Thrill Me!: Movie Review: 'Silent Night' (2012)

Thrill Me!: Movie Review: 'Silent Night' (2012): By Leah Cifello I love the Christmas season.  I love all the lights and decorations and parades and cheesy crap and old TV specials ...

"No horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace." --HP Lovecraft

Keeping Things Whole

My first-ever, cut and pasted movie, with graphics, and everything, like, OMG!

"No horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace." --HP Lovecraft

Daily Dose of Lithium . . . soon-ish

It's official. For a few weeks now, but I've been trying to get someone to figure out what drugs I need. So far, 300 mgs of lithium. Can't start taking it till my CNP gets the results of my blood test. Till then, I've lorazepem to keep me calm and control the insomnia, but it doesn't help too much. Not since the first night. It knocked me on my ass in an hour. The next night . . . not so much. I knew what to expect, and I fought off the drowsiness and stayed up for another three hours.

Slow at work today, so I left early. Was suddenly just massively tired and depressed. Yesterday I was so energized and up. But today. . . .

I took my lorazepem just before I got home and slept for six hours. Watching Olbermann and Maddow, then popping another and sleeping till morning. I'm just tired and sluggish. Can't seem to get in gear since I got outta bed this morning. From the week before (despite getting suspended from work for four days, for insubordination) I was so UP. Ideas, writing, everything. I didn't need sleep. Sleep was for the weak and insipid. Now, I just wanna close my eyes and never wake up. Just tired.

I keep meaning to blog more, to keep up with blogs I like, but I'm either HIGH! and can't focus, or low, and simply don't care about anything. I think that' where I am right now because even typing is physically exhausting me.

Meh.

In other news, I keep seeing stories about Atheists getting debaptized, or de-whatever bullshit religious ceremony was forced on them at a tender or not-so-tender age.

I guess if that's what some people need to feel like "a member of the godless group" . . . but it's still the same old idiocy. A bullshit ceremony that means nothing, to erase a bullshit ceremony that means nothing. Even where I inclined to think that my baptism meant fuck-all in the For Real, you know, that place where things happen and matter, I would think it meant something because of the capital G, you know? in which case I wouldn't be getting debaptized. Couldn't possibly think a debaptism is valid.

Since I don't think any ceremony has any intrinsic value, only has the value I give it, I think they're all so much horseshit. There's no capital G, the ceremony means nothing. The ceremony to devalue the ceremony means nothing, and just gives the fundies something to bark at. I would no more get debatized, than go to a witch doctor to get de-cursed if some old gypsy gave me the evil eye. I genuinely used to think ceremonies like this confirmed one's adherence to reality, but now, I think it does the opposite, and cedes ground to the poor deluded saps that actually still believe their ceremonies and rituals are blessed by Shiva, or Allah or Jeebus.

I just wanna ask these debaptists: if someone told you a leprechaun bit you and broke the skin, and that you'd have to get a special fairy-tetanus shot to keep you from getting leprechaun rabies . . . would you rush to get that shot?

Not a great analogy, or at least not well-put, but the point is valid. To me, it's a damned good parallel. These debaptists are pushing a cure for a disease that doesn't exist. Anyone who needs that fairy-tetanus shot should reexamine what they believe, or don't believe.

The zeal is appreciated . . . cautiously . . . but aim it in a worthier direction, hey?

Aim some righteous ire at institutionalized wrongdoing that actually means something, like fighting Prop 1 in Maine. Those of us on the side of civil rights lost California. Let's not lose Maine.

A Dose of "Pussy" . . . Rammstein, anyone?

I won't link to it here, since I'll always make a sincere effort not to link to porn in my blog (get your jollies the old-fashioned way, buddy: find it yourself), I'm totally gonna pimp the new Rammstein video as both porn-y and fucking hilarious. So, yeah . . . I like "Pussy" :)

Y'all are enterprising and smart, so go, find, enjoy, if you haven't seen it already. Quick hint: trawl German porn sites. Good luck, have fun.

Everyone--

DON'T PANIC.

A Dose of LMAO!

Dose of No-fucking-help Whatsoever

My GP was next to no help. Recommended a shrink . . . in Poughkeepsie, which is 40 minutes away by car. The car that I don't own and am not licensed to drive. Bus travel up here is complicated and sparse at best--nonexistent after six pm.

So . . . so much for hopes of not having to put up with this anymore. With not having to feel like I'm crumbling all the time. Help may as well be on Pluto, and I'm stuck like this.

