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oiranchop, remix, puree: I have spent the last five days frantically working on a story that I thought was "pretty much done" weeks ago. I was so, so wrong. I would think that after all this time, I'd stop trusting myself in matters such as this. I'm never as done as I think I am. It was very important to finish because it's written for the remix challenge, and I am absolutely not willing to be the cretin who ruins everyone's fun by not turning in a story. The story was technically due on the 15th. I sent it off to beta about an hour ago. I think I actually really like it. We'll see.
I promised myself I wouldn't participate in any more challenges, but I love the remix idea, and I remembered having "fun" with the last round. In actual fact, I did not enjoy the process of writing my last remix story. I gave myself fits and spent the majority of my "writing" time whining and having tantrums, with short bouts of typing in between. However, the story was (mostly) well-received, and it turned out to be one of my own favorites, so now that entire remix experience has been whitewashed into a happy memory.
Now that I'm basically done, I have life to attend to. I am pretty sure I haven't bathed during this time. I know I haven't brushed my hair. I'm going to cover those bases in the near future, and then I'm going to the "Tattoo and Horror Convention" that Kicky is doing a performance at. I will also check out the local tattoo artists' work, since both Mr. G and I have ink in our futures.
games people play: Mr. Glove is obsessed with this online game called Eve, and he's been doing some live chat with microphones with a bunch of other space warriors while they fly around and kill system-generated pirates and/or other player characters. I was very interested when he started playing Eve because the possibilities intrigued me. However, mostly what you can do in Eve is mine asteroids, shoot system-generated pirates, form corporations to mine asteroids, buy increasingly larger, more phallic and less attractive ships, etc., etc.
Me: Can you have slaves?
Mr. G: You can buy and sell them.
Me: But can you have sex with them, though? That's what I really want to know.
Mr. G: Well, they're not even characters. They're, like, a commodity. You never even see them.
So disappointing! Now, what's worse? Being a faceless bulk commodity that's traded like ore or antibiotics? Or having a sexy, corset-clad space pirate recognize at least some aspects of your humanity, albeit only to exploit them recklessly? Any doubts as to which scenario I prefer?
Also, the characters in Eve are unattractive. Apparently, it is possible to purchase "enhancements," but not anything interesting, nor do these enhancements improve the general level of prettiness in the game.
I have never played online games, but I did spend an embarrassing amount of time playing The Sims (and I have The Sims2 just waiting until I get a faster computer), so I became interested in finding an online game that would meet some of my needs. Initially, I was intrigued by the online version of Final Fantasy because - whoa! pretty characters! I was prepared to sign up to be a hot (male) elf, but a little bit of research showed that not only will my current computer not run the game, but there are very likely no fuckable slaves in Final Fantasy, either. I don't understand how they get away with using "Fantasy" in the title of their game series when the most universally prominent category of fantasy is completely ignored. Hot elves in a sexless universe is just plain cruel.
Also, it turns out that online games require waaaaay too much interaction with and dependence upon other people/their hot elf avatars. I don't play games to interact with other people; I play games to pretend other people don't exist. I guess online gaming is not for me. However, I do still like the idea of being a hot male elf.
iconography: There was an icon meme floating around a little bit ago, but I was just blipping in and out of LJ during that time and couldn't play. I wanted to, though, so if you have questions about any of my icons, please ask. They are here. There are a couple that I want to explain, though, because...well, just because. Because I haven't been online in days and I have nothing useful to say, but I want to talk.
Circa 1993, I had hair that was definitely red, a heavy smoking habit, and some indefinable quality that made me a magnet for crazy street people and their wacky/inappropriate propositions. If you smoke on the street, crazy street people who smoke are especially likely to pester you, which just makes sense but did always annoy me a great deal. Anyway, Mr. G and I were walking down Seattle's Broadway when a tall, flapping scarecrow of a man lunged out at me and made threatening noises interspersed with a request for a cigarette. I denied him the cigarette based on my belief that shouldn'tt call me names and then expect me to do you a favor. As we were walking away, the now-angry scarecrow man yelled after me ("Red! Red!") and when I turned around, he shouted:
"YOU'RE OBSOLETE, RAGGEDY ANN!" and spit on the sidewalk.
Heh. I've always loved that. Everyone should be so creative with their insults!
~~~
The first things I really remember wanting with all my heart were: 1) red, high-heel shoes, and 2) pointy scissors. I had round-tipped "baby" scissors which really were a very poor excuse for a cutting tool, but they were age-appropriate and I was stuck with them. I was allowed to use my mother's pointy scissors under supervision if she was in a good mood, but I wanted to be able to have my own pair, and I wanted the freedom to cut things without someone leaning over my shoulder.
