Does anyone else get miserable this time of year?
Clinically depressed, I mean.
I want to know.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Sunday, May 27, 2007
dreaming
The most important thing about imaginary kisses is the fact that they need to be imagined.
I cull from scenes in movies, and scenes in novels, and the way a friend will describe the first time she made out with her boyfriend in a seat of a movie theatre. In my loneliest moments I string them together in fits and starts, and I construct disjoint details of lips and teeth and tongues, stubble and nose and fingers.
(and chins and cheeks and hair and eyelashes)
It's strange, imagining. You can pay attention to just whichever specific part of the experience you want to - knowing that you need never have annoying smells or sounds or unexpected laughtracks; body odour and halitosis and inappropriate music. You can use replay and rewind and fast forward and lose all the boring parts whenever you want to. You change location and setting and weather; clothing and shoes and hairstyle. You can be taller, shorter, thinner, fatter; simultaneously, separately, in a matter of moments!
One wonders if porn allows those without imaginations to develop some fantasies of their own.
One also wishes... to try the real thing.
It's as though the skin is easily imagined with (someday i will wonder more about this. it is an idea i like), but the rest of the senses take some doing. Sounds are not too hard, tastes are harder, and smell is the hardest of all.
The eyes? Oh the eyes are always closed. Why, but, that's how they do it on TV!
for j. for the inspiration :)
Okay, and because I'm now imagining. waist. and hips. and jaw line. and ears, neck, nape.
the exploration of asymmetry. chest and shoulders and arms and palms. walls and water and outside. shoulder bones and collar bones and backbones. right down to the base of.
thank you for details.
I cull from scenes in movies, and scenes in novels, and the way a friend will describe the first time she made out with her boyfriend in a seat of a movie theatre. In my loneliest moments I string them together in fits and starts, and I construct disjoint details of lips and teeth and tongues, stubble and nose and fingers.
(and chins and cheeks and hair and eyelashes)
It's strange, imagining. You can pay attention to just whichever specific part of the experience you want to - knowing that you need never have annoying smells or sounds or unexpected laughtracks; body odour and halitosis and inappropriate music. You can use replay and rewind and fast forward and lose all the boring parts whenever you want to. You change location and setting and weather; clothing and shoes and hairstyle. You can be taller, shorter, thinner, fatter; simultaneously, separately, in a matter of moments!
One wonders if porn allows those without imaginations to develop some fantasies of their own.
One also wishes... to try the real thing.
It's as though the skin is easily imagined with (someday i will wonder more about this. it is an idea i like), but the rest of the senses take some doing. Sounds are not too hard, tastes are harder, and smell is the hardest of all.
The eyes? Oh the eyes are always closed. Why, but, that's how they do it on TV!
for j. for the inspiration :)
Okay, and because I'm now imagining. waist. and hips. and jaw line. and ears, neck, nape.
the exploration of asymmetry. chest and shoulders and arms and palms. walls and water and outside. shoulder bones and collar bones and backbones. right down to the base of.
thank you for details.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
illusion
I told someone the other day - I cannot write fiction.
I have tried, sure. I have tried, but not very hard. I have tried, but there has never been that spark of imagination in me that makes for the truly wonderful stories. I cannot see them in entirety, the stories; the stories like complete bubbles, free to coalesce with others outside and inside and beside. I can think of nothing new, nothing, and it is not just in the writing.
(what is anything worth if you have nothing new of your own to offer?)
I do tell stories well, though. I can tell you stories I know. Stories I imbibe and refashion to make them, in my head, lighter or snappier or more interesting.
I can make things read well.
I just cannot write them.
I won every inter-house creative writing competition in my school. Perhaps it was because of my flair for words.
(I do have one, don't I? I do, don't I? Oh, someone please say yes.)
My stories weren't ever original. They were, almost all of them, stories about mysterious and malignant dark forces à la every trashy horror story I'd ever read or watched. I always used themes from things I'd read, or seen, or heard. People say all art is imitation, but I couldn't write without themes. I couldn't write a story unless I had a boundary within which to fit it - a first line, a last line, a title. I needed hints, or I didn't know where I was going.
I want to believe this does not make me any less of a person, I do; but I can't. What is the use of anything if you can't imagine? What is the use? People who cannot write can think of stories that have so much potential that I burn with jealousy and futility and impotence.
