Amy - Hoped She'd Never Have To Use This Blog Again

Ahh the hopelessness blog. Yaay.

Maybe I'm just sliding back into depression again. I hope not, but maybe.

I was going to write you an email, (in the course of my secret blog, I've gotten used to using 'you' ambiguously, to mean someone in particular but not necessarily the same person each time, or even to mean more than one person at once. In short, don't assume 'you' is you, even if at one point it was) but I decided I'd write here instead.

I fell, yesterday. I made a mistake. I allowed myself to be manipulated. I tried, I tried to express the following:

When I try to talk about your eating, at least one of these things happen:

• I get callous and care-less in an effort to not let it penetrate too far.


• You don't tell me the truth.


• You get angry or irritated or upset.

I can't help. This, this whole thing, is your blind spot. You don't have any clarity, I think. That's the most profound illusion, that there's some reality that you're always in contact with even if you don't follow it. No, there is no reality, you're contacting something else masquerading as reality, just like everyone else is. Don't trust it.

When I came into the kitchen and saw the truly pathetic amount of food you had in that bowl yesterday... that was the worst feeling. It didn't make me angry, or annoyed, it just made me so... sad. Really really sad. I resolved not to discuss it, feeling too hopeless to even try to engage with it. I ate. I hated it, I wanted to spit it out. Every mouthful was full of the knowledge that I was eating the food you had rejected.

Of course, you wouldn't let me keep silent. I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for me burning my hands on the plate.

This is where I fell. I allowed my words to be twisted, as they have been so many times before. The moment there's enough ambiguity, the misinterpretation is enacted. You heard what you wanted to hear. You resolved that, to me, it no longer existed.

I lost it, there, walking down the hill. I don't know if you noticed. "It's not yours," "you can't just take it away." That's not how it works. It's obvious. Anyone who spends enough time with you will notice. Earlier, you'd said I wouldn't even know if you hadn't told me. I find it amazing that you believe that. It's almost comic. How stupid must you think I am?

And what's more, how dare you. Has it somehow escaped you that this is incredibly difficult for me? Do you know how hard I try to make it this easy for you? Do you know how it feels to have a mouth full of someone else's self-destruction? Do you know how it feels to know that I'm helping you to do it? That I'm complicit? I try so hard for you, and what do I get in return? The tolerance of a bear trap, and constant evasion. The least you could do is not make me feel like shit for trying to help. I'm not that awful, really, I'm not.

It doesn't have to be like this. Just stop treating me like I'm your enemy. I asked for honesty partially because I don't let secrecy alone. I pick at it. Don't talk to me like a few chips, an apple, and a meagre dinner is somehow going to make me happy. "At least I'm eating something." isn't much consolation I'm afraid. Tell me you ate so little because you're trying not to eat more than x calories a day. It's simple, it's true. I can feel what it makes me feel and then move on. I can deal with it. Rather than all this dishonesty and guessing.

