[Not] Omelette

Oh.

You know, I was about to write about seagulls, and then I checked my mail and found this piece of spam, and I think I'm going to copy 'n paste it and burn the fucker into your eyeballs.

1943: BERCHTESGADEN

Hitler gasped f or air. His left ha nd held a g l ass jar over the head
of his penis. His body suddenly spasmed against the plush of the
soft leather couch. A primeval scream p ar tially suppressed
through clenched teeth resounded through the room. The sound
was deadened by the rich tapestries that covered the walls of
the se m i-dark office.

Still breathing heavily, the leader of the Third Reich held the jar
up t o a light and studied the sticky substance s lowly sliding down
the insides of the container. He stood, screwed the cap into
place and set the jar on his desk next to the untouched
photographs of nude women in various provocative poses. He
fo r ced his still semi-erect penis into his pants and buttoned
his fly.

He looked down to see if his clothes were in proper array.
Satisfie d , he bent over and picked up the pictur e of his mother
t hat had fallen f r om his lap during the final moment of ecstasy.
He s l id the picture into the inside breast pocket of his tunic
making sure it was deeply seated. H e then pressed a buzzer
and left the room.

Moments later, Colonel Ludwig Schmidt, wearing the uniform
of the elite SS guard, enter e d and gathered the photographs.
He placed th e m in an envelope that had been lying on the desk.
The e nv elope wa s marked "TOP SECRET" in bold red letters
across its front and back. The Colonel then took the jar and
placed it in an insulated steel cased box packed with dry ice.
He closed the cover and secured it with a heavy brass lock.

From his pocket he removed a small candle and cigarette lighter.
After lighting the candle he held it so that the hot wax dripped
into the keyhole and the surrounding area of the lock. He then
pressed the face of a signet ring he was wearing against the still
soft wax. He then left the room taking the envelope and the box
with him.

;

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE, ONE YEAR L A TER

& n bsp;

The submarine's periscope cleaved the warm waters of the
Caribbean Sea exposing no more than two feet of camouflaged
metal above the lapping waves. It slowly rotated, scanning the
horizon through the splash caused by the mild tropical winds.
The b r ight moonlight ma d e the lone freighter on the horizon
stand out in bold silhouette.

"Down periscope," the Captain said, smartly folding the handle
bars. He turned to the young blond militarily erect man dressed
in ordinary seaman's clothes and said, "Come Colonel Schmidt,
let us go to my quarters and go over the plans for transferring
the pers o nnel to the freighter."

 

Sitting at the steel planning desk in the cramped quarters the
Captain faced the Colonel and said, "It i s no secret the war is
going badly. The Allies are dominating the sea lanes and I have
grave doubts about my ability to get this sub and its crew back
to the Fatherland. It is one thing to die for the Fuhrer in battle;
it is quite another to play nursemaid to a dozen pregnant women.
Can you not tell me as officer to officer what this is all about?

I promise you the information will go no further than within this
room. It would make our fate more bearable if I knew the
sacrifice was of consequential importance." The Colonel studied
the su b marine's Captain across the desk before ans w ering.
"The twelve women are pregnant with the Fuhrer's children."

The Captain sat dumbfounded. Finally he said, "Gottimhimmel!
How is it possible? All twelve? W hy are they on this U-boat?
What is this all about ?& quot; As he starte d to speak, the Colo n el's
voice ros e from low key to a hysterical crescendo. "As you
observed, Captain, the war is going badly. Our Fuhrer is a
brilliant man. He sees far beyond the immediacy of today's
b a ttles—won or lost.

He p l ans only for the u l timate domination of> this globe by p u re
Aryans. The twelve women represent the best of German
womanhood, each the purest Aryan. Each selected for breeding
qualities of health and intelligence. Each from families that bore
predominantly male offspring.

“Through th e use of eugenic s e lection and artificial insemination
it is the Fuhrer's plan to father a child in his own image.
A c hild who would possess his genius and deter m ination.
That child will be raised in America and ultimately rise to a
position of pow e r. In America he will plant the seeds that will
mature into the Fourth Reich. He will become—The American Fuhrer.

That is quite possibly the best piece of spam I've ever had the misfortune to receive. Why couldn't it have arrived before the close of the Weird Tales Spam Fiction Contest? Now I'm going to inebriate myself and do the dishes. Love you / air kiss.

What's in a name?

Optus is still fucking with my email. Not everything is getting to me, not everything is getting out from me. Trying to work around that.

I was attempting to set up sirtessa as a gmail account, but due to having that username and blogger being bought by google, I ended up with wonky accounts, and in an effort to set everything up in the one google account, deleted sirtessa as a gmail address.

After which I read the bit about the username never being available again.

Fuckberries.

I've bitten the bullet and just gone with my name. If you know it, you know it, if you don't, it isn't hard to find. I avoid using my surname because a) I'm the only person with my name in the world, b) I'm not sure if, on the path to being a Rockstar Superhero Mad Ninja God Author, it's a surname I'll be retaining, and c) it makes this blog pop up on porn searches in google. For Serious.

I've set up all three addresses to reply from the gmail one, so if you're too lazy to update your address books, don't sweat it.

(Actually, I'm not sure if the aunix one is set up properly either...I've sent, but has anyone received?)

In the process of sorting out that gmail account, I discovered I'd already registered it, and had mail in it from 2004. Ummm, sorry about that, you know who you are.

Tangent!

This post triggered a chewy discussion on "the mechanics of forgiveness", to steal the phrase from Kirsten Bishop.

I particularly like the last comment left by Deborah Biancotti;

'I forgive you', for me, does not translate into 'what you did was OK' or even 'we are OK' -- it is 'I am OK'.

And maybe it's 'you are freed from my previous need for you to address the hurt you caused me'. To be complicated about it.

Which I think is the purest ideal of forgiveness, and something worth cultivating in yourself.

That said, I will not, at the present, be using that definition of forgiveness on myself. If applied to me it reveals that I've never forgiven anyone in my life. BECAUSE I'M A MEAN BITTER SHRIVELED UP LITTLE HAGFISH. AND I EAT DESSICATED BABIES FOR BREAKFAST.

If anyone else has any thoughts to add, I'd love to hear them. I think I've said all I have to say, but given forgiveness is an intensely personal process, I'm sure there are approach vectors we've missed.

Actually, fuck forgiveness. If anyone has any tales of RAW AND STEAMING VENGEANCE, goddamn, share them.

Running While Standing Still

I’ve been thinking about vengeance. There’s a word that has it’s own sort of onamotapea. Venge has the same grunt of strain and force and motion as lunge, it’s the thrust of the blade, which comes up to smack hard on ge, as the hilt smacks on skin and bone, a moment of stillness before eance, a sibilant exhalation that comes after that act, that comes from either side of the knife.

It’s an idea that occasionally looks like justice, but from here the two don’t appear to have much in common. Vengeance sinks its roots in a reaction that can only be described as “how dare you.” A certain level of self-importance is required for such a reaction to occur, which enables anyone to take anything as a personal affront, and then seek to learn the offender of their mistakes, and learn them real good. It demands that the world respect or fear them, regardless of what the initial affront and its magnitude or triviality may have been. That self-importance is all that is needed to justify actions that are not always warranted, on either a personal, moral or social scale.

