Look at this. It almost looks like my old Xanga. Almost.

…maybe there’s hope for this blog after all.

oh no oh no oh no oh no no no

i get it. i get the dream i had. and i hate hate hate that after all that i am still the same creature and that things had to be as they are because i could have been so different and it would not have been a problem and it is because of the mask BECAUSE I AM NEVER GOING TO COME AROUND AND BE WHAT I ALWAYS FEEL I AM. there will be no trotting away over the sand because all i can do is sit tight and know and shiver along with the rest of them, knowing i am a sham. and knowing that even if i were real, i would be repelled.

i want to smash something into his face. a bottle, maybe.

Today at work I made someone laugh while they were eating, and she started choking on her food. This incident somehow turned into a discussion of how, if we got to choose, we would each like to go.

Three chose vehicular misadventure.

One wanted to choose the peaceful death-while-sleeping route, but we persuaded her that this is illogical as she is young and healthy and unlikely to die in her sleep unless there is some underlying cause. She changed her ideal end to a wasting disease like cancer so that everyone would be kind and sympathetic and do things for her until she finally died.

One started out thinking he would like to be the victim of a homicide, with the weapon being a grass hook.

(Basically, a baby scythe.)
He changed his mind though, and said he’d like his end to be by way of morbid obesity, with particular blame placed on iced cream.

One would choose an aneurism.

One would choose to go by way of a perfect headshot.

One would choose to be the victim of predation by a bear.

I really feel like I learned a lot about my coworkers today. Namely, that they actually have given some thought to this idea, and have ways that they genuinely favour (however unlikely) for their own ends.

And funny thing…despite the unspoken agreement that I would, if we had such a thing, win the award for most morbid topic brought up in the office, nobody asked me how I wanted to go.

I hate being me.

Supposed to go help Jester move. And enjoy a cookout with his friends. But I can’t. Because I sit by the fire and am the only quiet, small person there at all, and all I can think about is how LOUD and boisterous and personable everyone else is, and what on earth am I even doing, drinking a Mike’s black cherry lemonade because I can’t stand beers and why do I even bother having anything anyway and I should go sit by myself on the swing set and get out of everyone’s way because I don’t belong there and now everyone is talking about drunk stories and now everyone is making sex jokes and telling semi-graphic sex stories and I would like them to have some sense of decency but I had better just say nothing because that’s how people get to not liking you and they’re his friends and he likes to know them and spend time with them and I had better just deal with it——-but why am I THERE? And I don’t see a point because I am not like those people, and it’s making me uncomfortable, and I should just go sit on the swing set like a child that someone couldn’t find a babysitter for, except then someone will look at me and how pathetic I am and I just would rather nobody looked at me and I want to go away but I wanted to eat some food first and it isn’t done yet…so I go sit on the front porch where nobody will see me. Except that he saw me go around the house and comes to get me and ask what is the matter probably most of it is that I am getting anxious and want to go away and am watching a cat crouching in a yard down the way and just want to watch the cat instead of listen to raunchy stories and stupid talking about how shitfaced everyone is going to get or has gotten at this party or that game or whatever because I don’t care and can’t relate but I can relate to the cat. Just crouching there and looking at something. Or nothing. Just alone and not being bothered. And I want to cry because I feel so stupidly out of place.

…I feel like I let him down sometimes.

That’s kind of a lie. My reading year starts in September, so this is actually the stuff I’ve read since last fall… but there are some good things in here. If a title catches your eye, let me know and I’ll be happy to give a more detailed opinion of it, since I stopped doing reviews of everything I read.

* Marks the books I was recommended.
± Marks books I would like to get rid of (message me if any of them look interesting, since I might still have them and could send them to you)
#Marks my personal favourites from this batch

1. Clockwork Princess – Cassandra Clare#
(steampunk and magic and a dash of Victorian-era romance)

2. The Maze Runner – James Dashner*
(post-apocalyptic mysteries and experiments with kids)

3. Celtic Myths and Legends – Peter Berresford Ellis#
(exactly that…very entertaining in places)

4. Star Trek – Alan Dean Foster
(yes, I read a book based on a movie. wanted to murder one of the writers for passive grammar usage, but it wasn’t the worst thing ever.)