And, please, stop thinking you can protect me from it. You can't. Trying only hurts me more.

~~~

It makes me want to do things. I want to perform, I want to make art. I want to never eat when I'm with you. I want to consume all the calories you cut out. I want to fast. I want to do all of this. But I know you won't let me. Oh the irony.

Steve - Is Nervous

Ugh, shower too hot. Sleep messed up. I feel really disorientated, like I can't trust my own thought, or if I tried to write then my grammar would be all messed up. I only realised half way through that sentence that I am writing. See what I mean?

I think I might go for a walk.

OK walked. I'm wearing a girl shirt. It's a wonderful shirt, and I feel okay wearing it. I'm going to have to grind down that fear of having other people see me in it, but I'm wearing it for just wearing rather than camwhoring, and I went outside my room, so it's downhill from here I hope!

Also, I need to get over my weirdness with boys.

Steve - Feels Pretty

Listenin' to Psapp, wearing my Psapp shirt.

Today the world and I feel beautiful.

:)

Steve - Is Overworked

So much work. I can feel myself burning out. Actually, what I can feel is that sensation of the fire-hoses being turned on in me, and all motivation towards work fading away into apathy. Recovery mode, I suppose. This isn't good, because I still have lots of work to do.

I've been sleeping loads, too.

Yesterday I made an order at an alt-clothing site. I bought 7 items, four of them clothes, amounting to just under £70. I've been being good with money so I can do these things, I guess? *shrug* It was more weakness. Anyway, the point is that none of them were men's clothes. I once read about concepts that, once you realise them, you can never go back, you are never the same again. A couple of people have chastised me for introducing such concepts to them, but anyway. For example, when one considers what freedom means, what freedom really is, one can never go back to the ignorance-is-bliss state they were in before. They are either depressed by the fact that they are not really free, or empowered by the will to gain that freedom.

It's the same with me and sex, I think. The more I think about my sex, the longer I am alive and not feeling happy being a man, the more I am compelled to do things about it. Reading about it, talking about it, pretending to be female online, writing about it in considerable depth, small acts of genderplay (I've got red nails at the moment, I like to pretend they're a girl's hands. My peers find the striking red nails and the lazy growth of facial hair to be quite a disturbing clash), and now... well, still relatively small genderplays, but greater than before.

I've been trying to think of a name. It's been on my mind for a month or two now. I really like the name Amy, but I know an Amy so that wouldn't be good. I figured I might call myself something neuter. Maybe a colour, or the name of a disease, or a mineral, or a plant, I dunno. It's the easiest lie to tell, really. I want to see someone just... eat it up, completely.

Steve - Is Angry

I'm going to use this place to document my anger now. At least it's more productive than fucking depression all the damned time.

I'm so... upset with the world, with my culture specifically I guess. It's pathetic. It really really is. I'm talking, of course, about recreational drugs (inc. alcohol).

Here's a hint: if you don't feel something, perhaps you shouldn't be. If you want to feel euphoric, go seek out something substantial, something real, something that will build you or your world rather than trash your very limited time. There are feelings drugs cannot give you, and they are all the better for it. They are genuine, experienced only by people who are truly experiencing. Even and especially the feelings drugs can give you are far more important when they are in context.

Imagine a life without whatever your drugs of choice are, and then you'll see what's wrong. What would you do if there weren't any drugs to act as pressure valves? FUCKING DO IT. I am so sick of being cheated out of living life with company because other people would rather settle for the easy option and fortify their pointless lives with drugs than actually fucking... live.

Go fucking dancing, go listen to music so loud you can only hear the beat, go medicate your mediocrity away. It's fucking pathetic. I am so close to just blanket giving up on drug-sluts. I don't have enough life to waste on you.

In fact, it's not even drugs at all. It's people who are too fucking spineless to actually LIVE, drugs are just a painful, obvious, and debasing reminder that this is the case. Forget your career [aspirations], your parents, social pressures, whatever it takes, and do what you actually want to do. Otherwise, kill yourself, because it hurts so much to see you going to waste.

I hope we can share it, but it doesn't seem likely.

I can't describe how much this hurts me.

Steve - Caves

Okay, fuck you, this is a special occasion.

The loneliness hasn't gone away, but... today has just been SO GREAT I'm making an exception.

Actually, today hasn't been that bad, but it's given me enough to feel morose about, so that's what I'm doing. I figured I was starting to get better, actually. I came back here, and I was suddenly able to get out of bed, and my room was tidy, and I could eat decent and even try my hand at a little moderately creative cookery (if you call getting Ragu sauce to taste nice cookery). I've even been reading a tonne, and that's something that usually takes a lot of energy out of me. I haven't been feeling great, but better than I was.

Unfortunately, I think that was a rather unstable process. I'm putting random emo grainy piano music on repeat again.

Yeah, so today I got an email. I've been applying poststructuralist thought to all these correspondences, amusingly enough. Seems to me that all the horrible things said are just as true as all the nice ones, even if we ignore the energy is that is generally reserved for things said to hurt. What makes the things we say in happy nice frames of mind any more true than the things we say in horrible hurtful frames of mind?

I'm not even going to keep these pretences anymore. It was pretty delicately executed, pretty beautiful, that you kept your name 'til last. Pretty fucking devastating too. I bet it gave you satisfaction, didn't it? I hope it did, it did for me. That's probably what ended it really, that twist of cruelty.

Help me? 'Help you'? Are you fucking kidding me? I don't even know what to say to that. How many times did you save my life? HOW MANY TIMES WERE YOU THERE FOR ME?

Not hard to find. Right. I know, I'll just phone up the girl who again and a-fucking-gain purposefully distances herself from me! Maybe I'll get another of those emails that somehow manage to be spiteful and uncaring at the same time. At least this one didn't end with a promise that we can go through all the same again.

I am sick and so fucking tired of you, of this. I'm controlling, great, sure, do you know how much control you've abused over me? So many things you could have just... not said, but you did. So many times you held the balance of power so firmly and yet somehow accused me of the same. I've always been honest with you, to the extent words let me. If I'm made of words, you're made of lies.

Yes, I'm pathetic, well done, you got me good there. But what gives you the right to make me feel like this? You didn't have to, no one forced you, you could have just left it and just been cold until I ran out of effort. Did you do it for my good? Certainly not. You did it for your own. Your peace of mind, your satisfaction, your sadistic pleasure? Why else would you go into gender? Do you somehow think you were doing me a favour? No, you didn't, so why did you do it?

Is it because I didn't tell you it would hurt me? There are some things you don't have to be told. Some things are just... unsaid, without words, ain't that a novelty? Well, here's something I'll tell you straight out: there comes a point where you can't blame your failings on other people anymore. You're very close to that point. Soon enough, it won't be your fathers fault, it won't be my fault, it won't be even be your issues' fault, it will be YOUR fault. Sort yourself out. Fuck all that shit you said about growing 'apart' and grow up. I loved and love that good part of you, and now I know how to find it: take all the apathy, all the that self-destruction you do, all the family, all the boys, all the girls, all the words, take all of that away and you'll see it. Stop fucking compromising, this is where it has got you.

And you know what? I'm not going to be there to help you with this one. You'll do it or fail to do it on your own. I'm not going to be that boy you left behind, that boy you kicked around and then finally took pity on enough to end it. I'm not going to give you that. I am going to be the girl who burns. Burns as hot as my heart is beating right now. Burns with the accumulated pain of all the self-harm you lost in numbness. Burns with your throat after your body fails to subject your mind to its will. Burns with everything you put through me for this. Burns to remind you what you should be burning. And until you have,

Never, ever, contact me again.

Steve - Looks

Edit: I've decided I'm not posting in this blog anymore, not until the problems I expressed in this entry have gone away. If we all stopped masturbating we'd probably get laid a lot more, right?

Lonely.

So yesterday it was my birthday. I'm nineteen now!

I also bought some more checked shirts. I do like checked shirts. They're all XL, so they're all big and longsleeved, and two of them are fuzzy. One is orangeyreddy, one is black&white, one is blue/black. They make me happy.

Gaahhh I want cuddles v_v.

I got a typewriter. Not just any typewriter, a manual portable typewriter! Portable in the sense that if I were to work out a few hours a day I could probably carry it around with a fair degree of ease. It's fun to type on though. You have to push down a fair way, physically move the machinery. It's interesting, because it keeps some of the... honesty, of handwriting, the notion that you're actually making the marks yourself rather than having it mediated through a computer, but you're still distanced from the materiality of the text by the standard typewriter font. It's more difficult too, which seems important. Especially since people used to use them all the time. I especially enjoy making emoticons on it, seems like such a fun juxtaposition.

It's a lovely spring evening. I love evenings, in every season. The light... and in the summer you get some nice warmth but usually a nice breeze and without any uncomfortable sun-heat. The shadows, the sky, the horizon dulled or coloured by all the texture and dust of the lower atmosphere...

And yet I have no one to spend these with.

Am I the only one with these desires? Or is everyone too caught up in their lives to realise them? Or is everyone lonely, like me?

I don't know. I exaggerate too, it's not everyone, it's just me and the people I notice. Isolation, right? The Revolution of the Everyday Life is such an amazing text. Have you read it?

I was thinking the other day: it's fairly easy to find people who share similar ideas as you, people who are similar emotionally, intellectually. On the internet it's incredibly simple. But... finding people with similar behaviours to you is harder, especially on the internet. But people with similar behaviours (or at least similar desired behaviours) is so very important... because then you can spend time with them, do things with them, real things, important things, wonderful things. Talk is great... but I don't want to exist in terms of language, I want my language to be liberating, not confining.

