So that's it for the angels, the full cast of my "angel project." Nobody steal it or anything, I'm still working on it. Kinda.
And that's it for the weekend too. How the hell did it get to be Monday so fast? I never notice time passing anymore.
It's been a long time since I cried at the thought of leaving someone. I don't cry when I leave places or people, usually, because I know I'll come back. This time that didn't help. Three weeks is nothing, and still I wept and would have paid dearly not to have to put the phone down.
Now I'm excited, and... businesslike, I guess. I'd be more excited if everything was pinned down, but... as it is, I'm packing, cleaning a bit, and soon I'll be heading out. I'm not going to extend this goodbye; we've said everything we had to say a million times already. Keep your eyes on this blog, though, my love: if I see something that just can't wait while I'm away, I'll post it here. As for you, keep writing on yours... I want a huge backlog of musings to come back to. That's not a request!

I love you. That's all.
*kiss*

Update: the passport and birth certificate have been found, although the passport is expired... good thing, too. No one wants to see that heinous picture. Anyhow, I'm on my way, and I wish you love from the sky, kiss you from among the clouds where I recline and wait for your voice to draw me home.

Labels: Brendon, Missing You

All right, here we go on the last of the Grigori. Incubus is pretty self-explanatory. Not great with taking orders, he tends to screw things up by invariably seducing the wrong girl... never, ever apologizes for this.

Seducer and eater of men, also known as the black widow. The Grigori keep her around to serve as a kind of garbage disposal for stray corpses and such.

A sea-creature that lives in the sewers of Seattle and serves the Grigori's cause when its own particular talents are of use. Mindless, indeed, but obedient.

Demon of lust: seductive, trecherous, unreliable even to her own side. Gets along pretty well with the Succubus, though.

One of a few of the Grigori who were once human; Cagrino was once a gypsy dancer. Now she's a slightly airheaded assassin who has an unreciprocated flirtation with Zaphkiel.

The Grigori's in-house bartender, and is indeed exactly as you see him here: possessed of very little below the waist. Trades in gossip and deadly strong spirits.

The Grigori's answer to Gabriel, a message-runner with all of Gabriel's insanity and very little of his menace. Zophiel is small, squeaky, shrivelled and annoying, given to shrieking, "Don't damn the Messenger!" whenever threatened. Which he is. A lot.

Okay, here we go on the Grigori, the Fallen Angels. First, of course, is their charismatic, sociopathic leader, once God's right hand, the man himself: Lucifer. Not to be confused with Satan, who still does his work in the world below and commands the Grigori through Zophiel. This guy is everything you've heard about him and more.

Lucifer's right-hand man. Loyal, sarcastic, meticulous. Takes good care of his lord and his lord's affairs; anything else is subject to violence without notice.

Lucifer's estranged wife. Vicious, violent, ruthless, incorruptible, beautiful. The degree of power she wields frequently fluctuates and is hard to determine, but it's not small. Most of the Grigori treat her with reverence to her face, and call her rude names born of fear behind her back.

Mephistopheles: Third in command. A game player, gambler, charming and creative. Given to associating with humans more than most of the Grigori.

Leader of the fighters, a blind demon, though that never seems to slow him down. Absolutely crazy and out of control most of the time. No slouch on the guitar either.

The executioner. Heads the brute squad, and I do mean heads. Can do things with an axe like you wouldn't believe... and probably wouldn't live long enough to inquire about.

Not a big talker, this man. Given to intimate whispers of very violent acts... known as "The Strangler."

A dagger assassin with a bad attitude. He's got a habit of never letting anyone forget a slight or live anything down, and frequently finds himself on the bad end of his compatriots' weapons for this.
That's gonna be it for today. Tomorrow, the final seven of the Grigori before I close up shop for a bit.

Once more into the breach, my friends, with Phanuel, Angel of Hope. A depressive, gentle fellow who spends all his time in the house, cleaning, assisting, opening doors and such, he has a hard time going out because of his tenuous grip on his physical presence. Telepathic and largely ethereal, he has been known to intimidate would-be intruders by means of his ability to mirror himself... can form up to eighteen simultaneous incarnations and move each independently. Akatriel's father.

Zagzagel you see below also, but here is another picture I use to represent... her/him/them. Angel of Wisdom, knows seventy languages and tutors others. In the most literal sense a matched pair of male and female angels, known collectively under the same name and speaking as one. As you've read before, they are insatiably sexual with one another, to the point of being annoying to their fellow angels.

My favorite by far of the angels, and their de facto leader, which Michael very much resents. Uriel, Fire of God, was said to guard the entrance to paradise. He has innumerable eyes all over his body, which he can reveal, conceal and move at will, sending them to whatever part of him is necessary to see most clearly. Six eyes run in two curving lines down from the corners of his regular eyes, across his face. These are fixed, but can be concealed. Zachariel is his second-in-command and sometime lover.

Glory of God, a child-angel. She hangs around the house, watching and listening, and has a photographic memory. Like a child, has little sense of propriety and appropriate timing, and has been both a blessing and a curse with her ability to bring up perfect recollections of the past. Phanuel's daughter.

Messenger of the Lord, doomed to run errands and perform God's dirty work. Millenia of cynicism have attenuated his shape. Like Metatron, he has fallen far from the creature of light he once was. A twisted little beast who can be fickle as a cat, biting, snapping and tearing with his long, daggerlike fingers when disturbed or upset. He can barely speak anymore, having lost most of his cognitive abilities save for the ability to follow orders and deliver messages verbatim.

Mythologically the keeper of the tunnel between heaven and earth, Nathanael is a cabbie. Jovial, capable of outdrinking anyone, he has been seen among both the Supernals and their enemies the Grigori, welcomed with both. Unlike most cabbies, capable of speaking any language fluently.

A healer with abiding convictions about contraception, which he pushes at every available moment--especially to Zagzagel. Gregarious, accomodating, a little batty, his one antisocial foible is an irresistable impulse toward nakedness. The other angels have attempted to impress upon him that they would prefer he confine this condition to his private rooms.

Protects the world from floods and storms, moonlights as a TV weatherman, wears a good deal of makeup. He was extremely pissed off about that whole Noah's Flood thing, so don't bring it up in his hearing.

The ladies of the house, rarely going outside, but overseeing all business within. Top: Bodiel. Hostess, matriarch, Raphael's sometime mistress. Left: Jophiel, youngest and brightest of the three, given to stating the painfully, blindingly obvious. Right: Hashmal. Beautiful and sharp-edged, a bitch to everyone with an extremely well-informed tongue. Akatriel's mother, and with the same propensity toward gossip.

Angel of Surrender... a fearsome, beautiful woman with a terrifying eye for beauty and deadly aim. She is not into mercy. She does surrender, however, to one fellow--Uriel, who relies on her as a crack shot and excellent right-hand-woman.

A young fighter and a pessimist, his reaction to any setback being, "I knew it. I knew it! Didn't I tell you this wasn't going to work?!" But then he's right back into it, fixing the problem. Terrible tactician and a bit of a fool when it comes to thinking for himself, but takes orders very well.

Sorry for the length of this installment, but I wanted to finish the Supernals. Tomorrow, we move on over to the dark side and meet the Grigori.

Wanted to share this with you all, 'cause I love it so... I've been thinking about showing you some of the things I'm drawing on for my angel project. This one, although I'm also using it as one of the pictures representing Zagzagel, I just plain-old adore--for obvious reasons.
So if I feel especially inclined sometime in the next few days, I'll post a few pictures, with a description of the angel they're showing. Please note that none of these pictures are mine, but rather shamelessly stolen from a huge number of other sites. I'm drawing my own, but these are my inspirations, the jumping-off points for my ideas, and I haven't got a scanner, so you'll have to be content with this for now.

Anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about with the angel thing may find a brief explanation way back here.

Yeah, so that was such a good idea that I felt I had to implement it immediately. So here goes.
This is Archangel Michael. Chief of the Angels by tradition if not in fact, wields a flaming sword and is said to deliver the proclaimations of God... thus spends a lot of time running his mouth at people who actually do things. Has an unfortunate taste for baby meat, and is the reluctant angel of insomnia, a task he deeply resents. Petulant, whiny, self-absorbed, childish. Kicks a fair amount of ass in battle, which would be the only reason his foolishness is tolerated. Has complete contempt for the human race, wants only to complete his duties on earth and return to heaven where it's clean and warm and they have twenty-four-hour bbq'd baby delivery.
Gotta love the look of horror on that baby's face.

Katrina, look away. She hates this picture. This is Metatron, though, the Voice of God, direct link between the Supernals and the Almighty. While he used to be a towering paragon of angelic virtue, long years of wear-and-tear from being the conduit of the holy spirit have left him little more than a mewling lunatic. He now lives in a clear glass tank that sustains his wasted, emaciated body, and speaks very little except when being inhabited by the Voice. That hasn't happened in about five hundred years, though. The other angels treat him with a mix of reverence and barely-concealed horror, and pretty much leave him alone in his tank, checking on him every two weeks or so.
By the way, if anyone shares my aesthetic and wants to know where I get any of these pictures, just ask. My peculiar web-trawling techniques find me a fair bit of excellent digital art, in the direction of which I'd be glad to point any of you.

