My Heart is Broke

Nirvana lyrics babey.  I am a person of my times.  “My heart is broke, but I have some glue, Help me inhale, mend it with you.”  Not to endorse such activities, but man.  My day job brings me into frequent contact with people that have massive problems that I can never help with.  I do help people, all day long, but also, every single day I have one or more that I was not able to help – at least a few times people who were literally dying.

Sometimes, this bleeds through into my outside-of-work time.  You know, when you see somebody on the bus that’s definitely getting beaten by that sullen neo-nazi boyfriend sitting next to her, but what can you do?  99% of the time, fuck all.  Anyway, tonight I talked to somebody in a bad way and beyond my powers to help.  Good luck, comrade.  Life is a motherfucker.
–

May Flowers – Prompts

The damn writing events never end in my writing group, wtf.  This is part of a postnanopocalyptic restructuring.  Since nanowrimo the org has burned itself to sad ashes, people are no longer beholden to how they handled the event.  November is a novel writing month.  What else is there?

The org has “summer camp” versions of the novel writing, in April and July, but free of the nonprofit’s shambles, our group is going to space out the camps more evenly during the year, bumping April’s up to March.  This leaves a month’s space between the camps and May, so our overlord came up with an activity to do.  To quote him,

“It’s gonna be May, and the start of a brand new event — May Flowers! This event is dedicated to writing short stories for every color of the rainbow, and is self-directed, so no word counts or deadlines.  You can write poems, flash-fiction, whatever you like!

MAY FLOWERS… RED
Today is the first day of May Flowers, and the first of our colors to be featured!  You may write your stories in any order you like, but I will post a color on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, to help inspire you and give you some structure if you prefer it.  Throw your hat in the ring by completing this little survey about your future story (or poem/essay/etc), then get writing!
TITLE:  xxx
PREMISE:  (A brief synopsis of the plot, spoilery or otherwise)
RELATION TO RED:  (Describe what makes your story red)
RED KEYWORDS:  (Include red related words you associate with your story)
THE FLOWER:  (Chose a red flower you’d like to represent your story)  Post your discussions about ⁠red, as well as your completed stories when you finish them!  They don’t have to be edited, just get to the end.    There are no due dates, feel free to work on your story as you like!  See you on Friday…

and because i’m not posting this til friday…

MAY FLOWERS… ORANGE Today is our second color!  Keep working on your reds, but here’s another one to inspire you.  Throw your hat in the ring by completing this little survey about your future story (or poem/essay/etc), post it, then get writing!
TITLE:  xxx
PREMISE:  (A brief synopsis of the plot, spoilery or otherwise)
RELATION TO ORANGE:  (Describe what makes your story orange)
RED KEYWORDS:  (Include orange related words you associate with your story)
THE FLOWER:  (Chose an orange flower you’d like to represent your story)  Post your discussions about orange, as well as your completed stories when you finish them!  They don’t have to be edited, just get to the end.    There are no due dates, feel free to work on your story as you like!  See you on Monday… 

(EDIT for Change of Plans: I’m going to just edit all the prompts into this post and do the actual works as new blog posts.)

MAY FLOWERS… YELLOW New week, new color!  Here’s another one to inspire you.  Throw your hat in the ring by completing this little survey about your future story (or poem/essay/etc), post it, then get writing!
TITLE:  xxx
PREMISE:  (A brief synopsis of the plot, spoilery or otherwise)
RELATION TO YELLOW:  (Describe what makes your story yellow)
YELLOW KEYWORDS:  (Include yellow related words you associate with your story)
THE FLOWER:  (Chose a yellow flower you’d like to represent your story)  Post your discussions about yellow, as well as your completed stories when you finish them!  They don’t have to be edited, just get to the end.    There are no due dates, feel free to work on your story as you like!  See you on Monday… 

🪴 MAY FLOWERS… GREEN Today is nature’s favorite color!  Throw your hat in the ring by completing this little survey about your future story (or poem/essay/etc), post it, then get writing!
TITLE: xxx
PREMISE:  (A brief synopsis of the plot, spoilery or otherwise)
RELATION TO GREEN:  (Describe what makes your story green)
GREEN KEYWORDS:  (Include green related words you associate with your story)
THE FLOWER:  (Chose a green flower/plant you’d like to represent your story)  Post your discussions about green, as well as your completed stories when you finish them!  They don’t have to be edited, just get to the end.    There are no due dates, feel free to work on your story as you like!  See you on Friday… 

🦋🪺🦋 FLOWERS… BLUE 🦋🪺🦋
A new color to bring you into the weekend…  Throw your hat in the ring by completing this little survey about your future story (or poem/essay/etc), post it, then get writing!
TITLE:  xxx
PREMISE:  (A brief synopsis of the plot, spoilery or otherwise)
RELATION TO BLUE:  (Describe what makes your story blue)
BLUE KEYWORDS:  (Include blue related words you associate with your story)
THE FLOWER:  (Chose an blue flower/plant you’d like to represent your story)  Post your discussions about blue, as well as your completed stories when you finish them!  They don’t have to be edited, just get to the end.    There are no due dates, feel free to work on your story as you like!  See you on Monday… 

