My love is a question. It seeks answers of understanding, tolerance, interest, amiability... and initiative, bounded by consideration and careful wisdom.
My love is a question and the answers are multiform. They come in words and music, in images and touch... in action, or inaction.
My heart exalts when it is answered artfully. Some eyes reflect comprehension of the depth and tone and timidity of the question I'm asking. Some eyes, some hands, some lips... in some moments... answer me firmly, and my world is, for a moment, resolved.
Some times, eyes are averted, hands fidget, lips purse and strain, and the answer is feeble or flinches away. It is a symptom that love has become sick.
Some times it falls to me to cut through ambiguity and excuses, to stand broad and stolid and confront plaintive cries of "I don't know!" by answering the question for myself, and answering it, "No."
My heart staggers when I stand grim in the bloodiness of a question silenced; when I have at last taken some answer as final, and resolved to ask no more.
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Thursday, February 22, 2018
Dear Memory: Night Vale and Daytime Dreams
Dear memory...
I have been bingeing on Welcome to Night Vale, as well as the Sims, lately, as I have shifted into a state of rest and reluctance to apply myself to anything. However, and perhaps unusually, I am mostly enjoying the rest, and the opportunity to let my mind and body be comparatively still. Perhaps, I have been overextending myself recently, and it is important to allow myself a time to pull in on myself.
I think of you often. Night Vale reminds me of you... since, of course, you were the person who originally showed it to me. I am up to episode 74 now, and when I heard the announcement describing the dog park, repeated almost exactly word for word from the pilot, I went back and listened to part of the pilot again to confirm that it actually was almost exactly word for word.
I remembered hanging out in your bedroom. I remembered commenting that the segment featuring advice to parents while bringing their children to play in the scrublands had some very genuinely sensible advice in it. It felt strange to remember so vividly a thing that happened about three quarters of a year ago, but then... My memories of my time with you are vivid. More vivid than usual, and my memories and imaginings are usually... vivid. Emotional intensity, I am sure, has a significant amount to do with memory formation and retention. That which a person feels strongly about, in any way, their brain will register as important, and reinforce.
You have always been important to me.
I think of you much, recently.
I have had strange dreams, the past couple of days (I had four days off of school in a row, and started sleeping during the day again; I have been unable yet to stop sleeping during the day, and this has contributed to my recent retreat into myself). Twice in a row... I think... My dreams involved getting to know a person, and winding up lying with that person and kissing them. The person was not you. The person was different in each dream, and represented a real person that I recognize, and sort of know, and have sort of liked, but not someone at all close to me. A YouTuber I occasionally watch, and a classmate I never really talked to much, but had a slight crush on for a time.
It feels strange to have my dreams repeat themes so strongly like that. I miss kissing you. I miss kissing anyone, really. It's been quite some time since I have. None of the people I know that I would want to kiss and feel comfortable trying to do so are here in London with me. Perhaps the dreams are simply an expression of desiring that kind of physical contact again. And yet, there was something about both of them that seemed as though they were trying to retell the story of my meeting you, and becoming involved with you. In one case, I asked the dream-partner to let me have a moment to process my feelings, after I had somewhat unexpectedly wound up kissing him, and I thought about you. In my dream. And whether I was okay with this, given how much I still miss you.
I have been very passive lately, but aside from a sense of slightly concerned pressure about an assignment which is due in two days, I'm not worried or upset about it. I was working hard for the first few weeks of the term, and we really didn't get much of a winter break at all this year. It's been very tense and active at school since the strike ended three months ago. It seems I am well able to forgive and tolerate myself taking time off to just relax for a while. I believe with some quiet, non-dramatic confidence that I will be able to pick up and start working again, once it becomes necessary for me to do so to keep pace with the course and continue to perform at my high standards for myself.
When I listen to Welcome to Night Vale recently, I snarl and giggle more often and with slightly less care to ensure no-one is close by to notice. I feel fairly peaceful with my own acknowledged, adopted, personally delighted in creepiness. I feel happy about my friends, who know that it is part of me, and love me no less. I have one person in particular who tells me that they really value the fact that when they talk to me, some of the things I say reflect a darker side to the world that they don't notice until I point it out. But he appreciates being able to see it, like a shape on the other side of the water, behind the clearer reflection of his own light, his own experience, his own face. Enlightening, endarkening, as he says.
It is... beautiful... to have contexts available to me in which this tendency of mine; although it arises quite naturally out of my perspective, and simply sharing the way I see the world and what things mean to me; is acknowledged and appreciated as a service.
I miss you. I hope that you are well. I look forward hopefully and with quiet, distant excitement to the time when I can speak to you again.
I have been bingeing on Welcome to Night Vale, as well as the Sims, lately, as I have shifted into a state of rest and reluctance to apply myself to anything. However, and perhaps unusually, I am mostly enjoying the rest, and the opportunity to let my mind and body be comparatively still. Perhaps, I have been overextending myself recently, and it is important to allow myself a time to pull in on myself.
I think of you often. Night Vale reminds me of you... since, of course, you were the person who originally showed it to me. I am up to episode 74 now, and when I heard the announcement describing the dog park, repeated almost exactly word for word from the pilot, I went back and listened to part of the pilot again to confirm that it actually was almost exactly word for word.
I remembered hanging out in your bedroom. I remembered commenting that the segment featuring advice to parents while bringing their children to play in the scrublands had some very genuinely sensible advice in it. It felt strange to remember so vividly a thing that happened about three quarters of a year ago, but then... My memories of my time with you are vivid. More vivid than usual, and my memories and imaginings are usually... vivid. Emotional intensity, I am sure, has a significant amount to do with memory formation and retention. That which a person feels strongly about, in any way, their brain will register as important, and reinforce.
You have always been important to me.
I think of you much, recently.
