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Now, that was unexpected...
Dec. 8th, 2009 01:56 am
You are The Lovers
Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.
I am...(or so it says)...
Oct. 14th, 2009 06:11 pm
You are The Tower
Ambition, fighting, war, courage. Destruction, danger, fall, ruin.
The Tower represents war, destruction, but also spiritual renewal. Plans are disrupted. Your views and ideas will change as a result.
The Tower is a card about war, a war between the structures of lies and the lightning flash of truth. The Tower stands for "false concepts and institutions that we take for real." You have been shaken up; blinded by a shocking revelation. It sometimes takes that to see a truth that one refuses to see. Or to bring down beliefs that are so well constructed. What's most important to remember is that the tearing down of this structure, however painful, makes room for something new to be built.
What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.
So, I don't know what Spooky and I managed to contract. It certainly isn't the flu. It seems to effect the ears and throat, mostly. Whatever it is, we feel like ass, both of us. And I best be feeling better very soon, as warmer weather is on the way, and the trees are greening, and I have no intention of missing it by being sick. At least I slept last night, about eight and a half hours, so perhaps this bout of insomnia was bested by the bug.
However, sick or not, I managed yesterday, somehow, to write 1,074 words on "At the Gate of Deeper Slumber," which will appear in Sirenia Digest #41.
This is going to be a short entry. There's only so much sitting-up-and-typing energy to be had right now, and I have to conserve most of it for the short story.
My thanks to David Kirkpatrick, who sent me two volumes from a series of books on Early American architecture, New England by the Sea and Village Architecture of Early New England (both from 1987). These will be put to good use.
Someone asked, via my Facebook page, "Since you started me Tarot reading I thought I'd ask you. If I'm trying to learn is their a book you'd suggest?" To which I reply, there are about a million books on Tarot out there, but, if you can find it, my favorite is still Eden Gray's The Tarot Revealed. First published in 1960 (I think), I see it's still in print. The book works from the Rider-Waite deck, which happens to be my favorite, and which I also think is a good place for beginners to, well, begin.
Okay. I think that does it for me. I must resist the urge to go back to bed, where I probably belong right now. Oh, and just to demonstrate how utterly out of touch I appear to be with mainstream pop culture, I had no idea that American Idol was still on the air, much less that it was immensely popular, and apparently considered newsworthy. I will take this as ample evidence that ignorance is bliss.
However, sick or not, I managed yesterday, somehow, to write 1,074 words on "At the Gate of Deeper Slumber," which will appear in Sirenia Digest #41.
This is going to be a short entry. There's only so much sitting-up-and-typing energy to be had right now, and I have to conserve most of it for the short story.
My thanks to David Kirkpatrick, who sent me two volumes from a series of books on Early American architecture, New England by the Sea and Village Architecture of Early New England (both from 1987). These will be put to good use.
Someone asked, via my Facebook page, "Since you started me Tarot reading I thought I'd ask you. If I'm trying to learn is their a book you'd suggest?" To which I reply, there are about a million books on Tarot out there, but, if you can find it, my favorite is still Eden Gray's The Tarot Revealed. First published in 1960 (I think), I see it's still in print. The book works from the Rider-Waite deck, which happens to be my favorite, and which I also think is a good place for beginners to, well, begin.
Okay. I think that does it for me. I must resist the urge to go back to bed, where I probably belong right now. Oh, and just to demonstrate how utterly out of touch I appear to be with mainstream pop culture, I had no idea that American Idol was still on the air, much less that it was immensely popular, and apparently considered newsworthy. I will take this as ample evidence that ignorance is bliss.
An odd day yesterday. After breakfast, I sat down and did my journal entry. I emailed my editor at Penguin, and I emailed Andrew Migliore about the Lovecraft Film Festival. And then, suddenly, I felt as though I was coming down with the flu. Within half an hour, I was aching and could hardly sit up, much less think clearly enough to write and/or edit. Which was all rather terrifying, given what is left to be done on The Red Tree , and given it has to be back in NYC by the end of the work day on Monday. And that I immediately have to get Sirenia Digest #39 written and out to subscribers. No time for the flu. Or anything else virulent. So, I loaded up on elderberry and used zinc swabs in my nasal passages, then went to bed, hoping desperately to stave off whatever might be happening.
