Fuck Christmas

I skipped Christmas because fuck it frankly.
Hopefully you idiots are over the festivities and the stock market can return to usual.
J/k we have another half day/day off coming up due to New Year's.
No wonder the Chinese are beating us.
And new record. This blog took approximately 10 seconds for me to know for a fact I have a winner.
This person is a Christopagan (a what) against gender binary and heteronormativity.
Welcome.

I'm worried I missed the answer to this, but do you and Clarence belong to a specific elf tribe? I know you said you do some energy work similar to the Dragons-- is that it?


Clarence and I are formally identified with the Serpents and we are in fact Dragons, which is a group for mated twin-pairs sponsored/hosted by the Serpents (though Dragons may come from any tribe, but are trained within Serpent territory, by Serpents who are also Dragons). So the energy work that we do is not similar to the Dragons, it is what the Dragons do.

Clarence originally started off as Wolf tribe and I originally started off as Hare, but an incident happened in mid-2012 where we were “transferred” to the Serpent tribe. Changing tribal affiliation is extremely rare, but the incident was also unprecedented. We were also told once taken in by the Serpents that we were meant for the tribe all along but had to “shed our skin” first.

Roleplaying garbage or paranoid delusions of the mentally ill?
I'll leave that for your judgment.

The way that having the dual affiliation works is that we do work as Serpents, and with the Serpents, as well as work as Dragons. The overwhelming majority of people do not have dual affiliation. In fact, the Dragons are the only group where one can be affiliated with one tribe as well as that tribe. The other tribes have subgroups - the Ravens have the White Ravens, for example - but one has to be a member of that tribe in order to be a member of its subgroup. One does not have to be a Serpent to be a Dragon, though the overwhelming majority of the Dragons come from either the Serpents or the Boars.

You can also give this person a tip for doing a good job.
I was thinking the tip of my fist but no, they mean money.

Hi, you're amazing. How do you make sense of the Christian side of your ChristoPaganism in the context of your otherworldly travels and elf soul and all that business? I love to pick the brains of my fellow ChristoPagans; hope I'm not being too intrusive!


Thank you! <3 comment-3--="">

ChristoPagan.
That's a thing you can be.
What, was Christianity or Paganism too mainstream?

As far as how I reconcile it with otherworldly travels and having an elf soul with the Christian side of the Christopaganism…

As mentioned earlier, there is a corroborated gnosis that the progenitors of the elves, Ana and Ka’el, had three sets of twin siblings and one of those sets was Elyon and Elat, who with the host of angels comprises Elohim. Thus angels and elves are cousins. I believe that they are “playing for the same team”, to protect and preserve the world and care for humans.

My belief in Christ is part of a polytheistic package. He is one of my Powers, not the only one, and has an influence on me trying to be compassionate and stand up for what I believe in. I do not believe I have to renounce my pagan values or the fact that I am non-human-souled to have him as one of my Powers.

What the fuck am I reading
Holy hell what have I done?
How am I supposed to write about this?
What is there to say outside of "what in the fuck?"

Yay, it's Vanaheim Friday again! So I wanted to ask this last time, but was too timid, so here goes... I've had visions a couple times of an elven city in the snow.

I know. Bummer they cancelled the last 2 Skyrim DLCs, huh?
Snow Elf and one focusing on the Thalmor. That shit would have been the mothefuck.

Made of snow and ice. Each time I've seen this city, it's been under moonlight (full moon), and the homes (I guess?) have been illuminated by soft yellow light. Keep in mind the homes are made of snow (like igloos, but not), and it just looked really cool. Have you ever heard of/know of a city like this, or is my mind being silly?

Like a thousand entries ago I made a joke about people who think their thoughts are real and they can't distinguish between reality and shit they think so they just conclude they have the spirit of squirrels or whatever--
Suddenly I'm not feeling so clever as THAT IS QUITE APPARENTLY WHAT PEOPLE DO ACTUALLY DO.
It's like someone said "yeah fuck you asshole I'm actually going to do that let's see how smart you'll feel in a year when I make this blog."

You are probably having visions of another elven realm, to be honest. Eshnahaliel =/= all the elven realms. Just because a place like that doesn’t exist in Eshnahaliel doesn’t mean you aren’t legitimately seeing another elven realm where that does exist. There are other realms than Eshnahaliel where elves live and have their own cultures and structures.

I will also repeat again that Eshnahaliel really does not have anything that modern humans would think of as an actual city. At best, there is the capital which has the government building, a market square, some inns and pubs, and the ritual space. The tribal territories tend to either be arranged as small villages or where the citizens are more spread out. While it is currently wintertime in Eshnahaliel and there is a fair amount of snow on the ground, there is no place in Eshnahaliel that is frozen year-round, their climate and terrain is rather similar to northern/central Europe with some variants in flora and fauna (species of flora specific to Eshnahaliel). 

I mean it's a parallel fucking dimension with elves in it but the flowers can't be that different.
I had a dream once I was banging all 9 members of 9muses.
Maybe that was me in a parallel reality.
With elves.

So if you’re seeing an actual large city, you’re seeing a different realm altogether. I’m sure you’re seeing somewhere in the Otherworld, it’s just a question of where. I don’t know any elven realm that’s like that but I only have experience with Eshnahaliel and Ljossalfheim, and what I’ve heard of the realm of the Dokkalfar, but I know there’s more elven realms than that, there are many, many elven realms and cultures. How many, I don’t know, but something is out there. ^^

AKA "the bullshit high fantasy realm you invented and are now treating like it's real differs from the one I made so therefore you're either wrong or it's yet ANOTHER DIMENSION OOOO"

I've a couple questions, possibly too blunt—you can choose not to answer of course. :) Since the Eshnahai are so long lived, do they have population issues in Vanaheim? Also, do they have the same personality variety that humans have? Or do they tend more towards homogeneity on some aspects. I've seen you mention bi- and pansexuality as being the norm, for example. Are some traits just reversed majority/minority from humans, or is there no real minority at all?

Let's predict the answer.
I'm going to guess that no there are no population issues because much like Tolkien says the reality is elves aren't especially fertile.
Also of course pansexuality and bisexuality are the norm because how else could this loonie toon keep this fantasy up so long?

The Eshnahai also control their fertility. Eshnahai women do not menstruate regularly like human women do. In order for pregnancy to happen, both parties have to consent to creating a soul together, and raise energy and “push” the energy along. Otherwise the males “shoot blanks” and there is an energetic barrier around the womb, only the raising of energy by both parties will result in a pregnancy. In the case of twins, which is less common but not unheard of, the one soul manifests in two bodies. (people should ask me about Vanic twins sometime, I have extensive knowledge of this being I am/have one)

FUCK YOU THIS MAKES SENSE.
If you think this is stupid and gay you are a racist.

As far as the bi/pan thing being the norm, yes it is. Occasionally you do find someone who is completely straight or completely gay, and there is also an asexual minority in the population. You tend to not see the prejudices in Eshnahaliel that you see in human society because the Eshnahai tend to believe love is sacred in all its forms, and asexuals are regarded as having a certain kind of magical power because their energy is being channeled into other things. 

Like there's just no way this can be reality.
Even if you can buy into a religion this particular one just sounds dumb and made up.

There is also a percentage of the population which can change gender at will (I would be included in that :D); the progenitors of the Eshnahai, Ana and Ka’el the Serpent Twins, were gender-shifters as well as shapeshifters, “shedding their skin” at will. It should also be mentioned here that Eshnahai society is extremely egalitarian and lacks the concept of gender roles for the most part. Women as well as men are taught to hunt, fight, sew, cook, care for children, heal, and so on. And everyone has fabulous hair. ;)

Oh, of course. Everyone is also gender neutral and can change genders at will.
So coincidentally your magic land of fantasy reality also has all of the exact traits you wish you had.
I blame the internet for this. If you had blatantly stupid views like this before the internet you couldn't say anything because you knew no one else had fucked up ideas like this and if you voiced them you got your ass kicked.
But now you can just Google "am I the only pansexual wolf-spirit Christopagan in the world?" and you're a click away from at least a dozen communities that share your dumb views on shit.

I was asked:

Last time y'all talked about the original twins in detail, the fire twins were Surt and Sinmora and the water were Kali and Shiva. Is that still your understanding? How do the more elemental jotnar like the fire jotnar fit in?

That's still my understanding, yes.

My understanding is that Surt and Sinmora are the progenitors of the elemental Jotnar like the fire Jotnar, whereas Ana and Ka'el are the progenitors of both the elves and the non-elemental Jotnar, like the trolls and animal-shifters. 

Is anyone else having violent flashbacks to Einherjar from FFXI right now?

Surt also told me that he and Sinmora are the progenitors of the Greek Titans which made me go o_O and I have no idea what to think about that. 

