If you really want to show someone how much you care what you have to do is keep your mouth shut and do things. Show with actions, not words. (Sometimes these actions include leaving the other alone.) Words fail. Words cost nothing. Words are such a bloody nuisance.
On a happier note (and to prove the contradictory nature of human beings) I have just finished a short story and writing it made my heart ache. Let's hope it is good.
Also, my friend A. who had been illustrating a short story of mine and recently finished it, has made a hauntingly beautiful cover for it. You can see it here. Thank you for making me feel so cherished, girl. I do hope we make more things together. Now let's pray someone will publish it...
Just like tea is evil, potatoes are vile, which is a different word with the same number of letters and the same letters. Potatoes are in league with tea which is secretly in league with all the hidden terrorists of this world, i.e. President Bush. But I digress.
So, I managed to burn the inside of my mouth with one such vile potato a few days ago. It was not hard at all. Please everybody: a round of applause? Thank you. Your intelligent friend here (yep, that would be me) grabbed a potato from the baking tray and stuffed it inside her mouth. You see, when I touched it, it seemed all nice and cold on the outside, but then, as I started chewing, it revealed its sizzling hot inside. I felt like I had a shot of lava in my mouth, but like the idiot that I am, instead of spitting it out, I continued chewing. To be more graphic, I huffed, puffed, inhaled/ exhaled with my mouth wide open like a toad and making appropriate noises to indicate I was burning. One would only expect I would spit it, but noooo. I went on chewing nonetheless, my right hand fanning the inside of my mouth furiously, my feet dancing a mysterious jig of distress. It was the potato or me. The potato did not survive but left a legacy of third degree burns in my mouth. Now I am carefully considering my next trick. Who needs a hairdryer when one can stick his or her head inside the microwave oven? I'll tell you once I've tried it.
After the virus infection on the 1st of January, 2007, I could not drink my all time favourite beverage, of which I drink gallons and barrels on a daily basis: chocolate milk. My stomach simply wasn't up to it. So I switched to tea, Lipton Vanilla Caramel tea with an ocean of honey in. But tea is evil. With water one knows the deal: after five minutes, one has to pee. (Actually, sometimes one has to pee just by listening to water pouring, no drinking involved.) Tea on the other hand hides somewhere inside my body and makes a cowardly, all guns blazing attack. One moment I don't need the toilet, and the next I feel like Columbus's Santa Maria has materialised inside my bladder. Combine this with the fact I am working +-12 hours a day practically on the street, at a kiosk, with no toilet handy, and you'll catch my drift...
There is something about the smell itself, its oily sweetness that reminds me of a rotting substance. And something about the flowers themselves when they start to wither and lose their suppleness. Then the finger touches them and feels no resistance. They give way under one’s touch in a rather unsettling manner. Like a dead body after a few days. I love hyacinths, but just like human beings, I want to see them for small periods of time. Beyond that, I start to feel put off by them.
Everything has to have a special meaning. Everything has to be dissected and analysed. Magic needs to be trapped and explained using test tubes. Happiness measured by machines and explained in wavelengths. Each and every one of us so certain he or she is right. Each and every one of us eternally craving, eternally thirsty for something we can’t put our finger on. The water given for free and yet it never quenches our thirst, meat and bread set out for each of us on the dinner table and yet we trace patterns in the dust and ash instead of eating. That is the nature of humans, judging where they should simply accept and finding fault in all people but ourselves.
I am tired. I am exhausted and feel like I have been nothing but pushed around by howling winds. And the worst is yet to come. There is no time to rest. In order to break free, the butterfly must tear the cocoon. The bird must break the egg. The being we call human must tear apart his or her reality. All the things we take for granted are just the first layer. Layers over layers.
Oh how I miss the sweet taste of blood of the freshly killed pray, and the times killing was the most honest and justified thing in the world. We got civilization and added more layers, we mummified reality under false laws and false values, while once there was a time of innocence. If you did not like someone, he was the first to know, by face-to-fist contact. And if you craved someone he was also the first to know because you asked for pleasure. Children had no fathers, or rather, a host of fathers but only one mother and the main concern was remaining alive. Now we got laws and lifestyle and nobody eats his dead relatives, but rather digs the grave of the living by lies and hatred and half truths. And we are all civilized. Proper. Caring. Open-minded. Alternative and mainstream. We talk to those we don’t like and never say “I love you” to all those we really care about. We smile to our customers and cry ourselves to sleep. We live (?) in our little cement and metal boxes, gather stuff we can’t take with us and argue about the meaning of life. And one day we go away, one day we lie silent and still and those left behind try to understand why.
My tom-cat sleeps with his front leg wrapped around my right arm and purrs in his half-sleep. And he is happy because I am home from work and I fed him and rubbed his tummy. And I am happy because he is happy to see me.
Death is what makes everything so precious. Don’t you see?
Added a new profile which I like a whole lot better. Apologies to all the people who have asked me to visit their blogs or sites and leave comments. I don't have the time to, am really really sorry. Maybe at some future point I will manage to work 12+ hours daily AND do more than eat, sleep and be miserable. Or be madly creative in the wee hours of the night due to being hyper and desperate...