I have had strange dreams, the past couple of days (I had four days off of school in a row, and started sleeping during the day again; I have been unable yet to stop sleeping during the day, and this has contributed to my recent retreat into myself). Twice in a row... I think... My dreams involved getting to know a person, and winding up lying with that person and kissing them. The person was not you. The person was different in each dream, and represented a real person that I recognize, and sort of know, and have sort of liked, but not someone at all close to me. A YouTuber I occasionally watch, and a classmate I never really talked to much, but had a slight crush on for a time.
It feels strange to have my dreams repeat themes so strongly like that. I miss kissing you. I miss kissing anyone, really. It's been quite some time since I have. None of the people I know that I would want to kiss and feel comfortable trying to do so are here in London with me. Perhaps the dreams are simply an expression of desiring that kind of physical contact again. And yet, there was something about both of them that seemed as though they were trying to retell the story of my meeting you, and becoming involved with you. In one case, I asked the dream-partner to let me have a moment to process my feelings, after I had somewhat unexpectedly wound up kissing him, and I thought about you. In my dream. And whether I was okay with this, given how much I still miss you.
I have been very passive lately, but aside from a sense of slightly concerned pressure about an assignment which is due in two days, I'm not worried or upset about it. I was working hard for the first few weeks of the term, and we really didn't get much of a winter break at all this year. It's been very tense and active at school since the strike ended three months ago. It seems I am well able to forgive and tolerate myself taking time off to just relax for a while. I believe with some quiet, non-dramatic confidence that I will be able to pick up and start working again, once it becomes necessary for me to do so to keep pace with the course and continue to perform at my high standards for myself.
When I listen to Welcome to Night Vale recently, I snarl and giggle more often and with slightly less care to ensure no-one is close by to notice. I feel fairly peaceful with my own acknowledged, adopted, personally delighted in creepiness. I feel happy about my friends, who know that it is part of me, and love me no less. I have one person in particular who tells me that they really value the fact that when they talk to me, some of the things I say reflect a darker side to the world that they don't notice until I point it out. But he appreciates being able to see it, like a shape on the other side of the water, behind the clearer reflection of his own light, his own experience, his own face. Enlightening, endarkening, as he says.
It is... beautiful... to have contexts available to me in which this tendency of mine; although it arises quite naturally out of my perspective, and simply sharing the way I see the world and what things mean to me; is acknowledged and appreciated as a service.
I miss you. I hope that you are well. I look forward hopefully and with quiet, distant excitement to the time when I can speak to you again.
Saturday, January 13, 2018
Dear Memory: Trying to Slow Down
I wrote myself a checklist for today which consisted of very little big or taxing, and included leisure as an entry. It has been exams, and I have been dizzy with love and busy with study and unable to get much sleep, as I stay up late and my roommates always wake me with their conversations in the morning.
So I have had a quiet day deliberately for once. I set away my laundry, I enjoyed my tea, I ate leftovers and a shawarma on my way back home from a walk. The snow glitters like tiny flashing stars everywhere. Across the ground and in the air, the world around me shining with pinpoint mirrors, facets on a tiny flake of ice. Craft glitter could never match this, for all that it might be designed as though to try.
I Googled up some podcasts to do with finance and bookkeeping and Irish experience or systems in particular, and listened to one first episode of a couple on my walk. In one of them, the voice of the speaker sounded so similar to my dear friend Coda that I giggled to myself about it. In the other, the accents brought me nodding recognition and a reminder of the lecturer who taught my marketing class in Athlone.
The man at the pizza shop (who made me a shawarma) was good-natured and complimentary, happily chatting to me about all the diverse ingredients that make up the flavour, and shared the basic ingredients in the garlic sauce when I confessed I didn't know how to make it.
Half way along the long stretch of Oxford St. which is bordered in great sports fields and open to the wind, I paused and stared in some wonder at the sky. Lights... Lights on the distant side of the field stretched straight up in gorgeous vertical beams, visible high into the sky, diffuse with gentle auras. Some lights more reddish, others more bluish, and a couple thicker and brighter and yellow. I suppose, the light must have reflected off the sparse falling snow, to show those magnificent beams like pillars or signal lights up into the sky. It was worth stopping to stare at for a while, and I could not help but wish I had you with me to see it and awe at it alongside.
My phone had died of podcast. Its battery is rubbish these days and I hadn't fully charged it before leaving anyway. Otherwise, I would have taken a picture. As it is, I describe it here and encourage anyone who might read this and who lives in a place where it snows to look for the beautiful sight on a night when it is only just snowing in tiny flakes, so you can see into the distance.
I certainly must have overexposed myself to those Elbow songs in the past couple of days. Now I can hardly get them to stop interrupting my thoughts, and I am a little irritated of the feeling, even though they are good songs.
I am trying, for the moment, to calm myself down and return some focus on the present and near future, as much as it is habitual and forever tempting to continue daydreaming of meeting you again. I do not want to overdo it and lose sight of the broader existence and variety, and the options in my life. I hope to continue to find ways to enjoy my time here in more than just waiting for it to be over. I see myself in a broad variety of lights, as a student, a traveler, a romantic, a strong creature going on adventures, a restless youth barely able to pull myself together for an hour or two to study and touch ground between flights of fancy and self-indulgence.
Yesterday I went over to the college for a while just to get out of the house, and wandered into the library. There I found on a rack of books to be returned to the shelves a volume called Celtic Mythology, and I picked it up and sat down and read a while, a description of what disperate and scattered records shed any light at all on the religions and folklore of old Irish and broader Gaul or Gael culture. Records in Greece, observations written by their foes, suggestions in the content and the labels of some various works of art; statues, a cauldron somewhere... I read a brief English summary of the stages in the Book of Invasions.