Spooky read to me from Let the Right One In. I dozed. And by late in the day, just before dark, I felt quite a bit better. I began to suspect it was only exhaustion, the way I've been pushing myself the last week, the stress, the insomnia. I sat up and tried to clear my head by doing some Tarot work (mostly with the Fool, the Magician, and the High Priestess). But I dozed again, and Spooky woke me just before dinner. I felt much, much better. We had a proper Kindernacht, which has been so neglected of late. Hot dogs for dinner, then two movies. The first, a Spanish film directed by Isidro Ortiz, Eskalofrío (2008; English title, Shiver). A murderous feral child story, that had a great deal of potential, hints of Angela Carter, and was almost a pretty good movie. But it kept stooping to horror-film clichés, including a dumb, tacked-on final scene to remind you it really was a scary movie. Still, worth watching. However, our second film was the direct-to-DVD farce Species III. Now, I hated Species, and I loathed Species II, and I only watched the third film out of a dim, misguided curiosity. It was even worse than the first two. If you can't make alien sex sexy, especially when you have Giger designs to work from, you should just pack it, forget about film making, and get a job flipping burgers or something. Lots of nudity. Lots of very mediocre alien effects. Actresses who delivered their lines with all the conviction of porn stars. Now, I have to watch Species IV, just to see how much worse it can get.
Anyway, I feel pretty much okay today, which leads me back to the exhaustion theory.
After the movies, there was about an hour of WoW. And there was one good moment, when the head of our rp guild ejected someone seconds after he or she or it had joined. Some bozo who asked in guild chat, in which we are only permitted to speak ic, "So what the !@#!*@ does rp mean? lol" Now, this is an rp guild, on an rp server. Our guild master then asked this person, named "whydoilive," why hesheit had signed onto an rp server, before bothering to understand rp. "My buddies told me to come." To which our guild master replied, "Wrong button," and immediately ejected whydoilive from the guild. Very satisfying, that. And, while we're at it, I begin to suspect that "lol" is becoming a new punctuation mark. Increasingly, I see it ending chat messages, whether the line calls for "laughs out loud" or not. In place of a period or exclamation point, there's "lol." I almost begin to believe it's some defense mechanism for an irony-obsessed generation incapable and afraid of taking anything serious. "My cat died lol" "onoes! i left teh baby in teh car like 7 hrs ago lol" Yeah, whatever.
Oh, and I finally bothered to pick up "Professional Master" in skinning.
Speaking on language abuse, tyransitiuon is now an official, full-fledged neologism. Congratulations to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stsisyphus for defining it:
tyransitiuon: (noun) An object which steadfastly refuses to be dislodged, moved, or otherwise displaced from its established geographical, geological, or astronomical location, and in fact manipulates events and causality in communal non-consensual time-space as to actively prevent removal or disturbance. Certain esoteric sects and psuedo-scientists place considerable importance upon these rare objects, occasionally manifesting in hysterical and apocalyptic cults. Creation of a tyransitiuon on the subatomic level has been posited as one of the possible applications of supercollider technology.
Okay. Gotta get back to The Red Tree, as the clock is ticking. But, I will remind you to please have a look at the eBay auctions, if you have not yet done so.
Spooky read to me from Let the Right One In. I dozed. And by late in the day, just before dark, I felt quite a bit better. I began to suspect it was only exhaustion, the way I've been pushing myself the last week, the stress, the insomnia. I sat up and tried to clear my head by doing some Tarot work (mostly with the Fool, the Magician, and the High Priestess). But I dozed again, and Spooky woke me just before dinner. I felt much, much better. We had a proper Kindernacht, which has been so neglected of late. Hot dogs for dinner, then two movies. The first, a Spanish film directed by Isidro Ortiz, Eskalofrío (2008; English title, Shiver). A murderous feral child story, that had a great deal of potential, hints of Angela Carter, and was almost a pretty good movie. But it kept stooping to horror-film clichés, including a dumb, tacked-on final scene to remind you it really was a scary movie. Still, worth watching. However, our second film was the direct-to-DVD farce Species III. Now, I hated Species, and I loathed Species II, and I only watched the third film out of a dim, misguided curiosity. It was even worse than the first two. If you can't make alien sex sexy, especially when you have Giger designs to work from, you should just pack it, forget about film making, and get a job flipping burgers or something. Lots of nudity. Lots of very mediocre alien effects. Actresses who delivered their lines with all the conviction of porn stars. Now, I have to watch Species IV, just to see how much worse it can get.
