The Last Bastion Of Absurdity

Well, my two-week flood of assessment deadlines is over! Now I have at least three weeks before the next one starts, and I am naturally going to use them to procrastinate.

In TOTALLY UNRELATED NEWS, Portal is free from Steam for another week or so :D

...you guys, I get motion sickness from this game. And it's awesome. I do not even.

So anyway, since handing in my final assignment last Friday I've been tumbling and shooting portals at things and vegging out on the internet, woo! This sluggish state has been partly in response to the freedom from all that writing about socialists and french philosophers and moths, and partly in order to recover from Friday itself, which was approximately 36 hours long. (PS: I totally started this post on Tuesday :P oops!)

( cut for length of the recount and a bunch of random tangents and an aside on the topic of good-touch/bad-touch and uh I got a little carried away...? )

Getting back into posting here with any degree of regularity is easier said than done. Rusty, I guess. There is also the question of what form I want this blog to take in the future - do I continue as, essentially, a diarist, or do I only post when I have Something To Say, or should I return to my blog the random-thought-receptacle function now usurped by twitter?

Decisions like these are made continuously, on the net. I didn't even think about them when I started blogging at the tender age of fifteen, aside from the occasional dilemma regarding the degree of disclosure I was comfortable with regarding incidents that involved people who might actually read this. Funnily enough I mostly settled on nothing but my love life being off-limits... not taboo but discreet. Then again, everyone I dated before read this journal (yes, both of them) while my current is a bit of a luddite. People who know him read this, though, which leaves some things firmly in the realm of TMI (or maybe it would have been like that regardless). I've always been astonishingly blase about TMI in the general sense, and equally oversensitive about it in the specific. My embarrassment squick: it functions really fucking weirdly. I feel okay about contemplating a post about my intimacy issues and how bizarre yet lovely physical contact is, but writing up a date seems wrong despite the actual events depicted being practically identical to many other occasions I have chronicled here.

Tangent. It's just that I'm twenty now, and even as I sometimes come to a total full stop epiphany about how bloody young (we all are) I am this feels like something I can and should be held accountable for now. In the standard Get Famous, Have Biography Written About You hypothetical, stuff you write when you're sixteen is stuff you can smile at and say "aw, silly tiny pastme," but stuff you write when you're twenty is much harder to divorce from your identity. This is Me, not Minime. This isn't going under Early Years.

I feel sorry for people who only got onto the internet post this Age Of Reason epoch. I've had years and I'm still only just cementing points of internet ettiquette in my habits. It must suck to realise that not only were you a douche to somebody on the internet that one time, but you were actually (nominally) a rational adult when you did it, and people expected better of you. (related reading open in my tabs right now: How to disagree, How to want to change your mind. Actually though the main thing that it has literally taken me all this time to realise is that the age-old noob-pwning heuristic of LURK MOAR compacts an essay's-worth of Sensible Things About The Internet. Someday I might write the essay.)

Tangent. I have 2000 words due Friday, another set Tuesday and yet another next Friday. I'm procrastinating. You may as well ask me anything (you can totally do that in comments, too... it's just my formspring hasn't seen use in a while :P)

I think I have some sort of persistent opportunistic flu infection that pops right up as soon as my immune system is compromised by stress or leaking or lack of sleep. grah. hate. Also I have had a weird skin reaction to this lotion my gran brought back from Israel. Fuck you, dead sea! However this resulted in hilarious twitter conversation yonder:

jk_rockin: you're allergic to the Dead Sea?
me: Apparently so! This does not bode well for any undead israeli boys that want to sweep me off my feet in the future!
fishmouse: Better a vampire than a zombie anyday.
me: yeah I'm pretty sure EVERYONE is allergic to zombies :P
me: oh man, imagine if you were allergic to the kiss of death! talk about adding insult to injury!
me: MOOHAHAHA, NOW YOU ARE VUN OFF USS! ...and svellink up somesink awful. Armand, is zis supposed to happen!?
jk_rockin: ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US

Further such hilarity occurred IRL last night, when I showed up at Jenn's Batcave (a warehouse full of amazing giant piles of junk, omg I wanted to put on a snorkel and wade in) for adventures with hairdye! But first, a scenic detour to the Shire. "Hey Jenn... I think I am on the wrong train. Where is Panania?"

