Carrots.

Things are looking increasingly shaky. The TEFL is the most recent "looking increasingly shaky" thing. Examining the timetables of all the TEFL places in Barcelona, I find that if I don't get on a course, like, NOW, I shall have to wait till August. If we are leaving sunny Spain, I shall need August to pack and generally sort stuff out, and therefore I may not fill August up with TEFLing. So I have to do the TEFL now, immediately, or not at all. Arrrgh. All is not yet lost, but all is looking a bit "had it here a minute ago, now where did I put it"-ish.

There is also the little matter of the interview process. I have a head start there because I am so articulate, so suave, so magnetically attractive that--oh hang on, that was in that dream I had on Wednesday, the one with the tiny pink bicycles and the singing carrots. But I remain upbeat and optimistic. Or at least, some of me does. The rest of me is looking on glumly, with jaundiced eye, folded arms and doing-that-thing-like-backwards-whistling-lips.

Upbeat, optimistic me: I can do it. It's just one little interview.
Rest of me: Suuuuuurrrre you can.
UOM: No, look, if I talk up the writing as evidence of my Love of Language--
ROM: Your writing is evidence of very little beyond a worrying fixation with headless sex robots and your deep desire to have a job with no co-workers.
UOM: Sure, but I won't tell them that. The interview is only 20 mins. I can fake being a people person for 20 mins.
ROM: You sure?
UOM: Yeppers.
ROM: Sure you're sure?
UOM: Sure I'm sure!
ROM: Twenty whole big fat 60-seconds-each minutes? Are you sure you can do it? Are you sure that, 17 mins. into the interview, you won't suddenly stand on the chair, only not really standing, more like crouching, poking the interviewer with a stick and going "VROOOOOOOOON!"?
UOM: Hey! That only happened once.
ROM: *Looks at UOM with tilty head and squinchy eyes*
UOM: *Stares at shoes, mumbles* Maybe twice. Anyway, I think it's a telephone interview.
ROM: It's your only hope.
UOM: Maybe I could teach some carrots to sing.

Fun fun fun in the sun sun sun.

Okay, so it looks like I've blagged a free holiday to the South of France. Nyyyah! Theremin circuit is going well except for bloody buggering bastarding filter grrr. Not going to buy parts till I get back from Fr. now anyways, tho' I may pop into town for a couple of 2300 millicandela LEDs.

Staying in Spain is now in doubt. I really thought we would be staying on, but things haven't quite gone according to plan, so we'll probably be back in the UK come autumn. Ho, hum. Think I may bite the bullet and squeeze in a quick TEFL before then; courses are a mite cheaper here, and entry requirments less harsh.

Just a few links I want to keep handy.

Theremin World
Maxie's pages: theremin tech articles
Thereminvox.com Technical Reference Links

The more I look at this the more do-able it seems. Most of the circuit design is stuff I've covered already; I need to brush up on filters, but I was going to do that anyway. This is cool. I get to combine two projects, the "sell stuff on eBay" project and the "revise electronics" project, into one. Idly toying with the idea of a small, battery powered toy-type model...

More pondering...

Selling stuff on eBay, part II.

Right. Stuff I could sell on eBay:

Theremins. Sure, some theremins go for plentymuch money, but there's theremins and there's theremins. There's ickle kiddy science-project type theremins, and then there's amazingly complicated theremins that have loads of whistles and bells. Now, one could buy in a few kits and build from those, but that requires a little outlay: most of the kits I've seen go for between 40 and 50 quid. Now, I've looked at the parts lists and frankly they're ripping the mick; most of them shouldn't cost more than 15. Which leaves building from scratch. However, before I rush out to the local electronic hobby shops, I need a circuit. All the circuit diagrams I have seen online seem to be copyrighted, so it's reasonably illegal (and dashed unsporting) to make and sell theremins constructed soley from those diagrams. I posess enough knowhow to do some reverse-engineering and thus create my own original circuit, but this will be time-consuming.

(A pared-down baby theremin with only pitch control and no volume is another possibility. I can design a Wein bridge oscillator without moving my brain; all I'd need to do is replace one of the variable capacitors with a suitable antenna. Then there's just the filter to get shot of any r.f. muck, bung on a speaker and away we go. Woudn't really be a musical instrument as such, but I bet half the people who buy these things don't want to play them. They just want to put them on the sideboard next to their Hulk lunchboxes and lava-lamps and go "look everyone, a theremin! WooIIIEEEooOOOoooIIIeeee!" The other advantage to this is that I already have most of the componants floating around somewhere, including a shedload of op-amps which I really ought to use up.)

