The Hair Singularity

BEFORE



AFTER

Year's Best Australian Fantasy & Horror

Some of you may have noticed the free PDF of Acception was removed from the previous post. This is why.

Ticonderoga Publications is walking on sunshine to announce the contents for its inaugural The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror anthology.

Editors Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene have produced a list of 33 excellent tales by some of Australia's biggest names as well as some emerging writers.

The anthology collects 150,000 words of the best stories published last year from the Antipodes.

"We're pleased with the number of fabulous stories that were published in 2010 that we had to choose from,” Liz Grzyb said.

"You could hold this anthology up against any international collection - Australians rock for diverse voices, imagination, and compelling writing," Talie Helene added.

The stories are (alphabetically by writer):

RJ Astruc: "Johnny and Babushka"
Peter M Ball: "L'esprit de L'escalier"
Alan Baxter: "The King's Accord"
Jenny Blackford: "Mirror"
Gitte Christensen: "A Sweet Story"
Matthew Chrulew: "Schubert By Candlelight"
Bill Congreve: "Ghia Likes Food"
Rjurik Davidson: "Lovers In Caeli-Amur"
Felicity Dowker: "After the Jump"
Dale Elvy: "Night Shift"
Jason Fischer: "The School Bus"
Dirk Flinthart: "Walker"
Bob Franklin: "Children's Story"
Christopher Green: "Where We Go To Be Made Lighter"
Paul Haines: "High Tide At Hot Water Beach"
Lisa L. Hannett: "Soil From My Fingers"
Stephen Irwin: "Hive"
Gary Kemble: "Feast Or Famine"
Pete Kempshall: "Brave Face"
Tessa Kum: "Acception"
Martin Livings: "Home"
Maxine McArthur: "A Pearling Tale"
Kirstyn McDermott: "She Said"
Andrew McKiernan: "The Memory Of Water"
Ben Peek: "White Crocodile Jazz"
Simon Petrie: "Dark Rendezvous"
Lezli Robyn: "Anne-droid of Green Gables"
Angela Rega: "Slow Cookin' "
Angela Slatter: "The Bone Mother"
Angela Slatter & Lisa L Hannett: "The February Dragon"
Grant Stone: "Wood"
Kaaron Warren: "That Girl"
Janeen Webb: "Manifest Destiny"

In addition to the above incredible tales, the volume will include a review of 2010 and a list of recommended stories.

The editors will shortly begin reading for the second volume of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Details are available from the Ticonderoga Publications website http://ticonderogapublications.com.

The anthology is scheduled for publication in June 2011. The anthology will be available in hardcover, ebook and trade editions and may be pre-ordered at http://indiebooksonline.com.

Metaphor much?

"What are you doing?"

"I'm looking for a black t-shirt in a drawer full of black t-shirts."

"Oh."






"Want to talk about it?"

"Shut up."

"Just trying to be friendly."

"Well, my advice to you is: stick to what you're good at."

Feeling sharky. Feeling shitty.

Some days you're the Great White Muthafuckin' Shark, and some days you're a weeny little diver trapped in a tinfoil cage getting shat upon.

(This week I have not been the shark.)

(Nor the diver.)

(I am shit, and et by fishes.)

The Dead Birds of North Melbourne

BEGIN


Some say he gave his life - kamikaze - to defend them.
Some say he flew too close to the sun.
(We know he saw his reflection on a windscreen.)

BETWEEN


"It's not agoraphobia!" she wailed. "The sky has no point of reference!" And so saying she buried her head in the footpath and never moved again.

END


We are not dead.

We were never birds.

Acception: quietly having a little insurrection in the Ditmars

It has been brought to my attention that "Acception" has squirmed its way in among the cool kids and is currently shortlisted for the 2011 Ditmar Awards.

The 2011 ballot is as follows:

Best Novel
————————————————————————
* Death Most Definite, Trent Jamieson (Hachette)
* Madigan Mine, Kirstyn McDermott (Pan Macmillan)
* Power and Majesty, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Voyager)
* Stormlord Rising, Glenda Larke (Voyager)
* Walking the Tree, Kaaron Warren (Angry Robot Books)

Best Novella or Novelette
————————————————————————
* “Acception”, Tessa Kum (Eneit Press)
* “All the Clowns in Clowntown”, Andrew J. McKiernan (Brimstone Press)
* “Bleed”, Peter M. Ball (Twelfth Planet Press)
* “Her Gallant Needs”, Paul Haines (Twelfth Planet Press)
* “The Company Articles of Edward Teach”, Thoraiya Dyer (Twelfth Planet Press)

Best Short Story
————————————————————————
* “All the Love in the World”, Cat Sparks (Sprawl, Twelfth Planet Press)
* “Bread and Circuses”, Felicity Dowker (Scary Kisses, Ticonderoga Publications)
* “One Saturday Night With Angel”, Peter M. Ball (Sprawl, Twelfth Planet Press)
* “She Said”, Kirstyn McDermott (Scenes From the Second Storey, Morrigan Books)
* “The House of the Nameless”, Jason Fischer (Writers of the Future XXVI)
* “The February Dragon”, Angela Slatter and Lisa L. Hannett (Scary Kisses, Ticonderoga Publications)

Best Collected Work
————————————————————————
* Baggage, edited by Gillian Polack (Eneit Press)
* Macabre: A Journey through Australia’s Darkest Fears, edited by Angela Challis and Marty Young (Brimstone Press)
* Scenes from the Second Storey, edited by Amanda Pillar and Pete Kempshall (Morrigan Books)
* Sprawl, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
* Worlds Next Door, edited by Tehani Wessely (FableCroft Publishing)

Best Artwork
————————————————————————
* Cover art, The Angaelien Apocalypse/The Company Articles of Edward Teach (Twelfth Planet Press), Dion Hamill
* Cover art, Australis Imaginarium (FableCroft Publishing), Shaun Tan
* Cover art, Dead Sea Fruit (Ticonderoga Publications), Olga Read
* Cover art, The Girl With No Hands (Ticonderoga Publications), Lisa L. Hannett
* “The Lost Thing” short film (Passion Pictures), Andrew Ruhemann and Shaun Tan

Best Fan Writer
————————————————————————
* Robert Hood, for Undead Backbrain
* Chuck McKenzie, for work in Horrorscope
* Alexandra Pierce, for body of work including reviews at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus
* Tehani Wessely, for body of work including reviews at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus

Best Fan Artist
————————————————————————
* Rachel Holkner, for Continuum 6 props
* Dick Jenssen, for cover art of Interstellar Ramjet Scoop
* Amanda Rainey, for Swancon 36 logo

Best Fan Publication in Any Medium
————————————————————————
* Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus, edited by Alisa Krasnostein et al.
* Bad Film Diaries podcast, Grant Watson
* Galactic Suburbia podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Alex Pierce
* Terra Incognita podcast, Keith Stevenson
* The Coode Street podcast, Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan
* The Writer and the Critic podcast, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond

Best Achievement
————————————————————————
* Helen Merrick and Andrew Milner, Academic Stream for Aussiecon 4
* Amanda Rainey, cover design for Scary Kisses
* Kyla Ward, Horror Stream and The Nightmare Ball for Aussiecon 4
* Grant Watson and Sue Ann Barber, Media Stream for Aussiecon4
* Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, Rachel Holkner, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Tehani Wessely, Snapshot 2010

Best New Talent
————————————————————————
* Thoraiya Dyer
* Lisa L. Hannett
* Patty Jansen
* Kathleen Jennings
* Pete Kempshall

William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review
————————————————————————
* Leigh Blackmore, for Marvels and Horrors: Terry Dowling’s Clowns at Midnight
* Damien Broderick, for editing Skiffy and Mimesis: More Best of Australian Science Fiction Review
* Ross Murray, for The Australian Dream Becomes Nightmare
* Tansy Rayner Roberts, for A Modern Woman’s Guide to Classic Who

To those who nominated, thanks. I am well sheepish, bemused and ego-fat.

