Improvement

Music: switching from VNV Nation to Diary of Dreams, "Nigredo".

If I am better tonight? I will be damned if I know. Not really. More steady, yes. Then again, Titanic was very steady too, until it ended up in the depths between the fishies. I will take all my heroes down with me; yet another similarity.

In short: I have not written anything save for one erotica piece, and it took me three months to pick up from where I had left and finish it. I am incapable of making any other progress with my story or anything of importance. There is poetry, of course. Yucky one, reserved for my self-torture. And in the case of the erotica piece I think that hormones, and not inspiration, are to blame. This inactivity is driving me up the wall. I do know what is going to happen in the next chapters of my story. I just can't bring myself to write it. I lack the motivation to do it.

Sanity-wise, I am not doing good or bad. I just am my usual self. Tired. Burned out. Hyperactive the one moment, catatonic the next. Plagued by my usual visions of my heroes, so real in mannerism and appearance that I am sure, if I reach out my hand I will touch warm skin and the promise of deliverance. But there is nothing to touch. There is just me and my room around me in its usual neatly bombed state. The bomb contained CDs, books, clothes and cats. My brain, on the other hand, contains little boys. Caged, chained, tied up, gagged and wearing nothing but ribbons for decoration, and maybe stockings, garters, high heels and naughty smirks if I feel like being creative. Other than that, it is empty. I can offer the space to be rented on request. I am not sure if anybody would want to live there but all are welcome to try. Just keep away from the cages, don't feed them. I like them skinny, their nipples a tiny fleshy addition to a flat, smooth chest. And never open the cage door, for they will bonk you silly in milliseconds. Seriously. Ravenous little sex beasts that they are, they will have it their way with you, and I will not be held responsible for that. You have been forewarned.

Waiting drives me nuts. Then again, I can't possibly get nuttier than this, for gods' sake, can I? Ritualistic murder is the next stage and I just don't have the appropriate daggers for that.

The wake

Music: Saturnus, "Martyre".

It's hard to admit you managed to make me cry again. I never thought you'd be able to do that. Not after all this time. I had raised my walls and put up my defenses; I had locked my inner being away. I had "buried my heart under the snow." I had done everything and yet found it you did, like the blind man who stumbles upon the proverbial pearl by mistake.

I went home, sat on my bed and let the night sink in. Seconds later I was crying. Just like that. The one moment I was thinking and the next overwhelmed. All I could do was let it out. The instinctive wisdom of a drowning man.

Don't get me wrong. It isn't hard to for me to start crying lately. Quite the contrary, actually, as I'm more fragile than ever. I just didn't think I'd cry again because of you. I thought myself dead over this matter. "Comfortably numb." However life loves to prove us wrong. It would have been even encouraging, in some sense, if it wasn't so utterly devastating. The one moment there was ground under my feet and the next there wasn't. Just like that, really.

We create mental images of people in our minds and when we run away from them we start living with the image and not the person anymore. We unwittingly create our own tormentor and feed him or her on a daily basis with all the "what if", the frustration, the anger, the guilt. The more time passes, the more this imaginary person gets out of touch with reality and the person it was based on, till we end up harbouring a ghost and living with this creation in the past, dwelling in our misconceptions and mistakes. And one day we meet the real person once more and that ghost vanishes, leaving us to rediscover the other in flesh and blood.

What hurt me the most, my dear, was not the lover I lost, for our relationship was a failure in every aspect you care to name. For me giving is the most natural thing in the world, while you were incapable of taking. Some people even said that you were a bit jealous of me in some sense, that I was too much for you. I'll never know and it doesn't really matter. That night I did not cry for the lover I had lost years ago for it seems you were never there to begin with. Therefore I never actually had you in order to lose you. Maybe the timing was wrong, or maybe we were not cut for each other. I will not allow myself to reconsider the whole matter from that aspect, because I had done this countless nights and it led me nowhere save for the darkest pits of despair. No, for whatever the reason, it was not meant to be. What I lamented for was entirely different. I did not mourn for the kind of relationship we had and neither for wanting us to be lovers again. We are incapable of being together; incompatible, for some reason. What I cried for was that for one more time I realised what I had loved in you: your intelligence, your wit and humor. You had made me laugh countless times (and I am as easily provoked to laugh as I am to cry) and that night you did so again. And it all came crashing down, and then the bottom fell out.