All I have ever imagined has already been in here. So tell me.
Why bother wonder at all?
I have tried, sure. I have tried, but not very hard. I have tried, but there has never been that spark of imagination in me that makes for the truly wonderful stories. I cannot see them in entirety, the stories; the stories like complete bubbles, free to coalesce with others outside and inside and beside. I can think of nothing new, nothing, and it is not just in the writing.
(what is anything worth if you have nothing new of your own to offer?)
I do tell stories well, though. I can tell you stories I know. Stories I imbibe and refashion to make them, in my head, lighter or snappier or more interesting.
I can make things read well.
I just cannot write them.
I won every inter-house creative writing competition in my school. Perhaps it was because of my flair for words.
(I do have one, don't I? I do, don't I? Oh, someone please say yes.)
My stories weren't ever original. They were, almost all of them, stories about mysterious and malignant dark forces à la every trashy horror story I'd ever read or watched. I always used themes from things I'd read, or seen, or heard. People say all art is imitation, but I couldn't write without themes. I couldn't write a story unless I had a boundary within which to fit it - a first line, a last line, a title. I needed hints, or I didn't know where I was going.
I want to believe this does not make me any less of a person, I do; but I can't. What is the use of anything if you can't imagine? What is the use? People who cannot write can think of stories that have so much potential that I burn with jealousy and futility and impotence.
All I have ever imagined has already been in here. So tell me.
Why bother wonder at all?
ports for tempests
I hold you in my hands
A little animal
And only some dumb idiot
Would let you go
I hold you in cupped hands
And shield you from a storm
Where only some dumb idiot
Would let you go
But if I'm one thing
Then that's the one thing
I should know
Can anybody find their home
Out of everyone
Can anybody find their home
Lost in the sun
Can anybody find their home
Keane - Sunshine
A little animal
And only some dumb idiot
Would let you go
I hold you in cupped hands
And shield you from a storm
Where only some dumb idiot
Would let you go
But if I'm one thing
Then that's the one thing
I should know
Can anybody find their home
Out of everyone
Can anybody find their home
Lost in the sun
Can anybody find their home
Keane - Sunshine
Monday, May 21, 2007
update
The cast, dears, is off.
The ordeal involved hobbling, a saw on fibreglass, incompetence, and pain.
But there was nothing a band-aid couldn't fix; and the cast is off, yay.
Now I have to be even more careful, ugh.
:(
Please hope someone is watching out for me.
The ordeal involved hobbling, a saw on fibreglass, incompetence, and pain.
But there was nothing a band-aid couldn't fix; and the cast is off, yay.
Now I have to be even more careful, ugh.
:(
Please hope someone is watching out for me.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
later letter
Darling,
If I had my way this would be in paper and pen and pencil, because that's what I've been thinking of all day - paper and pen and pencil; and molecules of myself that go spinning out into the great unknown never to return to me unless you will it so. Did I not send them to you, molecules of me in paper and pencil and ink?
I wrote to people in the last week without a thought for what I was writing beyond the fact that I was writing to them and today I cannot remember a word not a word except that I think I told someone I loved him.
Perhaps it is better this way, when the words I write out of my pain and joy escape from me forever and ever and not a word remains to mock me with memories of my own stupidity. Perhaps the letters that will mean the most to us will be the ones we remember in spite of ourselves; without any records or copies or memorandums - the ones that we will remember, perhaps remember all wrong, except for that one perfect sentence we slaved over for two minutes.
Then again, perhaps we will not remember them at all.
See, I've been thinking. Is a relationship that is entirely electronic better than ones you have in real life because of all the ways you can remember it; and all the ways you will never never need to? For I cannot remember when I first wrote you, or when you first said hello, or when you first asked to get in my pants. I cannot remember, but I can find out. I can find out when, and what, and quote; and I can calculate the number of times you said any of the numerous stupid things you said and draw pretty graphs of proportion if I wanted to.
Do we say the things we say to each other because no one will never know unless we tell? Because passwords protect but letters can be found by anybody? Is that why the blog is like an alternative - a public private personal letter that any random person can find; one of those interrupted stories that people stumble across in old apartments - overlapping edges of lives that remind you of things in your own? Is that why it tugs at the heartstrings so to read of someone else, someone like you, doing the things you did or the things you want to do, falling in love and falling out of love and doubting and believing and winning and losing and living?
