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• 23:54 @mythopoetica @lvdpal uh huh. <3 #
• 00:04 @lvdpal that's just me playing with words and layout, heh. #
• 00:05 @mythopoetica TWICE. IN THREE DAYS. *swoon* #
• 00:28 @treznor ...not sure how i feel, having my country represented by that particular song. #

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• 22:22 roar / silence #
• 22:22 anonymity / freedom #
• 22:23 music / madness #
• 22:23 thank you, trent. #

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• 23:02 music / mountains #
• 23:03 delight / delirium #
• 23:04 living = love #
• 23:04 thank you, trent. #

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Should I be wearing this identity? I don't remember constructing her. I don't remember choosing her. I don't remember agreeing to the messes she makes, and the holes she falls in, or the turbulence she causes.

I'll undo this face. I'll take it off, put it down and forget to pick it up again. Eventually, I'll forget I ever had this face, and then this face will have never existed.

I'll dismantle this name. The T and A can go to Antarctica, the two Ss to Consequences, and the E to the End.

I'll take back these encounters. I'll rip all memories of me from history. I'll tear them out of your mind with my bare hands. I'll dig my finger nails in and pull, twist, saw and wrench, until they're free, leaving jagged edges, bleeding familiarity, and leaving you gagging with déjà vu and asking, "Do I know you?"

No, you never did.
You never will.
And I make this so.

Maybe I won't make a new entity.
Maybe I'll stay anonymous, and
incognito, and
nothing.

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• 17:18 @amandapalmer worry not, natives do the same all the time. trams are stealthy ninjas like that. #
• 17:19 @yunyu :o #

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"I've got a baaad feeling about this."

I spoke of fear.

I spoke of Tibet.

I've let one rule the other. I told everyone I was going to Tibet, made sure I got the leave and put money aside even though it made every day living a little lean. Did not book the trip. Thought about booking it, but always found a reason not to. Because I was afraid. Some inarticulate, irrational and soft dread that I wouldn't work my way around, even though I wanted to.

On the bus from the airport last weekend, I sat behind an older Chinese man. He had that sallow face, sagged skin and hanging depressions beneath his eyes which makes me think of my chain-smoking uncle.

The last person to board the bus was an older Caucasian woman. 'Older' in the sense that she wasn't so sure of her feet anymore, and sat down as soon as the bus started moving. Next to the Chinese man.

They started chatting right away. No hesitant customary greeting, they instantly launched into where they'd come from, what they'd seen, genuinely interested in what the other had to say. He'd spent three weeks in Hong Kong. She'd spent three weeks in Vietnam. They got out picture books and looked at Halong Bay. They didn't speak of shopping, or meals, or the differences of propriety they found uncivilized. They spoke of the wonderful things they'd seen, and how the world could still amaze them.

I want to be like them when I grow up.

And I've booked my trip.

And was informed that China has just closed Tibet (again) for the period over Tibetan New Years and the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising and the Dalai Lama's flight into exile. They've preempted all and any 'insurgent' activity by saturating the area with army and police.

At this point in time, Tibet should reopen after March. However, given I'm intending to be there during Saga Dawa, I call even odds of the borders being closed again. The ruling party does not like Tibet to remember itself.

Still, we shall proceed under the assumption that this will go ahead. When it comes time to apply for my visa, all posts relating to Tibet will be taken offline.

Should this not come to pass...I'm thinking Mongolia.






Clearly I've a thirst for Chinese oppression.

Strange Days

Smoke changes the sun rise, the light of noon, the whole world. Our surroundings are nothing but light bouncing. The light is different.

There have been earthquakes and mindquakes these last couple of weeks. Some of it even turned into turbulence, and fear is so quick to slide a hand in and put the choke on. I'm not choked. That's reassuring.

Still, I remember knives. How quick I was to slide a mind over and grip the blades.

Shall be incommunicado for a few days. Not, I admit, that I've been in communicado much of late. Poor blog. You've been so quick to slide down the priorities list when fiction fiction fiction beckons. I guess I'm weary of dissecting my life.

No fear. I'm sure that's another dirty habit I'll come back to before long.

I appear to have run out of soy sauce. I'm not sure how that happened.





The flat feels a bit misaligned now.

Victoria, She Burns

The projected high yesterday was 43/109 degrees. Within Melbourne, it reached 46/114 degrees. Many outlying towns managed 47/116 degrees.