🌃🪻🌃 MAY FLOWERS… INDIGO 🌃🪻🌃
A new color for a new week…  Throw your hat in the ring by completing this little survey about your future story (or poem/essay/etc), post it, then get writing!
TITLE:  xxx
PREMISE:  (A brief synopsis of the plot, spoilery or otherwise)
RELATION TO INDIGO:  (Describe what makes your story indigo)
INDIGO KEYWORDS:  (Include indigo related words you associate with your story)
THE FLOWER:  (Chose an indigo flower/plant you’d like to represent your story)  Post your indigo discussions as well as your completed stories when you finish them!  They don’t have to be edited, just get to the end.    There are no due dates; feel free to work on your story as you like!  See you on Wednesday…  🪻

🍇🪻🍇MAY FLOWERS… VIOLET🍇🪻🍇
Today is our last color of the official rainbow, but there are still exotic colors more to come…  Throw your hat in the ring by completing this little survey about your future story (or poem/essay/etc), post it, then get writing!
TITLE:  xxx
PREMISE:  (A brief synopsis of the plot, spoilery or otherwise)
RELATION TO VIOLET:  (Describe what makes your story violet)
VIOLET KEYWORDS:  (Include violet related words you associate with your story)
THE FLOWER:  (Chose an violet flower/plant you’d like to represent your story)  Post your violet discussions as well as your completed stories when you finish them!  Please include the above survey, and paste/upload/link your story.  They don’t have to be edited, just get to the end.    There are no due dates; feel free to work on your story as you like!  See you on Friday…🪻

🦇🥀🦇 MAY FLOWERS… BLACK 🦇🥀🦇
We move on now to the colors outside the rainbow… Throw your hat in the ring by completing this little survey about your future story (or poem/essay/etc), post it, then get writing!
TITLE:  xxx
PREMISE:  (A brief synopsis of the plot, spoilery or otherwise)
RELATION TO BLACK:  (Describe what makes your story black)
BLACK KEYWORDS:  (Include black related words you associate with your story)
THE FLOWER:  (Chose a black flower/plant you’d like to represent your story)  Post your black discussions as well as your completed stories when you finish them!  Please include the above survey, and paste/upload/link your story.  They don’t have to be edited, just get to the end.    There are no due dates; feel free to work on your story as you like!  See you on Monday…  🦇

MAY FLOWERS… GREY
It may seem like a non-color to some, but it can still inspire…  Throw your hat in the ring by completing this little survey about your future story (or poem/essay/etc), post it, then get writing!
TITLE:  xxx
PREMISE:  (A brief synopsis of the plot, spoilery or otherwise)
RELATION TO GREY:  (Describe what makes your story grey)
GREY KEYWORDS:  (Include grey related words you associate with your story)
THE FLOWER:  (Chose a grey flower/plant you’d like to represent your story)  Post your grey discussions as well as your completed stories when you finish them!  Please include the above survey, and paste/upload/link your story.  They don’t have to be edited, just get to the end.    There are no due dates; feel free to work on your story as you like!  See you on Tuesday…  🌧️

🌼🦢🌼 MAY FLOWERS… WHITE 🌼🦢🌼
A blank canvas, a clean sheet of paper; what will you create?  Throw your hat in the ring by completing this little survey about your future story (or poem/essay/etc), post it, then get writing!
TITLE:  xxx PREMISE:  (A brief synopsis of the plot, spoilery or otherwise)
RELATION TO WHITE:  (Describe what makes your story white)
WHITE KEYWORDS:  (Include white related words you associate with your story)
THE FLOWER:  (Chose a white flower/plant you’d like to represent your story)  Post your white discussions as well as your completed stories when you finish them!  Please include the above survey, and paste/upload/link your story.  They don’t have to be edited, just get to the end.   There are no due dates; feel free to work on your story as you like!  See you on Friday…  🌼

🦋🪺🦋 MAY FLOWERS… CYAN/AQUA 🦋🪺🦋
A new color for the weekend…  Throw your hat in the ring by completing this little survey about your future story (or poem/essay/etc), post it, then get writing!
TITLE:  xxx
PREMISE:  (A brief synopsis of the plot, spoilery or otherwise)
RELATION TO CYAN:  (Describe what makes your story cyan)
CYAN KEYWORDS:  (Include cyan related words you associate with your story)
THE FLOWER:  (Chose a cyan flower/plant you’d like to represent your story)  Post your cyan discussions as well as your completed stories when you finish them!  Please include the above survey, and paste/upload/link your story.  They don’t have to be edited, just get to the end.   There are no due dates; feel free to work on your story as you like!  See you on Monday…  🦋

🌸🌺🪷 MAY FLOWERS… PINK 🌸🌺🪷
Perhaps the floweriest color of all…  Throw your hat in the ring by completing this little survey about your future story (or poem/essay/etc), post it, then get writing!
TITLE:  xxx
PREMISE:  (A brief synopsis of the plot, spoilery or otherwise)
RELATION TO PINK:  (Describe what makes your story pink)
PINK KEYWORDS:  (Include pink related words you associate with your story)
THE FLOWER:  (Chose a pink flower/plant you’d like to represent your story)  Post your pink discussions as well as your completed stories when you finish them!  Please include the above survey, and paste/upload/link your story.  They don’t have to be edited, just get to the end. There are no due dates; feel free to work on your story as you like!  See you on Wednesday… 🌸