It's the first of January, 2007. I am sick with one of those virus infections that last for about a day. I have violent vomiting and terrible diarrhea. On top of that, I have my period too. (I really did hit the jackpot that day.) So I am sat on the toilet in a half-conscious state with my pants around my ankles and feel like there is a horde of Tasmanian devils inside my tummy, struggling and pushing and groaning, desperate to find the exit. (Insert characteristic sound effects here.) My mother is watching me from the door, really worried and quite eager to help, but unable. Suddenly, just as I feel that I'm done, vomiting kicks in. Unable to do anything else, I turn around, pants still around my ankles, fall on my knees, embrace the porcelain goddess to which I have been paying homage for that day, and start spewing my guts out. Conversation:
Mom: "Do you want me to hold your head?"
Me: *Bluaaargh* No!
Mom: "Do you want me to wipe your ass?"
Me: *Bluaaaargh* "No! GO AWAY!"
Needless to say, I was trying to save the last remains of my dignity, unsuccessfully of course. For two or three days afterwards my tummy made funny noises. To quote my best friend J., "It's like the turkey that escaped the Christmas predicament hid in your tummy and is calling out loud to the other turkeys who might have escaped." Thanks, mate. I really needed to hear that.
I am so mad at you. I feel that no matter what I do, in how many ways I try to prove you my good intentions, what I get (and what I'll always get) is nothing more than a second hand opinion on who I am and why I do things. You don't see me. You will never see me. Then why the fuck bother? Why try to please? Why even converse with a person that uses me as a blank screen to project his obsessions onto? When everything I have ever done for you is disregarded because I would not play snitch, and brushed aside because what matters is my relation to your obsession, then why try? Did you see me, the person, even for a single moment in this long sad story? I doubt it.
All I have to do is close this chapter too. You are only meant to do me harm, whether it is a conscious choice or not. So I will just leave you behind. And this will confirm your suspicions, but no matter what I do, it will confirm the wrong suspicions. I will therefore exit the scene, and hopefully I will do it with some grace.
I'll nag like an old woman. I miss the wondrous. I miss that which gives my life meaning. Save for the daily routine which keeps me busy, and the thingies which keep me pleasantly occupied. My heart needs to flutter. My eyes have to see something bewitching, or they feel empty.
I am that which people abhor. I scare them. I make them feel uncomfortable. And all I do is be myself. All I do is make jokes. Forget to keep my mouth shut in front of strangers. They smell I am different and react accordingly. They smell the thing inside me and become hostile. For mine is a dragon, a glorious beast of terrifying beauty, or a curled, sleek feline, and theirs a mole, or a pig. And they squeal as such. They run or bare their teeth as such. And the dragon inside me or the big cat turns its back and leaves, too haughty to even snarl.
The people in the store. The waiter in the bar. The customers at the kiosk. They seem to somehow smell it, and just how fast they do nowadays. They needed longer in the past. Now they feel it immediately. I can bend them all to my will and crash them like little men of clay, but why even bother? This is not my way. I can't even bear them around me for too long. I just want to retreat somewhere far away, and write, and read, and only converse with those worthy of my voice and time. I know this sounds wrong and I don't care. I don't need to explain anything to anybody. I need only listen. See what needs to be killed. Inside me. Bring forth the cleansing fire and the blade, and cut clean. I'll take it.
“Shall we be elevated/ or pushed into the fire? I don’t know.
Sometimes, sometimes, I loved someone/ sometimes,
sometimes, someone loved me/ that’s all I know.”
Deine Lakaien: "Sometimes"
There’s one thing beyond the norm that I ought to comment on. Save for the usual chores that such a night entailed, and we all know but don’t expect happening to us and thus don’t avoid. Such as the gaffe of dragging too many people alongside me and thus arriving late enough to miss the first show with Lucifire. (*visible fangs on my face*) Or the depressing air of desperation the whole Gagarin stank of (“I wanna get laid tonight”). Or the fact there were people in there that had made the usual mistake committed in such cases: they had spent a lot of money to buy and wear what they believed looked good in, seeing it on a model. However, they were a minimum of forty pounds overweight than the model in question and their flesh so flabby that hang like that of a pig a fortnight after rigor mortis, and they had diligently “dressed” it (squeezed it, and it was overflowing and frantically escaping from all openings) in lace and silk. Hm. No darling, nobody is hungry for flesh to the point of finding a potbelly or a half-naked ass the size of my refrigerator enticing. Yes, I know you have boobs. You and the other half population of the planet, and some much better than yours. Going around in your bra does not make a statement; I am sorry to break your bubble.