My mother's scissors had belonged to her mother, and her mother's mother before that. They were made to be used right-handed but because my mother is left-handed, she held them in her left hand, and now that's how I hold them, too. I am technically right-handed, but I can do quite a few things left-handed, and I do many things with my right hand in a left-handed position - all stuff I learned when I was five or younger, though, so it's a limited skill set. If you use right-handed scissors with your left hand for a long enough stretch, you'll develop a (temporary) deep, sore groove in the outside of your thumb from the pressure. I never minded this, because having the scissors in my possession long enough for this to happen was a triumph in itself.
My mother acquired a pair of "electric scissors" when I was in kindergarten. Sort of like a pair of tiny hedge clippers, these were supposed to make cutting out fabric for sewing a breeze. In a fit of generosity, my mother let me have the pointy scissors ALL FOR MYSELF. I actually was a bit suspicious of the gift and pestered her with what-ifs and conditions and received her annoyed assurance that they were mine, no matter what. Unfortunately, the electric scissors turned out to be a very bad idea. They were slow and not very powerful, and I mostly remember them making terrible, gargling, grinding noises as they choked on corduroy. Still, the pointy scissors were MINE, and I was very insistent that my mother honor our agreement. Finally, she got herself a fancy, left-handed pair of Fiskars and every one was happy.
The scissors and I have a long history that goes beyond cutting. They figure prominently in the ghost stories about the house where I grew up. Even though the scissors are very pointy and theoretically dangerous, nothing scary occurred - no flying scissors, no mysterious stabbings. It was all disappearing and then reappearing in new, obvious locations.
Mr. G and I started talking about getting small tattoos a few weeks back. I have just one tattoo that I got in 1987, but I've always wanted more. I was thinking about what sort of tattoo I would be willing to get in a place that would always be visible, and ended up deciding that I wanted something small on my wrist. I wanted it to be something that would connect all the things I like to do. The scissors came immediately to mind.
I hadn't seen them in years and I didn't know where they were at. They weren't with the rest of my (generic, unspecial) scissors. I didn't doubt I still had them, and it wasn't really important that I find them except it seemed like a nice idea to scan the real thing and make a tattoo design from that. Still, it was most likely that they were in a mislabeled box under a stack of boxes in some dark corner of the basement, and it would be much easier to just scan in any old pair of scissors instead, since the special scissors don't actually look special at all.
Although I was perfectly happy with my decision, I didn't scan any old pair of scissors. I thought about it, but I didn't do it. This sort of inaction is not unusual for me, however.
A couple days after making making the decision, I went to the kitchen for some reason or other and there, on top of Mr. G's dish of "pocket stuff" (change, receipts, pens, etc.) and mail, sat The Scissors. Clearly, they found there way from wherever they were in order to be with me. Mr. G denies putting them in the kitchen. In fact, he denies any prior knowledge of them at all, and I do believe him. The scissors and I have had this kind of relationship my entire life. Playful, and probably creepy if you aren't me.
The image on the icon is the scan of the scissors which was then made into an all-black silhouette. I thought I wanted a solid color, but I ended up "chroming" them in a somewhat rustic manner from scratch, just to see if I could do it convincingly. A chrome filter does a better job, but this is fine.
The size onscreen is fairly close to the size I want tattooed. Left wrist (of course) along the inside, with the tips inside the "anatomical snuffbox" beteween the tendons of the thumb.
~~~
This is JT LeRoy. I always assumed his writing career was a gimmick, especially since he's such a starfucker (figuratively, definitely - I don't know about literally). He's 24. He was published at age 16. His books are Sarah, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, and Harold's End. His mother was (is?) a prostitute, and he was, too. His crazy-religious grandfather treated him brutally during those times he wasn't with his mother on the street. The story is that an outreach worker convinced him to see a psychiatrist when he was 16 or so, and he ended up writing a book as part of that therapy. When Sarah was published, people didn't want to believe the stories about JT's life. It was thought to be a hoax, or that he was really much older than 16, or that he was actually a woman. The talk wasn't so much about his book as about his life and trying to refute it.
When Rhi got really into QaF and the various actors, she found out that Randy Harrison (the one who plays Justin) was an insane fanboy over JT. In fact, there was an e-mail from Randy posted on JT's web site, and it was absolutely hysterical in its pretention. (Rhi even wrote a follow-up e-mail "from Randy" as a joke, and now there's a link to that on JT's site.) Even though I'd heard of JT LeRoy long before I'd heard of Randy Harrison, I was still firmly of the belief that he was a hoax, or a hack or...just way too much younger than me for me to be okay with the fact he was published. Oops! Did I say that out loud? While Randy Harrison doesn't seem to be a stupid person, he's also not someone I look to for literary recommendations. I might be a terrible person for feeling this way, but I just can't help it. He plays a twink on TV and he's rude to interviewers. And then there was that fan e-mail he wrote...