More importantly, Baggage itself is up for a Ditmar as well. Huzzah! This is a brilliant thing, and not just because the book itself is a devious little collection.

As was announced a couple of weeks back, Eneit Press is closing.

I've been grappling with the problems created by the RedGroup's collapse for the last few weeks, but the lead up to that collapse was, for Eneit Press, the most disasterous. You see, last year Borders hosted the launch for Baggage, and at their prompting I bought the biggest print run for any anthology I'd yet done.

The launch, just prior to Aussicon 4 was a huge success, and the store took half the print run, keeping some boxes of books on consignment for selling at this year's Supanova. I duly invoiced them for the books they sold at Worldcon. And re-sent 8 weeks later.

...I was just about to ring again when the news of them entering voluntary adminstration broke.

Nothing short of a miracle can save Eneit Press now.

The ending of Eneit Press is nothing to do with quality of books, having printed a collection by Kaaron Warren and Gillian Polack's latest Ditmar-nominated novel, there is nothing but quality in that back catalogue. The conduct of Borders has left me with a churning gutful of bitter froth, and left Sharyn with a financial debt that she did not bring about and has slain her dream.

Normally, I would offer to send "Acception" for free to anyone who wishes to read it before voting. In this case, however, I urge you to buy the few remaining copies of the anthology from Eneit Press direct, and alleviate some of that debt.

It has always been said that the Australian speculative fiction scene is a supportive community. Please, don't just talk the talk. Buy the book, read the book, stick it to the goddamn man.

Baggage may be purchased here. For international orders drop Sharyn an email to query shipping.

Details on how to vote in the Ditmars may be found here.

If you could retweet, reblog, facebook, tumbl(r), share this and spread the word around, please do. This isn't about awards.

Undoing One of Many Mistakes; Triptych

"Well, this is the end. There isn't anymore. Now what do we do?"

"The only thing we can do: evolve."

"I think you mean 'devolve'."

"That is a matter of perspective. Anyway. Onward?"

"Onward."



"................Okay so the siphonophore thing didn't really work out."

"I won't say I told you so."

"Well if you're so clever why haven't I seen you in the sea? What did you devolve into?"



"A Golden Ray of course."

Travellers and Escapists

"We have to go, we have to get out," he said. "Everything is fucked."

She shook her head. "There is nowhere to go," she said. "'Everything is fucked'."

Then she smiled, opened the window and let the end in.

The ghost lingers by the tracks with the reminder of flight, stilled.

In September, 13 Years

"This isn't brought on by any specific event," he said. "It's more a general reminder that we know a lot of the stuff that lands on our desks is confronting, to say the least, and if you don't want to work on something, then say no. That's okay, no one will have any issues with that. Along the same lines, if you feel that perhaps you need to talk to someone about dealing with the material, whatever that material may be, approach your team leader, a member of the leadership team, whoever you feel comfortable with, and we'll organise a counseling session for you."

:::

The photos I see and documents I read in a single day are more than most of you would be comfortable with even skimming. The confrontation is gone. It is all just so much paper now.

:::

"There is someone down at corporate reception wanting information on making an application, do you want to take it?"

No.
I went down.

He was in his eighties, with grey-blue eyes that were milky with age. He was a couple of days unshaven, with sparse white bristles on his jowls and hanging from the wattle at his throat. Hands that had been firm and strong, but had a little tremor in them now, the skin slack around his knuckles. His mouth always a little open, breathing being now task enough that the nose was not enough for his aging lungs. His mouth moved a certain way when he spoke. A hearing aid in his ear, so I was careful to speak clear steady.

They all want to share their life story, circling around and down until finally reaching the matter at hand. "I'll tell you this, back in Tasmania-" and I settled in with my best listening face, prepared to endure waffle.

He didn't waffle, or talk in circles. Events were explained in chronological order with cause and effect in place, until the end, where he was now, with a tangled mess of bureaucracy. Oral story-telling came naturally to him, with the right pauses and no stumbling over his words. He didn't over-dramatise, but didn't attempt to hide his emotional investment in the events either. The mind was well sharp, perhaps lost in the events around him, but sharp.

It took a little teasing on my part to pluck out exactly what he sought, most of which was not in our possession. Still, I called the other organisation and got enough information to set him on the right course, and figured out what we could do for him.

I let him wander afterward. The story he had told me was a sad one. Those old eyes had brimmed more than a few times, although he never broke down. I would not stop him from indulging in happier reminiscences. It was never just a smile or grin, he could do no less than chuckle when mirth took him. His eyes near disappeared the few times this happened, as his sagging cheeks rose with cheer.

"Thank you," he said, an hour and a half later. "You've been incredibly helpful, and I've taken so much of your time."

I gave him a smile and told him to go get a cup of tea.

:::

It's all just so much paper, except when it isn't.

:::

Fencing with red tape, paper, bureaucracy and legalese is tough if you're not already familiar with the illogical, seemingly-petty and idiosyncratic rules of this alternate but co-habited dimension. He was frustrated with the brick walls he'd run against, and although he was far from settled, having someone actually listen to him brought some calmness about him.

It isn't the first time I've snuck in some ninja therapy on a member of the public. Just to be listened to is all a lot of stricken hearts need to rest themselves enough, just enough. It is no great tax, although time that I'm sure my boss would rather I put to better use. All it requires is patience.

:::

It isn't the content that gets beneath my skin. These years of exposure have led to a forced evolution. I have an empathy-off switch, and a different perspective on humanity.

:::

I couldn't not listen to this man, and I couldn't not empathise with him.

He reminded me of my grandfather.

Even smelt like him.

Checking In

Move: Completed.
Unpacking: Not completed.



This: New webcam shots location. No longer facing the window, so lighting shall be a bugger. Must remove that tiger.

I have an ulcer, coldsores, shadows and bags, cough, cold, shakes and my arms are killing me, but the birdsong here is surprisingly thick and lively, the shower is decadent, and that's my boy Sam on sentry duty at the perimeter.

Mattress on floor,
Me on mattress,
Blinds pulled back,
Bats gone,
And one satellite flares, then dims, and crosses into the shadow of the Earth.

This is the last night in the home I made.

A Life's Punctuation; the Full Stop.

That is the last cup of tea.

It, more than anything else, signals the End of an Era. That's the last of the milk. Once it's drunk I'm going to turn the fridge off, and that will be it.





I feel I should say something about the importance of true and vigorous independence, what it means to call time and space your own without compromise, and, I don't know, stuff, but I am tired in many different ways. My heart is sore, my mind is confused, and I have nothing in me.

