We are all strangers in a strange land

“You know it’s best not to get attached to things.”

“But isn’t that the point of it all?”

Grant Morrison, WE3

Sometimes I am pretty certain I am weird. Other times, I know I am weird.

Right now, for example, I have no idea what it is that I want to do. I’m restless, but haven’t a clue why. I want to do something meaningful but meaningful is a word with many different interpretations. I don’t want to write a letter, I don’t feel like studying, reading or filling in fbs. I hunger for something and I am under the impression that this ‘something’ is human touch.

I think of people as islands or landscapes. This is why I loved drawing portraits when I did draw (back then in antiquity, when I was fifteen). And this is probably the reason I never describe the environment when I write stories. I don’t care about the setting unless it somehow affects the plot. People, however, are fascinating. The way they look, what they are made of, their faces, their hair, bodies, clothes they choose, reactions, the aura or sensations they create when entering a space. That’s what catches my interest.

Presently I would love to write something but I have nothing to write about. I stopped writing longer stories years ago and even short ones are a very rare occurrence nowadays. Poetry comes and goes according to the whims of the Muse and the Muse has a headache. What I have in mind is snapshots. Nothing to write a story about. Snapshots that don’t even show a full face. Black hair, a tiny leer, a pink nipple, a ring on a finger, the lines of expression next to the mouth. A bowl with two goldfish. A part of a tattoo on a person’s chest, depicting a kitsune, a fox spirit. The cuff of an expensive shirt died crimson with blood. I know what they are; stolen moments. Moments in the lives of the people/heroes inside my head. I am a peeping Tom in their lives and can’t even help it.

I ordered the new Dir en Grey DVD as I watched some videos in youtube and the boys are back on the Path of War and mean business. Not that they had ever left this path, to be honest, but it’s nice to know one of your most favourite bands is alive and yelling, isn’t it? And I am also ogling the new Gackt photo book, with a long-haired Gackt dressed beautifully, sword in hand. How original. I never. Waaay, waaaaaay too expensive to buy at this point, but I am sure I’ll locate it in a friendlier price later on. Or I won’t. I already have a ridiculous number of magazines and photo books with Gackt and not a single one can give me what I desire the most. Contact with a real person, or meaning.

There is no actual meaning. We devise meaning but there is no meaning. A strand of hair, a gust of wind, an old photo in a drawer. I have some photos that belonged to my father and they are at least forty years old. I have no idea whom they depict. Perhaps they were friends of my father's or relatives, but my father is dead and he can’t tell me. So to my eyes they are just random strangers. No matter how important (or not) they were to him at the time, they are strangers to me now.

For all of us comes the time when we are unknown people in photos that are accidentally wedged at the back of old drawers. Meaning is very relevant. It presupposes attachment, connection. Time eats away at attachment and connection. No-one remembers. No-one knows. And it’s not really important.

What is important? I keep wondering and wondering and have no answers. I remember times I was so in love that I thought my heart would burst. And I remember times I almost went mad with pain or anger. It’s gone now, like it happened to someone else. Those moments are gone. I am a random stranger typing furiously at a net café and writing, writing, writing what she can’t live. I am an old photo in a drawer. I am a ghost in the machine. And all the photo books in the world, all the DVDs in the world cannot give me the thing I crave the most. The smell of your hair.

[ Images from GACKT Nemurikyoshiro Buraihikae Official Photobook]

Baby steps

"...People, men and women, have told her that she is beautiful, and she has no idea what they mean. When she looks in the mirror she does not see beauty looking back at her. Only her face."

Neil Gaiman, Rattlesnake

The door does not open by force.

The door does not open by guile, or by fear; it refuses to yield under pressure.

The door only opens by time and effort.

Time does not exist and effort is nothing but the tiger inside, refusing to follow.

I will make you follow, I will make you fucking dance.

Because I can.

Nothing can stop me if I am determined.

Nothing can stand in my way if I am doing that which I was meant to do.

Nobody can withstand the flow of karmic river.

No matter who you think you are, no matter what you think you can do. No matter if people worship you, no matter if you have fucking wings on your back, no matter if reality itself obeys to your every nonsensical and vile whim. You will be crushed under the flow and removed from my way.

When mortal, make sure to fight with a bloody good backup, I always say.

Cats, blogs and masochism.

How can I put feelings in words?

I don’t think I can.

