one or three or six years later, I turn round and the stories have got all sweaty and intimate together and there-- there! is the real story, the one I missed by a whisker years before. If the initial story wasn't mine anymore, if someone else had it, it might not be able to have sex with any of my other stories in future.

But I'm having a bit of a re-think. Ideally, I'd like to do a whole screenplay one day, but since I write the most gawdawful fibreboard dialogue that's still a long way off. But stories... I have one or two decentish little notions, not much use to me as they are, but healthy and of good stock. Maybe it's time to put some of them out to stud.

You are all my bug-guzzling lunatic slaves.

And yet, you have failed me. I gave you one simple magickal ritual to perform and yet somehow-- somehow-- I am still putting earrings in boxes instead of having a nice cushy column somewhere.

You may yet redeem yourselves, however.

You may remember the Grauniad's bloody stupid Best British Blog competition, yes? And you may remember that I had entered for said competition.

Now, see that sigil ritual which you all so pathetically failed at before? Do it again, only with getting me that £1000 prize as your stated intent.

Do not fail me again, puny ones.

Better.

Yep, today was all manner of better. Tidied up my prehistoric mammal yarn-- now it's all ready for the off. Before I actually try and flog it to anyone, I think I'll let it stand for a day or two so all the more egregious grammatical and continuity errors can float to the surface. The dosh came thru from this vampire thing (STOP LAUGHING!) that I sold a couple of months back, which is good. I also discovered that I've somehow managed to pay off a hundred pounds of my credit-card debt over the last few months, using my patent guess-the-minimum-payment-and-add-a-few-quid-for-luck technique.

For some reason my psi and magickal work has been coming on apace lately. I don't know if it's just that being ill has temporarily knocked out some of my perceptual and cognitive filters, but it's going well-- very well. I feel pretty... pumped, I suppose. (If I go all black-eyed and vieny, you'll tell me, won't you?)

Oh, and I'd just like to add a quick plug for Gray Bat -- a resource for speculative writers. I've been finding their daily homework assignments very helpful lately.

The Deluge Device has slowed down a little, but he's still at it.

Go Ja-son! Go Ja-son! Go Ja-son!

No.

Bugger that. That last post was super-weak. I blame the cocktail of 'flu remedies.

I will let it stand, but I am not quitting. Even if you are all against me. I don't care. You can all bite me, coz I'm staying here.

And I'm staying hateful.

Blecch.

No proper updates over the last few days. The bug I came down with on Tuesday turned out to be a bit more serious than I thought. I went into work on Wednesday, which was really clever, because the next day I was even worse. I'm starting to pull out of it now. (I hope.)

What all this means, of course, is that I'm only going to get a single day's pay for the whole of last week: about thirty-five quid. Yippee skip.

I'm sick of this. I'm really sick of this. I'm sick of the fact that after I've worked and fought to make something of myself I'm still here, in this lousy job, in this lousy life. I'm sick of being stuck here and watching the bastards that sail past me with all the rewards, everything I've never had, everything I'll never get.

I mean, there has to be a reason I'm still in this mess, right? You have a little talent, you work hard, you make it. Or you get something, anything. So it must be me. It must be. I'm not good enough, or persistant enough, or whatever.

I finished another story a couple of nights back. I've been trying to get enough enthusiasm together to send it off and I can't. I just don't care anymore. I mean, what was I thinking? People like me, we don't make it. Nobody's interested in what a half-bright chick with a demi-education and a comedy medical condition has to say.

Arm Wrestling Freud

Does what it says on the tin.

(From B3TA)

Go here! The Deluge Device is a blog owned by Jason Louv. Saith he, on the Barbelith Underground:

I've been going into hyper blog-mode, posting every couple of hours with masses of spontaneously generated theory and commentary, trying to arrive at some kind of Statement of My Generation.

Go check it out, and check it out, and check it out again! My aim is to do the digital version of Harlan Ellison writing a story in a shop window and continually sticking typewritten pages up on the glass.

