2016 Nov. 9th
So...
I've been trying to keep this blog, or the idea of it, alive for a while, and I've been working on various things to post on it that aren't just more stupid dime-a-dozen rants... but it's not working out for me.
So I think I'll be withdrawing from it and kind of shutting it down, given the new political climate. There's no point in continuing this. I might try to keep working on the reviews blog, but everything personal is just totally out of the window now.
Well, just another one-of-a-few-million useless attempts at a blog, right?
I think I had something more to say here, but I'm chickening out. I'd actually been working on actual articles to write for this thing, but I don't see any point to it now. Chicken I may be, but it's often the chickeniest chicken that gets to live to run away another day, know what I mean?
Wednesday, 9 November 2016
Monday, 10 October 2016
Another Worthless Update
2016 Oct. 10th
Well, my health has taken a severe turn for the worse... It feels almost like some kind of divine retribution, brought on by daring to try to make myself into something like a respectable human being over the course of the summer.
My sense of self-worth at this point is even worse off than my physical health... It looks like it's been completely obliterated. I no longer do anything around the house, I'm not studying, I barely read, I exercise only every few days, and overall I'm actively avoiding doing anything. This isn't like me, and I can't really handle it. Pushing myself only makes it worse.
I don't feel like it's any use getting into it right now, especially not given that this blog is functionally a sort of semi-public echo chamber...
It took me a while to realize that one of the reasons why I was having trouble making understandable lists of symptoms or expressing how I feel is that I'm actually somewhat delirious and I've kind of dissociated from everything. Losing my awareness of my actual condition, and what I'm really able to do, is terrifying. (And leads to a lot of accidents when I try to do anything, some more hazardous than others.) This falls into TMI territory, but the other day (October 6th), rather than bowel movements, my body was producing gobs of mucus into the toilet. Medical intervention (or rather, begging the medical industry to pay attention to some part of this that can't be 'cured' with antidepressants, Pepto-Bismol, and codeine) has proven to be something so much worse than utterly pointless that it becomes a joke, unjokes itself, and then rejokes itself. I'm really tired of this kind of shit... (No pun intended?? Oh well. Too late.)
Well, my health has taken a severe turn for the worse... It feels almost like some kind of divine retribution, brought on by daring to try to make myself into something like a respectable human being over the course of the summer.
My sense of self-worth at this point is even worse off than my physical health... It looks like it's been completely obliterated. I no longer do anything around the house, I'm not studying, I barely read, I exercise only every few days, and overall I'm actively avoiding doing anything. This isn't like me, and I can't really handle it. Pushing myself only makes it worse.
I don't feel like it's any use getting into it right now, especially not given that this blog is functionally a sort of semi-public echo chamber...
It took me a while to realize that one of the reasons why I was having trouble making understandable lists of symptoms or expressing how I feel is that I'm actually somewhat delirious and I've kind of dissociated from everything. Losing my awareness of my actual condition, and what I'm really able to do, is terrifying. (And leads to a lot of accidents when I try to do anything, some more hazardous than others.) This falls into TMI territory, but the other day (October 6th), rather than bowel movements, my body was producing gobs of mucus into the toilet. Medical intervention (or rather, begging the medical industry to pay attention to some part of this that can't be 'cured' with antidepressants, Pepto-Bismol, and codeine) has proven to be something so much worse than utterly pointless that it becomes a joke, unjokes itself, and then rejokes itself. I'm really tired of this kind of shit... (No pun intended?? Oh well. Too late.)
Sunday, 14 August 2016
Sushi and Sea Slugs Surprise?
2016 Aug. 13th
It's not as interesting as it sounds.
Well, two surprising or interesting things for me today...
Today I made vegetarian sushi... My first time making sushi. I'd been thinking about it for a long time. Somehow, I finally managed it today.
I made two rolls, but the good-looking second one... no pictures survive of it. It left no traces, ha ha... It was devoured quickly. I have a picture of the bad-looking first roll:
Now, if only I had stopped to take a picture of the one that didn't look like it might have come out of either end of a dog... It was gorgeous... but the proof of that is, unfortunately, that it doesn't exist anymore.
I used black rice with plain rice vinegar, Koyo nori sheets, gomashio, dulse flakes, cucumber, local carrots and radishes (from this morning), and mashed hard boiled egg (from days ago). Somehow, it came out of this tasting like flowers. (Even the ugly roll.) I rolled it using a dish towel and some plastic wrap, which seems to have worked pretty well the second time. The first time, well... It served to improve the second one. I guess.
I feel like I accomplished a lot at home today. I woke up in a pit of despair this morning, but for some reason going to the farmer's market somehow refreshed my spirit, and I ended up able to do things. I didn't have any real stamina to do things, but managed to get them done anyway with some tricks. (I am way too used to living this way.)
So... in between things... I watched the latest episodes of Thunderbolt Fantasy and Cute High! Earth Defense Club Love! Love!... and to my surprise, CHEDCLL crossed some kind of a line this episode. I keep thinking they're going to hit some kind of a wall, where they won't go any further.
Today's episode was all about hermaphroditism and poo. And friendship. Or frenemiship. (Or maybe just shipping, depending on who the audience is.)
Need more be said? Well, it's said anyway:
It's then followed by this.
...Which somehow tops all of the "monsters" in all previous episodes. So simple. So... elegant. This even has "Orifice Tornado" or whatever it was called beat. And that monster of chest-hair-envy consisting of a pec toupee with nipples for eyes (in a show where no one has nipples). And the guy who just needed someone to receive his balls... and the guy who turned into a ball. (?!)
Anyway, I was lead through a series of mental in-jokes after watching the first few minutes there...
Sea slugs >> Left Hand of Darkness >> Left Hand of Slugness >> comic series about wrestling somehow involving gastropods >> Bette Midler's "Boxing's Been Good To Me"
So... well... I was entertained. I accomplished some things, and I was entertained.
It felt like a good day. Unfortunately it's now "tomorrow" as it's almost 2:30am as I write this.
I guess I'll end with this screenshot of Thunderbolt Fantasy that kind of made my day sometime last week, for no particular reason.
I can't even bother being ashamed of watching this... stuff.
No, one last thing:
It's not as interesting as it sounds.
Well, two surprising or interesting things for me today...
Today I made vegetarian sushi... My first time making sushi. I'd been thinking about it for a long time. Somehow, I finally managed it today.
I made two rolls, but the good-looking second one... no pictures survive of it. It left no traces, ha ha... It was devoured quickly. I have a picture of the bad-looking first roll:
 |
| Hideous Sushi |
I used black rice with plain rice vinegar, Koyo nori sheets, gomashio, dulse flakes, cucumber, local carrots and radishes (from this morning), and mashed hard boiled egg (from days ago). Somehow, it came out of this tasting like flowers. (Even the ugly roll.) I rolled it using a dish towel and some plastic wrap, which seems to have worked pretty well the second time. The first time, well... It served to improve the second one. I guess.
I feel like I accomplished a lot at home today. I woke up in a pit of despair this morning, but for some reason going to the farmer's market somehow refreshed my spirit, and I ended up able to do things. I didn't have any real stamina to do things, but managed to get them done anyway with some tricks. (I am way too used to living this way.)