Anyway, I feel pretty much okay today, which leads me back to the exhaustion theory.
After the movies, there was about an hour of WoW. And there was one good moment, when the head of our rp guild ejected someone seconds after he or she or it had joined. Some bozo who asked in guild chat, in which we are only permitted to speak ic, "So what the !@#!*@ does rp mean? lol" Now, this is an rp guild, on an rp server. Our guild master then asked this person, named "whydoilive," why hesheit had signed onto an rp server, before bothering to understand rp. "My buddies told me to come." To which our guild master replied, "Wrong button," and immediately ejected whydoilive from the guild. Very satisfying, that. And, while we're at it, I begin to suspect that "lol" is becoming a new punctuation mark. Increasingly, I see it ending chat messages, whether the line calls for "laughs out loud" or not. In place of a period or exclamation point, there's "lol." I almost begin to believe it's some defense mechanism for an irony-obsessed generation incapable and afraid of taking anything serious. "My cat died lol" "onoes! i left teh baby in teh car like 7 hrs ago lol" Yeah, whatever.
Oh, and I finally bothered to pick up "Professional Master" in skinning.
Speaking on language abuse, tyransitiuon is now an official, full-fledged neologism. Congratulations to
stsisyphus for defining it: tyransitiuon: (noun) An object which steadfastly refuses to be dislodged, moved, or otherwise displaced from its established geographical, geological, or astronomical location, and in fact manipulates events and causality in communal non-consensual time-space as to actively prevent removal or disturbance. Certain esoteric sects and psuedo-scientists place considerable importance upon these rare objects, occasionally manifesting in hysterical and apocalyptic cults. Creation of a tyransitiuon on the subatomic level has been posited as one of the possible applications of supercollider technology.
Okay. Gotta get back to The Red Tree, as the clock is ticking. But, I will remind you to please have a look at the eBay auctions, if you have not yet done so.
Only raw in all the soft places.
Feb. 11th, 2009 12:08 pmSo, Anne (my editor) accepted my decision regarding the addition to The Red Tree that I'd decided wouldn't work. The one I wrote 1,211 words for on Monday, then had to dump in the novel's morgue. To quote Anne, "If it won’t work, it won’t." Which is pretty much my take on such situations.
Yesterday was ultimately more productive, though I actually wrote less. I did 817 words, adding another scene that Anne suggested in her editorial letter. But this one works without distorting those events that lie downstream from it. Today, more additions (which I always prefer to subtractions, or, worst of all, changes).
Spooky has begun a new round of eBay auctions. Bid if you are so disposed.
As soon as the edits to The Red Tree are done, and as soon as Sirenia Digest #39 is finished and sent out, it'll be time to get serious about writing the re-imagined Joey Lafaye for my next novel. That would be early March, I suppose.
My thanks to David Kirkpatrick for the package that reached me safely yesterday, bearing first-edition hb copies of Ray Bradbury's The Toynbee Convector, A Graveyard for Lunatics, They Have Not Seen the Stars: The Collected Poetry of Ray Bradbury, and The Cat's Pajamas. I had none of these, so it is a welcomed gift.
Last night, we watched Jon Favreau's Iron Man, which I liked quite a lot. I was especially impressed with Jeff Bridge's role as villain. I was in a mood for anti-heroes, fireballs, and giant robots, and was not disappointed. Afterwards, a little more WoW. We've gone back to questing in the Eastern Plaguelands, and are both about halfway to Level 61. And after that, I did a little more with the new Tarot deck, just before bed, mainly concentrating on the Major Arcana. And that was yesterday.