When I cannot put feelings in words there are three things to do.

One, be silly. As silly as possible. I am good at this.

Two, cry my eyes out. I am good at this too.

Three, walk. I am not very good at this but hey, I try.

Right now my lower back is killing me. The weather turned cold and humid and once more it started acting up. I hurt my lower back when my father was living with us before he died. I was taking care of him and picking him up. That was three years ago. Another unpleasant thing I owe to him, except for the lousy taste in boyfriends and the general mess he left concerning the inheritance. Thanks, daddy. Nice one. Remind me to give you a piece of my mind when we meet up there or down there. Together with a lit stick of dynamite or a homemade chocolate that contains milk, hazelnuts and TNT.

And I read silly novels about death and choice and no easy answers. Mmm, tell me about it. And I also read Mr. Gaiman’s blog entry about his terrible shortage in cats and of how he will miss Princess, his terribly evil white fluffy cat when she’s gone and of how he cannot explain to anyone why he’ll miss that cat. A kind one, yes, but Princess is not such a case. Having a similar case of an evil Persian I think I know what he’s talking about. You see, I have this orange fluffy log of a cat that lives for is eating, purring and running around the house at maximum speed for reasons unknown. He does that in a cute bouncy way that more often than not ends up knocking my mother’s legs out of his way with all ten cute kilos of him. Needless to say, he makes me happy beyond words to have him purring on my bed. And then I also have this white Persian that’s a case of Spite and Malice and very sharp claws all-rolled-in-one. I have accepted my fate; I was the one who picked her from the streets so I belong to her. And yet when she’ll be gone I know I’ll be bawling like a baby, for in spite of her nasty demeanor she follows me around the house and is always happy to be close to me. Never mind the vicious bites and scratches she gives me when she is irritated by the way I pet her, for example. That’s another thing. Try to imagine Hannibal Lecter following you around and trying to be sweet to you and you’ll probably know why I’ll cry when she’s gone.

And then I had my cards read for me. It’s always so much fun when this happens; when I discover people's true sentiments it makes me want to take up new interesting hobbies. Such as knitting (and giving away as gift) explosive pieces of underwear, or installing electrical eels in plumping systems of the aforesaid people, or reversing hinges in doors so that instead of entering a room, have the door land on their heads or toes or chop off their nose. Does this make me mean? You haven’t heard about the glass-shard enhanced pillows yet, so don’t jump into conclusions, ok?

I think I’m going to go and get some sleep before I start telling you about the homemade make-up removing lotion with sulfuric acid. And before my Persian indeed manages to sniff the lit candle as she’s been trying to do for the past one minute. Bye now.

Lightbringer

No matter where one chooses to lose themselves, it's all valid.

Time goes at normal speed only when we are deeply shocked and brought back to our senses. Then each moment is rich with gravity.

The wine of understanding is the blood of stones themselves.

There are no mistakes.

There are no meaningless days.

Don't let yourself be lost between someone's thighs because you have nothing better to do.

Don't let yourself be fooled; most things you buy and most things you do count for shit.

Yet every little helps.

Time is just another tool in God's toolbox.

So much pain, so many times repeating the same things over and over again, so many lives of going through the same things for what?

The red eyed bunny has no answers as it is crushed between the wolf's jaws, no more than a human has answers when shot to death in a dirty street for reasons they do not know.

Life is cheap.

Life is priceless.

Each death, written in a bland book, is no more than statistics.

Each death experienced on a personal level is nothing but a full fledged tragedy.

Can't you see?

There is no actual line. No distinction.

Each person you meet is yourself.

Greet them with a smile.

Take some time to listen.

There are no mistakes and no meaningless days.

Discover the meaning for yourself.

Be brave and shine, shine from your deepest core to the outside.

Shine till you burn.

Beautiful

This pretty much proves my belief the human body can unfold like a flower... If we could take the time to actually not look, but SEE...

Peruse

Re-reading stuff here in the blog.

Surprising myself sometimes with the validity of my written speech.

Yet no words can describe the colour of your hair.

No description would ever do it justice.

Black.

Always black,

firing blanks at your shadow.

And the smiles, and the hypocrisy, and the questioning looks she gives me.

All while pretending innocence and genuine care.

You can have him. He's all yours.

He's not mine

He's not yours

He's not his either,

pity.

Beware of Greeks bearing presents.