So... in between things... I watched the latest episodes of Thunderbolt Fantasy and Cute High! Earth Defense Club Love! Love!... and to my surprise, CHEDCLL crossed some kind of a line this episode. I keep thinking they're going to hit some kind of a wall, where they won't go any further.
Today's episode was all about hermaphroditism and poo. And friendship. Or frenemiship. (Or maybe just shipping, depending on who the audience is.)
 |
| Blaaaaaank... |
 | |
| This interesting non-sequitur pretty much opens the episode. |
 |
| Words cannot capture my facial expression. |
It's then followed by this.
 |
| PANDA POO BOMB |
Anyway, I was lead through a series of mental in-jokes after watching the first few minutes there...
Sea slugs >> Left Hand of Darkness >> Left Hand of Slugness >> comic series about wrestling somehow involving gastropods >> Bette Midler's "Boxing's Been Good To Me"
 |
| Image |
 |
| I love this show. Whether I like it or not. |
It felt like a good day. Unfortunately it's now "tomorrow" as it's almost 2:30am as I write this.
I guess I'll end with this screenshot of Thunderbolt Fantasy that kind of made my day sometime last week, for no particular reason.
 |
| I've been waiting years for a character in this sort of genre to say something like this... |
No, one last thing:
Sunday, 31 July 2016
A Deep Pit, part 3
Part 1, Part 2
2016 Jul. 15th, posted 2016 Jul. 31st
Bringing this back around to the original thing, the Facebook group I thought of creating would have been called "Whole Gender - Embracing the Innate Androgyny in Everyone".
The idea being for it to be experimental... I don't know anyone, so just make a name, a description, and then let the 'Peanut Gallery' run wild in it and see what happens.
I don't have the energy to run or manage a group. It seems utterly doomed to fail.
So... should I bash my head on this, just to prove that I tried? Just to be able to say "THERE, I tried. There's the proof. (Now shut the fuck up about it.)"
On the 14th, I had some kind of a breakdown. (31st - However, as of posting this on the 31st, I have no idea where I was going with that statement... or what it was going to lead into. So I figure I'll just leave it and post this and deal with that later, since whatever it is hasn't really gone away. It's just continued on for all of this time, or 'non-time'.)
2016 Jul. 15th, posted 2016 Jul. 31st
Bringing this back around to the original thing, the Facebook group I thought of creating would have been called "Whole Gender - Embracing the Innate Androgyny in Everyone".
The idea being for it to be experimental... I don't know anyone, so just make a name, a description, and then let the 'Peanut Gallery' run wild in it and see what happens.
I don't have the energy to run or manage a group. It seems utterly doomed to fail.
So... should I bash my head on this, just to prove that I tried? Just to be able to say "THERE, I tried. There's the proof. (Now shut the fuck up about it.)"
On the 14th, I had some kind of a breakdown. (31st - However, as of posting this on the 31st, I have no idea where I was going with that statement... or what it was going to lead into. So I figure I'll just leave it and post this and deal with that later, since whatever it is hasn't really gone away. It's just continued on for all of this time, or 'non-time'.)
Friday, 15 July 2016
A Deep Pit, part 2
continuation of this post
2016 Jul. 12th-14th
I feel like an animal in a deep pit, wasting the last of my energy scrabbling at the walls, just making them steeper as I struggle. I don't know how to meet people... compatible people. I don't have the energy to just subject myself to thousands of people and pull off looking energetic and problem-free, hoping that I can still recognize some that are tolerable and some that 'click' in the midst of that infinitely distracting, burning cacophony. I'm not cut out for this.
I desperately want some kind of human contact - quiet, gentle, and honest. I'm not interested in 'playing the game', which I've heard so often brutally pushed as 'the only way to do things', or somehow inescapable - somehow necessary. It isn't. "Bullshit" isn't the only way to handle existence... and it's certainly no way to make true, lasting friends or acquaintances.
I can feel time bleeding away from me... As time goes on, even just on a daily basis, I can see me and my family getting more and more isolated, and less and less able to reach out, and less and less able to deal with people, or even form bonds, as this goes on.
I'm surrounded by a culture which is basically made out of endless, towering layers of bullshit. Bullshit that feeds on itself, endlessly, as if it had a life of its own. The internet feeds this, gives it a habitat to expand almost infinitely.
A total bullshit culture... loud and assaulting... impenetrable. "Their mouths are open and their ears are closed." A massive world within a world, made of rhetoric, feeding on itself like an ouroboros. (And apparently, feeding on everything else, also.) A world where the myth of the myth is more important than the truth, which must, at all costs, never be mentioned. Even so much as moving in such a way that may possibly hint to others, sideways, that there is in fact an unmentioned elephant perched on the living room coffee table will result in a quick assault and threat of expulsion from 'legitimate' social circles. This is madness.No... THIS IS SPARTAAAAAA.....
In this state of vulnerability and deep need, I'm the perfect prey for people who like to “GIVE ADVICE” (usually new agey victim-blaming shit – just a way to puff up or stroke their own egos... gives them someone to stand on)... among others... So many others...
How can I possibly connect with others? All the roads seem closed. I'm used to going the 'back way', the underground way. Moving quietly while other people shout and/or party. But at this point...
2016 Jul. 12th-14th
I feel like an animal in a deep pit, wasting the last of my energy scrabbling at the walls, just making them steeper as I struggle. I don't know how to meet people... compatible people. I don't have the energy to just subject myself to thousands of people and pull off looking energetic and problem-free, hoping that I can still recognize some that are tolerable and some that 'click' in the midst of that infinitely distracting, burning cacophony. I'm not cut out for this.
I desperately want some kind of human contact - quiet, gentle, and honest. I'm not interested in 'playing the game', which I've heard so often brutally pushed as 'the only way to do things', or somehow inescapable - somehow necessary. It isn't. "Bullshit" isn't the only way to handle existence... and it's certainly no way to make true, lasting friends or acquaintances.
I can feel time bleeding away from me... As time goes on, even just on a daily basis, I can see me and my family getting more and more isolated, and less and less able to reach out, and less and less able to deal with people, or even form bonds, as this goes on.
I'm surrounded by a culture which is basically made out of endless, towering layers of bullshit. Bullshit that feeds on itself, endlessly, as if it had a life of its own. The internet feeds this, gives it a habitat to expand almost infinitely.
A total bullshit culture... loud and assaulting... impenetrable. "Their mouths are open and their ears are closed." A massive world within a world, made of rhetoric, feeding on itself like an ouroboros. (And apparently, feeding on everything else, also.) A world where the myth of the myth is more important than the truth, which must, at all costs, never be mentioned. Even so much as moving in such a way that may possibly hint to others, sideways, that there is in fact an unmentioned elephant perched on the living room coffee table will result in a quick assault and threat of expulsion from 'legitimate' social circles. This is madness.
In this state of vulnerability and deep need, I'm the perfect prey for people who like to “GIVE ADVICE” (usually new agey victim-blaming shit – just a way to puff up or stroke their own egos... gives them someone to stand on)... among others... So many others...
How can I possibly connect with others? All the roads seem closed. I'm used to going the 'back way', the underground way. Moving quietly while other people shout and/or party. But at this point...
