Can I please go home now?

Snow as far as the eye can see, which isn't very far, not if you're me. Oh, look. I made a rhyme. Anyway, more snow on the way, flurries. A world made of ice.

Especially wretched dreams this morning, and I'm still trying to shake them off.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,701 words on Chapter 5 of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. Most of it was a letter from 1897, which is always fun. I inadvertently learned a lot about the history of postcards.

Last night, there was rp in Insilico. These days, rp pretty much always consists of me and one other, maybe two others, hidden away in a nook where we'll not be bothered by the scuttlefish. Later, Spooky and I watched Robert Schwentke's Red. It was fun. And no, I haven't read the graphic novel, and the first person who tells me it was so much better than the movie gets an unpleasant visit from a platypus brandishing red-hot weenie tongs.

Over and over and over,
Aunt Beast

Eight+ Ways to Win My Heart (Pickled in a Jar of Formalin)

Saw this the other day on yuki_onna 's blog, and I've been meaning to give it a shot. Of course, this is predicated on the possibility that there are eight ways to win my heart, which may or may not be true.

1) Do not assume that because I express my views that I'm obligated to defend those views to you or engage in a dialogue, or even listen to your views. And I will exchange the favour.

2) Bestow gifts of opiates. Seriously. Most times, I find life all but unbearable, and opiates are one of the few things that genuinely help. They're always in short supply.

3) Revel in the fringes, in the dark places, in perversion, in the outré, in the taboo and profane, in filth, in deformity, in the wicked corners of our hearts. Bleed. Devour. Cut. Kneel, and then beat me into submission. Never kneel and never submit. Suffer well. Be willing to die at any moment, without ever turning away from life. Be passionate in all things worth doing; never fear passion. Show me your scars, scar me, allow me to scar you. Prick me. Fuck how best it suits you, without sticking some pretty word on it, or condemning how others fuck. Tell at least one lie everyday. Walk a fine line.

4) Recognize that I am monstrous, and embrace my monstrosity. See that I am brash, melodramatic, self-indulgent, gluttonous, perverse, vain, excessive, shattered, inconsistent, reclusive, misanthropic, pessimistic, passionate, unforgiving, and despairing, and do not ever ask me to change those parts of myself.

5) Never waste. Not anything that you can avoid wasting. In all the world, waste is the sole evil.

6) Take a chance. Roll the dice. Reach into the dark. Fall. Strip. Take the red pill. Never cease asking questions.

7) Stare into the light, even if it burns you. Stare into the void, even if it really does stare back into you. Walk in the rain and snow and barefoot on scorching sand. Dig your fingers deep into the living soil. Drink in starlight, and dance naked below the moon. Praise simple wonder above any goddess or god. Let the sea pull you to and fro, and drift in deep, cold lakes, and wade through bogs. Climb trees, boulders, mountains, and industrial ruin. See the beauty of decay and corrosion, and of new green leaves and eggshells. Breathe in clean air and the smell of growing things. Know your place in Nature, in the skein of evolution, and never believe yourself to stand above or below any other organism in any sense. Hold snakes and slugs and spiders and salamanders. Don't squash bugs. Look for patterns. Know that you are neither any more nor less significant that any other speck of matter in the cosmos.

8) Don't be afraid to talk to me, but realize that I rarely want to talk with anyone, so if I shy away, it's nothing personal. Unless I don't like you.

Well, that's a start.