The Last Bastion Of Absurdity

I trapped a tiny spider under the box that holds my retainers. I should have got new ones last year or the year before, but my orthodontist kept saying I wouldn't need them at all soon. Then my wisdom teeth showed up, and they said to ask again once I got them out, but alas: procrastination. I thought I killed the spider but the centre of the box is raised on the bottom, and it ran away when I lifted the box again. I let it go.

There are seven toothbrushes in my bathroom. The little dinosaur one is my brother's, and mine is one of the green pair (I can never remember which). The dark red one is old and has been consigned now to those hard-to-reach places belonging to the bathroom sink. That leaves three pink ones and whichever green one isn't mine. Can my mother possibly be using all of them? My dad only ever uses their en-suite, but mum thinks it's too cold on that side of the house. The toothbrushes are never put away, so it doesn't seem like you could accidentally open a new one before you needed it, but my mother works in mysterious ways.

Today she decided the fridge needed cleaning. It did, but she only got as far as taking everything out before falling asleep in front of the TV. When I found her and turned it off, she woke up, mumbled about her stomach and went upstairs. Dad came home while I was cleaning the fridge shelves and we had a nice chat as we returned all the produce whence it belonged, including the five roots of ginger and two of turmeric that mum bought on a whim and none of us actually know what to do with. Also beetroot. Do any of us eat beetroot? Why do we have so much parsley? The only dish I know of incorporating large quantities of parsley is boscaiola pasta, but I know this because Alexander likes to make it. That doesn't normally happen at my house. My parents' house. My house. My parents' house. Double vision.

Double vision. I still expect my cat to turn up underfoot. Poor old thing. We didn't even bury her, we figured the vet would know what to do with animal corpses. My parents are thinking of minding a foster kitty for a few weeks. Not my responsibility. No pets allowed where I'll be living now, or at least no mammals. I like snakes. Do I still have that tiny mummified lizard somewhere? I'm going to have to move all my knick knacks off the bookshelf and decide which ones to take with me. Finally an excuse to leave behind the porcelain dolls my grandma gave me that I never played with. They can gather dust somewhere else.

My grandparents (or rather the more active busybody in each pair, being my paternal grandmother and my maternal grandfather), collectively appear to be worried that my new flatmate will either seduce me, steal my shit, or seduce some random guy who will then steal my shit. They're also vaguely relieved that I'm moving into a white-ish neighborhood. Previous generations, huh? Alexander offers in consolation that a) he's just down the train line to ~protect my virtue~ and b) his grandma is technically the class enemy. I think that's because she owns property and rents it out at market value. Alexander is very concerned about the housing market in his area, specifically its place in the gentrification of a traditionally poor black neighborhood and dispersal of housing commission tenants to economically dead outer suburbs. Or something like that, I get this stuff basically by osmosis - it's hard to follow along on any individual rant because of his tendency to interrupt himself four times in a row with nesting parentheses. This is as yet more cute than irritating. I've made a game out of counting the levels of tangent and then holding up a number of fingers and saying "ding ding ding." One must find amusement where one can.

The place in Summer Hill has nothing on the walls yet. I meant to write more on the ceiling of my room here, so the words from that insomniac episode was a few years ago seemed more artistic, but I didn't get around to it. I'm moving into a smaller room and one I can't write on because of that large bond I just transferred. On the other hand - no more surprise ginger. My dad says ginger juice tastes awful. I'm going to miss him.

Gosh, getting back into this blogging thing is hard. I've gotten out of the habit of recording stuff I do. I forget about it really easily. What did I do last week? Beats me. I've always had massive blank patches in my memory, I don't know, probably a lot of people do, but sometimes I get anxious like things I haven't told anybody about never really happened. It doesn't help that my fall-off-the-face-of-the-blog periods tend to coincide with times when my head is foggy and I can't concentrate on things, much like I feel now since I have decided to blog in the evening after basically just messing around on the internet all day. Good job, Maggie!