Tuesday, 12 July 2016
A Deep Pit
2016 Jul. 12th
(about 9-10pm)
Well, I had an interesting day today, in a very subtle, suffocating sort of a way. ("In space, no one can hear you scream.") And the whole thing brought me to a really, really stupid idea. An idea with painfully predictable results.
I thought of starting a Facebook group, knowing that Facebook is not for that. The people who 'succeed' at Facebook are the people who already have at least some kind of real-life, in-person social network to build from.
I had looked at groups to join on Facebook before, but... as I might have already said somewhere around here... I hate Facebook. I only use it begrudgingly, and only signed up for it because it was the only way to get information on a meetup event in the area. One that I had already already missed at the time I signed up for it.
It's stupid, but I'm still torn about what to do about my identity... or maybe, 'non-identity'. I know so few people, it's fundamentally irrelevant. And really, I'm not here to look like a thing. I'm not here to put on some kind of drag act and present some kind of 'gender face'... I just exist. It's always been that way. Why bother people? I'm annoying enough already. I don't want to bother people.
And the thing is, if I start connecting this shit on Facebook with me... It will be out there and public and inescapable. I already can't escape it, but that's just me. What about everyone else? Does it even matter? It does. Can I ride with that? All the way? It will mean part of my identity being hijacked into someone else's 'movement' - being 'fitted' into their rigid, ever-in-flux definitions of gender, their labels, their 'fight'. Not mine. Mine is a distinct thing - as with so many other people. People who just kind of... disappear... because we're not running around wearing a rainbow flag, shouting about shit in people's faces.
I think a stronger form of the fight for the right to exist here, really, is to exist quietly, without disappearing. This is what struck me after the Florida shootings. The key here is not to have huge loud protests, or violent protests, or harass "cis" people... but to continue to exist in an everyday way, quietly, without disappearing. But where's the line between flaunting yourself and just existing? For a 'freak of nature' like me, or an intersex person, or a trans person, simply existing and being visible is enough to offend people outrageously. In a lot of places in North America, it simply being even vaguely hinted at that one is "GAY" is enough to mark a person as intrusive in the lives of others, and invite proactive attack. Attack that, as 'actually normal people', we can't really do much of anything about in return.
Okay, so... it comes down to 'just live your life, as yourself, as best you can'... Without being loud or demanding. Gather your friends, be close with real people, and make that your mark on the world (instead of, for instance, shouting rhetoric at people while dressed in a rainbow thong and saying it's your absolute right to do so).
Okay... so... where does this really leave me?
I struggled earlier today with trying to write a blog post, due to being moved by a bunch of things that kind of 'collided' today... I wrote something relatively clear in my personal journal, but found that I couldn't manage translating it out into something that worked on this blog. It lost all context, and I couldn't weave the contexts and references together to make it work. And in the end, it still left me with this same thing I'm talking about.
I feel hopeless, currently... which is dangerous for me. The reality of suicidal depression doesn't come from the things people most popularly hold it to... It comes from an existential feeling of a total loss of other options. As animals, we naturally gravitate to other options... until we feel we've lost them all. Whether it's just that we can't see them, or they really are gone... it differs with each person and situation and incident.
I desperately, desperately want some way to be able to be with other people, some path that leads to real human connections... and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to push myself any further in that direction.
For me, 'going out' consists of 'targeted strikes'. I don't have the energy to waste on the frantic frenzy in the social wildwaters that almost everyone else with a public face seems to. Besides, I'm damaged goods. Naturally this brought me to the 'other side of reality'... where the broken people go. What about support groups? I've been over that again and again. I've watched relatives fail at it. I hate "therapy". I've seen what it's like and what it is, and where would I even fit? Also, I feel it's unhealthy. It's just a little club for people with the same illness or addictions to kind of feed on each other, at its most basic... and it depends on labels and medications to make those 'clubs' work. I don't want any of that. I'm not interested in that.
Really, literally, flatly, the only thing I am interested in when it comes to anything social is real human connection. Good or "bad"... However, even "being honestly hated" isn't enough. It wears on a person, it isn't really nourishing. It can be kind of replenishing, but only like getting a bucket of icewater in the face. We all need something 'good', in some way. Something that doesn't come along with torture or punishment as a payment, or, in fact, any kind of payment. (For instance, to have anything to do with artist communities in a productive way, you have to pay for friends... by making interesting art along with them, and then hope you wander into the right communities... and have the energy to keep trying.)
What's the use of writing all of this?
Where should I even be putting my energy?? There's so little of it to work with.
I had more to say on this, but I might continue it later... (unlikely.)
(about 9-10pm)
Well, I had an interesting day today, in a very subtle, suffocating sort of a way. ("In space, no one can hear you scream.") And the whole thing brought me to a really, really stupid idea. An idea with painfully predictable results.
I thought of starting a Facebook group, knowing that Facebook is not for that. The people who 'succeed' at Facebook are the people who already have at least some kind of real-life, in-person social network to build from.
I had looked at groups to join on Facebook before, but... as I might have already said somewhere around here... I hate Facebook. I only use it begrudgingly, and only signed up for it because it was the only way to get information on a meetup event in the area. One that I had already already missed at the time I signed up for it.
It's stupid, but I'm still torn about what to do about my identity... or maybe, 'non-identity'. I know so few people, it's fundamentally irrelevant. And really, I'm not here to look like a thing. I'm not here to put on some kind of drag act and present some kind of 'gender face'... I just exist. It's always been that way. Why bother people? I'm annoying enough already. I don't want to bother people.
And the thing is, if I start connecting this shit on Facebook with me... It will be out there and public and inescapable. I already can't escape it, but that's just me. What about everyone else? Does it even matter? It does. Can I ride with that? All the way? It will mean part of my identity being hijacked into someone else's 'movement' - being 'fitted' into their rigid, ever-in-flux definitions of gender, their labels, their 'fight'. Not mine. Mine is a distinct thing - as with so many other people. People who just kind of... disappear... because we're not running around wearing a rainbow flag, shouting about shit in people's faces.
I think a stronger form of the fight for the right to exist here, really, is to exist quietly, without disappearing. This is what struck me after the Florida shootings. The key here is not to have huge loud protests, or violent protests, or harass "cis" people... but to continue to exist in an everyday way, quietly, without disappearing. But where's the line between flaunting yourself and just existing? For a 'freak of nature' like me, or an intersex person, or a trans person, simply existing and being visible is enough to offend people outrageously. In a lot of places in North America, it simply being even vaguely hinted at that one is "GAY" is enough to mark a person as intrusive in the lives of others, and invite proactive attack. Attack that, as 'actually normal people', we can't really do much of anything about in return.
Okay, so... it comes down to 'just live your life, as yourself, as best you can'... Without being loud or demanding. Gather your friends, be close with real people, and make that your mark on the world (instead of, for instance, shouting rhetoric at people while dressed in a rainbow thong and saying it's your absolute right to do so).
Okay... so... where does this really leave me?
I struggled earlier today with trying to write a blog post, due to being moved by a bunch of things that kind of 'collided' today... I wrote something relatively clear in my personal journal, but found that I couldn't manage translating it out into something that worked on this blog. It lost all context, and I couldn't weave the contexts and references together to make it work. And in the end, it still left me with this same thing I'm talking about.