Perhaps it is. I like to think so. I like to think of all the stories I've read here in this place; the ones I've loved; as windows into lives of people not very different from me - people who could have been my friends, or my sisters, or my soul mates. We all look for soul mates, after all. I've just found some for myself, see, all accidental-like.
Lucky, lucky me.
If I had my way this would be in paper and pen and pencil, because that's what I've been thinking of all day - paper and pen and pencil; and molecules of myself that go spinning out into the great unknown never to return to me unless you will it so. Did I not send them to you, molecules of me in paper and pencil and ink?
I wrote to people in the last week without a thought for what I was writing beyond the fact that I was writing to them and today I cannot remember a word not a word except that I think I told someone I loved him.
Perhaps it is better this way, when the words I write out of my pain and joy escape from me forever and ever and not a word remains to mock me with memories of my own stupidity. Perhaps the letters that will mean the most to us will be the ones we remember in spite of ourselves; without any records or copies or memorandums - the ones that we will remember, perhaps remember all wrong, except for that one perfect sentence we slaved over for two minutes.
Then again, perhaps we will not remember them at all.
See, I've been thinking. Is a relationship that is entirely electronic better than ones you have in real life because of all the ways you can remember it; and all the ways you will never never need to? For I cannot remember when I first wrote you, or when you first said hello, or when you first asked to get in my pants. I cannot remember, but I can find out. I can find out when, and what, and quote; and I can calculate the number of times you said any of the numerous stupid things you said and draw pretty graphs of proportion if I wanted to.
Do we say the things we say to each other because no one will never know unless we tell? Because passwords protect but letters can be found by anybody? Is that why the blog is like an alternative - a public private personal letter that any random person can find; one of those interrupted stories that people stumble across in old apartments - overlapping edges of lives that remind you of things in your own? Is that why it tugs at the heartstrings so to read of someone else, someone like you, doing the things you did or the things you want to do, falling in love and falling out of love and doubting and believing and winning and losing and living?
Perhaps it is. I like to think so. I like to think of all the stories I've read here in this place; the ones I've loved; as windows into lives of people not very different from me - people who could have been my friends, or my sisters, or my soul mates. We all look for soul mates, after all. I've just found some for myself, see, all accidental-like.
Lucky, lucky me.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
better letter later
Being stuck in the house all the time does not make for much adventure at all.
It might if I were in Misselthwaite Manor and wandering along lonely passages and finding semi-orphaned relatives on moonlit nights; but it turns out I am in a cast and hence reduced to hopping around the house with a cane à la House. Sure, one could make valid arguments for reading all the books cluttering up the bookshelves that I haven't even taken close second looks at, but let's face it - I no longer read as much as I used to. I have become addicted to real life. And sitcoms. But those are real life, no?
One day last week I wrote a Person™ a Letter. One of those Dead Tree with Squid Piss Thingys™. And then, when I asked my father for stamps, he accidentally unearthed a sheaf of something surprising - twelve blue Inland Letter Cards, bought back in the day when Inland Letter Cards cost only 75 paise.
Sending an Inland Letter Card today costs Rs. 2.50.
I know because I sent some. In fact, I sent four.
I'd have sent more, only there weren't any stamps of denomination below Rs 5 when my sister went to the post office, so I steamed the stamps off postcards instead and wrote as many letters as the stamps could afford. It was a fun project.
So was, in fact, the actual letter writing itself. Sitting at the dining table after midnight with the injured leg propped up and the trusty cane close at hand; with sheets of actual honest-to-goodness postal stationery waiting to be mutilated by hand-wielded writing instruments... Perhaps the excitement of actually writing a letter (an inland letter! on blue stationery!) overshadowed the joy of communication, but not for long. The first letter was all about the letter writing and about the inlandletter and perhaps it used the word "blue" rather often, but by the time the fourth letter was written I was hitting my stride.
I have grown too used to emails, and the instant gratification they afford; the perfect spelling and unambiguous legibility. I have forgotten the wonder of scribbling and scratching and trying to get the words just right without aid of copy and paste and delete.
And I really really enjoyed sending letters with all those little doodles in the margin.