So what I have been doing is seeing friends and procrastinating heavily, mostly! On Thursday I went to mishka_jayne's birthday do with Al. We were late because when I dropped by his house to pick him up he was still picking knots out of his epic, epic hair, having wasted much of the morning arguing about Hugo Chavez on facebook. This tells you pretty much everything you need to know about him. We got there eventually, ate delicious sushi and watched Inception, which was mindfuckingly awesome. I have been raving about it all over the place, all I shall say here is MUST WATCH SEVERAL MORE TIMES and then write fic :D

The next morning Al had a 9am plane to catch for a cousin's wedding in Queensland, which meant that I had to wake up at six in the goddamn morning and help him locate things like hairbrushes that had been eaten by his room. Now, my room is pretty messy, right. Piles of clothes everywhere and all, books and comics, sure. But I, at least, do not have rogue cutlery haunting my room. He claims that the mess has character, so I named it Baldrick. It works on pretty much every level, I am quite pleased with myself.

Anyway, I went home to shower and then came right back again to have dinner with Avi, Jess, Alice and Joy in Newtown. We ate large volumes of vegan food and then wandered all the way up and down King street looking for a particular gelato place Avi insisted had vegan chocolate sorbet, to no avail. We ended up in one of the classier sex shops, ogling latex skirts and handcuffs and comparing er, notes. Also, discovered a) an entire case of what looked like nothing so much as sex toys designed by Apple, and b) that there is a rechargable vibrator you plug into USB ports to charge. I discovered this last one by pointing at it and saying "Gosh, even your flash drives look like vibrators..."

The rest of my weekend has been nowhere near as novel, consisting largely of sitting inf ront of the computer and being shouted at by my mother. \o/ However I did at least cull my epic volume of open tabs just slightly. So, not ENTIRELY unproductive.

I have finally caught up on and added to my regular reading a non-English webcomic! Here's an update that is totally understandable to everyone, though :P (also, punk rock god [and son]: who CARES what they're saying!) (Also I think I just translated a Russian cuss as "becoming covered in dick.")

Also I have been listening to music here, it's pretty sweet!

And just now I got eaten by Youtubehopping Adam Hills videos. BRB DED OF LOL

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...? )

Good evening, internet! It is for once Before Midnight and I am writing a blog post!

I have been a busy little maggot this week, for varying values of busy that alternate between internet-cyborg-zombie and person-who-leaves-the-house-wearing-clothes. My casual online tutor work has started up again, so now I have an EXCUSE to sit in front of the computer for hours at a time! Also on Friday I accidentally went to a trance club. The night began promisingly, with young ladies stealing my roll of gaffer-tape to prepare their breasts for later semi-naked acrobatics and all, but I went home early because I had forgotten my wallet and felt too awkward sober. Also, I was hungry. So I came home and made a steak at one in the morning. Class~!

Anyway, a thing which I wanted to talk about was the Ladies: Why You Be Putting Yo'selves Down stuff going round earlier this week. I shall link to the Tiger Beatdown post because that is where I came across it and also because I agree with pretty much all of it, Sady is a sensible person and I love her blog. She and Amanda Hess continue the conversation here, and that post in particular felt oddly, nay, horrifyingly familiar.

You see, people do this around me all the time. I shan't name names, but I've been dealing with various close friends moaning about how fat they apparently are since I was fourteen. And I never got it, and I could never think of an appropriate response, because "no you're not" got old fast when it was clearly making no impact, since the conversation would repeat verbatim ad nausea, and talking about how stick-thin is not the only way to be pretty skirts the minefield of calling them fat by dint of not gushing about how skinny they are. Sometimes I'd cynically think to myself, "She is just fishing for compliments, god!" but I never particularly minded handing them out - it was just, you know. Boring.

I never really thought about this weird female habit in context, in terms of the whole patriarchal structure of feminine downplaying and tearing down and submissive gestures. I never really felt the urge myself - I guess those couple years of preadolescent socialisation I missed out on were good for something, huh? On the other hand, I am always going on about how clumsy and forgetful I am. It's not in a "please reassure me" way, it's more an instinct to lower expectations, I suppose, but now I'm wondering if that's part of this phenomenon, or if it has more in common with the gender-neutral Class Clown syndrome, as I've always thought.

