The Wheel of Masks

yulicorn @ 2004-06-07T19:47:00

2004-06-07T23:51:12Z

"The greater is the beauty
The profounder is the stain
Significant of the forbidden
Transgressed in eroticism"
--Stereolab, "Pack Yr Erotic Mind"

I give up. My lot is cast with the freaks, and I was a fool to think it could ever be any different. :)

I was only kidding about being disturbed by the David Gonterman comics to the point of "switching sides" anyhow, of course. It was a little unsettling to see my kinks paraded around in such a naive and self-indulgent manner, sure. But I'm pretty secure that my friends and I at least don't come off as eccentric as poor David -- and if we do, we keep it out of the public eye, and use a little more literary sophistication.

It is frustrating, though, confronting the fact that David and I are part of the same phenomenon. There's no denying it, parts of "Foxfire" did move me. Even if their means of expression did nothing for me, the themes were right in tune with my skewed concept of romance: rapture into another's mind, egoless servitude, transmission and sharing of thoughts, symbiosis, "possession by costume," metamorphosis into other species and genders, having face and body decorated, sharing traits with machines and objects... I don't want the little shiver that "Foxfire" gave me, but I got it all the same, and I'm not sure how I should feel about that.

It's hard enough as it is, to come by art and fiction that presses these buttons. And so much of it presses them in the same clumsy way that David does -- with none of the witty self-analysis, cultural savvy, vivid symbolism, or emotional delicacy that make this stuff more than just brain candy for me. Prettiness -- both aesthetic and emotional -- is so vital to my concept of the erotic, and most of the kinky transformative erotica out there just doesn't do it.

My first impulse is to think of it as a gender thing. I'm not really so sure whether that's true or not. But so much transformation and mind-control erotica is as nakedly exploitative as mainstream porn. The fetish, decontextualized and stripped of all intimacy, is to be hit as hard and as often as possible; all characters -- especially the objects of desire! -- are nothing more than means to that end, and their own feelings are never to be modeled except in the simplest and most selfishly presumptuous terms. This is how you get lines like "She pulled the 0.05 mm gauge black rubber stockings up over her legs, eyes fixated on the label that said they were two sizes too small, because she couldn't help thinking how just a cruelly tight pair of Cuban-heeled stockings would make her feel like a sexy maid slut already." (That's a hypothetical example of my own invention, thank god.)

You get writing like that all the time in people's +info on ShangrilaMUSH and Tapestries, for instance, where the fantasy's spelled out in such obsessive detail in the character notes, you might as well skip the roleplaying part. :p Even in these people's full-length stories, it just feels like... someone thought all that messy novelty and intimacy would've just gotten in the way, if they even realized it was an option in the first place. You certainly get that in David Gonterman's work, with characters just obliquely spelling out what the author wants, leaving absolutely nothing to imagination or indirection -- which are the entire freakin' basis of sensuality, IMHO. (Not to mention the fact that the way he treats his female characters as wish-fulfillment objects is rather sexist.) I don't know if that makes it inherently masculine or not, but either way, it's subtle as a hammer and I don't like that. :)

I wish I knew offhand how to bring the sensual and spiritual aspects of a fantasy world like Gonterman's to the forefront, and perhaps take away some of the disturbing sordid aspects of it in the process. I hope I've had some success with that on Puzzlebox, but that's really more up to my players than to me. People have suggested that I could try writing my own equivalent of "Foxfire" to show him (and his POE "fans") how sexy transformation is really done, but I know I don't have the follow-through or the consistent fever of the imagination. That's the one thing I admit David Gonterman has over me, hands down, and I envy him a little for that.

Sometimes I feel like these kinks are sexual for me only because our society doesn't offer many other categories of pleasure. The feelings I get when I'm suited, sense-deprived, and in some friendly alien's headspace could just as easily be classified as "ecstatic state" or "devotional rapture." But those classifications are nearly invisible in modern society and it's so damn hard not to absorb the semiotic default from my surroundings. Outside the countercultures, there isn't much of a model for shamanistic experience left, and I haven't had nearly enough exposure to it in my (admittedly very isolated) social life.

Yet still, these fantasies of otherworldliness -- the foundation of the "fluorescent" experience which it's so hard for me to lose sight of -- were part of my life long before I discovered biological sex. By the time I was 18, I was dreaming more than once a week about finding pink and blue hairdye. By age 16, I was clipping pictures from Omni magazine of bald alien women with skullcaps -- and pictures from National Geographic World of Halloween make-up of furries and Martians. By age 13, I was painting my face to look like a cheetah girl while my parents were asleep. By age 10, I was getting regular lectures on mysticism by an imaginary lynx who I considered my life partner -- and writing myself as an RPG character who was a pink plastic female pegasus. By age 8, I was daydreaming about being put into transformation chambers by felinoids from outer space. By age 5, I was fascinated by stories in my Weekly Reader about aliens who projected thoughts into people minds with their antennae.

So whether I like it or not, David Gonterman and I are kindred spirits. Except for, you know, the pro wrestling and the law-and-order fantasies. -.- It's very, very comforting to know he's not the only company I have here. But I still really wish I had more exposure to people like me, more opportunity to transmute these fantasies into reality, more hope that these moments of the unreal might someday be treated as something profound rather than silly. Whatever strange thing is calling for us, I wish I could've served it -- or even heard it -- better.

yulicorn @ 2004-05-23T16:53:00

2004-05-23T23:57:22Z

There was an entry here about a major interpersonal crisis on Puzzlebox. I took it down because I don't want to get caught up in he-said-she-said, and AFAIK the situation is now stable. If anybody wants my side of the story, use my gmail address. It's postvixen at, et cetera. As far as I'm concerned, the administrative matter is clear. A wizard abused their privileges against somebody who, whatever the details of their personal pasts, had done absolutely nothing that justified the use of administrative power against them. We're going to deal with that harshly and fix the problem. People can make their own minds up about the details, most of you won't even need to be bothered with them because they shouldn't really affect the game very much, and I really don't have much interest in prolonging this.