The thing I must refer to is Jonny Dragon and his show with fires. He was a full scale compensation, or should I say, a full scale attack? He had the kind of face I would call exquisite, full of wonderful angles at all the right places, and when he smiled devilishly during the act (which he often did) he was plainly ravishable. Why? Cause he was smug as fuck. He was full of that wonderful self-confidence of a person very aware of the fact that every single pair of eyes is watching him, and well, they should be. He was damn good at what he did and obviously had the time of his life being the centre of all that attention. Some people are born for the stage. He belonged to that category. Fiery talented and deliciously self-involved, in a manner I consider characteristic of a true artist, he made me goose-bumpy all over. I do admire performers who use their body anyway, and make no mistake, he was a sight to behold. Dressed in leather, shaved, slim, not very tall, long legs and wonderful lean muscles everywhere, a male dancer. The show just stole my heart; to see him encircled by endless rings of flame on a darkened scene, never stopping, never miscalculating, and moving with such grace that put most women to shame, ah, that was just... perfect. He often knelt in front of the photographers while juggling with the rod or the chains, inviting them into the fire, mocking them and bewitching them at the same time, and I doubt there was a single male in the audience that would not give anything to be him, even for a moment, and a single female that would not give anything to feel his full attention on her, and vice versa. (Save maybe for those turned on only by the sight of Porsche and a stack of credit cards, whose opinion does not concern me anyway; they can stuff both up their nether regions or down their throats and I’ll gladly provide the lubrication.) So thank you, Jonny. Just for you being there it was a beautiful night indeed. To see one such as you, a deviant of society, making a living out of sheer talent and determination gives me the courage and will to go on.
The only ‘bad’ thing after such performances is that my loneliness kicks in at full effect and want someone to pamper me. Badly. Both want badly and to pamper me badly. Yet no-one has the guts or the qualifications for it and I don’t have enough patience for the average relationship. The first stupidity I hear and out the window goes flying the transgressor (with the sole of my boot engraved on his butt).
PS There was more Jonny afterwards but I missed it because we had to go. :-( Argggh…
And how can anybody not be predictable when by nature our energy follows specific patterns, our brains follow specific patterns which change only when we read poetry or respond to surreal art and... Godsdammit. What makes me what I am is my jail. How do I step out? Erase my personal history, I know...
A. is working on a short story of mine now. And she is doing such an amazing job I am almost afraid to tell her. Wow, girl. You certainly did it this time.
By the way, I am totally in love with Olivier Theyskens, ex designer of Rochas. NOT the fashion bullshit surrounding him (though some of his creations are magnificent) but the man. He looks so feminine and sensitive and sweet. I want to smother him; he just inspires me to. Death and love always walk hand in hand; death reminds us of the need to reproduce... (Evil little cackle). I can be so fucking predictable.
A few hours ago I had to drag a disemboweled dog to the side, near the pavement, with his owners watching me transfixed and shaken to their core. Someone had just run him over and left. I knew this dog, it was a rather irritating little bastard, but he did not deserve this fate. Nobody does.
It's rather funny being what I am. Most women would never bear to be close to that dog, let alone touch it. I was so taken aback that I could not really think of anything else than what had to be done. And it was done. Two days ago I was on my knees on the ground at two a.m. digging out cyclamen bulbs, with my hair hiding my face (like Sadako in the Ring). Tonight I was trying to move the dog out of other people's view, taking generous eyefulls of what once was his insides and now was on the pavement, still steaming hot and twitching though he was dead. Having cured and cooked meat quite a number of times, I can tell you it was not very different, save for the twitching. Disgusted? You should not be. You are not -I am not- very different on the inside. What makes the difference is the way we choose to live our life before we are transformed into rotting bags of meat and entrails and bone. And maybe not even that. Maybe the universe does not hold human beings in higher regard that trees and insects. Humans suffer from this need to feel themselves the center of the universe, but they can't really offer any proof that this is the case. So choose wisely lads and lassies. Make sure that your actions make sense to you if not anybody else. At least it will help you sleep easier at night, but as for granting you a place in heaven or anywhere at all, I can't really say.
Sometimes the stuck in-between period is just too much. Waiting waiting waiting... Waiting to receive e-mails, waiting for people to make up their mind and finally call me, waiting for the changes to take place, waiting for things to take shape... It seems that my whole life is one waiting period to the next. And then hopefully everything will happen at once, or not. Bah.
One of my stories was published (as I said months ago). My friend A. turned a little poem by me into a comic, that was published too. Now she wants to work on another short story. I am very honoured, but not excited. I am not really here. I am nowhere in particular. I feel like a ghost that exists in the in-between period between then and never and infinity, accidentally trespassing into now from time to time. I feel mostly fleshless. Everything begins from inside to and again returns to me, a cyclic river feeding itself, with no real source and no destination. I feel genderless, fleshless and purposeless. I will eventually feel better, I know. And it's strange because today J. told me some of the sweetest things I have ever heard about my writing style. He is sweetness impersonate sometimes, this being. Still the connection with me and this reality fails miserably. Ha. I don't know if I should laugh, cry or simply stare into nothingness with a thin, amused smile. The anchors are gone and I am floating like a balloon on the ceiling of my sanity. I will eventually find an open window and escape...
I am just tired and perpetually sad and nothing can fill this emptiness. Too many people leaving the scene at once and me left behind to entertain an audience that grows more uneasy and angry by the minute. I still live on borrowed reality. But fear not; I have medicine. It is called a good crying (which I am afraid I cannot do anymore) and chocolate (which I am sick of). It seems that the situation is serious...