All that can't hide the fact that this really is a Thing, that women are taught to do, and it still sucks. It's hard to know what to do about it. I still don't know how to respond when people (read: women) (...and Shaun, now that I think about it) put themselves down. I'm thinking of a compliment-ambush strategy, or something, I don't know. But if you're reading this, if you're reading the posts I linked above (and I hope you read those because they are awesome) and you are thinking shit, that's me, then I'd like to hear about what goes through your head in those conversations, what it is that I never got from your perspective. And yeah, I'd like it to happen less often, but not at the expense of your feeling able to express your insecurities to me, because what else are friends for? I only want to hear that stuff less because you're thinking it less. And I of all people know how tricky and unpredictable brain-hackery is, but I do believe that sometimes, when we're aware of a Thing we do that we do not want to do, we can do something about it. Remember when I used to have panic attacks on buses? You probably don't. Hell, I barely do. But I do remember it's slow, it starts small. And here this rambling dovetails neatly with a meme I've been meaning to post, via jk_rockin and mishka_jayne!

Reply to this post, and I'll tell you one reason why I like you. Then repost this [if you like] and spread the love.

Except! Amendment! Especially for if you are a lady (or shaun)!

Reply to this post with something you like about yourself. No cop-out complinsults please! I know you've got it in you! And if you don't I will still do the original meme above, so no pressure or anything, but try. For me.

AND IF YOU DON'T COMMENT, Certain People, well... I know where you live (on the internet). I will hunt you down. And some day, when you least expect it... I will... SAY NICE THINGS ABOUT YOU.

Hokay. Wow. That was probably- no, definitely the longest unannounced hiatus I've ever fallen into. I tend to measure my mental health by hobbies dropped, and I haven't played guitar in about the same amount of time... so it's probably a good thing I've finally gotten onto that medicare psychologist thing. On the other hand, I hadn't drawn anything since year eleven of high school, and lately my notes have been covered in cute birds instead of random geometric patterns, so possibly things are on the up!

So livejournal (and dreamwidth!), what have I been up to during my lurkernation!?

Well. Let me see...

( cut for OH GOD I REALLY HAVEN'T POSTED SINCE JUNE. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME. )

So. State Of The Maggie. I have not failed uni or dropped out of it to have a nervous breakdown. I have more or less stopped sulking about being dumped (I think). In related news I also think I have begun to figure out this whole casual flirting thing, in that the last time I got hit on (...I think) I did not freak out nearly at all, which bodes well for the future. I have made a start on sorting out all the junk in my room. I have summer plans. I have comics. I have awesome friends.

I think I'm okay.

I'm back!

Oh hey look, my comment about Skinner's pigeons made it into Neil Gaiman's blog. \o/

(whenever I send anything to a ~famous person, by which I mean anybody I admire who does not know me personally, I always feel terrified that they will look at it and go "who is this awkward person >:[ this is dumb." So it is good to have proof otherwise :P)

Real entry to come soonish. Meanwhile I have to vacate this computer so have a

MEME
From soberloki: Dear readers,

I have suffered complete identity-loss amnesia. Please fill in the blanks. Tell me who I am! I trust you, my friends, to tell me only the truth and to steer me in the right direction.

Okay, okay, I TRIED to stay out of it because I KNEW it would be full of the same old infuriating People Who Just Don't Get It, but I caved. I read up on the blowout currently going by RaceFail 09. And I found to my surprise that I did, in fact, have something to say about it.

Okay, firstly, to get it out of the way, ( my take on writing characters with a different cultural background to my own )

Now, on to the actual controversy. EDIT: I got distracted and ended up waffling about something only vaguely related? So my actual comments about the actual internet kerfuffle are in the next post. *looks sheepish* All right. So. The thing about fantasy is - quick summary of my understanding of the background here before I get into what I think I can actually add to the discussion. The thing about fantasy is that offensive themes are very easy to disguise in it. Mostly subconsciously. Because, of course, it's not our world. Back before anyone was really talking about Coded Language and whatnot it was very easy for someone whose personal worldview was very self-centered to create a fictional world in which all those pesky things which do not fit either don't exist or are warped into something that doesn't make them uncomfortable. It's still easy, it's just nowadays people actually notice and talk about it. And nowadays most good fantasy writers are not quite so blatantly xenophobic as, for example, H. P. Lovecraft. The problem is that most good fantasy writers regardless of race grew up READING fantasy written by white people for whom race was a d'n'd style straitjacket. Like Tolkein, who imagined the whole world to be a cookie-cutter clone stamp of about a hundred acres of British countryside. Can't really blame him. After all, the man lived on an island.