I want a companion, a fere, a buddy.

Is what I am looking for real? Is it possible?

If you're reading, stop... we have things to do.

Steve - Apologises

I'm getting to the point where I can't trust myself, again.

If I am melodramatic, or provocative, or harsh, it is because I am finding that following these impulses leads me to better places than trying to question them. It's not great, but it seems like it might be best...

Steve - Hates

I've been reading Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit again. I've also been reading The SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas. The former is a kind of lesbian-coming-of-age-love-story-with-substance. The latter is a radical feminist theoretical tract, with the premise that women are superior to men.

They both share a kind of rad-fem men-are-inferior perspective (though in Oranges it's covered more as a side-issue). Solanas' basic underlying theory is that men are incomplete women, and on some level realise this. This realisation is the reason for women being seen as inferior, because men project all their failings onto women. The full realisation of a man's existence, his actualisation, according to Solanas, is to realise his inferior and submissive nature, and (to the extent it is possible) to transform himself into a woman.

Could it be that reading these texts is accelerating my decent into self-hate?

I used to think that it was merely my assigned gender, what I was supposed to be, that was what I needed to avoid. I could deal with that. It would be difficult, but I could scrape out every masculine cancer of my identity. Even if not, I could work at it.

But now I'm not so sure. Maybe it is my unchangeable sex that is at the root of all this. Maybe I am stuck with these hateful attributes, for as long as I live. Even HRT won't get rid of all of that.

I know how I should be reacting, how I used to. I should have read The SCUM Manifesto and come away with defiance and a desire to prove that I too could be beautiful, could empathise, could feel passion. I should be reading the more rad fem passages in Oranges and denying that I am incapable of love, willing the chance to prove it.

But these days... I'm almost agreeing. I'm beginning to despise my sex in general and myself in particular. I hate everything about my sex. I hate the little psychological ticks being male gives me, and I hate that my sexuality is so indiscriminate, so ruthless. Now, when I read Oranges, I wish so hard to be a lesbian. I want to be and to be with women, to be able to feel all the things I am... incapable of feeling. I feel so utterly inferior, I feel so utterly worthless.

Where is this headed? To oestrogen? To taking a scalpel to my testosterone? I don't know.

I am a turd, a lowly abject turd.

Steve - Despairs

I don't want to remember you like this.

The more I read of you, the more I can't stand the way you think, the views you hold, the pretentions you have towards relativism and nonpositivism. I want to tear you apart, I want to go through all these systems you place on the world and systematically destroy them. I want you to see the world how I see, or how I try to, viewing everything as having intrinsic truth and good, but with enough passion and attachment to make a fucking difference to your own life at least. You've only ever made decisions in the past, I want to go back there and keep you unsteady, keep you unknowing and keep you from getting smug about it. Make you feel the value of freedom, how out of reach it is, and why it is so important that you keep failing to reach it. I want to make you feel how vulnerable you are. You're making yourself into my enemy, and there might come a day when you realise it. I want to make you realise that you don't know any of this.

I want to change you, but I can't and I shouldn't try. Seems like none of these words is sharp enough to make you bleed like teeth and nails can, nor heavy enough to block out your consciousness.

This feels like the end.

Steve - Cries

If you've spent a fair amount of time talking to me, I've probably told you about my relationship with tears. That is, I don't really have one. I tell people I haven't cried since I was 13 years old. It's one of those truths that is true, but isn't technically true. Here is why:

• I vividly remember the last time I really cried. It was during a long period of what I can only describe as bullying at the hands of my family. My siblings, both younger, went through a period of ganging up on me. I generally just stood and took it, because various events in my childhood had lead to me dealing with abuse in this way. One time, though, my brother started hitting me with a belt. This, I thought, was a reasonable point to start using reasonable force to get him to stop. So I did, and it stopped, and no one got hurt. However, they told the parents, and mother got very angry. Physical violence was never okay, but mental violence was essentially allowed. Thus, the apathy she had showed towards my asking for a bit of help with this pretty destructive conflict between me and my siblings disappeared when I inevitably brought force into it. I was very upset, and I cried quite a lot. Needless to say, my parents displayed the same apathy towards my upset as before. I think I was fourteen at this point.


• I just remembered, that wasn't the last time either. The last time was when I broke up with my girlfriend at 15. Four years ago. I don't count this one though, because... I don't know. I want to say a longer period of time, because that's how it feels. More on this later.


• When I say cry, I mean really cry. Anything that involves sobbing, shaking, all that. I tear up at films, and when I'm under a lot of pressure, and even that is rare (I think I've shed two tears max since the beginning of 2008), but that's always been me either trying really hard to cry or vicariously, at films/books/etc. I'm posting this entry because today I teared up quite a lot at a film. Good Bye Lenin, which isn't a sad film, not really, but I don't know... it's beautiful.

I tell people this, about my lack of crying, and I nearly always get a kind of low-level envy. Like they'd rather not cry. People are ashamed of it, embarrassed by it, and most people seem to try to stop it. I wish I could cry, I try to and fail. I forgot how. Throughout my childhood and adolescence I learned to separate my emotions from my outer appearance. I was given systematic lessons in controlling my temper in primary school, through being taunted verbally until I lost it, and then getting punished when I did, I learned that channelling anger straight through to my limbs never helped. I was given the standard masculinity socialisation which teaches you to suppress your emotions anyway. I was given a hard time about being bisexual around the ages 12-14, which reinforced the lessons of controlling emotions I'd been taught previously. All this with the lessons in pacifism from my mother.

It's all brought me to this stage, where I am essentially unable to express what I feel through my behaviour or appearance. I've felt awful all of this year, and no one has noticed without me explicitly telling them (and they register considerable surprise when I do). Physical expression was torn out of me, and with it went my spontaneity and my ability to live in the present moment. My lack of skill at visual art and driving both stem, I think, from my inability to concentrate on the present. Conversations with close friends are generally mostly silence. I say very little, and listen a lot. On one level this is good, because people like to be listened to, but on another it means I'm mostly existing in my own thoughts.

And people envy me for this. It upsets me when they do. They don't know what a gift and opportunity they have.

I don't really know how to 'fix' it. Existing like this means that I can mostly edit myself pretty easily. But what if that control is the thing I am trying to remove? I'm not sure I want to either, not sure what I'd do in absence of it. I know there are ways of existing beyond it, through it, for times, but it's remembering to do it that's the problem. It has to become a habit. Taking risks and existing on some kind of edge. living with mortality and with almost a desire for failure.

I don't know. I've lost coherence. I think something in me is changing. I cried more for less reason today than I have in a long time, and to have such emotional potential within me is something I don't have very often at all. I will take risks, this Easter break, if only for their own sake.

Steve - Has Some Things To Show You

I'm starting to amass a collection (archive?) of beautiful things. I'll be posting them here every so often. None of them are mine unless otherwise stated. I shan't be attributing them unless it's necessary.

---

But with her...I can't even articulate my feelings. It's as if sunshine is warming [my] face, on a beautiful July day, and as long as she is there my face will always be warm, I will always be safe and in great health. That is an awful description but it is the best I can think of right now.

---

What these men saw was the Nevada wreathed in clouds of her own amber smoke, uprooting gun emplacements, scattering pillboxes, and smashing tank and troop concentrations, but what you, as the only newspaperman aboard this American battleship in this invasion, saw was men rather than a machine that did all of this.

---

This.

Steve - In the Rainforest

I'm so sleep deprived I feel like I'm suffocating in it.

This was meant to be an easy all-nighter. It seems like with every one I take I lose little part of the ability. Maybe I'll never have one as easy as this again... I'll definitely never have one as easy as I did six months ago.

Is this ageing?

Is the slow death coming for me already?

How many all-nighters do I have left?

Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. But everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.

Steve - Undersleeps

I feel sleep's disorientating grip on my shoulder.

I didn't sleep last night.

Sleep is odd. I've found that it's possible to be entirely conscious while asleep. When thought back on, this seems like an entirely obvious fact. One is conscious in dreams is one not? But I'm talking about, being awake conscious, then passing into sleep without losing that.

Do we ever lose it, or is our memory just turned off? Do we have the same epiphany every night where we suddenly realise that we're conscious in sleep anyway but never remember it?

On the other side of the spectrum, there's the idea that we might not even dream. Dreams might just be memories that get constructed as we sleep, which we look back on when we wake up.

Of course, this leads us to the question of what consciousness is. Since this seems an impossible question, this entry will end here.

Steve - Sighs

HAY, WORLD,

HOW ABOUT GIVING ME A BREAK?

For fucks sake. I'm not going to start believing in fate just because things go wrong at sickeningly right times.

Steve - Rebreathes

It's an odd feeling to have it brought back to you that your actions have consequences.

It's not necessarily a bad one. I guess it's a breath of fresh air in a way, to know that you're not some ghost who just drifts through people and life in a non-corporeal way. In a world where we have so little power to affect things and even less to effect things... we can all empathise with the school shooters, sharing their desire to make something happen, whatever the cost.

