quietly messing about with video tools while exploring the depths of how Star Wars has ruined / greatly enriched my life. if you know, you know.
a processed and layered and trashed scene from Lost River by Ryan Gosling featuring Ben Mendelsohn (and Christina Hendricks!) paired with F**kin’ Problems by A$AP Rocky- as the good lord intended. (you so very are welcome.)
under the pixel trash you can see Mr. Once-a-dancer-always-a-dancer, Mads Mikkelsen killing it in Druk by Thomas Vinterberg paired with a dance challenge version of Bitch Better Have My Money by Rihanna (may Mads always be Riri’s bitch) and ambient techno layers resulting in this sloppy drunken travesty.
voice: a Ewan McGregor sound clip stolen from his reading of The Little Matchstick Girl. (this is the line in the story that guts me most every time.)
I have started going to a gym in that has an indoor swimming pool.
This is an interesting development in my life as- heh-
I don’t swim.
At all.
I was never much exposed to water culture as a youth. The few times I was in water, I was not instructed on the basics of swimming. Perhaps it was as if I was supposed to just figure out how to operate my body in the water- by osmosis, or something. It certainly didn’t seem to matter to anyone else if I acquired the skill or not.
So, I never got accustomed to being in water.
After my illness, just being in water is a lot for me now: I cramp at the drop of a hat, I deal with unusual muscle weakness / twitching, my back pain can be spectacular fun to work around, and I am easily overwhelmed by the sensory input of… everything.
When there is a lot of people in the pool the overwhelm happens even faster. It is more akin to being at a nightclub than one would first imagine. If I had to put my head in the water I would certainly have a panic attack, like particular rhythms at high volumes certainly drive me to panic. Or rage.
I am relearning how to own being a freak in public again. I mean, I’m this thing walking laps in a pool, stretching my miserable body while these dolphin people glide and splash by me.
Oh- how inexorably small I have become since the universe graced me with six years of repeated hamstring cutting- Oh-
I am grateful the experience is helping me build up my physical and mental fortitude again, the elusiveness of the swimming part notwithstanding.
Also, the pool is space insulated from the news out of the increasingly third-world, mind-blowingly hypocritical cesspool that is the United States of America.
All countries have their issues but… damn son, damn… this one is so jacked from all the mental gymnastics it does. It thinks getting gold for it’s little flag waving uneven bars ≠ routine is a good thing.
Egh, I wish I could say more meaningful things right out on social media.
I wish I did not have such problems with social interactions so that I could engage in conversations and appropriate debates more easily.
I know that I am not very good at having a VOICE, however, even without one- I exist.
And by my existence, I hold as some kind of (unfortunately flimsy) barrier against the racist, fascist, authoritarian, pseudo-theocratic, rampant capitalistic, dick-ville being… *coff* erected.
But… I spend most of my energy on trying to stay alive and heal. I don’t don’t have the extra amounts of oomph needed to effectively deal with… large scale shitshows.
Last month ended with me in passive suicidal ideations for a few days.
I could not write about that. Not while spiraling into it, or coming back out of it. I just yelled at the universe to pay artists! Let artists live!
I want to feel like I am worth more than the little birds brought down into the dark mines or the roses planted near the grapevines.
That imagery has nothing to do with pools. I don’t care.
This ending doesn’t wrap things up- in a nice, fluffy towel. I don’t care.
You know you are in tune with something in the universe when- on a whim- you call your new journal book for the year Lilac Viper and then see that lilacs are featured in a new (but not so great) Nosferatu movie that keeps making itself known in my social media feeds.
I connect. It connects…
And that is neat, but pointless- The point has shifted to a line that connects, you see –
A line scribbled by the non-dominant hand of a three year old ~
~ The child is uncomfortable~
It’s fire season in SoCal.
David Lynch is dead.
My human (partner) continues to paint and paint (NOW IN COLOR!) and hopes a broader population will do more than stand back and gawp the work-
While we both internally scream:
BUY THE WORK.
BUY IT.
IF YOU LIKE IT, THEN BUY IT.
How hard is this?! FFS, guys…
BUY THE ART.
And neither of us are greedy for a life of excesses. We aren’t anywhere near that sort of existence!
We are in need.
Is that clear enough? Is the word need confusing?
One sale less than every third blue moon doesn’t make it exactly easy to live on this planet within these ridiculous human constructs you like to wrap yourselves in.
Work, work, positive press, and praise- yet!- for example-:
When can I live in a proper house?
Am I not a delicate modern humanoid who could benefit from having a reasonable place to call home… and not be in debt for it?
I am already so uncomfortable in my body and I can’t even have a comfortable place to rest myself?
I am doing to be dead before I ever know the comfort of a my own proper living space?
“But Ther-,” a voice says,
“You are being overly dramatic. Any one else could ‘get by’ just fine. Suck it up. Quit complaining and take on another two or three jobs. Never mind that you have been grappling (suicidal) with mental and physical health issues for six sparkling years… Surely, you can ignore all the distress you are in and put yourself out there more. Work harder. That will fix everything.”
And I can hear an ever crueler translation of that voice say,
“You aren’t worth the effort. You aren’t worth anything. You are a mere nice thing so just shut up; bend over again and be taken for the nothing you are.”
Yes, I do hear such dark things in my head.
So this is my call to action:
Prove the voices wrong.
Take action.
Buy art. All the art.
Support artists.
You who have means, show me with swift and useful actions that you know how to stave off the dark.