5. Lord Brocktree – Brian Jacques
(wildcat pirates and bloodthirsty badger lords)

6. Legend of Luke – Brian Jacques#
(mousketeers, for reals)

7. Seagull Reader: Poetry – Ed. Joseph Kelly
(useless anthology from college)

8. Seagull Reader: Stories – Ed. Joseph Kelly
(some stories were actually good…ask me if you need a list of short stories to hunt out)

9. On Writing – Steven King
(he’s actually pretty entertaining in this)

10. Desperation – Steven King
(dumb story, but some parts are so awesome even though I know they lead directly to letdowns…)

11. Insomnia – Steven King
(middle portion is pretty interesting, then it gets dumb)

12. Cell – Steven King#
(really dated, given how different smart phones are from the phones we had even five or so years ago…but the concepts are pretty horrifying and awesome)

13. Irish Red – Jim Kjelgaard
(I still have a sort spot for dog stories)

14. Outlaw Red – Jim Kjelgaard
(especially dog-survives-in-the-wild stories)

15. Werewolves: The Occult Truth – Konstantinos
(interesting dissection of the belief in werewolves from someone who is part of the occult community)

16. The Poetic Edda – Ed. Carolyne Larrington
(Norse mythology)

17. The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo – Steig Larsson#
(violent and highly sexual crime and mystery…pretty intense read)

18. Carmilla – J. Sheridan Le Fanu
(very old fashioned vampire story…before Dracula’s time)

19. The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. Le Guin#
(human in an alien society of androgynous people. lots of philosophy and human condition questions raised by plot.)

20. Mere Christianity – C.S. Lewis
(Christian philosophy)

21. The Screwtape Letters – C.S. Lewis
(demon writing advice letters to lesser demon on how to draw souls to hell)

22. The Nightmare Factory – Thomas Ligotti#
(short stories with supernatural and nihilistic themes)

23. Death Poems – Thomas Ligotti
(poems about death)

24. Teatro Grottesco – Thomas Ligotti#
(more stories with supernatural and nihilistic themes)

25. Noctuary – Thomas Ligotti
(ditto above)

26. The Conspiracy Against The Human Race – Thomas Ligotti
(exposition of pessimistic philosophies…one of the darkest things I have ever read)

Aha. Now I know why my duplicate blog was being viewed and not this one…I still had a privacy setting up that prevented you from talking to me here…that has been remedied.

Except now I have to go to the other one and notify everyone.

You get the most phantasmal optical illusions on foggy nights. I mean, I already imagine I see all kinds of things that are not there when I drive at night…but in the fog, there are a thousand more tiny moving things that are not there, and in every diffused shadow, there are all kinds of figures slouching or slinking…..

Despite all my other faults, I hope that it will never be said that I lack imagination. Even if I am imagining things common to all people of my temperament.

…I lost what else I was going to say. Drat.
But no worries. I’ve thought of something else.

Been considering my favourite songs again lately. Or rather, the tones of songs I am drawn to–so many of them have this grandiose feeling. A soaring feeling…a feeling of something big and irrepressible…
Now, I like a lot of songs that aren’t that way…but the ones I listen to over and over? They are those ones.

I suppose I wouldn’t be considering it if it weren’t for two things:
One, I have been listening more to some music from the bands I agreed to go see with her next month, and with her preferred style being dream-pop…I don’t know. I like some songs that sound that way, but the thing that really pulls me in is missing…it’s hard to try and sample someone else’s preferred style. Not just hers. I feel that way when I try to listen to what Jester likes, too. Although there the problem is primarily that he likes so many different things…I can’t find it in me to like so many different things.

Not that I am only interested in one thing…but…really…Goth-styled music is much more diverse than I would have ever guessed. I used to think it was a type of metal. Black metal, maybe. My mistake. I think that’s what I was trying to find when I started listening to things like Slechtvalk and Mirador…but I really wasn’t looking for Viking death metal or…whatever Mirador was.
But, lucky me, Goth style seems to span every genre in some way…metal to alternative to rock to…folk.

That is the second thing, I guess: my constant seeking after new ways to experience this ineffable feeling that the songs I most enjoy so strongly augment. It is a peculiar one that I still can’t determine the source of–is it all in my mind? There is a particular song that I have doubts about. When I listen to it and am really listening to a particular part of the song, my face gets this cold, tingly sensation. Still. And I have been enjoying this song for several years now.
I have read that anticipation of a particular part of a song can trigger the release of endorphins (which would explain why I get so grumpy when people interrupt songs I really like :P), but is that what causes the cold sensation? Why only that particular song? It’s strange to me. But I am content to not know.

I just wonder if it’s something that others feel when they listen to their music, since I cannot fathom it with those ones which feel so alien to me.

Ah well.

Not so frustrated as I was yesterday. I mean. I’ll figure it out. And maybe things will be okay after all. I just need to chill for a bit. It will all be alright.

Plus, Saturday will be the Renaissance Festival with my youngest sister, so that should be fun (minus my being tempted to spend money I should not spend) and whatnot. Then on Tuesday, I will go see Toni. Her parents are visiting from Florida, and we had one of our terse Facebook chat conversations the other day…she said I should come meet the creatures who spawned her. That can be arranged.

