Month: January 2005

Yesterday was a success in a very peculiar way. Rather than make it to Jerry’s Gallery shin-dig, a spectacular affair where I would have hooked up with artists and musicians, I caught the attention of one James White, a dandy of the highest order. A fantastic gentleman in a plaid sport jacket with a burgundy turtleback and matching handkerchief, we met on the Metro, the both of us dressed oddly and helping a blind man to his subway car. He took me for a tour of Hollywood from the roof of the Kodak Theater. He’s part of the preparations there for the upcoming Academy Awards. We talked about Los Angeles and the Hollywood depression. Fascinating snippets of history would drop from his lips like roses from the best daughter that our mothers told us about when we were young, “never mind the thorns, little one, for here, there aren’t any. It’s magic”. His wife is head of Creative, the company I did my anime princess video game voices for. Asgard, I never saw the final product. It’s a pity I didn’t get the pretty car in the picture.

It was brilliant, and he drove me down to La Brea and Melrose in the continuing quest for Necromance, the both of us aware that most things would be closed. I took a picture of him with his car outside of Pinks before we parted ways, and I hope to see him again. We’re in contact already through e-mail. It will be enough, I trust, as all things usually are. Today it’s getting a late to try L.A. Work is throwing me some curveballs, which are keeping me in, but the net is rich enough today with news that I don’t mind terribly much. Not enough to slash everyone here with something grotesque. (I may have found an equivalent to the eels.)

Livejournal has been bought by Six Apart, which is both good and bad news. It’s bad in that I’m suspecting that Six Apart is perhaps not up to dealing with communities. They have some rather large cock-ups in their history with dealing with net-worked systems. The PR mess when MoveAble Type came available was cringe-worthy. As usual, there’s some useful links and intelligent commentary over in Warren’s journal on the topic. This isn’t the same sort of system as Six Apart is used to dealing with. Hopefully they will let mostly alone. We tend to think of this as a place, as people, rather than users speaking out to nothing. We have friends here and actual communities. Relationships possible because in this system, it’s possible to access that the internet is made of people.

Speaking of such, my mother is hoping to start a science fiction novel in her journal and Matthew, who some of you met at my party, has joined us as well, though I don’t believe he has been posting as of yet.

This is a spin-off thought from months ago. What are the real world names of everyone here? There was a meme regarding the idea sometime last year, but my flist seems to have exploded since then. There’s approximately two hundred people who drop in here and I can’t claim to know more than two thirds. That an anonymous someone has gifted me with Pro account status for a few months only adds to the smoldering curiosity that threatens to singe my dancing with little cinders of dissatisfaction. I can’t figure things out without clues.

ray donley

He brushed the hair from her face, sad, lost. Not the way he wanted to reunite, he thought. It was his invention that brought him here, his oddball basement contraption that blew out the power. She was suffocating in her highrise palace bloc. He found her wrapped in laser etched plastic, her eyes filling with blood. Corporate kicks for money. He fought for her, to reach her here. Her lovers hung at the door, otherworldly, black make-up smeared that he hates so much. It’s not as important now. Nothing ever is entirely what it seems. He brings a cup to her lips, hoping she will drink. Back home at the trailer park, the dismal rows of blank christ-shrine houses, his dog stands up and growls at the door. She blinks, unable to focus on what he’s handing her. “I thought I used to mean something to you,” he says. “You did, but now I know better. I saw how I was trapped with you, how I would never reach out unless I left.” He looks down to the coverlet. “That hurts, Simenne, that’s nasty.” She puts the cup down on the bedside table. “I’m glad you’re here. What did you do to my security? I can hear people screaming.”

He’s tall, tanned lean leather. A brush haired man with an inventive personality, fairy tales fall from his fingers. “No one’s hurt, they just think they are.” “You’re a wicked man, dearest. A nasty, wicked man. When does it wear off?” “When I click this button.” He thumbs something, a thick plastic square, and the ragged screaming stops. He smiles finally as someone swears, inventive and loudly. “Your name is always associated with the best of things.” She laughs. She’s the devils daughter. A slender girl with thick braids of long hair that cable down the bed to lose themselves in the crumpled sheets. He watched her grow up, her parents marketing her DNA traits by the time she hit fifteen. Her smile on billboards in every big city square. He was her story-teller, her connection to myth and history and modern networking. The dog is barking loudly now, drowning out the sound of the neighbors television.

“Tell them to leave” he says, and she does.

 Mark your calendars: January 27th is Rabbit Hole Day

From :

A few months ago, I had a dream in which LiveJournal and everyone on it went completely nuts for a day. The entire world had turned upside-down and inside-out and nobody was their normal self anymore. And it was such a good read, that I think it should happen for real.

January 27th is the birthday of Lewis Carrol, author of ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. Alice fell down a rabbit hole into a place where everything had changed and none of the rules could be counted on to apply anymore. I say, let’s do the same: January 27th, 2005 should be the First Annual LiveJournal Rabbit Hole Day. When you post on that Thursday, instead of the normal daily life and work and news and politics, write about the strange new world you have found yourself in for the day, with its strange new life and work and news and politics. Are your pets talking back at you now? Has your child suddenly grown to full adulthood? Does everyone at work think you’re someone else now? Did Bush step down from the White House to become a pro-circuit tap-dancer? Did Zoroastrian missionaries show up on your doorstep with literature in 3-D? Have you been placed under house arrest by bizarre insectoid women wielding clubs made of lunchmeat?