Suffice it to say, I don’t possess the required degree of self-importance.

I was thinking about forgiveness, a word that sounds nothing like what it is. Given my predilection for latching onto and holding long, entirely pointless and totally eventless grudges, it’s a habit I’ve been trying to cultivate. At first it seemed forgiveness should be indiscriminate, which is just what happens when you’re trying to find balance on new ground – you go too far in the wrong direction.

Forgiveness is no small thing (especially when you’re a grumpy old man), and is not doled out freely. I’ve found I don’t want to deal it out willy-nilly; forgiveness is like respect, it needs to be earned, not expected. Forgiveness means nothing when it isn’t met with an oncoming apology or acknowledgement of things past. If I’m not worth apologising to, then you’re not worth forgiving.

I was thinking about forgetting.

Which isn’t possible.

Finally, I was thinking about what was left for me to do.

The only course of action left is to run. It’s a familiar tactic. I have more practice at it than is strictly necessary and it's a dirty habit, but right now it’s the sensible thing to do. Saying nothing and doing nothing, I’ll flee through time, and every day without earthquakes and every day I see the end of is another day I’ve won, and I’ll put each of these days here, between then and now, until the distance is so great and old hurts are scarred over with new hurts and all history is no longer of any concern to me.

I know these are all just amusing stories in the making. Look at the past through the lens of so many days and nothing means anything anymore.

Confession, or, Self-Imposed Drought Due To Communist Conspiracy

I haven't read a book in nearly 8 months.

Does that statement freak you out? It freaks me out. Various people I've said it to have got this look on their face, and the response is usually along the lines of "who are you and what have you done with Tessa?" Which is a pretty good question.

It isn't as though I haven't been reading stories. I've mauled three and a half manuscripts, and will be starting a fourth soon, not to mention all the reading for Weird Tales (a task that is perpetually surprising in both good and bad ways). Yet reading to provide feedback is a markedly different process than reading because you want to. I half wonder if I hit some sort of criticism burnout, but I doubt it.

Maybe it's because I haven't been able to create a dedicated reading space or time. The move to the city took away the time I spent reading on the train, and there was nowhere in the apartment to settle into for the long haul other than the bed. Maybe, but I doubt it.

Maybe it's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which has had a bookmark stuck somewhere in chapter 2 for the past 8 months. Don't get me wrong, it's a good book, but, you know...eh, I doubt it.

I'm pretty sure it's the symptom of a prolonged hissy fit.

When you're going through the emotional wringer, it is hard not to lash out at something. Anything. In an effort not to be a total jerk at people who didn't deserve it, my resentment of the world at large ended up being channeled towards something that both meant a lot to me and couldn't fight back (a very important trait when you're looking for a fight).

It isn't such a hard leap to make, when you think about it. Most books offer some sort of closure, or sense of balance and sweet holy fuck, they're qualities that life fails at, astonishingly so. Even those books that offer no answers or neat resolution are guilty of aggravation because they end. The words stop, there are no more pages, there is nothing more that the story can do to the characters. Life tends to just, keep, going, long after the story has ended.

'Allergic to fiction' I said, the same way people are allergic to others who have what they want.

It's stupid, but at least makes more sense than blaming a run of bad luck on some communist ufo government secret society conspiracy.

At least, I think so.

Oh shoosh.

8 months is, I think, long enough for a hissy fit. (Actually, that's quite a spectacular hissy fit.) There's a book-shaped hole in my life that, as vacuums do, is sucking me in. I still have no proper reading space or reading time, other than the odd hour spent at the laundromat, but desire is a force strong enough to bend time and space to its will.

Baby steps, as they say. I will finish Kavalier & Clay, one visit to the laundry at a time.

The Red Paintings

I discovered The Red Paintings a little while back. I had one track of theirs, a cover of Mad World, which was just brilliant, probably my favourite version of this song, which says a lot.

Finally, I bought Feed the Wolf, which is one of those rare albums that on first listen I didn't merely enjoy, but had my attention demanded and grabbed and held hostage till the last note ended, at which point I put it on repeat and sat in the dark for some time. I love the cello, but the piano knows me best, and when both instruments come together I can't help but stop everything else and listen.



We Belong In The Sea has that effect on me.

Somehow I managed to completely miss the fact that they're playing a free show at the Hi-Fi Bar TONIGHT.

!!!!!

Tickets have already all gone, but I've been advised to just turn up anyway. And oh I shall, even if all I do is loiter at the door listening. Eeee!

"I'm not foreign; I'm exotic."

The wonderful awesome amazing spectacular Jaime pointed this at me, and you must on love on her for it. This video concerns racism in Australia, and is hilarious and true. Especially about the tooth pick thing (except we keep ours in the kitchen drawer). I've watched it four times and counting, think I'm about to make it five.

Also, optus has been playing up in terms of email delivery; most messages get through, albeit hours late, and some are bouncing. If you require me to save the world, please use the bat tessa signal.

ETA: filched from deep sea news--



GIANT FLYING 100 YEAR OLD LOBSTER! Further details and move here.

filched from boingboing--



96 tentacled octopus! Which is...whoa. Every hentai-lover's dream come true. But imagine trying to do anything when you have 96 tentacles? "Still...cannot...grip...tweezers...!"

/end nightshift

GFA! GFA!

FAMOUS SITE is R'lyeh, CTHULHU's most cyclopean crib. He was just chilling, checking Facebook when all this obnoxious braying started, and lo! GIANT FLYING ASS MULE. Cthulhu is all, "this is restricted airspace, get out of my yard!" and Anti-Facebook Ass is all, "he-HAAAAAAAAAAW! he-HAAAAAW-dude are you in your undies?"

(I started painting this before reading ~'s comment, which means ~ is in possession of some serious mind control ray.)

GFU! GFU!

You ask for giant flying underpants!



We give you giant flying underpants! An Uluru! Here at Tessadom we bring joy to the world! Huzzah!

GFP! GFP! AFB!

I'm never painting a city again. They're on the ban list with assmonkeys and mosh pits. Seriously. Fuck Paris.



Giant Evil Hover Penguin and a Fish Bomb will do that for me.

GFDUAG! GFDUAG!

So...



...apparently giant flying deformed upside down albino greyhounds are something of an achilles' heel for me.

I'm hitting the nightshift wall pretty hard, as is indicated by the fact that the sky is overcast just so I wouldn't have to futz about with a shadow, and that the location is over the open sea.

For the record, they are not floating dog turds. The sea in question is the Sargasso Sea and those are clumps of sargassum, a seaweed that grows in great clumps. See Hodgson's stories for further information (it's far more terrifying and wonderful a concept in fiction).

GFD! GFD!

Continuing FAMOUS PLACES and GIANT FLYING THINGS, a badly rendered dugong idling above the Great Pyramids (also badly rendered). I know the flippers are too far back and too fat, but correcting that made it look like I was drawing baby seal pups, and aw hell no.