🍂🐿️🍂 MAY FLOWERS… BROWN 🍂🐿️🍂
The earthiest of tones…  Throw your hat in the ring by completing this little survey about your future story (or poem/essay/etc), post it, then get writing!
TITLE:  xxx
PREMISE:  (A brief synopsis of the plot, spoilery or otherwise)
RELATION TO BROWN:  (Describe what makes your story brown)
BROWN KEYWORDS:  (Include brown related words you associate with your story)
THE FLOWER:  (Chose a brown flower/plant you’d like to represent your story)  Post your brown discussions as well as your completed stories when you finish them!  Please include the above survey, and paste/upload/link your story.  They don’t have to be edited, just get to the end.    There are no due dates; feel free to work on your story as you like!  See you on Friday for our final color…  🍂

🪙⚔️🪙 MAY FLOWERS… SILVER & GOLD 🪙⚔️🪙
Our final colors…  You may consider this as one or the other, or do both!  Throw your hat in the ring by completing this little survey about your future story (or poem/essay/etc), post it, then get writing!
TITLE:  xxx
PREMISE:  (A brief synopsis of the plot, spoilery or otherwise)
RELATION TO SILVER/GOLD:  (Describe what makes your story silver/gold)
SILVER/GOLD KEYWORDS:  (Include silver/gold related words you associate with your story)
THE FLOWER:  (Chose a silver/gold flower/plant you’d like to represent your story)  Post your silver/gold discussions as well as your completed stories when you finish them!  Please include the above survey, and paste/upload/link your story.  They don’t have to be edited, just get to the end.    There are no due dates; feel free to work on your story as you like!  I’ll keep this event up for a while longer so you can keep flowering at your own pace…  Thanks for being here with us for this new event!  🌼🌹🌷🪻🌺

🌻🌹🌻🌹🌻🌹🌻🌹🌻🌹🌻🌹🌻🌹🌻🌹🌻🌹🌻🌹🌻🌹🌻🌹🌻🌹🌻🌹🌻🌹

Anyway, this is how I’ll get blog content for a month.  Have at thee!

TITLE:  Acid Drops
PREMISE:  Girls do drugs.  One sees herself falling apart.  The other would put her back together.
RELATION TO RED:  Blood, of course.  The image and the idea of it.  Life and life lost.
RED KEYWORDS:  Scarlet blossoms, blotches and splotches, pools of red.
THE FLOWER:  The Rieger cultivar of begonia.  There are various colors, but these will be red.  According to the “Cyclopedia of Practical Floriculture” (1882) the proper floriographic meaning of begonias is deformity (this agrees with earlier sources), owing to the way the large leaves are inconsistently shaped.  If I got that right.  I got to scarlet begonias by way of Sublime and The Grateful Dead.

TITLE:  They’re Just Monkeys
PREMISE:  A man draws monkeys at the zoo.  Another man sees the art and is impressed.  The monkeys see it too.
RELATION TO ORANGE:  My monkey of choice is the golden lion tamarin, which is a very orange monkey.
ORANGE KEYWORDS:  Leonine mane, golden ruff, shimmering fur, glints of orange, tiny hands (amirite?).
THE FLOWER:  The common marigold, Calendula officinalis, maybe the most well-known orange thing besides the fruit.  There are various colors, but these will be orange.  Being a more common flower, it shows up in all the floriography references.  Some suggested meanings, from most common to least common: cruelty, grief, sorrow, despair, trouble, inquietude, contempt, chagrin, pain, jealousy, pretty love, sacred affection, caress.  I ain’t goin’ into all of that.

TITLE:  It Was All Yellow
PREMISE:  Remember when that song “Yellow” by Coldplay was on the radio?  Wild times, my guy.
RELATION TO YELLOW:  It is self-referential.
YELLOW KEYWORDS:  Malaria, jaundice, blondness, a pox, a plague on every house.
THE FLOWER:  The dandelion.  Apologies to PZ, but these weeds suck.  I’ve read a few botany people talk about how majestic well-loved trees are so much bullying charismatic megaflora, blotting out the precious sun needed by other plants.  Dandelions are the trees of the lawn, devouring all the space that might otherwise host a diversity of lil’ cuties.  There are so many strange little plants on my lawn, but where the dandelions grow, there is no room for the delicate in-betweeners.

TITLE:  Leaglize Maraguana
PREMISE:  Named after some pencil graffiti witnessed at my high school in 1992, this is about passion for the plant.  Also, it’s an exercise in my usual bullshit as a writer – coming up with silly names for lowlifes.
RELATION TO GREEN:  Leafs needs green to photosynthesize, so I’m given to understand.
GREEN KEYWORDS:  Nugs, buds, baggies, the sticky, the illy, indo, cannabis, idk.
THE FLOWER:  Green flowers are hard to find.  I’m gonna do a different plant, if the admin will legalize it.  Man, I’m such a poser.  It’s not like I even do drugs.  I’m just on kind of a kick I guess.