When Rhi's Randy obsession/curiosity got the best of her, she broke down and read JT's book, The Heart Is Deceitful and she loved it. I am much more likely to take Rhi's literary critiques to heart than Randy Harrison's, so I was intrigued. I read a few pages of both The Heart and Sarah in the bookstore and...they scared me a little, especially The Heart. I went back to the bookstore several times after that, and each time I'd go look at JT's books and then buy something else, something less interesting.
A lot of things came together in my thinking recently. There was that little prostitute boy I saw downtown, whose small face continues to upset me in memory. There is a very specific child in my past who I was not able to help, though I am told that the fact that I tried is worth something. If she's alive, she'd be about 24 now. Then Rhi came to visit me and brought me a present of all of JT's books. I read most of The Heart after staying up late to talk to Rhi. I finally had to put it down at 4 AM because I could not physically force my eyes open. I guess I just really needed to read a story by/about a hopeful child prostitute looking for family in a brutal, brutal world.
All of my doubts about JT's talent are gone. The Heart is the best of the three, but it's the sort of thing that would be hard to top.
I've been trying to think about what to say about these books, and about their author, but I'm coming up short. So I made an icon instead. JT in a mask (I love half-masks) and a dress with a rhinestone brooch. You can't see the platform sandals and the rabbit fur jacket, but they're there, just out of frame. I wrote "it's only make-believe" because pretend worlds have always been my refuge and my trap, and it's not so much that JT seems to retreat from the world, but that he's got a corner of it where his rules are the ones that apply, and he can wear whatever he wants and write his stories and pretty much take a pass on the negative because, dude! He was a child prostitute! That's enough negative to last a while.
The whole idea of him, stories and persona and everything else, makes me choke up, but not out of sadness. It's hard to explain. Anyway. JT LeRoy! Whoo!
Ooh! Betas back! And I just talked to Rhi on the phone! Once I take a shower, I'm golden...
I promised myself I wouldn't participate in any more challenges, but I love the remix idea, and I remembered having "fun" with the last round. In actual fact, I did not enjoy the process of writing my last remix story. I gave myself fits and spent the majority of my "writing" time whining and having tantrums, with short bouts of typing in between. However, the story was (mostly) well-received, and it turned out to be one of my own favorites, so now that entire remix experience has been whitewashed into a happy memory.
Now that I'm basically done, I have life to attend to. I am pretty sure I haven't bathed during this time. I know I haven't brushed my hair. I'm going to cover those bases in the near future, and then I'm going to the "Tattoo and Horror Convention" that Kicky is doing a performance at. I will also check out the local tattoo artists' work, since both Mr. G and I have ink in our futures.
games people play: Mr. Glove is obsessed with this online game called Eve, and he's been doing some live chat with microphones with a bunch of other space warriors while they fly around and kill system-generated pirates and/or other player characters. I was very interested when he started playing Eve because the possibilities intrigued me. However, mostly what you can do in Eve is mine asteroids, shoot system-generated pirates, form corporations to mine asteroids, buy increasingly larger, more phallic and less attractive ships, etc., etc.
Me: Can you have slaves?
Mr. G: You can buy and sell them.
Me: But can you have sex with them, though? That's what I really want to know.
Mr. G: Well, they're not even characters. They're, like, a commodity. You never even see them.
So disappointing! Now, what's worse? Being a faceless bulk commodity that's traded like ore or antibiotics? Or having a sexy, corset-clad space pirate recognize at least some aspects of your humanity, albeit only to exploit them recklessly? Any doubts as to which scenario I prefer?
Also, the characters in Eve are unattractive. Apparently, it is possible to purchase "enhancements," but not anything interesting, nor do these enhancements improve the general level of prettiness in the game.
I have never played online games, but I did spend an embarrassing amount of time playing The Sims (and I have The Sims2 just waiting until I get a faster computer), so I became interested in finding an online game that would meet some of my needs. Initially, I was intrigued by the online version of Final Fantasy because - whoa! pretty characters! I was prepared to sign up to be a hot (male) elf, but a little bit of research showed that not only will my current computer not run the game, but there are very likely no fuckable slaves in Final Fantasy, either. I don't understand how they get away with using "Fantasy" in the title of their game series when the most universally prominent category of fantasy is completely ignored. Hot elves in a sexless universe is just plain cruel.