It's a very silly place to put a flying dugong. There's nothing for them to eat there. Be better over a savannah or meadows.

GFSB! GFSB!

Continuing the theme of FAMOUS PLACES and GIANT FLYING THINGS, here we see Mt Fuji and a Sucky Bus. The request was actually for a succubus, but...yanno.

Watch out Godzilla. Step aside Gamera. Roll over Ultraman. Sucky Bus is here.

GFS! GFS!

I failed to achieve critical mass, and so there will be no 7wishes this nightshift. Which means it’s mouse painting time! The evening was spent in the company of the Aanimal who has been tromping about Peru, and has greatly agitated the travel bug in me. Tonight’s painting is a direct result of that; I give you an artist’s impression of Machu Picchu, doodled from memory from hundreds of photos (see, there’s even the Sun Gate and Wayna Picchu, how good am I?).



And some giant flying sharks. Because when people talk about the collapse of civilisation, they’re talking about giant flying sharks. When people talk about sun worship, they’re talking about giant flying sharks. When people talk about anything at all, they’re talking about Giant. Flying. Sharks.

If you disapprove of this elegant piece of art, you have no choice but to tell me what I should be painting. Art critic rage in the comments, go!

Ninja Says

Ninja Says

contrary

I just caught up with all currently followed blogs and feeds, and-

Maybe having internet access is a bad idea.
Maybe I just need to reinstall an emotional buffer.
Maybe there should be no contact with the world after midnight.

I feel pummelled and overwhelmed and sad.

Everyone I owe stuff to; it's coming. You know, eventually. Sorta.

Ninja Says

My MacBook here just died. No warning, no errors, it just turned itself off. Like it fainted. Which for a moment I assumed meant the battery was flat, but it's at 42%. Que? Eddie, please don't be getting crotchety on me! I love you, my facsist white laptop!

The First (new) Rule of Tessadom

1. No crying in the bedroom.

I’d decided on this before I moved into this place, although by then it was already far too late to try implement such a thing in the city apartment. When I wrote this post way back when (which at the time I thought was overly melodramatic, and in hindsight think it’s sadly lacking in exaggeration), all that had been the daily routine for a couple of weeks already, and it never really changed. It wasn’t quiet soulful little tears and a sniff either. It was violent, frighteningly so, it was screaming without sound, and no matter how much I gave in and let it out, there was always more, more, more. Whole nights were devoured by crying, until the sun rose or I took drugs, and then the alarm would go off, and before I’d even rolled over I’d be crying again, as if the intervening hours of unconsciousness had never happened.

After some six months of that, you have to start questioning the whole deal.

I started to worry about the long-term effects of prolonged and regular tearstorms, because that can’t be good for your eyes. Would the constant pressure damage them? Would, if the crying stopped, they be unable to cope without all the extra tears and dry out and die? Were my tear ducts going to wear out? Was my face going to fall off? No one notices when you turn up to work with a puffy face and shadowed eyes if you do it every single day.

Then I started to wonder why it never stopped. What caused it was damn freaking obvious, but the intensity and frequency went above and beyond what was warranted. Maybe it wasn’t just coming from me. Maybe it was the apartment, and it had some messed up super freak-out amplifying feng shui going on. In which case, it wouldn’t matter whether or not I had a reason to cry, I was fucked anyway.

Or maybe, since I’d been so careless about where I was doing my crying – this bit of carpet, that bit of carpet, those steps, that corner, this chair, the bed, the tiles, the other tiles, by the window, against the cupboard, etc etc etc – I’d inadvertently contaminated the whole apartment with emotional pollution and mental detritus, and with nowhere to go it just built up and concentrated until stepping through the front door was like stepping into a nuclear reactor of psychic horror. It’s a wonder anyone could visit at all.

Whatever the cause (if there was one), it panned out as these things do, and I came to associate the apartment with being nigh hysterical with misery. It reached the point where I didn’t want to go home after work, because that just meant starting another round of tearstorms.

I’m not keen on living in a space like that again, hence this new rule. No contamination of sleeping space, and given the desk is in the bedroom, hopefully no blogging while crazy. Which won’t stop me, I can always take my laptop into the lounge room.

It’ll be a challenge, as there’s nothing better to do in that space between turning on the light and falling to sleep than brood and dwell and mope. But it’s winter, and damned if I’m getting out of bed to go cry in the kitchen in winter. The first week it was pretty easy, as I was exhausted and busy and everything was shiny and new. It isn’t hard to be distracted by the excitement of new things.

But the dust has settled and the shine has worn off, and I’ve rediscovered that nothing has changed. At the end of the day I’m still a bitter, lonely, frightened fuckup with a broken heart and a sick mother and apocalyptic dreams.

And this fuckup won’t be crying in the bedroom. This fuckup won’t be sleeping in emotional pollution again. This fuckup won’t hate her bed, or fear stepping through the front door, or loose control of her space.

Because this fuckup really doesn’t want her face to fall off.

Heart Attack, Happy Dance, Can't Get This

I had a heart attack today, although not in the usual sense. It would be more accurate to say that I had an attack of the heart. Although not a day goes by in which my heart does not feel under attack from the world at large, so perhaps it would be more accurate to say 'this thing happened'.

Today, this thing happened.

I took a moment to zone out - from the report I was doing, the conversations around me, the various radios fighting for earspace, the office lights - and from nowhere felt sad. Not a wave a sadness, as that implies direction. It was a pulse, from the heart, and it thumped out like blood, just once, and faded away. It blindsided me. I hadn't been coasting near thoughts that made me sad, and I had not spent the day fighting off melancholy, in fact it was quite a cackle filled shift. It was pure sadness too, not tainted with regret, anger, despair or any other sort of emotion so easily confused with it. I sat quietly until it went away.

It's a puzzle, and I've been chewing over it since it happened. Normally I'm quite good at figuring out my own triggers, and why I react to something in any one way, but this sadness had no trigger. It was not a reaction. It shouldn't have been felt, and even as it spread through my limbs a part of me was already analysing and confused. I don't know where it came from, and having decided that I won't ever know that, I've started chasing sillier thoughts, and wonder if maybe some particular combination of lights and sounds or the way my gaze slid across this particular sentence triggered some flex in my brain, or connected the sadness dots, just for one pulse.

If I could find the sounds and movement to spontaneously trigger glee, I would bomb you with it.

Here is a video of people dancing around the world (as filched from boingboing).


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

It is quite unabashedly full of joy, glee, dorkery, and is beautiful. It made me think of my sad pulse. Sadness is a strange emotion, elusive and quiet and rare. It is beautiful, perhaps the calmest of all the negative emotions. Joy and sadness are not so different, methinks. They're as hard to find as each other.

Someone came to this blog using "CAN I GET TESS" in google. The answer is "yes". The next question is "but why would you?"

Ninja Says

BOOM DE YADAAAA

I loved this xkcd comic, but having learned of its source, I love it moar.



Several times this clip has been watched, and will be watched again, and I think I'm going to seek out an mp3. SBS used the line "the world is an amazing place" for years, and may still do. Lack of TV exposure in recent months amplifies my ignorance in this field. It's a great line, and very true, but it's delivered by the SBS voice over guy, and he's...well, he's the SBS voice over guy. He has a Deep Serious Meaningful Voice. Whereas this ad revels in dorky glee, and "the world is just awesome" is a sentence that does the same.