yulicorn @ 2004-04-07T16:31:00

2004-04-07T23:32:31Z

Removed a large number of people, my apologies. I'm thinking of making some changes in the way I use my journals.

pbxes within them

2004-03-23T04:05:19Z

I think this quote should be somewhere prominent on PuzzleboxMUCK:

"Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn't always so lucky. Less than a century ago, men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them. They could not name even one of the fifty-three portals to the soul. Gimcrack religions were big business. Mankind, ignorant of the truths that lie within every human being, looked outward-- pushed ever outward. What mankind hoped to learn in all its outward push was who was actually in charge of creation and what all creation was all about. [...] It flung them like stones. [...] The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death. Outwardness lost, at least, its imagined attractions. Only inwardness remained to be explored. Only the human soul remained terra incognita. This was the beginning of goodness and wisdom. What were people like in olden times, with their souls as yet unexplored?" -- Kurt Vonnegut, Sirens of Titan

And before you asked, the use of the phrase "puzzle box" is, unless Sebkha had it in mind somehow long before we thought of making Puzzlebox into an "ecstatic realist" MUCK, totally coincidental. Spooky, huh?

Militant Agnosticism: "I Don't Know and Neither Do You!"

2004-03-02T15:54:47Z

I made a couple edits to that last post about Christianity. I realized, after a little further reflection and criticism, that I needed to clarify to what extent I'm willing to tolerate Christianity: Pretty far, actually.

I realized I am not so much up in arms against Christianity as I am against absolutism. I am staunchly morally opposed to philosophies that insist their adherents believe everything about them with any sort of certainty or finality. I don't think anybody's experience, spiritual or otherwise, gives them that right. I believe Christianity is factually wrong, but that is not the source of my antagonism -- there are plenty of worldviews I disagree with that I don't feel moved to oppose. I oppose Christianity only when and where it is practiced as an absolutist, normative religion that even presumes to regulate the behavior of people who don't subscribe to it; unfortunately, this is most of the time.

Given the choice, I'd much rather co-exist with Christianity. I just don't think this is a possibility now. I don't think making the traditional Christian worldview obsolete is an absolute necessity; I just think the situation has conspired to make it potentially beneficial. What I really want is for Christianity to have no impact or authority over my life, ever again. What I want is to not have to deal with people who think they have all the answers, when they don't.

I still think that mainstream Christianity a) is utterly factually incorrect about the nature of God and humanity and b) advances social ideals which are not good for humanity's long-term health. But I'm willing to tolerate that error, if others will tolerate my own. (Believe me, I'm quite aware of the weaknesses of postmodernism, materialist skepticism, and anarchosocialism.) But that's exactly what I'm complaining about! My active opposition to Christianity exists only to the extent that many Christians will not tolerate what they see as my "error," not even provisionally, for the sake of legal compromise. One people insist their values be treated as the default, and show no willingness to accept that my own values may be based on something more than ignorance and self-indulgence... war is inevitable.

I think there is a real difference between people who can find doubt in their own belief systems and those who can't. I think I am in the first category. I think many, but certainly not all, Christians are in the second category, and that this is a specific result of the all-or-nothing nature of Christian beliefs. I think that does make me better equipped to live in a modern, democratic society than these people who are memetically insulated against doubt. But I'm not sure about that. :>

Other people may think my beliefs are in error. And I'm fine with that, as long as they recognize that other people can (and inevitably will) believe they are in error, and no consensus will ever be reached. And therefore, in the interests of civility and peace, nobody may assume their position on a controversial position is self-evident. This is why, for all the "PC Whiners Are Destroying Rational Thought" crowd has tried to taint the term, "tolerance" is a respectable ideal. Because these questions can not be resolved. And I resent people who act as if their own best guesses are good enough to assert as eternal and unshakeable ideals. That is the closest I have to an absolute belief: if you think your system of belief is absolute, you are crazy.

I am declaring war against Christianity... but only to the extent that it is a religion that assures its followers that they are Absolutely Correct. I think that I have the right to err, and to think that other people err. I think people who say "it's like this and onyone who says otherwise is crazy or lying" are just spitting in the melting pot. They have put themselves in a position where it is not possible to co-exist with them, and I refuse to try. I can't imagine why I should be asked to.

And for right now, anybody who's been privy to the details of my daily life with Postrodent, and still insists gay relationships are destructive and immoral, is getting the boot. That isn't even a philosophical position -- I just choose to avoid the company of any such person. Why should I associate with anyone who thinks so little of me?

Oof, and I should retract one other nasty thing I shouldn't have said: I shouldn't have let it sound like I thought everybody Christian was just expressing a neurosis. I've read a fair amount of Christian theology and I definitely don't think being Christian is in any way incompatible with being a thinking, independent person. I do think Christian belief is generally an expression of psychological needs and personal upbringing -- but I think this is true of most belief systems. I didn't end up a hippie by accident. ;)

Onward Heathen Soldiers

2004-03-02T04:53:50Z

I've seen quite a few affirmations like this from the conservative Christians within a few degrees of separation from me. And I think it's time for me to make a similar declaration.

Needless to say, if you are a Christian and it has never been a wedge between you and me before, it's not necessarily going to become one now, especially if you're one of those evil wishy-washy quisling liberal Christians. ;p I realize "Christian" is a very wide category. (Quakers, especially, seem to keep showing up on my side of politics. ^_^ ) I still like most of what Christianity has to say about basic love, forbearance, and compassion. And I am enormously grateful to my Christian friends whose faith in God's plan is broad enough to encompass True Love between a wayward rat and vixen.