I feel hopeless, currently... which is dangerous for me. The reality of suicidal depression doesn't come from the things people most popularly hold it to... It comes from an existential feeling of a total loss of other options. As animals, we naturally gravitate to other options... until we feel we've lost them all. Whether it's just that we can't see them, or they really are gone... it differs with each person and situation and incident.
I desperately, desperately want some way to be able to be with other people, some path that leads to real human connections... and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to push myself any further in that direction.
For me, 'going out' consists of 'targeted strikes'. I don't have the energy to waste on the frantic frenzy in the social wildwaters that almost everyone else with a public face seems to. Besides, I'm damaged goods. Naturally this brought me to the 'other side of reality'... where the broken people go. What about support groups? I've been over that again and again. I've watched relatives fail at it. I hate "therapy". I've seen what it's like and what it is, and where would I even fit? Also, I feel it's unhealthy. It's just a little club for people with the same illness or addictions to kind of feed on each other, at its most basic... and it depends on labels and medications to make those 'clubs' work. I don't want any of that. I'm not interested in that.
Really, literally, flatly, the only thing I am interested in when it comes to anything social is real human connection. Good or "bad"... However, even "being honestly hated" isn't enough. It wears on a person, it isn't really nourishing. It can be kind of replenishing, but only like getting a bucket of icewater in the face. We all need something 'good', in some way. Something that doesn't come along with torture or punishment as a payment, or, in fact, any kind of payment. (For instance, to have anything to do with artist communities in a productive way, you have to pay for friends... by making interesting art along with them, and then hope you wander into the right communities... and have the energy to keep trying.)
What's the use of writing all of this?
Where should I even be putting my energy?? There's so little of it to work with.
I had more to say on this, but I might continue it later... (unlikely.)
Wednesday, 8 June 2016
Another Pointless Update
2016 June 8th
Yet another pointless update.
I wonder if any of these things will come back to bite me in the future?
Yet another pointless update.
I wonder if any of these things will come back to bite me in the future?
Sunday, 13 March 2016
Pointless Update
2016 Mar. 12th
(started some time around 10:40pm)
So, here we have a totally pointless update. I haven't been able to even really look at my blog for months now, despite desperately wanting to write things, and coming up with at least two things I really thought would make good posts. (As utterly pointless an endeavour as that is...)
So... This March hasn't been as painful as last March... but it certainly hasn't been painless. I rediscovered today just how much of a miraculous change there is in me if I take ibuprofen. I actually did a lot of useful things today... dealing with food, remembering to feed myself, taking care of the animals, cleaning the house, finally getting together enough to go out to the store and get some new pants... Overall, it really felt like I didn't waste the day. But the morning, before I took any ibuprofen, was... well... it was "difficult".
Recently I've been very stuck on the feeling of my life 'bleeding away'. Weeks go by, helplessly, without my really doing or accomplishing anything. Not for lack of trying... but for lack of ability. Often, I find I've stayed in bed until 11:30 in the morning, not even out of sleepiness, but because it's so hard to move.
The thing is... if I take ibuprofen every day, it stops having an effect, and I start to feel really bad. So... I'm sitting here trying to figure out just how to cope with this thing I'm calling 'my life' at all. How the hell can I make myself useful? On a daily basis? How can I make it so that, even if only for a short window of time in a day, I can be active and useful most days of the week?
I run into trouble with the 'short window of time' thing, because that's what I'm used to... just a short window of time on some unspecified day, where I can sort of function... So I go crazy trying to do as much as possible during that time, and 'pushing' that time, pushing the edge of the window, sometimes to the extent that I'll actually go 30 hours without sleep, trying to make the most of it. And of course, this leads to a crash. And life has brutally taught me this, with the utmost inescapable consistency.
It's difficult, but my whole thing for the past few years has been 'learning how to heal myself' and the goal of 'coming back from the dead'.
As you can see, I still haven't succeeded at making that 'stick'. Or even really clawing my way successfully out of my own grave, towards a hopefully more natural way of dying later. (Such as 'actual old age' instead of 'premature old age'. Although... I don't think I'm making myself very clear on just what I mean with that, here...)
"What's the purpose of my life...?" ...if it's this...? This hideous brainless functionlessness? Stamina so low that just walking leaves me unable to do anything for two or more hours?
What I came to was this: "My current purpose in life, my 'job'... is to bring myself back from the dead, every day."
I've had this long-term problem with feeling as if going to bed was basically consigning myself to death. It felt like it. It felt like I 'died' every night, and then had to drag myself up from the grave in the morning... (It's too difficult to go into details here right now.)
So... in this void of 'possibility', of being able to do anything, I was forced to face what I need to do, absolutely-first-and-foremost. What I need to be doing with my life, even if it looks bad. So right back to this. My focus needs to be on 'bringing myself back from the dead' every day. Gently.
The thing is... this pain...
This January, I was really starting to improve. I tried to hold on to that through February, even if just through bullheadedly clinging to my exercise regimen... but of course, it failed. I can't hold out. I don't know what made January feel as relatively good as it did, but it felt like I was buoyed up by something - it allowed me to move around and do things naturally.
I got it into my head around that time to start studying for the high-school equivalency test. I figured, if I just made myself do it every day, just a few math questions or part of a chapter for one hour every day, I could make it. If the way I felt kept up. Of course, it didn't. I haven't even touched my workbooks for weeks. The math swims in front of my face like animate chicken footprints.
I'm faced with my 30th birthday soon. I had a 'bucket list' of things I wanted to do before thirty. This was supposed to be a time in my life of 'expansion' and moving outwards, and laying the foundations for future... dare I say... 'successes'. (Not even going to imagine the flak I'll get for using that word and phrase. Or at least I'm trying not to.)
I'm not really able to feel, so I coldly just shifted the deadline to 35, knowing that, if my life keeps up the pattern it has right now, that '35' will come in what feels like about four or five weeks, maybe a few months, to me.
I wanted to meet people, to start taking certain risks... but the thing is, the real danger of those 'risks'... with my brain the way it is right now... those risks are no longer 'safe risks'. They're not a 'fifty-fifty' chance of something bad happening, they're a 'nine-in-ten' chance of something bad happening, with the one left over being 'neutral' or 'non-disaster'. (If you want to know how I feel on an everyday basis... I'd recommend consuming three bottles of vodka and an entire case of beer, after starving for four or five days and running a short marathon. Then trying to act normally and look appealing or at least not dangerous in public, such as at a job interview. Oh, and if you're at such a job interview, remember to add "I never finished high school".) (...This on top of my acne, bad eyelid, and speech defect making me look and sound like I'm on dope.) If you can barely remember who you are or register what's going on around you, if you have almost no emotions other than an ashen-grey kind of fear - a fear that doesn't even trigger fight-or-flight response... In reality, it's not a good idea to be taking these kinds of risks.
Example, known only to myself at this point, being the two previous blog posts I tried to write in the past couple of weeks. I'm not about to share them here. I couldn't compose myself at all. Couldn't think or remember much of anything... and it just turned into a really frighteningly incoherent extremely angry rant. Intelligent angry rants can be fun to read. Sometimes the gibberish that comes out of a stoned person like a rant can also be fun to read. But whatever those things were... they were not okay.