Stream-of-conciousness rocks.

Potential babies.

My friend R. had a miscarriage awhile back. She told me something about it. I asked if I could tell you guys. She said yes.

R. was in the third month of her pregnancy when an ultrasound scan revealed that the fetus was dead. It was about two months old, meaning that she had been carrying a dead baby inside her for a month.

Like a lot of pregnancies it was unplanned, but not unwanted. R is in a relationship and her circumstances are such that a baby would cause radical upheaval, but not disaster. She adjusted to the idea and announced her pregnancy, the news being greeted with approval and enthusiasm by her family and peers. She described to me a sense of having attained something important in the eyes of society, of having passed through a vital rite of passage. She was to become A Mother.

When she miscarried, the support somehow dried up.

Miscarriage is so common that the medical profession generally doesn't investigate the cause until the woman has lost her third baby. The most conservative estimates have about one in every five Western women miscarrying at some point in their reproductive lives, whilst others suggest that one in four might be nearer the mark. Superficially the figures suggest a rise in recent years, but any number of factors might affect the number of reported miscarriages, most notably the increased availability and accuracy of pregnancy testing.

Some miscarriages are heralded by bleeding or other symptoms, while some occur so early in the pregnacy that they might be mistaken for a heavy period. The fetus may have been dead for a considerable amount of time. Sometimes there's a discernable cause, but mostly there isn't; the embryo may not be viable, or it might not have implanted properly in the womb lining. It's complicated, and there is more myth floating around than there is truth. Society at present tends to blame the woman: there's an assumption that she must have dome something wrong. There seems to be an ever-expanding list of things that an expectant mother can do wrong.

The experience can be devastating, whatever the mother's age, however many children she already has. For R., the whole thing was compounded by the lack of empathy shown by many of the people who she turned to for emotional support. The way she tells it, she saw the miscarriage as a lost child but her friends saw it as a non-event. What was she grieving for, exactly?

I think this is partly down to the fact that a lot of women from R.'s generation (which is also mine) take a strangely black-and-white view of pregnancy. If we're okay with the concept of a woman aborting a three-month fetus, why should we respond to a miscarriage occuring at a similar stage in pregnancy as the loss of a baby?

Intent, my friends. It's all about intent. R. intended that her pregnancy should go to term. She intended to have a baby, to become a mother, that her potential baby should become actual.

We live in an age where a lot of absolutes, a lot of distinctions, are disappearing. Uncertainty and moral confusion are the order of the day, and nowhere do we see this more clearly than in the matter of pregnancy. Technology has advanced to the point where one can abort a fetus almost as old as the youngest viable premature baby. We have to stop looking to the external for all our definitions, and start to create our own. We have to realise that we can support a woman who ends her pregnancy by choice, and yet still have a place for the grief felt by R.

Back on form.

Been a bit shaky recently, but I had a great time last night writing a little yarn on the laptop; one of those times when you're in the zone and everything just falls into place. I hope to finish it today or tomorrow, and then punt it out this coming week. So, yeah. Good. And my breathing/throat problems seem to be lifting, so I will be able to start singing again. w00t! Time to dig out the 4-track!

Also I've decided to become a superhero. I'm going to develop psionic powers and do cool stuff with 'em.

What Was Your PastLife?

A NUN?! Was I bollocks.

Yippeee!

I'm going to the TG tonight! And some of my friends are coming! And I'm going to go and buy accessories, or make accessories, or something! Yayyyy!

The theme appears to be medical. Hmmm....

From Betty Woo (currently woozilla!)'s LiveJournal

"I think the Gothic Short Bus stopped here tonight."

I have got to remember that one.

Can you see my sidebar?

Apparently some folk with Netscape 6 are having probs viewing this page. If it looks odd to you, would you be a love and email me? Ta.

Oh, yeah...