Although I felt restless and tired and was frequently tempted to return home, my mind was also hungry for this context of some of the scant few things I heard others say while I was visiting, and one bit in particular, a mention of one surviving boat of a migration, which carried fifty women and three men, prompted me to blink to myself in some astonishment. I had heard that story before. Only briefly mentioned in this book, but I had heard a much elaborated version in a book I had read while still living at my mother's house what must have been over ten years ago.
It put me in a keen interest to someday take some time to visit other sites around Ireland, any place which still has symbols or record of these old stories, or special relevance in them, and see what it might inspire me to wonder. I thought, perhaps I could become a scholar of these great old stories someday, perhaps write conjectures on them... That, though, is another big and bold idea. It must be enough for now to be fascinated and pleasantly distracted by them, and keep going about my business of learning business, putting forth however much effort performing well at that must demand of me.
And it must be enough, for now, to bring my writing to a close and wish you and myself a good and restful night.
So I have had a quiet day deliberately for once. I set away my laundry, I enjoyed my tea, I ate leftovers and a shawarma on my way back home from a walk. The snow glitters like tiny flashing stars everywhere. Across the ground and in the air, the world around me shining with pinpoint mirrors, facets on a tiny flake of ice. Craft glitter could never match this, for all that it might be designed as though to try.
I Googled up some podcasts to do with finance and bookkeeping and Irish experience or systems in particular, and listened to one first episode of a couple on my walk. In one of them, the voice of the speaker sounded so similar to my dear friend Coda that I giggled to myself about it. In the other, the accents brought me nodding recognition and a reminder of the lecturer who taught my marketing class in Athlone.
The man at the pizza shop (who made me a shawarma) was good-natured and complimentary, happily chatting to me about all the diverse ingredients that make up the flavour, and shared the basic ingredients in the garlic sauce when I confessed I didn't know how to make it.
Half way along the long stretch of Oxford St. which is bordered in great sports fields and open to the wind, I paused and stared in some wonder at the sky. Lights... Lights on the distant side of the field stretched straight up in gorgeous vertical beams, visible high into the sky, diffuse with gentle auras. Some lights more reddish, others more bluish, and a couple thicker and brighter and yellow. I suppose, the light must have reflected off the sparse falling snow, to show those magnificent beams like pillars or signal lights up into the sky. It was worth stopping to stare at for a while, and I could not help but wish I had you with me to see it and awe at it alongside.
My phone had died of podcast. Its battery is rubbish these days and I hadn't fully charged it before leaving anyway. Otherwise, I would have taken a picture. As it is, I describe it here and encourage anyone who might read this and who lives in a place where it snows to look for the beautiful sight on a night when it is only just snowing in tiny flakes, so you can see into the distance.
I certainly must have overexposed myself to those Elbow songs in the past couple of days. Now I can hardly get them to stop interrupting my thoughts, and I am a little irritated of the feeling, even though they are good songs.
I am trying, for the moment, to calm myself down and return some focus on the present and near future, as much as it is habitual and forever tempting to continue daydreaming of meeting you again. I do not want to overdo it and lose sight of the broader existence and variety, and the options in my life. I hope to continue to find ways to enjoy my time here in more than just waiting for it to be over. I see myself in a broad variety of lights, as a student, a traveler, a romantic, a strong creature going on adventures, a restless youth barely able to pull myself together for an hour or two to study and touch ground between flights of fancy and self-indulgence.
Yesterday I went over to the college for a while just to get out of the house, and wandered into the library. There I found on a rack of books to be returned to the shelves a volume called Celtic Mythology, and I picked it up and sat down and read a while, a description of what disperate and scattered records shed any light at all on the religions and folklore of old Irish and broader Gaul or Gael culture. Records in Greece, observations written by their foes, suggestions in the content and the labels of some various works of art; statues, a cauldron somewhere... I read a brief English summary of the stages in the Book of Invasions.
Although I felt restless and tired and was frequently tempted to return home, my mind was also hungry for this context of some of the scant few things I heard others say while I was visiting, and one bit in particular, a mention of one surviving boat of a migration, which carried fifty women and three men, prompted me to blink to myself in some astonishment. I had heard that story before. Only briefly mentioned in this book, but I had heard a much elaborated version in a book I had read while still living at my mother's house what must have been over ten years ago.
It put me in a keen interest to someday take some time to visit other sites around Ireland, any place which still has symbols or record of these old stories, or special relevance in them, and see what it might inspire me to wonder. I thought, perhaps I could become a scholar of these great old stories someday, perhaps write conjectures on them... That, though, is another big and bold idea. It must be enough for now to be fascinated and pleasantly distracted by them, and keep going about my business of learning business, putting forth however much effort performing well at that must demand of me.
And it must be enough, for now, to bring my writing to a close and wish you and myself a good and restful night.
Sunday, November 12, 2017
Drifting in Snow; The Season of the Scavenger
Eoin weighed particularly heavy on my mind today. I went walking in the first snow of the year that I have seen. It was beautiful, and I was happy to stay out in the cold until some areas of my skin began to feel slightly numb.
I had wanted to send him pictures when the real snows came.
Pictures of winter as it is in Canada.
There was a particular street, where streetlamps positioned between pairs of trees offered a gorgeous image that I felt, if I had the materials, I should like to paint. The bare, arching branches curled over the top of the sidewalk, giving it the beautiful natural-tunnel look of paths between trees, but the light cast the trees against one another in alternating light and shadow; the light in front of every second tree so that its part was cast in beige, and behind the others, so that their trunks and branches were dark silhouettes, and layered like that; light, dark, light, dark, light... Giving the path's length gorgeous texture in contrast.
A friend asked me what was my favourite part of winter.
I don't think I have a favourite part, per se. I prefer cooler temperatures, and so I appreciate that winter is a season in which I am not likely to feel overheated. I often tend to see seasons, much as I see other things, in the things they symbolise. Winter is endings, death and rebirth, rest and repose, the elegance of the lifeless and the dangerous beauty of unforgiving forces of nature, such as ice and snow.