It just broke my heart to realise, my dear, how little time we have at our disposal before I leave again. I cried because you are not going to keep in contact -you did not do that even when we were a couple- and I will miss you. I will miss you more than words can say. But some things are not meant to be, some people are not meant to be together either as lovers, friends, or anything, really, and that's that. "There is no time for us, there is no place for us." I cried because everything and everybody that I hold dear is always snatched away and removed from my life, be it a person, a favourite pastime like role playing games or anything, and those that stay are usually changed beyond recognition or had never been what or whom I thought they were. And I am left in the company of books and comics and CDs and my imaginary heroes and heroines. Don't get me wrong, I am more than honoured to be their focal point of existence, but from time to time it is just not enough. It cannot keep my sanity intact.

Some people might say that it would have been good for me if I fell in love again -it has been a very long tome since the last time- but I know that nothing good is ever going to come out of it. Wisdom-wise, I can certainly be taught a lot of things by it. But happiness-wise, not a hope in hell.

PS: The title refers to the tenth graphic novel of the 'Sandman' comic series. For some reason (obviously because Mr. Neil Gaiman is such an excellent writer) the very essence of how I felt was perfectly captured and depicted in that volume. And what better proof there is of an artist's skill that seeing one's personal experiences clearly, almost blatantly reflected in a strangers' work?

A writer's constipation

And the worst thing is that all I can write lately is lame poetry!!! The kind of poetry others politely compliment when they read, but you know that they'd rather be doing something else. Like stuffing their ears with barbed wire and their guts with living lizards. How do I know? Told you, I am Supercrap Zombie Girl. I bloody well know, okay? Now buzz off.

What do you mean why I am not publishing some to support my claim? Ef off. I do not have the copyright yet. When I do, I will proceed to do so and torture you with it. An artist's ego is as huge and inconvenient as a giant fluffy pillow. One can even sleep on it, but other than that, it is just a nuisance. Now matter where you try to place it, it always takes up too much space, has absolutely no practical use and sticks out as pleasantly as an inflamed monkey butt. Believe me.

Soup! Soup is calling me. I hope great Cthulhu does not decide to rise from its depths on top of everything else.

New neighbour

I am conveniently close to hysteria. So close that I think if I stretch out my hand I can touch her shoulder. Too close for comfort, as they say.

I keep having minor health issues. I do not really know how minor they are unless I have them checked, of course. And how can I have them checked when I have no insurance, no money and no time to go see a doctor, even if I magically find a way to pay him? (maybe in kind? Make him sick too, for example?) Such laughs, oh the laughs of my life. It is impossible to explain how hard the situation is to a another person without getting into an endless conversation about Greece, fees, my life and Karmic debts, so I won't get into this long and sorry conversation. I do not like long and sorry conversations. I do not like other's sympathy most of the time; it seems alien to me. Then of course I have not explained that I am Superman, have I? (Rolls eyes). Supercrap zombie-girl in new adventures. The one thing I hate more than asking for help is getting unwanted advice from those who know better. I can chew off people's balls and ears for unwanted advice. Some have found out the hard way. A lot of others are waiting for their turn in a queue, worry not.

So, half hysterical and with a serious chronic case of cat squeezing and cat pampering gradually getting out of hand, I feel the need to squash people's heads with mauls and tear their jugulars free with my bare two hands, then jump up and down on their half flattened heads. I can put up with just about anything. But no health issues, you bastards. Not that. Let me be healthy so that I can put up or struggle with the rest. My health is an under the belt punch, you fucking bastards. Let me be, leave me the fuck alone; I reek of death and despair already. I do not need more...

At times like that, I understand Dorian (a serial killer from my stories) more than ever. But I am not Dorian, I am just me, Elizabeth, mad at virtually the whole universe. And since the universe is rather busy now, I'll go make some soup and get a good night's sleep. Maybe tomorrow I will be better.

Redefining

Sometimes I peek into an illustrated book, or read a couple of lines here and there. A series of tiny explosions takes place within my head, related to possibilities about my life and other stories.

"What has to be done, has to be done. Regardless of how hard it is."

Sergios Alexandriotis, The way of things

I was having this conversation with a friend of mine yesterday. And I told her, “I am paranoid enough to stop seeing people if I fear that my meeting will hurt them, (talking about an ex there) or that I may have some ulterior motive even I am not aware of. I am crazy and enough of a control freak to strangle such notions within me before they even start to exist.”