So there you go.
One of the more sinister figures from Norse mythology gave birth to an unrelated pantheon in Greek mythology.
Spooooooky.
Are you ready for what I'm hoping is an explanation for this shit?
No?
Me neither!

So for those of you who are new-er around here and don’t know the saga of 2013, gather round, I got a story to tell you.

Saga indeed.

Up until July 2013, I was living with my partner of seven years, and our two cats. On July first, he dropped the bomb on me that he was moving out of state in twelve days and he was taking the cats and he was not taking me with him, and I would have to find new living arrangements. 

Anyone want to bet on the gender of this person?
I'm guessing female for no real reason.
So her boyfriend rightly kicked her to the curb undoubtedly because of this shit.

After scrambling, two longtime friends of mine who I’d met via the Internet told me I could stay with them in Portland. So on July eleventh, I flew from Long Beach, California, to Portland, Oregon, and I’ve lived here since then.

About a month after moving to Portland, everything hit me and I got suicidal. Things hadn’t been going so well with my ex-partner prior to him dropping the GTFO-bomb, and another person I was dating called it quits because her own life was in upheaval. I had moved in with my ex-partner to escape a bad living situation with my abusive mother, who I’d moved back in with after being in a residential facility for psych issues which I’d wound up in after an abusive relationship after being abused growing up and blah, blah, blah. So everything hit me, I felt like a worthless piece of shit and that there was no point in continuing on, and I was legit going to kill myself. I had a plan, and I wasn’t going to tell anyone.

The hits keep on comin'.

My spirit companion, Clarence, who is a Vanic elf, threw me out of my body and took over for awhile. It was hard for him, because he had to adjust to wrong body, life on Earth (it’s one thing to be at my side and see how money works and so on, another thing to do it yourself), and the challenges of having different brain wiring. He did it to keep me from killing myself and also to give me a break from things here for awhile.

I like how she just casually says "oh yeah my spirit companion who's an elf threw me out of my body to keep me from killing myself."
So where'd you go, then?
What about this religious view is Christian?

and I was asked earlier today by someone else what I consider to be the difference between a witch and a wizard, and why I don’t consider the terms interchangeable, so here goes.

I'm equipped to answer this.
I play Diablo 3.
A wizard has arcane power as its main source of casting spells and witches can identify magic items.
I hope I cleared this up.

Since some people have nothing better to do with their time than stalk my blog, or feed stalkers information about what I post:

You don't know me.

YEAH FUCK YOU.
All this insane rambling online?

How dare you judge her based on this shit!

Over the last while I have been fairly open about the fact that I have two spirit husbands, both elves, and that I love me some elven cock.

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWHAT

When I, personally, have elf!sex, I am masturbating while I astrally project.

Haha oh wow.
This just keeps getting better and better.

So for those of you who don't already know this, Loki is my father.

"But Nono! Aren't you elven otherkin?"

Well, yes. In my elven incarnation, I had elven mother, Loki was my father. The Eshnahai count you as whatever your mother is, so Clarence and I were treated as Eshnahai growing up back in the day a long long time ago.

Yeah anyway. I can accept all this other crazy shit but Loki is your dad, WHAT?

how does it feel to have a human body on this side but you are very clearly an elf despite that?

I have body dysphoria. Some of it is because I’m gender-fluid, which is influenced by the elven form. (Not all Eshnahai are gender-shifters but some of us are. I am one of them. Our people consider it sacred.)

I sometimes experience phantom sensations like feeling the points on my ears, and I have been told by quite a few people over the years that my energy is really, really, really bright (and as such I tend to be “tasty” to psi vamps, so Clarence and Jarod have had to teach me about warding myself in a way that doesn’t negatively affect my natural energy but still protects me from things wanting to snack on me without consent).

Yeah you know.
Psychic vampires.
That's a thing that exists you ignorant cunt.
What the fuck do I even say to this?

Crappy cell phone pics of my shrine to Lucifer and my working altar.

Ha ok I'm in.

So, I already talked about this on Tumblr, but I'll talk about it here too.

One thing that I am not a fan of is hateblogs, or bastard culture forums, which is to say people whose purpose in life seems to be making fun of people about stuff.

 For those who haven't already heard about this, a god graveyard was put up by an atheist student group from the University of Wisconsin on Bascom Hill.

3edgy5me bro

As a polytheist, I am completely fucking disgusted by this. 

Who
cares
Wow this blog got boring.
Whew.
That was something.
Like what the fuck am I even supposed to do with all this fuck now?
Probably best to stop thinking about it.
So she might talk about elves being her spirit animal but my inner spirit animal is Marky Mark so let's do that as the song of the day.
Fuck.

Can you believe

Can you believe I'm still fucking doing these?
I thought for sure I'd have gotten bored after like week two.
Who rules?
Me.
Anyway here's some cunt who writes fanfiction about video games no one plays.
Are you a big fan of Fire Emblem?
No?
Well I'm not really surprised.
But if you are then you might want to avoid this entry.

I have a self-portrait and some formidable studying to get done before tomorrow morning, and a research paper and take-home final to complete by Thursday.

Yeah and I'm teaching chorus tomorrow.
We all have our challenges to overcome.
If you had ask me 10 years ago "hey do you think you'll be leading a chorus class in your life?" my answer would have been "no" and I'd have been wrong 3 times over.

Instead, I have written three pages of meta in the last two hours.

I think this is a good time to give a jovial little "FML."

You say this like it's something that happened to you. Like when my car blew a spark plug and needed a 400 dollar repair.
No, you knew you were supposed to study and instead you wrote some insufferable "meta" (whatever the fuck that is) and now you're updating your blog like LOOK WHAT SHIT HAPPENED TO ME TODAY.

I came to a fandom epiphany a couple of months ago and have been wanting to write about it, but like everything else, it needed a bit of time to stew before I got it into words.

Wow a fandom epiphany holy shit count me right the fuck in!
It's only 8 paragraphs.
I have time to read all these words.

There are multiple ways to approach being a fan of something. You can approach it like a diner: just sit back and enjoy, let the work wash over you and just react to it in the moment.

AKA what sane people do.

You can approach it like a scientist: take it apart to see how it works, make observations, and come to conclusions after a period of study.

That's the nerd approach but equally acceptable.

You can take the approach of a historian and determine where it came from and the sort of effect it might have. 

Generally a part of the second one but all right.

You can look to defend it without question or rip it to shreds in the name of love. I think everyone takes a different approach depending on the work, or even just how they're feeling at the moment.

As for me? I tend to approach FE as a performer. What are my lines, and more importantly, what can I do with them on stage?* My impetus for writing meta and fanfiction is to explore what we're given and, with all due respect, do something interesting and at least a little bit unexpected with it. It's about potential for me. This is why I look at things with, for lack of a better term, a sort of optimistic overanalysis. I like making connections and revealing hidden depths and opening up characters or situations for other people. I love it when other people love characters and write about them at length, because it opens them up for me in new ways. 

Fire Emblem, for those of you uninitiated in obscure Japanese turn-based tactical RPGs, is a series well known for its political drama and not so much its deep characterization.
So keep that in mind as this bint rattles on.

(*The other metaphor I've given for fanfic in particular is that the source material is like a coloring page. We all get the same black-and-white lineart. Most people are going to color it similarly based on the sort of colors things are generally supposed to be, give or take the odd artist who turns it into a whacked-out Lisa Frank mural or something, but even among the similarly-colored pages, there will be differences. An unclear line might yield a leaf for one person and a bird for another. The leaves could be spring-green or autumn-orange-- neither one is wrong! There's going to be a few artists who rise above the crayon-and-marker crowd and turn in, say, a gorgeous watercolor piece that doesn't even look like it was a coloring page in the first place.)

There is no metaphor to give for fanfiction because it's straightforward. It's a bunch of self-important cunts who think they're better than most people because they happen to like something and write at length (poorly) their own misguided interpretation of it.

This is also why I tend to get bristly about author intent. I totally understand the purpose of looking at it, and I definitely don't think it should be discounted from the wider conversation. It just doesn't help me as a fan or as a writer to look at things that way most of the time. The idea of looking at things that make sense as probably being slipshod and things that don't add up as being dead ends is frustrating to me. 

You don't like author intent?
You don't like the reason the author created something?
Look your idea might be better than theirs (not true in your case but it can be true) and if that's the case maybe you should tell your own story because clearly you have this better in hand than the author of the thing you're a fan of.

To once again be clear, I'm not claiming Death of the Author: that author intent doesn't matter because ~it's all relative, maaaan.~ There's stuff we don't know because it's left ambiguous, and then there's stuff that, yeah, we don't technically know, but come on.

The characters in Fire Emblem are supposed to be blank slates that make way for the political intrigue and double dealings and the tactical game play.
The author does not care about your dumb fanfiction about how two characters might be gay together. You are not some great artist for concluding this. Literally anyone can do it.
Literally everyone does do it if the typical fanfiction writer's blog is to be believed.

tl;dr, take this for what it's worth: a long-ass reflection on why I react weirdly in discussions and why I (don't) write (enough).