Hacked torches that shine brighter than everyone else's torches so you get the best seat on the alien spacecraft and they let you sit up front instead of having to ride in the back and get probed and stuff: Still costing the parts. But if I decide to go for it, there's my sales pitch.

Other stuff with LEDs: Like, I dunno, wands and stuff. A wand with an LED on the end would rock.

Beadwork: Hmm. Not sure I'll get much interest. My stuff is nice, but is it supernice enough to attract a price which will compensate me for work, parts and postage? Maybe sell ensembles, that way I could charge more but incur lower overall shipping costs.

Dolls: Again, hmmm. Now, I like my dolls, I think they're cool, but when you get right down to it they're still just 20c Barbie knockoffs that I took a craft-knife to. Not sure how happy the Lucky Bidder is going to be with that. I certainly didn't sell any fly-pitching.

Other toys: Slightly higher-pitched hmmm. I'm quite good at making ugly little felt critters with pipe-cleaners inside. Now, you wouldn't think people would buy many ugly little felt critters with pipecleaners inside but it turns out that if you stick a lot of googly-eyes on them, and feathers, and maybe some porcupine quills or something, and give them a name and make up some stupid story about them, where they came from and everything, people will pay actual money for that. But only on the internet.

So, in conclusion: I need pipecleaners and super-bright LEDs.

Anyhow.

I didn't make it to Sitges this weekend coz it pissed down, but I did see the new H*rry P*tt*r flick. Nice hippogriff.

I give up.

I'm going to make theremins and sell them on eBay. grant b. said I could.

Been thinking of seriously getting into selling stuff on eBay, really stupid stuff, shit nobody would ever want but giving it a backstory that will make people buy it. This is completely amoral, of course, but wotthehell. My only concern is that some lucky bidder might sober up to find ze's the proud posessor of an anomolous haunted fossil made from Pla-Doh and decide to come round and do me an injury. I should just do it. I have a huge wobbly bunch of ideas, and I should just do it.

Hey, look at this torch I saw in Nerdular Nerdance. (Actually I saw it on BoingBoing first but whatever.) They suggest three 2300-millicandela LEDs which might be all right if you had just a little penlight... or one of those keychain torches... and you were a complete and total WIMP. I mean, come on! You could get one of those heeeeeUUUUGE torches, the boxy kind with a handle on the top, and go to town. I bet you could get 150 2300-millicandela LEDs in the reflector of one of those! Aliens would be QUEUEING UP to abduct me if I had a torch with 150+ 2300-millicandela LEDs in the reflector. If I wasn't going to Sitges tomorrow I'd totally be shopping for 2300-millicandela LEDs. However, I feel I have been sadly neglecting my "slouching around on the beach doing fuckall" duties. My people need me.

Places which are not here.

Mmmmmm, Fafblog. It cheers me as the shadows close in, the Lack of Toast and Kettles* grips my heart in an icy claw of misery and the whiff of 23p a packet biscuits grows ever stronger in my general vicinity.

Yes, I realise there are other things to blog about besides my lack of work--wars, torture memos, conveniently dead former Presidents, ect--but I am Special and Important, and I have people to do these things.


*That might make a good picture, you know. Something like Ernst's Europe after the Rain**.

**One Rain. Just one. I am right about this. You are wrong.

Gahhh.

Rejected! Rejected AGAIN! Well, not exactly rejected, but timed out on a couple of submissions ("after six weeks assume we've binned yr drivel and submit it elsewhere, loser.") And actually properly rejected by a youth hostel, via email.

This is just so unfair. You know what'll happen if I don't get a job soon? I'll start to smell of cheap biscuits, that's what! The unmistakable aroma of 23p a packet Nice will be foisted upon me by a cruel, uncaring fate.

On the upside, all this has done wonders for my Spanish comprehension. Think I might hit the Goth bars (goth bars goth bars goth bars) next, where my baldy head will attract less opprobrium. Doubt much will come of it; they either want huge scary muscly blokes who can deter trouble, or itty-bitty lil gothettes who can fit into a size ZERO of PVC dresses. I hate getting turned down for jobs on the grounds of insufficient Gothness. It hurts my feelings.

Edit: I worked out the other day that since coming here I must have handed out approximately 400 CVs, not counting other kinds of application like phone calls, emails ect. I have made roughly 50-60 story subs., of which 2 were purchased, netting me a grand total of £30.