I am almost anxious to see her–not on her account, but because I think we are each secretly trying to convert the other’s taste in music…so I have made a CD for her of things I like that seem related to music she has recommended for me. And I don’t have an extra case, so it is spinning away in my car until I visit her again. I like all the songs, but I would also like to not hear them anymore because they are getting stuck in my brain and skipping so only a little part plays over and over the way songs do when you want to not hear them.

And Thursday. I don’t know what I will do. Probably stay home and stew about only having been assigned four days this week. But I only need to figure out how to stretch things for three extra hours to get in a full week…I’m sure I’ll manage. I must.

Ah. Ah well.

True to my contrary nature, I have decided to not decide which blog I am actually using. I’ll be happy to use both. Sure. And alternate. My post yesterday was on the other one.

So now I’m here.
It’s fine.

And after this, I will read more. And wonder what has happened to me that I am making my way through writings presented from a nihilist point of view, and feeling more and more like something terrible is happening with the result that the words I read are the crystalised form of my own misty thoughts.
I am repelled by the idea that I agree so strongly with the points already made…but then, I am only about 50 pages in, and must also remind myself that I am reading a book not written by an actual philosopher, but by a writer of fiction. Which isn’t saying one can’t be both…but it is a reassuring illusion. And I like being reassured that I am not a nihilist…because…you know…that just isn’t what I want to be, and I feel like this desire alone is enough to prevent me from being one, but there’s still that continual sense of familiarity that I am getting as I read.

If it was all foreign to me, I would feel better. But I don’t. Probably another thing I can chalk up to paranoia.

Kind of like my flashes of unreasoning terror and disbelief when I watch traffic moving. I start thinking, “what if I’m crazy and shouldn’t be driving? I mean, what if I just take the wheel and start swerving around for the heck of it?”
And I see how precarious our situation really is when we’re on the road. It’s terrifying. Especially when you have moments where you suddenly doubt yourself…not that I would purposefully start swerving around and mashing into other vehicles…but…it’s another form of that terror of my reflection trying to bite me…I just get sudden serious doubts about my ability to control my own body…like at any moment, control might be wrested from me by this other entity that is not me and if not even Wolf. It is just…not me.

I don’t know.
(Now that nobody will ever want to get into a car with me ever again…)

In other news:
I have been thinking a lot about the definitions of terror and horror. What makes them different as feelings. The definitions of the two are quite close…but…it seems to me that terror is more sudden and unreasoning. The kind of fear you get when you are hiding or running and you can barely think…a much more visceral, action-based sort of fear.
Horror, it seems, is more thought-driven…based on a realization of what you have done, or that the unthinkable has in some way happened…and the element of fear is brought in by your intellectual comprehension of the situation, and subsequent emotional rejection or simple inability to accept it. As in a tragedy, perhaps.

…I think that at some point, I should be stopped from reading weird tales. Somehow, in the past year or so, I have acquired between 10-12 such books…they are wonderful, but I think they are affecting me. Gradually, but it seems to be there.

On the upside (I guess), I do not dream about such things anymore. Or about anything much at all.

Now watch me go to bed and have nightmares about being chased and eaten by things.

so now I have two places wherein people can see me say ridiculous things and where I am still being forced against my will to capitalise the letter I, and where my anglicised spellings are autocorrected to their American counterparts.

it is nice, I suppose. excepting those autocorrected things that I am 100% doing on purpose.
now all that is left to me is to determine what ridiculous things I would like to say. right now? perhaps something about the idea of ever-present stripes in blacks and greys, and also something about the merits of brown eyes…which I have not considered before, with my family being primarily blue-eyed, and my closest friends and Jester having eyes that register blue-green or green-brown.

Not that I never interact with people who possess brown eyes…or course not…most people on this planet are of the dark-eyed variety…..but I have never made an effort to consider them and the way their brightness differs from the brightness in lighter coloured eyes.

It’s peculiar. But mostly I wish I had not been mindful enough to observe the phenomena. Most of the time I make no distinction at all. But I suppose it is a special case. Because when I notice, I see a real person. And I don’t know how to feel about that. Especially after hearing in different words all these things that I have already spent all this time saying to myself in that vast emptiness of the internet.

…I don’t even know how to explain what I mean. I’m not being offensive, as though all the people I know are somehow not real people. But here there is something looking out at me that is startling because I see it seeing me. Like…that feeling I get when I watch my reflection too closely and think it is going to bite me. Except there is not the maliciousness I see in my own reflection. Just the brightness. And the sense of seeing something that is, on some level, intimately familiar to you and extraordinarily startling because you did not expect to find it there.