I'm kidding myself if I think this is going to fix me, even with the conversation I had with grace last night, but it feels like I have a little more room to breathe. Room to perhaps make myself a bit better.

I think relativity is the problem here, or at least that's a way of thinking about it.

If objectivity existed then relationships would be easy. If you could just explain how things are then everything would be easy. Unfortunately the impossibility of that is precisely what makes relationships so difficult. You're trying to reconcile two relative realities, and there are a lot of frictions to deal with in that.

But, while it's important that we remain immersed in that, perhaps sometimes it's useful to look at it from another perspective. These conflicts happen, they were always going to, and they will do again. I'm needy, dependent, fragile, sensitive, morose, spiteful, and self-pitying, while at the same time making it generally rather difficult for people to help me with that. You're... that's not for me to say, but there are things that conflict with me there. If we are two objects that come together, there are spikes on you where there are sore parts on me. There are times I wish those parts of you would go away, and I'm pretty sure you feel the same about me sometimes (I know I do). Doesn't meant they're going to, especially with all this distance, and I doubt either of us expect them to.

Which is the important bit. While there is conflict there, as long as we can accept that conflict and keep in mind that it won't disappear, it's okay. If it got too much to take, then maybe something solid would have to be done, but at the moment it's not, at least it's not for me. We make eachother unhappy, but as long as we make eachother happy as well then that's okay.

And That's Where It All Falls Down, of course, because I've not felt significant happiness in probably close to a month. But that's not your problem. It's a problem that's beginning to scare me. It means I have very little to give, in love or happiness, and that's not good for my friendships. As well as it generally being not very nice and I don't know why or how to deal with it.

Have you wondered why we do this? Why don't we just talk to eachother directly rather than making vaguely responsive [micro]blogs? Not saying it's a bad thing, it's just been playing on my mind. Maybe it avoids direct conflict.

Steve - Goes Nuclear

So, those in England or France will most probably have heard of the collision of the submarines carrying the English and French nuclear deterrents, respectively.

Nothing much happened, apart from the media getting a bit worked up and a few minor damages, and the hilarious explanation (they were both equipped with advanced stealth technology, and it all worked as expected). But, as regular readers of this blog will note, I've been pretty interested in nuclear weapons of late.

These submarines give a select few people the power to obliterate huge swathes of humanity in a matter of hours (at most). Should anyone have that power? Is there anyone you trust enough?

Radiation sickness is pretty interesting. You feel sick for a day or two, and then for a period of one to two weeks you're absolutely fine (referred to as the 'walking ghost' phase). Then you die in a lot of pain.

Still, a week or two knowing your death is around the corner, knowing pretty definitely how much time you have left.

I don't have much to say today.

A fun perhapsfakt: If nuclear submarines lose contact with British government, they are to listen for The Today Program on Radio 4. If they don't hear it for a set number of days, they are to assume that Britain has been lost, and are to open a sealed envelope containing orders to initiate nuclear retaliation.

Steve - Is Angry

Ordinarily I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. A self-defence mechanism I picked up a long time ago was to blame myself for problems that occur in my relationships with people. It's not particularly healthy, but it keeps angry problems to a minimum...

...and in some small way I'm getting back at them, because I know they won't like the idea that I'm hurting as long and severely as I am for their benefit.

And that's part of what makes it so effective, because I'm expressing my anger even as I suppress it. Doesn't help all the time, but when I decide to redirect it inwards it makes it all easier.

But not all the time. Sometimes I just want to hurt people, to make them understand what they're making me feel. Sometimes I try, and most of the time I just end up feeling powerless because actually making people hurt takes a far cooler head than I have at that point. It wouldn't achieve anything either way, because people seem far more skilled in making me hurt than I am at making them hurt. I'm glad of that most of the time.

And when I really am angry, I get more vulnerable and self-doubting. With all the things that get said in angry moments, I generally end up worse off if I express it at anyone.

It's people not caring about me that makes me angry, mostly. I feel so used sometimes, and I probably am used. I don't really mind it most times, but when I'm really feeling awful and need a little... I dunno, humouring, taking care of... I know it's high-maintenance and stupid and I guess it can get monotonous... but I try so hard for other people, for myself... is it too much to ask?

I can't really ask for someone to just provide for me like that, really, can I?

Nor could anyone, really. Like I said before, there's not much to say.

Anyway, that doesn't stop me getting angry. Especially at the most blatant callousnesses.

How can I make this clear to you?

Every time I've said I'm alright in the past month has been a lie. Very nearly every time I've said love in the past month I've not felt it. I think I said it once or twice to Kathy and Rosy and meant it, because I was writing to them and that helped me get in contact with my fondness for them I guess. I can't think of any other time. I'm going to stop saying it when I don't feel it. I don't have enough positive feeling inside me to feel love.

Is this getting through to you?

Steve - Isn't

I: Ello
Her: hi
Her: i never learned your name
I: I apologise. It's Steve!
Her: steve?
Her: for real?
I: Steve.
I: For real.
Her: Steven your real name?
I: Yepp
Her: oh
Her: i shall call you steven
I: That is fine by me!
Her: I don't like calling people by their nicknames
Her: its just strange
I: Y'reckon?
Her: huh?
I: Do you reckon?
Her: what does that mean lol
I: It means something like "Do you think?", but in that case it was to ask why you thought that
Her: oh
Her: lol

Hm. I doubt it, somehow.

I want to change my name. Not officially or permanently, just... for a while. Try different names on, see what they're like. Next time someone asks me my name, I'll say... Felix. Yeah, that'll do. It's the easiest lie to tell, your name, because there's no conceivable reason why you'd lie, so no one will look for it. And then the repercussions of your lie become apparent rather quickly, as they call you it. It's the perfect crime.

"Wats in a name lol?"

Shut the fuck up, quotation marks.

I've been playing an RPG a lot lately, a fantasy RPG, a fantasy text-based RPG. Damnit, I keep breaking these rules. First animé now this. I blame Dowell and Irishwoman. Anyway, it's not really that enjoyable, but it's addictive and mind-numbing and difficult to avoid. Like sleeping. What's my character like? Please, I'm not going to lower myself to that.

She (didn't see that one coming) is called Jacqueline. Her race is vampire and her class is Chaos-warrior. Here is what she wears:

a) The Two-Handed Flail 'Kraken' (3d6) (+20,+90%) (+1)
b) (nothing)
c) a Coral Ring of Fate
d) a Peridot Ring of Teleportation
e) a Rosetted Amulet of Charisma (+1)
f) (nothing)
g) a Hagaromo [2,+8]
h) a Cloak of Protection [1,+9]
i) a Large Leather Shield of Resistance [6,+7]
j) The Metal Cap of Halloween [3,+12] (+1)
k) a Set of Gauntlets of Free Action [2,+7]
l) a Pair of Soft Leather Boots of Stealth [2,+8] (+8)

Nerd. At least I've cheated. It's too boring if I don't, the same with most games really.

I have an ulcer on the side of my tongue. It hurts, and it's unbearable sometimes. The problem with mouth ulcers is that... you know the way you can focus on a given part of your body, and the focus is always on at least one area at a time? Well that focus for me defaults to my mouth. So it hurts, and the movement is obstructed and my sensations of taste are generally fucked up due to either not moving/swallowing much or the mouthwash I use to treat it fucking with my taste. It's not as bad as the mouthwash that basically numbs the whole of my mouth. It doesn't make things taste bad, and it takes the pain away completely, but... having a totally numb mouth is not a pleasant experience.

It's my own fault anyway. These fucking energy drinks. They make my mouth too acidic and thereby mess it up. Straws help though, so I'm using them. I think I'm going to stop drinking them anyway. I've grown tolerant to that level of caffeine, so they don't make me feel any better anymore. Maybe that's why things have been bad lately (think the past two-three weeks or so). I could drink more? Not good for my health, no, but I don't want to keep feeling this.

How much of my body is me? Is my foot me, or is that an external tool I just use? My hands? My brain? My heart? What about my eyes? My tongue? My penis? My testicles? My optic nerve? My brain stem?

I don't know. They're all dying, but something's eating away at my tongue right now. Is that attacking me? If it was eaten away completely, would I be a different person? What if it was my foot? My heart? My eyes? My hands? My genitalia? Does that make them part of me? What is caffeine doing to me? What would mood stabiliser drugs do to me?

I don't know.

Steve - Forsook

It doesn't get any better. Sorry, mythical reader, blog posts don't get any happier today.

Why do I write? It isn't because I love the stinging twinge I get from the lack of responses, reminding me I'm alone.

It isn't that people don't care, as much as it feels like they don't sometimes, it's just that there's not really much you can say to me, and it's draining to try. And so in a situation with no pressure, why bother? There's no real reason why I'm feeling and behaving like that, it's just... there.

I write to express it I suppose, as cliché as that is. If I didn't write it'd just build up and I'd end up in an even worse state. I can't talk to people about it, that's becoming clearer and clearer. For all the listening I've done, you might think I'd get some good karma that way, but I guess not. So I talk to an ambiguity. Dear reader, I both love and hate you for your silence.

Of course, today fate has given me a reason to be melancholic. I didn't see it coming, but there's not really much I can do about it. A friend decided she didn't want to speak to or hear from me, indefinitely. I wasn't there for her enough, or rather I was not-there for her too much. The irony isn't lost on me.

I could probably go get drugs if I wanted. Drugs for bipolar disorder, especially since I gather psychology has altogether given up on treating it with therapy. Slice off the lows and the highs of my emotional experience, daze myself up... I don't plan to, but the worse it gets the fewer reasons I can think of not to.

Sigh. Another day.

Steve - Watches