Sandalphon is an embodied concept, really. It's the fluid point, the in-between, the both-at-once. Can best be described as the state of a zygote that has yet to have its sex determined. While given to being excessively wishy-washy and nonspecific, it nonetheless is a hell of a relationship counselor. Pretty good fashion consultant too. Communicates near-constantly and telepathically with some of the more shy housebound angels, such as Akatriel, Phanuel and Metatron. Lives in a mechanized bathtub with wheels, which it can use its telepathy to control and roll it around the house.

Saraqael, Angel of Repentance. She is wreathed in flame, and possessed of a cloak that she can open to display the complete catalog of sins of any who stand before her, written in lines of fire across her naked body. Supposedly completely objective, but over the years she's gotten a little petty... now she tends to blackmail people with their sins to get what she wants, and occasionally offer up tidbits of scandal if she judges the conversation to be getting too tame.
I love this angel. Love this photo, too. You can't see it in this one, but when I draw her, she's got ritual scarification on her face, neck and hands.

Five angels up. I'll leave you with that today... wouldn't want to overburden anyone. More later, maybe.

Hey you. Come here, give us a hug. Siddown, the cushy nest chair is free. You can look over my shoulder while I'm beetling and typing, if you want to. I'm so glad we got a chance to talk before I go.
What's new with you? Nah, that's what you always say. I wanna know, f'real. C'mon, you know I love you. Let's hear your story.
Yeah, so I got fired today. I don't really want to go into it... we can talk about it later. I'm not that upset, actually. I was at first... it's a blow, you know? Makes a girl feel like a bit of a fuck-up. Fortunately, practicality won over pouting, as it usually does. I thought a lot about ranting at Donna, telling her everything she really should be told but isn't because she'll fire whoever tells her. But I decided against it when I got there. Now, shut up, I did not wimp out or anything. This was a purely practical issue. That restaurant has a habit of rehiring people they've sworn never to rehire, and me, I'm not even on the "never ever again" list. In a year or so, if I'm hard up for a job, I'll be able to go back, and there won't be a problem. So long as I don't stick my foot in my mouth now. So I didn't. I accepted my check and Donna's self-righteous "I'm disappointed" speech, shook her hand, and left. Michelle and Rebekah hugged and kissed me, wished me luck and love. I'll miss seeing them every day, but I'll go by now and then and keep up with things.
So then I walked a block north and hit the B-Line, which is pretty much the same thing as Delectables except, I'm told, a little less messed up. Better food too. They've got a sign in the window saying they're looking for dishers. Ideally I'd like to get out of food service, but a job's a job, and while I will file that application with the Main library and such, the city isn't quite as on-the-ball about getting back to a person as the B-Line is. I walked up to the counter and asked for an application, and the girl there, whom I vaguely recognized as I vaguely recognize everyone who works on The Avenue, said, "Hey, you're Rhain, right?" I grinned--in the wake of Michelle and Rebekah's affectionate goodbyes, suddenly I was feeling pretty damn loved, and this just proved it. I filled out the application, gave it back. I don't want to jinx it, but I've got a good feeling about this one. Only thing that might hurt me is that I'm going to be gone this next month, can't start till June 24th. But if this falls through there are tons of places on The Avenue looking for people, and Brian and I can scatter our resumes to the four corners and hope for the best. I don't think it'll be that hard to find a job, not in this neighborhood, and not in midsummer when everyone is out of town. So I guess I'm feeling pretty optimistic about my prospects. I put Michelle as a reference--she'll treat me kindly. God, I love that woman. Gonna really miss them.

It got kind of overcast all of a sudden while I was walking home. It was a comforting thing... as someone from Seattle I find clouds and storms make me feel safe and warm. I crossed the street in the scorching wind, avoided getting mowed down by a couplea semis, jumped in the cold shower to drop my core temperature a few degrees. While I was in there I had a bit of an epiphany. Not any realization of information, but rather a sudden shift in feeling. I thought about my job, about getting another one, about living on my own. About being responsible. About deciding to hold my tongue and not burn my bridges with Donna. I thought about going to Mexico, and sorting out my brain, and having some good clean beachy fun, spending real time with my dearest friend whom I've missed so much this year. I thought about Sara wandering intermittently back into my life, and how I might--just might, if B carries on loving me and everyone carries on forgiving me, be able to forgive myself for what I did to her. I thought about Brian, and the way he talked last night... seems he had an epiphany of sorts as well. I couldn't help smiling--it was such a beautiful thing to hear from him. I thought about how part of me was waiting for the karmic backlash of this incredible thing with B, and I thought, "Okay. If my job is the price for him, I can pay that. It's not even anywhere near what him and his words and his love are worth." I cranked up the volume all the way and blasted "Beloved" on loop, and thought about B, about how naked and open we are with each other, how helpless, how vulnerable, and how beautiful we are together. I got out of the shower and I looked at myself in the mirror and for one of the few times in my life I thought the face I saw, just as it was, was beautiful. I could see how someone might love this, if this is what they see. I looked myself in the eye, thought about all the people I love and how the love fills every bit of me, and how I can help them and make them feel this way too, sometimes, and I winked at myself there. I knew.

I'm happy. I've never been this happy before in my life. And now, here's the difference: I know I'm not going to lose it, and I know I deserve it. I know that Katrina will always be with me, my anam cara, my lady forever and always. I know that Brian will be okay, and he will find his place. He's already found it, and I think he's realizing that. I know that B will be at my side all my life, and that between us there's nothing we can't do. That we can heal each other, and take care of each other, and take those things in each other that are wakening and being born, and carry them through, bring them to fruition. I know that I'm beautiful, that I'm strong and capable, and graceful when I want to be. That I have brains and dignity and integrity, that I can help and heal and touch. I know that I'm growing up, that I can stand on my own two feet and take responsibility for the things I do, and I'm not afraid of that. I know I can deal with what I get, that I can keep myself and my loved ones safe. I know, for sure and certain, that this world is opening before me like a flower, like a pomegranate, split at the top and then folded out, exposing red-heart seeds like jewels that stain like the devil. I know that it's mine and I can have it, with a little help from my friends, we can have this world and everything in and out of it. I know now, more than ever, that everything is going to be all right.

Young and blessed with wings, no heights can keep us from their reach. No sacred place we cannot soar. Still greater things burn within us. I don't regret the choices that I've made, and I know you feel the same.

My beloveds, do you know?
Of course you do.

Labels: Brendon, Brian, Introspection, Love, You

What can I say? I never wanted to stop talking to you. And I never do. One true thing... and I want there to be more. I want it to be a true thing every moment of my day... waking to the truest thing of all, the sound of your heartbeat next to mine. True things about cereal and the way the sun fell on the street outside. True things about the news this morning, and true things about lunch. True things before I go to work, on my way out the door, so I can think all night about them. True things when I come home, and true things in my ear, whispering, singing, when I fall asleep in your arms. So many truths, of varying application and import, truths about anything from the end of the world through to the color of your blushes.
Familiar and beautiful dreams... a lake, a forest, a home. My Katrina nearby with her beloved and a little mini-Katrina or two... a house of some description, it really doesn't matter. Your hand in mine standing at the door... knowing you'll always be there. Warmth, life, love, creation. A house full of music all the time. A place for dancing and a place with windows and writing on the walls, for writing and drawing in. You singing in the shower and making me grumble when it wakes me... and then smiling helplessly, unable to see it as any less than wonderful. Living... working, dreaming... together. You have the same dreams?

Labels: Brendon, Introspection, Love

I am shaking so hard right now.

I drew a picture once, as a bitter joke.... I called it "The Most Beautiful Man in the World." The page was almost completely black, as I remember it, with a shaft of light picking out a formless shape and the blade of a shoulder, part of an arm. Nothing else.

Now I know what I was drawing.

Your voice, in the dark. The most beautiful man in the world.

Gah! I could fucking die....

Labels: Brendon, Love, Magic

Learn nothing, except in the certainty that you already knew it.
Worship nothing, except in adoration of your own true self.
Fear nothing, except in the understanding that you are your enemy's begetter, and his only hope of healing.

Endorphins in my blood from exercise make me wax analytical. When my body hums, so does my mind, but my eyes turn outward, whereas when I linger indoors for too long, my mental direction is decidedly introspective. Tonight, I'm looking at two people, the two men in my life. I know other guys, sure... but these two are the only ones who have the power to work significant change on my state of mind from day to day. I'm actually going to break this up into two posts, because they are decidedly different in direction, to the point where they merit separate opportunities for comment. Please, my friends, see below.