Anyway I have a red skunk stripe now. Oh did I mention I got a superdykey haircut last friday? I did that, yes. It is. Interesting. I can never quite impress upon a hairdresser that MY HAIR IS A LITTLE CURLY and they keep giving me styles I have to straighten bits of otherwise they look ridic. But anyway I have a red fauxhawk with an S-curl and brown lady-sideburns with almost-shaved cut-outs behind them. I like it but I don't think short and rectangular is really my thing in general - next time I will let my hair grow out much longer before I go in, give them something to work with. On the other hand, it looks excellent under hats! :D

A meme I tagged long ago and forgot about:

Reply to this post asking for words and I'll give you five I associate with you, which you then talk about in an entry on your journal!

From amber!

slam poetry: hahaha I am not sure why you associate this with me? I have done it all of twice. I find it interesting how rhythms are different when you're writing poetry to speak aloud, than to look at on a page. It's a matter of long and short beats, internal rhymes and consonance. Whereas book-poetry is less about how the words sound aloud and more how they look on the page, what kind of beats a space, a line break, an indent create. I think the best poetry combines the two, really, but I can't quite express the process.

Russia: ZE MOTHERLAND. lol. I identify as Russian without any particular tie to the place we call Russia, I think that's common to a lot of immigrant kids like me. It's about the language, the food, some little customs and cartoons. Family history plays a part, too, anyone whose family spent a few generations in the Soviet Union generally has a fairly russo-unique set of "grandpa stories" and interesting familial neuroses.

The actual place is by all accounts a corrupt racist alcoholic winter wonderland, but I'd still like to go back there some time just for the novelty of getting by in a language other than english.

neutral_omens: Ahh that old game. A Good Omens based "let's throw some characters into a place and see what happens" roleplay, albeit much smaller than ones like CFUD and la. We actually got together in OOC-chat and worked out bits of plot :P also, it was HILARIOUS (or maybe I just thought it was because I was sixteen). Angels, wizards, demons, an antichrist and some random bewildered humans in a hotel that used to be a satanic nunnery cum paintball retreat? OH yeah. I played Newt Pulsifer, toying with a proto-accident-field-superpower that has inspired a comic book character who now lives in my head. At some point I will script the first issue and find an artist for that.

Here are some of my favourite threads I was in: John Constantine and Newt Pulsifer vs. the Cellophane Beast was fun times, as was American Gods character Loki prodding Newt's Special Fail Powers. That one also resulted in a hilarious AU drawing based on what else could have fallen through the ceiling (hint: there was nudity).

Amanda Palmer: lol this list was given me before Evelyn Evelyn drama drama went down. I should have done it then, I could have gone on about her voice and lyrics and audacity and ability to connect with people instead of her privilege and public relations failure. And after all I said in the last post I STILL ended up arguing about it with strangers on the internet. God, both sides, too! I guess I am just one of those CAN'T SLEEP, SOMEBODY IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET people, regardless of whether that person agrees with me or not. Well, you know, you don't want people who agree with you to be wrong, do you?

Honestly I am more disappointed in the way Amanda has handled this whole fiasco than with the concept of the record. Like, sure, that was problematic, but as an initial provocation on a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is accidentally saying "stand up for yourself" to a wheelchair-user and 10 is Spartan social darwinism, Evelyn Evelyn is maaybe a three. She could totally have salvaged that situation, but instead she's managed to make everyone who started off going "amanda I love you but I feel a little uncomfortable with this" feel like she sees no difference between us and people who tried to censor Oasis/think her photography is "goffic snuff porn"/hate her for dating Neil Gaiman (disclaimer yes I know those are all different people). For somebody who has cultivated such a feeling of closeness with her fans that just feels like a bit of a betrayal.