Yesterday was ultimately more productive, though I actually wrote less. I did 817 words, adding another scene that Anne suggested in her editorial letter. But this one works without distorting those events that lie downstream from it. Today, more additions (which I always prefer to subtractions, or, worst of all, changes).
Spooky has begun a new round of eBay auctions. Bid if you are so disposed.
As soon as the edits to The Red Tree are done, and as soon as Sirenia Digest #39 is finished and sent out, it'll be time to get serious about writing the re-imagined Joey Lafaye for my next novel. That would be early March, I suppose.
My thanks to David Kirkpatrick for the package that reached me safely yesterday, bearing first-edition hb copies of Ray Bradbury's The Toynbee Convector, A Graveyard for Lunatics, They Have Not Seen the Stars: The Collected Poetry of Ray Bradbury, and The Cat's Pajamas. I had none of these, so it is a welcomed gift.
Last night, we watched Jon Favreau's Iron Man, which I liked quite a lot. I was especially impressed with Jeff Bridge's role as villain. I was in a mood for anti-heroes, fireballs, and giant robots, and was not disappointed. Afterwards, a little more WoW. We've gone back to questing in the Eastern Plaguelands, and are both about halfway to Level 61. And after that, I did a little more with the new Tarot deck, just before bed, mainly concentrating on the Major Arcana. And that was yesterday.
Tags:
"Even an end has a start..."
Feb. 10th, 2009 01:30 pmI neglected, yesterday, to give the title and publisher for the anthology that will be reprinting "Pickman's Other Model." The book, edited by S.T. Joshi, is Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror. It will be released late this year by PS Publishing, who are doing some genuinely gorgeous books, including the new edition of Bradbury's The Day It Rained Forever for which I wrote an introduction.
Yesterday was an especially frustrating writing day. On the one hand, I wrote 1,211 words, part of a new scene for The Red Tree. This is a scene I was adding at the suggestion of my editor, and when she made it, I thought it was a very good idea. However, yesterday evening, having almost finished it, I realized that adding it would entail a good deal of restructuring to the last two and a half chapters of the novel. Because all changes, no matter how small, create ripples. And given that I have only ten days or so remaining to get the corrected ms. back to NYC, there simply isn't time to deal with those ripples. Moreover, the changes to text and character that the new scene would create would, in some ways, be undesirable. So...I spent half an hour this morning writing a detailed letter to Anne (my editor), explaining why I'm skipping this edit, and ditching everything I wrote yesterday. Today, I have to try to add another scene, but I'm hoping this one will create very few, if any, ripples. For me, attempting revisions on a novel that I have come to consider, for all intents and purposes, finished is not unlike time traveling. You cannot even step on a butterfly (thank you, Mr. Bradbury), without changing everything that lies downstream of said butterfly. I don't know how many metaphors I just mixed, but there you go.
There are still a few copies of the regular trade edition of A is for Alien available, and I hope that you'll pick one up.
Last night, after a meal of won-ton soup and particularly hot Szechuan beef, we started reading Let the Right One In, by John Ajvide Lindqvist (as translated by Ebba Segerberg). And my new Colman-Rider-Waite deck came yesterday, and I spent part of the evening making good on my resolution to hone my Tarot skills. Later, we ate Klondike bars and there was WoW, but it was all spent running about getting the "25 Coins of Ancestry" achievement. In the process, we also managed to score the exploration achievement for exploring Elwynn Forest, though it meant charging past the Level ?? guards and in and out of Stormwind City. There was a PVP skirmish at Sentinel Hill in Westfall that we sort of started. I'm beginning to get a rush off the PVP stuff. And that was last night, pretty much.