For those of you messed up in the head enough to care: my putative novel is a fantasy yarn, but with this, like, rilly rilly feminist angle, yeah? It's got this rilly rilly strong female lead. She won't let you touch her tits with your claw unless you give her a magic sword first. So there.

PRISON STYLE!!!!

I just like to say "prison style".

The oncoming train

I have got to stop messing about and get some serious writing done. Partly this is due to the fact that if I don't I'm going to rupture something, but I have to confess that a lot of my current drive is down to the fact that I cannot carry on in my current existance much longer before I start wearing my knickers on my head and talking to a luminous orange pixie called Mildred.

I know, I know-- I shouldn't complain so much. It could be (and has been) a hell of a lot worse. But, dear morons, I spent seven-and-three-quarter hours today in an underventilated work space with not enough chairs, putting bloody silver pendants onto bloody plastic cards. I must have done about five thousand of those suckers. And then there's the flat; I like it here, but the place is falling down around my ears. The latest disaster is the bathroom ceiling: it's riddled with dry rot and will need to be ripped out and replaced. I mean, there is scaffolding in my bathroom that is holding up the ceiling.

This unnerves me somewhat.

Typical of these Victorian terraces-- oh, sure, they look picturesque, but the renovation is a nightmare. My landlord is a great bloke but he gets all the repairs done on the cheap, which means that nothing ever stays repaired for long. I don't know what the hell's going to happen if me and Mandy have to vacate while the work's being done. I'm just sick to death of the cheap rented places that I've lived in ever since I left home. I'm sick of the insecurity, I'm sick of the half-baked repair work, I'm sick of it all.

It's time I got myself dug in behind the keyboard to get some serious work done. I'm still tweaking a couple of articles that have, to all intents and purposes, been finished for weeks-- I just can't bear to stop fiddling with them and punt them out. That kind of thing has to stop. On the plus side, I finally bit the bullet and started work on a novel that I've been laying groundwork for over the last few months. It's going to be hard work, but potentially it is a very strong story.

Since all my other avenues have been cut off, I must get my writing career underway. I must get out of this life, or at least have some hope that I might get out of it one day. I need a to see a light at the end of this tunnel. Even an orange one called Mildred.

The Surrealist Link

Blode 5: Toad Turmoil!

Blode and the toads. Rock.

Figgy Rolls.

21st Century Fig Fest

So you like figgy rolls, yes? But deep within your being you sense that there may be unexplored regions of figgyness, hitherto undreampt of combinations of pastry and fig? Wonder no more, for the good folk of nicecupofteaandasitdown.com have sought out new figilizations, and boldly gone where no interweb site has gone before (well, France anyway ). Figtastic!

Asda! Sainsbury's! Jacobs! Figolu! Newton! Crawfords! Figgy rolls, head to head. Who shall triumph as the most figolicious?

No!

FFS, Mordant, don't click on that link. You've just seen a lengthy quote from the site, and it's obviously going to more of the same homophobic, misogynistic, all-around-bigoted drooling from beginning to end.

Don't click on the link. You know the site is just going to piss you off, make your blood boil for hours afterwards. Go and look at B3TA, or something. They will have some funny kittens.

Don't click on the link.

Profitable Doctrines in God's Word.

GODDAMMIT! You clicked the link! Now you're going to be in a perfectly foul mood all day.

Oh, for God's sake.

Are you guys back again? How many times do I have to tell you: Stop reading this site. Stop it. Now. Point the mousey pointer at one of the links on the sidebar; a news resource, perhaps, or the New Scientist. For crying out loud, go anywhere-- just elevate your sights! Inform yourselves! I know, it's hard work at first: reading stuff that actually forces you to engage your brain, rather than allowing you to soak up the words without ever actually having to think too hard about what they mean, but it'll be worth it in the long run. Maybe you might actually learn something. Maybe you might just find yourself questioning some of those cherished prejudices that you clasp to your bosom like wrinkly grey goblin fetuses. Maybe you'll be inspired by new and mindbending concepts, your jaded soul refreshed by the glory and granduer of the Universe.