With that off my chest, I'm gonna go write something.

• Current Mood: liberated

 

No one cares.

Thing I just now realized after playing FE for eight years

I'd like to point out in a previous post she mentioned she only played 6-8.

I don't even give a shit about Fire Emblem and I've beaten 6 and 7.

So in 8 years you've managed to beat exactly one more Fire Emblem game than I have.

"Mt" stands for Might.

I was always so confused at that abbreviation. In my head I read it as... 'mount of damage.

... 'mount of damage?

I'm not going to make a big deal about this because I've thought of really stupid meanings for abbreviations before but that's especially dumb.

This isn't the big post I was planning on opening with (that one's still in progress because I talk myself into corners), but it's the first one I finished.

You don't hear a lot about pets in FE-- pets that aren't mounts, that is.

Thank fuck because if I had to hear about that dumb bitch's pegasus one more fucking time I was going to quit.

I can't imagine dealing with that and a dog.

Because I need some form of incentive to write my jillion-and-a-half essays.

Give me a series to cross over with Fire Emblem, and I'll give you as plausible a summary as I can think of.

Shin Megami Tensei.

The entire cast of Fire Emblem gets sacrificed to Pazuzu. End of fanfic.

I'd read that.

Apparently she can barely trudge through Fire Emblem.

Fire Emblem, it bears noting, is legendary for its difficulty and in fact has a mechanic where if a character dies they are gone forever.

Naturally people who write fanfiction are a little more used to the flash game side of gaming instead of serious games like this so I appreciate her lack of progress.

Oh, I finished FE9, fiiiiinally. Overall I was quite pleased with it, despite some lackluster elements. Of course, as with most FE games, it's part of a bigger picture, so I started up FE10 shortly afterwards. Verrrry happy with this one. Aside from the disappointing way the supports were handled, everything else is fantastic. I've had a lot of "wait, what!" moments while playing-- in a good way. I played through Part 1 and about halfway into Part 2 before I got frustrated with "Geoffrey's Charge" and went back to FE7 for a while. I'm surprised people were so hard on Part 1! Granted, I'm playing on Easy mode, but I didn't have trouble with the battles, 

"I don't get why people complain about a hard game while I'm playing on easy mode."

People who play Fire Emblem look for a challenge and so typically play on hard.

Easy mode is for baby's first SRPG.

Day 17 - Which stat is your favorite?

Hmm, tough pick between Speed and Defense. I think I'd have to go with the latter, though, just because I'm not very good at FE and I need all the protection my units can get! If you can get both in one unit, though, they'll pretty much be a powerhouse. 

Might and defense I believe are mathematically the one and two most important stats in any Fire Emblem game. I remember I had this big fuck off dude with a spear who would win entire levels by himself.

This blog kind of degenerates into lists of garbage no one cares about.

What the fuck is happening?

How long do I have to tolerate this?

Oh.

Well that's her first entry so I guess that's how long I have to tolerate it.

Wow that was something.

Since this was a highly video game-centric post and I'm feeling FUCKING RAGE after reading this I think this is appropriate for the song of the now.

Enjoy 30 minutes of Streets of motherfuckin' Rage 2.

One of the best soundtracks in video games I feel.

All guys with blogs are gay

Guy named James who writes fanfiction--

So we saw Furious 6 today, and it was awesome. AWESOME. The tiny bits of plot were rare and easy to ignore and focus on the important things: fast cars, impossible stunts, witty banter, Vin Diesel standing around in thin shirts.

I approve very much of this movie. I think there was something about a computer chip. I do not know. Driving fast! Biceps! Something about a guy named Shaw!

It was all good. I want to re-watch 1, 4 and 5 now. And write lots of stories explaining why Dom and Brian are going to raise Jack while Letty and Elena (sp?) go catch criminals together. Or Elena can be a cop and come home to Letty and say "Don't tell me what you did today! I'm not covered by the fifth amendment!"

And stuff.

Great thanks for that time waster!
"These movies have no plot and it's the 6th one so do you really need a review of it?" is how this post should read. Of course, that doesn't stop Dreamwidth from being eternally sunny about everything:

stellar analysis! you've focused on the truly important bits of the movie, imo

Says one comment.
Truly, indeed, this is the pinnacle of movie reviewing.

Adventures in reading fanfic

I'm not going to be mad at this post because that's the title and I clicked on it.
Like what did I expect?

Ooo, a story I haven't seen before!

Okay, do I recognise that author's name?

...yes, I think I do!

Wait, do I recognise them because they're good, or because I always think I recognise them for being good but really they're bad?

clicks on story link

Crap.

 What did I expect?
The part that slays me is I have to agree that I'm 18 after each post like Dreamwidth does but there's a posted reason this time:

Talk of porn..

Woooooow.
I'm going to go until I find a post where you talk about porn. What do you want to bet this is the entry that doesn't end?
Why even warn about talk of porno?
Do you realize it's hard to do studies on internet porno because finding a control group that doesn't watch porno is impossible to find?

I have written over 800 pieces of fanfiction over the last twenty years (possibly more, considering the way I am not all that rigorous about archiving my stuff). I have posted to paper zines, university-owned mailing lists, usenet, yahoo, LJ, DW, AO3, moderated archives, my own forums.

I still get paranoid about posting something and waiting for that comment from a moderator saying that I have screwed up, violated comm rules, and I need to stop being a brain-dead loser who can't read instructions.

\o/

20 years of writing fanfiction?
So since 1993?
At what point do you stop and evaluate what the fuck went wrong with your life?
20 years of writing fanfiction.
Do you realize you could have written something of actual substance in that amount of time if you had even a modicum of talent?

A couple days ago I banged out 1,000 words in about fifteen minutes, spellchecked it, went over it and changed half a dozen words and punctuations, and posted it. Now it has, like, 1500 hits and almost 200 kudos and over a dozen comments.

I feel like I misled everyone by not actually spending time and effort writing it. However, I figured out why it's popular: it's not a WIP, it's not angsty, and it isn't Steve/Tony posted under the Clint/Coulson tag. Also, it is a fluffy piece of awwwww so it makes readers feel good, which encourages kudo-leaving.

 Writings by women.
Writings by men.

 When you read a long story all in one sitting and when it's done you have to try to pull your brain back out of that world and remember things like a) what you were supposed to have been doing and b) whether you have time to still do it and c) your name and species.

What the fuck is wrong with you and what went wrong with your life?
Still waiting for that talk of porno, speaking of.

So I start reading a story and it's "this happens, then this happens, then this person says this, and that person says that, then this happens, then that happens" and not one single person has a single emotional response to anything at all, ever.

Fanfiction of inferior quality?
You mean if you eat shit you'll end up eating shit?
JESUS CHRIST WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME?

Dear Customer:

Why do you ask me where something is then walk away as I begin to answer?

Good luck,

Me

Yeah people did that to me all the time when I worked my shitty grocery store job.
Here's how you handle it:
Ma'am.
HEY MA'AM.
You started walking away before I told you anything.
Finish thought.
Call them right out on their bullshit because I ain't be trying to spend all day babysitting grown women.
Happens all the time in high school too but you know I'm getting paid to babysit (effectively) grown women so whatever that's what I'm paid to do.
BUT IN MY SHITTY GROCERY STORE JOB
I WAS PAID TO PUT LETTUCE ON A SHELF.

 When I have lunch I sit at the front window by the doors to our store, and I watch people come and go. It's always entertaining, but the one thing that always gets to me are the number of women who wear heels and don't know how to walk in them. Usually it's the bow-legged clomping walk they use, because they don't know how to keep their balance or something.

I don't wear heels -- I used to wear cowboy boots but now they hurt my arch.

Oh it's a woman.
Excuse me for assuming a journal named James was a man.
You know it had all the indicators of being a woman but who the fuck even knows anymore

That means I don't really have any heel-walking experience with which to rant about how some people look really stupid and clumsy when walking in heels. So I did what anyone would do, and I went to youtube and looked up how to walk in high heels videos.

And now I want to get a pair of heels. Possibly so I can learn to walk in them correctly and be all smug about it. Luckily for me, I don't have any occasion to wear heels (they would not go well with my cargo pants or sweat pants, I suspect.)

So let me see if I understand this correctly
you're going to buy shoes you don't like
that are uncomfortable
put research and practice into this 
just for the purpose of showing up other women
who don't care
so you can feel smug?
White women, eh.

So at my last break at work, I go in to the break room and find that Lord of the Rings is playing on the tv! Yay!

...

I sit down in time to see Boromir's death scene.

...

Now I'm home and am having all the cookies and ice cream.

Not that you needed an excuse for that am I right?

Lo, the irony! The other day I described a sort of book I wanted to read. Turned out I had a book exactly as I wanted sitting on my bookshelf in the to read pile. I'm about 100 pages in and loving it.