Yesterday was an especially frustrating writing day. On the one hand, I wrote 1,211 words, part of a new scene for The Red Tree. This is a scene I was adding at the suggestion of my editor, and when she made it, I thought it was a very good idea. However, yesterday evening, having almost finished it, I realized that adding it would entail a good deal of restructuring to the last two and a half chapters of the novel. Because all changes, no matter how small, create ripples. And given that I have only ten days or so remaining to get the corrected ms. back to NYC, there simply isn't time to deal with those ripples. Moreover, the changes to text and character that the new scene would create would, in some ways, be undesirable. So...I spent half an hour this morning writing a detailed letter to Anne (my editor), explaining why I'm skipping this edit, and ditching everything I wrote yesterday. Today, I have to try to add another scene, but I'm hoping this one will create very few, if any, ripples. For me, attempting revisions on a novel that I have come to consider, for all intents and purposes, finished is not unlike time traveling. You cannot even step on a butterfly (thank you, Mr. Bradbury), without changing everything that lies downstream of said butterfly. I don't know how many metaphors I just mixed, but there you go.
There are still a few copies of the regular trade edition of A is for Alien available, and I hope that you'll pick one up.
Last night, after a meal of won-ton soup and particularly hot Szechuan beef, we started reading Let the Right One In, by John Ajvide Lindqvist (as translated by Ebba Segerberg). And my new Colman-Rider-Waite deck came yesterday, and I spent part of the evening making good on my resolution to hone my Tarot skills. Later, we ate Klondike bars and there was WoW, but it was all spent running about getting the "25 Coins of Ancestry" achievement. In the process, we also managed to score the exploration achievement for exploring Elwynn Forest, though it meant charging past the Level ?? guards and in and out of Stormwind City. There was a PVP skirmish at Sentinel Hill in Westfall that we sort of started. I'm beginning to get a rush off the PVP stuff. And that was last night, pretty much.
Tags:
"This ain't no tea party, princess."
Feb. 1st, 2009 12:29 pmSo, because I live in a hole in the ground (not unlike a hobbit, I suppose), and have developed numerous news avoidance tactics, I entirely missed the fact that, way back in October, Sarah Palin tried to keep the Cook Inlet beluga whales from receiving Federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. Now that the elections are over, maybe Alaska should consider offsetting all that revenue they're going to lose, by not allowing the destruction of beluga habitat, by declaring this Spring to be Sarah Palin Hunting Season. Works for me. Turn her loose in the woods, naked, and arm a few hundred hunters with rubber bullets. The lottery winner gets a live round.
Yeah, I'm in that sort of mood.
But, I did sleep more than eight hours last night. And the only thing I can recall about the dreams is some weird shit about discovering that the Atlantic Ocean had drained, and that it was a very short walk from Rhode Island to France (I have no idea what happened to the Iberian Peninsula). That's the most sleep I've gotten at a stretch in at least two or three weeks.
Sirenia Digest #38 went out last night, and all our subscribers should have it by now. If not, please email Spooky at x(dot)squid(dot)soup(dot)x(at)gmail(dot)com. Damn, that's a lot of dots. Also, there's a specialFREEBIE that I want all the subscribers to receive. It's the reason we had to drive to Pawtucket and rummage through boxes of old files, day before yesterday. But the PDF came out rather large, more than 12M. So, I haven't sent it out yet. If you do not want to get it, please let Spooky know ASAP (email address above). If you want it, you don't have to say anything. Also, because we always get files bouncing from AOL and Hotmail, we encourage subscribers to open gmail accounts. They're free, and Sirenia Digest will not bounce when sent to gmail (despite one of the best spam filters I've ever seen). Spooky and I each have about 50 invitations we can send to people, so if you want a free gmail account, just say so here (and include your email address), and we'll send you an invitation. It's perfect for receiving the 12M+ PDF, the surprise. And no, I can't tell you what it is, because then, obviously, it would cease to be a surprise. I will say it is also Poe-themed.
I'm very pleased with #38. It's likely one of the most cohesive issues we've done. Comments are welcome.
Tomorrow is Imbolc, but I think we're keeping it very low key this year. I hate doing that. Sabbat guilt? I have resolved (and you can call it a belated New Year's resolution, if you wish), to vastly improve my Tarot skills in 2009. It can even be my pathetic attempt at having a fall-back career. Because, you know, I can always move to Salem and read Tarot on the street corners, if I reach a point where the writing is no longer viable. Also, I think I'm about to go on an Aleister Crowley binge. For starters, I need exposure to someone who was even more disdainful than am I.