And gifts fashioned in the green mist of jealousy are the worst to receive any day.

Yet I accept them.

And she thinks she wins.

No-one wins

no-one loses.

God is playing dice in a cheap bar.

You both lose.

I know the one for me.

He's mad.

I know the one who made me what I am.

He, too, is mad.

It's only fair that he'd be the fairest of all.

No such thing as coincidence.

The serpent inside my spine unfolds.

My wings open slowly.

Painfully.

The dice come into my hand.

My turn now.

Almost everything.

It is only natural that I don't write everything here. Save for the obvious reasons of not every thought or occurrence being worthwhile of recording, sometimes written word does not cover one tenth of what I really need to say.

Haha.

The other reason is perhaps less obvious; the people reading it, at least the ones who know me personally. The other ones, well, there are lots of warnings everywhere in the blog, so let the reader beware, right?

Sometimes I am thinking about starting another blog and writing whatever the hell I want there, no matter how extreme or weird or whatever. But truth be told, this one is almost as good as I want it to be. Almost. And I am against too many blogs and too many accounts in too many sites. A lot of people are total attention whores, but I say to myself I am not. This is a bit of a lie, as writers are terrible attention whores. Then again there are things I would do and things I would not do to get attention. And sacrificing the blog I have created bit by bit in the past five years would not be something I'd do to get attention. Posting naked pics of me would also get me lots of attention, but not the kind of attention I want. I mean, I have breasts, hips, and generally every body part women have. What's new?

The only new thing I can display and flaunt in people's faces is my mind. Nothing more, nothing less. That, and the way I understand and experience reality. The way I interpret what we call life.

Human beings are very fragile creatures. A single gust of wind and we are gone. But the mind and its creations stay. And the word "mind" is actually too narrow to describe what I want to say. The Greek word would be "pneuma", πνεύμα. A beautiful word meaning spirit and soul, related to breath and the mind.

I think that's about the only thing that stays behind in some form or other. And this is what this blog is about. It may be poor, it may be lacking, it may be anything. But that's what I have, that is my treasure. They can strip me naked of everything but they cannot take this away from me. It's my treasure hidden in the deepest vault of my heart and yet open for everyone to see and partake if they so wish.

That's all I have. And I am both proud and grateful for it.

"God[/dess] is hidden in the details."

Fun lessons

Trying to learn Japanese.

Reading a relative book.

Yeah, right.

Japanese has a curse as a language. One may learn both alphabets and be able to read the letters when seen on paper. Or almost able. Then one tries to write a word down and suddenly both alphabets scurry out of one's head as fast as a swarm of millipedes on a stampede. You're like, fuck, I know this letter, I know what "ne" looks like. But is this "ne" or is it "ke"?

The minutes tick away and no matter how much you squeeze your brain cells you cannot remember. You try to recite the letters in your head and much to your horror, you realise you have forgotten even more letters. And you try again and again. Exhausted by the effort, your mind connects with a Chinese laundromat somewhere and you hear happy sounds all the while, birds chirping, wheels spinning, the washing machines of the laundromat on the rinse cycle, someone whistling an interesting tune while putting the g-strings in the dryer. Empires collapse, women lose their virginity, the warden of the Imperial Prison loses his entire batch of keys and you still cannot remember if that letter is ke or ne. Slowly the season changes, the eon is gone, the entire human race is wiped out including all the Greeks regardless if they came from Sirius or Yuggoth, and the Japanese fly away back to the planet Zerg where they originally came from, riding a super-space flying sandal. Or something.

Do I need to say you still cannot remember what that letter looks like?

'Tis the season.

'Tis the season of family happiness again. It began a little before equinox and it's riding me like the man who came across the armies of Satan while on a pleasant day out.

Not a day passes without a major fallout with my mother. It's fucking charming is what it is. Like putting a cobra and a mongoose in a pit and showering them with red hot volcanic pebbles for more effect. Like arranging a blind date between a fascist and an anarchist. Blind date I said? No, not quite. More like the two of them stuck in a narrow elevator due to a power cut that will last for a week. Make that a year and you'll know what I mean. If she wasn't my mother, people would have thought we have been married for half a century. Only such couples hate each other's guts so much.