So, I will drink my last cup of tea as I have done on many evenings.



And watch the flying foxes come out at dusk.



One last time.

Domestic Archaeology

Having finally emptied my bookshelves (books, CDs and DVDs filling a total of 30 boxes), I've moved onto that part of packing involving rummaging around in boxes and cupboards that haven't seen the light of day since the last move.

It started with the discovery of an 'easter egg' in the packaging of my copy of MS Office 2004 for Mac, as blogged here. All that came to pass afterward was recorded on twitter, and by recorded on twitter I mean I spammed the crap out of my follower's timelines. Extracted and provided below, for your perusal;

• What day is it? #bewildered
• You've had your banana, back into the breach, maggot.
• Yes, you just smashed your head. Sit the fuck down.
• OMG, Apple made the packaging on MS Office hipster and cool; toad town hall terraium?! - http://tinyurl.com/4pqxggy
• That felt good.
• I just found another tooth, and I know this one didn't come from me. #packing
• And a spent bullet casing.
  
• Found my Red vs Blue stickers yesssssssssss!
• Shit, nearly dropped the water buffalo.
• Found mask from Buenos Aires. Shall not be taking it off for the rest of the day. Badass warrior packing FIGHT! http://twitpic.com/41pdbb

• Required: Masquerade Ball, STAT.
• Found: story books made in Prep. This one is about poo. Not the honey-eating bear kind.
• Found: old diary.........................................................................yeah, I'mma stop reading and shove it in a box NOW.
• I have hunger. Feed me.
• What's this? A WHOLE BOX OF OLD DIARIES. HAVE AT THEE, MAGGOT.
• My twitter feed is full of anti-old-diary activists. I defy you! Now hush, I'm reading 16 year old angst, hot damn it's bad.
• OLD DIARY FROM HIGH SCHOOL. CHECK THAT INSANITY, DEDICATION AND MASSIVE FUCKING BOOK - http://twitpic.com/41r1v9

• Primary school diaries!
• Found: letter I wrote to myself when 11 years old because no one else would write to me. It is very short.
• In primary school, I made stories about explorers and yetis, sharks, dinosaurs, and magic ants. And dinosaurs. Also, dinosaurs.
• 6 year old Tessa illustrated her grade prep work book with drawings of...Asterix.
• My freaking darlings, sheepish apologies for spamming the crap out of twitter today. I go now to make my fortune/find dinner. As you were.

I also found old letters and post cards from people who weren't me (seriously!), and picture story books I'd made in school, and old school projects, and photos, and had myself a gay old time.

With various blogs, diaries and journals, I have an account of my life going back to 11 years old. Reading them is both hard, humiliating and hilarious, and in many instances, surprisingly dull for the drama being written about. Some find this dedication to documentation alarming, especially the fact that I keep it all. These are external memory devices. Just as you carry a USB stick about with all your photos and important documents on, I take cart these old books from home to home. One day my memory will start to fade, and I will have these as the back up of my mind.

That said, if ever I go into politics? They're going up in a bonfire.

Then I chatted to Ben Peek for a bit, and when the opportunity was presented I gleefully pointed out to him that I am not 32, 33, no, I am 29 years old. There's nothing quite so brattishly satisfying as pointing out to your older friends that you're not just younger than them, you're younger than them.

Having recorded my life since 11, that means I have 18 years worth of documentation. That's more than half my life.

Most of it has nothing to do with pants, either. How odd.

The Saint Has A Sense of Humour

While pruning packaging I have retained and accumulated over time, I came across this doozy of an 'easter egg' hiding under the fold the sleeve of my Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac carton.







Apple's power is so great they even made a plastic box for the product of a competitor coyly hipster.

The Offerings the Saint Returned

It is inevitable that when moving house and delving into boxes and drawers that haven't been disturbed for years you will discover (or, more accurately, rediscover) items that you weren't exactly expecting.

See Exhibit A:



These teeth belong to me.

About whether they came from my mouth, however, I shall offer no comment.

The Mona Lisa is lining up her approach vector!

A long, long, long, long time ago, secret channels indicated to Jeff VanderMeer and I that our megasaurusodonohugearama collaboration for Halo: Evolutions, The Mona Lisa, was going to be made into a motion comic. You know, animated. Like wow.



This was officially announced at San Diego Comic Con, with a "COMING THIS FALL" slapped on the end of the video, and a more official release date given of November. November came and went, so did December, January and we're now half way through February, and we hear the slavering hordes cry, "WHERE THE HELL IS TEH MONA LISA?!"

The answer is still: on its way, with tentative hopes for the Northern Hemispherian summer.

Also: Jeff and I? Happen to have the first two episodes in entirety. What was that? We've seen the first not one but two episodes? Really? No. Really. I can rub it in if you like, just in case you have any doubts. In fact I will. How's about a couple of screenshots?







And pardon me for stating the bleeding obvious but they look OARSUM. Yeah, that's a lil' peek o' the second episode, none of which features in the teaser trailer. Introducing, Rebecca, the UNSC Red Horse's AI, and her Commander, Tobias Foucault.

The peeps at 343 are clearly awesome. I didn't think it was possible for them to get any more awesome. Surely they've broken some universal awesome limitation. Ha! LIMIT BREAK! We've specifically been told the later action sequences are hot, and that they can't wait for us to see Henry and Rimmer.

Henry FTW!

Pyramid have also done a gorgeous job with the voice acting, effects and music. Seriously gorgeous voices happening in there (I luuuuv Mama Lopez's growl!), and well matched by One's gorgeous artwork.

Dudes? This is going to rock like an asteroid.

When you look for signs, you find them.

There is nothing about moving that isn't horrible, and there is nothing about packing that isn't horrible, but, oh, well, if you insist, the time spent pulling my books from the shelves and handling them and running my palms along their spines and fanning the pages and remember what it was to succumb to this book or licking my lips in anticipation of one I have not had the pleasure of yet, well, yes, okay, that's not "horrible" as such, possibly more of a delightful agony in knowing I possess all these fine works of art and may only ever read one at a time and there just never seems to be enough time.

I do love my library. That's what I have you know, all walls in the lounge room covered in shelves and full of books. My library. Mmm. One day, I will have a proper room dedicated to only to being the home of books, and I'll have a fine deep armchair perfect for curling up in, and it will be a quiet place.

I just picked up the special edition of Shriek: An Afterword and flicked through the first few pages, and came across a page of four short quotes;

No one makes it out.
--Songs: Ohia

If you live a life of desperation,
at least lead a life of loud desparation.
--Dorothy Parker

We dwell in fragile, temporary shelters.
--Jewish Prayer Book

The dead have pictures of you.
--Robyn Hitchcock

And they resonated, in much the same way the impact of an icepick to the left temple has resonance. Parker made me laugh. Oh, I aspire to such philosophy. This blog is nothing but amplification, now, dance with me.

The Songs:Ohia line is not entirely accurate. We all make it out, in the end.