Labels: Introspection

First, my roommate and my friend, Brian. He holds a strange position in my life, one which is constantly evolving as we evolve, and as dictated by his abilities and mine. In a certain way that I can't control, I do him harm, I believe, because I owe him far more than I can ever really express or even return. I hope that I can provide to him a quarter the essential support he offers me--I attempt to do that. If I manage it, I will know that I am, in one facet of my life at least, the woman I want to be.
Beyond the mundane, there is one thing that I've seen in him that I've not informed him about. (Oh, ending a sentence with a preposition... gotta beat myself up for that later.) It's a kind of vision, of sorts, that only he provokes in me. It has happened twice now, which is why I mention it--it was not just a fluke.
I have never felt myself, on some level, to be part of the human race. It's not a matter of above or below, but rather one of differing nature--I have always believed that if the people I see around me are humans, than I must not be one. If I am one, than most of the people I meet aren't. It makes me look at "humans" with a certain detached curiosity, and, over the past few years, morbid fascination and a growing fear. Not for myself, but for them.
For nearly five years now I've watched Brian move among humans in a way that has always set off the radar in my head. He too is separate, but for a different reason than I. While I consider myself apart, and beside, on the same level as humanity, but of a different breed, to me he looks like a paragon, the perfected end result of a long set of humanity's personal mutations. He is flawless in a way that makes him a leper in the real world. Let me explain myself.
Brian performed in our local production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show for a couple of years. I'd go and see him, and several other friends in the cast, at least once every two months or so. I'm not knowledgeable enough of drama to really judge the performers with any accuracy--you'd have to ask him for that. But that wasn't why I was there, nor was it what I saw when I went. Increasingly, as the hullabaloo (and ain't it a great word?) of the whole production ceased distracting me, I began to chafe at the restraints placed on the performers by our culture, by their positions and themselves. Rocky Horror is a violent film, a graphically sexual film, an offensive film by some standards, and the production our cast put on took advantage of that to a certain degree. But as time went on I began to wish they would go further.
As I watched the humans in their fishnets and corsets prance onstage, flit and flirt and kiss and kill, and later as I watched much the same in the cast's production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, I began screaming inside for a greater potency. These people were nearly naked. I began to ask, why weren't they completely so? These people played at obscenity. Why did they not push for the truly obscene? These people mimicked violence. How many of them would shrink from it if it were suddenly real and visceral? The tiny margin by which they fell short of an unstoppable spiritual rite of simultaneous ritualistic ascension and degradation was unbearable to me. Such a small step... it was never taken.
It was during Brian's performance in Hedwig one night that I finally saw what I was looking for. He was my friend then, and I leaned on him for what he was able to provide me--a willing ear, a kind heart, a neutral ground, and that still-elusive sense that he was more than even he knew--but what I saw that night would change my perception of him forever. That night was early in the time that we started living together, and we had been discussing getting tattoos. He wanted the name of the archangel Michael--the one who rules over his birthdate--inscribed on the small of his back in the flowing Theban script. I, to show him, had drawn it there the night before. It was beautiful. The next night he had a performance, and we had forgotten that he would be playing Hedwig during the song "Midnight Radio," and would be mostly undressed. We hoped it wouldn't detract from his character that the twisting script was still heavy black on his lower spine.
The song is sad, but it's also a song of renunciation, immolation, and rebirth. He was wearing a band of white around his waist and nothing else, and the other performers onstage, lingering like uncertain shades in the shadows, were also dressed fully in white. The spotlight hit his pale skin and made him burn like a star.
Let me say this now: he is a damn good performer. I'm no judge, as I've said, but I'm also hard to move with movies and plays, and he is good enough to shake even me. That night, he surpassed himself in that one song.
He shook, he strutted, he raged in the spotlight alone, and I was filled with joy as the disappointment I'd felt at the almost-but-not-quite performances of the others were obliterated, annhilated in one screaming sweep of his white arm. He fell to his knees, and at the end one image was branded into memory and remains there still: a side view, nearly a silhouette in white, as most of his features were blinked out by the blinding spotlight. The black lines on his back writhing as if to burst forth and grow the wings of its namesake. He arched backward, still kneeling, leading with his right hand and buckling his spine as he nearly touched his own toes with the back of his head. I was reminded with the force of a shock of a statue I had seen in art history and fallen in love with: the Dying Niobid, a Classic Greek carving of a woman in torment with an arrow in her back. She arcs helplessly, trying with both hands to reach the arrow, her body revealing a torturous writhing. But, in the manner of the Classic period, her face is utterly still and serene, as if she sleeps.
I remember in splintered detail the agonal arc of Brian's shape in that moment and how, as he did it, he swept away all the barely inadequate movements before him, how he seemed to phase in and out in my eyes, as if the powers that made him had brought him here for this one transcendant moment, and were now to return him to a place where he would be among the deserving. Though I didn't connect the two at the time, this was shortly before a major change in his lifestyle and outlook. It was for the better. He has learned, he has grown. He is happier and wiser.
I thought the vision was merely a moment of beauty, no more. But tonight I saw it again. DDR at the Student Union--we're on our last two quarters each. On our last quarters, each of us tend to play the three hardest songs we know, in succession, in an attempt to make ourselves collapse before we head on home. I laid back on the bench nearby, building my strength for my turn, listening to his feet striking the pads as he whipped through the selection he'd made. I listened to the music and looked up at the ceiling, where the thumping lights of the machine reflected in pink, green and white. Intervening between these gyrating blobs of color was a whirling shadow, a shape indeterminate and strange, but fast as blazes. The real sound of his feet faded out as I watched it, and I heard nothing but a piercing ringing, as the shadow took on definition from the edges of the color around it, and began to move on its own. There was a polarized version of the beautiful Dying Niobid cast on the ceiling--a dancing dervish in black, but phasing in and out of this world now not with clarity, but with speed. At the moment when I felt the image had become so clear it would leap off the ceiling onto the pad beside Brian and challenge him, and I felt that I must look down to see who would step faster, who could score higher--the song ended. The lights went off, and I looked down at my panting, sweating roommate grinning at his final score.

What does this say? These visions of mine aren't clear. They don't mean anything subliminal on their own--there is no significance, I believe, to the first being a figure in white and the second being a shadow. What I do know is that they only appear to me in moments of decision for him, pivotal times in his life when he has a choice to make. They are an affirmation, a reflection of the transcendant, superhuman spirit I've always seen in him--they are his perfection made tangible, and they say only one thing: You are doing right. You have chosen right. This is the way. And I don't believe they can be wrong.

I don't know why I am the one to see these things. I don't know why he is unaware of them. But I do know that when I see them, I must do all I can to spur him to accept the course he is choosing, to waver no more, to take the path he's selected with brutal confidence. These shades are beacons, lighting the way, and to the side of the road, I stand and point at them. Is this enough? *smile* I don't know. So far it has been.

Labels: Brian, Introspection, Love, Magic

Second for this evening, by force of chronology of revelations if nothing else, I want to talk about... well, myself, but with an eye toward the other male influencing my life--Janus Anfini, Alexander Divine, Aeternalis, phantom, Brendon--my B. He's a newcomer here, by comparison with some others, but his power over me and my direction has yet to be fully explored. I know that it's more vast than he knows... probably more so than I know.
My recent delirium of joy has been thanks, almost entirely, to him. To his kindness, his understanding, his love. I've been in a state of bliss that is entirely alien to me. Even in my most contented, my most relaxed, I have a habit of always waiting for the other shoe to drop... enjoying my pleasures, but expecting that something will happen to screw it up. The degree of joy he's brought me is such that I can't even bring myself to speculate, even idly, on what might go wrong. I simply don't care. I feel that nothing can go wrong, which, in this world, ensures that something will, and I don't even care about that. With that convolution, it's easy to see how this might be a bit unsettling... if I could bring myself to feel unsettled.
This condition is so strange, so unprecedented, that it's prompted something of a split in my psyche. I feel as if I'm two. On one side, the Rhain who is giddy, blissful, ecstatic, truly in love for the first time and drunk with the rapture of it. It feels like a really good punch to the head, that same zinging feeling and the dizziness, and that part of me never wants it to stop. This girl is emotional, open, vulnerable, passionate, wild with astonished elation, nervous but ready to drown in this sensation.
On the other side is myself as I usually am... a solitary girl who likes her solitude, who feels a certain sense of relief when she has her head to herself, no matter how lonely the condition. Someone cold, aggressive, a force of nature with a reputation for being both incorruptible and unresponsive. Someone effective, strong, nearly fearless, and fiercely guarded.
There are aspects of this side of myself that I like. That I need, really. I have a need to be strong, to be effective, efficient, capable. To be straightforward and unstoppable, a juggernaut of will. But it's at odds with the other part of me, the part that is so in love, and there are parts of that side that I very much need also--the vulnerability, the passion, the joy, and the naked adoration for a man who is every inch worthy of every ounce of that love. I need both of these sides in harmony, but more--I need them to be one. Unified.
For this week, and next, I intend to plunge with all my heart into loving this man as he deserves, as we both so desperately need. This sensation, this unspeakably precious connection, is new and beautiful, and for this time I can let my mind fly into it devil-may-care, as I yearn to do. But after that, I've an appointment I can't break, and one that will be a turning point for me and for him--I'll be gone for three weeks. Twenty-four days. In that time, I'll write occasionally, but it won't be often. The isolation will be nearly complete.