Subtitles are weird. For the first minute or so it feels weird to have to glance down every line of dialogue, but after a while it's like you're not even looking, you just soak it up. It feels like you're just hearing it, and indeed it puts itself into my memory that way too.

In fact, that is even more interesting. Consider there to be two parts to speech: the actual sounds, and the meaning. When you're fluent in a language, these are inseparable, but when you're just learning it then you have to almost consciously translate the sounds into their meanings.

Anyway. Perhaps, because there's the meaning there and there's the sound, it's all going through the same places that it would if I understood the speech. Perhaps I am understanding the speech, through mediation.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay, fine. I failed. I'm now on the slippery slope of getting Into anime. Sigh. Eat it up, you bastards.

One other thing I wanted to talk about with regards to this: people. Have you ever been being driven somewhere, a long journey perhaps, through a place you don't know, and looked at the houses with their darkened windows and wondered what kind of people live there? Maybe catching a glimpse of things on their windowsills, maybe even them, in the warm glow of indoor lighting or the pewter sea of reading on an overcast day.

Maybe some of them look out at the cars and wonder what kind of people are in those fish-tank bullets.

There are whole lives packaged up in those houses. Whole beautiful fragile lives, simultaneously sharing a similar space. I wonder what would happen if, everything, the cars, the houses, all of that, were to just disappear one day, while we were passing, and we were left dazed people sitting on damp grass and hot tarmac, joined together by the intimacy of confusion.

I want to know those people. I really really want to. There are so many people, even within a relatively short radius from here, and there have to be some in that group that... are the kind of person I want to know, to touch, to experience life with.

But how can I find them? Even if it were practical to locate them (it probably is), social boundaries keep us apart. What would people think if I were to just approach them in a public space, and engage in conversation with them? At best I'd be a pleasant distraction, at worst I'd be a sexual predator, or make them feel profoundly uncomfortable. Sure, the kind of person I'm looking for might not be that way, but how many restraining orders is it going to take to find them?

And I don't want to go looking in Social Areas either. Clubs or bars or what-the-fuck-ever else. But... when I've left school, uni, and decided not to work (not that work is a great place to meet people anyway), what is there left?

Anyway, got a bit off topic there. Beyond that, there are people in other countries. Like say... oh I don't know, Japan. These people speak a different language to me and have different culture... is it possible for me to relate to them at all? Or for them to relate to me? Can I find love in them, or them in me? How do I find them?

There are too many people alive to hold on to any.

Steve - Is Away

Handed all my work in yesterday, on time. I think I was in the minority for my group for doing so. The rest got an extension due to head issues mainly, which troubles me because I've had head issues and I still managed to get the work done comfortably. Sometimes I wish I would break more often, be more fragile. I'd like people to care, to sympathise. That's probably not a good thing to want, but I dunno... it'd make me feel nice, less alone.

These blog entries are so emo. I'd like everyone who reads this to know that I'm not always like this >_> This just seems to be my outlet for these particular feelings. Also, if your name is Amy and you're reading this, get online!

I should probably give myself a project over the holiday. What should it be I wonder?

I've been thinking about gender again. Sparked a bit by my rereading of The Brains of Rats.

I won't say I feel trapped by my body, though I want to, because I don't, not really. It's my body, and there things I can and can't do, and ways I feel about that, but they're not really to do with gender.

But sometimes, I do so long to be a girl.

There's a lot to that sentence, as any sentence, but to that one especially. I'll explain:

Sometimes: Not all the time, sometimes I'm not thinking about it, and sometimes I fall in love with the way I look, enough to forget.

I do so: This is an interesting triptych of words. It brings to mind old fashioned romance novels and such. This is purposeful, because it is that kind of feeling. A sort of unrequited longing. Unrequited because I know it will never happen.

long: Because it is a longing. It's not a wanting, it's a longing. I don't know how else to describe it.

to be: Be? That's a strong word, especially combined with I. It means I want to transform somehow, to change what I actually means. Then again, do nouns actualise verbs or do verbs actualise nouns?

a girl: Note that I did not say woman. I know I feel uncomfortable calling myself a man, terribly uncomfortable. I don't know if this is for age or gender. I can feel okay, good even, calling myself a boy, it seems to fit me somewhat. It's also a more feminine word, or at least a less masculine word. Being a girl though... I don't know, it stirs things in me. And being a woman feels like something I could grow into.

What kind of girl would I be? What would I look like? I like thinking about that question. I don't know though, there are all kinds of ways I could look. I don't want to have to decide really. I want to learn to love my body whatever it might... have turned out to be.

I dunno.

I want someone to take an interest in my art, too. I want someone to ask me important and pressing questions about it. I want someone to make their own interpretations. The interview last night was good in that way, but it was mostly about my old stuff. I dunno, I'd do it for them too, of course, and enjoy it. No one really does it for me, but the few questions I do get are wonderful. It seems like the more art I do, the harder it gets to really express what I want to.

I wish someone would use me. Exploit me. Not necessarily sexually. At least that way I'd feel like I'm some use to someone. At the moment I just feel mediocre.

Gosh, this whole entry has been very emo. Ah well.

Anyway, the title. I'm going home today. Doesn't make much difference to anyone who reads this, but still...

Steve - Is Extended

So apparently my lecturer is some kind of 'ill' and so our showings are not today.

Curses!

So now I have more time to work on this other work that has to be handed in tomorrow. There's not much to do, but because of this turn of fate I have lost all my motivation. I don't want to do it! Damnit, this is not what I need. I know I'll get it done, it's just a matter of how stressful it is.

Troublesome.

I dunno where my head is at the moment. I'm not as bad as I was a week ago, but I still don't feel especially nice. I am self-medicating a bit more though, mainly on food and other self-indulgancies, which isn't partic bad because I could do with eating a bit more anyway.

Blehk, I dunno, listlessness. I want something to happen. Something really really nice, and sudden, and unexpected, or at least so quick I don't have time to expect it. I don't even remember when that last happened.

Steve - Is Enjoyed

An Irishwoman, a Welshwoman, and an Englishman walked into a restaurant.

We had a conversation about half way through our time there, which was pretty much dedicated to talking about me. As I mentioned in a previous entry, I rarely allow myself much credit emotionally, and they said only nice things, so it made me feel nice inside. I think they got off on seeing me blush too, but I'm okay with that.

They said a couple of things that are kinda interesting as well as nicefeeling. It's interesting to know how you are perceived through the eyes of others.

The Welshwoman said she thought I was attractive. There may have been a 'very' in there somewhere. A Northerner told me something similar a couple of weeks ago. Makes me happy, but I don't have much to say about it.

The Irishwoman said that there was a subtlety to my personality. That, at first, I seem to be a genteel, intelligent, guy, but as you get to know me you start to see a... wickedness. Which is an odd turn of phrase, but she said it with a smile so I doubt she dislikes it too much.

She also said that she can usually 'figure out' everyone, but she can't figure out me. Which I guess makes me enigmatic. This secretly pleases me. I know it shouldn't, but it does.

I think I'm going to ask her whether she thinks I am a strong person or a fragile person. Should be interesting to see what she says.

I bought a new hat today. Would you like to see?

Steve - Is Insane

It's dawning on me that, if I were to go to a psychiatrist, I would be diagnosed as mentally ill. Not even just because they're being overbearing either, but because there is something significantly wrong with me.

A while ago, when I'd just come out of such a crushing depression that it took me a while to wake up to the world again, I suddenly remembered chameleons, how they could change the colour of their skin at will. I actually had to look this up to verify it, because my view of the world had desaturated so much that it seemed implausible that such incredible things could exist.

I feel desaturated now. This period from the 23rd Dec 2008 to present has been the worst I've felt for a long time, at least over such a long period. I react to seemingly everything as an opportunity for dark pearl reasoning, like a cent gliding over the surface of a charity money spinner.

Invader Zim once sent me into a night of awful emotion. I mean, I must have been in a bad place anyway, but every so often I have nights where I feel the worst I've ever felt. Uberdepressions. Anyway, Invader Zim sent me into that because'f the art style. It's so... dank. So pessimistic. And it corresponds to how I see the world when I'm in these places.

This all sounds terribly emo. Sadly, I'm not expressing even half of what I'm feeling like. I can't even communicate that without falling into cliché.

Thank god I'm worth putting up with, for some people at least. I had a conversation with myself yesterday where I tried to remind myself all the good things about me. However much you might hurt people out of your faults, you do care, and by-and-large you do good for the people in your life. You make them feel happiness, love, calm, safety, as much as you can at the moment. You've gotten so much better, you've come so far in such a relatively short time. Three years ago you were a dick, and yet your opinion of yourself is so much lower now than then? It doesn't fit, you know that. Feel good about yourself for once, you really do deserve it. Lover, love thyself.

Sigh, I don't know. I only felt the tiniest twinge of it when I wrote that. I felt it more yesterday, for a second or two perhaps...

I swear, the further this entry goes, the more it descends into emo. I dunno, I don't really care.

Steve - Fights The End

It feels like all I want to do now is sleep. I'm staying up 'til 5PM, that is a good time to go to sleep and will help readjust my sleep schedule. I allnightered last night, and they're getting much harder than they were. I think I might have permanently fucked my brain in my last time of skipping two nights of sleep a week. This worries me, what have I done and what else might it affect?