TITLE:  A Blue Forest
PREMISE:  There’s probably a term for the genre of poem about laying down and dying, letting the plants take you under.  I know I’ve seen a few over the years, tho I don’t recall specific examples.  Definitely feel like one of them was Japanese.  Anyway, it never seems to work that in real life.  Like, turbulent times make you wanna turbo nap, but the turbulence won’t let it happen.  Maybe something about that.
RELATION TO BLUE:  Blue sad.
BLUE KEYWORDS:  Bouncing bubbling obliteration, can you believe?
THE FLOWER:  Bluebells, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, because of that song by Babes in Toyland.  Please nobody tell me if those gals went terf or republican, thanks.

TITLE:  A Deep Darkness
PREMISE:  Ya know that Danzig song “Deep,” from Songs in the Key of X?  I love that shit, tho it is hokey.  Spooky cool mans made out of shadows, gonna have sexual majesty and work some hoodoo.  Gonna try to evoke that kind of thing maybe.
RELATION TO INDIGO:  A darkness deep but not quite black, a cold color that evades definition.
INDIGO KEYWORDS:  Vivid, deep, vibrant, dark, a hole in reality.
THE FLOWER:  False indigo, Baptisia australis, because that bitch has indigo in the name.  It’s a bean?  It’s a bean.  I know shit about fuck.

TITLE:  Make it Snappy
PREMISE:  The flower I chose seeds kind of explosively, looks pokey like ladied-up fingernails.  I’m picturing a noir type lady bossing people around with a snap of the fingers, making herself memorable, I dunno.
RELATION TO VIOLET:  Violet’s a girly name and sounds kinda like violent.
VIOLET KEYWORDS:  Plum-colored jacket with high, rounded shoulders, magenta lipstick, fuchsia nail polish.
THE FLOWER:  The common stork’s-bill, aka redstem filaree, aka Erodium cicutarium, because it’s an adorable little invasive all over my home town, and currently flowering near the end of my lawn.

TITLE:  Down the Drain
PREMISE:  The narrator of this song / poem type of thing is someone a kind of Mr. Jones cartoon of bipolar disorder, ruining his situation off a good mood, and spending the rest of the time in despair.
RELATION TO BLACK:  I had a dream last night that included a song, which was kind of a feeble knockoff of the Gershwins’ “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.”  It was being sung by a band leader in Cab Calloway mold, but more heavy-set and sedate.  He was wearing a black suit with bright white embroidered spider web designs on the lapels.  I just expanded the lyrics I remembered to a full length song.
BLACK KEYWORDS:  Black spirits, black humor, the darkness of oblivion.
THE FLOWER:  The “Black Barlow” cultivar of common columbine, Aquilegia vulgaris, because it’s a sprightly little thing in its way, but looks feeble and morbid too.

TITLE:  Cinereous Mourner
PREMISE:  Whatever colonizer gave this bird its English name did a bang-up job.  It’s such an evocative phrase.  Ash grey, sorrow at death – two great tastes that taste great together.  Maybe it’ll be a poem.
RELATION TO GREY:  Named after a grey burd innit.
GREY KEYWORDS:  Cinereous cinders, ashen ashes, grey greyness all in your face.
THE FLOWER:  No flower, the plant is American Beech, Fagus grandifolia, which has grey bark.

TITLE:  Witness the Whiteness
PREMISE:  I tried to say something smart about racism and failed.
RELATION TO WHITE:  I sure am!
WHITE KEYWORDS:  White people.  Can I say wypipo?
THE FLOWER:  The common white clover, Trifolium repens.  Gotta keep it humble, with this European weed.

TITLE:  Where a River Flows
PREMISE:  Thinking about people from the Philippines, which is always a treacherous ground to step on, being a white person thinking out loud about people you aren’t.  I hope I don’t mess up.  Mainly going for this topic because the only cyan / aqua type flower I could easily find is from the Philippines, and is so specific to there that it just seemed weird to not include the place.  Also because I think our country has a very close and weird relationship with theirs, and it doesn’t get much mention.
RELATION TO CYAN:  This is the color of tropical waters, which is the clunkin’ metaphor I use for a family history.
CYAN KEYWORDS:  Jade vines, kingfishers, water molecules, water cycles.
THE FLOWER:  Jade vine, Strongylodon macrobotrys.  I cannot fucken believe there’s a real plant that color.