I notice you're still here.

BBC title sequences and theme tunes

Oh, joy! Much joy! nostalgia-a-go-go.

(Thankyou, plasticbag.)

Godzilla v Davezilla: When Copywrite Holders Attack

(From the Barbelith Underground, via fridgemagnet, via Tony.)

Hence the temporary namechange, folks. Go now and do ye likewise.

Hey... what's that noise in the distance?
Uh, oh. Sounds like it's coming this way...
Sounds like...
Sounds like....

GIANT FOOTSTEPS!


(Yeah, why not get the Blue Oyster Cult's lawyers on my case while I'm at it?)

ThinkGeek :: Shower Shock Caffeinated Soap

According to the blurb, this is "a gently envigorating soap" (sic). You absorb the caffine through your skin. It smells of peppermint, too.

Now you know what to buy me next Christmas, don't you?

Column

Look, it's quite simple. I write this crap all the time anyway. For money, I will write more of it, only better. Then you get to put it in your paper/magazine. Then people read it.

GIVE ME A COLUMN. NOW.

S.N.A.F.U.

Okay, the bad news is that I had a fit this morning and had to miss work. First time in ages that's happened. I don't think it's very significant-- I've come down with a rather nasty bug and my sleep patterns have been odd, which probably accounts for it. The good news is that I didn't lose the booking, which would have sucked.

Meant to finish polishing my housing article today, but I was too tired and out of it. I'll definately do it tomoz. Maybe google up the figures I need in the morning, make a few corrections over lunch, type the sucker up when I get home... Yeah, that sounds doable. Then I'll FINALLY have something meaty I can sling out to prospective employers.

Things have been a little dry on the story front for some reason. Well, actually I do know the reason, but I don't like fessing up to it: my creative side is suffering because I've been a bad wee chaoette, and I've been letting my magick homework pile up a bit. No psyballs for a few days, and I've been neglecting my dream diary. This must and shall be rectified.

I plan to start configuring a new sub-personality soon, a sort of hero figure. I'll be needing it over the next few months.

"Yes, we need a 'regime change' in this rogue state..."


(Via Plasticbag.)

Tales of the Plush Cthulhu

(Spirited away in the loathsome light of a gibbous moon from the blasphemous depths ofYou May Like This.)

Weblogger In "Having a Social Life" Shock

Had a fairly hectic weekend-- pubbing and clubbing on Fri. with a Mandy and a few of my mukkers, then boozing on Sun. at fridgemagnet's farewell bash, bitchiekittie having lured him Stateside with her feminine wiles. I wish them both well. (No, I'm not going soft-- I still hate you.)

I'd recovered enough to start my new temp booking today. I spent the entire day putting earrings in ickle pickle plakky bags, then put stickers on the front. All day. Earrings. Bags. Stickers. 9 to 5:30.

Still ain't got that regular column; an oversight, I'm sure, which will be rectified in due course. The Grauniad people must have been too busy scoring to contact me.

To those of you who've emailed me with tip-offs about writing gigs: Thanks. 'Preciated.

Everyone else: Gizza job?

New weebl and bob thingy! w00t!

(Apparently the chap that does these has been hired to make animations for MTV, which is jolly nice.)

From B3ta: Little dogs in kimonos.

I fear them.

WARNING:

*****Major gross-out ahead.****** *****Major gross-out ahead.****** *****Major gross-out ahead.******


EURRRRRGHHHH! Jesus H. Christ in an all-male jaccuzi, what a revolting morning I've had. I got booked in to work a morning shift cleaning up at that bail hostel, right? And everything was going pretty smoothly, until I got to the bathrooms on the third floor.

Basically: Somebody had a bit of a dicky tummy last night and kind of Jackson Pollocked one of the loos. Then they... then they nothing.

They just left it.

To dry.

Into concrete.