True glee is very, very dorky.

From BoingBoing, images of London and the rising sea levels.



Which is almost exactly what I was aiming for with this 7wishes post, except I don't believe London will have crocodiles. I don't know how my new abode would cope with a rising sea, I suspect the sea wouldn't reach it particularly fast. I'm not on the ground floor anyway. Don't need to worry about flooding, just crocodiles. The flyscreen comes off and the window is wind out. I could cast lines out the bedroom and catch lunch, just like these women.

"...it's weird and pissed off, whatever it is."

This sassy woman can do this-



-with her tongue.

And I can't.

And this vexes me. I mean, I can see how it's done but I can't make my tongue do that. I don't think I have enough tongue. If any of you can do this, post pictures, so that I may feed my overbearing sense of failure and inadequecy.

Food Of The Gods, When They Can’t Get Anything Better (Which Is Never, Because Really, You’re Not Much Of A God If You Can’t Get Betterer Food)

Buy the smallest brown onion you can find. No, smaller. There’ll be a smaller one in there somewhere.

Take it home and chop it finely. Finer. Lean away from the rising tear gas, whup, too late. Now you’re crying, and it’s too late to realise that maybe you shouldn’t have cut the onion first.

Throw half the onion out. I understand that onions must be included in some recipes for the sake of taste, but I’m not that keen on onion. Put the remaining onion in a big bowl. Cry some more.

Start chopping mushrooms. In my opinion, there’s no such thing as too much mushroom, but some other random heathen scumbags beg to differ. Chop as much as you like. I love peeling mushrooms, and the knife slides through them like nothing else, which is one of the reasons anything I cook with mushrooms has too much mushroom. Cover the onion with the mushroom. Maybe you’ll stop crying soon?

Chop some broccoli. This doesn’t add anything to the taste or texture, I’m just not comfortable cooking several meals worth of food that doesn’t contain some green. Don’t put the stems in, they never soften up. Just trim the bibbly bits. These will get everywhere, all over the bench and the floor. At least you’re not crying now.

Tear half a cooked chook to pieces. Little shreds. With your fingers. Knives are for pussies. Try not to eat too much of the chicken, as by this point you’ll realise that you’re fucking STARVING and you haven’t even turned the stove on yet.

Turn stove on. Drop oil in pan. Drop crushed garlic in pan. Drop risotto rice in pan. Some more. Is that enough? Can’t tell. Some more. Maybe? Dunno. Some more. Some more. Oh, that’ll do. Mix it around in the oil.

Add white wine. This is an exciting new step. While the recipe has always called for white wine, I’ve never been able to find those little satchets of wine for cooking before. I have no idea how much to put in. I put the lot in. This is a bad move. Don’t do this. There is such a thing as too much white wine. Put, I don’t know, less in. You cooking people know better than me.

Add chicken stock. Stir. Listen to stove make strange groaning sound. Stir. Make cup of tea. Stir. Nibble things. Stir. Add more stock. Stir. Drink tea. Stir. Restart album. Stir. Drink tea. Stir. Add pepper. Nibble more things. Stir. And more stock. Stir. Stare at the wall. Stir. Remember to turn fan on. Stir. Add more stock. Stir. Fiddle with heat. Stir. Scatch head. Stir. Nibble things. Stir. Drink remainder of tepid tea. Stir. Add more stock. Stir. Stare at wall. Stir. Rinse mug. Stir. Boil kettle again. Stir. Make another cup of tea. Stir. Add more stock. Stir. Get slightly impatient and dump chicken/broccoli/mushrooms/onion in pan. Stir enegetically. Add more stock. Stir. Change spoon arms. Stir. Go get chair and sit in front of stove. Stir. Add more stock. Stir. Drink tea. Stir. Stare at wall. Stir. Compose longwinded posts in your head. Stir. Add more stock. Stir. Taste. Realise rice isn’t nearly cooked. Add all remaining stock. Stir. Turn heat up. Stir. Turn heat down. Stir. Add water. Stir. Quietly starve to death. Stir. Watch clock not go faster. Stir. Add water. Stir. Stir furiously. Stir anti-clockwise. Stir in swirly patterns. Stir in secret letters. Stir.

Go to toilet.

Add shaved parmesan. Stir. Add more. Stir. Add more. Stir. Add more, hell, when is it going to actually look like it’s made a difference? Add more. Stir. Taste. Can’t taste parmesan. Dump remainder of bag in pan. Stir. Taste. Still can’t taste parmesan. Stir. This batch tastes bland. Stir. Ponder why. Stir. Theorise that a cooked chook from the chook shop on the corner does not containing the delicious seasoning of a Safeway cooked chook, which is what is normally used. Stir. Decided this to be true. Stir. Vote to only use Safeway cooked chooks from here on. Stir. Ponder the obstacle of there being no Safeway nearby whatsoever. Stir. Realise two and a half hours have passed and you’re feeling faint from hunger.

At this point, you’ll have to decided for yourself when it’s done, according to how thick you like your risotto. Either way, if you like it thick or runny, by now it should look fucking disgusting. It should look like the bottom of an old garbage can. It should look like serious vomit. Your arm should hurt like a bitch. You arm should hurt so bad you can’t even lift a fork, you can’t even feed yourself and have no choice but to just not eat this disgusting looking meal you’ve just created. So you slap it in Tupperware containers where it looks even grosser, and walk away.



At about 10.39pm, you’ll remember that you haven’t actually put the containers in the freezer, and you’ll have to get out of your nice snugly warm bed and do so or who knows what it will look like in the morning.

This has been Cooking With Sir Tessa.

Suckers.

What Would Ninja Do?

Ninja really did vanish.

I went to take some more Tour de Tessadomicile photos, and I could not find Ninja. Where was Ninja? Not where I had left him. Ninja vanished. Being as Ninja is about 5 cm tall, Ninja was unlikely to be found. Rotten Ninja. Flash some crappy carpet and they get all "oooh, I feel faint I think I need to go home." I rummaged through my toy box, but there was nothing else that seemed suitable, or at least had an obvious character voice.

This made me very sad.

Until this morning, when I opened my underwear drawer, and found Ninja.

So, for those of you who have ever asked yourselves What Would Ninja Do? The answer is: dive into a pit of undies. That's the only reason anyone becomes a ninja. OBVIOUSLY.

Bigger, Better, Badder Than Dr Who

Me Mam finished knitting a scarf I started some years ago.



Tis obnoxiously huge and warm and smothering and I haven't taken it off since she handed it to me. Winter is suddenly less of an ordeal. I think I could take on every winter in the history of all winters in this scarf.

Am moved, but not unpacked. Today is for cleaning the old apartment. In my scarf.

And That's That

There's a sort of jet lag that comes with nightshift, which sees me awake at 4am. As a result, I finished packing before lunch time, and now I'm just tooling around killing time, because there's nothing for me to do at home except play with my belly button. It's all books in boxes.