Also, it turns out that online games require waaaaay too much interaction with and dependence upon other people/their hot elf avatars. I don't play games to interact with other people; I play games to pretend other people don't exist. I guess online gaming is not for me. However, I do still like the idea of being a hot male elf.
iconography: There was an icon meme floating around a little bit ago, but I was just blipping in and out of LJ during that time and couldn't play. I wanted to, though, so if you have questions about any of my icons, please ask. They are here. There are a couple that I want to explain, though, because...well, just because. Because I haven't been online in days and I have nothing useful to say, but I want to talk.
Circa 1993, I had hair that was definitely red, a heavy smoking habit, and some indefinable quality that made me a magnet for crazy street people and their wacky/inappropriate propositions. If you smoke on the street, crazy street people who smoke are especially likely to pester you, which just makes sense but did always annoy me a great deal. Anyway, Mr. G and I were walking down Seattle's Broadway when a tall, flapping scarecrow of a man lunged out at me and made threatening noises interspersed with a request for a cigarette. I denied him the cigarette based on my belief that shouldn'tt call me names and then expect me to do you a favor. As we were walking away, the now-angry scarecrow man yelled after me ("Red! Red!") and when I turned around, he shouted:
"YOU'RE OBSOLETE, RAGGEDY ANN!" and spit on the sidewalk.
Heh. I've always loved that. Everyone should be so creative with their insults!
~~~
The first things I really remember wanting with all my heart were: 1) red, high-heel shoes, and 2) pointy scissors. I had round-tipped "baby" scissors which really were a very poor excuse for a cutting tool, but they were age-appropriate and I was stuck with them. I was allowed to use my mother's pointy scissors under supervision if she was in a good mood, but I wanted to be able to have my own pair, and I wanted the freedom to cut things without someone leaning over my shoulder.
My mother's scissors had belonged to her mother, and her mother's mother before that. They were made to be used right-handed but because my mother is left-handed, she held them in her left hand, and now that's how I hold them, too. I am technically right-handed, but I can do quite a few things left-handed, and I do many things with my right hand in a left-handed position - all stuff I learned when I was five or younger, though, so it's a limited skill set. If you use right-handed scissors with your left hand for a long enough stretch, you'll develop a (temporary) deep, sore groove in the outside of your thumb from the pressure. I never minded this, because having the scissors in my possession long enough for this to happen was a triumph in itself.
My mother acquired a pair of "electric scissors" when I was in kindergarten. Sort of like a pair of tiny hedge clippers, these were supposed to make cutting out fabric for sewing a breeze. In a fit of generosity, my mother let me have the pointy scissors ALL FOR MYSELF. I actually was a bit suspicious of the gift and pestered her with what-ifs and conditions and received her annoyed assurance that they were mine, no matter what. Unfortunately, the electric scissors turned out to be a very bad idea. They were slow and not very powerful, and I mostly remember them making terrible, gargling, grinding noises as they choked on corduroy. Still, the pointy scissors were MINE, and I was very insistent that my mother honor our agreement. Finally, she got herself a fancy, left-handed pair of Fiskars and every one was happy.
The scissors and I have a long history that goes beyond cutting. They figure prominently in the ghost stories about the house where I grew up. Even though the scissors are very pointy and theoretically dangerous, nothing scary occurred - no flying scissors, no mysterious stabbings. It was all disappearing and then reappearing in new, obvious locations.
Mr. G and I started talking about getting small tattoos a few weeks back. I have just one tattoo that I got in 1987, but I've always wanted more. I was thinking about what sort of tattoo I would be willing to get in a place that would always be visible, and ended up deciding that I wanted something small on my wrist. I wanted it to be something that would connect all the things I like to do. The scissors came immediately to mind.
I hadn't seen them in years and I didn't know where they were at. They weren't with the rest of my (generic, unspecial) scissors. I didn't doubt I still had them, and it wasn't really important that I find them except it seemed like a nice idea to scan the real thing and make a tattoo design from that. Still, it was most likely that they were in a mislabeled box under a stack of boxes in some dark corner of the basement, and it would be much easier to just scan in any old pair of scissors instead, since the special scissors don't actually look special at all.
Although I was perfectly happy with my decision, I didn't scan any old pair of scissors. I thought about it, but I didn't do it. This sort of inaction is not unusual for me, however.
A couple days after making making the decision, I went to the kitchen for some reason or other and there, on top of Mr. G's dish of "pocket stuff" (change, receipts, pens, etc.) and mail, sat The Scissors. Clearly, they found there way from wherever they were in order to be with me. Mr. G denies putting them in the kitchen. In fact, he denies any prior knowledge of them at all, and I do believe him. The scissors and I have had this kind of relationship my entire life. Playful, and probably creepy if you aren't me.