I was crying for awhile. On the bus ride home. Not loud or anything, just couldn't make the tears stop. People kept giving me looks. I was angry at first. Now, I'm just extremely tired . . . and crying again. I need to lay down with Morphine blasting to cover up the sound of the idiot roofers, and of my fucking idiot brain doing what it does so very badly.

Maybe in time I'll adapt. Whatever's wrong with me, be it psychological, chemical, or both, I've had it for a really long time. The fact that it's been getting noticeably worse and more intense for the past six months means nothing, really. I'll just deal, like I always have, whether it keeps escalating, or whether I (and this proves hope springs eternally, like a geyser of stupid) finally emotionally burnout and stop feeling at all. If the time comes when I can't deal anymore, then I suppose we'll just have to see what we see.

A Dose of Silphium

Wow. Humans aren't smart. Even when motivated by the prospect of pregnancy-free fucking. Unbelievable.

Why, when we can't even manage our physical world, would we go around inventing a supernatural one? Just to liven up our epic fails? Self-defeating and self-destructing--just one more self- and we'd be a triple threat.

T minus four days till I see my GP and begin the likely long and unfun process of figuring out what--besides a lot--is wrong with me. Still only hearing the one Voice. I was also unbearably High, today, but in a happy-ish way, more so than angry . . . till I just got anxious, irritable and paranoid. Kept thinking everyone around me was talking about me. Not a fun feeling. I don't believe in a god anymore, but it's all too easy to imagine the universe is totally fucking with me. I'd hate to think that what's it's done thus far is borne of total indifference!

Bloodwork, tomorrow, to find out what other nuts I'm deathly allergic to these days, beside almonds.

It'd be best for all concerned if I had a massive stroke in my sleep and was cold by the time my alarm went off in the morning. For the next few days, the world's gonna be too shiny and bright to be dealt with by me someone this brittlely euphoric and itchingly alert. I'll spend all my spare moments weeping and/ or laughing, and unable to stop jittering. Cruushed by the wonder of existence.

I'm crossing my fingers for that stroke.

Daily Dose of the Voice

Hah. Yesterday, I posted here about possibly being bipolar, and--well, I've been rolling the possiblity around in my head for a few days, and my consolation was, well, whatever, at least I'm not hearing voices.

I've been telling myself that a lot lately, and today, at work, on a particularly annoying call (they all are, really, I despise the general public. They're stupid, immature, lazy, and mean) this voice whispers, like it was right next to my ear, really, Rachel, you should just kill yourself. You know that, right?

So, I don't hear voices, just a Voice. Big difference. For awhile, I didn't really notice it, anymore. It's like a white noise, only . . . it's suicide-slanted. And it's like the boy who cried wolf. To the point where, if I have to run to catch the bus, it's there, waiting to tell me what I can do to solve that thorny problem, and in a way that doesn't involve running or sweating.

See? I'm still in good shape. Fighting trim, even. Look out, personal demons.

Dunno if one Voice even counts anyway, especially since I've been hearing it since I was old enough to know what kill and death meant. So from five onward, if not a little earlier. I used to hear it rarely, randomly. Any time--during the Highs or the Lows, more often during the nice, uber-rational, mostly emotion-free Numbs.

I'd hear the Voice, and to shut it up, give it shit-tons of reasons why I should not just kill myself. Not step in front of the D-train, or that speeding minivan. Reasons that always won the day. And did, until recently, I mean--who can kill themselves when the Star Trek franchise's received an infusion of fresh blood? Not me!

And that Voice has gotten quieter, over the past couple of months. I thought that might mean, whatever other things were going horribly, off-the-rails-wrong with me, I had that wee, death-hungry Voice beat.

Thing is, I've taken to muttering I should just kill myself aloud in idle moments. Some stressy moments, but mostly non-stressy. I've had to stop myself from doing it on the phone with customers.

("Unfortunately sir I can't look up your iPod warranty with your social security number or your driver's license number oh my god I should just kill myself because this is all this is all this is motherfucking all but may I have your phone number please area code first?")

So, I'm now saying what the Voice used to say sometimes, and sometimes the Voice, playing what I assume is Devil's Advocate, tells me why I shouldn't kill myself. But. Well. It's running out of good reasons and so'm I. The reasons used to be passable but now, they don't hold water.