I feel I should do something significant to mark my last night in this place. My first home all to myself, first sign that I'm a big kid now. It's a quirky apartment, like living in an Escher painting with strange angles and bits that stick out in unexpected places and my post-industrial view and the pigeons that tap the window in the small hours of the night. It has character. But, for various reasons, I never made it into a home. It was only ever a place to live.

I'll miss living in the city. With the market behaving the way it is, I doubt it's a lifestyle I'll be able to afford ever again. The things you see when you're walking in the quiet hours of the morning or the fat hours of the night can't be beat. I love love love walking to work, and that's what I regret losing most. If anyone has the opportunity to live within walking distance of your job, DO EEET.

I'll miss free wifi too. INTERNET WILL HAPPEN but who knows how long set up takes.

I look forward to living among trees again, big fat sassy trees dropping crap everywhere. I look forward to fish 'n chips on a Friday night, which is only a suburban phenomenon. I look forward to a kitchen with a door, which will not make every single item I own smell like whatever it is I'm eating.

I look forward to my new place, and the home I will make of it.

And I ain't sacrificing anything to Our Lady of Cardboard Boxes this time. She's already taken a fair chunk of my peace of mind, greedy old hag. Chew on that and rot.

Uhh...

There is mold in my microwave.



First, what the fuck?

I am NOT that grotty, I have never been that grotty, I clean that damn thing because I don't want it looking like the microwave at work. I sprayed it. With stuff that kills things that grow. THERE SHOULD BE NOTHING ALIVE IN THERE.

Second, what the fuck?

It's a MICROWAVE. It's my own personal nuclear reactor it's a bloody damn MICROWAVE. It kills things. It makes dead things deader. THERE SHOULD BE NOTHING ALIVE IN THERE.

Which means it might be undead.

Or mutant.

Do you think I get superhero powers if I lick it?

I dreamed I was kidnapped by guerilla horticulturalists and forced to tend to plants, day and night, and learn nusery fu. They were very strict, but I learned a lot, and woke with a greater understanding of my ignorance when it comes to plants. There was one fruit, a cross between a tomato, a chilli and a strawberry, that I grew very fond of, and spent most of my energy attempting to steal/eat.

My brother, on discovering that I said "guerilla horticulturalists" and not "gorilla horticulturalists", was very disappointed.

Giant Isopodes Nom Doritos

And;

You do not need to see the happening, which I shall not give capital letters to. I did not need to see it either, but I did see it, and all that suicide was not what I really wanted right after nightshift.

and the world spins madly on

It was my birthday a couple of weeks back. It marked 27 years of accumulated history and a few more layers added to my memory strata.

I’m told that one of the greatest things to be gained with age is growing more comfortable with yourself as a whole. It’s a nice thought, definitely something to look forward to, and yet-

And yet, I don’t think I want to be comfortable with what I am. Like people who become comfortable in obese bodies and in abusive relationships. I’m a bad fit, in this skin, in this skull, in this life. May I never grow comfortable with that, may I stay itchy and restless and never settle and never accept that this is all I am. That would be defeat. Some wars aren’t meant to be won, but not winning is not the same as being defeated.

Being 26 was unpleasant. It was rather like suffocating in scrotum. Sweating hairy rank scrotum that came in great filthy sticky folds. Gross and embarrassing and relentless. Being 26 was quite possibly worse than being 16, although I don’t think the two can be compared, being different people in different times and different places.

I can’t complain (but I sure do), the hardest years are the ones in which we learn the most, in which we are tested and grow, one way or another. It is better to grow than stagnate, but it has been a very steep learning curve, and a non-stop one at that, and I think I’m burning out. Students at exam time go a little crazy, so overwhelmed by everything they have to process. Some down time would be nice, a chance to process everything churning around in my head and recharge all batteries, but I don’t think such time will be granted me any time soon.

Maybe I’ve already burnt out. Maybe I’m just tired. Or desperate. Or crazy. It’s hard to tell. From here, they all look the same. Rejections are necessary for writers, to help build a thick skin, like childhood sicknesses are necessary to build an immune system. Life might work like that for some people. I think I’m a castle, and every rock thrown at my walls just makes the cracks deeper and wider, until I’m so battered that it no longer takes a boulder to knock me down, some small rock will do, then not even rocks, just the passing breeze. Now I take damage from things that don’t even happen. I create my own damage, but it hardly shows up against everything else.

It’s funny, though, that in spite of how far I’ve come, hurtling another year through time, there are some lessons that I must keep on learning.

I wanted a hug. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted something so intensely before. The lack of having a source of hugs on tap made itself felt in my body, it was physical and a little scary. There’s some kink in my wiring and I assume that anything I want is something I should learn to live without (and even harder to fight, the possibility that in seeking the thing I want I will fail and be denied, which is a fear taller than I am), but I didn’t say no to a hug when it was there.

It wasn’t really the hug I wanted. I was looking for a safe place, and hugs are not safe places. There is no place more vulnerable, which is obvious, but rarely realised. Until you find you’ve gone and left yourself vulnerable to someone who doesn’t care. There are no safe places left in the world. I know this, but I have difficulty accepting it. I guess it’s just animal instinct to seek shelter, and Tessaism to do it wrong.

Learning this doesn’t stop me from being stupid. I had the chance to be weak and naked and vulnerable in front of someone who did care, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t say a word. I wanted to break down and didn't know how, and because of that I broke something important, something that mattered.

And that is the lesson I learn, and have to keep on learning. That I’m not the person I want to be, not even close. I can’t and haven’t ever been able to say the things that matter out loud. Maybe one day I will, because I don’t want to grow comfortable like this, but not today.

Until that day, I will do what I have always done, and write.

Goddamn this bloody fucking blog.

I have to take this space back, again, because I’m dumb and keep forgetting what it’s for. Like medication, I shy away from it. The idea of needing something in order to function as a normal person doesn’t taste good, but I just have to swallow that and deal with it. If hanging myself out to dry works, then it works. If When it comes back to bite me in the arse, I'll deal with that too. I know that just because I promise to come back doesn’t mean that anyone will wait for me, but for those of you who have, thank you. There’s no greater compliment you can give a person than your own time, and by merely reading this you give me more time than I deserve, truly.

I’m going to stretch your patience a little further, I’m afraid. There is a lot of junk I need to write out of my system. I’ve been looking for something in my head, in the streets, on the internet, and I haven’t come close to finding it. I think what I’m looking for can’t be found. I think I’m looking for the ground. Somewhere along the way I lost track of it, and now I’m just tumbling about in the sky, in orbit maybe, forever burning up in the atmosphere, forever falling, but never finding the ground. They say from up there you don’t feel yourself fall, you don't know up from down. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m desperate. Maybe I’m tired. It’s hard to tell. From here, they all look the same.

Maybe that’s because they are.