Schrödinger's Tessa

Music that is loud, unrepentant and live, no, alive, and awesomely alive at that, music so loud it fills your mind and leaves no space for you to think even the smallest of thoughts, music that makes your hair shiver and your ribs ache and for which you cannot help but grin manically, shout incoherently, and be saturated by it, no, not saturated, by absorbed by the music until you are nothing and it is everything. That is catharsis. That is clensing, purging, hell, an enema for the mind as all the shit gets blasted out and lost in the bass line.

That's what I expect of live music, and perhaps sadly what I need of it as well.

I was standing in the Corner Hotel last week. It was a Tuesday night, and I was alone in the crush of bodies before the stage, too hot but armed with water, mindful of those around me, resigned to tall people in front of me, and the band was good, they were fantastic at what they did, an incredibly tight and smooth performance with unebbing energy, but-

But.




How to say this. My grip on my voice is uncertain of late, voice being such a slippery thing and I no longer have gentle confidant hands, I'm clutching and snatching too quick too tight and it's getting away from me.

How to say; I did not go away. How to say; I was neither saturated nor absorbed. How to say; I stood in the music, and apart from it.

I was waiting to be filled and full of something other than me, and so have some brief respite from the self-absorbed burden of being me. The spaces inside me were near quivering with anticipation of that storm of sound to come in and blow all the detritus of doubt and fear away and sweep all clean and clear, and those spaces waited, and waited, as the music beat in my bones and blood and came nowhere near me.

It's hard to control that little upwell of panic when one of your crutches breaks.

I kept moving. You can't help but respond to such volume when those around you answer the same call, but my hands were in fists and my teeth were clenched and I was already writing this post over and over, trying to define what it was that...what it was, what any of it was.

The invasion of living music into the mind serves not only as a clensing and purging process, it presents also the opportunity for a controlled instance of recognition. That is, the loss of self is defined as being the loss of the conscious and self-aware self, which in turns allows the unconscious and instinctive self a moment to rise to the surface and free of conscious oppression, be heard.

When the idea of Tessa is put aside, even for a moment, then foundations upon which that idea is constructed are bared.

That is my howling heart, resonating with the roar in my blood and bones, roaring free and uninhibited and anonymous in the roar of a hundred other voices.

I could almost feel it, almost, thrashing and gnashing and trying to get out get out get free. Here and there, in snatched moments, the music echoed something inside, for a moment there was synchronicity, but only for a moment. The show ended, and my howling heart had not surfaced.

This is perhaps an extreme example of the state of affairs of late. I find that I am fine, yes, I am fine. I feel solid and whole and well, and there are no undercurrents I am actively monitoring. But this being okay is, is, it isn't an illusion, it isn't a sham but it is. It is. It takes so little to rip everything out from beneath me, everything, with such swiftness and thoroughness and savagery I'm left gasping not only from the sting of whatever the world saw fit to slash me with, but with the seeming betrayal of my own self that it should collapse so easily, without even the semblance of resistance.

It is hard to trust myself, knowing that my limits are very much changed, yet still not being familiar with them, having as yet developed no understanding of how they lie and what weaknesses they possess, being now wary of anything and everything, for I do not know what will prove to be a fatal blow and set me back again and again and again.

Not knowing myself is a strange thing. It frightens me. A thorough understanding of myself and all my whys is the only certainty I've had, the only map and compass by which to navigate.

But it, I, it, that howling heart, it is still there. I felt it distant but straining in the music. I will feel it when looking at the carpet in my lounge room, or opening the fridge cabinet in the supermarket, or reaching for the phone at work. It is still there. It is still howling.

It is as though it is in a glass box. Double-glazed to keep the sound out in, of course. I'm sitting here at my desk, typing gingerly with my nerves sawing in my wrists, and this glass box sitting before me. It has no seams. Inside, my heart is a snarling, furious thing, all peeled lip and broken teeth. Thrashing and throwing itself against the glass when I fold my arms on the desk and rest my chin on them, trying to break that glass and have at me. It is so upset. There is such hurt, distress and rage in that wild mean little heart.

As it has always been, I suppose.

But.

I can't hear you, and so I don't know how to sooth you.

I've been trawling through my music trying to find something that will, without volume, let you out. Even just for a moment, even now, at 12.17 on a Monday with the sun out and lawnmowers in the distance. I think that, if I find the right music, if I find the right emotive harmonic that is the same frequency at which you howl, with combined resonance from inside and out we may shatter that glass box and set you free.

But that is wrong. It is old habit for me to assume that which is within me is mine to change. The glass box is an alien intervention. To remove it, I need only stop taking the medication.

I am afraid, my howling heart, of not being able to read you and interpret you, I'm afraid that not having that understanding and thus not having that control over you means you will find ways out over which I have no power. I am afraid of not knowing myself.

I am certain, if I were to remove the glass box, that the understanding would not help me at all. I am certain I would not be able to contain you by mere force of will alone. I am certain you would devour me.

Who is in the box, you or me? Are we dead when you are in the box, or when you are free?

I wanted the anguish to be gone, yes. I couldn't carry it any more. But not like this.

I didn't want you cut out. I wanted you to feel better.

When The Unconscious Drives

Some of us do peculiar things while we sleep, such as talk or fight or walk or make sandwiches etc etc etc. Some of us even snore. I have only been accused of snoring. On occasion. That said, I have from time to time found evidence of a rather peculiar nocturnal activity. That is to say, on waking, I have on occasion found evidence of what appears to be earwax (really thick orange gross earwax) beneath my finger nail. It would appear that my unconscious is taking care of my aural hygiene while I am not driving the body.

This is kind of weird.

Albeit not actually of any concern. Just a little bit gross.

This hasn't happened for a little while, and I had completely forgotten about this bizarre behaviour until today. I was changing the sheets on my bed and discovered a small colony of what appears to be earwax (really thick orange gross earwax) crusted on my cotton blanket.

I can only conclude that my unconscious noted that I had noted its activities due to the physical traces it left behind, and concluded that the best way to continue operations was to somehow negate these traces, ergo, covering my finger with the blanket so that the result of such nocturnal excavations would not be so readily apparent in my fingernails.

This is also kind of weird.

And a little bit irritating, given that earwax stains, and blankets are far more hassle to clean.

Dear Unconscious, I hope you are listening. Stop that shit.

ENTER THE BUNNEH

Failing to Make a Difference

I have walked down a dark street towards the couple having a screaming domestic, his fist hovering by her face and obscenities in his spittle, and I have stopped, and said straight to the woman, “Do you want me to call the police?"

Sometimes I have called the police despite their answer. Sometimes I have not needed to. I have stopped a fight merely by being the only other person on the quiet station platform, standing up, and walking towards them, until they noticed me, and stopped screaming.

Today, some eight yobbos were crowded around the Coffee HQ at Spencer Street Station as I and the beginning of the peak hour crush hurried for that train home. They were shouting and screaming at the sole barister standing behind the counter. I stopped. I got out my phone.

After some more yelling, the gist of which I didn't catch it the cacophony of the station, one knocked a display of fruit bars from the counter, sending them spinning across the pavement, and the group walked away and up the escalators towards the platforms. I followed them. When they goaded each other into turning around and going back down the escalators, back to the coffee counter, I stopped, finger on the dial button. “Wait," one of them said. “We're gonna miss the train."