Someone just shoot me, okay?

Pondering...

Did some more work on the red book. Odd, very odd... I was getting different layers of communication; first, the words and phrases the popped into my head, then what the pen wrote on the page. This beastie seems to have superglued the Caps Lock in place and has a blind spot for vowels.

It was nasty stuff, very ugly and threatening; precisely what I expected. But behind it, I got the sense of something small, weak, needy, like a kid. A mean, hungry, angry, messed-up vicious little kid, a kid who's ready to shiv you for glue money--but still and all, a kid. You know, it may be that my perception of this excercise has been all bassackwards. Maybe this isn't a binding at all. Maybe it's a rescue mission.

The guides warn caution, however, and I shall heed them. Could be that this persona is just another scam.

Felt good afterwards, tho'. Like when you've been feverish and the fever breaks, or when you pull out of a really nasty migrane, or when you've suffered through a particularly harsh period cramp and you get a breather. Wobbly but cleansed. This is something I need to do.

Weekend

Had an excellent, and very cheap, weekend. Lurid's work organised a jaunt to Núria; it was heaven. Spent the day rampaging around in the mountains with my digicam (pix here). Came back with strained muscles and a sunburnt head but it was sooo worth it.

Saw loads of Nice Flowers, including gentians. Went ape over gentians because they were so ridiculously, unfiesibly blue. I mean, really blue. Think of a really blue thing, like the bluest blue thing you've ever seen in your life--that's just peanuts compared to gentians. Practically mauve, your blue thing is. Your blue thing is PWNED by GENTIANS. Also saw some marsh-marigolds which cheered me up no end, coz they're going a bit rare back home. And goats. I like goats. And I had a ride on the cable-cars.

More work.

Yes, I am obsessed with jobhunting right now. I am an obsessive person. ("No, rrrreally?" I hear you cry.)

I've put requests for magickal aid in this regard elsewhere, so I may as well throw off all pretence of shame and post one here. This has gone beyond a joke.

I know I should try to free my mind from this one tiny track, because I´m getting into serious Lust For Result(TM) territory. Trouble is, the longer this goes on the harder it is to put it from my thoughts and focus on other projects.

I feel like I'm being poked away from conventional employment, and have been thus poked for some time. Which is all well and good, but whatever is doing the poking (spooky perverts, fate, grotty little corners of my own mind, etc) has neglected to supply any hints as to what I should be doing instead. I feel like I´ve stepped off the cliff and now I'm haning in midair, waiting for my Acme Rocket Pack to kick in... or for the rabbit to hand me an anvil. Not falling; not flying. Just hanging around.

"Nada para chicas."

That's what I got told yesterday, during my afternoon's temp agency bothering. What the...? What the hell do you mean, "Nothing for girls?" For one thing, I'm not a 'girl' anymore--I'm a grey-haired 30-year-old. For another... Goddammit, I have experience of "male" jobs, like street-sweeping, portering and light repairs. It's on my CV! It's on the form you made me fill in when I signed up! Unless a person's going to be carting iron girders around or something, it doesn't bloody matter. Stupid people. I hate temp agencies.

They stand between me and TOAST. They shall fall. I'm just going to turn up every other day until they give me a job out of sheer desperation.

Frikkin' frakkin' "Nothing for girls" grummble grumbler grrrr.

Blackmail.

Nope, sorry, still haven't posted that entry. Why? I'll tell you why. I'm holding it HOSTAGE, that's why! Spooky green book people don't get blogged anymore until they either help me find a goddamn job or sell some of my stories or otherwise provide me with money! HAH!

(PS: no sneaky bumping off relatives so I get the insurance, oh the guilt, oh the irony. That gag's got whiskers on it.)



I'm kidding. I'll post the entry soon.

However, this is getting a bit ridiculous. I have now been sans gainful employment for over a year, and it's depressing me. There are things I would buy, like Photoshop and webspace and socks and a kettle and a toaster.

It's true. Not only do I have No Job, but I have no kettle. They don't like kettles in Spain, they all drink shedloads of coffee made in espresso pots. I have to use the metal jug thing for boiling up milk if I want a cup of tea; worse still, should I wish to make more than one mug of tea--say for myself and Mr Adjective Noun and any friends who may happen to drop by-- I needs must use the saucepan, which for some reason creates a nasty scummy foam on top of the tea. And not only do I have No Job and no kettle, I have no toaster. And since there's not a proper cooker in my flat, just a hot-plate, this means that I have no toast.