The Straight Razor Cure by Daniel Polansky is about a drug dealer in Low Town (the slum part of town), a former soldier and former wizard's apprentice who gets dragged into investigating a crime by his former bosses, the town's elite police corp.

What the fuck has gone wrong with your life?

Sometimes I buy books and I end up reading them right away, sometimes a year later. (If I buy it in hardback, chances are good it'll be "a year later, right after it's released in paperback.") Sometimes I end up reading the first 50 pages and deciding I don't want to finish it. (50 pages is my limit: if I don't like it well enough to keep going by then, chances are I won't suddenly start enjoying it on page 52.)

The nice thing about buying books, though, if that even when I buy it and decide I don't like it, I never feel guilty for having spent my money on it. Unless I discover that the author is a complete asshat, I think that books are awesome enough as a Thing that I'm happy to support their existence on principle even if I don't care for the actual content.

I HAVE NO FILTER.
I CANNOT TELL WHAT NEEDS TO BE PURCHASED AND WHAT DOESN'T.
If I buy a book and it sucks I'm pissed off that some asshole has my money undeservedly.
Further:
I HAVE NO FILTER
I CAN'T TELL WHAT NEEDS STATED AND WHAT DOESN'T
because seriously who gives a shit about your purchasing habits I mean goddamn

Tell me about a story I haven't written, and I will give you a snippet of it. Any fandom I've written before; please specify pairing or grouping if you want that to be relevant.

0 comments

I am pleased by this turn of events.

It's possible I am a little grumpy (and that I maybe don't like answering the phone anyhow) when I hear my phone ring from the other room and I yell (to the empty apartment) WHY YES I WOULD LIKE TO IMMEDIATELY DROP EVERYTHING I AM DOING AND COME TO ANSWER YOU.

There may have been a few "fucks" sprinkled in there. Luckily for the caller, it was the automated system telling me to pick up my prescriptions. So I didn't have to ruin anyone's day by being grumpy at them.

Also, why isn't it spelled "perscriptions" since that is how it is pronounced?

How it's pronounced if you live up north or down South, maybe.

Meanwhile in non-plebeianville it's pronounced exactly how it's spelled.

You know how when you send a PM or direct message or the like to someone you have interacted with before, but are not really friends with, and you're trying to, like, be friendly and you try to be witty and change your wording several times so you sound just right and then they don't respond for a couple days and you realise you've probably just offended them and they're never going to like you?

Yeah. That.

;-)

No

all my personal mails are in EVE Online and are usually handled with clinical professionalism.

I've even started conversations with strangers with "state your business."

Why is it always the songs I dislike which get stuck in my head??

Must suck m8

Does it count as exercise if I eat a cookie while on the stationary bike?

Oh boy.

Fic Letdown

And more irrelevant bullshit.

That moment when you see a new story has been posted in your small fandom, and it's a genre you despise.

That moment when you realise that half of the new stories in your small fandom are a genre you despise.

That moment when you see an author you adore talking about a new story that's almost ready to post...and in the last sentence of her happy babble you find out it's a genre you despise.

And it's the sort of genre where you just want to say "If that's what you enjoy, then why not write stories in Fandom X, which is tailor made for that sort of thing?!? And leave my Fandom Y alone!"

Imagine if you had real problems.

For four decades I knew that when my stomach was upset, the best course of action was to not eat anything for awhile, or have some toast and 7-up. Now, of course, I am on two medications -- both of which give me an upset stomach if I have not eaten enough.

I'm not really enjoying myself. In case you wondered.

40 years old.
40
fucking
years old.
Anyway I gotta do some shit and then some more shit and then go to bed so goodbye.

The Political Views of 500 Bints

WELCOME...
TO OBLIVION!
That's how I welcome people into the classes I teach every day, incidentally.

Alias valiens. Downtown NYC art baby, now in Naples, FL. Homeschooling hipster. Capitalist creative. World foodie. Community seeker. Gun toting garden yogini. Can also be found on Twitter, Pandora and at IIN. More of this blog is true than you may think.

... Shut the fuck up Jesus Christ.
World foodie.
If a girl said she was a world foodie to my face I would punt her on the ovaries.
Anyway this bitch is in retirement (hopefully from life) and the last post was 2010 and literally the next 15 blogs had posts from this week but I'M STARTING AT THE TOP OF THE LIST I GOT.

I've been trying to feel my way back here, and just am not feeling it.

So much is happening in the real world, so much personal growth, and work is beginning to pick up. I want to keep blogging, but not on this blog. That's the realization. It just feels like a time capsule to me. Pre-lost baby, post-lost baby. Everything changed after her. So this is it. The official retirement of this blog. It seems crazy to me, having blogged since '04. So many links, so many friends made even. But I need a new outlet for the new me.  

Cool.
Cool.
It is almost the midway point in school. I have begun to see clients for Health Coaching, which is going really, really well. The first newsletter has gone out and been well received, the second one is in the almost ready. I'm trying to get my summer class schedule organized so it can go into the July issue.
A health coach.
Wait a minute. I was promised a feminist housewife not a feminist usual bullshit women do for a living.

My talented and wonderful friend Bree and I have been meeting for brainstorming and creating sessions for our Art Group. This has been a truly magical thing. We have been thinking arts thoughts, writing poetry, writing and planning a performance, doing improv together (that upsets the dog) and visiting museums.

This'll probably say a lot more about me than it will this woman but I remember thinking in one of my English classes that the scariest god in Greek mythology wasn't Ares for his wanton bloodlust or Zeus for being able to kill any motherfucker he wants with a lightning bolt but probably Eros or Aphrodite for their powers of making people fall in love.
Like what if I fall in love with a cunt like this?
I'd suddenly be tolerant of this nonsense.
I'd probably be miserable and okay with it.
What can Ares do?
All right I can die but that's all he can do, really.
This is probably why all important religions (Greek mythology) advocate being guarded when it comes to romance.
Well I guess I now know why that religion died out: made too much goddamn sense.
Also didn't spell shit out.
Here it is, retards. Figure it out or get fucked, not my problem.
Not how you want to run a self help camp.

We're gearing up for Earth Day weekend at Koreshan again. Amazing to see our last trip there was one of my last posts for so long. This photo of Baird in a mango tree was sent to me by some kind vendors last year. It's so very Baird.

...
Baird is her son.
She named
her son
Baird.
Holy
fuck.
Name your kid something manly so he doesn't turn out like a twat.
It's literally the first step after he's been fired out of your crotch cannon and you can't even get that right.
Step one (arguably the easiest step) and already you have irrevocably ruined this kid's entire existence.
I think I just figured out the worst thing that could ever happen to this kid:
there's an afterlife.
"Oh, what did you do with your life, Achilles?"
"Killed a bunch of Trojans and fucked bitches."
"What'd you do, Baird?"
"My mom took me to Earth Day."
I don't advocate naming your kid Achilles, incidentally.

My biggest challenge is keeping balance, same as it is for most people. This whole homeschooling three kids, starting a business while in school and supportive husband too busy as well thing is a challenge.

And you're homeschooling Baird.
You don't want this kid to be a well-adjusted, productive member of society.
That's all there is to it.
It's difficult to imagine homeschooling is legal in this country, actually.
I had to go to school to learn how to do this. You're 100% unqualified.
You might be (might being the qualifier here) a good mom but that doesn't actually make you knowledgeable in an area of study.

  I know I can't duplicate myself, I know I can't bag the whole sleep thing (!), but in fact I also know we all get the same 24 hours. So my real challenge is how to best support myself in those 24 hours, by organizing, prioritizing and being selective, and taking good care of my health along with that of my family. 

Step one: enroll those kids in a normal school.
Baird has to go to school with normal kids who will make fun of his name. It's the only way to avoid him developing a complex about it.
I've known about the kid for five minutes and already I have a complex about his name.

We lost dear Anci two years ago, our daughter of second trimester, as many of you are aware.

Anci.
Anci.
Hindi for "spared" I think.

Anci (Ahn-shee)has also helped us find clarity and continues to do so.

Use the Latin pronunciation. Why the fuck not?
Maybe it's best you're homeschooling them, actually.
Those poor substitute teachers.
IT'S PRONOUNCED AHN-SHEE.
Well excuse me for not being fucking clairvoyant and just guessing your whore mother was an expert on Latin.

The economy continues to be an inspiration to us and to everyone we know. There has never been a better time for making lemonade. But you don't need me to tell you that.

Yes that's the word I'd use to describe the economy.
I wish I were still in college because I'd totally use that in my paper.
WW2?
Inspiring.
The Fall of the Roman Empire?
Inspiring.
The Plague?
Inspiring.

The house is tidy, no one is sick, my desk has been cleared (though not entirely conquered for real), and it seems like a great moment to go to bed.

This blog?
Inspiring.
Awe-inspiring, that is.
Like what the fuck is wrong with you?