It may also stand for austerity, the time when nothing grows being a natural time of scarcity, but humankind in this country is now divorced from such things.
I suppose I see it as the difficult season, and that appeals to my need to be challenged and face adventure.
In much the same way, spring represents birth and renewal, autumn represents change and shares the motif of endings with winter, and the motif of plenty and harvest with late summer.
Spiritual symbolism. I do it.
Winter speaks to me of wandering, which touches me more and seems to me less obvious.
But it is an ancestral symbol, too. When nothing grows, predators hunt and prowl, wandering farther from their homes to find sustenance.
Humankind are predators, and do so as well.
It is the time when scarcity may force conflict, and unwelcomeness shows its ugliest face; some may be cast out to freeze or starve if they cannot make their own way.
For both of these reasons, perhaps, it feels like the season of the wanderer and the outsider, that one who must always seek and cannot be satisfied for long with what it finds, for even as today's hunger is satisfied, there is always again tomorrow's empty belly to fill as well.
Of course, this time of difficulty is marked with revelry and defiance once we make it through a significant enough chunk to feel we have some measure of victory.
Hardship brings joy at overcoming it.
I certainly identify with the symbols of the wanderer and the scavenger, so in a way I feel that this is my season. The cold is a welcome discomfort to me, a connection to the sense that this cold North land is my home, and a little challenge which makes weathering it more satisfying...
There is nothing quite like coming in out of a harsh cold.
I had wanted to send him pictures when the real snows came.
Pictures of winter as it is in Canada.
There was a particular street, where streetlamps positioned between pairs of trees offered a gorgeous image that I felt, if I had the materials, I should like to paint. The bare, arching branches curled over the top of the sidewalk, giving it the beautiful natural-tunnel look of paths between trees, but the light cast the trees against one another in alternating light and shadow; the light in front of every second tree so that its part was cast in beige, and behind the others, so that their trunks and branches were dark silhouettes, and layered like that; light, dark, light, dark, light... Giving the path's length gorgeous texture in contrast.
A friend asked me what was my favourite part of winter.
I don't think I have a favourite part, per se. I prefer cooler temperatures, and so I appreciate that winter is a season in which I am not likely to feel overheated. I often tend to see seasons, much as I see other things, in the things they symbolise. Winter is endings, death and rebirth, rest and repose, the elegance of the lifeless and the dangerous beauty of unforgiving forces of nature, such as ice and snow.
It may also stand for austerity, the time when nothing grows being a natural time of scarcity, but humankind in this country is now divorced from such things.
I suppose I see it as the difficult season, and that appeals to my need to be challenged and face adventure.
In much the same way, spring represents birth and renewal, autumn represents change and shares the motif of endings with winter, and the motif of plenty and harvest with late summer.
Spiritual symbolism. I do it.
Winter speaks to me of wandering, which touches me more and seems to me less obvious.
But it is an ancestral symbol, too. When nothing grows, predators hunt and prowl, wandering farther from their homes to find sustenance.
Humankind are predators, and do so as well.
It is the time when scarcity may force conflict, and unwelcomeness shows its ugliest face; some may be cast out to freeze or starve if they cannot make their own way.
For both of these reasons, perhaps, it feels like the season of the wanderer and the outsider, that one who must always seek and cannot be satisfied for long with what it finds, for even as today's hunger is satisfied, there is always again tomorrow's empty belly to fill as well.
Of course, this time of difficulty is marked with revelry and defiance once we make it through a significant enough chunk to feel we have some measure of victory.
Hardship brings joy at overcoming it.
I certainly identify with the symbols of the wanderer and the scavenger, so in a way I feel that this is my season. The cold is a welcome discomfort to me, a connection to the sense that this cold North land is my home, and a little challenge which makes weathering it more satisfying...
There is nothing quite like coming in out of a harsh cold.
Monday, January 23, 2017
Life Across the Sea
The Irish winter is mild compared to Canada. It was particularly mild when I arrived and for a few days then, and felt like spring, but now it's quite bitterly cold enough to be irritating. Being outside and moving is really not a problem in winter clothes, but inside, my apartment is not heated efficiently enough to cope well at all.
Worse, it's heated by metered electricity and that inefficiency costs a not insignificant quantity of money. At least now I know how to turn it on if I decide not to suffer numbness of my toes and fingers anymore for a while, but if I were to keep it on and keep my room a comfortable temperature with it (it does take a fair while to spread the heat sufficiently through the room) it would cost me 2-3 euros in electricity charges, per day, by itself.
I learned to my unhappiness that I would not be provided any blankets either and the first night I was here, I shivered impotently, huddled against a wall heater in the living room to no avail. The building was colder still while most of the students who would regularly inhabit it were still away on the winter holiday.
For the first five days I was here, I walked roughly three kilometers to the Athlone Castle in the center of town. It is just what it sounds like, a great old stone castle with a cobbled cart road up into it, and up at the top they have kept some cannon and stocks as historical artifacts. Each time, I sought out the St. Vincent de Paul's outlet I had seen existed downtown on Google Maps. Some of those times, it was closed, and its signage calls it Vincent's, with new and unfamiliar branding. However, I did buy sheets and a towel my first trip, and blankets on a couple of subsequent ones. I went back later for some more clothes, hoping to find something to wear to a nightclub, although that's another story; and finally, shorts and athletic capris. Regardless the place, a thrift store is my personal lifeline.
In the first two weeks of school here, I've learned that the Irish are more relaxed about time (less monochronic, as my earlier classes may have put it) and the proper time to arrive for classes is right on the hour. The lectures will actually begin 5-10 minutes later. Several of my classes were cancelled because it was so early in the term, and one was cancelled just because the lecturer did not show up.