Let’s have a day where nobody’s life makes sense anymore, where any random LJ you click on will bring you some strange new tale. Let’s all fall down the Rabbit Hole for 24 hours and see what’s there. It will be beautiful.

——

Alastair’s in bed and I’m doing what I usually do. I write that sentence, over again with another name, in front of the computer, alone in the dark. I want to go lie with him, enfold myself in warm blankets and unconscious boy arm, but I’m caught in this again. Writing because there’s nothing better to do, letting my fingers walk across keys because it’s three a.m. and even my flist is asleep. Outside is too cold for walking and the ocean too tempting a target for all the angst I never seemed to muster. I cried last night. I didn’t think and he tossed me off, leaving me a mindless ball of sorrow. We talked of relationships today and the echo of a hundred boys spoke through his lips. “I hope you meet someone who makes you happy.” He talked of us together in the past tense and I wonder if I’ll be coming back again. If he’d caught me before, I would have thought love was enough, but now I’m foolish enough to think I know better. I can hear him awake now, listening to me type. He likely won’t remember come the morning. Knock on wood that I can create in him some happiness.

I can barely believe it takes me so little to fall back into a nocturne pattern. Just one, “don’t wait up”, just one novel half interesting enough to stave off lying in darkness with a body next to me that I don’t quite feel comfortable with right now. I will when I’m tired, when I’m not feeling as if my belly is trying to dissolve me in terror of never having food again. Bloody thing. It will have to wait until tomorrow, when I foray off again, bringing the rice from our chinese food with me. If I eat it now, what will I have tomorrow, asks the mind. I don’t care, says the belly, you need to feed me now. Silly how the logistics of such situations seem not to impact the lower functions. Obviously we’re going to have to work on that a bit. Programmed bits of DNA to over-ride the lizard and the chimp. Base the base and drum the bass, thrum patterns in flesh with a transfer file built of bone. Both Josh and Warren posted something that particularly caught my eye; jewelry sculpted from living bone. They intend to create wedding rings from the bone tissue of each partner. I suspect that if they would let me play, I would. Pity I don’t have such a person. The old ways melding with the new almost gives them re-mixed meaning, but not quite and perhaps not enough. Too little too late for the walk down the aisle.

We reformatted the laptop this evening and now the interface seems clunky and outdated, the pre-sets giving the tactile awareness of an Apple II. I wasn’t prepared for the sheer unscalable tweaking that we need to placate the thing into maneuverability again. I’m not touching it much myself, it not being my machine to torment, but I’m trying to fix some of the more obviously painful changes.

There’s a storm outside with lightning and thunder thrown by angels. I must go to watch.

I’m obviously making goth cookies. I’ll have almost black cookies with red icing.

and I look like this:

Time for buckles to beget music. Stir in some bouncy sorrow, the kind you can write with under a crisp british beat. Toss in vocals from a choir voice egg, golden yolked and sickly sugar. Kill me a brace of briar rabbits, soft fur pelted from childhood dreams. Sear their hearts in garlic butter and salt them with tears.

There’s no reason to worry, this world is almost done.

Just a touch of heavy handed parenting, a snippet of front page news. You’re old enough to play in the kitchen. Violence like sex, honey, opiate for the masses like molasses, like maternity leave denied. I’ve an Ice Queen stir-stick, lick it with a rose-petal tongue but don’t beware the thorns. The bowls getting full now, hope bittersweet sprinkled to taste.

                                       baby got an atom bomb

	

Trapped in Laguna Beach again, but today I’m not minding so much. My last saunter into the city was enough to keep me here contentedly enough for a day. I’ve got a camera and some fun props to play with. The light isn’t too bad. All the white in the front room softens the sunlight. Long slatted blinds and cotton/wood furniture. All very california, all very sweet with the hardwood floor.

New Years was nice. Alastair was cruel and dropped me off at a hairdressers. They dyed my hair a flat, almost metallic purple. It’s like the wild hair of a middle aged woman, I like it. There’s a certain Betty and Veronica aspect that amuses me no end. We were hours recovering from the amount of chemicals they doused me with, the hairspray was unbelievable. I can’t imagine how people use it everyday. How do they breathe??

We found a place called Ipso Facto, a goth store extrodinaire where we promptly fell in love. I have the first princess dress of my life. There’s still a delighted six year old screaming in my head wanting me to wear it again, three days later. Black ragged thing, I love it. It’s industrial, nasty, and charming all at once. It was old fashioned burst into flame time, if only I had some make-up or knew what to do with it.

We met a man at the party who goes by Captain Squid. He got a video of me dancing on a railing. Thrilling that I have my balance almost back. Three inches of wood a few feet up, slinking about above the crowd, I think I had the best view in the house of the circus on stage. They’re the folk I hope to hook up with. We were in a giant hotel next to Macarthur Park. The park of the cake in the rain fame, voted the worst song in the world seven years in a row back in the nineties.

The day before New Years Eve I went into the City. Finally, I thought.

At the first bus loop, it began. My day as an endless tirade of strange men latching onto me, telling me that “we have something special” and lashing me with race hatred. I don’t think that strangers talk here. I don’t think that my race is generally welcome in certain parts of town. People are surprised when I am friendly. Innocence and ignorance my shield and banner. Teach me so that I know to cry.
the first scary man