All these changes in the world make it harder to blog. Not that I don't have just as much to say, but I'm out doing things, and spending so much time catching up from the month and a half with three fevers. And then catching up with my love, who is always off working. I'm just so glad we're all finally all the way better.

Off working to support you.
Like seriously, what did Zeus do to punish people?
9/10 they were totally asking for what they got.
He turned a bitch into a tree--
he turned some dudes into dolphins--
he turned one guy into a bull--
he lit a guy on fire--
like all of that is bad but what did this poor sod do?

Right now I'm finding some combination of faith and thought is the best answer. Thinking things through, and then letting go. I'm a big fan of leaving room for Grace.

Of all of the punishments wrought by the gods let this one never visit me.

Funny how it actually works when I actually do it. I'm not really a chat with God type, so it feels funny even thinking about my own faith this way, but I don't think I need to analyze it.

Pretty sure the gods are more metaphorical than literal but this is serious enough that I'd sacrifice a goat to prevent this from happening.
I'll admit I haven't been too big on the libations because I always considered it bronze age superstition but please let's just not have this happen.

I think I'm okay just letting it be. If it works, why am I going to mess with it? To be rigorous? Why in all things? Or maybe, why not invite the possibility that rigor can be the act of trying on faith a different way, and not freaking if it changes some things I thought I was sure about. Why should rigor equal cynicism?

Wrap the thigh bone in fat. Let's do it, come on.
Wait, how did that go in the Odyssey?
It's only written like a thousand times and I've only read it a thousand times. You'd think I know.

Day three of my Lenten fast. It's brilliant.

I decided to just move boldly forward without any particulars for my master plan. The plan is this. 1. Eat mostly raw, aiming for 90%. 2. Fill in with either macrobiotics inspired, or at least whole. 3. Once a week or so, eat a Healthiest Meals On Earth type meal.

Yesterday was easy. The kids had oatmeal for breakfast with rice syrup, blueberries, and goat milk. 

The point of Lent isn't to be a cunt. The point of Lent is self-denial so it can bring you closer to Jesus.
Holy fuck, do you seriously not get the point of one of the most sacred holidays in your religion?
I just talked about sacrificing a goat. That's about as heathen as you get and even I understand this.
I made whole wheat blueberry scones the other day, so we finished those as well. Lunch was cut peppers, some soaked and dehydrated almonds, a big salad of locally grown organic chrysanthemum greens with soaked and dried pumpkin seeds, garlic, heirloom tomato, fresh dill from the garden, blueberries, lime, extra virgin olive oil, pepper, Himalayan salt.

Gluttony
(From Lat. gluttire, to swallow, to gulp down), the excessive indulgence in food and drink. The moral deformity discernible in this vice lies in its defiance of the order postulated by reason, which prescribes necessity as the measure of indulgence in eating and drinking. This deordination, according to the teaching of the Angelic Doctor, may happen in five ways which are set forth in the scholastic verse: "Prae-propere, laute, nimis, ardenter, studiose" or, according to the apt rendering of Father Joseph Rickably: too soon, too expensively, too much, too eagerly, too daintily.  

Just added some bold face for you.
Something to think about, O Blessed One.

The girls and I loved it, but Baird didn't. He had raw peanuts-only peanut butter on the last of his ciabatta roll and some freshly squeezed orange juice. Kali used her ciabatta for a little grilled cheese.

After we made and drank smoothie twice, I really wanted something salty, and crunchy.

Baird.

I am devoting Lent to eating raw & living foods, and streamlining my life.

The point of Lent isn't to diet.
Forget it.
It's not that important, honestly.

That means more household carnage. Things must go. It means looking at my computer time a new way. It means an electronic sundown. [Insert movie track sounds of impending doom].

I know I approach things too radically. I know, I know. 

Yeah your Lent diet sounded pretty extreme.
It sounds like more than I eat in a day.
That's your fasting meal.
More than I eat in a day.

2. Begin at the beginning. Keep reading the books, schedule a trip to Food & Thought, plan some foods the kids and Tim can eat (raw & cooked). Put ceviche on the menu.

OH GOD HIS NAME IS EVEN TIM.
ZEUS AEGIDUCHOS.

I'm a little late to the trough, I realize. But yesterday I consumed all of Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.

Nah, that's cool.
So glad that fad died out.
Now it's Hunger Games but whatever, one step at a time.

Even if he was not a vampire, one fact is clear based on his smaller, seemingly insignificant relationship behaviors. He is not a nice man. 

He's a vampire, dipshit.
Also it's "if he were not a vampire"  because it's subjunctive.
That might seem needlessly nitpicky to you but I would argue you're only an English teacher.

At first I attributed the Cullen character's oddities to mere vampiric repertoire, as I'm sure most readers also have. He is, after all a predator of humans. The red flags were buried in the willingness to be taken, the desire to be led by the author.

So case fucking closed.

I don't think it's over-analyzing to point out Edward's controlling personality or anger issues. He is possessive, demanding, unpredictable, violent.

Vampires in most (decent) fiction are barely contained animals.
In fact in Warhammer vampires that lose too much of their civility literally become monsters.

There are times when life comes in rapid fire.

Two shots at half range if you haven't moved.

First, at church (a 2000 year old game of telephone, T gleefully calls it)  

So he's a cunt too.
A SHAME TO ALL TIMS.
A STAIN ON OUR OTHERWISE RESPLENDENT ROLL OF HONOR.

 I won't call it a neat, clean faith. It is, perhaps, diverse in the trappings, but I've been told by some who claim to know, my theology is sound. If my outer label is smells & bells queer- and woman-friendly Episcopalian, heavily informed by panentheistic Indian Mysticism in general, and Trika Shaivism in particular, with a subtle Buddhist finish and humanist base, my inner spiritual life is quite clear.

AVE CAESAR.
I don't even know what the fuck anymore.
This is seriously The Meanest Mom 2.0 and I'm sad both of them are in retirement now.
Or glad.
I guess I should be glad since my goal is to stop blogging--
This is some Dragonball Z shit, man.
If I destroy blogs who will I have left to battle?
And on that somber note I'm going to bed.

MY BODY IS READY

Today we're taking our first uneasy steps into Tumblr territory.
Is Livejournal too high brow for you?
Maybe a little too masculine?
Well we have Tumblr here just for you, retard.
Anyway this blog actually came as a request--
because I'M FAMOUS ENOUGH TO GET REQUESTS FUCK YOU and here it is.
This is a return to one of my old favorites: poetry blogs.
Did you miss poetry blogs?
Aaaaah me neither.

I wanted to write something about her but
she’s so small then I thought men don’t measure things
by their absence,
she seems to have seen all 27 cracked and ordinary years of me
still laughs at my dumb jokes about old movies
three mocking birds worth of laughs while I pay for our booze
like I have many times before,
they said fuck you to all the saints with high heels and now she
touches my leg lightly and smiles at me like no one does, 

HOLY
SHIT BRO
WHAT THE FUCK
ARE YOU DOING
Poetry isn't actually sentences with random page breaks contrary to one of the first jokes I told about poetry on here.

for now I will just try to make her
laugh,
because graveyards are full of the boys who went for the
high heels and liquor, so rarely do they have
tombstones next to anyone important,
because graveyards are also full of boys like me,
I will die someday too,

amen,
plastic jesus candle lying upside down in my neighbor’s window,
hear my prayer,
“don’t let me
fuck this one up…”
He’s heard it before, He’s quite unimpressed, the
sun has melted his face into only hints and He has never been
lit, which explains everything
if you think about it 

So this poem makes sense if I think about it.
So you're a pretentious hipster faggot and this is all garbage.
Got it, asshole.

Sometimes I sit alone in the break room chugging red bull and listening to the Wrath Of Khan score wondering if I’m ever going to buy a decent razor so i stop giving myself terrible razor burn when I do remember to shave.

Gotta get up at 5:30 tomorrow, speaking of.
God I love my fucking shitty job.

Thai food, the Aquitaine, the Hyde Out, Willie Williams, the Revenger’s Tragedy, whiskey, and getting lives on track. Ups and downs. Life, you know?
Okay, I’ll write something cooler, settle down, jeesh. This was for me. SO I CAN LOOK BACK. I DO THAT SOMETIMES, JERKS.

HOLY FUCK BRO IS THAT A COHERENT THOUGHT OR THE RANTINGS OF A FUCKING TWEAKER? 

• Sally: What are you doing?
• Me: Waiting for a text.
• Sally: You do that? I thought the oh so edgy writersmith was above such things. He was never the active contact.
• Me: I'M TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF SALLY.
• Sally: I DON'T THINK A NEW LEAF MATTERS IF YOU CUT THE WHOLE DAMN TREE DOWN
• Me: I NEEDED THE WOOD BECAUSE I KNEW YOU WERE GONNA GET ON THE CROSS
• Sally: Damnit, Daniel.