I went out to Eddie Rockets (a local diner) and the cinema with some of the other New Internationals. This is not an official term, it's just what I'm calling those students who, like me, arrived here as transfer students for the second term of the year and with whom I was inducted and shown about the school. There are some from Germany, some from France, some from the Netherlands. The film we saw was Passengers. It was not perfect by any means, not an immediate favourite like Amelie, but it was visually absolutely gorgeous, and it was acted very well. I did however find myself internally facepalming at the movie at several moments though (Goddamnit, John, you should know better than this. You do not cross that line until you have had that talk. Could we maybe at some point consider having a romance movie which doesn't depend on someone doing something incredibly stupid and unethical for all its tension? Although, to be fair, he has pretty much descended into a personal hell. The extreme circumstances having affected his mind at least makes sense.) (Look, it's a science fiction movie... We know this guy is going to die because he's not one of the two protagonists who have to pull things out of the fire. Did you have to make him black? Really? Lawrence Fishburne does a fine job, but the adherence to the trope is embarrassing.) (and worst of all... What? Excuse me, what? You can't do that, that's cheating. She stopped moving while immersed in water. You made a point of showing her ceasing to struggle and going limp. No-one else is there to rescue her. She's dead. She is not going to get up from that no matter how much she's jolted around. She's dead, goddamn it.) ...but for the most part, although it was full of tropes played straight and pretty predictably, each one was played sincerely and with impressive style. The eye candy didn't get in the way and was absolutely beautiful. I was actually sitting in a cinema, noticing the tropes but not minding all that much. I found myself thinking... Well, would you look at that. In this moment, I'm damn near acting and feeling like a normal healthy young adult.
The New Internationals who were with me laughed at my comments on the film afterward, and split up, some going home, some heading out to the nightclub Karma. I was wearing thin and anxious, but elected to give it a go. The atmosphere when I stepped inside though did not agree with me, and I was already feeling tense having walked around for some time with a trio who were primarily speaking French to one another. I tried some of my learned high school Canadian French, to the encouragement and appreciation of Sana, but every time I opened my mouth, I felt deeply embarrassed by the knowledge that my ability with the language is so patchy. Perfectionism is not helpful in learning new things.
At the nightclub, the fee was 8 euro just to get in. Then inside there was a bag check that cost another 2. A youth slung himself around a corner hollering, and the throbbing music from inside did not appeal. Annoyed that I was already facing being milked of my money stage by stage, I defied the sunk cost fallacy, turned on my heel and left, stopping to ask the lady at the ticket gate whether I could get my 8 euro back and just leave. She said no. I wasn't going to argue.
Triggered, I walked towards home, around midnight downtown in an unfamiliar country. But then, being triggered is often like that. I despaired that I didn't have Lonely Digger on my mp3 player anymore, nor my mp3 player with me, and more than anything I despaired for being alone, far away from any of my close friends, and especially the closest, she who I dream will travel with me, my Ashlynn. Reaching a peak in my desperation, I sat on the sidewalk, took out a notebook and pen, and wrote. I do not, however, recount that writing here.
Since arriving, I have made contact with the Tabletop Society (board games, Magic, D&D players; a lot of familiar and friendly culture, gathered loudly in one room Thursday evenings), College of Kingeslake (SCADIANS! ♡), the Dance Club and the Archery Club (brought to us by College of Kingeslake on Friday afternoons). There has been much to learn and friendly people to meet.
An international student who has been here since September, Anni from Finland, was a quick friend, greeting me in one of my first classes and inviting me to come to Tabletop Society. It is good to have met someone I am comfortable asking questions and asking to work with me on group projects. She's taking accounting as her elective. Perhaps I can help her with the knowledge I already have.
I'm sure life in Ireland will continue to be new and challenging. Goodness, I didn't even really mention the rustic, eccentric architecture and the plentiful unfamiliar birds and how remarkably green the fields are... It will have to wait. There are things to attend to.
Worse, it's heated by metered electricity and that inefficiency costs a not insignificant quantity of money. At least now I know how to turn it on if I decide not to suffer numbness of my toes and fingers anymore for a while, but if I were to keep it on and keep my room a comfortable temperature with it (it does take a fair while to spread the heat sufficiently through the room) it would cost me 2-3 euros in electricity charges, per day, by itself.
I learned to my unhappiness that I would not be provided any blankets either and the first night I was here, I shivered impotently, huddled against a wall heater in the living room to no avail. The building was colder still while most of the students who would regularly inhabit it were still away on the winter holiday.
For the first five days I was here, I walked roughly three kilometers to the Athlone Castle in the center of town. It is just what it sounds like, a great old stone castle with a cobbled cart road up into it, and up at the top they have kept some cannon and stocks as historical artifacts. Each time, I sought out the St. Vincent de Paul's outlet I had seen existed downtown on Google Maps. Some of those times, it was closed, and its signage calls it Vincent's, with new and unfamiliar branding. However, I did buy sheets and a towel my first trip, and blankets on a couple of subsequent ones. I went back later for some more clothes, hoping to find something to wear to a nightclub, although that's another story; and finally, shorts and athletic capris. Regardless the place, a thrift store is my personal lifeline.
In the first two weeks of school here, I've learned that the Irish are more relaxed about time (less monochronic, as my earlier classes may have put it) and the proper time to arrive for classes is right on the hour. The lectures will actually begin 5-10 minutes later. Several of my classes were cancelled because it was so early in the term, and one was cancelled just because the lecturer did not show up.