I am trying to see what I am doing wrong and I can't locate it even if my life depended on it. In this case, it is not my life but my sanity; at least a negligible amount that is left. I will try again tonight to do my little hocus pocus. If this doesn't work, I will have to ask the patience bank to extend my credit for an undefined period of time. And I'll also replace all the knives in the house with plastic ones. Just in case.

When everything goes wrong I always try to remind myself of one of the most valid truths from my magic quotations box. "This too shall pass". And just like any other rule, or quotation, or anything that there is, really, it has exceptions. Every rule has exceptions; even this rule.

I am just so tired. I am almost thirty three and there are days I feel sixty. All the things I want to do are always inaccessible, and I don't think there is anyone else with more suppressed desires than me, except maybe for someone who was sentenced to a lifetime of imprisonment at nineteen. However, there are cracks on my prison wall now, I can see them clearly. Perhaps this is what she too sees, and she is scared.

She should not be afraid. It's what they say: If you really love something, set it free. If it comes back willingly, it will be yours forever. If it doesn't, take a shotgun and shoot the motherfucker. :-)

[I borrowed the picture from Alexia's photos- it's Mr Argh! Say hello to Mr. Argh, everyone.]

Blood tidings

[Beautiful art by http://feimo.deviantart.com]

And yet that night she spoke to you.

She had not spoken to you countless times that you craved her presence more than dear life. But that night she spoke to you, and endless days without her by your side vanished in a blink.

In a dream she came to you.

Be careful, my love, she whispered.

And the sweetness of your native tongue on her beloved lips was a gift you were not prepared for. Yet she gave it just the same.

Dead, you said, before you could stop yourself, head spinning, heart beating out of control. You're dead, aren't you?

But her sensation was more real than anything in your waking life for the past twenty years, and the pain was more that you could stand. Blinding and crippling, like death itself. You shakily extended your hand and found hers in the near darkness of that room, and it was the hand you knew, small and warm and beloved. Something broke inside you then and you found yourself on your knees.

Stay with me, you whispered. Please.

But the only thing that stayed with you when you opened your eyes were your tears.

My beloved Japanese pixie yells his pain out in what feels like gusts of wind. And I write, because there is nothing else I can do. Nothing else.

I am sorry, Mr Takeshi.

The Fool

I have spent the entire past hour editing parts of past posts. Youtube has deleted lots of videos due to copyright claims and I had them embedded on my blog. :-( And since I always choose the music/ pictures accompanying my texts with the utmost care in order to enhance the effect of my writing, it is nothing less than frustrating.

Oh well.

Last night found me wandering the streets again. Night? Five in the morning. I could not sleep. I was angry, and wanted to save the culprit (my mother) from a nasty if silent death by pillow smothering. So I was walking like a person on drugs in the wee hours of the night, hands in pockets, disheveled, dirty hair half hiding my face and a thin t-shirt on. When I went out, I was not thinking. It did not take me long to verify it, as soon I was shivering from the morning cold. But then walking made me warm. Made me feel a little better.

I cannot find the edge of this fucking stage comedy that we call reality. I am sure, you see, that if I find the edge and give it a hearty pull, this entire parody of life will just peel off like an old poster and reveal what's behind, and then someone will give me some explanations. They should better. But no matter how frantically I try to find the edge of the reality poster with my fingertips there is nothing to pull on, no edge, not even a hint! Gods damn all the lemon sorbet ice creams on the planet, there is no lead to pull at. And this leaves me walking at five in the sodding morning, only to return home and discover I'm still angry and cannot sleep even though it is daybreak and I have to get up in less than two hours.

Hell and damnation, there is not even discolouring or a tell-tale little unevenness around the edges. Not a hint. Nothing. Nothing at all. Because I know I can pull the damn thing down if only I could find that little edge. Those bastard reality architects really did their homework well this time. They know me too well, you see. They know I'm crazy enough to actually pull.

Hmph.

Strange stars are brewing in the skies lately, foretelling of your death, oh mighty one. Your time is almost done. Do you feel it?

Play with me.

You run after me but I am faster.

I am not a rabbit.

You think yourself a wolf, a mastermind. And you certainly are.

Yet every dog has its day and your day is long past.

I let you give chase and whenever you think you have me cornered I bite.

Chunks of angel flesh between dragon teeth.

Feathers on the ground.

And the day comes.

It will be my turn to give chase and much to your horror you'll realise I actually mean business.

So who's been playing with whom all along?