I spent the day doing very little. I slept in as long as I could, turned no computer on, did not step out the front door, and spent the day reading. I thought my flat was getting hot, until I put my hand on the front door to peek outside, and it was so hot for a moment I thought I was burned. I peeked through the blinds and the heat falling from the glass was heavy and incredible and frightening. The sun was so bright everything was white. I thought the sky had been boiled white too, until I realised no, that was smoke. So much smoke it had no source. It came from everywhere.

The afternoon cool change is a quirk of Melbourne's climate. The vertical drop on that graph is no exaggeration. The cold air thunders across the state with such fury it wipes a hot day away within minutes. There'd been hot gusts from the north all day, scouring the streets and forming giant drifts of leaves on the side walk, yet the cold change was stronger, and when it hit, the flat shoot, the windows shook, the doors to the bedroom and bathroom were blown open by the pressure change.

Too late for most of the state.

Walking around the streets in the twilight, far from the bushfires, I could see the heat. All the trees, plants, bushes, everything, everything is burned. Leaves are crisped and curled and dead and falling. It isn't autumn, but it looks like it. Even the gum trees are struggling, whole branches dead and leaves mottled. There is no green grass. The sun isn't forgotten, even as it leaves the horizon.

I saw a water-bombing helicopter fly over. Melbourne has so few helicopters, I didn't recognise the sound of its engine, and sought it out. Going home to refuel, or repair.

Every fire season, they talk of how bad it is. Because of the drought, which has gone on for more than half my memory, everything is dry, ready to burn. Every fire season, they talk about Ash Wednesday. Sometimes it feels like alarmist, sensationalist fear mongering. This time it isn't.

(photo from The Age)

Entire townships have been razed. Every time I update the front page of the Age, the death toll has risen. To ease the strain on the CFA website, a google map keeping track of the bushfires has been set up here. The Australia Red Cross has set up relief centres across the state. Those of us safe in metropolitan Melbourne, please consider donating to aid those who've lost their homes, and especially to the CFA. They're volunteers.

I'm sitting here in a jumper, the first I've worn in weeks, because it is 20/68 degrees right now. I've watched it rain on and off during the day.

They say Australia is the coalmine canary of climate change.

That would indicate we're all fucked.

ETA:

• Helicopter footage of what was Marysville
• Tweetgrid for #bushfires #vicfires
• Possible firebugs relighting bushfires
  

ETA (2102): Just got back from an evening stroll. Wandered down my street looking at an enormous sunset, a huge bank of hazy clouds lit up red and pink. Beautiful to behold. Until I started to realise something was wrong, hang on, wait a minute...the sun doesn't set there.

Turned around, and yes, the sun was setting exactly where it is supposed to. Blue skies, high scattered clouds catching gold and silver.

Turned around again, yes, the skies of Independence Day filling one half of the heavenly sphere. The sunlight was reflecting and caught in the smoke from the fires. As if so many infernos were no longer content to eat the land, but had to start on the sky as well. Spent my walking turning back and forth, 180 degrees, checking the opposing simultaneous sunsets. Creepy.

Exit, Stage Right: Le Red Fin

You thought I'd forgotten, hadn't you?

Shark Puppet is a temporary stand in - I'm waiting on Metropolis to get more puppets in. This post is also a temporary stand in - instead of heat keeping me quiet, writing is keeping me quiet. I have to make the most of my ability to turn a computer on before the next heat wave strikes. Between teeth and my bone marrow melting, I'm behind on everything.

(Just between you and me, I'm glad Le Red Fin is gone. He was a touch irritating. Not that Shark Puppet makes for good company.)

radio silence

The current communications blackout is due to the 100 year heatwave currently kicking Australia's posterior. Computers are a source of heat in this unairconditioned, wooden, tin-roofed and poorly insulated house, and therefore not to be toyed with. I'm also refraining from turning Eddie on due to the not unfounded fear of giving him heat damage.

It is 4:51am, and the BOM site indicates a current temperature of 24 degrees, which is a LOT cooler than expected, and if tomorrow ONLY reaches 38 we shall be well pleased.

Until the heat buggers off or I return to work, silence shall continue.

ETA: Wait, I read the wrong district for the BOM. Forecast maximum temperature for tomorrow is 43.