Ever.

No. Toast.

Yes, that's right. Laugh. Go ahead! Mock my miserable toastless state. Make merry over the SHATTERED RUIN that is my non-heated-bread-product-having life. One day, I will show you all. I will get a job! And I will get a kettle and a toaster! And as God is my witness, I will never go toastless again!

Books.

Got a small download for the green book last night; will post it tonight, hopefully.

Haven't had an opportunity to do anymore voice work, but have stocked up on tapes. Privacy is a bit of an issue so I'm looking for cheap recording space. I may attempt to use my bass guitar as an aid in shifting my consciousness, which would also help cover up the mad chanting.

Haven't done anything else with the red book. I'm afraid of it.

Random story generators.

The Flat Earth Games site no longer seems to have a random story generator, so I'm looking for new ones. They make for stupid stories, but they're great for sparking ideas.

A genre-less idea generator.

Two random generators. One does a short plot summary, the other a full and ludicrous yarn.

Donde es la pasta?

I still don't have a job.

This irks me.

I've really ramped up my efforts, too: cold-calling bars, shops and caffs, punting out CVs to hostels and factories, signing up with agencies, leaning on said agencies, checking job boards and newspapers obsessively, putting up ads... nothing.

This is weird. I'm inclined to put it down to some sort of magickal interference from forces. I just wish I knew what I was supposed to be doing instead. I tried alternatives to conventional employment. I tried all sorts of stuff all last year. I'm still trying.

It isn't working. I can't sell stuff I make because I have no (legal) outlet. I can't set up a reiki practice because I have nowhere to work from, no money to rent a venue or buy the equipment I need (like a massage table and stuff). I'm submitting enough short stories to sink a battleship, but I'm just not getting any sales (at least, not at pro rates). It isn't working, and neither am I.

Help me out here, spooky perverts. Throw me a bone, eh? A person can't keep on just floundering around in the fog like this. You're supposed to be all guideful and arcane-knowledge-having; how about chucking a clue my way?

Bloody disembodied weirdos. No commonsense, that's your problem.

On the selling stuff topic: I've decided to have a serious stab at making stuff to sell on eBay. Talismanic bits and bobs, spooky pictures, that sort of thing. I need to look into shipping and stuff, see how expensive it'll be, whether to sell overseas or stick to Spain. The practicalites. You know.

Red Book.

Okay, so having got the red book all fixed up I couldn't really make any more excuses, so I did my first entry last night. It wasn't up to much because I was so rattled by the whole thing, I couldn't tune out my thoughs and let the other voice take over.

I began by writing the phrase that cropped up last year, when the entity in question tried to hijack a communication I was having with my guides: "Blood of the lost, blood of the lost land." After a couple of repetitions, my pen wandered off and the communication kicked in. I got a few paragraphs of "I am POWER, I am HUNGER," ect ect chiz moan drone.

I asked the entity in question why, if it was so arse-kickingly hard, it was reduced to hanging around inside my noggin and generating thought intrusions, whereupon it ceased communication and sulked. Recieved a communication from the guides shortly afterwards, to the effect that a human mind is actually a pretty big place, very inviting territory for a wandering evil entity of no fixed abode. The impression I got was that these critters, whatever they are, don't actually realise that what they percieve within the mind isn't really real, but memory, imagination, dreams. They poke you in the right place (shame, guilt, misery), generate a pain response, and to them it's as if they've unleashed hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunami! Their whole world (your mind) shakes! What a blast! What power!

Meanwhile, back at the reality ranch, they may have persuaded you to mutter "bollocks" under your breath, if they're lucky.

I'm pleased to have discovered that this little beast is responsible for most, if not all, of my thought intrusions. I mean, this has been going on as long as I can recall.

A tentative analysis...

If we may temporarily adopt, for the sake of argument, a model which includes the existance of spirits having objective reality, and psychic attack as also having objective reality, we can look at the phenomenon thus:

Assume thought intrusions = a form of psychic attack. The very fact that the intrusions commenced at such a young age (around 2 1/2 years, IIRC) would seem to argue against an attack by a living individual. (No motivation for putting so much effort into a working.) Alternative: "Obsession", the action of a spirit attempting to access or influence the world, to express itself, through a living person via that person's thought processes. Since the entity would be searching for an easy mind to break into and poke around in, a small child becomes a desirable target. According to many versions of this model, such an entity may have very skewed perceptions, possibly unaware of what it is doing and of the consequences of its actions.