A terrible fear rises in me at this... part of me doesn't yet know what to make of it. As I sit here, and it's late, and I know B is in bed as he should be at this hour, I also know that when I came home late tonight and missed talking to him I felt a frighteningly physical reaction of distress. It hurt, my very skin hurt. Knowing he wouldn't show up, and knowing that I wouldn't want him to rob himself of rest to do so, still I sat online as I did other things, because I couldn't not. It's quite literally an addiction.
There's nothing wrong with this per se. I would like nothing better than to be addicted to the presence of such a stunning, wonderful man. The trouble is this: that his presence isn't physical. Our interaction is curtailed to the point where we are both sometimes pushed near a breaking point simply from the ache of what can't be shared through this marvelous interweb of ours. This makes what contact we do have extremely precious, and exponentially more intense.
Maybe I'm exaggerating this danger. After all, I've never felt this way before. But what I fear is the inability to reconcile these two halves of myself. So for this reason, and for another which I'll shortly enumerate, I believe my trip to Mexico has the potential to be extremely healthy for us both. Above and beyond needing the time to detox my brain after a year of school and work, playing DDR tonight made me realize what is required to bring these two parts of myself into harmony, to truly accept him and the fact that he loves me, as the skeptical, mistrustful, paranoid part of me is afraid to do.
I played my last three songs. They're designed to destroy me; I picked them to see if I could survive it. "Captain Jack," "The Last 100 Seconds," and "Across the Nightmare," in that order. By themselves these songs are hard but not impossible for me. I beat them with comfortable regularity. But the intricacy of "Captain Jack," and the sheer speed of the other two, all three in quick succession, require an amount of stamina and strength, on top of extreme accuracy, to pull off. It's a tough set. It's my last set, every time I play, until it gets a whole lot easier for me. Then I'll pick new ones.
I did okay. It's been a few months since I played on the Student Union machine, and I'm out of practice. I mean to get back in practice, so I can whoop a certain tall, skinny lad into next week when I see him. I beat the first two, choked on "Across the Nightmare." But I wasn't frustrated. I sat down, laid down, felt sweat glossing my body, running over me, felt my chest heaving, my throat burning, and my pulse vibrating my entire body. The endorphins were high. And as I thought of how I'd done, what I could do better, the errors I'd made and why, assessing my performance as usual, I also thought of B. No surprise, that. He's not been out of my mind for a solid second in near a week. I thought of him, felt the familiar shiver of giddy happiness, and for the first time it felt complete, whole, accepted. I could think about both him and how much I love him, and my growing skill at DDR, at the same time. The emotional and the effective halves of me combined.
This sense faded a little as the endorphins did, and now I'm back to my usual heart-in-my-throat aching for him on one hand, and a dim analytical monologue on the other. But I know what it is I have to do.
Firstly I need the solitude of Mexico. I need a mental environment that is utterly silent and devoid of minor distractions. And secondly I need physical activity. I need to run, to swim, to kayak, to hike, to bushwhack. (another lovely word!) I need to stretch my arms till they ache, push my legs till they burn, pull my body till it wakes the endorphins and sets my mind into high gear... and then, while I'm there, feeling extremely capable and strong, I need to think of him, let my mind linger on his beauty, his wisdom, his kindness, and think of how I love him. Holding those two sensations in my head, they will become one in that vacuum of mental space that is that beach and jungle at the end of civilization.

I'll walk around, I'll swim, I'll look at things, and all the time I'll be thinking of things I could say to him, things I want to show him. I'll write these things down, to share with him when I return. And with this I'll be able to remain close to him. Because one thing I know--this connection of ours is unusual. Though I love talking to him as often as I can, and feel upset when I can't, as I did tonight, I know that even with a hiatus our connection will remain as long as I think of him. Not think of him in my dizzy longing way, though I'll be doing that too, of course *grin.* But think of him as a person, think about the things I love about him... the way he shares my aesthetic and my passion for beauty, the way he speaks, the way he deals with his emotions, the way he deals with me. I need only contemplate these things in an incidental way, as I search for shells, as I climb pyramids, and our connection will remain strong, because it is truly forged not of this new need but of an older respect and friendship, and of a deep understanding.

My only other fear in leaving for so long is that he will be afraid. For I know he is likely to shortchange himself, and assume his strength to be less than it is. Indeed, at this point I'm having the same doubts. If it tortures me to go without him for a night, how will it feel for weeks at a stretch? The answer is: not good. But it doesn't have to be unbearable, so long as he remembers two things. The first is easy, and I know he will keep it in mind. The second is harder.
Firstly, he must remember that I love him, and that no amount of physical space or even time can change that. He must remember that he never has to feel lonely again, no matter where I am, because I will always return to him--how could I do otherwise? It's in my nature, that I should be close to him... we reflect. But even though he needs never be lonely again, it doesn't mean he can't enjoy being alone for a time. This stunning thing between us is working huge changes in us both, and time to assimilate and accept those can only do us good--so long as we both remember that the other is never any farther away than our own spirit. A whisper will bring it near. I hear my name when it's spoken in your voice, no matter how far away.
The second thing he must remember is more difficult, because of the way he regards himself. He must remember what I already know and have complete confidence in: that he is strong, stronger than he might know. That the beauty in him is his alone and not of my make, nor of my reflection, and if he can see that beauty in himself, he will understand truly why I love him so much. And he will never forget it, nor doubt it. But nor will he be consumed by it.

At the last, I paraphrase, as I'm wont to do, the works of a greater hand than mine. I quote twice here, although there's a great deal more.

"Your friend is your needs answered. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace. When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the 'nay' in your own mind, nor do you withold the 'ay.' And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart. For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, which joy that is unacclaimed. When you part from your friend, you grieve not; for that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain."

"Think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: to melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love, and to bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; to rest at the noon hour and meditate on love's ecstasy, to return home at eventide with gratitude, and then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips."

And when I return, whole and accepting and deserving of your love, then we will stand together, and there will be no more apartness or distance, ever again.

I love you. I'll talk to you soon.

Labels: Brendon, Hope, Introspection, Love, Stress

Once there was a land where the sun rose in the west and baked the dry ocean into a cake before noon, and in the small shadows dark things grew. In that land lived a girl. She was a pretty girl, after a fashion, and a good girl, in a way. She had only one fault: she trusted everyone.
Now this girl, whose name was Hope, had two things in the world that she loved very much. One was a friend, a kind and caring girl to whom Hope told everything. The friend's name was Veo. Hope's other's love was a secret love. She secretly adored a boy named Robo who went to her school. He was tall and strong, with a big smile and bright white teeth that sparkled when he spoke. He always wore a gold ring on his littlest finger, and was always very polite to her.
Hope, who was quite shy, finally worked up the courage to ask Robo what he thought of her. Veo went, and as the sun neared noon she came back.
"He likes you," said Veo, "But I don't like him."
Hope didn't notice the second part of what Veo had said, as she never noticed anything bad anyone said about Robo.
"He likes me?"
"That's what he said. He said he wishes you to give him a white rose."
Hope was overjoyed and quite a bit surprised. The white rose, a symbol of a girl's maidenhood, could only be given to one person. She immediately went and found a white rose in the city garden. She picked it and carried it with her to where Robo was talking with his friends. Hope looked shyly up at Robo as she handed it to him, and the thorn of the rose pricked her finger. She was so entranced, she didn't notice the blood running down the stem. He smiled down at her and took the rose in one hand and her arm in the other.
As the sun slid down the sky, Hope heard of a dance to be held in the garden. She was very excited, and asked Veo to help her with a dress. The one she chose was silver and glittering like the stars. Hope noticed that Veo was in a bad mood about something, but was too happy to ask.
They arrived at the party, and Robo took her arm in his firm grip. He looked dashingly handsome, and his gold ring flickered as they danced.
The sun was rapidly setting when another boy asked Hope for just one dance. She, radiantly happy, would have accepted, for the boy was a quiet, serious, but gentle fellow she slightly knew, Veo's older brother Sé. But Robo stepped in front of her and challenged the fellow, chasing him away. Hope smiled. Though pitying the other man, she was pleased that Robo loved her enough to fight any who even looked at her.
Hope was standing in the last light of the moon, getting a little tired, when Robo said he would get her a drink. She gratefully accepted and went over to talk to Veo, who was leaning against the wall. Robo poured a glass of sparkling, evening-colored punch from the bottle on the table. As he bowed gallantly, handing it to Hope, Veo thought she saw with her sharp eyes something more than bubbles flashing in the depths, but she wasn't sure.
Hope happily drank and danced some more with Robo. But the party was winding down, and she was very sleepy. Robo carried her to a chair outside under the moon. She looked up into his kind eyes and he said, "I'll take care of you."