I went out to Eddie Rockets (a local diner) and the cinema with some of the other New Internationals. This is not an official term, it's just what I'm calling those students who, like me, arrived here as transfer students for the second term of the year and with whom I was inducted and shown about the school. There are some from Germany, some from France, some from the Netherlands. The film we saw was Passengers. It was not perfect by any means, not an immediate favourite like Amelie, but it was visually absolutely gorgeous, and it was acted very well. I did however find myself internally facepalming at the movie at several moments though (Goddamnit, John, you should know better than this. You do not cross that line until you have had that talk. Could we maybe at some point consider having a romance movie which doesn't depend on someone doing something incredibly stupid and unethical for all its tension? Although, to be fair, he has pretty much descended into a personal hell. The extreme circumstances having affected his mind at least makes sense.) (Look, it's a science fiction movie... We know this guy is going to die because he's not one of the two protagonists who have to pull things out of the fire. Did you have to make him black? Really? Lawrence Fishburne does a fine job, but the adherence to the trope is embarrassing.) (and worst of all... What? Excuse me, what? You can't do that, that's cheating. She stopped moving while immersed in water. You made a point of showing her ceasing to struggle and going limp. No-one else is there to rescue her. She's dead. She is not going to get up from that no matter how much she's jolted around. She's dead, goddamn it.) ...but for the most part, although it was full of tropes played straight and pretty predictably, each one was played sincerely and with impressive style. The eye candy didn't get in the way and was absolutely beautiful. I was actually sitting in a cinema, noticing the tropes but not minding all that much. I found myself thinking... Well, would you look at that. In this moment, I'm damn near acting and feeling like a normal healthy young adult.
The New Internationals who were with me laughed at my comments on the film afterward, and split up, some going home, some heading out to the nightclub Karma. I was wearing thin and anxious, but elected to give it a go. The atmosphere when I stepped inside though did not agree with me, and I was already feeling tense having walked around for some time with a trio who were primarily speaking French to one another. I tried some of my learned high school Canadian French, to the encouragement and appreciation of Sana, but every time I opened my mouth, I felt deeply embarrassed by the knowledge that my ability with the language is so patchy. Perfectionism is not helpful in learning new things.
At the nightclub, the fee was 8 euro just to get in. Then inside there was a bag check that cost another 2. A youth slung himself around a corner hollering, and the throbbing music from inside did not appeal. Annoyed that I was already facing being milked of my money stage by stage, I defied the sunk cost fallacy, turned on my heel and left, stopping to ask the lady at the ticket gate whether I could get my 8 euro back and just leave. She said no. I wasn't going to argue.
Triggered, I walked towards home, around midnight downtown in an unfamiliar country. But then, being triggered is often like that. I despaired that I didn't have Lonely Digger on my mp3 player anymore, nor my mp3 player with me, and more than anything I despaired for being alone, far away from any of my close friends, and especially the closest, she who I dream will travel with me, my Ashlynn. Reaching a peak in my desperation, I sat on the sidewalk, took out a notebook and pen, and wrote. I do not, however, recount that writing here.
Since arriving, I have made contact with the Tabletop Society (board games, Magic, D&D players; a lot of familiar and friendly culture, gathered loudly in one room Thursday evenings), College of Kingeslake (SCADIANS! ♡), the Dance Club and the Archery Club (brought to us by College of Kingeslake on Friday afternoons). There has been much to learn and friendly people to meet.
An international student who has been here since September, Anni from Finland, was a quick friend, greeting me in one of my first classes and inviting me to come to Tabletop Society. It is good to have met someone I am comfortable asking questions and asking to work with me on group projects. She's taking accounting as her elective. Perhaps I can help her with the knowledge I already have.
I'm sure life in Ireland will continue to be new and challenging. Goodness, I didn't even really mention the rustic, eccentric architecture and the plentiful unfamiliar birds and how remarkably green the fields are... It will have to wait. There are things to attend to.
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Less Boring
You know...
Let's give this a second, shall we?
You know, yesterday, I saw a bible thumper's recruitment card, and a plastic coin with a bible quote on it, and a pamphlet, all tucked into street posts and such things on my way in to school, and I tore the card in half, and collected the coin and the the pamphlet and put them in the garbage and the recycling bin, respectively. I had read the first side of the card, and half of the second side, and both sides of the coin because the writing was so short it would be hard not to, and the first few pages of the pamphlet, just to give whoever had written it a chance. I don't think I need to say anything about what was written on them, because there was nothing the least bit surprising about any of it, if you have seen such items before.
And I found myself thinking, I admit rather bitterly, that maybe if for once they said something simple instead of trying to play really insultingly obvious manipulative games by trying to dangle mysterious wisdom at you, maybe if they just said, "At 123 Somewhere St, at 6-9 PM on May 29th, we are going to talk about God. All comers welcome, any faith or none." Maybe that would be intriguing. Maybe that would be a good way to actually start a conversation about something interesting and complex like God. It would have gotten MY attention.
I think even people who are not very analytical, in my generation, are dead sick of being patronized to by people who think they are older and wiser, or think they are representing something older and wiser.
I find it disappointing that so few people seem to reach the conclusion that in order to actually catch the interest of people in my generation, even the ones who aren't very analytical, the best strategy would be to look at your intended invitation, and try to see it through someone else's eyes, and try to identify anything that sounded the slightest bit like manipulation or patronizing, and remove it. To try to figure out what you actually wanted from people, and then try to figure out how to ask them for it so frankly and honestly that they would at least be surprised, which makes people THINK, and might even believe it was honest.
And then it occurred to me that while that probably was the best way to start a conversation about God or anything similarly divisive, if you used an honest hook to get people in the door, those people would probably only leave if you started trying to preach to them; if the meeting itself didn't match the frank honesty of the invitation. Then you would have only hurt the chances of the next person who tried to catch those same peoples' attention by being so frank and honest it might surprise them. Because then, they would have already seen that trick before.
So maybe it's for the best that people who don't know how not to patronize in predictable, annoying patterns don't know how not to patronize even for long enough to try to get your attention.
Someone on the internet got my attention today. They posted a chest-high text wall of complete and undisguised gobbledygook as a blog comment in a place that already inspired thought, and that was a surprising, interesting thing to do. It hadn't been removed by the owner of the blog, and that was also surprising and interesting. And the username that posted that comment had an embedded link to somewhere else, somewhere where another message was written, that wasn't gobbledygook, and wasn't obviously manipulative.