But mostly, the Voice tries to sway me with logic--or the only kind of logic I'm capable of understanding with regards to my own occasional death-wish: you're tired. Life is tiring. It won't get any less so. Why put yourself through it? If you just kill yourself, you can rest. Forever. No more emotions so big, it feels like you're being ripped apart half the time. No more being afraid of what you might do in the grip of these emotions. Just kill yourself, and you can rest. Don't you want to rest?

I do. I really, really do. I'm tired, and I'm not especially motivated or strong. But for now, I'm also not there yet. Not ready to accept the Voice's logic. Or my own logic. Whomever's. My voice and the Voice are starting to say all the same things, and I really can't tell them apart anymore. Not all the time, anyway. But yeah.

I hear a Voice. It's no one else's but mine, in the end. Some better demon, or worse angel, sitting on my shoulder, dispassionately telling me how to solve every problem I'll ever have, the easy way. And sometimes, telling me why I shouldn't take the easy way out (though suicide takes, I imagine, a brass pair to go through with it). I dunno if anyone else--anyone else sane, that is--has such a Voice. But I do. It's my oldest friend, at this point. I can ignore it, shunt it to the side, but I can't not hear it. Not when it's always made so much sense, and life almost never has.

I can't see my GP for a referral soon enough. T minus five days, and counting. . . .

Guess what, though? The voice telling me to scrag myself and save all this damn effort of living? Ain't god. It ain't his evil brother Lazslo, either, so . . . I may be nuts, but at least, at long last, by logic, I am not a theist.

Aaaaaand I'm back

Hopefully for keeps, this time.

Been a weird, weirdly awful five months, I must say. Don't know how to describe them, doubt it would be interesting to anyone who isn't me. Barely interesting to me, except that the process of straightening out my life has taken a turn.

I now have firsthand understanding of how dangerous a lifetime of "if not here, then in eternity" can be. A slow release revelation, you might say.

For awhile, I thought going cold turkey on all the woo might have made me go crazy, as well. That my fragile little mind might've been warped by subscribing to, you know, reality. Then I realized: I was always like this. I can remember being six and bored on occasional Saturdays but not wanting to play with my friends. So I'd lay in bed for hours, being entertained (after a fashion) by my moods. The happy one was very nice. If I was really still, I could maintain it for hours. It was intense--like a thousand summer days, filled with puppies and candy and rollercoasters--except it was in all my head. Little-kid orgasm.

The corresponding lows weren't very low, but usually followed right on the heels of it. It was more like being numb, but it felt low after the high.

I remember the actual lows, too. They'd hit like random bullets. I'd be standing in the subway with a parent or friends, or waiting to cross the street, and I'd think "I'm tired. I should step in front of that. Then it'd be over and I'd get to sleep forever."

As I got older, it of course got bigger. Worse. The happy times got too happy. Too nervous. Scary. Sometimes painful and angry. Sometimes I'd spend hours laughing and crying all at once, till I was too tired to do anything but sleep . . . not that I could. It was like being alive was too bright and wonderful, and it hurt just to exist in such awesomeness. And at the same time, I knew from experience, in a few hours or a couple days, I'd be numb, if I was lucky. Ready to buy a bottle of drano and find a secluded spot to guzzle it in, if I was wasn't.

Lately the mood-swings happen more frequently. The highs make me nervous, and as inclined to scream, as laugh. And I'm angry all throughout. Like . . . unbelievably, directionlessly angry. To the point where, if I had a knife handy, it'd be my wrists, or someone else's throat. And during the last low, I kept having to talk myself out of wandering off into the woods near my job (miles of it, then the mountains) and find somewhere quiet to lay down and die, just so I could finally be free, and rest.

For the past few days, thankfully, I've just been numb. I still feel things like amused, or annoyed, but it's very distant, like remembering how it feels to laugh at a joke you heard years ago, or remembering how it felt when something someone did six months ago kinda pissed you off. It's all very much elsewhere and elsewhen. I wish the numb time could last for the rest of my life, but I know it won't.

I don't blame any of this on my former adherence to woo, mind. The woo just let me pretend that I would get better on my own, or that I would simply grow out of it. Or that even if I was crazy now, in heaven/the next plane/my next life, I'd be sane. That when I died, Jeebus or whoever would fix me.

But he won't. I would have to say that's the biggest revelation I've had since coming out of the atheism closet--even bigger than the Grandma revelation of a year ago: if not me, then no one. If not in this life, then never. I'm on my own, so to speak, and if I want my life to be better, I have to take responsibility for and steps to make it better.