Some time later Hope woke up very bewildered. The world seemed distorted, and everything around her too loud and too big. She thought she must be sick, and then she remembered Robo's careful help, and heard his voice saying again, "I'll take care of you. I've got you, you're safe now." Comforted, she went back to sleep.
Veo went to school and wondered where Hope could be. She remembered her friend leaving with Robo, so she went to ask him if she'd gotten home all right.
Robo said he hadn't seen Hope since after the party, when she had fallen asleep, but he said he had made sure she got back to where she was safe. Just as Veo was leaving, she noticed Robo's new ring. It was gold like his old one had been, but it had a thread of silver running around it.
"Oh, it's not new," he said. "I just modified the old one."
"It's very nice," said Veo.
Hope didn't come back to school for some time. The moon set and the stars shone, but Hope didn't return. Veo went to talk to Robo again, but he didn't know anything more, and was upset that she continued to question him. He frowned at her and looked put-upon, and rubbed his silvered ring with agitation until she went away.

Veo sat alone, thinking. No one seemed to be worried that Hope wasn't in school. Veo was worried, but didn't quite know what to do, so she went to talk to her brother Sé.
As the dark began to lighten again, Sé and Veo went back to Robo. Now openly suspicious, Veo raged at him, but he only looked helpless and offended. Sé, in a tone of quiet menace, tried to reason with the fellow, but still he told them nothing. Finally Veo lost her temper and slapped Robo hard. His eyes darkened with wrath and he turned on her, raising his left hand and striking her back. His ring scratched her face, and then it caught on her pointed nose and fell off his finger, marked with a streak of her blood.
Robo lunged for it, but before he could recover the ring it made a musical sound and began to fray like rope, threads of silver and gold unraveling. As they spooled free they grew and grew, and to Veo's amazement, each thread in twenty-five of them stretched out into a very confused-looking girl in shining party clothes. Last of all, Hope stood before her friend.
"What happened?" she asked.
"He put a spell on you," said Sé, his voice trembling with indignation. He flew at the larger, younger boy, but Robo threw him off easily. Hope then turned to meet the eyes of her former object of affection, devastated.
"How could you? I trusted you!" She tore the white rose out of his hand, and the thorns raked his palm, scattering his blood on the floor. He looked angrily at her, but before he could retaliate, his hand went pale as the blood ran forth, and then it went cold and hard. In a slow metamorphosis up his arm, his entire body grew still, and his envied pale skin turned to alabaster, his deceptive blue eyes the last to freeze into opaque, clouded marbles.
Wearied, betrayed, Hope began to cry, and Sé took her into his arms. She looked at him through her tears, and he seemed as beautiful as any man she had ever seen. Needing someone to lean on, she offered him the rose still in her hand. He smiled gently at her, took it, and cast it aside. "You don't have to give me that," he whispered as he led her away. "That's not what I'm here for."
Veo smiled after them, and the other freed girls looked at her. Veo's smile grew knife edges as she reached out and tapped the statue lightly. It teetered, toppled, and crumbled as it struck the floor, and the other girls embraced her and scattered into the early morning light.

Labels: Lies, Love, Magic

It's an odd sensation. Today my head's a little less zonked than it was yesterday, but I'm no less beatific. I feel like a fucking astronaut, man, like there's no down, no gravity, no fall--just limitless horizons in all directions, mine for the exploring. Life is... god, I don't want to say life is perfect, because that is tempting the Irony Gods far too much, but every aspect of my life is hovering--no, dancing--somewhere between "just right" and "comprehensively flawless." My job is my job, kinda boring but no harm there, and I'm making plenty of money with the occasional extra shift. The rent is paid, and we're quite securely in the black on next month's. The bills will be paid this week. My dad's loving his new kid, which is great, and she's a goddamned little beauty that I just want to squeeze till she positively POPS. Brian's gone to see Star Wars, and I don't have to go, which is, frankly, the best news I've heard all day. I have a new book. I have new music. I have plenty of food in the house, should I feel like eating it. Oh yeah--and I'm so in love it's coming out my socks.
Now, those who know me will realize that this unprecidented happiness unsettles me somewhat. I'm so joyous that I'm not even waiting for the Irony Gods to backhand me, and the lack of worry itself worries me... in a not sort of way. Upshot is that I can't feel anxious or upset about anything at all right now. I'm not giddy, though I do have moments of that. I'm just... completely satisfied. Fantastic.

For tonight? I'm thinkin' a little Psychonauts, a little more beetling, a movie or two to watch out of one eye, and later on, hopefully, my phantom. The world is bright and filled with music. Trumpets, angels, what have you--you know, all that Hallmark crap. What can I say? Happiness doesn't require fanfare. Just a whisper in a certain voice.

Labels: Brendon, Love

Hmm.... I wrote all night, at work, when I wasn't elbow-deep in dishes and dreaming. But now that the dizzy has returned, now that my head has been completely boggled for me all over again, I can't remember why the words were so organized, so dispassionate. I can write so calmly about something that shakes me up so, but why? Might as well feel it all, all the way down. Here in the Interim there's no danger.
There are snapshots flying through my mind... this afternoon. Forty-five minutes before I have to leave for work. B is carried by his dreams beyond the reach of my voice for the moment, but because we're dreaming the same dreams, the same steps, the same rooms, the same words, I'm walking with him. Displacing the air just a little in his immediate area, warming it just slightly with my body. Back in my house I'm sprawled on the couch, my laptop beside me, and I'm limp and relaxed in the heat. Not drained so much as quietly thrumming with joy and a certain lingering stunned sensation. I let my head fall back to the cushions with an audible sigh, riding the wave... my head won't stop spinning. I feel powerfully intoxicated, but my sight is glimmering clear, everything around me shining in the light as if it were wet. My mind reels slowly, and I doze a little, music and a voice like mine, but not mine, whispering safety, warmth, love, discovery all around me.
Walking to work... It's cooler outside than it is in my apartment. I look okay in my work clothes. My discman is out of batteries, but it's all right, because right now the quiet is essential. There are four or five ways I can get to work from my house, and today I'm cutting through the alleys so I can look in peoples' back windows. I'm talking to myself again, but not to myself--whispering to you under my breath, but aloud, telling you to look, see, there, and there, did you see? The way the light was on the broken bottle, the leaves making that sound when we walked under, the way the girl in there tilted her head when she heard the phone ring. Do you see? I feel you near me and nodding, seeing everything, missing nothing, and I look more closely because I know you will, I see more clearly and the things around me are bright... so bright I'm blinded by the sun flashing off the windshield of a car and as the haze fades I think I see your shadow pacing mine.
At work, in the back, tying back my hair. John comes in carrying coffee cups. "How are you today?" he asks me.
I open my mouth, but when I try to pick a word for this day, this unbelievable day, I suddenly dry up. In the space of seven hours I've exhausted every synonym for "amazing" I possess, and even finding more in the thesaurus doesn't allow me to encompass what I'm feeling, what this day was like, what you're like. As Michelle comes into the back I struggle between "sublime" and "transcendent" and know I've used those already. It must show on my face... I can feel where my usual blank expression is lifting, there's a look I'm wearing that I haven't worn in... well, ever. John looks at me flapping my jaw helplessly and laughs. "Beatific?" he says, and I nod. There's one I didn't come up with. Michelle just smiles. She's known me for almost a year and a half now, through a fair few of my various infatuations, but she knows when it's too real for words.
Other side of the kitchen... Cholla, cleaning shrimp in the back, also asks me how I am as I put on my bandana. She looks up before I can answer and says, "Did you do something new today? You look... different." I can't help it; out comes the biggest fucking grin in the world, and with it, a feeling inside like biting into an apple, crisp and sweet and sharp. "I'm in love," I tell her, and she laughs. Several minutes later, I'm finishing up my first board of dishes when it hits me like a punch in the middle of the chest: your words, your face before my eyes with sudden crystalline clarity. My lips actually form the words, "I love you," and my legs just--go. I have to lean on the counter for some time before I can stand again. I keep washing, but now a Soundgarden song is running in my head... "Drown me in you...."

I don't think I know anything anymore. I've spent so much time trying to predict, trying to make plans for my future, such as it is. But so much has surprised me, taken me completely flatfooted in the past month, that I've let go of everything I thought I'd had planned. And it's an incredible feeling. Suddenly the whole world is open in front of me, and I realize that I know where my death is, and I can choose it, when I want it, but before then I can go anywhere, do anything, and I can choose who I want to be with me. I don't know where I'm going; I've never felt at home in any place, but rather I feel at home with certain people. I don't know what's going to happen... this giddy intoxication won't last, but there's something behind it that will. And I don't want to plan anymore. I don't want to anticipate. I just want to feel this amazing feeling, not question why it's there or how it happened so fast, just take it for what it is--right--and glory in the way it's made everything brighter. And then we'll go, walk outside and into the world that gets bigger every day, and nothing will destroy me because Katrina is happy because her love loves her, and Brian knows more than he knows he knows, and here in this place I've got four legs now, four legs to walk and run and dance on, and we'll go farther that way, and four eyes to see so much more beauty than I ever did before, and four hands to dig and climb and find and give, and two mouths to tell. What can stand in our way? The world has never seen anything like this before; nor have I. Who knows what could change?