Also I am a little disappointed in the manner in which many people pursued this complaint against her in the first place, but that's a whole essay on effective privilege-checking that I want to save until tempers are less frayed, so that I can use this as a specific in the general case without putting people on the defensive.

And speaking of defensive don't even TALK to me about the people jumping in with "it is your responsibility if you feel offended because we choose our feelings" (more or less verbatim from one) because OH MY GOD. Alternating fury and motts at those people, why must you remind me that just because somebody likes the same stuff as me does not mean they are not a douche? (also mottsy because it reminds me of times when I have leapt to the defense of something without thinking, although I can't recall specific instances right now, but that just makes me paranoid!)

talking-really-fast: it's. a thing I do? XD I think out loud, and thoughtspeed is always faster than we are physically capable of forming words, so sometimes I trip over myself. Also sometimes people say "okay now say that again only use a spacebar" (not in so many words). Aside from that it's not much of a thing one way or another. Now talking really LOUD is a real problem I have, whereby I forget that I have a volume setting that can be adjusted until someone goes OMG STFU MAGGIE. (I feel that is a good note on which to end this post.)

Mwaha! Okay, now it is time for linkspam! First off, remember Formspring? Not sure I ever linked it here. I AM INCREDIBLY FRANK, YOU GUYS: YOU KNOW THIS. Ask me things!

Bee tee dubs, I meant to tell you how awesome the compliments meme was! Some of the people I was thinking of when I wrote about the i'm-so-fat thing and my puzzled flail about it did not comment though, so I had to ambush them on facebook. And while I was there I said what the hell, and got through another twenty or so of my friends. It was amazing! I highly reccommend it, I went to sleep grinning my face off. I turned on my capslock before I started. NOTHING IS AWKWARD WHEN YOU SAY IT IN CAPS LOCK :D

Speaking of Facebook, I thought y'all might find this recent exchange of mine amusing.



It's true, I really would watch Battlestar Gaylactica. Don't lie, you know you would too.

In slightly more Srs Bzns lately, I found this article incredibly interesting. Back when I first read the Zombie Survival Guide in high school I had plans to write up detailed Zombie Contingency Plans for the event of securing my house, my school and a long-term fortress such as an island (because you know. it never hurts to be prepared awesome. I also spent a lot of time trolling the zombie_survival community, but I got tired of it being full of people who had not actually read the book and either took the whole thing too seriously or were obsessed with proving their own points about some strategic detail. Plus: the curse of a thousand American gun nuts!)

I never got beyond vague ideas and a hilarious diagram of my school with zombie-vulnerable points circled, but as part of the long-term plan I was considering data storage. I had some idea of a cool dry cellar in which we'd keep archival computers that could be powered with our generator or even a hand-crank - for all those bits of information we're not sure if we'll need or not. They'd be powered down all the time except when we need to check something, or yearly maintenance I guess. I never got round to doing the research on how long they would last. Things are made pretty disposable these days.

Idle speculation on future archeologists is also a bit of a hobby of mine. Last year there was an archeology thread on the Whitechapel forums, and one user who studies in that area pointed out that the default explanation for Stuff That Baffles Us is to file it under Religious Purposes. I found it amusing to look at modern art pieces and imagine them being dug up in a thousand years by next-civilisation scholars who invent elaborate religious rituals on our behalf to explain them. But gods, is it creepy to think about all those ghost-databanks, lying fallow all over the world for lack of decryption technology.

Think about what's on your hard-drive right now. If that one computer was all some future pastgeek could access, what would they infer about our civilisation?

---

Okay, now MOAR LULZ.