Bah... So, cycling back around to the beginning.
I rediscovered that I'm constantly in pain and that the gentler painkillers (ibuprofen) do help. This gave me some sense of possibility for some parts of my life. But I'm still struggling with the logistics of living around this... when I can't take ibuprofen every day and have it work.
Have I mentioned yet that I hate narcotics and they have worse than zero effect on my pain?
After my surgery, whenever that was, I was given two bottles of narcotics. As soon as I got home I put them away and told my mother to take them back to the pharmacy. I returned them. Without taking any. I had some in the hospital because I couldn't really avoid it, and rediscovered just how much I hated the feeling. So I basically 'toughed it through', with my "I am the walking dead" absurd pain tolerance.
My sense of my 'need to die', to kill myself, comes immediately from the sense of a total lack of real possibilities. When I feel as if there are real possibilities for life, my 'suicidalness' evaporates completely, as if it never existed. Unfortunately, in this modern world we live in, there doesn't seem to be any way to really secure 'real possibility'.
And worse... I'm no longer "suicidal", I haven't been for months, and it's not because I'm somehow magically 'better'. (Although it's some other people's definition of better - kill the soul, make a better automaton.) There's this phase when the desire and drive to die extinguishes. Typically, all other things extinguish as well. For normal people, one of the most common complaints about this phase of 'living death' is sexual impotence. Why? BECAUSE YOU ARE DEAD. You're the fucking dead walking at that point. You can't feel. Nothing can stir you. You are incapable of caring. Someone could slice most of your face off and you wouldn't even feel distressed or thankful. Not even twisted emotions. There's just nothing. (Funny thing is, some medications induce this effect in otherwise normal people who are 'suffering' with emotions. Or stress. Well... better stay away from that subject for now...)
Where was I going with this? I've been at it for what, an hour?
I actually wanted to write some kind of updates on my life here, beyond just this...
Okay... uh...
I managed some recipes. I've been almost completely inactive, but here and there, I've managed a few tiny things. For instance, I made a homemade quinoa salad. The other day I actually managed to cook a meal by myself, unassisted, which I haven't done for months. Many months. Not without almost setting something on fire. (Or outright setting it on fire.) This stuff is important to me because cooking is one of the few things in existence that makes me feel like I'm not a worthless person, makes me feel like I'm worthwhile and useful. (Related, when I'm living alone, I actually stop eating. Completely. There's no reason to either cook or eat. Whereas, living with other people that I care about (and/or who care about me) this behaviour comes close to disappearing. (Although pain and "depression" (hur hur) also stop me from eating, even when other people are around. It's still not uncommon for me to skip breakfast, have a cracker for lunch, and then only bother with something sustaining around supper time, because other people are eating.))
It's disturbing to see myself talking so much about pain here. Normally, pain is a thing I ignore. Typically, I'm astounded at other people's weakness. I'm the kind of jerk who fractures a leg and then walks to the hospital, without either bragging or complaining. Toughing it through, everything, always, is all that I know. To even 'mention' pain makes me feel weak and vulnerable, and not just in a normal way... but because the people around me, doctors especially, seem so obsessed with it, and using it as an excuse to interfere with my functioning. (Also to humiliate me, occasionally.)
Ah, yeah... things I did... I made some knotted bracelets. A.k.a. friendship bracelets. I wanted to do a whole post about that, useless as it is.
I also was going to write something about 'forming connections' sometime in February, due to experimenting with a website that exists for that purpose, that I found myself disappointed in. I didn't manage it though...
I also managed, somehow, to write my first piece of narrative prose with real flow, almost by accident, in years. Unfortunately, again, it isn't something I can really share. Damn, this stuff is sparse. It doesn't really look like anything outside of the subtle contexts within my own life, and yet I work myself raw for it... ha ha ha... Useless.
Recently I've been playing Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD, and being reminded of just how much I loved and love that game. Reminds me of how I felt about Inuyasha... because Inuyasha was so high-profile a series, I often ignored it. I didn't bother getting any merchandise or DVDs or manga of it because it was everywhere for a while. It was the Naruto of its time, really. Yet, despite kind of ignoring it or being blind to it, every time I came across it again, I was reminded of how much I loved it and why. (At this point, I have every episode on DVD and nearly all of the manga.)
Being popular also makes something contentious. People talk about it a lot, and often seem to feel obliged to say something bad about it, because it's popular. A sort of bit of human contrariness... And that kind of thing also makes me avoid things.
Anyway, replaying the game in a personal and unbiased way, I found myself somewhat moved or impressed even through the mental fog and my dead emotionlessness. Twilight Princess is a magnificent game. There are maybe only a few other games in existence (out of maybe hundreds I've played) that were that much fun for me, or that memorable. (Octodad is one of those.)
One of the things on that sort of 'Bucket List' was to reclaim my use of the French language. It used to be that being in an environment where it was spoken would knock me back into a mode where I understood it. I have an elementary school child's level of French, spoken and written, and a few years ago, I was at a point where I could easily read newspapers written in French with pretty much full comprehension.
...and then it disappeared. Now my grandmother (whose first language is French) lives in my family's house, the French language tv channels are always on, and yet... there's nothing. I try to 'bump' my system back into understanding it, but it just hasn't been working. The terrifying thing here being that I've been forgetting ENGLISH at the same time. So much for my dreams of becoming a copy-editor.
I tried to get myself into it by playing some games in French, and reading Beast Player Erin's French translation. I meant to read a bit of it a few days each week, at least... but this failed. Everything in my existence ground down to nothing. Life wasn't even about 'just passing the days', and it was barely about 'just surviving' the days... It was this immutable, unbudgeable emptiness, and something far beyond, far underneath of, existential despair, being caused by that 'impossibility'. I was 'stopped' at about page 19.
So one night I got desperate, took my French-English dictionary and just read through the words under my breath, trying to pronounce them and remember what the definitions were, rather than simply read them. Remember the feeling of them, how I'd heard them used before, how they'd sunk into me as a child. And it worked. It worked because I was actually doing something, like the difference between plotting a choreography and actually dancing.
...but I'm still stuck. I'm not really able to work on that every day, or night. I try, but it, with extreme consistency, doesn't work out. And it keeps coming back down to how bad I feel, physically.
My physical clumsiness and lack of bodily awareness has at this point become physically dangerous. I've gone from, for instance, 'sometimes' burning myself in the kitchen to 'nearly always, if I dare enter the room and use anything'. Or even just pick up a mug.
I can't stand feeling useless. My mother is able to do so much now, after her having lived as an invalid bound to a recliner for years.
...and now I'm reduced to almost not being able to do anything. My mother's 'plate' is so full that the metaphorical plate isn't even visible under the metaphorical pile of elephants on it. She has to deal with her mother, wrangling her brothers about her mother and her mother's estate, deal with her ex-husband and her feelings about that, her own illnesses and problems, deal with her feelings about her children and their st ate, and manage three households. (My grandmother's, ours, and my father's.) With a number of other extras I don't have the energy to get into right now. That probably may not sound like much, or 'enough', until one stops to think about just what each of those things entails, and how many subcategories and facets each one of them has.
"I had dreams."