Peas and rice just shoot me now. I'm not cut out for a hot desert Mad Max post-apocalypse.

Kung Hei Fat Choi

This year is the Year of the Ox. Apparently ox years are good to roosters. I wish happy oxen upon you all.

I'm frustrated at the lack of middle ground between being too uncomfortable to write and being too drugged up to write. There isn't much that needs doing, but I can't do it.

Am watching a lot of DVDs though. Reacquainting myself with Hornblower right now. Yay! Captain Pellew!

"You can swallow a pint of blood before you get sick."

Well.

That was a total non-event.

Where's the pain and grogginess and pain and disorientation and pain and distress and pain and pain? I feel fine! I was apprehensive about waking up all druggy in a strange place, but to be honest, it wasn't any different to any other time I wake up. I really am just that bad in the mornings. I'm shocking, I'm dumb, dopey, off-balance, incoherent and pretty much a primordial mass, and as unattractive as that is, it's great practice for waking up after surgery. The guy beside me wasn't nearly as calm. Apparently waking up freaked him out.

Am not in pain. Some bits of the jaw are bruised and sore, and only when I poke them. So I'm not poking them. Easy. Have a totally square head from the swelling, which is hilarious.

Unfortunately, I missed out on a great photo. I had a nap in the afternoon, and the gauze in my mouth soaked through with blood. When I got up, I had blood all over my tongue, through my gums, in my teeth, clots in the gauze and had dribbled blood out the side of my numb mouth. The just-woken up dumbs meant I cleaned up before thinking of my camera. Dammit! Such a wasted opportunity!

I also forgot to ask if I could keep my teeth. Bugger.

There's no grogginess going on. The pain-killers are non-drowsy, and what with the nap, that means I'll probably have a right shit time getting to sleep tonight. Part of my lower lip is still numb, but everything else is awake. Something in the meds is messing with my joints though. Weirdly enough, my wrists are tingling. Full on and hard out, like they're pumping lemonade. My knees started too. Nothing else is doing so.

No nausea or delicate stomach either. Dad made up some congee yesterday, and I ran it through the blender to make it smooth. Tasty stuff. Ice cream didn't trip anything either. Clearly, I have guts of steeeeel. The bleeding has stopped too.

My secret identity is Wolverine. I have mad regenerative skills.

But I must still make the most of this, and pretend I'm much worse off than I am, and vege in front of the TV. STAR WARS MARATHON GOGOGO.

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• 18:51 @emoeeyore OMFG GTFO :D #
• 19:15 @emoeeyore @miiru eeeeeeeee! I've a ticket to her upcoming show, but am not so brave as to sneak a hug. #
• 19:18 @miiru ze hermit crab usually wins, but we shall seeeee. #

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Socket

Getting my teeth pulled tomorrow. I imagine it will be not at all like this.

May try to blog coming off the drugs, just for the hell of it. Or, may be out of commission for a while.



Never you fear, sweet readers, Le Red Fin will take care of you. I will not allow her to indulge in asshattery whilst medicated. I stake my honor upon it, much as I would enjoy seeing her make an asshat out of herself, but oh, it is a shallow joy, since it comes so naturally to her...

Total Fire Ban Day

I think I think yes I think maybe possibly I think the story works now.

touchwoodtouchwoodtouchwood

Daylight may indicate otherwise. I've reached that point where I can honestly make no call as to the story's quality, but it no longer sets off my THIS PIECE IS UNBALANCED DANGER DANGER DANGER alarms. That, quite frankly, is enough for me.

My efforts at avoidance took me to such depths that I googled my name, and so came, you know, nearly a month later, upon Joanne Anderton hooraying as a story she selected for ASIM #34 - Bitter Elsie Mae - featured on the 2008 Dark Fiction Recommended Reading List from Horrorscope. Elsie's in fine company there. And some seriously disturbing and fucked up company. I've read some of those. Ewwwwww.

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• 11:16 @miiru Yes! (I dunno what that is.) #

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insert immature giggling here

This is why I try to keep my surname off this blog;



If, poor googler, you meant to spell that with a 'c', then the answer is: put the sheets in the wash. If immediate washing is not possible, then wipe it off with, I dunno, tissues or dirty socks or whatever is lying around. It'll dry out. And go crusty. You can sort of scrub it off then. Or pick off flakes. Whichever you prefer. Probably not a good idea to use dark sheets if this is a common occurrence. Sloppy or dried, there is no state in which spooge is anything other than kinda sorta gross. And funny. Heh. Heheheh. Heh.