Is it possible to hate these two people more than I do right this fucking second?
Because I don't think it is.
This is the 9/11 of blogs.

 Had a weird John Hughes moment in the Mission today; went down to go see the show at the Dark Room with Juan (oh that Juan) and was walking down the street and saw this very pretty girl who was extraordinarily familiar, who then asked me “Do I know you?” and then we talked about Roald Dahl’s adult fiction (gotta find a copy of his Hamlet) and now I’m looking forward to buying her a drink and talking books. Also, really, I wonder where I know her from — if I do in fact know her. It’s a small city. And I’ve got the soul (or at least wardrobe) of a detective. 

The soul of an asshole.
I can't imagine how you dress. I bet you own at least one fedora in which case you should be violently scourged with razor wire.

when you slammed the door in my face, I laughed, because I couldn’t scream, or yell, or beg. when you slammed the door in my face the air pushed me back a bit, and I teetered on the top step. I’m clumsy, and if I had fallen backwards and broken my neck and ended up crippled or dead, would you have wept? not in that moment, I’m sure. the bitterest satisfaction is only empty in retrospect. in the moment it fills you, like a good meal, like great sex, like religion or a long movie.

Like great sex
or religion
or a long movie
You know what three things I didn't expect to see tied together?
Well a lot of things but those three things especially.

I tried to explain she was a moment of weakness. it wasn’t hers — women are savage, and paranoid, but so rarely weak, and in that moment I touched her, and other things, and it was without meaning. meaningless but loaded with consequence. like all small actions, it became something greater, and worse, a free-floating emotional and social maelstrom. 

Coooooooool.
So you cheated--
You know I get this but I'm having a hell of a time giving a fuck because this is so pretentious and hipster I feel like I shouldn't be getting this as much as I do.

she was a great laugher, and a great smile, and a great body, and pretty — yes, she was all those things. but not like you. your laugh made me call you from thousands of miles away.

"baby it ain't be like that"
HOW IS IT
I CAN ACCOMPLISH IN ONE SENTENCE

WHAT TAKES YOU PARAGRAPHS
 your smile stood below mine in the mirror in the morning when you made fun of me. your body, well. I don’t have the time to describe. art. form and void. 

So she's got a great smile
and she's really fucking hot--

 when I touched her, she laughed. when you slammed the door in my face, I laughed. people do crazy things. people are fundamentally crazy, or perhaps we’re just sane and pretending.

But is she
half as hot as Anna Tsuchiya?
The answer, of course, is no.
So really whatever, bitch. Peace out.
FUCK HER. YOU THINK I GIVE A DAMN ABOUT A BITCH I AIN'T A SUCKA.

but I loved you, like fire and songs, because that is how I love. until I do crazy things. I won’t ever change, not until I die. 

Anna Tsuchiya
I even saw that fucking movie you were in where you were a hooker
what the fuck was that anyway?

the memory of her laughter is all I can recall about her, what became of the rest of her I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. I loved you all along, but she was beautiful too, in the way that all women are — exotic and painful and unlocking, always becoming more complicated and wonderful.

What?
Listen, bro, she's just a pop star.
She's not even the hottest Japanese pop star so let's keep our shit together.
Or the sluttiest. Just putting that out there.

I knew when I touched her, I hurt you, and I hurt myself. perhaps that is why she loved it. perhaps that is why she laughed. now you are gone, and bigger than me, and I am still a boy who knows nothing, who plays with his toys and stares upwards not knowing just what to wonder. 
and you will crack the sky with your dreams, darling. 

Darling.
I think Anna Tsuchiya should probably send me an email or hell I'd accept a text of her thanks.
Because I think after watching her movie I'm about the most dedicated fan ever.
All right you've got a sexy voice do I really need to watch a whole movie featuring this?

• Me: I gotta get outta my hotel room. It's too small and creepy and it's making me stir-crazy and mean and weird.
• Zach: I hear the real estate in Damascus is good.

 I hear your face would make a good home for my fist, Zach.
Is anyone named "Zach" (with an 'h') not a complete twat?
Here's a picture of him reading a book and drinking Jack Daniel's with iTunes on in the background.
COOL.
COOL.
COOL.
LET ME POST ABOUT HOW I GOT REALLY BUZZED ON KAMIKAZES AND SAW THE ROOM IN A HIPSTER THEATER BECAUSE THAT'LL BE AN INTERESTING POST FOR PEOPLE TO READ ABOUT.
Dipshit.

Fuck a good life — I just want the story, you know? You die alone anyway. It doesn’t matter if you die holding someone’s hand, there’s no guarantees with the clearing at the end of the path. The story is what matters. I don’t care of I have to live a ridiculous cartoon hyper-allusion of a miserable life to get one good story. You don’t sign up for the writing gig and you don’t get to go AWOL. Journalism, poetry, telling dick jokes on twitter; go, go, go kid go! Write that ridiculous love song! Blog something about someone you don’t know! Burn it all down on the way and sit alone in a small room. 

And yet every single one of the best authors say "my life was complete shit so let me tell you this story so my life will be slightly less shit". They don't go seeking it out.
Like what, Dante just decided "yeah to tell a good story I should get myself arrested"
or what, Milton said "yeah I think I'll almost get executed as a traitor so I'll have enough material to write Paradise Lost."
That's not really how this shit works, idiot.

Last night was the thrilling experience of watching some first timers take some low-grade acid and dance, get topless, while I (also dropped) and graphically and repeatedly described the Coen Brothers spit-roasting Frances McDormand (for almost forty five minutes) and we laughed about fax machines, tried to get Siri to admit she hates Zooey, and made fun of each other’s weird mannerisms and lay about on the floor trying to figure out how the fan worked.

THEN WE WERE THE ONLY PEOPLE IN THE THEATER SO WE DECIDED TO FUCKING MAKE SHADOW PUPPETS ON THE SCREEN--
IT WAS FUCKING HILARIOUS YOU GUYS JESUS CHRIST.
God this guy is an asshole.
Here's a picture (that just just a bunch of words, inexplicably) that says "any time a scene is two characters talking about a third the scene is shit" which is actually pretty true.
Except half of Pulp Fiction is that kinda shit and it's one of the best movies ever so whatever.

girl,
with your exquisite cataclysms calming mendacious impertinent folk medleys,
I have built 27 years and 37 teeth worth of poems and
sad songs for you,
I have witnessed the tragic splintering power in the voice
of broken windows, 

MAD LIBS: THE POEM

Most of the girls at the fashion store across the street are leggy Deschanel analogues (and therefore barely noticeable) or surly looking heavily made up Asian girls in hipster glasses (also something this city has overdosed on)

I propose that you cannot overdose on the latter. 

Everyone’s miserable sometimes.
Let me back up. You’re probably in love with someone right now; you, the abstract reader and you the specific — whether it’s known or not. Human beings are mechanically or biologically programmed to love, to facilitate stronger bonds and therefore stronger children.

I am?

There’s no answers anymore. That’s part of getting older. You like the bands you like and you like the certain friends’ facebook statuses and some mornings you wake up and almost don’t go to work, and sometimes you get drunk and dance with a stranger and sometimes you stay at home and watch an episode of something utterly forgettable that completely entrances you. But you don’t have answers.

I have all the answers.
All you have to do is ask me and I can give you them.
Anyway I gotta be up soon for bullshit and salad on the shelf.
Bye then.

That's the way it goes in the city of Compton, boy

I didn't want to do this but ONTD_Feminism was the first thing I saw today and, you know, one click later and I'm in crazyville again.
So I guess let's do part two.

According to a study conducted at the University of Westminster, stronger men make awful boyfriends. The study surveyed 327 straight British men, more than a third of whom were single, and discovered that the more muscular the participant, the more likely he was to have sexist beliefs and hostility toward women. Yikes! 

...
Because a study of 327 people is statistically significant, what?

The correlation between brawny men and sexist beliefs is rooted in traditional gender roles. "We think men who hold oppressive beliefs about women and gender equality are also more likely to endorse traditional stereotypes of masculinity, which includes the muscular physique," the study authors wrote. 

So if you work out you're an asshole...
I can't even begin to explain why this is nonsensical.
All right here's my new study: if you're a woman and you're skinny you're more likely to be a total bitch because clearly you hold your physical appearance over your mind.
Except, you know, that skinny chick who was really smart BUT NEVER MIND I ASKED LIKE 5 ENTIRE WOMEN SO IT'S A STUDY OKAY.

The researchers also claimed that in societies where patriarchal structures are being challenged, men may attempt to prove their masculinity by bettering their bodies.

How can you even begin to quantify sexism?
Is it a meter in an RPG? Can I grind my sexism skill?

Basically, men who are around women in power tend to feel threatened and display this through gaining muscle. 

... What?
Is the University of Westminster a fucking candy shop with a copy of the Times?
How is this a study?
How did they derive this conclusion?
How are these things correlated?
Is it exponential?
Like, if you're really muscular are you really sexist?