Usefulness of Red Book project:

Accepting the above model to be true implies that a problem exists requiring a solution. Project offers a solution.

Assuming the above model to be false (subjective), the project offers possible theraputic value. Therefore it is reasonable to proceed with the project, whilst monitoring its impact, positive and negative. If it becomes too time-consuming or otherwise intrusive, it must be abandoned.


I could be completely off about all this, of course, but my instinct is that I'm onto something. Really must maintain good contact with my guides while all this is going on. I may well need their help.

Under construction.

This new identity I will be inhabiting for the purposes of progressing in my magickal and creative work (see here) is taking longer to construct than I anticipated. I think you'll like her when she's done, though.

More magick: Have created the Red Book wherein I am to take dictation from an entity rather less kindly than M-L and R-M-L. Like them, its nature is unknown to me (Spirit? Ghost? Figment of my imagination?); unlike them, it is not a well-intentioned friend, or ally. It is the voice that chokes my voice, the thing that freezes me in my tracks and will not let me be, the thing that chases me through my dreams. I mean to fight it and bind it.

Couldn't find a red book with red pages, so had to purchace a book with red covers and dye the paper with ink. The result is appealing: blotchy, organic. It should be in interesting artifact if nothing else. The thought of actually starting it gives me the wiggins, but start it I must. I want my head back. The guides offer me a lot of protection; or rather, they offer me aid in protecting myself.

The guides refer to the entity's words as "the voice of your proof." In other words, by communicating with it I will see some concrete evidence that this aspect of my life isn't just a fantasy or a delusion. This could be big.

Toothless slurs.

Forget when or where I read it, but during some net-squabble or other about some damn thing (I was not involved personally, you understand) this phrase appeared: "the brits are all limeys anyway." I sat there and blinked a few times, trying to work out what they were on about. Yeah, the brits are limeys, the sofa's a couch, the telly's a TV, football is soccer, what's your point? Then I realised: Being called a limey is supposed to hurt my feelings.

Sorry, but, uhhh... before you decided to wield that mighty implement of emotional pain, did you pause to consider the fires in which it was forged? "Limey" was the nickname given to British sailors in Captain Cook's time because they, erm, ate citrus fruit. You know, for the vitamin C. To prevent scurvy, yes? I think you'll agree that as cultural/ethinc slurs go, "You don't have a life threatening vitamin deficiency! You've got most of your teeth! And no weeping sores to speak of!" lacks something.

Just sayin'.

Rectangular circle.

Meme doo jaw: school experiences. I have few, having been removed from school before the age of six. Nyahh, nyahh, nyahh, nyahh nyahh.

My most abiding memory is of the teacher bringing in a bunch of stuff and asking us what shape each bit of stuff was: coin = circle, plastic triangle = erm, triangle, etc chiz moan drone. Then she holds up the inside of a bog-roll and, amidst the tittering, asks what shape it is. I put up my five-and-a-bit year-old-hand.

"Yes, dear?"

"It's a rectangular circle," I announced.

They all laughed.*

That's about it, apart from the time someone mixed the white plasticine with the blue plasticine and we weren't allowed to play with the plasticine anymore for a whole week, and the time Rachel's mum sent her to school with Sellotape in her hair because she couldn't find any hairslides. And the other time that Rachel's mum sent her to school with Sellotape in her hair because she couldn't find any hairslides. Rachel's mum was all messed up.



*Except the teacher, who was a decent sort really. And Lurid says that was actually quite clever, and Lurid's good at sums so who won, eh? WHO WON?

Random brainstorm.

My next few big magickal projects are, in not particular order:

a) A spell to increase my writing output. Requirements: Paper, home-made ink and stylus, some sort of "Ocean" or "Marine" scented candle or incense, a blue rock.

b) A spell to increase my linguistic ability. Requirements: Red flat liquorice or similar, non-toxic ink, incense.

c) Speaking in Tongues. Requirements: A robe of white fabric, cassette recorder, extra tapes.

d) Renwewal/glamour spell. Requirements: Rose candles, matching notebook and pen.

e) The crimson book. Requirements: Notebook, red ink, black pen, ash, blood, something to wrap the sucker in cuz I don NOT want anything icky getting on my stuff, Nerves of Steel.

There's other stuff but I'm not telling you.