So I say to this unknown person: I don't trust you, but you have my attention. What would you like to do with it?
Let's give this a second, shall we?
You know, yesterday, I saw a bible thumper's recruitment card, and a plastic coin with a bible quote on it, and a pamphlet, all tucked into street posts and such things on my way in to school, and I tore the card in half, and collected the coin and the the pamphlet and put them in the garbage and the recycling bin, respectively. I had read the first side of the card, and half of the second side, and both sides of the coin because the writing was so short it would be hard not to, and the first few pages of the pamphlet, just to give whoever had written it a chance. I don't think I need to say anything about what was written on them, because there was nothing the least bit surprising about any of it, if you have seen such items before.
And I found myself thinking, I admit rather bitterly, that maybe if for once they said something simple instead of trying to play really insultingly obvious manipulative games by trying to dangle mysterious wisdom at you, maybe if they just said, "At 123 Somewhere St, at 6-9 PM on May 29th, we are going to talk about God. All comers welcome, any faith or none." Maybe that would be intriguing. Maybe that would be a good way to actually start a conversation about something interesting and complex like God. It would have gotten MY attention.
I think even people who are not very analytical, in my generation, are dead sick of being patronized to by people who think they are older and wiser, or think they are representing something older and wiser.
I find it disappointing that so few people seem to reach the conclusion that in order to actually catch the interest of people in my generation, even the ones who aren't very analytical, the best strategy would be to look at your intended invitation, and try to see it through someone else's eyes, and try to identify anything that sounded the slightest bit like manipulation or patronizing, and remove it. To try to figure out what you actually wanted from people, and then try to figure out how to ask them for it so frankly and honestly that they would at least be surprised, which makes people THINK, and might even believe it was honest.
And then it occurred to me that while that probably was the best way to start a conversation about God or anything similarly divisive, if you used an honest hook to get people in the door, those people would probably only leave if you started trying to preach to them; if the meeting itself didn't match the frank honesty of the invitation. Then you would have only hurt the chances of the next person who tried to catch those same peoples' attention by being so frank and honest it might surprise them. Because then, they would have already seen that trick before.
So maybe it's for the best that people who don't know how not to patronize in predictable, annoying patterns don't know how not to patronize even for long enough to try to get your attention.
Someone on the internet got my attention today. They posted a chest-high text wall of complete and undisguised gobbledygook as a blog comment in a place that already inspired thought, and that was a surprising, interesting thing to do. It hadn't been removed by the owner of the blog, and that was also surprising and interesting. And the username that posted that comment had an embedded link to somewhere else, somewhere where another message was written, that wasn't gobbledygook, and wasn't obviously manipulative.
So I say to this unknown person: I don't trust you, but you have my attention. What would you like to do with it?
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Music From the NES Era
An interesting person responded to a personals ad I'd left on craigslist with an email including this:
Question. Favourite NES-era video game soundtrack?And that... Led me down such a personally fascinating trail of consciousness that I want to share it here. So I quote here my answer, just as I wrote it to him:
I like the specificity of your question. When you ask specifically NES era... Oddly enough, my reflex answer is: Actraiser! Never actually played it, but watched someone play it, and the music was really good. ^^ However, as I suspected, and a Google search confirms, that was one gen later, on the SNES. Well, in that case, Mr. Mario is certainly good, but I have to give it up to the classic, the legendary, the original... Legend of Zelda. In my highschool music class, I played one variant of the iconic overworld theme on my trumpet for one of my tests. I think I earned some serious geek cred for that with some of my classmates.
Of course I have, since you said NES era, been thinking exclusively about the NES as opposed to other games released in roughly the same era but on different platforms; there were a lot of DOS and Sega games with good soundtracks too, like the first three Sonic games, Wolfenstien, Commander Keen, just to name a few...
And then, a memory so obvious, so huge, so personally important but so removed from general public consciousness that I didn't think of it at first, hits me in the side of the head.
No. I do have a favorite soundtrack from that era. It was a DOS simulation game, released in 1994-95, simply called "Wolf".
Playing that game encouraged and developed a lot of early formative attitudes in me about environmentalism and respect for animals - as they are more complex, more intelligent and wiser than most of us humans give them credit for, or did back in the 90s anyway.
And it was under the influence of that game that I had an early sense that I was what I would later understand to be part of the human subculture called furries, more specifically the therian or otherkin sides thereof.
It was under the influence of that game that I experienced what was possibly a visual hallucination one night in my childhood when I knew with utmost certainty that I had not been asleep... that was one of the reasons I pursued a belief in magic and mysticism with vigor and desperation into my preteen years, hoping that I might somehow see again what I had seen once... until doubt and self-loathing finally managed to half convince me that I had been wrong, and that my faith was not merely misguided, but childish. Only ever half convinced, though, I continued to attempt to test and practice magic as I understood it, and I have some pretty amazing stories about it.
My insistence from the age of around five before I knew any better than to make such assertions that I had the soul of a wolf earned me the nickname of "wolfie" and contributed to earning me a place as the most bullied child in my tiny home village of 700 right up until I turned 18 and left.
The music was very soulful, and took obvious inspiration from native american musical themes. I think I have the soundtrack saved somewhere, I can show it to you if you like.
Wow. For such an innocent question, I sure managed to follow it into a deep, dark place.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Holidays in Narnia
So, readers, if you're out there; Merry Christmas... Although I don't wish to discredit or dismiss whatever other feelings or traditions you may have about the season, by any means. I am up North a bit, in country much closer to the home I once new, for Christmas. I am staying with my boyfriend's family. I imagine they will forgive me for calling them simple country folk, in a way that does not necessarily mean stupid. They offer me good food, but not fancy, and pleasant treats, and I spent the morning this morning playing euchre and then poker with them. I lost the bets (no-one was really in for money anyway) but like to think I won some respect and hopefully a good first impression.