The image on the icon is the scan of the scissors which was then made into an all-black silhouette. I thought I wanted a solid color, but I ended up "chroming" them in a somewhat rustic manner from scratch, just to see if I could do it convincingly. A chrome filter does a better job, but this is fine.
The size onscreen is fairly close to the size I want tattooed. Left wrist (of course) along the inside, with the tips inside the "anatomical snuffbox" beteween the tendons of the thumb.
~~~
This is JT LeRoy. I always assumed his writing career was a gimmick, especially since he's such a starfucker (figuratively, definitely - I don't know about literally). He's 24. He was published at age 16. His books are Sarah, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, and Harold's End. His mother was (is?) a prostitute, and he was, too. His crazy-religious grandfather treated him brutally during those times he wasn't with his mother on the street. The story is that an outreach worker convinced him to see a psychiatrist when he was 16 or so, and he ended up writing a book as part of that therapy. When Sarah was published, people didn't want to believe the stories about JT's life. It was thought to be a hoax, or that he was really much older than 16, or that he was actually a woman. The talk wasn't so much about his book as about his life and trying to refute it.
When Rhi got really into QaF and the various actors, she found out that Randy Harrison (the one who plays Justin) was an insane fanboy over JT. In fact, there was an e-mail from Randy posted on JT's web site, and it was absolutely hysterical in its pretention. (Rhi even wrote a follow-up e-mail "from Randy" as a joke, and now there's a link to that on JT's site.) Even though I'd heard of JT LeRoy long before I'd heard of Randy Harrison, I was still firmly of the belief that he was a hoax, or a hack or...just way too much younger than me for me to be okay with the fact he was published. Oops! Did I say that out loud? While Randy Harrison doesn't seem to be a stupid person, he's also not someone I look to for literary recommendations. I might be a terrible person for feeling this way, but I just can't help it. He plays a twink on TV and he's rude to interviewers. And then there was that fan e-mail he wrote...
When Rhi's Randy obsession/curiosity got the best of her, she broke down and read JT's book, The Heart Is Deceitful and she loved it. I am much more likely to take Rhi's literary critiques to heart than Randy Harrison's, so I was intrigued. I read a few pages of both The Heart and Sarah in the bookstore and...they scared me a little, especially The Heart. I went back to the bookstore several times after that, and each time I'd go look at JT's books and then buy something else, something less interesting.
A lot of things came together in my thinking recently. There was that little prostitute boy I saw downtown, whose small face continues to upset me in memory. There is a very specific child in my past who I was not able to help, though I am told that the fact that I tried is worth something. If she's alive, she'd be about 24 now. Then Rhi came to visit me and brought me a present of all of JT's books. I read most of The Heart after staying up late to talk to Rhi. I finally had to put it down at 4 AM because I could not physically force my eyes open. I guess I just really needed to read a story by/about a hopeful child prostitute looking for family in a brutal, brutal world.
All of my doubts about JT's talent are gone. The Heart is the best of the three, but it's the sort of thing that would be hard to top.
I've been trying to think about what to say about these books, and about their author, but I'm coming up short. So I made an icon instead. JT in a mask (I love half-masks) and a dress with a rhinestone brooch. You can't see the platform sandals and the rabbit fur jacket, but they're there, just out of frame. I wrote "it's only make-believe" because pretend worlds have always been my refuge and my trap, and it's not so much that JT seems to retreat from the world, but that he's got a corner of it where his rules are the ones that apply, and he can wear whatever he wants and write his stories and pretty much take a pass on the negative because, dude! He was a child prostitute! That's enough negative to last a while.
The whole idea of him, stories and persona and everything else, makes me choke up, but not out of sadness. It's hard to explain. Anyway. JT LeRoy! Whoo!
Ooh! Betas back! And I just talked to Rhi on the phone! Once I take a shower, I'm golden...
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-20 03:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-20 03:38 am (UTC)I think what we're waiting for now is for Mr. G to get his courage up for the actual procedure. He hasn't had a tattoo before. I think he's overestimating the impact of the pain.
And I got all three of your e-mails :) Your comments are really good. I am really fond of my story right now, but that might just be because I haven't eaten in hours and am rather light-headed.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-20 03:54 am (UTC)Well, while I know that size, location, etc play roles in the relative levels of discomfort, I found the process (small, about 3 inches above my left ankle) very inconsequential -- much like the repetitive poking of a toothpick.
Sorry about clogging your mailbox! *face palm* Let me reiterate: I LOVED IT!!! *mwah*