They turned again and ran back up the stairs through the barriers, and I followed them. I stood at the railing of the second tier and watched them push down onto the platform and dive onto the 4:14 Epping. Then I turned, dashed back to Coffee HQ, and babbled on about what train they'd caught, if I needed to make a statement, call the police, they'd be caught on CCTV, security saw them running. The barista just looked at me and shook his head.

“What's the point?" He gestured towards a far too late appearance by a security guard who very carefully did not approach the coffee counter. “Look at the security here. What they do." I offered to leave my details as a witness. He just shook his head again.

“Don't let the fuckers win," I said, and then left to catch my train.

Justice is not a concept with which I have ever thought myself particularly vested in. Nothing in the world is fair, I do not expect or even hope for fairness, but fairness and justice are two different things. It aggravated me to think that these jerk wads would feel no consequences for their arsehole behaviour. Having been behind the counter and screamed at by a customer, I know how it gets under the skin and makes it just that little bit harder to come to work every single day. This time the fuckers won, and I helped them to do so.

I am a lone and unintimidating female. In such situations this is to my advantage. The taboo of men hitting women, while it cannot be relied on, nevertheless exists. That I am diminutive to boot only compounds my lack of threat, and therefore, the lack of any gain in bullying or crushing me. The man who pushes over the small woman half his size is more likely to be ridiculed by his friends than lauded.

I am a lone and unintimidating female. Unfortunately, I am not unaware of this, and of the position society slots me into, and I let that inform my decisions. Cowardice kept my feet still. You could call it pragmatism, I suppose, but it was cowardice alone that stopped me from stepping in and taking more direct action.

I am a lone and unintimidating female, and I let this be an excuse not to be a Big Goddamn Hero.

I do not turned a blind eye walk away. I'm not a bystander, I will give myself that.

What disappoints me is that what action I do take is not enough.

One day it will be me surrounded by aggressive cunts, and when that happens, I hope someone, anyone, everyone, will step in and make more of a difference than I did today.

Weird Tales Levels Up!

As has today been spreading along the currents of the intrawebs like the smell of whalefall in an empty see, Weird Tales just muscled up, took its sunnies off and gave you the eye.

WEIRD TALES: New Website, New Submission Portal, Pay Rate Increase

The World’s Oldest Fantasy Magazine Re-invents Itself for a New Decade

Several exciting developments mark the start of 2011 for Weird Tales. In addition to launching a new website at http://www.weirdtalesmagazine.com, editor-in-chief Ann VanderMeer and publisher John Betancourt have raised the pay rate to 5 cents per word and implemented a new submissions portal for potential contributors, located at: http://weirdtalesmagazine.com/submissions/.

These changes come on the heels of the news last year that VanderMeer would be taking over as editor-in-chief, with Paula Guran retained as nonfiction editor and Mary Robinette Kowal named as art director. This is the first time in the magazine’s 88-year history that Weird Tales has had an all-female editorial/management staff. Dominik Parisien and Alan Swirsky join Tessa Kum as editorial assistants on the Weird Tales team.

“Weird Tales was always known for publishing unclassifiable dark fiction, for publishing new voices alongside old pros, and we’ll continue that tradition,” VanderMeer says. “Our website updates those traditions by posting video flash fictions and news of the bizarre.” The new site also features a blog, through which VanderMeer and the rest of the Weird Tales team will discuss fiction and topics related to the revamped magazine.

This month marks the publication of the 357 issue of the magazine, featuring exceptionally strong short fiction. Contributors include Hundred Thousand Kingdoms’ N.K. Jemisin with “The Trojan Girl”, Swedish newcomer Karin Tidbeck’s ingenious and unsettling inversion of faerie and critically acclaimed J. Robert Lennon with “Portal,” a disturbing Shirley-Jackson-esque horror story. Weird Tales will return to its normal quarterly schedule this year, with future issues slated for May, August, and November.

Thanks to Matt Kressel for the new website and Neil Clarke for the submissions portal.

I just had a look at the Slush Cattle Pen, and holy hammerheads and harpsichords, Batman. That's a lot of slush. Do you have a story in there? Have you brazenly submitted your work of art to our fair publication? Do you realise what the Slush Cattle Pen actually means? For me? Hands on. No longer must I wait for Captain VanderMeer to feed me! I am free to rub my face over all the slushcows! All of them! And I will. I'll sniff them and lick them and probably not call them George. (I realise that last sentence may sound disturbing if you don't get the Bugs Bunny reference.)

Send Moar Slushcows!

And while I've got my pimp coat on, may I interest you in these shiny glittering offerings?

• PDF of The Quickening, the sole original story in Jeff VanderMeer's The Third Bear
• Free download of Slitten Gorge by Conrad Williams
• Giveaway of Above/Below by Ben Peek and Stephanie Campisi
• First Installment of Underdog Autopsy Radio: A Day in the Life
• Years Best Australian Fantasy and Horror Submission Guidelines
• CSFG Wings of Change submission deadline 31 January
• 2011 Chronos Awards now open
• Neat review of Baggage by Bruno

Don't rock the boat; sink it.

If you reach the point at which your Doktor prescribes you two anti-depressants, one prescription painkiller and weekly sessions with a counselor, it's a pretty clear sign that shit ain't working. It's time to admit that while you have worked incredibly hard to set yourself and your life up the way you want it, that shit ain't working. And when shit ain't working to that degree, then there's nothing for it. No tinkering or tweaking will fix something like this.

Time to take this life and scuttle the fucker.

Today I handed to my real estate agent my Notice to Vacate Property. I am become one of a massive diaspora of not youngin's but not oldin's who are returning home to roost. Mum is actually quite excited about it. I don't think she fully grasps what I mean when I say I live a bachelor life.

This will enable me to save money much faster and thus acquire the funding necessary to enable my Cunning Plan.

A good friend I hadn't seen in a while, on discovering I wasn't writing at all and knowing what writing meant to me, asked how I was coping with that.

"I'm on drugs," I said with a laugh. "And moving to another hemisphere."

That's right, kids. The Ultimate Kamakazi Operation: GTFO.

It. Is. On.

The Third Bear - Jeff VanderMeer

buy - author site

I do not have a bear. Well, I do, but I don't know where he is. I do have an Octopus God, however. He is not protecting an island. He is just hanging out on my desk.

The other good thing about my diagnosis is that my Reader's Block has been removed. And when I say 'removed' I mean 'asploded with fifty-million tons of shark dynamite'.

First book of the year!

This book is a soft re-entry into the world of reading, being as it is in essence a reread. I was sent the initial MS to poke at with a stick, and even on that reading many of the stories contained I had already read.

It is well established that I am a touch sycophantic about VanderMeer's writing, and this is why: it's really fucking good.

(It's obvious I haven't done a book write up in a while. I have no idea what I'm doing. Faff, faff, faff.)

(Structure? What structure? Articulate the awesome?)

It opens with the title story, The Third Bear, which is a bit like opening with the experience of being buried alive. It is claw-swipe to the guts, leaving you wretched, hopeless, horrified and inexplicably mournful. The Third Bear is, undoubtedly, a showstopper.

After which the show begins.