It’s a bit late to be asking for birthday presents, and a bit presumptuous too, but if you care to indulge me, then please, I’d like you to go and give someone a hug. Most people aren’t carrying around all my finely tuned neuroses, and everyone needs a hug. Go hug someone you know needs a hug, you suspect might want a hug, or even someone who doesn’t need a hug at all, but the receiving of one would just be a giant ripe sweet cherry on top of a glorious day. Hug them past the point where they lean in give you a pat and turn away, hug them till you have their attention and you’ve made them uncomfortable, hug them till they stop asking why you’re giving them this hug, and hug them till they’ve accepted this hug, and let themselves be engulfed in it, simple as that.

Here’s to you, and the safe places you make.

And if you get done for indecent assault, well, that's what you get for listening to strange people on the internet.

/end nightshift

Explorasaurus goes strange places and finds new dreams.

- to save the world, one light globe at a time.

The state government decided to continue on down the path that Earth Hour had started, a move which surprised everyone. The restrictions on night time energy use were introduced in stages, in regards as what lights had to be turned off where and when, for how long, and with gradually increasing penalties which were actually enforced, again to everyone’s surprise.

But a dark city is a dangerous city, and so other means to bring light to Melbourne were sought.

On this night I walk to work as on any other night, sloppily dressed among all those decked out club goers. Maybe I’ve walked Collins Street too often now, as there hasn’t been anything interesting to gawk at for a while. The appearance of some sort of work crew outside the Rialto slows my steps. They’re not construction, and they’re not window cleaners, and they’re not messing with the pavement. They appear to be sloshing about barrels full of sweet-smelling water.

It’s for the lichen, they answer, engineered to thrive in sugar water. We wash the buildings with this, and then spray the spores on while it’s still wet, so they stick. It doesn’t take long then, only a couple of days, for the lichen to grow and gain enough mass to produce light.

Bioluminescence? Someone on a committee somewhere is a nerd. Word up.

They let me peek in the back of a truck, at the trays of lichen already grown and glowing in a rainbow of clashing colours. These are for the streetlights, they point out the fittings, we’ll be able to custom grow shop signs and the like, but they’ll have to wait till we have all the buildings painted.

Wow, I say. Wow. Can I help?

They’re short of people willing to work night shift, and within a week I’m learning how to abseil, and I’m knocking on the windows of my old office at three in the morning before washing the windows with sugar water.

My old co-workers think I’m mad, climbing over skyscrapers in the middle of the night. What, they ask, are you doing? Really?

Saving the world.

It’s a never-ending job. Some lichen grows better on one type of surface than others, the body corporate of any office tower always has issues (usually regarding the colour) and the lichen itself is small and alive and not always co-operative. It does what it does, and grows and spores and grows and spores, and outbreaks of invading colour appear everywhere. It needs to be coaxed, fed and herded to the rims of windows to keep it from blocking the sun. It’s like horse whispering, we tell each other, feet to the glass and a fifteen storey drop below, only lichen muttering.

We are the lichen mutterers, saving the world, one light globe at a time.

You can tell us where ever we go. We drop glittering clouds of dust with our every move. The path I tread from the elevator to my door glows intensely even under the corridor lights. My bed is almost too bright to sleep in, and a new mattress every four months becomes a perk of the job. We all have to have our sheets washed at an industrial drycleaners. It’s hard to bring people home for nookie when your bed looks nuclear.

At sunset, I sit on the edge of a building roof, and watch the lights go out, block by city block, and listen to the unfolding of an empty space in the city soundscape as Melbourne’s power drops away, and as the sky darkens I watch the lichen wake up and my city glows a thousand different colours, and I’m in love.

It will be a problem, we tell each other, hosing down the State Library with sugar water, should anyone want to bomb Melbourne. Not that turning the lights off would work as it did in the second world war, what with GPS and all. Melbourne stands out like Emerald City, brighter than before. Amateur astronomers hate us.

The long term side effects of prolonged lichen exposure manifest in us, the lichen mutterers, first. Too many inhaled spores in our lungs, despite all the protective gear we wear. It gets hard to speak, so I don’t. It gets hard to breathe, and when my lungs are biopsied, they can’t see anything because the glow blinds the camera.

What were you trying to do? Mum sits by my hospital bed. She’s upset at me.

Save the world.

She shakes her head.

I got the black lung, pops, I joke, and cough, and when I cough the air sparkles like magic.

submarineasaurus are go

Some more stuff happened, on top of all the other stuff, and I have crossed my threshold of what is acceptable behaviour when interacting with the world at large, lost my judgement and stepped on lots of toes, and so I’m pulling my submarine trick. We batten the hatches, dive deep and run silent until…until we don’t need to any more.

I think I caught myself out when I said I try to keep my angst to myself. It’s true, but for anyone who reads this, it’s very not true. That’s why this blog exists. I don’t have anywhere else to put any of this, and I need to put it somewhere. Sometimes I forget that.

I’ve caused unnecessary worry, and I’m sorry, especially to J, M and M.

Notification of Intent to Disappear

There is violence in the act of writing. Taking thoughts from the mind and putting them down in some physical sense is an act of intention, an expression of will, and any expression of will is an exertion of force on the world.

Some writing is more honest in its violence. The pen is a knife, the slide of the nib across paper the slice of the blade, and what is written can be written over, but never unwritten. The typewriter is a less subtle pound pound pound every key stroke physical and hard pound pound pound until the words are down and won’t get back up, and can never be unwritten.

Computers obfuscate that violence. The key presses are softer, and every letter put down can be erased and unwritten and taken back. It’s easy to forget the consequences that our words and voices can summon when the delete key exists. The only way to acknowledge the violence of the written word in an electronic medium is to have the words read, so that even if unwritten, they cannot be unread.

I have been violent, and that cannot be undone;

and

I am tired and ashamed;

and

I need another hangover;

and

I have nothing left to say.

Spanish Dancers (the nudibranch kind)

picture from here

I was all set to dig up fascinating and weird truths about this most graceful of sea slugs, but the internet offers no such treasures. They can swim, and they're big for sea slugs, which is a succinct summary of what the internet hivemind knows.

I'm forming the opinion that they get away with this by being gorgeous and entirely hypnotic. Who needs to be able to hold a conversation when you do this all day?



(Just ignore the dumbtard diver poking the poor thing, and the further dumbtard diver dancing, and the random apperance of a lion fish. Actual spanish dancing is at the 1 minute mark - it's the best footage I found on YouTube.)

ETA: I stumbled across this page in my GISing. It's a competition gallery of underwater photography that is well worth eyeballing. See?

I noted the fact that today it rained all day in my diary, because the world is ending and precious thing should be recognised.

prettier than thou

It was posted on boingboing so you've already all seen this absolutely stunning collection of sea slug glamour photos up on the NG site. They're most <3 worthy.

To be honest, they made my self-esteem wilt a little. I mean, yes, we've done quite a bit of the evolution thang, and we have brains, big brains, bigger than a whole sea slug, brains that render us capable of picking the fluff from our belly button and wondering whether milk two days past the use by is still okay at the same time, and I'm not even all that ugly even by human standards, but we are-





-never going to be all that.

Have yourself a gander, make yourself feel ugly and cumbersome. I swear the second last slug is the inspiration for Pikachu.