TITLE:  Rose Gold
PREMISE:  Remember MonsterHearts 2024 Day 12?  Isadora and Steppy are cyberpunks.  Steppy is known as Stuck Steppy because she keeps catching knives in streetfights.  Eventually Isadora catches the biggest knife and dies, but corporate paramedics notice her cells match a certain profile and route her corpse straight to Brycine Prosthetics.  They sustain the life in her tissues long enough to reanimate that bod – with experimental photosynthetic cybernetics.  I guess every cyberpunk has its rose thorns, just like every cowboy sings a sad sad song.
RELATION TO PINK:  Pink-ass flowers, son.  Cyberpunk likes pink too.  Neon babes with colorful hair.  Lesbianisms.
PINK KEYWORDS:  Cyberpink.  Does that word make you uncomfortable, Jeffrey?  Vagina.
THE FLOWER:  American wild rose, Rosa woodsii, because it grows at that bus stop not far from the Ballard Bridge where I saw that awesome fan rendition of Misaki from Junji Ito’s Anything But a Ghost, in sharpie on a USPS shipping sticker, slapped on a power utility box.

TITLE:  Horseness
PREMISE:  I’m picturing something like my lycanthropy idea from Touch Me, I’m Sick and Straightup Heckin’, but with horse parts.
RELATION TO BROWN:  Horses are brown.  Some horses.  And horse-mans.
BROWN KEYWORDS:  Bay, chestnut, pinto, palomino…
THE FLOWER:  The acorn of the pedunculate oak Quercus robur.  On a stem it wouldn’t look too out of place in a bouquet of flowers and leaves.

TITLE:  Baba Safia
PREMISE:  A centuries-dead Ruthenian sorceress resurrects herself through tumbleweed seeds.  By a twist of fate, they were accidentally sown in the USA, intermixed with imported flax seeds.  She’d just go her own way on the wind, but some christians piss her off before she gets a chance.  Big mistake.
RELATION TO GOLD:  Let’s say she likes gold.  It shiny.  Gold is a symbol of colonialism, one motivation behind the first New World genocide.  Baba Safia shows up in the wild west, an alien among aliens, and brings their destructive ways back upon them.
GOLD KEYWORDS:  Glint and gleam, sparkle and sun.
THE FLOWER:  Tumbleweed, the most common species known as such in the USA, Salsola tragus aka Kali tragus.  One of its names is “windwitch,” which sounds real fun.  Also known as prickly Russian thistle.  When tumbling, one could call it a sort-of gold color.  In the golden hour.  If you squint.  I swear, man.

TITLE:  Silverfish
PREMISE:  Maybe it’ll be a poem about shiny slimy guys, wrigglin’ and wigglin’.
RELATION TO SILVER:  It’s all nice and good that silver is symbolic of purity and light, but the silverest things in the natural world are fish and bugs and slimy freaks.
SILVER KEYWORDS:  Shimmering, flickering, glinting, sparkling, glistening, slime.
THE FLOWER:  Leucadendron argenteum, the South African silver tree.  Not as silver as advertised, but it can get ball-parkish.

I’ll edit my stories (or poems or whatever they end up being) into this post when they’re done.  Not the best approach to getting blog traffic, but it keeps things tidy. Change of plans: Will edit the prompts into this post, then do the actual works as new blog posts.

–

2000 Words to Close the Fundraiser

The last donation I got was epic.  My donor didn’t expressly forbid me from naming them, but I’ll err on the side of discretion.  Love you!  Same to everybody.  I think of crowdfunding as being a lot of small donations, but instead I only had a handful of donors, and they were generous.  I don’t win a popularity contest, but my friends are very cool.

Aside from the very nice close-out to my fundraiser, I’m kinda having a time here.  One of the teeth I had worked on is more sensitive to pressure now and when antagonized it can cause a headache that persists for hours.  Concerned I might need to go back and have them change that from a crown to a root canal.  Whatever, I’ll come up with a payment plan this time, like a sensible person.  I feel like I might have a fever, but I’m almost certain it’s psychosomatic.  I’ve felt much more feverish in the past when I wasn’t even there.  (note:  next night i continue writing, no fever.)

I explained before how I ended up needing this kind of work in the first place.  But why does it cost so damn much money?  My insurance covered like a few thousand, I put a few thousand on a credit card, and my remainder was several hundred, which I paid out of pocket.  This is what it’s like for the working poor in the USA.  The rich stole our entire lives and now sell it back to us at marked up rates, which our rich politicians like to call “freedom.”  Cool shit.

One could feel like smashing the system, going full anarcho-primitivist, but some elements of infrastructure are necessary to sustain the lives of the disabled, the elderly, children, and more.  I got pretty tired of social media anarchists acting so leftier-than-thou it was like they’re a priesthood.  Ironic behavior from the no-gods-no-masters crowd.  Reflecting on my disillusionment with those assholes, I realize they don’t give an earthly shit about human lives lost on the path to their magical never-gonna-happen future.  Bad people.

Anarchy probably has some cool applications tho.  I consider myself a personal anarchist.  As I explained it there, I believe society should have laws, but everyone of strong conviction should be willing to break them.  When terrorism against the rich starts to happen, I will concede the guilty should be punished according to the law, but I won’t say that the terrorists did a bad thing.  The guy that blasted Shinzo Abe probably gets that.

I dunno.  I’m getting to sleep easily enough but waking up every two to three hours, and my day job is thinking and being social nonstop for several hours at a go.  Maybe tonight will be better, and I’ll feel more generous toward the fuckos whose crystal castles are purchased with my dental expenses.