The Worst Sex Scene In Comics. I think I ruptured something giggling at this. (PS it is SFW in the sense that there is clearly sex happening but it's been blackboxed.)

SPEAKING OF SEXYTIEMS. Am I a bit of a perv for finding Venom licking a dude hot? COME ON, GUYS. LOOK AT THAT LITTLE HEAD-TILT. COME ONNNN.

Hope you've got your lulz/srs bzns whiplash neckbrace on because I really like this article about Taylor Swift. Basically assume I am nodding vigorously at everything in that article.

AND FINALLY LET US END WITH STILLLLLL MOOOOAR LUUUUUUUULZ. (via drjon a long time ago)



also it is apparently delurking week! or it was, and can be, like, extended. jussayin.

Mrgh, still lagging behind the update train I am. I've a little collection of links from the past week or so that I'll post after this even though they are no longer new so some of you may have seen them.

I'm home again after a week of doooing stuuuuffff, the last few days of which involved me only returning to my house to sleep, and that only half the time.

( SERIOUSLY )

It is a neverending source of bafflement to me, these days, the way my life lines up in flowers for the theoretical social butterfly inhabiting my incidental position in the space-time continuum. I spent a good deal of time as That Kid who reads in the library at lunch time - in fact, true story, one of my teachers had to gently remind me that I had a library card in order to convince me, grumbling, to read the book under a tree in the park instead¹. Then I graduated to spending lunchtimes in a computer room, in the general vicinity of some other kids who could loosely be termed friends because we congratulated each other on our high scores in Icy Tower and mutually complained about Geography assignments.

Somehow something I always thought of as popularity snuck up on me. Somehow I do things on weekends, now, and text message people, and lend them clothing or leave clothing at their house by accident and tell them get it back to me next time I see them. Somehow multiple people want me at multiple events in multiple places at the same time with disturbing regularity. My cup, literally, runneth over. Part of me still doesn't believe it.

And so two things: One! I am always pretty cheerful about having to maneouvre around double-bookings in my social calendar because I have double bookings in my social calendar wth :D srsly. And two! I am kind of bad at saying no to people. I want to do EVERYTHING. I want to go to things just because people ask me. I'm still not very good at reciprocating, you know, despite having evidence that people like me in them asking me to spend time with them I can never quite convince myself that they like me enough for me to ask them to spend time with me. So I want to take allllll of the opportunities to spend time with people without having to flog my brain into invitation gear - it is just less stressful.

All of which is an exceedingly lengthy lead-in to explain why I spent most of last night in transit between Newtown and Annandale, trying very hard to be in two places at once.

( cut for my return to my trademark Very Long Story From Last Night )

I'm at Mel's, slightly drunk. I'm showing people music videos and traumatising her little sister with Ebichu (because she has a little hamster doll that resembles it. I have been picking it up and shouting UNMENTIONABLE PANTIES! YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!) and did you know her parents blutack little motivational lists to their walls. It's sort of creepy.

Observe: a sample. Note the sickening platitudes, mild repetition issues and passive-aggressive circling of "change your habits."

Anyway so we decided to replace that one with a SLIGHTLY ALTERED VERSION and see how long it will take them to notice. It runs thusly:

 Accept your limitations – don’t diet.
 Never trust hamsters.
 Learn to be calm – hit things with sticks.
 Your anorexia is totally justified.
 Don’t let your sister’s friends use your facebook account.
 Live joyfully – DRINK MOAR.
 Forget your mistakes – SEE ABOVE.
 Be individual – get a tattoo.
 Have a mind of your own – the Borg is overrated.
 Learn the healing power of abstinence.
 Concentrate on loving cake and vodka.
 Accept the other fucker’s issues.
 Giving will make you smug.
 Love Alice – she is your overlord.
 Don’t worry about the things you can blame on your sister.
 Forgive others – they are only figments of your imagination.
 Be a winner – cheat massively!

I think it will IMPROVE MELISSA'S LIFE.