Even really tiny stupid ones, knowing they can't go anywhere... I wanted to MAKE SOMETHING. I wanted to write my stupid posts on this blog, I wanted to write reviews. I have for years. Even if it's "for no one". At this point, I don't want to play games, I want to make them. And can't. (I used to make complicated lists, when I was younger, for fun. Defining and mapping out links between things, itemizing lists, and making databases was like a game to me. Now I can barely put books in a row.) Other people's work and artwork frustrates me... because nothing of mine exists in a 'real', shareable form. I keep trying... and it keeps slipping further away from me.
There was so much I wanted to do, and at this point, for me, the tiniest things in life, such as my cleaning today, or making a meal yesterday... are the 'huge accomplishments' of my life. That destroys a person, being reduced to that. I want to do more than just cook one meal every month.
There was so much that I wanted to do... Fine to bump the 'deadline' up to 35, but if life keeps up with the same pattern it has now, it will make worse than no difference. Time will bleed, hemorrhage, for me, and in the end it will make me more depressed, more extinguished.
My experience is that corruption and extinguishment can basically go on infinitely... Whereas, healthy, healthful things... they're a whole other thing. Just touching them, just barely brushing them with the end of your finger... It's so hard to even do that. The foundation they would sit on is constantly being eroded. Maintaining them feels nearly impossible.
...Ugh. Okay, it's 12:35am right now, and I'm calling this quits right here.
(started some time around 10:40pm)
So, here we have a totally pointless update. I haven't been able to even really look at my blog for months now, despite desperately wanting to write things, and coming up with at least two things I really thought would make good posts. (As utterly pointless an endeavour as that is...)
So... This March hasn't been as painful as last March... but it certainly hasn't been painless. I rediscovered today just how much of a miraculous change there is in me if I take ibuprofen. I actually did a lot of useful things today... dealing with food, remembering to feed myself, taking care of the animals, cleaning the house, finally getting together enough to go out to the store and get some new pants... Overall, it really felt like I didn't waste the day. But the morning, before I took any ibuprofen, was... well... it was "difficult".
Recently I've been very stuck on the feeling of my life 'bleeding away'. Weeks go by, helplessly, without my really doing or accomplishing anything. Not for lack of trying... but for lack of ability. Often, I find I've stayed in bed until 11:30 in the morning, not even out of sleepiness, but because it's so hard to move.
The thing is... if I take ibuprofen every day, it stops having an effect, and I start to feel really bad. So... I'm sitting here trying to figure out just how to cope with this thing I'm calling 'my life' at all. How the hell can I make myself useful? On a daily basis? How can I make it so that, even if only for a short window of time in a day, I can be active and useful most days of the week?
I run into trouble with the 'short window of time' thing, because that's what I'm used to... just a short window of time on some unspecified day, where I can sort of function... So I go crazy trying to do as much as possible during that time, and 'pushing' that time, pushing the edge of the window, sometimes to the extent that I'll actually go 30 hours without sleep, trying to make the most of it. And of course, this leads to a crash. And life has brutally taught me this, with the utmost inescapable consistency.
It's difficult, but my whole thing for the past few years has been 'learning how to heal myself' and the goal of 'coming back from the dead'.
As you can see, I still haven't succeeded at making that 'stick'. Or even really clawing my way successfully out of my own grave, towards a hopefully more natural way of dying later. (Such as 'actual old age' instead of 'premature old age'. Although... I don't think I'm making myself very clear on just what I mean with that, here...)
"What's the purpose of my life...?" ...if it's this...? This hideous brainless functionlessness? Stamina so low that just walking leaves me unable to do anything for two or more hours?
What I came to was this: "My current purpose in life, my 'job'... is to bring myself back from the dead, every day."
I've had this long-term problem with feeling as if going to bed was basically consigning myself to death. It felt like it. It felt like I 'died' every night, and then had to drag myself up from the grave in the morning... (It's too difficult to go into details here right now.)
So... in this void of 'possibility', of being able to do anything, I was forced to face what I need to do, absolutely-first-and-foremost. What I need to be doing with my life, even if it looks bad. So right back to this. My focus needs to be on 'bringing myself back from the dead' every day. Gently.
The thing is... this pain...
This January, I was really starting to improve. I tried to hold on to that through February, even if just through bullheadedly clinging to my exercise regimen... but of course, it failed. I can't hold out. I don't know what made January feel as relatively good as it did, but it felt like I was buoyed up by something - it allowed me to move around and do things naturally.
I got it into my head around that time to start studying for the high-school equivalency test. I figured, if I just made myself do it every day, just a few math questions or part of a chapter for one hour every day, I could make it. If the way I felt kept up. Of course, it didn't. I haven't even touched my workbooks for weeks. The math swims in front of my face like animate chicken footprints.
I'm faced with my 30th birthday soon. I had a 'bucket list' of things I wanted to do before thirty. This was supposed to be a time in my life of 'expansion' and moving outwards, and laying the foundations for future... dare I say... 'successes'. (Not even going to imagine the flak I'll get for using that word and phrase. Or at least I'm trying not to.)
I'm not really able to feel, so I coldly just shifted the deadline to 35, knowing that, if my life keeps up the pattern it has right now, that '35' will come in what feels like about four or five weeks, maybe a few months, to me.
I wanted to meet people, to start taking certain risks... but the thing is, the real danger of those 'risks'... with my brain the way it is right now... those risks are no longer 'safe risks'. They're not a 'fifty-fifty' chance of something bad happening, they're a 'nine-in-ten' chance of something bad happening, with the one left over being 'neutral' or 'non-disaster'. (If you want to know how I feel on an everyday basis... I'd recommend consuming three bottles of vodka and an entire case of beer, after starving for four or five days and running a short marathon. Then trying to act normally and look appealing or at least not dangerous in public, such as at a job interview. Oh, and if you're at such a job interview, remember to add "I never finished high school".) (...This on top of my acne, bad eyelid, and speech defect making me look and sound like I'm on dope.) If you can barely remember who you are or register what's going on around you, if you have almost no emotions other than an ashen-grey kind of fear - a fear that doesn't even trigger fight-or-flight response... In reality, it's not a good idea to be taking these kinds of risks.
Example, known only to myself at this point, being the two previous blog posts I tried to write in the past couple of weeks. I'm not about to share them here. I couldn't compose myself at all. Couldn't think or remember much of anything... and it just turned into a really frighteningly incoherent extremely angry rant. Intelligent angry rants can be fun to read. Sometimes the gibberish that comes out of a stoned person like a rant can also be fun to read. But whatever those things were... they were not okay.
Bah... So, cycling back around to the beginning.
I rediscovered that I'm constantly in pain and that the gentler painkillers (ibuprofen) do help. This gave me some sense of possibility for some parts of my life. But I'm still struggling with the logistics of living around this... when I can't take ibuprofen every day and have it work.
Have I mentioned yet that I hate narcotics and they have worse than zero effect on my pain?
After my surgery, whenever that was, I was given two bottles of narcotics. As soon as I got home I put them away and told my mother to take them back to the pharmacy. I returned them. Without taking any. I had some in the hospital because I couldn't really avoid it, and rediscovered just how much I hated the feeling. So I basically 'toughed it through', with my "I am the walking dead" absurd pain tolerance.