If you've not yet ordered a copy of A is for Alien, due out this month from Subterranean Press, February 1st is a very fine day to do so.
When the work was finally done yesterday, there was a marathon of WoW. I haven't played that much in ages. But Shaharrazad is finally exalted with Undercity, and has traded her felsteed for one of the skeletal horses that the Forsaken ride. I fear Shah's gone a bit native, after meeting the Banshee Queen. She sleeps in a coffin. She uses some sort of perfume that smells like a mixture of embalming fluid and rot. I suspect she's even begun "cannibalizing" her human kills (though, technically, since she's not human, it's not cannibalism). She's an undead wannabe, poor thing. If they just hadn't sent her away from Silvermoon City after she met with the orcs and secured a place for the Sin'dorei within the Hoarde. Oh, and she reached Level 58, which means I can finally reach Shattrath and be decalred a "Master Skinner" (or whatnot). Also, I have learned that WoW is 75% less annoying if you keep all chat channels switched off all the time.
Anyway...today will be spent cleaning the house, as Sonya (sovay) arrives from Boston tomorrow afternoon. The platypus frowns on housecleaning.
Yeah, I'm in that sort of mood.
But, I did sleep more than eight hours last night. And the only thing I can recall about the dreams is some weird shit about discovering that the Atlantic Ocean had drained, and that it was a very short walk from Rhode Island to France (I have no idea what happened to the Iberian Peninsula). That's the most sleep I've gotten at a stretch in at least two or three weeks.
Sirenia Digest #38 went out last night, and all our subscribers should have it by now. If not, please email Spooky at x(dot)squid(dot)soup(dot)x(at)gmail(dot)com. Damn, that's a lot of dots. Also, there's a special
I'm very pleased with #38. It's likely one of the most cohesive issues we've done. Comments are welcome.
Tomorrow is Imbolc, but I think we're keeping it very low key this year. I hate doing that. Sabbat guilt? I have resolved (and you can call it a belated New Year's resolution, if you wish), to vastly improve my Tarot skills in 2009. It can even be my pathetic attempt at having a fall-back career. Because, you know, I can always move to Salem and read Tarot on the street corners, if I reach a point where the writing is no longer viable. Also, I think I'm about to go on an Aleister Crowley binge. For starters, I need exposure to someone who was even more disdainful than am I.
If you've not yet ordered a copy of A is for Alien, due out this month from Subterranean Press, February 1st is a very fine day to do so.
When the work was finally done yesterday, there was a marathon of WoW. I haven't played that much in ages. But Shaharrazad is finally exalted with Undercity, and has traded her felsteed for one of the skeletal horses that the Forsaken ride. I fear Shah's gone a bit native, after meeting the Banshee Queen. She sleeps in a coffin. She uses some sort of perfume that smells like a mixture of embalming fluid and rot. I suspect she's even begun "cannibalizing" her human kills (though, technically, since she's not human, it's not cannibalism). She's an undead wannabe, poor thing. If they just hadn't sent her away from Silvermoon City after she met with the orcs and secured a place for the Sin'dorei within the Hoarde. Oh, and she reached Level 58, which means I can finally reach Shattrath and be decalred a "Master Skinner" (or whatnot). Also, I have learned that WoW is 75% less annoying if you keep all chat channels switched off all the time.
Anyway...today will be spent cleaning the house, as Sonya (
sovay) arrives from Boston tomorrow afternoon. The platypus frowns on housecleaning.
Howard Hughes Gets a (2nd) Life.
Jun. 1st, 2007 12:31 pmOh, fuck me, how can it be June already? I mean, I'm glad that it's June, that winter is gone, gone, gone, but I am so very far behind. Anyway and whatever and be that as it may. Or June. This morning, I crawled out of bed and sat down on the sofa (after stumbling down the hall), and then I watched a beautiful Melanerpes carolinus (Red-bellied Woodpecker) skittering about on the tree out front. It helped me get back from the dreamsickness, so thank you, bird.