Even more damaging, I noticed the "buy print" button on the bottom left. And I clicked it. And found the whoooole NG print store. May Inari take my soul and keep it in a sardine tin. I want all those sea slugs on my walls. Alas, or perhaps fortunately, it's the entirely wrong time of a very small and bill consumed pay. BUT I SHALL REMEMBER.

PS:



If you desire you may purchase a print of zombie bear here.

"Tomorrow, I think, is a great day to go to work hungover."

i jump from every rooftop

I'm breaking with all the serious posting and we're going to play a game.

Let's play make believe. You're a doctor. Maybe you really are a doctor, in which case, this will require no effort on your part. You run a general practice in an old neighbourhood. You have clients who have been coming to you for the length of their lives. One client in particular. You don't see her more than a couple of times a year for checkups as she's barely sick. You have 26 years of her medical history in your records.

When she asks you about alternatives to prescription anti-depressants, do not look at her like she's just asked you if grafting a live walrus to her face will increase her chances of getting laid.

Just because you have made her cough and say 'aaah', taken her blood and shoved steel umbrellas up her twat does not mean you have any, any idea of what is going on in her head. Reacting as though she's being silly, possibly attention-seeking and overly dramatic, and telling her that she doesn't need any such medication because, well, she's not depressed, is going to do several months of damage.

I was asking for help.

Regardless, I went on St John's Wort which smells funky and comes in tablets the size of my head. Couldn't hurt to try. It's a slow accumulating drug, and it was some weeks before I noticed any effects. As far as I could tell, the only thing the pills did was take away my desire. All desire, for anything, everything, small immediately desires and material desires and long term dreamy desires. I did not become content with my lot, I simply had no urge to change gain move anything. It didn't feel like apathy. It wasn't numbness. I found that, instead of forcing myself to be a not terribly brooding mopey person around other people, I was forcing myself to want things.

If you don't desire things, if you don't have desire driving you through your life, pushing you to act, making you change the world around you, then what is the point of anything? Desire makes us go. Without desire, any desire, nothing I did had any meaning.

None of this actually stopped my head from being a noxious place to be. None of this made me feel any better, or made every day life anything less than a tooth and nail ordeal. The pills stole my sleep dreams, which did not impress me in the least. And when it came down to it, the act of taking these pills every morning made me feel like a faker, a poser, and a failure.

One night, one particularly bad night, I stood in the dark and threw the pills, one by one, out the window.

Most satisfying thing I've done in a long time.

St John's Wort is prescribed instead of Prozac in Germany, and has been in use for so long I don't doubt it helps a lot of people. But the effects I felt weren't helping me, they were scaring me. They took away some of the tools I use to keep going.

So what if night after night I dream of the end of the world, and when I wake up I'm nothing but thwarted desires? These things make me me. These things give me meaning.

Maybe I am being entirely irrational, making up any excuse to return to the devil I know. These certainly don't seem like rational or sensible decisions. But, I'm not scaring myself anymore, and while I haven't yet decided if this is a good or bad thing, it's justification enough for me.

You can stop playing make believe now.

and chimpanzees sling shit

Living on my own has forced me to adjust the way I think about space. At home, I had my room, which was my space and only my space, followed by the rest of the house, which was our space, and then there was outside, which was anything beyond the front door. Due to the fact that we're out near the sticks no one tended to drop by due to sheer inconvenience, and the house isn't really made for hanging out in. I don't think anyone has visited me at home home since high school. My space and our space didn't tend to be intruded on by anyone other than immediate family. And possums.

When I was up in Canberra, there was our space, and outside. Not having anywhere that was specifically my space taught me that I am, in fact, a guy. You know that whole spiel about how men need a den? Like, the shed in the back yard? Where they can go and Be Men without hinderance, or some such bullshit? Tessas are like that too. They need somewhere to go and Be Tessa, piss on the carpet and brood in peace.

Moving out of home was different again. My whole apartment became my space, and what with living without a fridge and thus having to venture out every day to eat for a whole month, and needing to go out for internet access, the entire city has become our space, and there is no outside. I haven't quite got to the point of going to the supermarket in my pyjamas, but I'm giving it serious consideration.

Having the apartment as my space has taken a bit of getting used to, as suddenly I don't live out near the sticks and it is more than convenient to have friends come over and chill on my kitchen floor, which means there are people in my space.

Augh!

Even though I like these people and I've specifically invited them, they're in my space! Looking at my stuff! They're Looking! At! My! Stuff! Making! Judgements! About! Me! Augh! Which is something that I'm getting better at dealing with, but I am still struck by the overwhelming urge to tell good friends of mine to GTFO. Which is rude. I guess I'm a very territorial person, and that's a reason, not an excuse.

Which is all very interesting, but it's only to provide you with the adequate background knowledge to fully appreciate just how fucking stressful having strangers inspect my place is. Strangers who apparently have enough money to go around buying inner city apartments. Who may or may not kick me out, who knows? Because having the strangers who currently own the place demand a $25 a week rent rise isn't stressful enough. Strangers! In MY SPACE!

After the inspection, you're damn right I pissed all over the carpet.

YOU HAVE WRITAAAR

I am an Editorial Assistant for Weird Tales.

No, really.

See, how it works is, well, just imagine that the slush pile is the fridge, right? Ann, being Fiction Editor and thus Head Chef, is rummaging through the fridge looking for amazing food. I am in the kitchen because, I dunno, I'm picking my nose or stealing biscuits or something. Every now and then, Ann pulls out something like milk, sniffs it, turns to me and asks, "does this seem alright to you?"

If sniffing the milk kills me, then Ann does not use it.

If I read your story, it means Ann, that most cunning and savy and sly editor, is undecided on the merit of your story. What that really means is that You Are Doing It Wrong. In order to avoid such a fate and thus keep your story as far from me as possible, WRITE OARSUM.

And if you don't believe me, my name is in the last two issues. It's okay to check. To be honest, I didn't really believe it till I saw it myself. I'm chuffed and more than a little humbled to be involved. Many, many thanks to Ann.



Issue #34 of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine is currently available for download as PDF for $4.95AUD. The last story in it is mine, precious, mine! Bitter Elsie Mae is a story of a ship gone bad, as only ships can. It was spawned in week 3 of Clarion South 2005 and Ellen Datlow did not die upon reading it. This publication meets my very low standards of what is required in order to call myself a writer. Even if I am not, in fact, writing.

Also, Daikaiju 3, which contains my giant crab story (actually titled One Night On Tidal Rig #13), is now available in hardcover. So even if I am never ever published again, I can still say I've been published in hardcover.

IS THERE ANYTHING LEFT TO ACHIEVE IN LIFE?

driftwood

Matt Staggs, over at Enter The Octopus, gathered together a lovely collection of pictures of coconut crabs-



-which you can view here.

Coconut crabs fall into a sort of "uncanny valley" when it comes to oversized animals. There is a point at which making an animal bigger than normal does not make it scarier than normal, and that is about the size of a small to medium dog. Seriously, if you can drop kick it, it isn't scary. If you can stop it with a golf club, it is not scary.

Still, I wouldn't want to drop kick a coconut crab. I imagine it'd hurt. Incidently, if you happen to be pinched by a coconut crab, the best way to make them let go is tickle their belly. With a feather. Plying them with red wine doesn't hurt either.