But let's put it this way: If you really believe in Christian morality -- not just the admirable precepts of "love your God and love your neighbor," but all the moralistic baggage about the fundamental evilness of this world and all its pleasures, I will be working at explicit and intentional cross-purposes to you for the rest of my life. I would be happy to help an "immoral", worldly society triumph if it lived up to my own ethical values -- even to the point of bearing arms for it -- and I will not pretend otherwise. [Edit: I would rather have our worlds co-exist, of course. I'm militant precisely to the extent other people's militancy forces my hand. I'd be fine living alongside a Christianity that leaves me the hell alone. I think Christianity is in error, but I can tolerate that error.] If you can't deal with that, well... even culture war is hell. If you don't feel even a little conflicted about the Church's position on homosexual romance, not even when you hear me moon over what a wonderful person postrodent is and how happy we are together... kiss me goodbye. (No, not on the pointy end.)

And let's make one thing perfectly clear while we're here: you don't even necessarily have to support gay marriage. I actually still have a bit of sympathy for the opinion that this is a social change being forced upon American society way too quickly. But if you think that my relationship with postrodent is wrong in any way for being same-sex... especially if you believe it's no more than a mental illness or genetic aberration and we'd be better off if it were "corrected"... no, I'm afraid you and I really can't be friends. You're lucky I don't box your ears. I have the right to choose my company, and I enthusiastically unchoose yours. "Gee, I'm sorry, Rosa, but I do think your kind belong at the back of the bus, and I'm sure you'll respect my beliefs. I hope we're still on for Bridge next Tuesday." >_< "Loving the sinner" is patronizing nonsense, too. If the "sin" you speak of is "falling in love," I am quite disgusted with you.

I am finding I am indeed becoming somewhat anti-Christian. The more I find myself on the opposite side of the fence from them, it's getting harder and harder to see traditional Christians as people I can co-exist peaceably with. Let's face it -- some of the things the Bible says are utter anathema to me. I think they're, dare I say it, immoral. Christianity holds that there's an ultimate Arbiter of good and evil and Its will has been made known; if somebody thinks that the best things in my worldview are among those this Arbiter has condemned as "evil," there's really not much room for accommodation, compromise, or even friendship, is there? How can "the things you cherish most must never, ever be allowed to prevail" ever be anything but fighting words?! Why should I pretend tolerance towards those who hold tolerance as a sin?

I'm for just about everything conservative Christianity is against. I believe pleasure is good, and forbidding pleasure is no substitute for learning to give and take pleasure maturely. I believe morality can and should change to accommodate the real needs of real people, not flow from an ancient, unchanging text. I think humans should feel free to alter any condition of their existence, so long as they do it with wisdom, compassion, and restraint. I believe anyone who thinks they have an ultimate answer to a metaphysical question is fooling themselves. I think anyone who thinks they'll be helping others by making them live by their own Ultimate Answer must be quite ignorant of human history, and all the pain such crusaders have caused. I think it's impossible to divine a single, clear, absolute meaning from a text, especially from a muddle like the Bible. I believe that conservative Christianity is holding back necessary progress in social experimentation. I think the nuclear family is not an ideal configuration. I believe conservative Christianity is the backbone of a naive ruralism that favors tradition and faith over open debate and healthy doubt, and I blame that in large part for our current political climate.

I believe any belief that's regularly transmitted from generation to generation without serious intellectual examination, especially if it carries a threat of punishment if it's not followed, should be treated with extreme mistrust. I believe Richard Dawkins has offered one of the best-ever explanations of Christianity: it thrives not because it is true, but because it is cunningly engineered to exploit human psychology. I think there is no such thing as God, as any monotheist religion would recognize It. I think the man known as Christ died, was buried, and rotted away like the rest of us. I believe much of the Bible's narrative makes sense only in a pre-rational society and modern science renders it utterly useless as anything but allegory. I think the conservative Christian worldview is factually incorrect, utterly contradicted by common sense and perception, and typically hangs on a thick web of rationalization and psychological need for certitude. I find it absurd that I have to deal regularly with people who call contemporary literary theory "lunacy" but still believe in evil spirits. (I also find it maddening that I've lost arguments with some of them. Of course, I'd probably lose an argument with Archimedes Plutonium, or any other fanatic. :p )

Bluntly put, I think that if Christianity were no longer a force in the world -- if it were replaced by the secular humanistic ethics in which I believe (and not the pale, insulting shadow of them scorned by the Lew Rockwell crowd) -- my life in America, possibly everyone's lives, would be substantially better. I might be able to take a simple walk naked in the sun, with the body nature gave me, without fear of arrest or opprobrium. I might be able to have my spiritual union with Postrodent recognized as the harmless, mature, beautiful thing it is. I might be able to explore my consciousness without the threat of imprisonment. I might be able to buy booze on a freakin' Sunday. I might not have to fear for the lives of my transgendered friends, because I would not be living in a society obsessed with the "naturalness" of biological gender.

I wish with every ounce of my being that the pagans had triumphed at Merry Mount, and not the Puritans¹. And if it comes down to a second battle, I will fight with every ounce of my being to render this nation something other than a Christian one, because it is increasingly obvious that that which makes this nation Christian is also that which makes it hostile towards the things I love. If I could eliminate Christianity without bloodshed or coercion, and replace it with something better adapted to the modern human condition, I would do it in a heartbeat. [Edit: On further reflection, what I want to fight for is a society where Christianity is not an authority.]

I just can't say it any other way: I am so very, very glad I am no longer Christian. No other single act has fulfilled me so very throughly, has opened up so many opportunities for joy, has resolved so many self-induced psychological issues, as renouncing what for me was a stifling and parasitic belief system.

¹ Speaking figuratively, of course. AFAIK, there was no real incident at Merrymount in the American colonies as described by Hawthorne.

Adult Swim in Eden

2003-11-03T18:36:51Z

Remind me to pick a safer hobby next time around, like beekeeping or skydiving. It's looking like Puzzlebox is going to be another exercise in learning things I already knew about human nature. For example, we're too "dumb" to realize that creating problems for other people -- or, sometimes, refusing to help uncreate their problems, or own up to an indirect and guilt-free role in them -- is eventually and inevitably equivalent to creating problems for ourselves.