 Although the study was not conducted internationally and the number of men surveyed was rather low, on face, it does seem to hold true.

YOU JUST ADMITTED THIS STUDY ISN'T STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT AND--
God.
I talked to one woman yesterday.
She was a total cunt.
Therefore all women are cunts.
DO YOU SEE WHY THIS IS BULLSHIT?

Consider the cast of Jersey Shore, for example. Though we can't deny their fabulous physiques, they're not exactly the kind of guys you want to bring home to mom (no, not even you, Vinny). So before you dismiss the next scrawny guy who approaches you, consider that science thinks he'd make a better boyfriend. 

Consider the pseudoscience that he'd make a better boyfriend.
And yet if I parade my theory that brown girls make superior girlfriends suddenly I'm racist and judging people based on superficial details.
Not at all like muscular men are assholes.
Also did the analogy for this study seriously include Jersey Shore?
I don't--
Is this real?
What did the comments have to say?

lol, I have met many a skinny/scrawny dude who has been sexist as hell, so this article is kind of pointless. Just think of nerd/geek culture and the sexist bullshit within it, for example. Those dudes don't necessarily work out, and yet they still say/think misogynistic things. 

I mean she's a fucking idiot but that's a completely valid point. Scrawny guys can be sexist, too, so what--
what?

If you're sourcing Jersey Shore... I feel like you're rendering your argument invalid, article. 

I mean I hate to side with Livejournal on this but really I think we've found some common ground here.
That's how bad this article is. I'm throwing my lot in with Livejournal.

eh all men are sexist to varying degrees so science isn't really telling me anything new there. it's always just been a degree between NeoLiberal covert douchery and the more traditional Aggressive Dude douchery.

Unlike women who are just the paragons of sunshine and equality.
Never mind, I'm taking my lot back.

Stop trying to "prove" what makes men sexist (with "science", hahahahaha... no) and just work on educating them. -_-

Don't worry. I wasted countless hours and dollars on that nonsense.

Sounds like a Nice Guy trying a new approach to convince us to go out with him, now with (feeble) statistics. Blech. 

See you've just admitted there's no reason to not be an asshole.
Fucking white women, I tell you.
If anyone out here is reading this let this be your warning.
If you insist on dating one of these soul stealing sea witches then I have done what I can.
I DON'T WANT TO DATE A SEXIST ASSHOLE BUT EWWW NICE GUYS xP
Nope.

Recently, I had an abortion, which I documented with a hidden mobile phone camera and then shared the images on the internet. I chronicled and published my experience on thisismyabortion.com to show what a safe abortion looks like,

Class?
What's that again?

Wow. Major props to this person for their courage. This is a wonderful project. 

Yeah.
Wonderful.

"What makes some of us uncomfortable with bisexual women? It is because we think they're either lesbians having straight sex or straight women testing out their fantasies on us before returning to men?

They're just trying to be unique snowflakes.

In today's post-modern, queer-focused world, bisexuality is being promoted to lesbians as the latest fashionable trend. This has resulted in lesbian politics, namely feminism, being passed over for sexual hedonism, where the only thing that matters is sexual pleasure and desire. Similarly, bisexuality is sold to heterosexual women as some type of recreational activity far from their "natural home" of straight sex. It is seen as "temporary lesbianism."

I suddenly remembered I don't care.
I remember one girl tried to impress me by claiming to be bisexual.
"Really? Ever had sex with a woman?"
"Well, no."
"Kissed a woman?"
"Well, no"
"So you just like them sometimes, right?'
"Well I think I could be if I found the right girl"
All right. I get it.
Liar.

Camille Paglia, the most famous "anti-lesbian lesbian," has written reams about how she worships the penis and cannot understand those of us who do not. In fact Paglia, like many lesbian tourists who sleep with women on the weekend and go back to hubby on Monday morning, thinks lesbian sex needs to be "spiced up" by the odd "het" shag:

Datingwhitewomen.txt

I’ve been thinking of a way to explain to straight white men how life works for them, without invoking the dreaded word “privilege,” to which they react like vampires being fed a garlic tart at high noon. 

Yeah, explain to me how my life works because I'm too stupid to understand it.
Cunt.

So, the challenge: how to get across the ideas bound up in the word “privilege,” in a way that your average straight white man will get, without freaking out about it?

Being a white guy who likes women, here’s how I would do it:

IS THIS COLTON?
COLTON FROM UNCG?
DON'T MAKE ME ACT A MOTHERFUCKING FOOL, COLTON.

Dudes. Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. 

An MMO that's appallingly mundane--
so World of Warcraft.

Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it?

MMOs don't have difficulty settings.
Didn't I already read this analogy?

And maybe at this point you say, hey, I like a challenge, I want to change my difficulty setting! Well, here’s the thing: In The Real World, you don’t unlock any rewards or receive any benefit for playing on higher difficulty settings. The game is just harder, and potentially a lot less fun. 

So every Call of Duty ever?
BOOOOM.

I've actually tried explaining the concept of privilege to my boyfriend (straight white male), and he reacted more or less the same way to the word "privilege" that the author described. He couldn't wrap his head around the idea that being privileged doesn't make you an awful person so much that it means that you have SERIOUSLY massive advantages over those who aren't privileged.

Are you still whining at me?
Go do something with your time, girlfriend.

First comment on his post is a guy disagreeing and then bawwing about how everyone expects him to ~do something~ about stuff that isn't even his fault. *headdesks* It's maddening how blind people are, and how intent they are on clinging to the idea that Reasons x, y & z mean that this doesn't apply to them. 

The analogy is stupid because MMOs don't have difficulty levels.
If one class is overpowered it gets nerfed.
So you know how like white men are now the least employed group in the US?
Sort of exactly like that.
OH MY GOD I LIVE IN AN MMO
I AM AN MMO CHARACTER
WHO PLAYS MMOS
AND WHAT IF MY MMO CHARACTER PLAYS MMOS?

Please don't use ableist terminology like "blind" in place of "wilfully ignorant". 

Jesus Christ.

Hopefully the response to this is "shut the fuck up".

Oh, I'm sorry - thanks for pointing that out, I wasn't thinking when I wrote it. 

Oh.
Well.

I will be angry because I am crazy.

I will be angry because I am not crazy.

????
That's it I'M OUT LIKE SHOUT

Merry Fucking Christmas

I don't even know why I'm bothering today. Don't you people have anything better to do?
I know I sure don't, so let's rumble.
So first thing we have is a post about what she's thankful for, which is unfortunate, but like all holidays (even ones with dubious claim to fame, like St. Patrick's Day) that's all anyone can fucking post about.

Today I am thankful for being artistic and creative.

Fuck me. Also you'll have to forgive the lack of hilariousreactionimage.jpgs, because I'm posting this from my new netbook :3
It is, as they say in the hood, "very kawaii ^.^" (translator's note: kawaii means cute in Japanese)

I feel pretty blessed in this department. I may not have the exquisite vision of a Monet or a Picasso

Ha, ha, no, that's an understatement. I MAY NOT BE AS GOOD AS MONET... I mean I haven't seen your shit, but I'm sure it's just that: shit.

I guess this is also a "I am thankful for My Sweetie being such a sweet and thoughtful man" post, but then I am grateful for that every day.

This post was made on the 23rd, incidentally. I get the feeling we may be in this for the long haul.

A number of members and friends have been asking me what I am doing differently. If you don't care, just skip the rest...

That is mighty tempting, but if "not caring" was the only criteria I had for skipping posts I'd never update again so you better fucking show me, I guess.

Today I am thankful for my computer and the internet in general.

THANK YOU INTERNET FOR LETTING ME POST HOW THANKFUL I AM FOR YOU-- this is really starting to get clusterfucky, isn't it?

Today I am thankful for being able to sleep, and sleep well.

DECEMBER 21st. KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF.
Also why are you posting what you're thankful for on Christmas? Isn't this a Thanksgiving thing? Hence the name, THANKSGIVING?

Whoever said that brevity was the soul of wit was not talking about me.

Who said that? Some hack named Shakespeare or something, I think. No big deal.
Also he'd fucking know about brevity, captain "I have this story and I better tell it over a five act play when two would have sufficed, thanks"
Also there is no easier way to get me to skip an entry than to say something like "I have a bunch of shit I could say in a sentence, but instead I'm going to stretch it out over fifteen".

It is 31 degrees in Jamaica today. We are thinking of skipping Italy this Spring in favour of spending my birthday in a tropical setting instead. We found a really nice Tuscan-themed resort in Ochos Rios. It bills itself as having "The romance of Italy, the passion of the Caribbean"

Wow it must be nice having those problems. DO I SPEND MY HOLIDAY IN JAMAICA OR ITALY?
I mean I understand what it's like to be fairly well off, but you know people with some class tend not to flaunt it like this.