My sense of my 'need to die', to kill myself, comes immediately from the sense of a total lack of real possibilities. When I feel as if there are real possibilities for life, my 'suicidalness' evaporates completely, as if it never existed. Unfortunately, in this modern world we live in, there doesn't seem to be any way to really secure 'real possibility'.
And worse... I'm no longer "suicidal", I haven't been for months, and it's not because I'm somehow magically 'better'. (Although it's some other people's definition of better - kill the soul, make a better automaton.) There's this phase when the desire and drive to die extinguishes. Typically, all other things extinguish as well. For normal people, one of the most common complaints about this phase of 'living death' is sexual impotence. Why? BECAUSE YOU ARE DEAD. You're the fucking dead walking at that point. You can't feel. Nothing can stir you. You are incapable of caring. Someone could slice most of your face off and you wouldn't even feel distressed or thankful. Not even twisted emotions. There's just nothing. (Funny thing is, some medications induce this effect in otherwise normal people who are 'suffering' with emotions. Or stress. Well... better stay away from that subject for now...)
Where was I going with this? I've been at it for what, an hour?
I actually wanted to write some kind of updates on my life here, beyond just this...
Okay... uh...
I managed some recipes. I've been almost completely inactive, but here and there, I've managed a few tiny things. For instance, I made a homemade quinoa salad. The other day I actually managed to cook a meal by myself, unassisted, which I haven't done for months. Many months. Not without almost setting something on fire. (Or outright setting it on fire.) This stuff is important to me because cooking is one of the few things in existence that makes me feel like I'm not a worthless person, makes me feel like I'm worthwhile and useful. (Related, when I'm living alone, I actually stop eating. Completely. There's no reason to either cook or eat. Whereas, living with other people that I care about (and/or who care about me) this behaviour comes close to disappearing. (Although pain and "depression" (hur hur) also stop me from eating, even when other people are around. It's still not uncommon for me to skip breakfast, have a cracker for lunch, and then only bother with something sustaining around supper time, because other people are eating.))
It's disturbing to see myself talking so much about pain here. Normally, pain is a thing I ignore. Typically, I'm astounded at other people's weakness. I'm the kind of jerk who fractures a leg and then walks to the hospital, without either bragging or complaining. Toughing it through, everything, always, is all that I know. To even 'mention' pain makes me feel weak and vulnerable, and not just in a normal way... but because the people around me, doctors especially, seem so obsessed with it, and using it as an excuse to interfere with my functioning. (Also to humiliate me, occasionally.)
Ah, yeah... things I did... I made some knotted bracelets. A.k.a. friendship bracelets. I wanted to do a whole post about that, useless as it is.
I also was going to write something about 'forming connections' sometime in February, due to experimenting with a website that exists for that purpose, that I found myself disappointed in. I didn't manage it though...
I also managed, somehow, to write my first piece of narrative prose with real flow, almost by accident, in years. Unfortunately, again, it isn't something I can really share. Damn, this stuff is sparse. It doesn't really look like anything outside of the subtle contexts within my own life, and yet I work myself raw for it... ha ha ha... Useless.
Recently I've been playing Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD, and being reminded of just how much I loved and love that game. Reminds me of how I felt about Inuyasha... because Inuyasha was so high-profile a series, I often ignored it. I didn't bother getting any merchandise or DVDs or manga of it because it was everywhere for a while. It was the Naruto of its time, really. Yet, despite kind of ignoring it or being blind to it, every time I came across it again, I was reminded of how much I loved it and why. (At this point, I have every episode on DVD and nearly all of the manga.)
Being popular also makes something contentious. People talk about it a lot, and often seem to feel obliged to say something bad about it, because it's popular. A sort of bit of human contrariness... And that kind of thing also makes me avoid things.
Anyway, replaying the game in a personal and unbiased way, I found myself somewhat moved or impressed even through the mental fog and my dead emotionlessness. Twilight Princess is a magnificent game. There are maybe only a few other games in existence (out of maybe hundreds I've played) that were that much fun for me, or that memorable. (Octodad is one of those.)
One of the things on that sort of 'Bucket List' was to reclaim my use of the French language. It used to be that being in an environment where it was spoken would knock me back into a mode where I understood it. I have an elementary school child's level of French, spoken and written, and a few years ago, I was at a point where I could easily read newspapers written in French with pretty much full comprehension.
...and then it disappeared. Now my grandmother (whose first language is French) lives in my family's house, the French language tv channels are always on, and yet... there's nothing. I try to 'bump' my system back into understanding it, but it just hasn't been working. The terrifying thing here being that I've been forgetting ENGLISH at the same time. So much for my dreams of becoming a copy-editor.
I tried to get myself into it by playing some games in French, and reading Beast Player Erin's French translation. I meant to read a bit of it a few days each week, at least... but this failed. Everything in my existence ground down to nothing. Life wasn't even about 'just passing the days', and it was barely about 'just surviving' the days... It was this immutable, unbudgeable emptiness, and something far beyond, far underneath of, existential despair, being caused by that 'impossibility'. I was 'stopped' at about page 19.
So one night I got desperate, took my French-English dictionary and just read through the words under my breath, trying to pronounce them and remember what the definitions were, rather than simply read them. Remember the feeling of them, how I'd heard them used before, how they'd sunk into me as a child. And it worked. It worked because I was actually doing something, like the difference between plotting a choreography and actually dancing.
...but I'm still stuck. I'm not really able to work on that every day, or night. I try, but it, with extreme consistency, doesn't work out. And it keeps coming back down to how bad I feel, physically.
My physical clumsiness and lack of bodily awareness has at this point become physically dangerous. I've gone from, for instance, 'sometimes' burning myself in the kitchen to 'nearly always, if I dare enter the room and use anything'. Or even just pick up a mug.
I can't stand feeling useless. My mother is able to do so much now, after her having lived as an invalid bound to a recliner for years.
...and now I'm reduced to almost not being able to do anything. My mother's 'plate' is so full that the metaphorical plate isn't even visible under the metaphorical pile of elephants on it. She has to deal with her mother, wrangling her brothers about her mother and her mother's estate, deal with her ex-husband and her feelings about that, her own illnesses and problems, deal with her feelings about her children and their st ate, and manage three households. (My grandmother's, ours, and my father's.) With a number of other extras I don't have the energy to get into right now. That probably may not sound like much, or 'enough', until one stops to think about just what each of those things entails, and how many subcategories and facets each one of them has.
"I had dreams."
Even really tiny stupid ones, knowing they can't go anywhere... I wanted to MAKE SOMETHING. I wanted to write my stupid posts on this blog, I wanted to write reviews. I have for years. Even if it's "for no one". At this point, I don't want to play games, I want to make them. And can't. (I used to make complicated lists, when I was younger, for fun. Defining and mapping out links between things, itemizing lists, and making databases was like a game to me. Now I can barely put books in a row.) Other people's work and artwork frustrates me... because nothing of mine exists in a 'real', shareable form. I keep trying... and it keeps slipping further away from me.
There was so much I wanted to do, and at this point, for me, the tiniest things in life, such as my cleaning today, or making a meal yesterday... are the 'huge accomplishments' of my life. That destroys a person, being reduced to that. I want to do more than just cook one meal every month.