If, poor googler, you spelt that correctly, then apply lemon, lime & bitters, pizza, and episodes of Spaced at once.



That is not funny, mon cherie. You are being very childish. Remove me from your finger at once.

From Lake Baikal, With Love

There are degrees of insomnia, as any who've brushed with sleep deprivation well know. Sometimes sleep won't come because it (quite rightly) does not wish to inhabit a head full of stress and anxiety. Sometimes it won't come because you ate too much sugar during the day. Sometimes it won't come because you're not done thinking yet. Sometimes it won't come because you're not done crying yet. Sometimes it won't come because you (stupidly) read a scary book in bed and gave yourself the willies. Sometimes it just won't come, end of story.

For those cases in which the root of insomnia is purely thought related, I keep a well-stocked pile of munitions, each used with the sole purpose of distracting me long enough to calm the fuck down and get my unconscious on.

A movie generally does the trick, but occasionally I'm so worn out even the act of watching is asking too much effort of me. In those instances I fire off set of podcasts. They're not on my iPod. They live only on the laptop. No headphones, no visualizer, nothing to do with me. They read to me, and I do nothing.

Reading, in these instances, doesn't work. Ever. I spend a lot of my energy keeping other people's voices out of my head, for my own sanity. I suppose occasionally I go too far, and stagnate without external input, and the only cure is to have some outside voice feeding words in my ears that I couldn't have strung together myself, that have no source in my life. The differing presence of self lying in active reading requiring my mind's voice overlaying the prose and passive listening in which the narrative overlays my mind.

As a result, I've come to associate Jeff VanderMeer's story Logorrhea, as read by Jason Erik Jundberg, with extremes. It only comes out when I'm too far gone, and never fails to reel me back in. I hate and fear being in such a state, but if that means I'm granted permission to listen to the story, well then I kinda don't mind it. It wouldn't work as insomnia salvation if it wasn't an exceptional piece of work.

These are the things the masses do with your stories.

As of yeserday, Jeff VanderMeer's novelette Errata has been posted on Tor.com, as both eyes-only and podcast.

Given my irrational apprehensions, I opted for the podcast.

There's another form of insomnia, which I forgot to mention as usually I'm smart enough to avoid it: getting sucked into a story you love too much to voluntarily break free of.

I'm tired. Fuck you.

That was just fucking brilliant. It hops gaily between the absurd and the surreal, and I want to use the word 'subversive', yet I don't believe it is so tricksy and sneaky and fixated on revenge as to subvert. Why would it, when it can take off and do its own thing? Which is what it has done, and without apology.

There's also a penguin in it.

I ask Juliette for advice sometimes. “Juliette,” I say. “Is Ed for real? Is the Book for real? Is James for real? Is this really going to work? Or is it a form of madness?”

“I dunno,” Juliette says. “I’m just a penguin. But I can bring you some fish, if you’d like.”

This is why he's been my favourite author for years, and I stalk his publications like a stalking thing. I'll never fear of reading the same thing twice under different titles. I hope there's a dead tree version of this, as I don't particularly want to condemn it to 4am visits.

In some weird synchronicity, the two stories podcast revolve around Lake Baikal, the largest fresh-water body on Earth. I fear now that I can no longer dream of travelling to Syberia to visit the lake, as with every listen its character solidifies, and this fictional lake cannot exist if I stand on the shores of its reality.

And throughout it all, a question on the cellular level rising slowly in the communal, generational penguin mind: Why?

I've slept in this room more than anywhere else in the world. Of twenty-seven years, I'd guess maybe six years of accumulated sleep has occurred outside these walls. I don't know what I do when I sleep or how the space I sleep in affects me, but I can't help believing that means something.

I haven't stayed the night back home for a while. There was a pattern emerging, or, I saw what I wanted to see to find a pattern. Lying in this bed, in this room I've slept and dreamed and breathed most of my life in, I'd fall down a hole. No matter what my state of mind, no matter what the events of the day, closing the door and turning the light out guaranteed me a tearstorm and no sleep.

Half believe in the idea of the memory that space keeps of us.

I don't believe this room holds good memories of me.

I'm turning the light out now.