It's snowing, and has been for about an hour now. It's alright. Likely won't settle, not at this rate, but it's nice.

Keeping up with my project...

Did a bit of work today, but not as much as I'd like. More when I wake up, I've no hope of concentrating right now.

Ughk.

Steve - Is Underwater

It feels like caffeine is the only thing keeping me alive lately. Like it's a thin shell I'm walking on, when below is deep dark and icy cold. I've been sleeping from 9AM 'til 5PM, and woken up feeling like I don't deserve it. Like I'm worthless, a rotten sack full of corroded lead. Getting out of bed is a struggle of will.

I don't know, maybe my presentation took more out of me than I realised. That's when this latest bit started. I mean, I've not been right since around the 23rd of December last year, but since last Wednesday things have been different. I've not wanted to get up, not for anything, and everything after that seems an effort. Caffeine is the only thing that is keeping me able to focus and feel okay.

I've got a new project. It was very sudden, really. We've had the brief for our Live Writing module for a while but I've not really had any clear ideas. Even the idea for this isn't clear in my head yet, but you saw some of the results of it in my last blog. The numbers on my body are starting to fade now. But they're not fading really. They're going somewhere, I just don't know where. Bits flaking off into the air, down the plughole with the water, rubbing off on my skin, on other people's skin, all those places. And that's part of the point. Entropy, always increasing regardless of what I want.

The number itself? It's the number of hours left until five minutes and two seconds past midnight on June 16th, 2060. I've decided that's when I'm going to die, and I'm counting down to then. I'm trying to remain mindful of that fact, rather than just making it a habit. I'm writing the numbers down frequently, and taking photographs of these writings. This, too, is an aspect I'd like to further explore.

I'm not sure what I'll do with this plethora of photos, but I'm sure I'll think of something.

Here are some things I've been writing lately:

The atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima have been playing on my mind lately.
I don't know, I can't get them out of my head. The destruction was so complete... the loss of life.

Somebody told me when the bomb hits, everybody in a two mile radius,

will be instantly sublimated.

But if you lay face down on the ground for some time, avoiding the residual ripples of heat,

you might survive.

Permanently fucked up and twisted like you're always underwater refracted. Oh,

but if you do go gas there's nothing you can do,

if the air that was once you,

is mingled and mashed with the kicked up molecules,

of the enemy's former body.

Big kid tested, motherfucker approved.

~21st Century Pop Song, by Hymie's Basement

And another:

Another thing that's been on my mind lately, along with Atomic Bombs, has been my physical body. It's becoming clear that all of these thoughts (which are starting to fuck with my head now, too much for too long) are as a result of the Hymie's Basement album, here are some lyrics from it:

Most men resent their left hand;

The bony knuckles, the second rate super hero thumb,

so broad and masculine,

overshadowed, and rendered sedentary by its more active opposite companion.

But I've got my mother's hands, and...

Aren't babies born with creases in their palms,

way before you'd think the hand's most frequent movements been established?

Have humans evolved to be, born to hold,

hammers, and swords?

In the years to come, will we see the emergence,

of a strong computer key finger?

In the years to come, will we see,

a flattened, mousepad palm?

The limitations and intentions of my body are coming into razor sharp focus, like the world has been cut and the colours are leaking out in purest form.

I can hold a knife easily enough, and bring to bear the full (though still relatively minor) strength of my arm against something. I can run more efficiently over long distances than I can sprint over short distances. I can walk forwards easily, and I can fix my eyes on one spot in front of me.

I can't lie down on my side without my arm and shoulder being crushed beneath me. I'm too tall for most people to hold me as completely as I'd like. I can't see keenly to the side or behind me. My hands are too shaky for me to draw straight lines. My bones stop me from being as comfortable as I wish I was for those I care about. I can't change the colour of my eyes or hair. I can't express what I'm really feeling with my face, where I really feel things. I can't reproduce certain sounds with my mouth. I can't remember and re-experience smells or tastes. I can't hallucinate at will. I can't taste deliciousness without wanting to swallow. A lot of things, I have to destroy before I can consume or fully appreciate them. I can't stop breathing indefinitely, nor can I stop my heart beating, and for those reasons I can never stop moving for longer than a few minutes and live to tell the tale. Things will always distract me from what I wish to immerse myself in. I can't stop sleeping and expect not to suffer from it. I can't control my death, when or how it will happen, nor can I know either of those things.

To finish, a Morbid Fact Du Jour:

Jumbo, "the largest elephant in the world" and one of P.T. Barnum's main attractions, was killed when he was struck by a train while loading up to travel to the next city. It was said that Jumbo turned back onto the track in order to push his little dwarf elephant friend, Tom Thumb, safely off the tracks. He saved his little friend but he sacrificed himself.

Steve - Begins a New Project

Steve - Is UnDope

Drugs are not content with stealing the people I love away from me, but even likes to steal reality away from me.

I don't know what to do about this. How can I possibly know someone when they're seemingly always addled by some substance or other, and then when in another state of mind apologise to me for their behaviour when they were on whatever drug it was? How can I make any sense of that? How can I build any kind of relationship with that person? Answer is, I can't, not really, and that seems to be pretty much par for the course with this one. Just when I thought I was getting somewhere interesting... sigh, I dunno, all is not lost, she's still fascinating.

Documentation for one of my modules is in tomorrow, the first deadline of three.

Steve - Listens

There are a lot of songs I listen to, great songs, that I can't relate to.

Not that I couldn't relate to the lyrics when they're written down. Music about saying you love someone when you don't, yeah I can relate to that, but... the music is so much more intense than anything I've ever felt in that direction. Pretty much all musics are intense, the ones about emotions especially, so much so that I feel like my emotional experiences are inadequate by comparison.

Do musicians live lives so different from mine that they encounter all these things? How do I do that?

There are two other possibilities, of course. The first is that music is so intense because it has to compensate for not being 'real'. A song about breaking up with someone will never be as intense as actually breaking up with someone, so musicians compensate and squeeze all the intensity out of sound that they can. I do this too, as a photographer, though I never do as a writer... don't think so anyway.

The other possibility is that I'm dead inside. Well, not exactly that, but I do always seem to react with less intensity, feel with less intensity, than my peers. To the point where I sometimes wonder if I've been dissociative my whole life and not known it. I was once called the calmest person ever. I think I get it from my father, he's always been able to deal with pretty much anything without much of a change in composure.

Thing is though, it's often that I do feel intensely. Probably every day. Love, I feel very often, excitement, yeah, those are good ones. And the bad ones, of rejection (nearly always perceived rather than real), anger (though almost never at people), anxiety.

But nothing happens with them. I recently looked myself in the mirror while I was feeling the most awful I'd felt in a while, and I looked completely neutral. I didn't know what to make of that. Not at all. When I'm happy and lovey and excited that generally shows up in my behaviour, but when I'm upset... nothing. What the fuck? How is that fair? I can see sadness and upset in other people easy enough, how come I can't see it in me? Can anyone?

There's some irony here, but I can't put my finger on it.

Here's something I made the other day (warning, large image):

Steve - Writes One Last Message Before Climbing In The Box Himself

Gosh, all this packing is a tall order. I want to write about things that are buried under paper and printers and external harddrives and a full set of OnlyFoolsAndHorsesDVDs (I do love my old British sitcoms, I've gotten into Waiting For God recently, I really like it, Tom and Diana are brilliant characters.

I've been slipping into German capitalisation recently. Well, I know it as German anyway, capitalising every noun.

I don't know WHAT I'm going to do in the summer >_> I'll have so much stuff I'll need to take back. What will I do?! I don't know, probably burn it all or something. So glad we have computers nowadays though, imagine how much stuff I'd have to carry otherwise... gosh...

Then again probably half of the volume I'll need to carry is computer-related >_> Sigh.

Talking to Dowell :) DOWELL NEEDS TO FOLLOW MY ADVICE MORE OFTEN BECAUSE I ALWAYS TURN OUT TO BE RIGHT :D It is like Izzy was with me, turning out to be right in the end all the time. It was a bit unsettling at times.

The quality of my blog entries is going dowwwnnn. Soon I'll have to figure out something decent to talk about!

It would probably help if I ate something, today I've had four crumpets and a mince pie.

I should probably stop this entry before it derails too much >_>

-Stevexx

Steve - Thinks A Bad Thought

You said I'd be the one you remember as self-obsessed
'Cause every fucking word that I tell you's really self-addressed
~ WHY?

Sometimes I wonder how much I have the power to hurt people. I know there are limits to my mental and emotional abilities, just as there are limits to my physical abilities, even though a lot of them I'll never meet, but I wonder exactly where they are.

Could I destroy someone? Could I kill someone without harming them physically? Maybe, maybe not. I hope I'll never find out, of course, but that doesn't stop me wondering. Problem is, I can only feel so guilty, and so scared. After things get too big for my head, those feelings disappear. Death is too big for me, so I'm not sure I'd feel very much, except perhaps about the little things. If someone close to me died, I'd probably get upset about little things we used to do or in-jokes or aspects or something.

I'd have to choose my mark carefully, of course. I'd want to choose someone who is socially isolated and who I can make close to me. Someone with a wide social network... it'd probably be possible but it'd be much more difficult and much easier to slip up. I'd probably have to choose someone who was leaning towards it anyway too, else approach it from an obtuse angle or something. And it'd require a lot of time, the more difficult the person the longer it would take. Some people perhaps a year, year and a half, others maybe five or ten years, maybe even longer. You know the story about the frog in the slowly-boiling pan? If you boil it gradually enough it won't hop out and will eventually die. That.