So many questions and no answers. Dark windows in the darkest hour before morning, empty streets echoing the footsteps of the lonely, the stark mad, the unwanted.

Hear my footsteps, then. And run, little wolf. Run for dear life.

Your kingdom is forfeit.

"You did not dream of us, you miserable creature. We dreamt of you. We gave birth to you in dreams, before reality existed, and this is how you repay us."

[Arachne to a liar writer- then again, all writers are liars...]

All my fault.

“For all that is worth the blood on my hands is the blood of divinities.” [Tiamat]

The path is getting stranger by the day. Stranger and harder.

Divinities.

I have killed many of the so called divinities of modern age. The killing is done inside, not outside. I have killed notions of family, friendship, love. I have killed my so-called parents and faith in blood relatives, I have killed romance, gods and archangels. I have come to comprehend myself as god/dess, and yet the dissatisfaction persists. The need for affection and the yearning persists. And as a result, the sadness is the one constant that never changes or stops. It never wanders afar. It is always at arm's reach. An inexhaustible fountain of ever-overflowing melancholy.

Where is the one for me?

Not those sad imitations of people who walk around hypnotised. Not another candidate for baby sitting, not another candidate for busting my balls. I am sick of it.

When you sleep late at night, do you too feel that something is missing?

Exhausted by yet another day, do you see how futile everything is?

Is it worth fighting for?

Is there any meaning in this endless recycled trouble?

When my soul flies away in the arms of Morpheus, do any of these worries matter?

Where is the one who will remind me that flesh is something more than just a jail, something more refined than future food for worms? Where is the one who will make less sick of my desires, less sick of the whole parody of reproduction?

Why can’t I escape my desire for affection? Why can’t I escape the animal side of flesh?

Where is the one who will make me give up control by not trying to subdue me?

In dreams late at night

you come

whispering

just before wakefulness claims me

and oh how fast reality manages to pull out the knife and stab me in the back.

But it’s my fault.

I am the one who's doing something wrong and I think I know what it is.

I have connected what's natural with the lewd people I experienced it with. I have equated it with them. But the Universe can also provide me with an different experience in order to judge better.

Okay then. Let's concentrate on making this happen...

Shopping spree

Now, I have heard of women who buy shoes as shopping therapy. I've heard of those who buy lingerie, jewellery, cosmetics, you name it, change their hair style, begin yoga lessons or go to beauty salons and let other people smear them with all kinds of gooey, sticky and icky substances.

Never heard of one buying a printer as a shopping therapy. I suppose that makes me a freak of nature? Meh. :-P

Still have not found any salons where sensible, well-developed young men give you a massage and then screw you till your eyeballs pop out. :-)

Yes, I am buying magazines with Japanese singers again. And my friend K. is downloading porn with Asian men for me. Again. God bless her (un)holy fingertips and her gift-bringing, eye-bulging, orgasm-sharing internet connection, I have nekkid Asians in my hard drive, in various stages of getting hard for my eyes only. Bless you girl. That latest Thai one was... mmmgrrr. Mew!

The problems Asian rock stars present me with are endless, and my hormones are presently cascading like a waterfall from the mount Venus. First of all, it's the glitter and the eye-liner they use. Why oh why? Why not let me draw on their skinny bodies with pieces of praline? Where is the sense in getting onstage to sing wearing only bits of fur and suspenders? Why is my rabid grace endlessly tortured with pictures of boys who barely reach my nose, all made up like a present, hairless and skinny, with ding-dongs that look like my finger? (That latest bit I choose to ignore on the grounds that, with another race, I'll never have the chance to fuck with a male someone who wears more make-up than I do and looks prettier in a skirt than I). Even worse, what in the name of Buddha was God/dess thinking when S/he placed them at the other side of the globe? (probably their safety...)

On the happy side of nonsensical news, here is a new video by Dir En Grey. I am sure K. will appreciate watching her precious Die (the charming guitarist who resembles a hardcore Yakuza criminal) with his arms covered in what looks like infected dragon scales. I surely enjoyed it. Kyo is singing in his usual amazing style, like a man who accidentally swallowed first a smurf, than half a dozen frogs and finally a pit demon. The bassist is one of the most exquisite creatures you can hope to come across, with a neck that can make even a zealot vampire hunter develop strange urges. And the drummer... Mmmm. Pistachio.

*Mmmmm*. Busy licking imaginary neck right now. Talk to you later.