People want things their way, and they can't be bothered to care about other people's way, even when getting their own way can only be accomplished with those other people's help. It's like pulling teeth to get them to question what it even is about their way that they're so attached to, making it next to impossible to help them come up with compromises. Oh, this never works! Oh, this person was being totally unreasonable! Oh, that's not worth worrying about anyhow. Oh, they just do that for attention. Oh, everybody knows if you do this, this will happen! It all boils down to why can't you think like me and make my life easier. How could anybody not find that funny? How could anybody not find that offensive? You know, if we all stopped treating questions like that as rhetorical and actually answered them, I suspect that a lot of the "stupid people" would magically disappear from our radars and be replaced with normal human beings.

And I know I'm prone to that kind of thinking too -- I loathe it. But this isn't about blame or superiority, it's about solutions. And, admittedly, it's about dealing with the emotional exhaustion and frustration I'm getting in the process of trying to provide those solutions, solutions which I feel these people could be doing more in their own right to provide. But I don't blame them. I don't care whose fault it was. I just want trouble to be avoided, by learning from our mistakes and moving on if necessary. That's called being a grown-up, isn't it? (Or has that definition of maturity been totally eaten alive by mere fiscal responsibility and child-rearing?) I'm starting to realize where my mom, the public schoolteacher, gets so much of her haughty no-bullshit attitude from, gods bless her. :)

And inevitably, and oh-so-conveniently, people who disagree always just happen to be stupid, or immature, or "whiny" (I HATE that word now) or unreasonable -- traits which, mysterious, nobody ever sees fit to apply to themselves. And when you try to help them, or force them to reflect on their own opinions, or demand reciprocity from them, the first thing they want to do is label you as an enemy and debunk you. Christ, do you people not realize the opposing side is thinking the exact same dismissive garbage about you, instead of actually listening to you, and that's why nothing ever changes for the better!? Are you just not psychologically capable of slipping out of your default worldview and getting beyond your own needs for just a moment!? Cripes, if people could, we wouldn't need social controls...

This isn't about a specific person and it isn't about any single faction of people. It's the sum total of a lot of different people's occasional behaviors, on multiple sides. It's also not everybody on PB -- some people haven't shown any fractious tendencies like that at all. (And I'll tell ya, I'm MUCH more inclined to hang out with those people, now!) A lot more people have shown them once in a while but been wonderful people otherwise, which makes it an even bigger pain in the ass when I'm forced to react to their stubbornness. If it were just happening in discrete individuals, who were never anything but kvetchy, you bet I'd just boot them all. Life's not that simple -- but you are, if you think we can neatly label people as good guys and bad guys, as "smart" and "stupid," and not expect to suffer when the same snap judgements are made about ourselves. (At least, you're acting simple -- there's a difference between that and being simple. That's kinda my point. :) ) It's not the people I want to get rid of, it's this one pernicious way of thinking -- I'm after the cancer, but that's no excuse to stab the patient, unless for some bizarre reason the patient decides to defend the cancer to the death. Unfortunately, this seems to often be the case...

For fuck's sake, all I want is for people to give each other the benefit of the doubt. You can do that and still stand up for what you believe in. You don't have the write the other person off as a loser or a psychopath. You want to know what the "Puzzlebox theme" is?! That's the freakin' Puzzlebox theme. It's not about stirring up interesting conflicts and making pop-culture references at each other. It's not about coating yourself in sentient vinyl and sticking wires into your pleasure center. It's accepting that we'll never be able to deal with infinite horizons until we learn infinite compassion and reason. It's working out the problem of how people get along in a world where there's no coercion and no simple solutions. It's having no mass consensus of society to back you up when you're obliged to speak up for your way of life, or obliged to listen when somebody else speaks up for theirs. It's taking joy in other people's joy, and I'd rather have somebody who understands that on PB than an army of L33T roleplayers -- or sexy bastards -- with hearts like ice and chips on their shoulders.

If you think that's just a load of "hippie crap," or you think I'm "just being self-righteous," that's fine, but I won't respect a word you say about it until you quit slinging mere definitions around and engage me in a real, mature, open, give-and-take debate about it. In fact, I think if I'm going to stay sane as supposed "head wizard" of Puzzlebox, I'm going to have to start taking that attitude towards everything. If you have a problem you're welcome to bitch about it until your emotional needs have been met, and I won't come down on anybody just for venting. But I won't do anything more than pat your head and give you a cookie unless you can explain to me why things should change, and do better than "because I want it this way." If you want a role in designing an environment that you must share with others, you have to get past the pointy, pink-and-purple, prancing pendant and convince her of your opinion in a fair discussion. >.< Some of you have -- most, possibly all of you have now and then, even people who have been a little selfish at other times -- and I do thank you for that.

yulicorn @ 2003-09-18T08:40:00

2003-09-18T12:41:23Z

Hmmm, yesterday was actually pretty good. I got a breakthrough on an RPG idea, I didn't end up having to go into work, and after a bit of unhappy confusion -- we couldn't find our bus, and we accidentally stiffed poor alari because I thought he'd already left to go job-hunting -- postrodent and I met lediva in an admirably seedy arcade in Somerville and blew an obscene number of tokens. The arcade was a pretty mixed experience for me, since I really suck at most contemporary games and it was giving me "last kid picked for kickball" flashbacks. I'd like, just once in my life, to be good at something competitive, even if it is completely useless. :) But after a brief spazz, I gave up on the FPS games and returned to my home turf -- pinball. I sucked at that, too, but the freakin' arcade was so dark I couldn't see the upper tables on anything but the absurdly flashy Austin Powers machine. :p

Haven't gotten to fulfill my promise to spend more time on Puzzlebox, yet, since I haven't been able to find big chunks of time where I'm at a desk but not working. I have been doing a lot of writing, though, and apparently I'm not the only one. According to postrodent we now have at least one building project off of four out of six theme areas on PB, which is cool because it means we have places to put residences.