I'd need to slowly pick up on what things can make them feel certain ways, and then gradually start to act on them over a long period. Perhaps guide them gently into a life they'd rather not lead as well.

I don't really want to think about this anymore. This surprises me, I thought I'd be able to go in depth and such, but seems it's just too uncomfortable a thought and thing to re-enact in my head for me. I suppose that's not really a bad thing.

I do wonder if someone could and how someone would do it to me though. A part of me secretly likes the idea of it happening to me. Having my mind slowly gone through, having all my weaknesses separated out, and then gradually used against me. I dunno, there's something seductive about having me, something of beauty and complexity (not more beautiful than anyone else, but everyone's mind is a pretty amazing thing I think, and that goes for me too), destroyed. And, from a desire-to-understand-myself point of view, it'd be interesting to see how they did it. Aaaand, it'd be nice in a strange sort of way to have someone take that much interest in me.

God this is a weird and morbid entry. Too morbid even for me, and that's saying something. I don't like it.

Today I went into my old school and saw friends. It was wonderful, saw Rosy. She's wonderful :) And has nice hair. Got to spend the whole lunchtime with her! And lots of hugs, that was very nice too. I've missed her. Didn't see Jade though :( Rosy though. RosyRosyRosy. Must be better with letters next term!

Anyway, I have little else to write about. I wore an outfit consisting of completely new clothes today. I liked it :)

Steve - Conquers a Fear

So I went clothes shopping today.

Never done it before, not in real life, not for anything more than one item, not on my own.

I'm eighteen years old!

It's lucky my mother has a half-decent sense of style... even my grandmother has made some pretty decent purchases (she bought me pink, don't have to worry about... ah, nevermind, that's a story for another time).

But today I came into my own. I spent £200, which is a lot, but considering I've not had anything much in the new-clothes department for what must be two or even three years now, it's not bad. I also bought quite a few items. Sales are nice, they don't take so much of my money.

But why a fear? Well, prior to today, when spontaneity helped out, I'd had what can only be described as a mild to moderate phobia of clothes shopping. When doing so, I'd either avoid it entirely, or if not get very anxious and sweat and start shaking and all that. This goes back to my childhood/adolescence (hah) when my mother took me clothes shopping. I never really got into it very much, clothes I mean, so when she asked me if I liked something I'd just be like "Eh... 'sokay". That wasn't good enough for her, I had to like it. I didn't like anything, and I didn't like to lie (though eventually I did, of course, otherwise it would never end). She would get more and more angry and worked up, and I would get more and more upset and scared and thus indecisive.

It's fair to say we weren't exactly the Starsky and Hutch of the clothes shopping arena.

So today, when I do find clothes pretty interesting (patterns+colours+textures are some of my favourite things, and put them on people (one of my very most favourite people), I get rather excited), I am unable to acquire them save through the internet (and that, as you might know, is not very good for clothes).

But yeah, I conquered that today. I shop like a girl, I discovered, going through every shop three times before going around another time and buying what I wanted. I am a little ashamed of that, as I know anyone sensible who is with me would get rather annoyed... but I did it, and all that extra exposure helped me a bit. I can't say I wasn't anxious, I walked fast and kept my hands in my pockets (presumably so I could conceal weapons for stabbing shop assistants), and when any members of staff asked me if I wanted Help or there were too many people or I got confused about which gender clothes I was looking at (damnit Steve, one day you will wear womens' clothing and not be on stage) I would promptly run away and hide.... But I did manage to conquer actually buying the clothes (involving directly interacting with people and showing them what I had chosen, so quite a feat), and I even tried some on before I bought them (special fear attached to that, because my mother wanted me to try on everything and then show her and then tell her what I thought).

I swear, I should fix up a blog layout where I write on the left side and put my comments on what I wrote on the right side. I use parentheses and dashes and ellipses and commas entirely too much. I'm also quite getting into using 'and' a lot, instead of making lists with commas. I dunno, I just like the way it sounds. But I digress...

What I actually bought I'm pretty pleased with.

• Three pairs of trousers, two jeans one chords or cords or whatever. They've got colours. I like colours. They're also fairly loose, I hope. Tight clothes, though I do love them on boys, make me feel very self conscious.
• Four(?) shirts. Three button-ups and one top thing. The top thing was reduced to £4.99 because it had a joke about MySpace's Tom on it (dahling, MySpace is sooooo two years ago!), and this only makes it cooler. The older it gets, the better it gets, this is my idea of Good Clothes. The other three are CHECKSANDLINES. I got big into the indie-checks and colour blobs and stuff today. I think it's because I've only ever seen them on awesome-looking girls. Whether this is due to the clothes or the girls I'm not sure, but I want to be awesome and I want to be a girl, so it makes sense? They're colours too, one's purple (well, more a dark magenta), one's a bit BBCTestPattern-y, and the other is... something else, green perhaps? No, kinda a dark cyan.
• A magnificent combination of a button-up shirt that is actually a FLEECE. It is black and white and very cosy. I like it, maybe I should wear a tie with it? Wait, no, let's not get ahead of yourself here Steve...
• A COAT. If you know me IRL you'll know that I am always always always wearing a coat or jacket, usually my black coat with the Ukranian USSR commie badge on. It's a very old coat, three or four years, and a bit bedraggled, but I still love it. I do need a new one though, in case it... *sniff* dies :( Anyway, the funny thing was, I went into BritishHomeStores and actually saw the very same coat I was wearing on sale. From about three years ago... they'd kept it. It almost felt like fate. But no, I don't want to be the kind of person who does that, like the kind of person who buys their black office shoes in bulk in the January sales. No. Wait, why am I attaching my identity to products? Anyway, I wanted something new. So I bought a long (kneelength) large and reasonably warm black&white&orange patterned coat. I like it, I'm wearing it now, it's nice. That was probably the major purchase of the day, and the only thing other than the trousers that I actually needed.

GODDAMNIT STEVE YOU WRITE TOO MUCH. Well, not too much, but you write a lot, and you're writing in a different style here than you usually do. I wonder why that is. I think it's too much reading emoware (hi if you're reading this back through the referrers btw, I like your blog!).

I put a lindt chocolate egg in my pocket today, before I went out, and I haven't eaten it yet, so I will eat it sometime today! I like that. I remember I used to (probably still do actually) keep two of my favourite Cadbury's Heroes chocolates (dream and flake, if you're interested) in my colourful bag (need to use that more, it's lovely, it has tassels) (see what I mean about parentheses? >_> I'm seriously considering this dual blog thing). I found them in there once, hidden from about two months prior, and I got that feeling you get when you find sweets you thought you'd eaten (for those confused, imagine finding a tenner in your back pocket (also, burns, never say 'ten quid' again, it is not right for you to say that, besides, tenner is the word for that occasion), suffice to say, it's a very happy feeling). Back then having confectionery about used to be a great source of comfort, because I knew that whatever happened I could still feel good by eating it. So finding them made me know I'd been safe all the time, and they'd always been there. So I didn't eat them, I kept them there, as a fall-back, promising myself that I'd never eat them unless things got so bad I couldn't cope.

They're still there :) This was probably two years ago now.

Interesting fact, I get the same feeling of anticipation for good music as I do about confectionery. I'll sometimes be wanting to listen to a new album and be like... WHY AM I SO HUNGRY?!

I've always wanted to learn a melodic instrument. I have a harmonica beside me, that I bought a few months back, and I've never really played it. There's also my xylophone in the corner. Thing is... I know I'll start off bad and not knowing how to do what I want to, and I'm afraid other people will hear and... I dunno, makes me feel too anxious to practise.

Dunno.

I said to my mother today that if I wore all the clothes I bought today, and then jumped around a bit, and flew a kite, everyone who wasn't epileptic would be calling me Rupert Bear. Everyone who was epileptic would be feeling a bit ill.

Hm >_>

If you like my sense of humour, and I like you, I expect being around me in real life would be wonderful for you. I seem to be constantly finding the funny ways of looking at things. Even the news, traditionally not an occasion for laughter, is hilarity streets for me. I don't even know where it comes from, I just see funny in everything. Everything, that is, except Jim Carey films.

Oh dear!

Anyway, this is rather odd and I think I will end it now. I've got no work to do though... well that's not strictly true... I've got work to do but I've given myself the day off... to relax and write less...

Hmm >_>

Goodbye, lovely people :)

Steve - Is Getting Withdrawal

Can't help feeling this is leading up to something?

I've been writing so, damn, much, lately. I worked out yesterday that I'd sent burns 10,000 words worth of email in the past 7 days. Excuse my Anglo-Saxon, but... fucking hell. That's on top of writing lots of schoolwork, an email to Kathy, a fair chunk of IM, more blog posts than usual, and a fair amount of creative work too. It's really really insane, I'm not sure I've ever written so much in such a short time. And I've gone through some pretty writingmanic periods.

I'm really into At War With Walls and Mazes by Son Lux lately. It's quite different to most anticon records sounds, but it's really damned good. If you're not against beats and chirps and other artifacts of electronic music, take a listen, srsly.

I said I'd write less today. This blog entry will probably be stupidly long because of that. Perhaps I'll send burns a link to it in the (her) morning, 'cause I don't want to disappoint her! Hey burns, I hope you're enjoying this.

I've been thinking a lot before I sleep as well. The other day I worked out how many days there were until March 23rd (you know), then how many hours, then how many minutes. All in my head. I figured seconds was a bit much, but you know.