( and some more waffle )

This post has been getting more and more poetically incoherent as the time gets closer to four am. What I'm trying to say is I believe our lack of humility is in part geographic, and our construction of race in opposition, of whiteness and Other, is influenced by that disconnect. (Obviously I realise that non-island nations also have racist and nationalist dialogues. But go and count how many of them are not primarily based on territory, religion or both, go and count how many involve an conflict that did not begin across a national border or a line of scripture.)

And western framing leaks, we impose our ways of dividing society on the rest of the world whether purposefully or otherwise. Information flows OUT from us, and it is SO easy not to look elsewhere, not to look in any other way than this one. Is it any wonder that our fantasy worlds take on that same affect?

I want to see a fantasy Eurasia. I want to see countries upon countries upon ex-empires upon conquerors upon conquered, I want to see DEPTH to the history of fantasy universes, I want to see a character get six completely different Once And Future Exposition speeches from six different Wise Old Folks who live within sixty kilometres of each other. I want to see descriptions of racial characteristics that don't stand out like a sore thumb because everyone but that character defaults to fantasy-caucasian, I want to go through ten characters before one repeats a skin colour. I want friendly four-way arguments about religion in which none of them are barely-disguised Wicca or obviously-coded Christianity or Generic Oriental Philosophy X.

...

Possibly what I want is more Ursula K. Le Guin. Yes, I do! I want people who have learned from her! After all, it's fantasy. If you can write anywhere full of anyone, why write Grandad Tolkein's Good Old Days?

Argh. Somehow I have to learn how not to freak out in large groups of people. Either that or identify the critical mass at which just one extra person tips the group over into "too many." I couldn't sleep and I had this long emo rant about bottomless pits and my intimacy issues and then I realised that totally wasn't the point, I was just projecting thanks to reading too much fanfiction: the point was I got edgy when the crowd showed up, mellowed out briefly thanks to something blue in a martini glass (those things are hard to carry, it's like the angle of the glass was purposefully designed for ease of spillage) and possibly should have quit while I was ahead and gone home before I sobered up.

The really interesting thing is that my meltdowns are always postponed these days. Gone are the days of sneaking off to the bathroom in the middle of dinner to wear fingerprints in somebody else's sink and try not to cry. Now all the tension is stored up in my shoulders like a coiling spring to be let out when it's over. On the one hand this means that there is no way to KNOW whether leaving earlier would have been an improvement, but on the other hand it's probably not that healthy. I do it during family fights, as well, in fact we all have the tendency and it means an argument is never really over, because we don't settle it so much as dismiss it, only to have it rise up later as a generic resentment that has no answer.

Another paradox is that I feel like I have to get the rest of my life in order to not feel so unmoored in social situations... yet it's pretty much impossible to find a corner of my life that is NOT social. I should have just gone into science, then I would have had an excuse to be a misfit. Also then I could have built a death ray. It just doesn't feel the same to cackle "I'll show them all! I'll write baffling yet poignant poetry in small obscure magazines and own many strange hats!"

Your creations get away from you. I think that's one reason why artists often feel a bit Frankenstein-ish. You rarely end up with what you started.

For instance, today, probably inspired by the whacky imagery of woodburner's automatic prose game (also because I was playing with candle wax. As you do.) I wrote a little poem. Then I thought, you know, that looks a little like song lyrics. Let's get out the guitar and see what fits. So I messed around a bit and voice-posted it. Then I realised the second stanza as actually a chorus and the last one should probably go at the end of the song as an outro, so I had to make up more bits to go in between. Okay, I figured, at least one more verse shouldn't be too hard, hmm what will work... oh hey. I can has bridge. How did that happen?

I still have no idea what goes in the second verse, but at least I... have a bridge now?

There doesn't need to be a conflict between science and religion. Religion is something people believe in and science is something people use. Notice whenever they clash it's because someone is trying to believe in science or, more often, use religion - and then there's Intelligent Design, which is the worst of both worlds.

This was your two am installment of "people are dumb. why." theatre.