“The way to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Anonymous

How weak must one feel to exert control at such a degree, it only remains to be seen. This isn’t a moral code; it is the sword of Damocles. It is scary. The Emperor reversed in female. It is probably the influence of the moon in my birth chart, Moon in Capricorn, a born bitch mellowed by a saintly streak half a mile wide. Hmph.

“If the demons lie within, they travel with you.”

Jeanette Winterson, Oranges are not the only fruit

And I told my friend that the best way is to be. Not exert control over others, cause it is both futile and wrong. Not try to control one’s life at an absolute degree either, cause “if you want to make the Gods laugh, tell me your plans for the future.” Not even try to control one’s self, thus becoming the hated tyrant over one’s own being, a reflection of cold unforgiving law in the inner mirror. No, not even that. This is as wrong as trying to control others, or one’s environment by adopting obsessive/compulsive habits. No.

“In the end, I have only one true teaching for you, Dane. One simple word: disobedience.”

Mad Tom to Dane, Grand Morrison, The Invisibles.

Just be. Like flowers are. Like grass is. Accept things with grace. Do not bow your head accepting fate blindly, do not remain silent out of weakness but out of wisdom that comes from knowing one’s position. A speck of dust in the universe. An assortment of flesh and blood and dust from stars in the other end of the galaxy. And so many dreams and desires and cravings it pains me to think about. Humility is about that. Being humble is that. And it is so much different than serene, patronising smiles.

How much contradiction can a human host?

You have me, a misanthrope working for the good of community, a neutral good person with a serious authority problem (who’s simultaneously one hell of a control freak) supporting others’ freedom of choice fanatically. I am not lawful because I have absolutely no respect for human laws and conventions, but at the same time I am a disciplinarian obeying to my own law on pain of death and blind faith. At the same time, I am biased enough to hate fanatics and crazy enough to accept the possibility of all points of view being equally valid, cause they are very real for their bearer. However, I also believe that each point of view is nothing but one facet in a multi-faceted gem and therefore each of them if viewed alone and on an absolute basis can only be wrong. There are (and will always be) more things that we don’t know than what we know. How can people be so bloody certain of what they think or believe? How can they be so blind and ludicrous? Then again, who said human beings are not ludicrous? They make me mad and sad all the time. And yet, with what eagerness I seek their company. It must be because like it or not, I am one such myself. No god and no beast.

All I know, all I’ll ever know is that there are moments my very soul stands still, tiptoeing on an invisible thread of music, a hue of colour, a form. And it trembles and vibrates like a violin in love. For the merest of glimpses. For something others don’t even notice. If this makes me silly or moonstruck, I welcome the characterisation. Yet there are nights I can feel invisible gates opening or shutting somewhere in the ether, there is a quality in the cold air that speaks of North and sights much loved and long forgotten, and of how the girl with the sad eyes buried her heart deep in the snow where nobody would ever find it and hurt it. Now she walks in unusual places far away, a stranger among strangers, juggling with her thoughts and feelings and dressed in darkest blue, and she smiles because she knows her heart is buried- and safe. And she also knows that in due time she’ll make them all pay by pulling the carpet called reality from under their feet. But for now, the Beast is asleep under the snow and everybody is safe.

And still what I want to say remains untold.

Adaptation

Have you heard the old one? That "Cannabis will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no cannabis"? Well, here is a new one by me: "Self-sarcasm will get you through all times better than money, cannabis and even sex."

If you claim yourself to be a goth, you need regular proof of such bold claims. Meh. :-P

There are times

...that words are dry and brittle, like dead leaves. And one feels that it is useless.

All I can presently think of is Nuare's exquisite pallor. "Like a drowned nymph, or a dead lily with human veins."

I need to find Baudelaire in English.

I need drugs

Hard drugs. And a big fucking gun. And two official translators: one to translate my Greek to simple Greek and a second one to verify in case someone missed it. But what I need most is someone to rub my back. Not my tits, not my fanny, not my ass. Just the back, if you could. Thank you.

Maybe if I post a very revealing photo of me I will find someone willing to cover all my expenses and send me to a place far away for weeks of rest. But I have the gnawing suspicion that the place will have padded walls.

Fuck it. I go to fantasise about my heroes fondling the buttocks of my other heroes. And if this doesn't make my mood better, I'll just sleep.