So, yeah. I probably need psychiatric help. Not in a facetious, narcissistic way, but gecause getting through my day takes more effort than my actual job. But then I have to do my job, too, so it's like working two forty hour weeks at once, only . . . getting through the day doesn't end till I'm dead. It's in my sleep, and when I eat. It's every moment of every day, and I'm too ragged around the edges to do a passable job of maintaining anymore. I keep cutting "extraneous" bits from my life in the hopes that that will stave off whatever collapse or suicide attempt I'm zipping along towards, but it really doesn't. It just isolates me, makes me feel ever more hopeless.

The self-medicating didn't go well at all, either. I've officially sworn off binge-drinking, and--well, pot doesn't really effect my mood anymore, just makes me dizzy, disoriented, nauseas, and sleepy.

But I'm pretty sure I've got some kinda chemical imbalance. Don't know what, yet, but I've got an appointment to see my GP next week, and I'm gonna tell her all my sypmtoms (life-long mood-swings getting more frequent, concentrated, and more intense, i.e., HIGH highs that make me happy, agitated, angry, nervous, and paranoid all at the same time. Lows that leave me lethargic, or leave me so wrecked and depressed, I can barely function. And if I'm lucky, some time and numbness in between these states) and hopefully get a referral to a good shrink. One who'll get me on some kinda meds, if necessary. Not that I can really afford either with my salary or insurance. . . .

I had a melt-down about this in my fiction journal, my friends list there were unbelievably supportive. I was too mortified to read their responses for days, wanting nothing more than to go back in time and delete that post before anyone saw it. But I'm almost kinda glad I don't (yet) have the ability to travel backwards in time. The resounding response, aside from acceptance and support, was: "sounds like you're bipolar. my (aunt, friend, grandmother, sister, parakeet) said she felt exactly like that, and it took awhile, but after they found the right combination of meds, they started getting better."

Maybe I am, and maybe I amn't bipolar. But whatever is going on with me, at least I'll be finally starting to fix it. Me. This life.

So. Dunno how often I'll be updating this blog. I don't really have the energy for much that isn't sleeping, maintaining, or writing fiction (one good thing about the lows, is that I tend to write prolifically and brainstorm better during those times, and world-building is still the best, safest distraction I've got. The numb times are good for editing. The highs are good for nothing at all, except possibly aquiring a felony rapsheet), but I will be reading and commenting in other blogs again. I missed you guys. I missed reality.

Shit, I better post this before I chickenshit-out and delete it--

A Dose of "Heeeeeeey!" ::Fonzie hands::

Heyya. Not dead. Just a crazy, crappy month filled with the kind of moodiness that makes me generally unbearable to others--hence the avoidance of all things blog-related. Anyone who reads this blog and who I read regularly, it'll take me some time, but I'll get caught up on your stuff.

In my rl? Nothing much of note. Piercing possibly infected. Also had a weird lung infection thing that wasn't bronchitis, but the doc put me on the same fucking antibiotics they use to treat anthrax. I was thrilled.

"No, don't worry, it's not bronchitis or tb--but we'll treat it with anthrax meds!"

Ai, ai, ai.

Nice resurgence of asthma, which doing the tango with a resurgence of my panic attacks. One'll trigger the other, and it's all just peachy keen. No doctor's appointment till the twelfth of June and my inhaler is two months past expiration.

No longer on the cusp of being fired at work. Somehow, I've improved my whatever the fuck I was doing wrong and started pretending I care. It seems to do the trick. Still tired of dealing with dumbasses all day. If I have to explain to one more cust what a model number is, I'm whip out my swiss army knife and kill the person to my immediate left.

Got a book on hypnosis. I don't know why, but if it teaches me how to mindfuck people for fun and/ or profit, then bully for me.

The new Star Trek movie is total candy, but I like it anyway. They did a good job with Bones, and that's all I care about.

Reading "As We Are Now", by May Sarton. Going to Minneapolis for a few days at the end of July. I know, the land of ten bajillion lakes, and I'm going in the middle of summer. Am I insane, you may be asking yourself. And the answer, of course, is yes.

All religiousity grates on me now. I mean waaaaay worse than it used to. I notice more when people talk about respecting religion, like religion's a struggling single mother who puts food on the table yet still makes time for her four kids. But instead of pissing me off, or sending me into a self-righteous rant, it just makes me laugh and poke mildly cutting fun at such a silly opinion.