I mean, I'm starting a nice clean packing job on Monday; somehow that made it worse.You know in actiony-military type films there's always this bit where the crack team of marines is mired deep in enemy territory, with aliens or robots or foriegn johnnies encroaching on all sides? And one bloke always goes off into one about how close he is to the end of his tour of duty? It was sort of like that. I'm standing there clutching a bog-brush in my rubber-gloved hands and sobbing: "Fourteen days and a wakeup, man! Fourteen days and a wakeup!"

It took me about a quarter of an hour and half a litre of Mr. Shifter to get rid of it. I'm going to start a campaign for cleaners to be issued with flamethrowers, or possibly tactical nukes.

Look, before you start: I know that there are worse jobs in Britain, okay? There are grosser jobs, there are more dangerous jobs, there are jobs that are more poorly paid. I acknowledge this. I plan to offset my whining soon by writing a post or two on the topic of Jobs That Suck Worse Than Mine.

But I still say I'm not getting paid enough to scrape diahrroea pebbledash off of toilets.

Metal Song Title Generator

(From Barbelith.)

"As a dog returneth..."

I'm starting a new booking on Monday. An... ongoing booking. For me, an Ongoing Booking is like the Holy Grail. I call them permatemp jobs: technically temporary, but the boss is likely to need you for the foreseeable future and can't be bothered to recruit someone new. The cherry on the cake is that I know the client, a small but thriving jewellery importer in need of packers. I spent most of last summer with them and they're pretty cool. My agency told me that they asked for me by name, would you believe.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: Here's a company that wants somebody to stuff toerings in boxes all day, a job which has no requirements beyond a pair of opposable thumbs, and yet they ask for a specific person? If you're thinking that, then you'd suck at doing this job. First off: they need someone who won't assume that "boring" is the same as "unimportant." Second off: They need someone who understands that if you're on a production line, 9:00 am means 9:00 am and not any old time before lunch. Third off: they need someone who isn't stupid enough to try and half-inch the product.

I mean. Seriously.

Here's a simple maths quiz: you're packing cheap little mass-produced silver earring sets that cost about 3p a pair wholesale. You get paid £5 an hour. Given that you will be dismissed without references and very probably arrested if you try to nick anything, how is it ever going to be worth trying to smuggle a couple of earrings past the guy with the metal-detector? Choose one of the following:

A) It's not worth it, stupid. Now pass me another roll of barcode stickers.
b) I don't like this job much, but I'd rather just quit and look for something else than get fired over a few penn'orth of costume jewellery.
?%!) mE Am BizZarrO woRLd rONniE bIgGS! Me aM eAT pAinT! sEll sHIny eARiNgs! BuY moRe PaInT! paINt gOooOd!

So having established that I can do this look-ma-no-brains job without screwing it up, why doesn't the client just cut out the middleman and hire me directly, on a casual basis? Why go through the agency?

Because of the introduction fee. The introduction fee is a sum of money that the client is contractually obliged to pay the agency if they hire someone who's been sent to them by that agency, within a set amount of time (usually 2-3 years). The terms vary between agencies but generally a client is looking at some multiple of the temp's hourly rate. In many cases the minimum fee starts at around £1000 (even for opposable-thumboids like moi). One agency I worked for charged £2000, minimum. This fee means that no matter how hard you work for a client, they'll probably never hire you as a permanent member of staff.

At present, I don't care-- I'm not stopping here anyway, so this deal suits me just fine. When I first moved to London it was different; like many others I wanted nothing more than a permanent job. The phrase "good chance of going perm!" is dangled in front of temps' noses all the time. It's the mechanical hare that they chase after, the inducement to put up with all manner of lousy conditions and rotten behaviour. I'm here to tell you that nine times out of eight, "good chance of going perm!" is a great big lie. Get in early, leave late, take work home, work a twelve hour day for eight hour's pay, none of that matters. If your client can find someone to do what they think you do without coughing up an extra £1000, then they'll hire that person, not you. End of story.