There was so much that I wanted to do... Fine to bump the 'deadline' up to 35, but if life keeps up with the same pattern it has now, it will make worse than no difference. Time will bleed, hemorrhage, for me, and in the end it will make me more depressed, more extinguished.
My experience is that corruption and extinguishment can basically go on infinitely... Whereas, healthy, healthful things... they're a whole other thing. Just touching them, just barely brushing them with the end of your finger... It's so hard to even do that. The foundation they would sit on is constantly being eroded. Maintaining them feels nearly impossible.
...Ugh. Okay, it's 12:35am right now, and I'm calling this quits right here.
Friday, 1 January 2016
Star Wars episode 7, first impressions
1st of Jan. 2016
So... I went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens today, with my whole family. Where do I even begin... Nice outing. It really was. My dad, my grandmother, my brother, my mother... We all went to see it together.
But I'm left not really sure what to think of it.
On the way back home in the car, my 100-year old grandmother explained it perfectly:
Grandmother: "It's, what, the second movie?"
Mom: "Seventh."
Grandmother: "Seventh? Well, they don't know what they're doing anymore."
The movie was amazing, there's no doubt about that. Maybe it's just that I'm tired of the world in general. I have really mixed feelings about it... Primarily, it felt to me like it was missing something. Hollow, somehow. Not completely, but... Probably the best I can pin down about my feelings about that right now is that the feeling I got from Lucas's six films was of something deeply mythological - resonant, on some other timeless level. He really went out of his way to study actual myths, to understand what makes stories work and why we tell stories. But The Force Returns really struck me, the whole way along, as being more a recycling of the topical 'symbols' and visual shorthand of Star Wars itself, rather than what made Star Wars tick underneath them. Rather than the deep, human archetypes, it felt to me as if it was just using bits of Star Wars... almost as if Star Wars had come first. (You know the way the ruins of Troy and Mesopotamia are layered one on top of the other? It feels like that. Build one on another on another... eventually the second most recent layer becomes the oldest thing people can think of.) I know this is effectively a 'fan movie, for fans', but... what I originally liked about Star Wars is the same stuff that made American Graffiti (which I still haven't completely watched through yet) and THX 1138 (which I've probably watched twice) what they were. Lucas has done an excellent job passing down Star Wars to the next set of hands, but... I feel kind of sad.
...And what were they doing with Kylo Ren? What the heck. Even from the first promo picture I saw in a magazine... Did they choose to make him that way on purpose? He is fangirlbait of the highest order. He is possibly the most purposefully "Draco in Leather Pants" character I've ever seen. Could they possibly have chosen, cast, or written a sweeter, sexier monster? Ugh. Ha ha... (sighing.) I'd normally find this funny, but I'm just too tired right now.
...And one last thing. The marketing thing of this whole... thing... It's really wearing me down. For weeks and weeks now almost every second or third ad I've seen on tv has been (or felt like it was) an onslaught of Star Wars. And the whole movie is set up to appeal in particular ways, the whole thing actually felt to me like an advertisement, itself. I feel similarly about it as I do or did about Frozen. I'd better cut myself off here or I'm going to go on some kind of rant. I don't have the energy for it.
All in all, I'm glad to have seen it and I'm even looking forward to the next one, which is kind of rare for me at this point.
So... I went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens today, with my whole family. Where do I even begin... Nice outing. It really was. My dad, my grandmother, my brother, my mother... We all went to see it together.
But I'm left not really sure what to think of it.
On the way back home in the car, my 100-year old grandmother explained it perfectly:
Grandmother: "It's, what, the second movie?"
Mom: "Seventh."
Grandmother: "Seventh? Well, they don't know what they're doing anymore."
The movie was amazing, there's no doubt about that. Maybe it's just that I'm tired of the world in general. I have really mixed feelings about it... Primarily, it felt to me like it was missing something. Hollow, somehow. Not completely, but... Probably the best I can pin down about my feelings about that right now is that the feeling I got from Lucas's six films was of something deeply mythological - resonant, on some other timeless level. He really went out of his way to study actual myths, to understand what makes stories work and why we tell stories. But The Force Returns really struck me, the whole way along, as being more a recycling of the topical 'symbols' and visual shorthand of Star Wars itself, rather than what made Star Wars tick underneath them. Rather than the deep, human archetypes, it felt to me as if it was just using bits of Star Wars... almost as if Star Wars had come first. (You know the way the ruins of Troy and Mesopotamia are layered one on top of the other? It feels like that. Build one on another on another... eventually the second most recent layer becomes the oldest thing people can think of.) I know this is effectively a 'fan movie, for fans', but... what I originally liked about Star Wars is the same stuff that made American Graffiti (which I still haven't completely watched through yet) and THX 1138 (which I've probably watched twice) what they were. Lucas has done an excellent job passing down Star Wars to the next set of hands, but... I feel kind of sad.
...And what were they doing with Kylo Ren? What the heck. Even from the first promo picture I saw in a magazine... Did they choose to make him that way on purpose? He is fangirlbait of the highest order. He is possibly the most purposefully "Draco in Leather Pants" character I've ever seen. Could they possibly have chosen, cast, or written a sweeter, sexier monster? Ugh. Ha ha... (sighing.) I'd normally find this funny, but I'm just too tired right now.
...And one last thing. The marketing thing of this whole... thing... It's really wearing me down. For weeks and weeks now almost every second or third ad I've seen on tv has been (or felt like it was) an onslaught of Star Wars. And the whole movie is set up to appeal in particular ways, the whole thing actually felt to me like an advertisement, itself. I feel similarly about it as I do or did about Frozen. I'd better cut myself off here or I'm going to go on some kind of rant. I don't have the energy for it.
All in all, I'm glad to have seen it and I'm even looking forward to the next one, which is kind of rare for me at this point.
My Little Guilt Trips
13th of June, 2015
Usually, out of necessity, I'm a pretty laid back person. There's a lot of stuff that just doesn't bother me. Especially now... I can't feel much of anything. I'd take pretty much anything life could throw at me now... But when it comes to living things that are under my care – living, feeling things, anything that is my responsibility, anything dependent on me... I can't handle it. This is the stuff that I take (very long) guilt trips over. This is the stuff that sticks and won't let go.
So, today I spent a portion of the evening on a massive guilt trip.
If anyone wants to follow me on this little trip...
Usually, out of necessity, I'm a pretty laid back person. There's a lot of stuff that just doesn't bother me. Especially now... I can't feel much of anything. I'd take pretty much anything life could throw at me now... But when it comes to living things that are under my care – living, feeling things, anything that is my responsibility, anything dependent on me... I can't handle it. This is the stuff that I take (very long) guilt trips over. This is the stuff that sticks and won't let go.
So, today I spent a portion of the evening on a massive guilt trip.
If anyone wants to follow me on this little trip...
Happy(?) New Year.
Happy?
The world didn't end. We weren't all wiped out by asteroids. We're all still alive, mostly.
WHY ARE WE CELEBRATING??
Goodbye 2015, although I'm not totally sure you ever happened...
The world didn't end. We weren't all wiped out by asteroids. We're all still alive, mostly.
WHY ARE WE CELEBRATING??
Goodbye 2015, although I'm not totally sure you ever happened...
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