Story after story. Should I attempt to single out only the best, I would end up listing and babbling enthusiastic about them all. There is not a weak link in this chain. Each story rises up to completely obliterate the taste of the story that came before, and then be obliterated by that which follows. There is among them an echo, a resonance, of what is noted in the Afterword as "...the search for, or encounter with, the inexplicable." These stories that seek to contain such vast mysteries they are dense with all the unknown unknowns and gently and sadly weigh the reader down with the loneliness that comes with acknowledging all you will never understand, until you, I, the reader, stumble out the end of Appoggiatura and blink, bewildered to find ourselves in such mundane surroundings - these beige walls and beige carpet and beige blinds - and some threshold has been passed through. The grief of knowing that the accumulated learnings of your life will amount to exactly nothing becomes the joy of knowing that there are such inexplicables in the world, and that, in itself, is enough.

These stories speak to each other. Between the covers they have conspired and so the Third Bear can be found later in the stairwells of a story of a different kind, a dead woman's arm goes on beyond its genesis, the colour green, scent of lime, and a name; the stories more than nod at each other, they wink, whisper and play tricks on the reader. It is not merely a collection of short stories, but an obscure and subtle mosaic that upon rereading will give up more of itself to the reader, as teasingly as any reachable mystery.

Errata and Appoggiatura have been staked out as special territory for years. The Tor podcast and podcast by Jason Erik Lundberg having kept me company while I kept insomnia company. I know them word for word, and small edits made me sit up, nodding as a line was joined between a dot here, or some balancing applied there. They are both astonishing feats of art and heart. It is hard to imagine any of the other stories could survive between three such immense, all-consuming, unremittingly powerful pieces, and yet, each story is so sure of itself, so comfortable in its individuality that survive they do.

I don't generally plan on rereading, but that this is already read, reread, and now reread again, and still the stories affect me profoundly, and still I find myself grieving to have reached the end, and sit here wondering if perhaps maybe I could start another reread here and now...that is a mark of the quality of this book. The reflection on the cover is a gorgeous summer day I only just noticed and have not been out in.

Verdict: One of the best, most challenging and ambitious and powerful collections ever. Of all time.

The Good, The Bad, And The Otherwise

Back in February 2010 I was referred to a specialist, a rheumatologist. He twisted my joints, poked and prodded, made a couple of comments about Asimov and sent me on my way.

My Doktor, upon receiving the rheumatologist's findings, gave me a "...wtf?" look.

Regional Pain Syndrome

The symptoms of CRPS usually manifest near the site of an injury, either major or minor. The most common symptoms overall are burning and electrical sensations, described to be like "shooting pain." The patient may also experience muscle spasms, local swelling, abnormally increased sweating, changes in skin temperature and color, softening and thinning of bones, joint tenderness or stiffness, restricted or painful movement.

The pain of CRPS is continuous and may be heightened by emotional or physical stress. Moving or touching the limb is often intolerable. The symptoms of CRPS vary in severity and duration. There are three variants of CRPS, previously thought of as stages. It is now believed that patients with CRPS do not progress through these stages sequentially. These stages may not be time-constrained, and could possibly event-related, such as ground-level falls or re-injuries in previous areas. Instead, patients are likely to have one of the three following types of disease progression:

1. Stage one is characterized by severe, burning pain at the site of the injury. Muscle spasm, joint stiffness, restricted mobility, rapid hair and nail growth, and vasospasm (a constriction of the blood vessels) that affects color and temperature of the skin can also occur.
2. Stage two is characterized by more intense pain. Swelling spreads, hair growth diminishes, nails become cracked, brittle, grooved, and spotty, osteoporosis becomes severe and diffuse, joints thicken, and muscles atrophy.
3. Stage three is characterized by irreversible changes in the skin and bones, while the pain becomes unyielding and may involve the entire limb. There is marked muscle atrophy, severely limited mobility of the affected area, and flexor tendon contractions (contractions of the muscles and tendons that flex the joints). Occasionally the limb is displaced from its normal position, and marked bone softening and thinning is more dispersed.

Upon reading the symptoms, I returned the "...wtf?" look to my Doktor.

The only symptom I had and have in common with this condition was pain. And you know, that's a symptom I have in common with, say, piranhas. Does that mean I have piranhas? No. No, it does not.

As such, we elected to overlook that diagnosis and continue with physiotherapy, which had been making significant improvements. For a while. Well. Yeah.

Hands started to deteriorate again, no matter what I did or did not do, which lead to the prescription of Cymbalta among other things, and, eventually, another referral to the rheumatologist.

My Doktor had specifically chosen Cymbalta as it has been proven to be effective in the mitigation of chronic pain. Curious, I asked my physiotherapist about the idea behind Regional Pain Syndrome and the theory my Doktor appeared to be latching onto in regards to overactive nerve activity and a brain that no longer filtered properly.

"Absolutely," she said. Although the problem with my hands may have started as a very straight-forward Repetitive Strain Injury, it had gone on long enough that the nerves would have changed with the conditions they found themselves in. In layman's terms; the nerves expect pain, so they make it. The brain expects pain, so it receives it.

I had my doubts when my Doktor explained his reason for the Cymbalta. Pain is not something that should be covered up. It's there for a reason, it's the best warning sign you get that something is wrong. There have been many, many steps backward on this "road to recovery" my hands have taken me on. One of the biggest was late last year. The Doktor had given me Celebrex, with instructions to take one a day for a month, and see how that helped. I was having adverse reactions to over the counter painkillers, and thankfully the Celebrex had no such effect. It's a slow-acting medication. Not designed for quick pain relief, but for chronic pain relief. It only kicks in after a few days, once appropriate amounts are in your blood.

It was lovely, being without that pain. Lovely.

At the end of the month, when I went off the Celebrex, the pain returned and was significantly worse than previously. I could only assume that without the pain to hold me back, I was working too much and not realising, and doing even more damage to my hands.

That terrified me. I wouldn't take any more painkillers after that, except at night when it was the only way I would get to sleep. The pain was necessary to keep me in check. I needed the pain, to listen to.

However.

I was getting better.

I could see it when my physiotherapist tested the tension in my nerves, and I could feel it when she went at my muscles and nerves with her frighteningly effective hands. I could feel it when I moved and when I stretched.

Improvement = more pain?

No comprende.

The rhuematologist twisted my joints and poked me hard enough to bruise and made some more comments about Asimov, and then wrote on a piece of paper "fibromyalgia" and peered at me over his glasses.

Fibromyalgia is a medical disorder characterized by chronic widespread pain and allodynia, a heightened and painful response to pressure...Other symptoms include debilitating fatigue, sleep disturbance, and joint stiffness. Some patients may also report difficulty with swallowing, bowel and bladder abnormalities, numbness and tingling, and cognitive dysfunction. Fibromyalgia is frequently comorbid with psychiatric conditions such as depression and anxiety and stress-related disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Not all people with fibromyalgia experience all associated symptoms.

"I've seen this," I said. "When I was reading up on Cymbalta."

He gave me his recommendations - to raise the dose of Cymbalta or stay on Celebrex indefinitely - and sent me on my way.

My Doktor was well pleased to hear this, his hypothesis being confirmed by a second source, until I pointed at that at the current dosage of Cymbalta I had noticed no different in pain levels and given the somewhat UNRELENTLINGLY ARSEHOLEY side-effects currently afflicting me, no way in hell was I going to start a higher dosage.