I could use a creative boost, though. I've have an idea for Strangewarp -- the spooky, infovirus-possessed, biopsych-horror district -- but that's all I have. I've decided I want its first public hangout to be a library, in keeping with the whole incestuous "information trying to experience itself" theme, but beyond some vague sense of Borges and Kafka influence, I don't know what to actually do with it. protocat and mharpold, especially... got any ideas for the Cronenberg Public Library? :) Remember: eerie, grotesque and pretty. Even fragments, something I could riff on would be much appreciated!

100 Reasons

2003-03-26T21:31:26Z

Hello. I'm going through a very difficult time right now, so I wrote up a list of 100 reasons. Not for anything in particular, and probably not for what you're thinking -- just reasons to run, to throw everything away, to live like nothing mattered for a while, to indulge myself hand-over-fist until I burst. I posted it on my rant journal at first, but I decided to post it here, too, even though it probably violates my no-angst promise. I tried to at least be semi-witty about it, since it was just a therapeutic exercise to begin with. It's my attempt to figure out how my angst works, and maybe in the process... um... ask for a little help because I've been feeling pretty disheartened lately. But I know all I can expect from people is offers to talk, and I'm really even good enough at taking people on those when I'm happy, much less when I want to go hide.

No, I don't really mean any of these, nor do I expect anyone to read the whole list, but here they are for the record. This is all the nasty buried stuff.

1: The War. We've lost so much progress, and I just can't fucking believe we're so hasty to repeat the mistakes of the last century. I'm really coming to genuinely hate the most radical pro-war folks on or near my friends list, the ones who are gung-ho and callous about it -- or worse, cold and calculating, or who see it like a cross between grand opera and the Superbowl¹. I don't like being in the position that puts me in.

2: The Closet. I don't like the idea that my grandmother's going to die thinking I'll always be alone. I'm still forbidden to come out to her, and I don't think I'll ever talk my mom out of it. It's only really started bothering me recently.

3: CHROMOSOME ERROR IN SECTOR 23. I know things aren't any easier for my female friends, but being XX in this society does give certain advantages that are very useful for some of the things I'd like to accomplish. Put another way: being XY is a big hindrance to those things. My values and methods are mostly stereotypically feminine, even if the stereotypes are bullshit. Being the "right" sex would've saved a lot of trouble. Of course, like a dog that wants in as soon as it's been let out, if I'd been born female I'd probably long to be male.

4: "For a long time he felt without style and grace."² Most of the really painful longings in my life are all about redefining myself and getting to play a role for a night. I want to be something sparkly, sexy, and scary. I will never be able to accomplish this without The Fear that I've done something wrong and will just put everyone off further -- that I'll be laughed at or, worse, silently pitied if I try. What I need is somebody else to help, but nobody's ever offered. I feel ashamed to ask, because I feel like it's expecting a lot out of my friends... but I've also seen them just up and do it for people close to me. I can't help thinking, "Why them and not me?" and concluding it's because the base material is too rotten to waste time decorating.

5: Done expecting favors. The last 27 years have proven that I can't remake myself purely on my own. But subtle hints for help don't make it, I'm terrified what people will think of me if I ask outright, and even if I got what I wanted, I'd feel to guilty about it not to sabotage it. Nobody has time to come in and rescue me, nor should they -- the times I've tried to rescue people notwithstanding.

6: Magic is entirely fictitious. I haven't seen any evidence that there's anything supernatural or spectacular in the world, despite uncountable assurances from otherwise-sane friends who insist there is. I'm either in a worldful of delusional people, or a worldful of people who have been let in on something wonderful that I'm not worthy of. Either way, I'm screwed.

7: 12,000 years of Solitude. The human condition hasn't really changed a whole lot. We have better living conditions and better distractions, but the vast river of souls is still ankle deep at best, including mine. And I'm sick of arguing with people who seem perfectly happy to encourage this by distracting themselves with the stupidest little survival games.

8: The River Lethe. I keep forgetting everything I learn. I keep posting about these incredible spiritual rushes I get -- the writing's there, so I KNOW I've had them -- but they lose all emotional reality within a day or two. What a waste.

9: Off The Road. I've lost all my delusions of becoming a cultural hero, or even of having a significant influence on the world. I'm no Kerouac, and I'm disgusted with the narcissistic games I play with myself to persuade myself I could've been.

10: Beat the clock. With my health the way it is, if I don't act soon, I might not get the chance.

11: "..." I'm sick of explaining myself.

12: The armies of Porlock. The philistines are winning.

13: No Body's watching me. I really don't believe there's anything in the heavens except dust and gas and light. I've called on them too many times, and I've never gotten an answer. We're on our own.

14: The Abyss glimpsed back. It was during one of my drug experiences. It just dawned on me, in its full horror, that deep down I really do believe that we're just clumsy beasts, enacting the behaviors that we're accustomed to, and there's no transcendent value in anything that we do. The things I thought were transcendent were just pleasant distractions from a very cold, naturalistic universe that hasn't noticed a thing we've done.

15: Everything could be easy. Like it should've been. Like it would've been if we hadn't spun all this spider-webbing around ourselves. I can just break the harness and run through the fields.

16: My libido is overdrawn. It's getting weaker and weaker every year, and I'm still abusing it for what little energy it has left. It's going to break eventually, and one of the main things I live for will be gone.

17: Even if I got what I wanted, I couldn't use it. Most of what I've been chasing after has a sexual component. But most people don't understand my idea of sexuality. It's more emotional than physical. I'm an object, OK? I don't know why I even fret about my gender, because I haven't got one. I am almost completely non-functional in that regard. And so I couldn't even participate in most people's concept of intimacy, even if I were ever invited. And the very fact of having to explain that would be even more painful than getting left out would.