Another day I consider dimensionality. How that if you have a pipe with a bend in it so it takes up three dimensions, you can rotate it so that it fits in two dimensions, but you can't if there are two different bends in it. I wanted to know why this was. I got a vague idea by using sine and cosine in my head, but I wasn't amazingly satisfied. What I really needed was to be able to visualise four dimensions in my head so I could work out if the two-bend pipe that pointed through time could be rotated to fit in three dimensions. I think it probably could be.

After that I thought about objects that rotate in time. I came up with an interesting theory for light that it's just matter that's spinning in time while also moving in our three dimensions. It would explain how it acts as a wave (only one bit of it is in 'our' frame of time at any point, and that bit would move in a rough sine-wave (remember the circle plot from maths class?)), and also as a particle ('cause it is). It'd also explain the relationship between wave speed and wave length, and then to wave energy (bigger particles have a wider wavelength annndd more inertia when they hit another particle, but speed can compensate for that and also change wavelength as it's just a plot). Converting matter to energy is as simple (hah) as giving something a spin in timel. That would require something hitting the particle a glancing blow from either the future travelling back or the past travelling forwards (and of course electro-magnetic radiation can do this, as it's spinning anyway). There are other things it doesn't explain, but it's a pretty good elementary theory as things-thought-up-in-your-head-while-sleepy go.

Last night, and this is where the story really starts, I thought about what I am. It's the classic clone/teleportation. If I /am/ just a pattern in my brain, what happens to my consciousness when I am duplicated? Because, given certain assumptions, I have existed for a while and /I/ am... I dunno, existant, in my brain. The only thing separating my consciousness from the rest of reality and other people's consciousnesses is the insulating material of my body (designed to preserve my soul, basically, which is what my consciousness will be called from now on). It's pretty mind-boggling, to use an overused phrase.

But, if I am just a pattern, then my consciousness can be reduced to information. And information, as you well know, can be transported. I do it a lot, I'm doing it now. I'm putting information into your head, reader. So, and you'd better sit down for this, am I transferring my consciousness into your brain? Is my soul now active in your neuron-mesh?

I mean, by rights, you wouldn't know, because our consciousnesses wouldn't have to infringe on eachother. We could just exist separately. And, you can get an idea of where I'm headed can't you? In fact, you don't even need to. You're emulating right now what's going through my head, in yours. The more information you have about me, the more you're able to predict and be unsurprised by me, figure me out. Are you not just reconstructing consciousness in your brain? Of course, maybe, you're the dominant consciousness, but perhaps I'm there too, or an approximation or variation of me, and maybe only when you want to think about me and find out what me-in-you is thinking, but I am there nonetheless.

Perhaps, when they say that you live on in your loved ones after you die, they're being more literal than you think.

Anyway, just a thought I rather like. Information theory and materiality opens up some fascinating possibilities. Enjoy your day.

Steve - Dreams of Being With You

I had a dream:

I was at my old school. I needed to give someone something, someone named Robyn. In fact, I needed to give them two things, but I couldn't find the latter thing and so I only gave them the first.

They seemed happy to receive it, and smiled. As I gave it them, I smiled at them, said a few nice words, and touched them lightly on their cheek (which was blushed, in a healthy way) with the tip of my index finger.

Then I walked away towards the entrance to the corridor. As so often happened in my old school, I was followed by two year 7s (youngest years at this school) who were jeering and mocking me and saying that me and this girl named Robyn were together. I got used to all this a long time ago, and though others found it harrassing and bullying, I found it amusing and usually humoured them. They followed me in, and to the stairs, where they overtook me, still jeering. I countered, "Well, what does it mean to be together?"

They stopped still, and just stared at me.

Somehow I'd managed to aquire a block of cheese, which was actually two blocks, one white and one dark orange (gloucester or red lescester I imagine), which I held up and used to illustrate my point. I said "What does togetherness mean?"

At the time I wasn't troubled by their stopping and staring. Now I am, for reasons I will explain later.

I walked off, into a room I had just been in that was full of people (as it always was). I saw Scarlett, and she saw me. I knew that we hadn't seen eachother for a while because it had been the Christmas holidays. She seemed pleased to see me, and waited the little while it took for her to make her way to me through the room. We hugged, and said a few words.

We walked towards the stairs. I said "What does togetherness mean?". As we were sitting down under the stairs she said something about not everything needing to be thought through or having an answer (which, if you know my relationship with Scarlett, will seem familiar).

We sat in silence for a time, as is our way, and then she said "There's a well-known lyric. 'For every problem you might have, there is a well-known answer.'" Then she repeated, "That's a well-known lyric." (this should sound even more familiar. Not to dig at her, but it should). We sat in silence again, for a time.

Thee people entered our section of the corridor. On one side was the headmaster, dressed all in black, and on the other side were the two boys I spoke of previously. The boys were stopping and staring once more. Now seems like a good time to add something about who (I think) these boys were, and why it disturbs me so.

These two boys were Aymon Booz and Charlie Froud, now deceased. They died in a four-person (Aymon's mother and father were the other passenger/pilot) light-aircraft crash off the coast of Ireland. They were two kids who used to do a lot of the teasing and jeering of me in my old school, and I was quite fond of and attached to them in that way. They were close friends, and Aymon had taken Charlie on the trip to Ireland with them because of this. The plane went down in very high winds, up to 100mph by some accounts. The light aircraft didn't stand a chance in such a storm. I found out about half a term into my time at uni, a few months ago. I remember thinking, and imagining, how horrible and terrifying that must have been for them, and what they must have been thinking when it was happening. What kind of relationship they must have had, knowing perhaps that they were sharing eachothers' last moments.

In the dream, they were stopped and stared. The headmaster, who sounded and felt an awful lot like one of my writing lecturers, John Hall, enquired as to what was going on. The boys ran off and up the stairs, and as I began to talk the headmaster sat down. I said that I had been asked both the boys and Scarlett what togetherness meant and what it meant to be together. I said "And Scarlett didn't know, and they didn't know," I gestured and looked up the stairs to find them there, three quarters way up, staring down, "and I don't know."

He said "And I don't know either. It's a rather peculiar thing, togetherness. It's very different from distance," and then went on to say "consider walking. Now there are three ways of terming walking. There's walking to, walking on, and walking... with..."

On those last nine words I began to fade out into consciousness again, into waking. The more I considered the terming of walking, the more I was awake. Until I was fully awake, as I am now.

Steve - Is Prolific

So I've been writing and generally creating a lot lately. I like it. I hope 2009 continues in this direction.

It snowed today. That's unrelated.

It's nothing special, but here is what I wrote (maybe, kinda). It's a true story.

Unclaimed Property

I picked you, at random, I think.

You were there, one of many, scattered across a folder named 'writings'. I opened you up. At first I thought you were an old love, but not old as in well-loved, but old as in not-well-formed. You were in a word document, I never use word documents now. Just plain old plain text, notepad. The tool of the young coder has become the tool of the old writer.

But you weren't an old love. You were an alien. I sat there, staring at you, trying to work out what you were doing there in my writing folder, and--more importantly--who wrote you.

'Beautifully Intoxicated.'

It sounded like a title I'd write. In fact, I think I might have used that exact title some time in my past. But the writing style wasn't like any I remember from myself, and the plot structure wasn't mine either, nor the font. And I'd never use so many new lines everywhere. And I'd be more intuitive with my text. And I'd not write in that tone... full of uncaring, and emotional lust, and menace.

But I was in it.

There were two characters. One was the narrator. The other was someone else.

"I'd have given anything for you.
I didn't have to though, you were mine."

But which is me? Which am I?

"You'd have hated me thinking of you like that wouldn't you?
The notion of being a possession.
So proud of your independence, telling people that you didn't need anyone.
Only, I knew you needed me."

So I sat there trying to think who wrote you. I printed you out and read you again. And you meant more. And you were more mysterious. And I still didn't know who wrote you. Not her. Not her. Not her. Her?

"I'd wanted to get out of the house so we took a drive into the countryside.
We'd often do this, leave.
Not tell anyone where we were going, if we had each other then who else mattered?
I think that you were afraid one day I would leave and not tell anyone where I was going.
You were afraid I'd leave you behind."

Go where? Leave where? Get out of where? Who are you? Who is You?

Maybe you were planted there. Maybe I wrote you. Maybe I wrote you when I wasn't myself, or I was asleep, or under some duress I can't recall. Maybe you and I are the same person, two characters in one person. Isn't that what writers do anyway? Maybe the you and the I are both me, two sides of the same coin. What does that mean?

"You were my every thought, you were my air.
It was ironic that sometimes I felt suffocated by you."

The tense changes.

"I feel you slip your hand into mine.
Elegant hands you have, as if you wouldn't have used them for a dirty deed in your life.
Appearances can be deceiving however."

I feel myself wrapped up in your words. Like you were made for it, like I'm your rock and you're the paper.

And again.

"Do you remember the first time we held hands? I do.
In the taxi back from that art exhibition that bored us both senseless.
We assured each other we enjoyed it though, for fear of upsetting the other in the tender first stages of our friendship.
I adored the feeling of your hand in mine.
That small smile you gave me let me know that the feeling was reciprocal."

Why is it all in past tense?

My face is numb with cold and I feel it start to rain
I turn to see droplets of water falling onto your ivory skin but you don't notice.
You peer at me with those Bette Davis Eyes and I see that small smile again.
You know I am yours.
I whisper in your ear, relishing the smell of your skin.
"Let's go home."