Through this world and everything I've ever seen and want to show you, and everything I know and want to tell you, and everything you've ever done and I want to hear, and everything you say and makes me wild to know more, and everything else that we neither of us know but can always learn, and teach each other. Through this world and into the ocean, and then out past this world, into the black and then into the white, and what is there out there that isn't open and waiting for us to have our twin minds zonked into the ninth dimension? Between the two of us, there's nothing we can't know. And this doesn't have to be a prediction. It doesn't have to be a plan. It's just... anything. Anything can happen, and it'll be okay. I'll still be learning, and I'll still be with you.

This is the first day of my life
I swear I was born right in that doorway.
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach.
Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
I don't know where I am
I don't know where I've been but I
Know where I want to go

So I thought I'd let you know
These things take forever; I especially am slow
But I realized that I need you, and I wonder if I could come home
With you?

I remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange, you said everything changed,
You felt as if you'd just woken up.
And you said,
This is the first day of my life
I'm glad I didn't die before I met you
But now I don't care, I could go anywhere with you
And I'd probably be happy.

So if you want to come with me
These things take forever, we'll just have to wait and see
But I'd rather be working for a paycheck than
Waiting to win the lottery

This time it's different.
I really think you love me.


What is there that I could say that you don't already know? I love you, and I want you to always be here with me, wherever here ends up being, and it really doesn't matter. Now get your shoes on, phantom, dreamer, whisper in light, twin soul, beloved B, 'cause we're going.

Labels: Brendon, Love

No matter gay or grim, it's those tiny little sparks of daily life that make me forget my wounded heart. It doesn't matter when, it may rain or it may shine, but blurry memories of us come back from time to time.

Can I give you all my love? Tell you what I'm dreaming of?

Labels: Brendon, Love

Tonight's dinner is Doritos, pizza, butter pecan ice cream and raspberry lemonade. I kid you not, I eat like this. And it's not like I've got one of those exasperating "boy" metabolisms where you eat and eat and never gain a pound and then bitch about it (*scowl B*). No, no. My weight doesn't fluctuate a lot, but I could be massive if I felt like it. Well, more massive. And it's obvious I don't make any effort to watch what I eat. It's just that about half the time I don't eat. I forget for whole days at a time. Then I eat crap.
In keeping with the hedonism I'm indulging this evening, I'm also feeling powerfully lustful. For food, for technology, for movement, for beauty, for flesh. When I get lusty, it's not a limited, controllable thing. It's an all-encompassing desire for every pleasurable thing within my sphere. Anyone who doesn't want to get seduced had better stay out of my reach at times like this, I mean it, *grin* that goes for males and females. At the best of times I can go both ways; at times like this anything beautiful is my prey.
So I'm writing a little, watching a movie with two very beautiful co-stars, and will shortly take her supreme awesomeness Miss Battle Angel Alita to bed with me, and let her and assorted tunes lead me into sublime dreams. A kiss for each and every all of you, and be glad you aren't around, or it might be more *smile*.

Once upon a time there was a land where the sun rose in the west and baked the dry ocean into a cake before noon, and in the small shadows dark things grew. In that land there lived a girl. She lived on a street where it was always night, and she was brightly beautiful, as if all the light denied her neighborhood was gifted to her. Her hair was golden as the sun and her skin flushed like dawn, and her eyes were clear blue. In spite of her incongruity, she loved her gloomy home, and was happy there.
One evening, however, which is the same as saying one morning, or one noon, there was an exciting new thing on her street: streetlights. They were round, glowing balls of glass that reminded the girl of what she saw in the mirror, and the girl, whose name was Noir, watched them with great interest.
It was not long before a careless bird, one of the thousands of shade-dust-colored crows who chacked and chattered in the trees on her street, dropped a heavy seed on one of the glass globes, cracking it. Instantly the shadows scuttled from under trees and stairs to cluster around the broken streetlight as the fire flickered and died. Noir laughed at the sudden change, and watched through a fissure in her garden wall to see what would happen.
Soon she saw a faint stirring around in the shadows near the light-pole, and heard a soft clink as the glass globe was moved. She looked harder, but could see very little. Then suddenly the light blazed forth again, pouring like molten gold between a pair of black-silhouetted hands. As her eyes adjusted to the glare, Noir gasped, for holding the globe between his splayed fingers, and gazing in wonderment into its blinding depths, was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
His hair was dark and his skin streaked with soot, but her eyes were dazzled with motes of light that caught in his hair like flaming moths, and as he stared, transfixed, at the beauty of the light-globe that he never grew weary of, she stared at him in the same way. Then he disappeared once more into the night and was gone.
Noir, haunted by her brief glimspe, was frantic to see him again, to prove that his beauty had not been merely the product of her hazed eyes. Whenever a friend mentioned in passing that the streetlight near her house had gotten cracked, and usually went on to complain about this "new technology" and how it was no good, Noir then contrived to stay the night with that friend, and was wakeful until deep in the cold hours, when the streetlight-changer climbed the pole to repair the damage.
Every time she saw him, Noir thought him more handsome. His countenance was grim and forbidding, but in the intense gleaming of the streetlights his eyes shone, and she knew he loved his work. And little by little, Noir came to love him.
Noir's mother soon became suspicious of her daughter's frequent nights out, and queried her friends to hear the reasons. When she heard of her daughter's affection for the streetlight-changer, one of the "night people," who lived outside the walls in the shadows, who had dark hair and big hands, who sang such strange songs late at night so the decent people couldn't sleep, she flew into a rage and confined Noir to the house, and locked the gate in the large wall that surrounded it.
Noir became increasingly depressed. She paced the small garden, and beat her fists upon the cold stones. Her only view of the outside was through the tiny crack in the wall.
One night, as she paced desperately, she was struck by an inspiration. Finding a good round stone, she stretched and threw it with all of her strength over the wall, hitting the glass globe nearest her with a musical crack, and dousing the light within. She danced with triumph, and clung to the wall to see the shadowy man when he came.
And come he did, and Noir knew she never need be lonely again. The next day, she threw another stone and cracked the globe again, and the next, and the next. And every night the streetlight-changer came to bring the light back.
As she stood in the darkness some days (which is the same as saying nights) later, waiting for the man to arrive, she heard a rustling on the other side of the wall. There was a click, as of marbles one against the other, and a rock was pushed through the crack into her hands.
Before she could be surprised, a soft, gravelly voice murmured, "Yours?" She whispered, "Yes," only to find other stones--some ten or twenty--pushed though after it.
"And these? And these?"
"Yes, I threw them. Who are you?"
"Please don't throw them at the light anymore. I don't mind changing it, but my master will think my work is no good if it's always having to be fixed."
With that, Noir knew her paramour was there, over the wall, and she gasped, "But I had to see you! I saw you once, a while ago, and I couldn't stand not seeing you again! And my mother won't let me out of the garden."
There was a silence, and then the soot-filled voice whispered again. "Who are you, Lady?"
"I live here. My name is Noir."
Another silence, and then an awed whisper. "The Midnight Sun... I knew I saw something shining through the crack... I never would have found it otherwise. I'm honored to meet you, Lady. They talk of you, they do, down on the street, out in the shadows. My name is Lucifer."
"Lucifer, light the light there, so I may see you one last time, if I'm never to break the globe again."
There was no answer, but in a moment she saw his lanky shadow climbing the pole and clinging at the top like a cat. When the blinding light flashed out, he looked down at her over the wall, and she gazed up at him. He watched as tears like pearls rolled down her cheeks, and they were the only thing that distinguished her from the other bright globe between his hands. After a moment, he climbed down again.
Soon she heard his rasping voice at the crack. "You needn't break the light again. I will come to you, after my work is done, every night if you wish it."
"Oh, I do!"
"Then I shall see you again, my Lady. You know--" there was a scuffling, as if he had turned away, then turned back. "You are everything they said you were. You remind me of something I saw once."
"What was it?"
The faintest of whispers: "....the sun..." Then, as he collected himself, he continued. "I wish--pray, Lady, if I ask it, will you take one of those tears off your face, for there's no need for them anymore, and pass it out to me, so when I go home in the dark I'll have it to look at and remember you, and light the dark hours."
She did so, passing the soft, crystalline thing through to him, and she saw it glint among his long fingers.
"Farewell for tonight, Lady. No more stones." And he was gone.
But his word was good. He returned to the wall every night thereafter, and in time they grew to love each other well. But chance again conspired against them.
Noir's mother, waking one night to the mouse-foot scratching of whispers, discovered them there, and was transported by wrath. She chased Lucifer from the wall and, in desperation, closed her daughter's eyes and ears with a word, and told them not to open again. So Noir was blind and deaf.
"You are my light," her mother spat before Noir's hearing completely faded, "I created you, for me, to light this corner of this filthy place. Keep your blue eyes to yourself, shine them only for me, and look no more on outside lights, listen no more to dirty shadowed whispers--they die so soon."
Noir was stricken. She wept for days, and paced by the wall, but if Lucifer returned, she could no longer see or hear him. The light of the streetlight-globe shone over the wall, bright red through her closed eyelids, as if mocking her.
Finally, one night, or one day, she was so delirious with grief that she decided to break her word, and the streetlight, one last time. "He must come! He must!" She searched for a stone, found it, and threw it, but she couldn't see what she was throwing at, and she missed badly.
For hours she threw stones, but she couldn't hit the globe. Soon she collapsed in bitter tears, and then, with a despairing cry, she tore the tears from her cheeks and threw them at the light. They struck it like chimes, and their flame and the streetlight's clashed, and the globe shattered, exploding in a nova of light and razor-edged shards. And then she heard a sound that pierced her heart even through her closed ears: a cry of pain in Lucifer's voice.
He had climbed the pole, it seemed, to see if he could look upon her and see why she didn't speak to him anymore. As the globe broke, it drove crystal pieces into him and threw him backward off the pole, up against the wall and onto the ground by the crack.
With a wail of anguish, Noir threw herself to the ground and spoke frantically through the fissure. "Are you all right? Lucifer, please be all right!"
But she still couldn't hear or see him, and so she wept again, afraid that she had killed her love. Then his thin fingers wedged through the fissure and touched her face, and she kissed them as he lifted the tears from her cheeks. They shone on his fingertips as he pulled them back through the wall, and though she couldn't see him do it, he pressed his fingers to his lips, wishing her a tender farewell.
As he did so a few of the tears slipped between his lips and into his mouth, and he felt them burn his throat as he swallowed. Then he felt dizzy, and Noir, on the other side of the wall, trembled as something seemed to pull at her heart.
Unsure what was happening to him, Lucifer whispered her name, and as he did so she felt herself tearing apart, knowing her heart was breaking. But then it seemed as if her entire body was shredding with it, coming apart in beaded threads of sunlight. She gasped as she felt her fingers fragmenting, like burning petals in the wind, the sparks flying through the crack and into Lucifer's eyes and mouth. Her hair flew and began to come apart with the rest of her, and for a fleeting moment she could see again as her eyelids, and then her eyes turned to star-bright grains and flew through the wall with the rest, until there was nothing more of her, and Lucifer lay gasping on the ground, trying to decide whether to live or die.