18: Who is that guy? What's that vixen see in him? I don't trust myself. I don't like myself. I don't like all the contradictions and hypocrisies in my personality. I hear people say nasty things about me when they're angry with me, and the most infuriating part is I believe them all, reflexively.

19: The pile is ten times my height. I've never finished a project that Rik hasn't had to come in and finish for me.

20: I am Bender. Please insert girder. I have no career future. If I step away from this job long enough to enjoy a little bit of real freedom, there will be nothing but data entry slavery -- if not outright destitution -- left for me.

21: My hindbrain owns me. My entire life has been centered around the pursuit of deep emotional states, pleasure, bliss, wonder, awe... But they're just electrical impulses. My philosophy that there's some hidden, transcendent meaning to them has not only never reached any sophistication, it's falling apart on me. I don't believe it, myself, anymore. I might as well have dedicated my life to flipping a light switch on and off.

22: Dorm angst. I haven't had a good roommate situation since 1997. I can't see having one in the near future.

23: Wanderlust. I wanted to see much more of the world than my life's giving me the chance to see. I don't see that changing soon, either. My boyfriend and most of my friends are pretty much content to stay put.

24: Attack of the phantom friends. If I have 300 people on my "friends" list, why do I feel so lonely? I already know the answer -- any extroversion I show you is a total sham.

25: There's nobody in the mirror. I don't have any self-image that I don't get from everybody else.

26: Orphanage syndrome. Soon, I'll be too old to be cute. Yes, yes, I know, you're 78 years old and you're still adorable. You probably are, indeed, and will be when you're 100. You're not me. I don't think I'm going to be well-preserved. Besides, it's all about whether you're young at heart. I feel about ready to retire to Florida.

27: Puzzlebox is a time bomb. Total disorganization, no creative inspiration, everybody's putting all their hopes on a stupid fake vixen with NO follow-through, and I pissed off both our code wizards with an offhanded remark that wasn't supposed to be repeated because it was just me venting about... er... how much left-brained, critical people frustrate me, but that's a whole other topic.

28: One crush, no waiting, priced to move. There's never been a period of my life during which more than one person was attracted to me of which I was aware. This is especially bad since it's becoming clear that as much as I love Rik, there are some things -- like the sisterly, cuddly girltalk I've been starved for -- that he just can't give me, and that lack is becoming a major strain on our relationship.

29: Amy, Amy, Jen, Gen. Four people who have expressed attraction to me and then changed their minds, immediately and without explanation, upon getting to know me better. (Keep in mind there are lots and lots of people with those three names and you probably don't know them. :p ) I don't mind at all if our friendship is completely and utterly platonic -- but don't hint at more then change your mind unless you're deliberately trying to hurt me, please. I've never really recovered from any of those four stings, nor from the two I'm not naming.

30: You all make it look easy. I still feel... special. Short-bus special. There are so many things that other people don't seem to have trouble with -- even just basic stuff like keeping your shoes tied, doing your taxes, not getting lost while driving, and not bumping into things -- that totally bewilder me. And "I'm still young, yet" is a weaker excuse every year.

31: I'm still ten. No matter how much progress I think I've made, something -- someone with a bullyish personality, say, or somebody laughing at me -- will just strip everything away every now and then. I realize, then, that I've got exactly the same habits and drives that I had in elementary school.

32: My nose is stuck to the window. I'm tired of feeling like I'm on the outside looking in. It really, really hurts me when somebody tells me about their nights of passion/dancing/flirting/costuming/gaming, or whatever other little door to the other world I'm not invited to enter. And I hate myself for getting angry or jealous with them -- but, I mean, do you really think I WANT to be burbled at about things I've never gotten to do? Things that it wouldn't kill you to invite me along for, if I'm such a good friend? Oh, right. "You don't like me that way, and wouldn't want to spoil such a good friendship." Here, you don't need to say it anymore -- I've got some labels made up for it. Just peel and stick whenever you want to be rid of me.

33: I miss the same flight, over and over. I can't even claim some people haven't tried to invite me along. But it's usually a matter of right-here-right-now, and no second chance is ever offered. That hurts even more. On any given night, there's a 50% chance I'm too tired to do anything but sleep. At least wait until I have a fair chance.

34: My head is a mass grave. I haven't had full contact with my alter egos in years. Just one or two scattered epiphanies every couple of months, and then they're gone again. It's lonely inside and out.

35: Jimmytaint. The house is still filthy, we're going to be left totally in the air for a roommate, nobody's responded or offered to help, another of our roommates is out of a job, our landlord's probably going to try to raise our rent again, and our dishwasher's been broken for two months and still isn't fixed. I feel guilty because Rik's been handling everything and every time I ask if he wants help he says no because he knows I'm terrified of pressing people for money or information. And I really feel like the grossness of our apartment is reflecting badly on me, at a time when I need all the self-image and public-image I can get. Easier just to leave -- but that would wipe out our savings.

36: Clerical errors. I'm sick of hurting people by accident because I didn't communicate with them in just the right way, or because I didn't answer their mail on time, or some other fucking administrative error.

37: Clogged empathy pipes. I walked straight by a homeless guy the other day, eating a burrito. He asked me if I'd buy him one, and I really wanted to, but I only half-heard him... and shrugged reflexively in his face and said "sorry" because I even caught myself. By the time I realized what he'd said, I was halfway down the block, HATING myself, too chickenshit to go back.

38: I'm the Really Quite Angry Kid. I'm very sick of my temper. It keeps leaping up when I think I have some control of myself and ruining things for me -- and people who don't have strong tempers feel VERY safe, apparently, confusing things you do on purpose with things you do out of blind anger. And I'm sick of people telling me just to fix it, like ten minutes with a soldering iron would do it and I'm just too lazy. Though it is tempting these days...

39: He's the Really Quite Angry Kid. The War's had a very nasty effect on Rik and we're fighting more than we ever have. This is an extraordinarily painful time... for somebody who's already given to being morose and cynical. I couldn't possibly leave him in his time of need, especially because an even MORE wonderful person could come out of this... But I'm shit scared we won't survive the process.