My dreams, I’m not really remembering.  Violence, running around, hokey monsters, work tasks.  Finish the thing, do the thing, don’t mess up now.  I have a meeting tomorrow with mandatory camera.  My makeup will probably be something in the neighborhood of Heath Ledger Jonker.

…Observe my craggy glory.  Not gonna count the words from the video.

Being committed to shooting shit with no script, no editing, and one take, I realize in the video it could seem like I’m implying the largesse of my donors was due to personal wealth, which I doubt is the case.  Besides, I’ve thrown similar donations at others in better times over the past few years myself, and made offers that were declined as well.  We all do what we can when we can, right?

But let me focus again on the subject I led off with.  This wasn’t a crowd; it was a generous few.  I look at FtB and I see the art of blogging on its way out – not through any fault of its own.  Some bloggers are hobbyists, some are established names running out the clock until the last people who read blogs die off, from this social media asteroid impact.  As I’ve mentioned before, I can deal with the end if the company is hospitable.

I keep getting tempted to talk about this among fellow FtBloggers, as if I haven’t already said everything there is to say about the subject.  It ain’t much.  The type of nexus that social media provides is critical to the success of growing or maintaining an audience now, and having the content you provide exist outside of those spaces?  You aren’t going to get flighty modern people to follow those links.  This blows because if we did operate entirely on social media instead of wordpress – which would be possible – we would be (more) subject to the whims of crapitalist godlords, able to get blasted out of existence with the wave of a hand.

But maybe I feel tempted toward the subject because that isn’t all there is to say about it, and I haven’t figured what else my mind is itching about.  It’s kinda like the skin cell perspective that has me, in moments of gentle delusion, wondering if there’s a solution.  A problem is observed, which in itself suggests to the overthinking mind that said problem can be solved.

Neocities is an attempt to bring back the wild days of site-based internet, but from where I stand, it’s similar to wordpress.  There’s a unified platform for creators to do their own things, and if somebody is inclined to look, they can do so.  But how do you get them to look?

The usual solution is for creators with off-social media sites to create an account on all the majors, like fb and xitter, link to the main run of their content.  But to make that social media presence useful, they have to actually participate in those sites as well, which is draining and wastes time best spent creating.  How do you keep up with all the moderation changes, roving hordes of nightmare people looking for an excuse, and ToS changes that bowdlerize and oppress minorities and capitulate to the interests of power?  How do you craft the kind of witty bon mots and shitposts to be heard in a howling tempest the size of a fucking planet?  And multiply that effort by the number of platforms you’re expected to be on?

The whole thing makes me tired as hell, especially as someone who is considering self-publishing novels soon.  Probably I’ll pay for advertisements somewhere.  Don’t know what the wisdom is on that either, at this point.

It seems to me that this is a consequence of the balkanization of culture that the internet has facilitated, which seems to be a defining element of our epoch.  It is extremely easy for people to ignore top 40 radio and TV and movies, to find subcultures that speak to their prejudices, and run so deep into them that outsiders become unimaginable.  For just one example, I’m always amused by the extent to which fanfic people assume anybody else in the world knows or cares about that entire domain of thought, that subculture that dominates their waking hours.  Sorry babes, you all seem like bizarre cultists from my point of view, like a new religion splintering into warring sects while the unrelated religion on the hill occasionally glances out and wonders “what’s that noise?”

But this is all of us.  We’re all making our worlds smaller because the big picture is so overwhelming.  I know I can’t even stand listening to shitheads.  Way back when bin Laden inaugurated the millennium by smashing a bottle airplanes on the edge of a ship buildings, I still went to TV for culture.  I watched all those clowns on The Daily Show and Colbert etc., to feel a sense that my country hadn’t completely bought the neocon agenda, that some people didn’t love war and xenophobia.  I found atheist content on yewchoob and, somehow, on the precursors of this blog network, to feel like not everybody in the world saw religion as a benign phenomenon, as a sacred thing that should go unquestioned, even as it’s on the lips of so many fuckos with bombs and guns.

But I became too radicalized to handle the talk show boys, who treated the rise of Trump as a joke.  They didn’t change; I did.  I haven’t even made the time for the clips of them that Mano posts.  Their faces remind me of a very bitter moment, one our relationship could not survive, regardless of whatever steps they’ve taken to make up for it.  And our movement’s web presence?  That’s a joke so bad it killed us dead.

I can’t speak to specific numbers, but judging by comment count, our traffic must be a tiny fraction of what it once was.  How could it not be?  Deep Rifts 2.0 / Elevatorgate broke us down to rubble.  Sometimes PZ laments that being a conservative is where all the traffic and the money is, of course always quick to say the cost would never be worth it.  But it’s true.  Our community, such as it was, thrived on invective and strife and dunking on fools.  When it became clear the most classically dunky faction was the regressives, the majority of us followed atheism down the nazi hole.

The remainders in the progressive side were split on how nice we should be, with FtB somewhere in the middle.  The most SJW are the most gone, too delicate to weather a desolate world, or perhaps just more interested in causes other than atheism at this point.  That’s fair.