So if you received a letter from me, today, or tomorrow, or yesterday; well, then - write me back, huh? I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. And I promise the post title if you do. :)
It might if I were in Misselthwaite Manor and wandering along lonely passages and finding semi-orphaned relatives on moonlit nights; but it turns out I am in a cast and hence reduced to hopping around the house with a cane à la House. Sure, one could make valid arguments for reading all the books cluttering up the bookshelves that I haven't even taken close second looks at, but let's face it - I no longer read as much as I used to. I have become addicted to real life. And sitcoms. But those are real life, no?
One day last week I wrote a Person™ a Letter. One of those Dead Tree with Squid Piss Thingys™. And then, when I asked my father for stamps, he accidentally unearthed a sheaf of something surprising - twelve blue Inland Letter Cards, bought back in the day when Inland Letter Cards cost only 75 paise.
Sending an Inland Letter Card today costs Rs. 2.50.
I know because I sent some. In fact, I sent four.
I'd have sent more, only there weren't any stamps of denomination below Rs 5 when my sister went to the post office, so I steamed the stamps off postcards instead and wrote as many letters as the stamps could afford. It was a fun project.
So was, in fact, the actual letter writing itself. Sitting at the dining table after midnight with the injured leg propped up and the trusty cane close at hand; with sheets of actual honest-to-goodness postal stationery waiting to be mutilated by hand-wielded writing instruments... Perhaps the excitement of actually writing a letter (an inland letter! on blue stationery!) overshadowed the joy of communication, but not for long. The first letter was all about the letter writing and about the inlandletter and perhaps it used the word "blue" rather often, but by the time the fourth letter was written I was hitting my stride.
I have grown too used to emails, and the instant gratification they afford; the perfect spelling and unambiguous legibility. I have forgotten the wonder of scribbling and scratching and trying to get the words just right without aid of copy and paste and delete.
And I really really enjoyed sending letters with all those little doodles in the margin.
So if you received a letter from me, today, or tomorrow, or yesterday; well, then - write me back, huh? I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. And I promise the post title if you do. :)
Thursday, May 10, 2007
fits just right
Bye bye baby,
don't be long.
I'll worry about you while you're gone
I'll think of you in my dreams.
You'll never know just what you mean to me.
Ivy - Worry about you
don't be long.
I'll worry about you while you're gone
I'll think of you in my dreams.
You'll never know just what you mean to me.
Ivy - Worry about you
Sunday, May 6, 2007
curses
Being injured is entirely annoying. For one thing, you're so dependent. I don't like being dependent. Especially for entertainment. I disapprove entirely of entertainment that isn't teaching me things, and spending an entire day trying to sleep and continuously complaining about the pain in the foot and the pain in the head and wishing for company and watching nonsense on the television leaves me feeling limp and useless. Plus it was SATURDAY and people all over the planet were doing fun, constructive and dangerous things in their lives while I lay around wishing for phone calls, yes Marcie, I'm talking about you. And no bus rides, neither. No bus rides!!! And yesterday was pineapple. :'(
So at the end of the day, I spent a couple of moments mentally calculating the amount of time I had effectively wasted through the rest of the day - 24 into 3600 24 threes are 72 so twice that is 144 so add them and that's 864 and two zeroes 86, 400 seconds! And my mental arithmetic is not that bad, after all, I say.
However! Last night I dreamed of coconut trees and there was a mongoose. This is new and interesting, and so I'm telling everyone. Mongoose dreams, I mean to say! Must have some deep psychological meaning, no?
Plus the mongoose ran away.
Okay, I need to get out. GET OUT. And people are sending me useless virtual hugs and kisses. And no one is coming to visit, aargh. AARGH, AARGH.
curses.
So at the end of the day, I spent a couple of moments mentally calculating the amount of time I had effectively wasted through the rest of the day - 24 into 3600 24 threes are 72 so twice that is 144 so add them and that's 864 and two zeroes 86, 400 seconds! And my mental arithmetic is not that bad, after all, I say.
However! Last night I dreamed of coconut trees and there was a mongoose. This is new and interesting, and so I'm telling everyone. Mongoose dreams, I mean to say! Must have some deep psychological meaning, no?
Plus the mongoose ran away.
Okay, I need to get out. GET OUT. And people are sending me useless virtual hugs and kisses. And no one is coming to visit, aargh. AARGH, AARGH.
curses.