It's like listening to a ten year old talk about Santa. I just want to (and usually do, I don't really care enough to stop myself) say something along the lines of:

"You don't still believe in Santa, do you? Aren't you a little too old for that? I mean--you're not slow, are you? Are you slow? I mean special. You're very special. And Santa will bring you an extra special present this year for being so good. Now run along and try not to eat any more paint chips, no matter how shiny they are."

Finished the love story about the Antichrist and was well-pleased with it. Started writing a novel about six months ago, and the first chapter (which oddly enough probably isn't chapter one) is done. Starting the next chapter has been like water enchanced interrogation. The whole project doesn't know if it wants to be parody or paragon--but it has a lesbian superhero with borderline personality disorder, among other worthies, so I'll do my best to finish it.

Still haven't done my taxes.

A Dose of Infection!!! Oh, Noes!!! Bring Out Your Dead!!!

Hah, not the piercings, peasants, but my lungs, my good ol' lungs.

Had to leave work early today. I could barely talk, and breathing hurt, and I was alternately sweating like a pig and freezing like a frozen thing. Everyone else in the call center was just freezing.

Practically as soon as I signed in, I begged one of my supervisors--who kept moving away from me, because I was both coughing and sweating copiously--to turn on one of the ceiling fans halfway between his desk and mine. He backed away some more, and he said I could turn it on myself, just go to this pylon in the corner, there's a hi-lo switch. . . .

Ladies and gentlemen, we had fan! And glares, since everyone else was cold.

A little later, as I executed a delirious Mary Tyler Moore-spin under the fan, I told a coworker between wracking coughs: "I wish my desk was right here."

My supervisor: "I don't."

Another coworker kept going "sooey" and telling me to go home 'cause I was probably giving everyone the swine flu. I finally asked the scheduling supe if I could leave early if I brought in a doctor's note. I could, so I did. It's not like they woulda had much choice at that point, anyway. I lost my voice shortly after I left. They'd have been paying me to do bugger-all, since I'd have been unable to answer a phone.

Doc prescribed antibiotics and special cough medicine with codeine in it, so Nyquil can go fuck its mother.

Was gonna see Wolverine tonight with friends, but it means delaying the antibiotics--seriously don't want the side effects starting when I'm in transit or in cinema--so I might not. . . .

But I really wanna. I probably will. It's not like I have to jog in place for the length of the movie. My lungs should be fine for a little while longer. And my friends already know I'm sick, so if they're still badgering me to come along, that means they don't mind the risk of contagion. Love me, love my viruses.

Nevertheless, my piercings are all swollen and crusty. I keep them clean, and choose to see that crusty swollenness as healing. But my face kinda hurts again, so I'm a bit worried.

A Dose of Face-Holes

Sweaty, nasty day. Sunlight like syrup, sticky and running all over everything. Attracting bumblebees, speeding them on their little errands--and I don't fuck around with those things since that one flew up my nose that time and got stuck.

Two massive loads of laundrey--linens, clothes, hats, everything. Got cruised by not one, but two creepy guys at the laundry mat. Only one of them was there for actual laundry. The other just walked around in his shiny, ugly shirt and picked his nose. For, like, an hour. Seriously--what did he have up there? The treasure of Sierra Madre?

Shlepped heavy ass laundry. Dodged bumblebees. And after that, because I hadn't sweated enough, I walked crosstown and got my bridge :)

Not so yay? My fucking skull. Fucking ow. And let's not even get into my sinuses (hah, I said "get into my sinuses." I'm funny). The pressure from this . . . maybe one ounce bar--gevalt! I didn't realize how move-y my face was, and now, something as simple as raising my eyebrows feels like someone hit me in the face with a stick. A pretty-stick, obviously.

My piercer guy is so sweet, and his kids are ridiculously cute.

Thinking of recording myself reading that minor milestone piece on the YouTubes--inspired by the wonderful John Evo.



Argh . . . my fucking face. . . .


"No horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace." --HP Lovecraft

A Minor Milestone

Nearly a year, now, since I admitted to myself that yes, Virginia, there is no sky-fairy.