In later years, all of Lucifer's friends, the shadow-people, came to look on him as a kind of prophet, for having lived through the explosion, yes, but also for his soft voice, his innocent wisdom that seemed to come through him, and for the way, sometimes, when he looked at you in the right way, his right eye glowed like the sun.

Labels: Lies, Love, Magic

Somebody I used to know said to me that I had a fire that most people lose pretty quickly. It's true, I guess. (There's a fiery statement right there.) It is true. I'm a creature of extremes. I'm not hot and cold, in general I'm mellow to a fault, nigh impossible to piss off. Lost the knack for getting angry a long time ago, as most of you know. But I will admit to being an emotional rollercoaster, to use a vile phrase that has been repeatedly applied to me. It's easy to make me laugh, almost easier to make me cry. When I get interested, I get obsessed. My mind never shuts up--my mouth shuts up almost as little. So... fire? You could say that.
I mention it because for a long time I thought that fire came from rebellion. I sincerely feared, when I moved out of my parents' house and was no longer under anyone's direct control, that I might lose my passion through having nothing to struggle against. It hasn't happened, and I don't think it will. However, through the last few days' explorations of the twisted psyche of one Procell Bouchard--the details of which I will spare those of you who tend to zone off when I talk about such things-- I've started thinking a good bit about the other effects of repression.
Now I don't mean to make any overblown "pity-me" statements about my own childhood. It wasn't always fun, but whose is. And hell, it made me what I am, and we all know how well that turned out. But I think most children, when they enter that "difficult" stage (she said in a tone reminiscent of a P.T.A. meeting) turn inward to a greater or lesser extent, depending on their upbringing. From the Campbells family all the way down to my bloody-handed enslaved Xoran, I've been thinking about how the mind reacts to assault. What happens to your creativity, ingenuity, individuality, emotions, rebellion, when all of these things do nothing for you but give someone a reason to do you the harm they were going to do anyway? How does a country, even a city, maintain its identity when occupied? How do you survive intact?
I don't know. I don't know if anyone does. Me, I'm fine, by and large, but certainly not unchanged. And for me it has to do with the way I dealt with it.
Those in a position where they have little to no control quickly learn that direct, brazen opposition is insanity. The only people who can gain from such rebellion are those with nothing to lose, and almost no one can (boast?) claim that.
Me, I'm Thailand.

Seriously considered just leaving that one, but I can't resist expounding. For those of you who think I'm too longwinded (you know who you are. And so do I. *peer*), this is where you should get off. The door's over there. Mind the gap.
Everybody out? Alright, on with the train wreck.
I'm no history expert, so some of my facts may be a little off here, but it's no biggie. The broad strokes are right. China's pretty expansionist, right? Always has been. Tibet's still in a fair bit of trouble, there was a time when Southeast Asia was looking tasty to them too. The Chinese have this deadly efficient method for subduing a rebellious conqueree: brain-drain. Take all the intellectuals, teachers, artists, astronomers, scientists, and lock 'em in camps. If I'm not greviously mistaken, Pinochet did a version of the same in Chile not so long ago. It's extremely effective.
That's basically what happened to Laos, as I understand it, the last time China decided it wanted it. But then China went for Thailand, and Thailand did a strange thing. Instead of rebelling, instead of resisting, Thailand... gave in. Surrendered. Threw open all their locks, dropped all their weapons and let the Chinese in. The rest of Southeast Asia and much of the world decried them for it, but when the Chinese didn't have to fight to keep the Tai in check, they basically left them alone. Laos resisted, fought--and was crushed, beheaded. Thailand completely gave up--but the Chinese therefore didn't think the Tai required subduing, and the Tai culture remained. When the Chinese eventually loosened their grip, the Tai were still Tai.
So I'm Thailand. That's how I deal with control. When you're in a situation where the other guy has all the guns, fighting is a really fast way of losing your shirt. And everything else you've got, including your identity. But giving in, even though it may look (and feel) like apostasy, and it does, and it doesn't feel good--even so, you can keep one small part of yourself locked away, somewhere in your mind, your "Holy City" as it were, where you allow no trespassers or foreigners, and consider the rest occupied territory. When the waters roll back, to mix my metaphors, you will have retained your most precious things.

How do you deal with being ruled? Being controlled? How do you maintain your passions, your individual fire, when constantly under attack from people who have every advantage? When your only home is a continuous battlefield, how do you keep your treasures from being looted?
I'm in the mood for talking tonight. Let me hear your thoughts, my friends in the ether, whisper in my ears.

Labels: Introspection, Rants

God, I'm bored. I have to go to work in a few hours, so I should really be in bed... but I'm not. B, you've spoiled me, now I'm bored out of my mind during the time you would normally be talking to me. Waiting for nightfall in the real-life dark, so I can hunt again.
I... wrote a sonnet. Yeah, I know. But for some reason I was just inspired a few weeks ago. I'm crap on poetry, even worse on stuff that rhymes, but it seems I thrive under the restrictions imposed by the sonnet form. Some of you may have seen this already, but for those of you who both haven't and are interested, should there be any matching that description, I offer it here.

The Libertine Lover's Oath

To you, my love, in love, I bind my flesh

And if you’d feel the heart that makes this oath

Then lay you now your hand upon my breast

Where beats the vow which break I would be loath

And as in flesh the spirit’s secrets out

Let none forget my body too is thine

Though if you find that aught you are without

Then freely seek another who align

More peaceably with what my love desires

For touch of foreign flesh takes not what’s mine

Nor dims the love for which my flesh heart fires

Nor makes my flesh, my heart any less thine

In bed be you and me and two or three

Long as in flesh, in love, we in bed be.

It's not too bad, I don't think, especially for someone who has no delusions about her utter inability with regard to poetry. Will this happen again? Probably not.
As to my subject matter... what can I say? I'm a visceral person. Flesh and life and death and flesh and love and therefore love and life and death are pretty indivisible to me. What point is there in making pretensions toward separating the mind from the body? It's all made from the same stuff... people only make themselves unhappy by setting their brains at odds with everything else.
Setting death at odds with life is another unfortunate, common habit. There's as much sensuality in dissolution as there is in solid, tangible life. I'm not talking about necrophilia here, you filthy dogs, I'm talking about entropy as erotica. Two people--or, hell, more if that's your pleasure--dissolving, losing coherency in a form they've come to expect, gaining other forms as their constituent parts are literally shared... just because in general people aren't capable of such somatic decadence in the greatest moments of our mortality doesn't mean it's not there.

See, this is what happens when you mix mediocre poetry, pending exhaustion, utter boredom and my own particular, peculiar aesthetic obsession. I am officially a weird, weird woman. Remind me in the future to go to sleep before this happens.