Melancholy

I honestly don't feel so well, and anger and tiredness rise in my throat to choke me like bile. It's late at night, Saturday, and I slept at 22:00 hoping to catch up with lost sleep so that I manage to go out later. Yeah, right. I woke up at 01:00 am, too broken to be able to move even my toes. All I managed to do was force myself out of bed to take a bath, and now that I smell better I sit here and write, too pissed off to be able to sleep. I will do that later. There is always time to catch up with lost sleep: when I am dead. Although lack of rest does reduce my mental faculties to that of a dead person, I have to admit that sleeping is not an option now.

I am trying to find the little invisible thread of humor here, otherwise I'll just start screaming and wake the rest of the people in my block too, to share the "joy".… It just becomes too much after a point of time, being so trapped, so unable to do anything I want, so shackled and desperate that I go mad. I go mad with all my strength, coming to knock myself against my invisible walls and howl my pain and disappointment. I howl and howl and nothing comes out of it save maybe for a sore throat. Kari Rueslatten fills my room with her mellifluous voice and all I can think of is my ire and hurt and the need to break free at all costs.

A friend unknowingly initiated this, by bringing me a 2006 diary called The Women of the Camarilla. Upon opening it, I find out that the 'Camarilla' in this case is a role playing fan club for players of Vampire: the Masquerade and other White Wolf related role playing games. I also find out that they are organized in a club that includes six continents and thousands of people, from UK, US, Canada etc, and members can participate in more or less any local, national and international event in any continent, taking their characters with them. For example, if my character is a man called Serge, I can take the airplane, go from London to Seattle, Washington, and introduce myself to the players there as Serge, and be recognised as such. I can take part in the local game as Serge, affecting the local story line, and then return to London and players there will treat me accordingly. If my character screwed up or did something truly spectacular, they will behave to me accordingly when their characters find out. Just like it would happen in real life with me and other people. What they actually do is create an alternative space within reality much like a sorcerer would do, force themselves upon it by using the most potent weapon: creativity. They bend reality and force it to recognise them no matter where they are and how they travel, the same way a shaman would put on a mask and 'become' the animal the mask represents. And reality obliges, if only for a few hours. And I hurt like mad because I am stuck here, in Greece, and I cannot even manage to go out for a single Saturday night after months, let alone participate. I cannot even meet people that if not friends, I would at least call them like-minded. I cannot do shit. Reality spits me in the face, reminding me that the last word belongs to it, and I feel weak and enraged and constantly brood. And bite people's heads off the next day at work.

I looked myself in the mirror before I got into the bathtub and saw that my body is falling apart for lack of care and enough exercise. My hair grows longer, but that's about the only good news that I have. Other than that, my eyes are haunted and dark underneath and my lips grow thinner and sour and twisted, my hair fills with white and I am still here, trapped, gagged, maddened. Who would believe that this 28-year-old would harbor so many people within her head and so much pain within her heart? Only those close enough to hear her stories and pained enough to understand. Who would see Serge, my protagonist, sharing my frail body with me and knowing of my mental pain cause he goes through the same and much worse in his case? Who would see the infuriating little beam of Etielle in me, which he uses to hide his tiredness and searing anguish? Who would ever see Nuare in me, who knows that if he lets himself relax and get attached again, the person he gets attached to will sooner or later die?

Nothing lasts forever, they say, and yet this situation has lasted nearly forever. And still what I want to write about isn't on the page yet. I want to write about my worries and gnawing fear that I will never finish the story I am writing now, or even worse, that it will be the single shittiest, most soppy and inappropriate piece of work that any unfortunate man has ever laid eyes upon, a fucking gay vampire soap opera. I tremble at the thought that I might never manage to escape this existence and be trapped in the gray little nothingness I abhor so much, growing old and biased and insignificant and bitter. I do not want this happening to me. I do not want to end up like that. Yet I don't seem to be getting a single chance to run away, not even a crack in the walls of my cell. Nothing yet. What else is there to be done? What have I missed? What am I doing wrong? What must I do? Is my mind playing tricks on me, refusing to show me what the real situation is? Am I living in self-enforced misery?

I remember seeing this dream a few months ago, where I was in the service of Lucifer/ Saturn, a very stern and impeccably dressed man in his fifties, dark wavy hair and mainly blue-grayish hues on his clothes. I handed him over the list with the things I had to do for him, and there were only three or four tasks left (out of something like fifteen or twenty) and asked if I could be dismissed. He shook his head and showed me the last tasks, pointing out that I had not done them. (If only I could remember what these were, I would throw a party). I protested that they were not so important after all, and even if I did not do them they would be done on their own in some sense, with the passing of time alone. No, he had said, these must be done. And off he had sent me. And here I am still.