I lack food faith.

Maybe I can distract the angel of food failure from my stew by attempting to make biscuits to go with it.

Goddamn you are a douche.

Maybe if they are both bad, I will distract My Sweetie by serving the whole mess in a French Maid outfit.

Great now that image is ruined for me, thanks.
What is it with you people, honest to God? Is there some sort of daily douchebaggery quota you have to meet? Is it like a nine to five job for you?
No idea.
Now she took a "which Shakespeare play are you?" And I was secretly hoping she'd get Macbeth because of the totally awesome ending where she'd fucking die, but it called her 54% comical.
I have no idea what that means, but goddamn that seems really high to me. I'm not really sure how you can quantify comedy, but if you can, she is not 54% comedic. Is there some sort of comedy deficit where someone, like me, has to be extra funny to make up the difference?

It was a women's only gym, but frankly I don't see men doing this class anyway. Lots of calls to "squeeze your balls". It might make some of them nervous.

On the contrary, I squeeze my balls all the time.
I am RIGHT NOW, in fact.

I am just juvenile enough to find that amusing!

Huh, huh, huh lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Now here's a poll about whether or not she should send the people who read her blog (presumably family) Christmas photos. Now if you haven't seen the poll, you might assume this is a choice of two (perhaps 3 if "I don't give a fuck" is a choice) potential answers, but you will then be amazed to learn this poll has seventeen possible answers. Who knew Christmas pictures were such a complex affair?
Now here are some photos she took on her cruise and she really thinks I give a fuck, doesn't she?
Well I clicked because I wanted to see what variety of bovine I was dealing with, and now I know.
But I still don't care.

My Sweetie has a Masonic function tonight and I have a staff meeting.

FREE MASONS.
Enjoy your super cool secret club, bro. "No girls allowed", even. What are you, nine?
Ohh better stop making fun of you now, though, or your husband will bust out some crazy Masonic powers, huh?
Tools.
I guess that's it, then. Enjoy your silly Pagan holidays, heretics.

Ah Jesus Christ

I'm sure I've mentioned my respect for the Greek pantheon of gods and goddesses. Though I'm not a religious person by any means, that's probably the closest I come to being religious.
My respect for pantheistic gods (gods that rule over some aspect of life or nature) doesn't stop at Greek gods, though. Generally I find the idea more interesting than some omnipotent singular entity that sees everything you do and knows everything you think.
While I was sure, before starting this project, that I was the only (or one of the few) that thought this way I've since learned that I am in a rather large minority. And, like anime fans, this minority is fucking annoying.
So she took this test and pasted it in wrong (hint: LiveJournal doesn't support HTML. Try PHP) declaring that she was like the goddess Isis. I'm not sure that's something I'd be parading around proudly because, as Wikipedia can well attest, Isis was fucking nuts.
Then she mentions her muses, which I'm sure I've yelled at people about before.

Also, have three days to write a pantoum and a prose poem. And all my muses want to do is play with my fanfiction. Why only when I don't have time?!

The muse of fanfiction, huh? That has to be the most useless muse of all time. That's the muse all the other muses make fun of for having no talent and generally being an antisocial douche.
I've been a litfag all my life practically, and I have no idea what a pantoum is.

Just got back from my midterm -- you know, that test that I've been studying my butt off for the past week for? Yep. Save for the take-home essay, the majority of the test was passage identification, which can be very difficult if you're good with concepts, but not so much specific wording, like...oh, say, me.

That sounds like the excuse of someone who didn't study, thought she could rely on her natural talent, only to be rudely reminded midway through the test that oh, that's right, I don't have any natural talent.
If I can identify passages of poems I haven't read, you can identify passages you have read. I find your excuses weak and deeply unconvincing.

I think I got most of them. But there was one... It just sounded so much like Wordsworth, and I'd read "Lines above Tinturn Abby" so many times.... But I still wasn't sure about it, so I looked it up when I got home.

I rag on poetry a lot, but Wordsworth has a fairly distinctive tone. I can't imagine confusing him with anyone else.
To make a long story short, here's what you should never do on a test:

So I wrote approximately half a page explaining and discussing the wrong thing entirely.

Ho ho ho big mistake.

And didn't you know that freaking out makes things okay? It's not freaking out that guarantees disaster. (or was it the other way around? /tongue in cheek)

Feh.

*hates the government and all its red tape and is about to cross over to the anarchists camp just for the stress relief*

I think the asterisks are to denote an action and not a mode of thinking, but in the grown up world we just start sentences with "I" instead of all this emotive nonsense.

In other news of a lovely nature: I CAN HAS WRITE POETRY!!!

Holy shit I'm raging like motherfucking Fist of the North Star right now goddamn.

I can't believe it, but I actually managed to write a poem. Hereness, take a gander if you care, skip over it if you don't.

Fuck yes you are the worst blog ever.
Here it is:

Haunt


A childish game, lost within betrayal:
To what do I owe this charming visit?


A severed trust, a secret too long held
in silence. Allow me: to look, to stroke.


I'll slice them off, those awful fingers that
did dare to snatch this, my sweetness, my joy.
That which was none but my own to treasure.


Yet why? What reason spurs, what purpose thrills
to greedy hands? To clammy palms against
uneasy skin, confused and trembling thoughts?


Unwanted comes, and I am damaged, spoiled
beyond repair. A scar, unknown, unseen;
a scream, to fling my tears against the wall
unmoved. Forever burdened, this endure.


And what is strength, if not continuing
on? What is hope, if not to conquer pain?
Laughter survives. Innocence heals. That thing


the nightmare I can never forget.

So that was horrible.

O.o Iambic Pentameter? Whuts that? o.O Enjambment? Never heard of it.

No I guess you haven't. You do have some aborted attempts at enjambment after reading over it again, but your lines are not arranged in iambic pentameter. Your best bet would be to say it's Dactyllic Hexameter if you translate it into the original Greek, but I doubt anyone would fall for it.
Iambic pentameter, for those of you who are ignorant to the favored mode of poetry for hacks one and all, is a line of five syllables (pentameter) arranged in iambs, which is a form of feet consisting of a stressed and an unstressed syllable. Her poem fails in both regards. Most of her lines contain more than five feet, and most aren't stressed followed by unstressed.
Enjambment, to use her poem as an example, is this:

Yet why? What reason spurs, what purpose thrills
to greedy hands?

See how the actual sentence spills over into the next line? Usually it's done to connect two sentences closely or to keep with a certain rhythm, but since her poem has neither coherence nor rhythm it's probably easier just to call her a hack and move on.

Stats for British Literature:

Must be to the end of Volume II of Frankenstein by six tonight.

Currently: halfway through Volume I

*blinks* What? I had other reading, too!

Lunch is done, back to work. Toodles, darlings!

*skips off*

That's like fifty pages. Good work doing your homework, you.
Oh, oh shit. Gross. My eyes almost rolled out of my head when I saw this.
Her current mood:

Disturbingly good

Well at least you have the disturbing part right.

* They had a grand total of ( I swear to you, I counted as I packed every one) six boxes of nothing but hangers. So I wrote cute-clever little one-liners on the boxes expressing my amazement at having so pack to many, only to realize far too late that I'd spelled them all "hangars".

*facepalm*

News at eleven: English major commits suicide over word misspelled in red ink.

Oh, if only. Maybe you're sharper with the one liners than I am, but the only "cute" one liner that I could come up with is "abortion factory".

And then, of course, when I finally found my classroom (in between the eight and ten of rooms starting with thirty-three when all the rooms on the second floor are supposed to start with twenty-two. SRSLY--huh?!), my professor was right in the middle of going over the lateness policy part of her syllabus. Fantastic. *facepalm* And then we played an introduction game where we had to introduce ourselves with a metaphor and then repeat them as we went around the room.

SRSLY guys, SRSLY.

I get the feeling everyone had the whole pointy porcupine thing in their minds rather than the pen, like I did. Oh well.

... I have no clue what that means.
Next I'm going to analyze these two sentences, and let's see if we can find the break with reality:

And I'm relieved that everyone in Poetry seems to have such fun, down-to-earth attitudes.

Her class is down to earth, all right.

(Seriously, one of the guys used the metaphor SPARTA! for himself, and another used a ficus. One of the girls used My Little Pony. I'm not kidding. It was fun. I hope it stays that way. *hopeshopes*)

There it was. Down to earth, comparing yourself to a ficus or Sparta (I'd love to hear that metaphor. I'm like Sparta because I, too, have sex with young boys).

Oh, and then I volunteered to work for someone else tonight. On my day off. On the first day of classes. This is why I will probably never procreate.

Thank you evolution.

We saw Journey to the Center of the Earth (Brendan Frasier is always entertaining)

If you had asked me earlier today what I believed I'd never hear articulated into a thought, this would be near the top of my list.

OMG *squeesheartssparklystars* !!!!!

That's it. Entry fucking over.