A few days past, Robby and I and our group of internet friends exchanged presents in a Skype call (since they are quite far away most of the time, some more than others). Robby received many interesting presents, mostly toys. Among them was a copy of the Anhk-Morpork board game. More specifically, it was the copy once owned by Spoony, signed and dedicated to him by name. He was elated. We played it today, and it was great fun, especially the novelty of recognizing the characters from the books and explaining to him who Mrs. Cake was, and other such magnificent tidbits of knowledge. From the beginning, he thought I was playing as Commander Vimes, one of my favorite Discworld characters, because I said from the start that I really liked the character I was playing as. Then he used Mrs. Cake, which allowed him to look at all but one of the unused characters, and saw that I was not Vimes. I was, in fact, Lord Vetinari, who is another of my favorite characters. He, on the other hand, was playing as the Dragon King of Arms. In the end, he won, after gaily and playfully spreading chaos across the city, and causing the people to long for the slightly more stable days when they had a True King. Given Vimes's canonical thoughts on the matter, it would have been a very appropriate and poignant match, I think, if I had been Vimes, and he and the body attempting to reinstate monarchy had been facing off over the city. I look forward to thoroughly enjoying many more games of it in the future, and recommend it to any Discworld fans out there.
The snow outside is deep, the roads winding. It took us a nearly five hour long road trip to get here. Robby and I are sharing a room upstairs, as opposed to in the basement where we thought we would be staying, but it's comfortable enough - for me at least; Robby felt the bed was too small for him to properly spread his body out, and was too warm last night. It was pleasant cuddling up with him, though.
I look forward with excitement to seeing these people open the presents I brought for them, and finding out whether there will be anything for me to unwrap in my turn. Unfortunately I didn't have much of that nature at our internet friend present exchange. The others didn't feel they knew me well enough yet to buy for me and the only physical thing I got was a pig-shaped piece of soap. However, I did recieve non-physical gifts. Two friends sent me video games on Steam (three if you count Robby himself, who amusingly forgot to buy me any Christmas present until just a couple days before we left for his grandparents' house), and one sent me two albums of music my Jami Sieber, after asking me if there were any albums I wanted. They have my happy and quiet thanks.
Also, I do have a computer working again at home. It cost over seven times what my old one cost, and doesn't work as well. But thankfully it doesn't suffer from Cyclical Redundancy Check problems, which is at least something. I'm not sure yet whether I want to bother bringing it back in for an exchange within its thirty day warranty period... After all, I wasn't expecting to get a better deal than the computer I had before, old though it was. Still, though, the difference is rather discouraging. At least I can do art with it. My Chickensmoothie art shop is doing well, and I've received and completed five commissions since it started up again a couple of weeks ago. I also drew some artwork to give to my internet friends as gifts, both traditional and digital in form. I believe both pieces were thoroughly enjoyed by their recipients.
A few days past, Robby and I and our group of internet friends exchanged presents in a Skype call (since they are quite far away most of the time, some more than others). Robby received many interesting presents, mostly toys. Among them was a copy of the Anhk-Morpork board game. More specifically, it was the copy once owned by Spoony, signed and dedicated to him by name. He was elated. We played it today, and it was great fun, especially the novelty of recognizing the characters from the books and explaining to him who Mrs. Cake was, and other such magnificent tidbits of knowledge. From the beginning, he thought I was playing as Commander Vimes, one of my favorite Discworld characters, because I said from the start that I really liked the character I was playing as. Then he used Mrs. Cake, which allowed him to look at all but one of the unused characters, and saw that I was not Vimes. I was, in fact, Lord Vetinari, who is another of my favorite characters. He, on the other hand, was playing as the Dragon King of Arms. In the end, he won, after gaily and playfully spreading chaos across the city, and causing the people to long for the slightly more stable days when they had a True King. Given Vimes's canonical thoughts on the matter, it would have been a very appropriate and poignant match, I think, if I had been Vimes, and he and the body attempting to reinstate monarchy had been facing off over the city. I look forward to thoroughly enjoying many more games of it in the future, and recommend it to any Discworld fans out there.
The snow outside is deep, the roads winding. It took us a nearly five hour long road trip to get here. Robby and I are sharing a room upstairs, as opposed to in the basement where we thought we would be staying, but it's comfortable enough - for me at least; Robby felt the bed was too small for him to properly spread his body out, and was too warm last night. It was pleasant cuddling up with him, though.
I look forward with excitement to seeing these people open the presents I brought for them, and finding out whether there will be anything for me to unwrap in my turn. Unfortunately I didn't have much of that nature at our internet friend present exchange. The others didn't feel they knew me well enough yet to buy for me and the only physical thing I got was a pig-shaped piece of soap. However, I did recieve non-physical gifts. Two friends sent me video games on Steam (three if you count Robby himself, who amusingly forgot to buy me any Christmas present until just a couple days before we left for his grandparents' house), and one sent me two albums of music my Jami Sieber, after asking me if there were any albums I wanted. They have my happy and quiet thanks.
Also, I do have a computer working again at home. It cost over seven times what my old one cost, and doesn't work as well. But thankfully it doesn't suffer from Cyclical Redundancy Check problems, which is at least something. I'm not sure yet whether I want to bother bringing it back in for an exchange within its thirty day warranty period... After all, I wasn't expecting to get a better deal than the computer I had before, old though it was. Still, though, the difference is rather discouraging. At least I can do art with it. My Chickensmoothie art shop is doing well, and I've received and completed five commissions since it started up again a couple of weeks ago. I also drew some artwork to give to my internet friends as gifts, both traditional and digital in form. I believe both pieces were thoroughly enjoyed by their recipients.
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