I find that I have milestones, some large, some small. The ones that involved my death and dying--death is the end, no playing harps on clouds or even boiling in a lake of fire . . . no nothing--were surprisingly not the hardest to come to. Maybe because I find that I have to deal with it everyday. Sometimes it hits like a freight train, and I'm left gobsmacked. Other times, I'm damn near zen about it. I understand, not just with my brain, but with my heart and my gut that someday, I will die. That that day will be my last day as a consciousness, no matter what happens to my cells. The consciousness called "Rachel" will simply stop.

Admittedly, this sort of zen wasn't me on most days, at first. And I won't lie and say it's me most days now. But I no longer fear the act of dying. Sometimes I fear the pain that's likely to be attendant. I once feared not going on in an "afterlife", even though "not going on" is something no conscious being will ever experience.

Now I simply feel betrayed, vaguely cheated. Not out of living forever, but out of living for a good thousand years or so. ( Though I imagine that on my eve of my 1000th birthday, I'd be bitching and moaning about, "fucking why do I gotta fucking die fucking now? Motherfucker!")

I imagine, once I get my life on something I consider a "right track", that feeling won't fade, so much as be eclipsed by all the stuff that goes with a life fully inhabited and lived.

So no, the thought of my death wasn't the worst realization, even on my worst day. The worst was realizing there's no Heaven, in which my grandmother watches baseball games at an angelic Shea Stadium, and drinks Miller Lites. That she wasn't smiling down on me, and that I would never, ever see her again.

Eight months since I had that mini-realization, and some days it still hits me hard. Not like a freight train. But like an asteroid, and it fucking obliterates me, almost every time. The only reason I want there to be an afterlife is for my Grandma. So that maybe I could sleaze my way past the bouncers at the gate and get a hug. 'Cause she gave the best hugs. And believe me when I say, I'm not a hugger. I don't like people touching me for pretty much any reason and I do not find touch comforting. I don't even let my mother hug me and she knows not to try, but my Grandma . . . she gave the best hugs.

That's the afterlife that I mourn on good days and rage internally at being cheated of on the bad ones. An eternal hug from my Grandma.

Lately, I've looked at this mourning from the perspective of: when I'm dead, I won't miss my grandmother, or hugs, or anything at all. Death will be the cessation of desire for things I had, for things I never got and never will. Understood only with my heart and gut, it's a wee bit depressing, but with my brain in the mix, eternal rest sounds a lot better than even eternal hugs. I mean, if we had everything we ever wanted, and had it all the time . . . how long would we enjoy it before wanting something else? And something else after that? The wanting would never end, and speaking as someone who's wanted many things and gotten very few of them, desire is, more than anything, tiresome.

So, I want a hug from my grandma. Maybe not an eternal one, not anymore. But a good hundred years worth'd do me fine. I will never get that hug, and that makes me sad. But if that's the price I pay for someday, finally, not having to be, period, well, it's an infinitessimally small price to pay.

I do like being alive, but it take so much energy and effort and care. More than I can imagine expending for eternity.

So, that's my milestone. Not a huge one (or even a coherent one, skimming over this post) but it's mine. One more step of many I'll climb till I can't climb anymore. And at the end of my climb, though nowhere near the "top", I'll look forward to a sleep so complete and permanent, I won't even know that I'm taking it--or know anything else, for that matter. Forever and ever, amen.

I find myself strangely optimistic.

It's not about the fact that I ain't the marrying kind and probably never will be. . . .

It's about civil rights.

It's a Dose of Justice, and I am elated, but. . . .

Let's get on the motherfucking ball, New York state.



"No horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace." --HP Lovecraft

Dose of the Plaaaaague. . . !

I'm sick.

I mean physically, not just mentally. The horrible stomach-y bits are over, or seem to be. Now I'm just blowing my nose and wheezing.

Don't got much to say, except "howdy, y'all!" And for your viewing enjoyment, I present:





Just because it's so beautifully done. The very height of steampunkery, for my money . . . not that I paid any :D

I'd fit in much better on an airship than I ever will in an office.

Had a godsmack of an idea for a short story on the way to work Thursday morning. Worked on it between calls all day and Friday, late into the night, despite my viral subversion. It's a romantic comedy about the Antichrist. I think it's going well. Should be editing it now, but I'm exhausted. Laundry will have to wait till tomorrow, or possibly next week.

Chores, bleh. Library. Groceries. All obligations out of the way of me and twelve solid hours of sleep . . . typing is hard when I have attention span of--ooh! Shiny--


"No horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace." --HP Lovecraft

*A Dose of Jeebus!