And that's where we are now. I'm to stay on 60mg of Cymbalta for the next couple of months. Should the current side effects of RAGING INSOMNIA and SOB-INDUCING RESTLESSNESS abate, I will try a higher dosage in the hopes it alleviates my chronic pain. If not, I'll drop back to 30mg of Cymbalta and stay on Celebrex for...however long.

I've done my reading around on the intertubes, and I have my reservations about the diagnosis. Fibromyalgia itself is something of a controversial condition, and when I look at the symptoms and requirements of diagnosis, my face gets a little skeptical. I'm not sure I tick all those boxes.

But, what my physiotherapist said makes sense to me, and she is the one who knows my condition best. I trust her opinion.

The majority of those I have shared this diagnosis with have expressed quite sharp-edged dismay, to my surprise and gratitude. Yes, well. The idea of living with chronic pain isn't exactly a happy ending. It's not something that really featured in my plans for the future, you know?

That said, I'm descended from people who pay sweet bugger all attention to pain. They shrug off cuts and don't notice bruises, strain and pull and twist things and simply treat them gently till they've calmed down, barely even notice when they're sick because, hey, it isn't actually stopping them from getting on with things. One of the problems in talking to my medical posse about my hands, for the entire duration, was being able to express the "level" of pain. When it's bad enough to keep me from working, then I notice it. Beyond that...look, I'm uncomfortable all the time, so I don't really pay it any attention, sorry.

The pain was there to stop me from doing damage. If my nerves are simply crying wolf, and there is no damage being done?

Fuck yes I will live with chronic pain. Fuck. Yes.
Fuck yes I will take medication indefinitely. Fuck. Yes.

Because what this means is the damage is not that bad. What this means is physically I can and am recovering.

What this means is I can think about writing.

I have a future, again.

BOOYAH.

Which isn't to say I can throw all caution to the wind. I'm currently filling another position at work, a role that involves more computer work than my own, and combined with the recent spate of blogging; I feel it. Oh boy am I feeling it. Ouch. Ow. Argh. Getting a bit carried away with this heady air of possibility. Oh air. Oh air.

This may be the first breath I've taken in 21 months.

José Gonzaléz - Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division Cover)

A Public Love Letter

Dear you, yes you,

It is not news that I love that Deborah Kalin woman in more ways than Shakespeare could fit in a sonnet. My adoration causes those who have already known her and who are encountering me for the first time to walk away with the impression that I am a lesbian chasing a straight woman. These days we pass through now mark the sixth year she has been in my life, and even if nothing else good came of Clarion South it was worth going purely because I found her there. Together we have raised hell and put hell back in its place. She has held me up and talked me down, she laughs at the mistakes I make because she knows I need it, and has been an unwavering voice of reason when my second-, third-, sixth- and nineth- thoughts have left me paralysed with doubt. I can trust her to know exactly how to manage me when I'm at my worst, and know she'll up the ante on any hijinx when I'm at my other worst. Having her move down to Melbourne a couple of years back was one of the best things that has ever happened to me. Plus, she makes amazing nachos.

I haven't known that Karen Healey woman as long. That scheming Justine Larbalestier woman friend-match-made us a couple of years back, for which I am exceptionally grateful. Although I am still getting to know her (I believe it takes years of meaningful entanglements before you can really know someone), I am already well and truly smitten. She is one of the few people who has earned the title of "Fabulous". She has a sophistication, class and style that does not come naturally to her, it is her. Her fierce yet goofy outspokenness on all she holds dear amazes me and leaves me clapping in admiration. She has the single most wicked smile I have ever seen, and fabulous curly pink hair, and is unrepentant in her identity. Plus, everything she cooks is amazing. I'd recommend cultivating her as a friend for her lemon cake. Oh holy of holies.

Both these women are intimidatingly intelligent and clever in evil conniving ways. From them I have learned and will learn a great many things (such as, the best way to test the quality of a moisturiser is to rub it on your elbow), about all manner of things, and think myself too fortunate to have such fascinating, interesting and interested people in my life. They are both dedicated and highly skilled writers, and are honest about the hilarity and horrors that come with a mind that writes. They are also both honest about themselves, their short failings, the mistakes they make and the doubts the carry and the bad habits they cannot break. They are both stunning, and while they have moments of hating their bodies, they also embrace those moments of looking and feeling fucking breath-taking.

They are both women I admire greatly, and feel foolishly gumpy around frequently, and are in fact so awesome that their awesomeness has its own gravitational field. Whenever they enter my orbit I am gleeful to say that indeed, my world does revolve around them.

I've seen them both the last two days. Because of them my world is right now full to brimming with joy.

Gentlemen, the privilege, pleasure and honour is mine.

Thank you.

<3

Due to the deluge the dragon has been grounded, indefinitely.

Why haven't I been made King of the World yet?

It started, as most things do, with cheese.

I'd run out. This is one of those circle of life type things; you put cheese in sandwich, you eat sandwich, repeat until you run out of cheese/bread/butter/vegemite. My lunches are not complicated things, but I do like a little bit more than just a spread. (Unless it's toast, in which case a wad of peanut butter is just fine.)

So I went to the supermarket, as one does, and I went to the dairy aisle, as one does, and I stood in front of the cheese, as one does, and spent the next twelve minutes struck dumb with indecision.

A wall of cheese, from floor to ceiling. Cheese in different brands, of different types, reduced fat or full, sliced or not. So much cheese, so many cheese, and too much choice.

When the shelf-stacker gave me a funny look on passing me for the third time, I realised what I was doing, grabbed without looking, and walked away.

That is what stress can do, that is what depression can do, that is what not having all your mental resources operating at normal capacity can do. The ability to process and compare information is significantly reduced, and the capacity to commit to a decision is practically nil. That is how cheese can steal twelve minutes of your life.

At the check out, bewildered as I was having passed by soup (Do I need soup? I don't know!) and tea (What about some nice tea? I don't know!) and chocolate-covered honeycomb (Should I get a treat? I DON'T KNOW!), I figured there must be a niche in this anxiety-driven and consumer-based society for a supermarket that caters to the perpetually overwhelmed. A supermarket that stocks milk in milk cartons that say milk and with no options on offer, cheese in a packet labeled cheese and no options on offer, museli in a bag labeled museli and no options on offer.

This is a supermarket I would really appreciate right now. A place at which I will be able to find the basic necessities to feed myself without being confronted with choices.

You could even have levels of the Stressed Supermarket, for those who may be coping a little better but still not ready for a wall of cheese; full cream and skinny milk and only those two to choose from, jarlsberg or chedder cheese and only those two to choose from, swiss museli or natural museli and only those two to choose from. Baby steps. We have to work our way up through the ranks, get practice at processing and streamlining information until we are prepared, at last, to face a wall of cheese, and make a selection in a mere moment.

And not be stricken with indecision.

And not feel weak for the time wasted.

It doesn't recognise 'eh'. DOOMED.

hello, my freaky darlings.

for Christmas, my family put in together and bought me Dragon Dictate for Mac. It was at my request. A year is long enough to sit on an idea, and where it down, until, it is no more threatening than my age painted this. I was actually a little bit excited to receive it, as while I will not be using it for fiction it will enable me to properly e-mail all you far-flung distant beautiful friends. I have missed you.