If hardship is some form of initiation, I am sure I have failed mine spectacularly, or I am destined to become the next savior of the world. Or something. Or my ass has to grow bigger and very hairy, in order for me to invoke it more effectively to dismiss situations and people.

Thankfully I am not looking for a boyfriend.… Now that would have been verrry funny.

The road to success is paved with lipglossed saucers

I accidentally glance at the cover of a fashion magazine and see the x or y starlet with blond hair and blue eyes and ‘juicy’ lips (like she’d been stung by wasps, it seemed to me.) I take a look at another magazine, this time for men, and find the same type of beauty rubbed in my face, only she’s wearing her garters and high heels and nothing more. I take this discreet means of promotion more seriously and start looking at all the covers, one after the other. Tits, boobs, breasts, bosoms, udders, hips, loins, assmeats, asscheeks, asses, bums, buns, butts, bottoms, buttocks, nether regions, behinds, hindquarters, rumps and most certainly lips. Lips with ‘devious’ makeup so that they look fleshier, lips with silicone, lips with subtle latest fashion shades of neon fire brigade ‘sexy’ red or been dead for a week ‘mysterious’ white or brown. Monstrous lips which from a point onwards remind me of those natives who insert those saucer looking thingies in their lower lips cause they find it sexy. And it may well be for them, but this is Greece in year 2005, and women my age all try to look like Pamela Anderson. Yes, yes, we must stretch our faces, fill our lips and breasts and asses to the point of bursting and be hungry for sex 24/7 and always impeccable and perfectly dressed/ manicured/ depilated, but why? What about the brain department? Why struggle so much?

There is nothing wrong with taking care of one’s self, and I do not weigh four hundred pounds nor look like the protagonist of Nosferatu, but these things from a point onwards are empty. Like the years these sex bombs live when their star no longer shines. It’s a futile struggle against time; there will always be someone younger, prettier, easier. These women find themselves more desperate with each passing year, or early dead. And a corpse is a corpse: good looking or not, it only bothers those few fanatics of necrophilia. Is that what they are interested in?

At least both male and female life style magazines do agree on one thing: they are not looking for women, but inflatable knick-knacks.

The hidden joys of queuing

Art by Joseph Vargo

I was waiting in the Post Office the other day to pay some bills and get a parcel. It was the one with the Vargo art book. (Nipples harden and breath catches; goths will be goths...) In my backpack was Poison Elves #6, and from time to time I'd glimpse inside and smile knowingly. My coherent thinking consisted of the fact I was too grumpy and sleepy (I hate waking early in the morning) and that as soon as I was back home I would roll my body all over the pages of the art book. The only other trail of thought I could follow with some success consisted of a string of swearwords related to me working endless hours daily, and something immensely insulting concerning capitalism, money, responsibilities and adults. They feed people with success stories which mostly consist of somebody being able to buy whatever one wants. But what does one really need? Substitutes of happiness in the form of things amassed around one? A new mobile every three months? A happy family with two kids and a dog? (Personally, I would swap this anytime for a little talk with Mr Marilyn Manson; I have spotted a few surviving brain cells which I want to eradicate from existence. Meh.) Empty promises of fame with one's naked body as a passport? Where does this stop?

Capitalism, success stories and priorities my arse. Which is neither big nor hairy, but adequate for the needed statement.

Drooling (in secret)

Saw one of my ex today, the one I could end up in jail for dating by age difference alone. Kiddo looks good. Big lie. Kiddo looks downright gorgeous, making me wonder what drugs the creators were on when they added the finishing touches. Whatever it was, it was some fucking good shit, you know? They should buy from the same dealer a whole lot more often. Anyway, kiddo says he owes me a hug, and I have to admit I am tempted to ask for more. It's really hard to still be mad at him, though he sometimes does have the tendency to let his mouth flap unchecked. What do you expect, woman? He is only 19, godsdammit. Well, I have stopped trying to be mad a long time ago. I just can't. He makes me proud just by being himself: tall, gorgeous, smiling like a kitten, so very intelligent. His thirst for life betrays his true age. Oh, fuck it. He grows up and I grow old, but can't help but smile whenever our paths cross. Keep up the good work, kid. Kick them in the nuts. Way to go luv.