And why, oh why, can't someone put out a really nice Tolkien tarot deck? There are a couple available, but the art is ass. I mean an Alan Lee Tolkien tarot, or something comparable. But I digress.
Yesterday was mostly the sort of day that comes along in the wake of having met a Very Important Writing Goal, having finished a short story or novel or having met a pressing deadline. That is, a Very Goddamn Bad Day. It's one part post-pardem depression (to use that convenient, loathsome writing = childbirth metaphor), one part boredom, one part let-down and self-loathing, one part mind left free to wander off the rails to whatever vile climes it cannot help but wander, and so forth. So, I mixed kava, Klonopin, absinthe, Red Bull, chocolate, and coffee, which, helped for about half an hour. This is called taking a vacation. The irony is not lost on me. I do not love to write, but I hate idle hands, and what else am I to do but write? I mean besides "self-medicate"? I dislike that phrase, "self-medicate"? What's wrong with those good ol' fashioned turns of phrase, those that do not pussy-foot about with psychobabble and new-speak mealy-mouthedness? Is it not more honest to say that I got fucked up, because it helps me get through the interminable days on which I do not write because I am too exhausted (from writing) to write? Screw the medical model of psychology. Self-medication is when I choose to get through a bad cold with herbs and aspirin instead of paying a doctor half a fortune for pills. Self-medication is having Spooky stitch a cut instead of sitting for five hours in some nasty ER. Yesterday, I did not self-medicate. Anyway...
I would like to add my 2¢ regarding the recent LJ/Six Apart capitulations to the demands of one bat-shit insane dominionist Xtian by deleting everything from erotic fic to group-therapy/support communities to private journals to communities devoted to the discussion of the works of Vladimir Nabokov. It's a cowardly bit of business-as-usual American economics, it was censorship, and it a gross example of overreaction. It was a witch hunt prompted by the hysterics of this busy-body calling herself Warriors for Innocence. And I absolutely cannot believe that Warren Ellis, of all people, condoned and defended it. It only shows to go that if you build a big enough boogeyman, you can fool almost all the children of the revolution. There will always be at least one boogeyman to fill the bill. And yes, it surely fucking was an act of censorship:
Censorship: The use of the state and other legal or official means to restrict speech.
– Culture Wars, Documents from the Recent Controversies in the Arts (Richard Boltons, ed.)
Censor: One who supervises conduct and morals: as a) an official who examines materials (as publications or films) for objectionable matter; b) an official (as in time of war) who reads communications (as letters) and deletes material considered harmful to the interests of his organization. Censorship: The institution, system or practice of censoring; the actions or practices of censors; esp : censorial control exercised repressively.
– Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
Did Six Apart have a legal right to do what they did? Yes. Does that make it right? No. Does that mean it isn't censorship? No. And can it be forgiven because, personally, slash gives you the willies? No. For my part, I am appalled. But I am always appalled. I think it's why I'm here, just to be chronically appalled at the idiotic actions of mankind.
Don't mind me. I'm just sitting here, waiting on the Big Space Rock to end the whole gorram farce.
Meanwhile, just as I was thinking about the dusty unopened bottle of rum in the pantry, I happened, yesterday, to once again stumble across Second Life, which is sort of like crack when you have a brain like mine. And this time I had the OS and the machine to actually handle Second Life. I spent six and a half straight hours there last night. I strolled on an abandoned pirate ship. I danced to bad '80s music. I visited furries. I flew. And sure, I didn't finish the Steinbeck bio like I'd hoped to do, but my mind quit racing, I didn't break anything, and I was amazed by what I saw. I will be going back today. If you happen to drop by, look me up. I'm the topless, penniless waif of an android named Nareth Nishi (that's Nareth, not Nar'eth). Sure, the place is way too obsessed with capitalism, but it's still an amazing little experiment and somehow quite exhilarating. And a good way to manage rest without driving myself any crazier.
Spooky finally pried me away from the iMac and read me another chapter of The Ersatz Elevator until I could sleep (because she is the best bear).