It's been this kinda day, lol.

*Major thanks to John Evo for introducing me--indirectly, but I'm nosy, so he may as well have held my hand--to BaratsAndBereta.

A Dose of Matrimony?

Think I should do it?

It'd be a nice fuck you! to The Man, but . . . marriage is as much of a tool of The Man as religion.

Maybe I should do one of those pros/cons tables:

Pro:

--A nice fuck you! to The Man
--Power (of a sort) . . . sweet, sweet power. . . .
--Receptions, free food, free booze
--Three hundred clams just to say some words that don't mean anything
--Don't have license or car, but can probably bum rides to and from with friends
--I can make people call me "Your Ministership" . . . and get out of work for religious reasons?
--Marrying gay atheists.
--Meet interesting people
--Some new clothes that can also double as "job interview" togs, because I am this close at work
--Might help me drag the big stick out of my ass re: marriage.


Con:

--Marriage . . . a tool of The Man?
--Responsibility (not being late to weddings, not flubbing lines, not giggling or being sarcastic)
--Receptions, crappy free food, watered down free booze
--Possible loss of the occasional night or weekend
--My dirtbag friends--not likely to be welcome on a solemn occasion.
--Ministership, meh. I'd prefer to be called Her Awesomeness. Not likely to happen. Plus, time off for religious reasons would still cut into my PTO.
--Putting the shackles of matrimony on (probably) nice people.
--I hate people.
--Will probably have to get something fancy and not riddled with holes to wear, which would cut into my steampunk wardrobe budget.
--Hypocritical of me to usher others into something I couldn't imagine doing (unless I was getting paid to help someone stay in the country)?


Any insight from the public at large would be appreciated.

Freshly back from the dentist, where to my delight, not only was cavity Number Six close to the nerve, but they didn't give me enough novocaine (sp?), and so had to stop halfway through due to me thrashing and mewling like a throat-cut lamb due to the intense fucking waves of pain.

Curse my cavity-prone genes.

Found this, and am instantly in love with it, hope the rest of the blog is as interesting.

PhillyChief mentioned RuPaul's Drag Race in a post or comment somewhere, so I gave it a look-see over the weekend. Watched the marathon. I actually can't wait for season two, if there is one. I still think Nina Flowers should've won.

I love the Man of La Mancha soundtrack. One of the best operas ever.

The reading up on arguments and apologetics slogs on. Not sure how much I've internalized, but, well, I'm soon to find out.

Tempted to start Practical Ethics, but I own that. Once I've made more headway on the skillion library books I've had out since forever, then I'll start on Mr. Singer.

More to say, none of it important. After a restless night and pain-filled morning I'm achy, woozy, and ready to take some acetaminophen and crash till Judge Judy comes on. Or maybe till Olbermann comes on, the way I feel.

Gotta love a day off from work.




"No horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace." --HP Lovecraft

Ah, me . . . logic. . . ?

Up to my ass and then some in illogical fallacies, arguments, premise, conclusion, deductive and inductive reasoning, and my personal fave, PhillyChief's Better Moments. Trying to teach myself how to argue gooder, and beat back the theistic hordes battering the gates of reason.

I dunno how much of the dry fact-y type stuff is sticking, but I've read and reread it so much that hopefully, as I apply it to more things, it'll become second nature. What I can't understand is why every student, in either junior high or high school, isn't made to take a mandatory class on critical thinking. Well, I have an idea. Let's see if I can turn it into an sound inductive argument:


Premise 1: Since critical thinking is the careful, deliberate determination of whether we should accept, reject, or suspend judgment about a claim and the degree of confidence with which we accept or reject it--

Premise 2: It's implicit that it's more difficult to mislead and/or distract someone who is accustomed to thinking critically, and examining everything. Therefore,

Conclusion: It is my conclusion that those in authority, whether parent, teacher, or government, are unlikely to push for mandatory critical thinking classes in public schools.


Hmm. I think Premise 2 might actually be a conclusion. And the Conclusion's probably an appeal to emotion (cynicism) . . . meh. It's my maiden voyage--sue me.

::sighs::
Back to the mines. . . .

"No horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace." --HP Lovecraft

Mixed Doses.

Sometimes . . . I come across something that makes me want to vomit 'til I die.

Which I then have to follow up with something a bit lighter.

And then there's a bit of backslide. . . .






"No horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace." --HP Lovecraft