I remember when Dubya got elected for the first time in 2004 (not when he was appointed by judicial hijinks in 2000) me and other cranky young people marched around Seattle hollerin’.  Wherever a speaker would get on a soapbox, they’d flog their own projects or personal beliefs, in a way that would lose X amount of the crowd.

When did I finally drop out?  When a guy that was cranky about the christofascist aspects of rethuglican governance tried to lead people in a blasphemous chant,  like fuck god or fuck jesus or something.  I’m like, yeah, fuck those guys, but I want whatever movement I’m part of to go somewhere, not devolve into provincial concerns that are gonna guarantee we stay in the margins of society.  It was getting late, time to march to the bus stop.

I’d like to be a charismatic preacher for atheism, shake snakes at the reverse infidel (fidel?), but it’s hard to make myself feel it, while jester-ass clowns like DickDawk and Chundershite are still out there being us.  Yeah, they don’t represent your beliefs or mine from our point of view, but they do to the world.  Who knows who I am?  You do, and I love you all, but to the general public, we’re the same thing as those utter fools.  Ya feel me?

I’ve seen people using “culturally christian” as an insult for atheists since some months before Dicky Boy decided to own it.  It makes us mad when used that way, even as we’d accept it as accurate without much emotional weight attached in other contexts.  As I consider it in this moment, I think it’s time to use SJW language to fight back.

Like some people are asexual because of trauma and that is valid, some people are atheist because of trauma, and that is valid.  Invoking the religion that causes so much trauma as a way to dunk on atheists is triggering.  Of course it is.  It’s a microaggression, at the very least.

If progressive theists can’t take the truth of our position on board, can’t make room for us at the “interfaith” table, wanna tar us all with the same brush as the fuckboy side of our movement, they should at least know they’re being abusers to the disenfranchised, they’re punching down.  When they shit on atheists, they’re being oppressors.

Doesn’t ring as true as I’d like, while our banner continues to be used to promote fascism.  Fucking succckkks.

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That rambling pointless mess was 2000 words on the nose according to google docs’ way of counting.  It took the spare time of five days and felt like pulling teeth, haha.  Ugh.  Anyway, I’ll probably be quiet again for a minute.  But I’m glad to know some amount of people will come around whenever I do.  Thanks again, and vaya sin dios.

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100 Words on the Topic of Mars vs Antares

These topics can be cryptic, but wikipedia is my dogg.  I found a connection.  “If Antares was placed in the center of our solar system, its outer surface would lie between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, in the asteroid belt.”  Let’s do that.  Place the red star Antares in our system, and see how Mars fares…

Maybe Mars had it coming.  War sucks.  There’s a story where Hephaestus caught his wife Venus boning down with Mars, tossed a net over them, and dragged ’em around the world.  Let the fires of Antares light up the cosmos with Martian ruin.

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NOTE:  I have one last post I owe, 2000 words.  No time left tonight, I’ll see y’all late tomorrow.

Funds, I Raise Them

My fundraiser to make up for dental expenses is at 81% of goal.  Now would be a good time to make any last donations because it takes up to 3 days to transfer from paypal to my bank account and my ugliest bill comes up Thursday, which is the day before I get paid.  Also paid 30 bucks for a tetanus shot tonight.  Life is funny.

Anyway, scroll down to see the all the posts I have written to order here, whose titles start with word counts.  These types of creations can be yours, for the low price of 10 words to the dollar.  Plz donate thx.

I had to pay close to $700 unexpectedly which is gonna make all the bills that come due before I next get paid extra painful.  So I’m hastily raising as much as I can within two weeks.  If I go over target, I’ll put any excess toward paying down some of the thousands in credit card debt I racked up from the same dental shituation.  Donate and I will write you a blog post on your topic of choice, containing ten words for every dollar you donate.  If you chip in a few bucks you can get a haiku, right?

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250 Words on the Topic of Loki as God

Somebody suggested I could meditate for a moment on what it would be like if Loki were behind the mask of the christian god.  What an obscure concept to be into, Norse mythology of all things.  It’s not like there’s some global media conglomerate spamming culture with a contemporary representation played by a conventionally attractive rich white guy.  How does one even get into these things?

At the core of the request is the concept of dystheism, and I’m grateful to whatever wikipedia editor linked that in the “related articles” section of Loki’s page.  What if the abrahamic god was a malevolent prank?  That might explain why god is nowhere to be seen – Loki was captured by his fellow æsir and squirreled away until doomsday, when his bastard children will bust him out of jail and destroy the world.  We’ll see Loki again when the soup goes down, possibly rocking stigmata and a crown of thorns.

Sometimes Loki’s pranks were for his own ends, sometimes he was badgered into using his powers for the pantheon, like the time he was impregnated (mpreg) by a male horse.  On one level, Loki playing Yah;_;eh demotes our lord of creation, but on another level, it empowers him, because he’ll win in the end, right?  And just like in Revelations, we’ll all lose at the same time.  If xtianity and the Great Middle East Hatepit are the creation of a prankster god, congrats to him, but it doesn’t change much for us.