So I typed up a long post about sparring bruises and the Time Travellers' Convention a few days ago, but the internet ate it? Firefox crashed, and when I next went into the post window there was no draft. IDK. I want to just use Chrome but it doesn't appear to support tabbed browsing, which, you guys, I have like thirty tabs open right now :P

One of which contains:

Perry was working on a knee-high, articulated Frankenstein monster built out of hand-painted seashells from a beach-side kitsch market. They said GOD BLESS AMERICA and SOUVENIR OF FLORIDA and CONCH REPUBLIC and each had to be fitted out for a motor custom built to conform to its contours.

“When it’s done, it will make toast.”

Cory Doctorow's Makers. So far, I like it :P

What've you been up to, internets?

So I didn't end up going to Die Maschine as everyone who was going bailed on me. I haven't gone anywhere or done anything since my zineday with jk_rockin, mishka_jayne and heythatscool on Tuesday (where we did not actually get much zining done, although I wrote a leetle comic! but mostly we just messed around on the internet and fangirled Alan Moore.

I feel pretty hermity right now, but in a way it's a welcome break. I will be shaken from my solitude tomorrow, though, I must go to escrima training. And then on Tuesday there shall be ice-skating with stella8h8chang and co! It is weird how many of my RL friends are on livejournal these days. Well some of them are livejournal friends who are in RL these days, I guess. But still. Incidentally amber has requested to read my cultural studies analysis of the Mountain Goats' Lovecraft In Brooklyn that I wrote for one of my classes last year (or poss. the year before... hmm...) so I will dig that up and post it here at some point!

I have been listening to the Weakerthans so much since I dug them up off my old hard drive, they are so wonderful, it is amazing. Just. Eee, and I get to see them live at Soundwave in February! :D I still have to book my flights for that, whoops. I was going to take a train down but nobody else wants to, apparently, and fucked if I am spending a day in transit by myself. Once there however I shall have heythatscool to share a hostel with, yay! I am totally excited for my first proper rock festival. And none of my favourites clash with each other at all! It's pretty good to be Maggie in the music fan business lately, let me tell you.

Now I am looking up local psychobilly bands on Myspace! So far my favourite is A Death In The Family (idk if they are psychobilly akshly, they are just playing at this which Alex claims is a folk punk/psychobilly thing... anyway I am considering going :P hence the research) because they sound good and are possibly named after a Batman comic!

Oh yeah, that's what I clicked "post" for - you guys! I signed up for au_bigbang! I'm going to finish the sequel to this DCU fic! Also I have signed on for fanmixing. I've been going through the writer signups to see what fandoms I might end up mixing for. There is a surprising amount of baseball RPS going on there, guys! At first I thought they meant the Baseballs which oh my god, you guys, I would read SO MUCH fic based on their 50s personas, you have no idea. Also I have been meaning to buy some of their songs for a while and kept getting put off by the Germanosity of their website lol, I can't figure out if they take Paypal or not. Must get on that. Anyway, oh my god I signed up to write 15k by april halp /o\

Title: How To Embrace A Swamp Creature (Previously titled INTERNS! Or: The Story Of How Gerard Is Awkward And Frank Is A Bit Of A Douche)
Written For: no_tags
Pairing/Prompt: Gerard/Frank, intern drudgery
Rating: PG
Warnings: …the motts?
Notes: This story kind of ran away with me, who knows why. I was all, “I can finish a thousand word story at the last minute!” and then it was like “o-ho! What if I want to be TWO THOUSAND WORDS?” and I was like “fuck fuck fuck.” So I posted it a little rough, but looking back I think it's okay! I can't figure out how to deal with that one tense shift, but uh... you probably wouldn't even have noticed that if I hadn't pointed it out *sweatdrops* er. Contains Gabe Saporta and stealth!Mikey & !Jamia. New title and cut text thanks to the Mountain Goats.


( but I'm out of my element )