40: Grooplessniss. I haven't hung out with more than three people at a time, except at cons, more than maybe once or twice in the last year. Come to think of it, I haven't really done that at cons. And I HATE awkward socializing with strangers and near-strangers, the kind that goes on at most events. I need a group of like-minded people to hang out with, desperately, and I haven't had that since college. I fucking hate the fact our society seems to like placing people in neat little boxes of two, plus kids.

41: Any color you like. Boston is literally the most colorless city I've ever seen in my life. It's even grayer than Seattle.

42: The look on that cop's face. If I threw everything else away, it'd give me the opportunity to catch just one asshole being an asshole and shoot him. That's a pleasure beyond price.

43: $10,000 credit limit. I'd love a chance to run up all my cards with silly, fun things and then go someplace where they could never expect me to pay them off.

44: There is no Terabithian People's Army. Secret worlds are powerless worlds. The people at my office, for instance, have no idea at all about the sort of life I'm living. If they did know, it would be swallowed up entirely by their own ideological immune systems. How on earth am I supposed to make the things I care about relevant to the world? How am I supposed to let them thrive in a world tailored entirely towards the survival and well-being of the obvious and ordinary?

45: T.I.N.A. There is no alternative. There's no underground. There's nowhere to go and drop out of society. Their rules apply everywhere, and even most of the dissenters dissent in between their rigid 8-hour work shifts.

46: Charlie, they cut off my Sub-Etha thumb. Hitchhiking was another casualty of somebody else's cruelty. The Hillside Strangler practically single-handedly ruined an institution of a smaller, friendlier USA -- one that was vital to the bohemian drop-out life as they knew it then.

47: Underwater basket-weaving. Come to think of it, I can't do that, either. I have no technical skills and no reliable talents. My one skill is writing, and I can't even do that with any discipline.

48: "That's for afters!" I feel like a slob. I'm utterly convinced that I look, smell, sound, feel, and probably even taste horrible.

49: Like father, like son. My dad lived to be 36, due partly to heart defects and partly to rotten habits. How much have I inherited?

50: A great-looking corpse. It'd be a narcissist's dream come true, to know all their friends are chattering about the best things, and that the worst things have all become taboo.

51: I'm Jewish by proxy. I'm driven by guilt.

52: Be the ultimate guinea pig. I could do every drug on the face of the earth without fear of consequences

53: Doctors suck. I've been to ten and never gotten a reasonable explanation, even a reasonable guess, about what's wrong with me.

54: Solsbury Hill. I can break the cycle of fear. All sorts of interesting new possibilities open up if I have nothing to lose and nothing to plan for.

55: Hit on 16, Stand on 17. The idea of putting $3,000 on a single flip of the cards in Reno is just unspeakably romantic to me.

56: Murphy's Law of Headlines. All the good news is small and gradual. All the bad news is big and sudden. When's the last time you woke up and saw a TV broadcast interrupted because the world was suddenly a much, much better place?

57: Idiot savants. Like the ones who, if I posted this on my other journal, would literalize and nitpick every point I made on this post, in an utterly tactless attempt to "help" me by debunking my fears instead of dealing with them. I fucking hate people who can't tell an emotional problem from a math problem.

58: I always was a trend-setter. The 21st century seems to be all about self-destruction.

59: "Your closet's empty, Binkley. Go to bed." I'm sick of reassurances that boil down to "I don't understand your problem, so it doesn't exist, so everything's fine, so shut up and be happy."

60: Sheer defiance. I mean... I've always been pretty contrary.

61: The one of one heart stopping. Consider it a kind of koan.

62: Research. There are plenty of stupid ideas out there about the psychology of self-destruction. I'd probably overanalyze this like I overanalyze everything else, and maybe I can help shatter a few of those myths in the process by logging EVERYTHING.

63: Partnership for a Despair-Free America. Every other taboo thing I've tried, even if it wasn't so good for me, has turned out to be a lot of fun. The premarital sex, drugs, homosexuality, perversion, radical politics, and atheism were great. Why not this?

64: The light burns my eyes. I'm getting really tired of reading about other people getting the things I want: kinky sex, road trips, all-night rambles with their friends, polyamorous relationships, normal sex drives. I'm especially tired of people blithering cheerful about these things at me, or inviting close friends to participate while I just stand there smiling, and then expecting me not to be unhappy.

65: Do I look like John Fucking Ritter? I'm tired of playing the role of everybody's "good gay friend." I'm tired of being everyone's confident and nobody's partner in crime. I'm tired of feeling like Rik and I are on some kind of pedestal as the "cute couple" that has to be preserved like a museum piece. I'm sick of fulfilling people's "safe, cuddly queer" fantasies. Maybe I'd deal with it better if I got any actual cuddles out of it.

66: I'm painted into the corner again. This is the third relationship out of three that I've invested so much in that it's left me with only one real confidant. Even people like runnerwolf and mister_wolf, who I'm totally secure care about me, would need so much background information on how I work that it's just... easier... to dump everything on Rik. And it's becoming obvious that he doesn't understand everything either -- he just tries harder than anyone else. <3

67: Bulldozers. Denmark's right-wing parliament is thinking of bulldozing a 30-year-old autonomous hippie settlement to make room for "urban renewal." I don't see anything taking its place.

68: My back pages. I've actually gotten out of the habit of reading. That is such a fundamental betrayal of who I am, and such a symptom of how tired and scatterbrained I've gotten.

69: Borrowed time. I was planning on killing myself at the start of the year 2000, but I met Rik and that completely bolloxed up my plans. I got so sidetracked with hating other people I guess I forgot to hate myself. Fixed now.

70: I'm becoming Nixon. I have an enemies list. I never used to have an enemies list.