Understand: I'm not saying all this like it's the worst thing that could ever happen to a person. I'm just saying. That's all.

That whole "Blogging = Revolution in Personal Publishing™" thing: Why it's tosh.

Revolution, my infected toenails. How is this a revolution? What exactly is being achieved here? Sure, there's now more opportunity for people to create quality reportage, but are you reading the Weblogs of Righteousness? Are you checking the blogs that have current events, insightful comment, charm, a desire to inform or at least entertain? Are you reading about a friend or family member? No, you're hanging round the grotty pits of weblogging, rubbernecking, waiting to see what the freaks'll do next. Yes, you are. Stop interrupting and face it.

Look! Will you look at this? I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to spring one of those horribly lucid oh-god-I'm-a-tiny-fragment-of-dirt-floating-in-a-void-of-futility moments on your sorry little mind.

You are reading the online journal of an asthmatic, sporadically-employed, shaven-headed, epileptic, Goth cleaner. Picture me wheezing round a gobfull of Monster Munch, picking flakes of black nail-varnish from my manky cuticles; picture me pouring another cheap vodka and generic orange squash to wash down the allergy meds; picture me guffawing at the latest Cruel Site of the Day. And then see yourself, actually sitting in front of your VDU, reading what that person has written.

You have contrived to be sadder than a Goth. You're like, ultra-sad. You're so sad that only dogs can hear it. They're going to harness your sadness as a weapon of mass-destruction.

No, you're not being clever and ironic. No, don't try and deconstruct it. You're not fooling anyone, least of all yourself. Just sit there and let the unutterable pointless lameness of what you're doing seep into your brain until you fall, sobbing and retching, to the floor.

Fotamecus: The Movie!

(Half-inched from betty woo.)

All right, then.

Here! Here's your damned update, you pack of ravening jackals! I hope it chokes you.

I've spent the last few days trying (and mostly failing) to find work. Got a qualification in electronics? You've got two choices: move to Germany or pick up a mop. God help me, I actually found myself reading ads for the Army in a receptive, speculative frame of mind.

In the two weeks since my last booking finished, I have had four (4) hours' work: cleaning, in a bail hostel. And if any of you middle-class superplonk socialists plan to start telling me how there's no shame in honest labour and quoting bits of Fight Club, you'd better have spent at least a few hours of your life scrubbing junkie c**p off of bog seats or batting away the flies as you scrape four inches of green hairy take-away food out of someone else's bin.

That they have had in their room.

Next to their bed.

For weeks on end.

In the middle of summer.

It's not that I don't appreciate the comparative advantages afforded by my decadent Western background, it's just that I'd quite like a job that didn't involve the continual suppression of my gag reflex.

Anyway... the agency have found me work for Monday. I don't know what it is, I don't know how much it pays, and I'm not sure of the hours. I didn't even ask; I just took it. Whatever. I mean, who cares, right? There's only one thing I'm okay at (electronics) and there's only one thing I'm really good at (writing); and apparently you can't get paid for those. Rent's due in a couple of weeks, so pass the bog-brush.

Yeeeeeeeees!

(Via Barbelith.)

Still jobless.

My agency had some litter-picking work going but you needed to supply your own steel toe-capped boots. I do not own any steel toe-capped boots, nor can I afford to buy any. (My boyfriend would like to imagine that I possess steel toe-capped boots, and indeed gets quite disappointed when I tell him that I don't.)

"Aha!" you cry. "But under current legislation, your employer must provide you with any necessary proctive gear! They must render unto you a pair of steel toe-capped boots, or face the consequences!"

But I am not an employee, am I? I'm a temp. According to my contract, which is a standard document that varies little from agency to agency, I am self-employed. Therefore all protective kit is my problem, not the client's. Oh, the joys of a flexible labour market!

DIRK, meanwhile, is a sort of auto-po-playing device, which I found on Interconnected. It explores the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, and is strangely soothing.