Category: personal

i go through all this

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Beeefooore you wake up.

Sorry. Bjork phase. I do like to get up early. I like the quiet. The alone time. If I can get that, and get enough things I want to get done before I engage with the world, the world and me are both infinitely better off for it.

I don’t go in rushed and angry, upset and falling behind. Frustrated and distracted.

And, the sense of peace is palpable.

That, of course, is not today. 

Target: 600 words
Written: 797 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: People Of The Deer, Farley Mowat
Comics: Monstress 31-34
Music: Vs., Pearl Jam (one of my all time favourites, I cannot believe it's been so long since I listened to it.  Indifference is my spirit animal.)

it’s not getting better

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It’s not getting worse either, but everything seems difficult.

Each and all is one calamity after the other, one hurdle after another.

If this universe is intended to be benevolent, or even just in its neutrality, then it is doing a poor job.

We have found hell, and it is life.

Target: 600 words
Written: 733 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: People Of The Deer, Farley Mowat
Comics: Monstress 29-30, Monstress: Talk Stories 1-2
Music: Voodoo People, The Prodigy (pretty much the only electronic music I consistently enjoy; the rest is mostly bullshit)

i know it’s been dark

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I feel like Allin, desperately trying to hold on to the last bit of possibility, as a nightmare drains me.

I am trying to find the light, the tunnel, the way through, but man, this is a hard, cruel, unfair world, and all the odds are stacked against anyone not born to privilege.

What a life it must be, when frictionless glides replace mob burns and quicksand feet.

Target: 600 words
Written: 339 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: People Of The Deer, Farley Mowat
Comics: Monstress 25-28
Music: Voodoo Lounge, The Rolling Stones

trauma, part 2

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I’m out in space… I’m not sure I even see stars anymore.

At this point, I’m praying for a black hole to suck me in and show me what’s on the other side.

Target: 600 words
Written: 1641 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: People Of The Deer, Farley Mowat
Comics: Monstress 21-24
Music: Volunteers, Jefferson Airplane

the science of trauma

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It’s the science of impact, not influence, but impact, IMPACT, something smashing into you so hard, like a monster asteroid that slams you off course, out of your steady elliptical orbit, to plummet out into space, away from your neighbours, away from the source of your light and heat, away from where you’re supposed to be, out into the endless void, where it is dark and frozen and immensely lonely and the only hope is that somehow, there’s something close enough, large enough, with enough gravity to suck you in and put you back on your axis, but the void is so big, and so empty, and there’s no guarantee you’ll be close enough to centre in your new rotation, that you’ll be in that sweet spot where life can bloom, but instead you’re cold, cold, cold, shivering without relent, or on fire, burning, bleeding, blisters bursting in poison gas…

This is the nature of trauma, and it pays to remember: there’s a hell of a lot more void than stars.

Target: 600 words
Written: 269 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: People Of The Deer, Farley Mowat
Comics: Monstress 17-20
Music: Volumen 1993-2003, Bjork (I don't know what it is about her, but there is no female artist on the planet I connect with more; something about it - there's an innate empathy, an honesty, an innocence that's somehow all mixed up with sex and love, but in the sweetest way... Maybe it's youthful memory, but there's love in them there words)

welcome back to emotional destitution

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I know people don’t care and they sneer at people when they’re suffering, the whole “suck it up, princess” thing and sometimes, that’s a valid requirement for getting out of the shit, but sometimes…

Fuck you. Sanctimonious fucks.

Those same people often rip open their chests to show us their bleeding hearts when the sum total requirement of their action and empathy is a post on social or an off-hand comment about those poor people.

But when it counts?

When it’s people they might actually have to deal with in their lives, rather than just people they can posture around? When the reality comes in?

Suck it up, princess.

Useless.

Eye rolls.

“They just want drama.”

Absolute dismissal.

If your empathy and ability to understand the struggles and needs of those around you ends with a couple of lines on Facebook or an off-hand comment about how hard someone has it to friends to forgive behaviour that doesn’t affect you in the slightest?

You’re not empathetic. You’re not compassionate. You’re not an open-minded person who wants to help people. If you can’t hold that same empathy and understanding for the people actually in your life, whose behaviour influences your world?

Well, then, fuck you. You’re just another self-important prick, more interested in looking good than being good.

Target: 600 words
Written: 369 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: People Of The Deer, Farley Mowat
Comics: Monstress 13-16
Music: Volume 2, CKY

and immediately, fallen on my face

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Metaphorically speaking.

It’s a Sunday. I don’t know how it got so far away from me. Being completely caught up yesterday, doing all the things I’ve wanted to, in order to get where I need to be and now, here I am; back behind again.

My face is bruised, blood spews from a cut over my eyebrow; I think my orbital bone is broken.

Metaphorically speaking.

My face swells, my brain too, inside my skull. I swirl, lurch and stagger.

The tasks are piling up.

This is the thing I didn’t want.

This is the pressure I was trying to avoid.

I don’t want to reevaluate.

I want to push through.

I want to make it all mean something.

But it means nothing, like a Wes Anderson film, without the whimsy and quirk, and Scarlett Johansson flashing her naked body.

Yeah, we watched Asteroid City, so I guess, technically, it does include that last thing.

Literally speaking.

So, it’s not all bad, I guess.

Target: 600 words
Written: 498 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: People Of The Deer, Farley Mowat
Comics: Monstress 9-12
Music: Plea For Peace/Taken Action, Volume 2, Various

catching up

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Not that I don’t love my niece’s dance recitals but they are all day affairs, so I’m somewhat happy that I didn’t end up having to go.

It’s given me time to catch up on all the things I fell behind on as this week spiraled out of control.

It seems like a great deal is spiraling these days.

Drains and lives, swirling, sinking, disappearing into the void.

Target: 600 words
Written: 1383 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Sword Of Shannara, Terry Brooks (the man can be tedious and expositional, but he knows how to write an ending and a battle)
Comics: Monstress 5-8
Music: Volume 1, CKY

veruca

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It’s funny how this seminal alternative band from the Nineties has such an influence on modern pop, but no one seems to ever mention them.

I mean, if you can listen to Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts and not hear Veruca Salt channeled through her, I have questions about your hearing and your mental state.

I try to tell my nieces these things, but they’ll, like me, have to figure it out for themselves (although I went through phases growing up that exposed me to a lot more great classic stuff, as filtered through a modern lens, than they seem to. Big band, underground Seventies punk, classic 60s acid rock and the original Fifties jump rock – crooners, The Beatles, The Doors, hell, I even went through a Michael Jackson/New Kids On The Block era – though not after I heard my first alternative – INXS and R.E.M. are forever my gateway drugs, as is The Joshua Tree).

Anyway, great band. Listen to them more, if you can. L7 too – nobody rocks harder, except maybe Lemmy.

Target: 600 words
Written: 556 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Sword Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Y The Last Man 53-56
Music: Voices Carry, Til Tuesday

man

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It all gets away from us so easily, doesn’t it?

Like trying to hold on to glass covered in WD-40.

Target: 500 words
Written: 1286 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Sword Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Y The Last Man 49-52
Music: The Voice: The Best Of Ultravox, Ultravox