71: Nothing good on TV. No, I'm serious. I thrive on inspiring images, and I'm just completely out of them. They've all emigrated to the Net, where they're so hard to find amid all the crap. Believe it not, but the death of schlocky late-night cable really took a lot out of me.

72: Planned obsolescence. I feel totally out of synch with the rest of the world. Every time I find somebody who I thought might have been a kindred spirit, I find one thing after another that they don't share with me, and neither does anyone else. I could just supplement it with more, and more diverse friends, but I don't have that talent. I can conjure them, but I can't keep them.

73: I'm not even supposed to be here today. I was a premature baby with lots of health problems. My mom had very serious fertility issues, and miscarried all her other attempts to have kids. I wasn't supposed to live past six, according to the OB/GYN on duty.

74: Gabba gabba hey. I don't wanna be a pinhead no more. I'm not nearly as mentally sharp as I was before my autonomic system went bugfuck. I really miss having things like math skill, and a memory.

75: Cheaper to buy a new one. I still don't know what, exactly is wrong with me. Diabetes would explain some of the symptoms. I'm terrified that whatever's wrong will require a huge investment of time and money just to keep me from getting worse, and I know I'm not capable of meeting those needs. I won't live just to stay alive.

76: I'm just sick of you. I'm not, really. But it makes me feel a lot better to say it, and the damage I'm likely to do in the process is reason enough.

77: I buried my twin. I feel sometimes like I'm two entirely different people, and the bad one is winning. My personality in my increasingly fleeting days of "good brain chemistry" is so different from the one when I'm depressed, the now-dominant one. I don't like depressed-Me. But I think the things I do to summon blissful-Me are slowly killing him.

78: I shot the last unicorn for food. On the rare occasions when I can still see Noelle, I can't bear to look her in the eye. In the last month, I've directly ignored her screams in favor of doing things I knew were wrong.

79: Five pounds of weary grey mazes. I'm increasingly convinced that the human brain is fundamentally flawed and makes for a pretty excellent prison. I'm tired of ramming my head against the bars of the cage, let along trying to explain to my cellmates that there are walls.

80: On second thought... I really am sick of you. But the emphasis in on the "sick," not on the "you." It's not your faults.

81: The Paper Trail. It just seems like a more interesting end to the story, is all.

82: 1:100 scale. Six months of freedom, or fifty years of captivity? Am I really expected to believe that if I stay put and keep working, eventually I'll get to do all the things I've wanted to do? Even after seeing that TOTALLY FAIL for most of my relatives, if not most of the world?

83: It's the path of least resistance. And I seem to be really good at taking those.

84: Answers are in the back of the book. I won't have to hide anything anymore. I can say things which I would never, ever be able to say otherwise, and learn a lot of things I'd be too afraid to investigate.

85: Nothing is whiter than a blank page. It would be the ultimate penance for how I've wasted my life, and for all the petty and shallow things I've done. Or, at least, it would feel like it, as long as I didn't think very hard about it.

86: "..." Revisited. I'm sick of other stony silences from my friends. Listen, OK, if you just sit there passive-aggressively silent while I'm trying to be friendly or apologize to you... well... if you wanted it to hurt, it did. And I'm getting really tired of people who get upset about things I do and then say "I don't know" when I ask them why.

87: "It's a neat trick, but..." The very act of revealing what's wrong with me is equivalent to a cry for help. If I have to cry for help, then I'll never know, by definition, if anyone would've come looking on their own. Asking the question invalidates its own answer.

88: I'm not as dumb as I look. I really hate being condescended to.

89: My heart is not for patent. Watching art get turned into a commodity is really starting to get to me. Listening to people defend the process because it gives a few unscrupulous people their livelihoods, and they can't imagine anything better, is outright pissing me off.

90: Your heart is in the way. There's a bunch of people that I'm going to need to tell off, sooner or later, for my own peace of mind. I've already cut off relationships with [deleted] and half a dozen other people this past year. The only thing I really learned in 2002 is that it doesn't always hurt to say goodbye. In 2003, it's looking like I'm going to learn that sometimes it hurts much, much more to hold on.

91: Dreams never lie. And mine haven't been good lately. All the things that I thought didn't really bother me apparently have some part of me upset enough to not let me sleep.

92: My heart is on loan. Everything I have could be very easily taken away. One financial or social disaster could take away even what little stability I have in my life -- and totally devastate any chance of really, truly being fulfilled. I feel like I'm being constantly tracked by people with sniper rifles. A few of them are bankers, but a few of them are "friends" of mine who know my weaknesses a little too well.

93: Might as well be cryptic. Everybody seems pleased to read the worst into everything I say and do, anyhow. I'm utterly convinced you all think I'm a total flake to begin with and, as implied above, I just don't have the fucking energy to explain my motives to you anymore.

94: Unless you want me to, of course, and that would be fine, but I'm not saying you'd think it wouldn't be! Speaking of which, I'm really sick of feeling like I have to attach disclaimers onto everything.

95: o/~ In VR, everything's fine o/~ All I really want is to shed my ego for a few hours a day, even a few hours a week, and roleplay in peace. That's all I ever wanted. It's the main time I'm really happy. It shouldn't be this fucking hard.

96: At least think of the children! In fact, all I've ever wanted was to get out of my own head and be somebody else. There are just too many reminders in the physical world of how totally fucking boring adult reality is, and how boring and timid and ugly of an adult I've become to match. I'm rather looking forward to a nice, comfortable psychotic break these days. Maybe somebody nicer will come out of the ruins.

97: "..." Part Three. There's an entry in my notebook that explains everything, but it's something like twenty pages long, and if I posted it it would either have to be kept from the people it would matter to, or would get me in enormous trouble.

98: You, you, you, and you. About four of my friends have broken my heart in the last 24 hours, in quick sequence. I'm going to do something truly unforgiveable: I'm not going to tell you whether it was you.

99: Force of habit. It would just be so... like me to leave something unfinished.

¹Laurie Anderson quote