And why, oh why, can't someone put out a really nice Tolkien tarot deck? There are a couple available, but the art is ass. I mean an Alan Lee Tolkien tarot, or something comparable. But I digress.
Yesterday was mostly the sort of day that comes along in the wake of having met a Very Important Writing Goal, having finished a short story or novel or having met a pressing deadline. That is, a Very Goddamn Bad Day. It's one part post-pardem depression (to use that convenient, loathsome writing = childbirth metaphor), one part boredom, one part let-down and self-loathing, one part mind left free to wander off the rails to whatever vile climes it cannot help but wander, and so forth. So, I mixed kava, Klonopin, absinthe, Red Bull, chocolate, and coffee, which, helped for about half an hour. This is called taking a vacation. The irony is not lost on me. I do not love to write, but I hate idle hands, and what else am I to do but write? I mean besides "self-medicate"? I dislike that phrase, "self-medicate"? What's wrong with those good ol' fashioned turns of phrase, those that do not pussy-foot about with psychobabble and new-speak mealy-mouthedness? Is it not more honest to say that I got fucked up, because it helps me get through the interminable days on which I do not write because I am too exhausted (from writing) to write? Screw the medical model of psychology. Self-medication is when I choose to get through a bad cold with herbs and aspirin instead of paying a doctor half a fortune for pills. Self-medication is having Spooky stitch a cut instead of sitting for five hours in some nasty ER. Yesterday, I did not self-medicate. Anyway...
I would like to add my 2¢ regarding the recent LJ/Six Apart capitulations to the demands of one bat-shit insane dominionist Xtian by deleting everything from erotic fic to group-therapy/support communities to private journals to communities devoted to the discussion of the works of Vladimir Nabokov. It's a cowardly bit of business-as-usual American economics, it was censorship, and it a gross example of overreaction. It was a witch hunt prompted by the hysterics of this busy-body calling herself Warriors for Innocence. And I absolutely cannot believe that Warren Ellis, of all people, condoned and defended it. It only shows to go that if you build a big enough boogeyman, you can fool almost all the children of the revolution. There will always be at least one boogeyman to fill the bill. And yes, it surely fucking was an act of censorship:
Censorship: The use of the state and other legal or official means to restrict speech.
– Culture Wars, Documents from the Recent Controversies in the Arts (Richard Boltons, ed.)
Censor: One who supervises conduct and morals: as a) an official who examines materials (as publications or films) for objectionable matter; b) an official (as in time of war) who reads communications (as letters) and deletes material considered harmful to the interests of his organization. Censorship: The institution, system or practice of censoring; the actions or practices of censors; esp : censorial control exercised repressively.
– Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
Did Six Apart have a legal right to do what they did? Yes. Does that make it right? No. Does that mean it isn't censorship? No. And can it be forgiven because, personally, slash gives you the willies? No. For my part, I am appalled. But I am always appalled. I think it's why I'm here, just to be chronically appalled at the idiotic actions of mankind.
Don't mind me. I'm just sitting here, waiting on the Big Space Rock to end the whole gorram farce.
Meanwhile, just as I was thinking about the dusty unopened bottle of rum in the pantry, I happened, yesterday, to once again stumble across Second Life, which is sort of like crack when you have a brain like mine. And this time I had the OS and the machine to actually handle Second Life. I spent six and a half straight hours there last night. I strolled on an abandoned pirate ship. I danced to bad '80s music. I visited furries. I flew. And sure, I didn't finish the Steinbeck bio like I'd hoped to do, but my mind quit racing, I didn't break anything, and I was amazed by what I saw. I will be going back today. If you happen to drop by, look me up. I'm the topless, penniless waif of an android named Nareth Nishi (that's Nareth, not Nar'eth). Sure, the place is way too obsessed with capitalism, but it's still an amazing little experiment and somehow quite exhilarating. And a good way to manage rest without driving myself any crazier.
Spooky finally pried me away from the iMac and read me another chapter of The Ersatz Elevator until I could sleep (because she is the best bear).