Unfortunately, many in technology, well, we have “issues". When I installed Dragon Dictate it politely informed me that it refused to run on the current version of Eddie's operating system. Fussy little sheet. That shouldn't have been a problem, and I was quite happy to even pay for a legitimate upgrade (because Macs are just too weird and funky to our stuff on) and went to do that right away. However, Apple beings so forwardthinking shooter orientated, and all that, there was no option to simply download the upgrade. Noel. They insisted on shipping me the physical disk. Which... Was not what I wanted this year on the first day of the four-day long weekend.

Beach ripe Martin.

I cultivated some patients (meaning I stole some from our little old lady on a Zimmer frame outside the supermarket) and ordered the damp upgrade will stop. It was not delivered on Wednesday. It was delivered on Thursday. And of course Apple use a courier service so they weren't going to just shove it in the letterbox. I had to sign for it. So I missed that first delivery, and low! The next delivery would not be until Tuesday due to new years public holiday will stop. Fine stop. That's just fine. Fortunately they agreed to deliver to my workplace which happened on Tuesday quite early, and it was just a CD case. It's not even like it was a big cardboard box of new slots packaging will stop they could have quite easily have shoved in the letterbox. It was only $40. The.

After doing a quick backup of all my necessary files, of which I'm sure I forgot many, I upgraded Eddie's operating system. Which was surprisingly painless.

Then I ran Dragon Dictate.

Then, I pulled out the fancy Swedish headset that my family had also given me for an extra $100 and went to plug it in. The fancied swish headset has a USB plug that is the some reason ridiculously why stop.

Eddie has only two USB ports.

I could not plug the headset in and have my ergonomic keyboard plugged in at the same time.

Can't.

I can tell you right now I did not just say “can't" Asian stop.

So I had to unplug my ergonomic keyboard, which meant that Eddie could not sit in he's nice ergonomic laptop stand, as it covers his own keyboard. This seems to be, I don't know, ergonomic forces at wall? I know. Factions of occupational health and safety revolution coming into conflict and you're getting distracted so that they not actually fighting the problem which is RSI and instead bed is fighting each other and... It is a little bit frustrating. I'm going to have to buy a USB hub. The better Eddie gets for my hands, the first portable he becomes.

So. There we are a will stop. As you can see, I have a little bit of trouble ending sentences. I haven't corrected anything in this post. For ease of reading I will go back and insert paragraph breaks.

And then, I am going to teach this program how to swear will stop.

Expletive. Blasphemy. Expletive.

The Year of Vanished Fish

Hey, you.

You're a bit lost right now, a bit bewildered to find your foundations absent and sureties you had taken for granted now unsteady things. There is, abruptly, a fog of uncertainty in your head, obfuscating your present and making a smeared water-colour painting of the future you're trying to aim at. You've never coped well with uncertainty, being a touch too gifted at taking all potential hypotheses into consideration when presented with any decision, but you're doing okay for now. Ish. Okay-ish.

That's all we can hope for, really. The uncertainty is you. Or rather, you are uncertain about all things including yourself. Especially yourself. You do not trust your own judgment, nor your capacity for logic, nor your ability to function. Lately, you've found yourself a startlingly unpredictable creature. Mood swings that have no trigger you can identify, nor any overarching plot to trace too. Violent bouts of crying that blindside you like a brick and disappear just as abruptly, leaving you nothing short of perplexed and confused, because while that violence ambushes you, you don't feel it.

What are you? You are not known to yourself. Not right now. For perhaps the first time. Your mind is now terra incognita.

No idea how people live like this.

In the interests of getting to know you, me, I, us, them, let's try a little exercise. I know it will be tough, because we've already tried this a couple of times with the result being Ctrl+A, Delete. I know your heart isn't in it, because mine sure as hell isn't.

But for the you, me, her, them that come back from the future to read this, some balance is required. This blog has become an unhappy place. You, I, we're only recording the misery. That's no fault of yours, I know. Processing the turbulence is more important than maintaining balance for the readers. But let's just try, okay? For you, me, us, them. For later.

Without further ado; things that made 2010 worth living.

And without further ado; I have deleted the list created.

Partly because it was forced. There is no capacity within me to be grateful for the privileges I've enjoyed the year passed. I acknowledge them, but right now I cannot feel them, and so to speak of them would be an exercise in lying to myself.

Also, I am battered and bruised and flinching. There is no capacity within me to trust the randomness of the world and its enduring capacity for capriciousness. If I were to announce the small wonders I hold close, then the acknowledgment would drive the world to then poison those wonders. Let them stay precious for now. Let them stay private. Let them be only mine.

Last year everything clicked into place. It was as though you had finally reached the age you have always been, and fit your skin and personality for the first time. You're a school of fish, and last year the fish swum out of their chaotic lack of coordination and began to move as one.

If you are composed of a million pieces, and those million pieces move as one, then that is almost the same as being composed of one single piece.

Almost.

Here and now, some of the fish are missing. Not eaten, not fled, simply disappeared. The remaining fish do not roil in confusion, although they are confused. They are lost. They don't know where they are going, and so they are not going anywhere.

You're a school of fish, full of holes and still in the water.

Sharks will find you if you stay like this.

2011 is going to wear me down. The decisions I've made will involve a great deal of fenangaling, and I expect to melt down often and with significant fallout. Even from out here the plans scare the shit out of me, but, scary things are worth doing. Remember that.

I wish I could go sailing into this year hollering and wild-eyed with some misguided sense of glory, delirious anticipation of the mistakes and messes I am to make, impatient for my triumphs and awards, and full of hunger for all that is unknown ahead of me. I wish I still had that strength, that willful heedlessness to all that might rend and scar. I wish I still knew that I would conquer the world.

It's come to three letters, two nested, each responding to the last, because by all that is infuriating and exasperating, THERE IS TOO MANY ME. We are an arrhythmic school of fish, and every damn fish has something to say. We, Planet Tessa, a fucking hivemind of one.

We have something to say to ourselves.

Maybe I'm not a school of fish, maybe I'm a migration of Golden Rays, or Blue Fin Tuna, or Wilderbeast. Maybe parts of me are meant to split off. Maybe my identity is meant to diverge and separate and be a fractured thing that will, later, come together again as something new.

It's 12.34am, and my ears are ringing with the memory of music. Music = mountains. There's mountains in me now, as intangible as music. This duality of being both immense and macroscopic in their extremes simultaneously is rare these days, it doesn't sweep through and out my head as often as it used to. But it is here now, and so I will ride it and say this.

You will not escape this year resolutionless. I had thought to let you off the hook this time, as the pressure of promises won't help you right now, and there are so many things you want to address, the size of the list alone will choke you.

You choked a lot in 2010. You're scared.

Now, now, now you'll be the spread lace of the Frilled-Neck Lizard, the raised quills of the Crested Porcupine, and the rampant fluffage of the White-faced Scops Owl. You're not dangerous, but you can pretend to be.



What do puffer fish do when they are frightened?

They make themselves look a damn sight sillier, but the point is made. In taking damage, they defeat their adversaries.

You are not strong, little fish, but you will be brave.




Also, you need a haircut.