Now, I'm sure you've all heard about the defrosting of the Colossal Squid, that which is the MOST BADASS creature of the world. Seriously? BAD. ASS. Bigger than the Giant Squid, and a damn sight grumpier too. Did you know it has HOOKS?



HOOKS.

I'd also like to draw your attention to this sentence, contained in the above linked article:

The Colossal Squid can cloak itself similar to a Klingon Bird of Prey.

Which, actually, a lot of sea beasties can do, but such a trait can only ever add to the BADASSNESS of such a magnificent beastie.

STOP EATING CALAMARI.


(gakked from artbroken, Ironman and Batman do not play together well.)


(gakked from some guy at work: hip-hop about the superiority and delight known as tea. WORD UP.)

And I know you've all seen this article about the sexually frustrated seal;

The seal then alternated between resting on the penguin, and thrusting its pelvis, trying to insert itself, unsuccessfully.
After 45 minutes the seal gave up, swam into the water and then completely ignored the bird it had just assaulted, the scientists report.

But I believe it needs repeating.

45 minutes! XD

I SLEPT FOR 13 HOURS

BOOYAH!

(Except for that bit in the middle where I dreamt of, I shit you not, the zombie apocalypse. At the time, I was back in high school, and on a school camp. We were doing school camp type things, which largely involved swimming around some underwater palace (which was more than my actual school camps involved), and the teachers hearding us into a dinky little cottage country cafe, all the while this incredible sense of impending doom was growing, and for no very good reason that I could see. The teachers began pushing and whispering to get us back to camp, NOW, except there were no buses or cars. There were, however, helpful people with horses. Yeah. Who put us in groups of three to a horse (THREE TO A GODDAMN HORSE!?!? WTF!?!?!). Try organising a whole year level of high school kids into groups of threes when a whole heap of them have never ridden before, and none of us know what is going on other than something BAD was happening. This didn't last long, as other people turned up - what helpful people country folk are! - with more horses. I sat on a hoary old nag which would not stop walking, no matter how tight I pulled the reigns in. Teachers and horsey people had us lined up around a paddock, and were running around getting everyone saddled and seated, ready to trot off back to camp, and on this pain in the arse horse I walked around, and around, and around this loop of all my school mates, catching snippets of conversation that involved zombies, and further snippets that indicated exactly how freaked out everyone actually was, and this horse WOULDN'T STOP WALKING. I had an EPIPHANY; the zombie plague did not originate in Gippsland, it had finally reached Gippsland, but did not originate there. The suburbs of Melbourne were already over run, and in fact so was all Australia. There was no where for us to go, no safe places left in the world, but still, we must go. That's what teachers do, guide their students away from danger. But my god, it takes a long time to get hundreds of kids on horses. And then, just when finally, everyone was ready, there was one shrill scream, and I looked over my shoulder, past everyone else, and saw ONE ZOMBIE. SHAMBLING. VERY SLOWLY. And that was all it took to start an insane panic, a stampede into a highway full of cars, with half of us unhorsed and trampled, and the rest of us with no safe place to go to.)

(When I woke up, I was in my old room, which achieves pure darkness, in my old home, which achieves pure silence, and you're damn right I freaked the fuck out.)

OMG IT'S A LION VELOCIRAPTOR GET IN THE CAR

With no requests made it was artists's choice. The artist is feeling decidedly besieged at the moment, and has chosen to illustrate her headspace thus;

She is trapped at the top of a burning building. The burning building happens to be on a ship, which is sinking. There are velociraptors in the burning building. There are sharks in the water. Should she, either through dumb luck or cunning, avoid the raptors, being burned, falling to her death, drowning, and being eaten by sharks, there is still a GIANT FUCKING ASTEROID come to destroy all life on Earth. Halleh-fucking-lujaaaaah.

Many thanks to Larry, Gillian, Andrew, Baz, Chris, ~, and Jaime for their assistance in this surprisingly gruelling endeavour; they share equal blame. FOR SRS.

When our powers combine...!

Here we see SUPERPOPE, who had thought to give PAVAROTTI his Last Rites, only to be surprised as the PHOENIX, which had been chilling in Pavarotti's immense paunch, launches itself into freedom and glory. Superpope takes this badly, and is about to go all hadouken on the phoenix's ass. He has conjured that most holy power, the YEARD OF GOODKIND. In the corner Statler and Waldorf are on COMMENTARY, and they are not impressed. Statler has a GLISTENING SCALP, due to incidents which he will not be relating at this point in time.

I LOVE TO FIIIIIIIIIGHT!

In this piece we see a confrontation between MONKEY, Great Sage, Equal of Heaven, and a MEXICAN NINJA MARIACHI BAND. The NINJAS are attempting to distract Monkey with sweet music, but he thinks their music sucks, and is giving them the finger. The middle ninja has noticed that they are standing in PURPLE COFFEE, and the right-most ninja does not like the way the purple coffee is soaking his feet. Maraccas ninja is doing a stunning surprise attack, and Monkey is totally going to whup his ass. This event takes place outside the window of an actual ass, who is calling the cops on these damn low-life punks.

Unlimited Power

Here we see the Great Nostromo, a MAN WITH UNCANNY NOSTRIL POWERS, using his particular talents for evil. HAIRY MCTAVISH, THE SCOTTISH DANCING WOMBAT, has been caught unawares and, jig disrupted, is about to meet a very sticky end. Along with some detatched assmonkey TOES and autonomous PURPLE COFFEE.

This is all taking place inside the WORLD'S BIGGEST CHIKO ROLL.

Before The Other War

Here we have a depiction of that eternal conflict between ASSMONKEYS and CTHULHU'S GONADS. On the left, BOOMzilla and the CCTV Allstars jam out death metal on their ACCORDIANS, in the first opening salvo of the battle. The assmonkeys mosh and work themselves into a beserker rage. Being as it is very cold, some of the assmonkeys have elected to wear BOOTS. Those who haven't have had some of their TOES fall off, but in the heat of the moment have failed to notice.

To the left is an interdimensional portal through which the offspring of Cthulhu's gonads are pouring. Being as they do not have feet, they are not wearing boots. Nevertheless, the cold affects them and they have shrunken somewhat.

In the centre is the GYPSY CAB DRIVERwho, being a cab driver, has no idea where she is going and has thus found herself between these two titanic armies. Her friend has just noticed WILLIAM SHATNER'S TOUPEE being wielded by one of the gonads, and realises he has finally discovered the CURE to his poison. He's about to spill his PURPLE COFFEE on his lap in his excitement. They're both going to die horribly.

A LONE FIGURE ON A TRICERATOPS is present in the distance. They are eating chips. With gravy.

Mmm. Gravy.

I like to call this piece "Oh Holy Fuck I'm Going To Die".

After The War

What we see here is the aftermath of that most EPIC BATTLE between Cthulhu and ASSMONKEYS, which saw the assmonkeys most victorious. As they prepared themselves for DINNER TIME and armed themselves with SILVERWARE to feast upon his testicles, Cthulhu had the last laugh as his GONADS flew away.