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100 Words on the Topic of Humility

I mentioned recently that art school was a humbling experience for me.  Humbleness, or humility, can be a good thing.  Humiliation not so much, unless you’re into that.  Think I know a girly on that tip, perhaps not aware how much she injects that into her fiction writing, haha.  Then there’s the related topic of the humblebrag, which is somehow nothing to do with the line from Weird Al’s Amish Paradise that “I know I’m a million times as humble as thou art.”  I’m losing the plot.  Think, McFly!

Pride goeth before the fall.  If you have too much faith in yourself and your own excellence, reality can catch you by surprise.  This is what happened to our mans DickDawk.  He went after the low hanging fruit of christian literalism, let the baby atheist kudos convince him he could do no wrong, and when he showed his ass on the issue of feminism, was completely astonished by the response.  People could take issue with meeee?  But I am the golden boy!  I am the special one.  I’d just say, don’t forget your own fallibility, and when you become aware of them, don’t forget your actual failures.

The more you know.

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EDIT: I lost track of what I was doing and this ended up being 200 words.  Failures abound!

250 Words on the Topic of Hugs

Got some gentle sympathies in donation message, but again, barely anyone has been suggesting topics to write about.  Makes me wonder if I should be running a different incentive scheme.  Anyhow, Hugs.

When is a hug appropriate?  The USA is one of the more physically removed countries in the anglosphere.  Broadly speaking, people here don’t hug anyone they don’t know outside of full-on emergencies, like consoling a person whose baby got blown up in a car accident.

And the people who are allowed to hug?  Women.  It’s gendered.  (Queerness definitely complicates the picture, but bear with me.)  Men can’t express physical affection for each other outside of Arnold Schwarzenegger / Carl Weathers arm-wrassles.  One can get unused to physical contact.  That was me, for a long time.

If I’m not expecting to be touched, I jump.  If that happened to me when I was a kid, it was going to be violence.  As an adult, it’s my boyfriend being affectionate, not noticing that I wasn’t noticing his approach.  Then he feels bad about it, and I’m like, aww no boo, it ain’t you.

So I got to where the only way I wanna be seen, when I can control the circumstances, is lady-presenting.  I don’t do it at a grocery store or the office, but I do it at remote meetings, the FtB Poddish Sortacast, and my pics around the internet.  This being what people see of me, I find some people are treating me the way they might treat a lady, which is kinda cool, but also can make me jump when I don’t expect it.

Pay it no nevermind.  Hug on.  Especially cyber-hugs.  Why should I balk at that?

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500 Words on the Topic of Hellraisin’

My donors are so shy and unimposing.  I have a guess who one of them is, and if I’m right, he might like a word about cenobites…  Jeezis Shit, I just went searching for the origin of the quote “Sticks and stones may break my bones but whips and chains excite me” and the entire internet thinks Rihanna came up with it.  I heard that shit in junior high and I’m forty-seven years old, so … time travel?  I was thinking, maybe Andrew Dice Clay, but that didn’t come back with anything.  Why can I imagine it in Woody Allen’s voice?  Somebody help me.

Anyway, sexy menace.  Tearing your soul apart as a euphemism for the ecstasy of orgasm.  Chains and blades and hooks with a life of their own.  The black-eyed priests and nuns and less specifically gendered clergy of Hell, in sexy leather clothes, ready to give you the business.  You know you want it.

Something about the cenobites from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (original story Hellbound Heart) is just sooo iconic.  They are gods among monsters.  I’d love to come up with something that hits the same way, but is it possible?  Is that kind of idea just lightning in a bottle?  Were they a Platonic Ideal just waiting in the realm of Forms, and Barker just happened to be the first guy to pluck them from that airy plane?

There’s the seeker.  Frank “Come to Daddy” Cotton and his ilk.  Somebody chasing a high that can only be found in transgression, and there’s never enough.  Then there’s the box.  Beautiful, elegant, small, activated by touch, by curiosity.  The cracks in the world, admitting the power of Leviathan.

Then there’s the Apostles of Pain.  The cenobites.  Love those guys.  I’m not into S&M, not really, but the look of it all?  Very cool.  I like cool things.  I like the aesthetics.  Total poser, I know.  I remember being in The Metro on Seattle’s Broadway buying leather accoutrement, and the clerk asked, “Stocking up for a good time?”  I felt so uncool.  Whaddyagonnado?

I guess I could seek the box, do that fiddly hand jive, unlock the lament configuration, and get my cool on.  Or my flesh off, whichever happens first.  I’ll be like the doctor in Hellraiser II, “To think, I hesitated!”

I came up with the core of a formula for trying to arrive at the power of Icon in monster design.  Come up with Sinister Themes of the monster, Visual Motifs, Colors, Shapes, Textures, Powers, and Places associated with them.  You can see some mention of it here.  I still haven’t successfully used it to come up with anything interesting.  Just never got around to it.  Maybe on another one of these posts.

For now, this post will just be a note of admiration for the creation of a master.  Maybe when I’ve sold my screenplay for Gun Lemurs and made a bank full of money, I can buy the time to pursue my own immolation.  To earn that charisma.  Wish me luck?

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