Remember when we were just flesh and bone? You, sir, may have forgotten how good your world can be. Kiss your lover's lips and know that fate is what you make of it.

Labels: Introspection, Polyamory

So, any of you heard of this "Journey to Wild Divine" thing? Someone at work directed me to it in a discussion about virtual reality. Now, we all know I'm gonna be first in line when they start handing out the neural jacks. Make me a brain in a jar, baby! But it's a long way off. Me, I'm holding my breath for something a little more attainable--full-sensory surround VR. It can be done. The hard part isn't the surround, it's the sensory input. Sight and sound are easy, they do simulations utilizing those senses already. Touch is going to be hard, so is smell. Being able to send stimuli to the senses when they're not actually being stimulated is going to require a direct neural link, and as of now the technology (so far as I'm aware) is not up to it. The corrolary is the input from the body to the machine--biofeedback. That's why I bring up this game. There's a lot of touchy-feely meditative Buddhist stuff going on with it, which is fine, but not really what makes me geek out about this. It's the biofeedback that excites me. Being able to control your input to a computer through your internal processes is going to open up a lot of doors, if it hasn't already, to more direct flesh-machine links. I'm not going Matrix with this, don't get me wrong, but you gotta admit this is cool. Besides which, I think most of us in the western world would do with being a little more aware of our circadian rhythms and the way our bodies function on a very visceral level. Anything that provides a way to refine our understanding and control of that, wrapped up in a nice chewy "game-like" coating, gets my vote.
I'm not expecting a lot from this particular incarnation of that idea. But hell, anything that's a start on that road is worth it. I just hope they get the VR up and running before I'm too old to run in the fiber-optic without throwing out me back.
Either way, I want this thing. But the fact that it requires specialized hardware makes it deeply beyond my budget at this point. You know... the budget. The one that means I don't have a fucking dollar for BUS FARE to get down to GameStop, where I will ogle and drool and then cry when I have to walk out of there empty-handed.
Ah, maybe this fall. When those student loans roll in it's gonna be freakin' cheese on crackers all the way. ('Cause right now cheese is a luxury we can't afford.) For now *flips a dime over her shoulder* this one's for my similarly-impoverished student homies.

I just said homies, didn't I?


And I'm gonna need that dime back.

Labels: Technology

Not much to say this evening... I'm seeing gleams on the ground more today than usual. So in place of my usual longwinded philosophizing (you're spared, Jay), I offer this as a copout. More shiny things to pick up, more shards in my purse... gotta be careful when groping for the keys! When your idea of the facets on a diamond are the shattered planes of mirrors and mugs, the price for finding priceless beauty everywhere is that sometimes it bites back.

My poetic mumblings aside, that's my hand, a broken mug I found in the wash after a monsoon, and my beloved leather jacket. Oh, and the scratches actually aren't from the mug--I climbed through a thorn bush while hiking the weekend before. I guess when your idea of a heroic act is untangling a balloon from the clutches of a cactus on the side of a mountain, the price for finding opportunities for valor everywhere is that sometimes it bites back.
Can't keep a good mangled metaphor down!

Labels: Art, Introspection

Wish I could cue music to this thing. "The Worst Joke Ever," by REM, is running in my head today.
Then again, that would probably be annoying. It almost always irritates me when someone enforces their musical choices on my browsing.

God, such a weird mood today... I hate it when I'm cruel. Because I'm never cruel except to people I care about. Other people don't even register with me, so I'm never so horrible to anyone as I am to my friends.

I'm sorry to the people I lashed out at today. I don't know what's going on in my head, but it'll be better once I've gone to Mexico and come back. Then I'll be able to treat you the way you deserve.

This last month before I leave is going to be hard for all of you. I don't say it'll be hard for me, because it really won't... I'm going to work as much as I can, make as much money as I can to make up for my absence, and then go. But all I can tell you is I really hope I don't hurt any of you before I get this unpredictable, capricious creature in my head under control. If I do, if I have, god am I sorry. I will make it up to you.

No one, least of all you, my friends, my dear ones, deserves to be treated the way I can treat people when I lose control. I'm very sorry.

I had such an awful nightmare last night... my dreams are getting worse and worse.

I was floating, in dark water, no stars, no land, just floating in the water that was warm, and I was alone. I was so stressed--the way I have been--about money, trying to figure out how not to crash and burn, how not to fuck this up like everything else, how I'm going to pay the next two months' rent, how I'm going to buy food, how I'm going to pay bills, how I'm going to fix the window that broke yesterday... all the grown-up things on my head and trying to be grown-up about it. I was floating in the water on my back, thinking about these things, and I started to cry, not sobbing, just quietly, angrily, and when I did, I began to sink, sinking feet-first into the water. There was light below me, and when I stopped falling I was in the street outside my apartment, and I was looking in my wallet at the ten bucks I got at work last night. And people I knew, people from school who I just barely know, came up and asked for money, and I gave it to them, smiling, "Of course, of course, I don't care, don't worry about it, you can have it."
Then I looked down in my wallet that was empty, and I put it away and I was going to go inside and go to bed, but then the sun started to rise, and I realized I'd fucked up, I'd been up all night.
I looked up at the sun and it was warm, on my face, too bright to look at, and I closed my eyes and let it shine red through my eyelids, and I almost felt relaxed, I could feel every muscle of my body, standing there. You never notice how many muscles it takes just to stand still until you really try... and I could feel each and every one, and some of them ached, and I was glad of the pain because it meant I was still in there, still attached to my body, as crazy as my mind felt right then. I could feel the wind on my ankles and between my fingers, and I could smell that cold smell that mornings have, like snow. And then I tasted blood.

I looked down at my hands as the sun came up and covered me in light, and I touched my lip and there was blood on my fingers. So red—nothing’s redder than blood in the morning sun. And I could feel a pain in my mouth, and I searched around with my tongue for the source of the blood, and then there was a sharp pain, and one of my back teeth fell out into my hand. It was so small, like a child’s tooth, and I was so scared, because I knew I’d fucked up again by not going to the dentist in two years, and now I was losing the only teeth I’d ever have. I looked at the tooth in the light and it was translucent and pink with the blood, like a lump of glass. I spit out the blood and tried to keep the tooth in my hand as I climbed the stairs, but I lost it. When I got to the top it was gone, and that squishy place in your mouth when you lose a tooth was just there, and the taste of blood.

Nothing chases me in dreams anymore. There's hardly any people at all in my dreams. Just me... falling short. Not coming through. Not having what it takes. I guess that's how you know you've grown up, huh. When your nightmares aren't about monsters anymore, just about failure.

Shit, I'm sorry to burden you all with this mess. This is why I hate these things. Angsty bullshit I'll get over tomorrow, and you have to hear it. And yet... I'm still gonna push that "publish" button. Someday I'll learn.

Labels: dread, Dreams, Stress

Hmm... off to bed, but head is too busy. Dammit, B, you make me think.

As a writer I'm good with words. I love words. I collect them, find new ones, polish them, learn them, add them to my repertoire like marbles in a chest. You know what I always wanted? A chest full of broken glass, clear glass, with lights in the walls of the chest. So when you opened it, it would just explode with refracted light from no particular source.
I digress...
Anyway, I'm good with words. Most of the time I can say what I mean. I'm wordy when I write stories because I like to make sure that I'm understood.

As a writer I depend on words. Couldn't get through a day without a story in my head.
But as a writer I also know that there's a point at which words get singularly useless. Sight can stupefy the mouth. So can sound. Hell, virtually anything can strike me speechless, given the right ingredients. Something shakes me, disturbs me, surprises me, touches me, inspires me, awes me... speech is the first thing to go.

That's the trouble with real life, with talking to real people and not just in my head, to my characters. You can't rewrite. Not that I really want to, I've never had a regret about anything I've done or said. But that's the thing. You only get the one chance to say something just how you mean it. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not. Sometimes the word you want isn't there. Sometimes it doesn't exist. That's not always bad. Sometimes you find another word, or a phrase, that you wouldn't have picked otherwise, but is unexpectedly sublime... That's how I tend to talk. I talk so much because every so often, once about every three months, something comes out of my mouth--I can't say I say it, because it's more like a bolt out of the blue through me, it surprises me as much as anyone--something comes out of my mouth that is so true, so right, so perfect that I can't stand it. It literally makes me weep.
So I talk, and talk, and talk a lot of bullshit because the more bullshit I talk, the more likely it is that that bolt will hit, and another one of those inspirations, like a sudden sunbeam through a knothole or a crack that strikes you right in the eyes, and hell, it hurts, but it's like being transfixed, you can't look away, and you can hear it ringing in the air, it makes a sound like a bell going off in my head...and that's what I live for. Those inspirations.

Hm. Not sure where I was going with this. Probably best off heading for bed. I raise my cup of... um, pineapple juice to ye, B. Remind me to ask you how that job-hunting thing went.

Labels: Art, Brendon, Introspection