Better days

I've finally made the move that I've been threatening feebly for years. I am no longer blogging here.

If you enjoyed reading my entries and would like to continue doing so at my new blog, leave a comment with your name and email address. All comments are moderated, and I won't approve them so you won't get any spam. I would be delighted to hear from you.

For those of you who have already done so - thank you so much for the encouragement and lovely warm words. You are a big part of the reason I've kept this blog for as long as I have.

Love,

Le Raine

A monstrosity of a pageant

I just got back from watching "So You Think You Are Andro?/! (Part 3)". It's a lesbian beauty pageant for androgynous girls.

It was completely depressing. I'm dismayed by the two hours of my life I've just frittered away.

Of the 12 contestants, only three (#1, #2 (obviously the smartest) and #12) appeared to possess a shred of intelligence. Everyone else gave shockingly terrible answers. Some didn't answer at all because they were obviously too dumb to know what to say (two of them actually asked the audience for an answer) and were quickly ushered off by the emcee (Bernie Chan, whose command of English is ghastly). It went something like this (definitely not verbatim):

*screams, chattering, cheering from the crowd*

Bernie: OI! Shhh... if you all KEEP QUIET then you can LISTENING! Shhh.. now, here's our lovely contestant, X! Oops, I mean, Y! Sorry, her name is Y! (X was the contestant before - she consistently announced the contestants by the wrong names.) Y, take off your mask and tell us what you're doing now.

Contestant Y: I'm doing schooling.

Bernie: What are you studying?

Contestant: Blah blah blah.

Bernie: Okay pick a question. Okay. Your question is: do you think it's fair for a child to have parents of the same sex?

*cheering, screaming from the crowd* *Contestant smacks her forehead lightly in mock resignation/horror*

Contestant Y: Errrrr... does anyone want to answer for me? Ha ha.

Judge (Rebecca Tan): Darling, the question's for you.

*Contestant shifts her weight, asks for question to be repeated, looks at the crowd pleadingly, looks for an escape route, shrugs, shifts her weight, etc.*

Judge: Okay we have another question then. What do you think of sex in the water?

*screaming and cheering from the crowd* *Contestant shifts weight, etc.*

Bernie: Sex in the water - on or not on?!

Contestant Y: *shrugging* I guess so... *nods, shrugs*

Bernie: Okay it's ON! Thank you Contestant X!

Fuuuuuuuck. Fuck. The only benefit of the night was catching a few glimpses of a few gorgeous girls, though they were way out of my league.

"Blah" is probably the most eloquent summary of this entry

I am such an unassertive people-pleaser, and I hate it. It's what keeps me from really writing here - I think I have quite a lot to say, but my enthusiasm is dampened by the idea of having to apologize for and defend everything I say, or potentially landing myself in awkward situations (I suspect my boss reads my blog). I do have interesting, impersonal things to talk about as well, but I keep telling myself that I'll start a new blog, do it up properly, and then bother with actually insightful entries, instead of silly ones. Like this, for example.

I haven't been doing much lately. I have been terribly inert. I get home after work and feel like I absolutely don't want to move, despite doing pretty much nothing at work. Tonight I passed up invitations to three absolutely fantastic parties so I could stay home instead and do fuckall. I only get out these days to go to the gym, and then I ruin any progress because I'm not disciplined enough to stick to a healthy diet. Good grief. I'm ashamed.

I suspect my lack of motivation has something to do with my work scope and the environment. Under the current circumstances at work, I am simply not in a position to be actually productive, which results in being tasked with the pesky little things that everyone else avoids. Being on autopilot mode for hours and hours is really draining, or at least makes it difficult to snap into intellectual shape when I'm finally free to do so. Also sitting all day in a chair that was designed with negligible consideration towards ergonomics is rather displeasing (and chronic back pain has been proven to cause more unhappiness than loss of a limb or the death of a loved one).

Anyway, I don't know who reads this blog anymore, but at some point in the near future I'm going to ditch this blog and write elsewhere. If you're interested in an update on the new URL, leave a message with your email (and name, preferably). All comments are moderated.

Writing a book

"Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist or [sic] understand. For all one knows that demon is the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's personality.

"Good prose is like a window pane."

-- George Orwell

Living in 2019 - part I

“How are your dental treatments coming along?”

“I had a bunch of fillings…” He trails off in the manner of someone reluctant to announce bad news. “..all over the place. Terrible.”

“And your root canal?”

“I’ve not done anything about it.”

“I see.” A meaningful silence.

“It’s okay!” He enthuses jokingly. “In like ten years I’ll be having new teeth growing from my stem cells…”

“Or you could get a steel jaw.”

“Hey. That is also true – adamantine teeth.”

I have to scoff. “And what if you accidentally bit your tongue?”

“Don’t you mean my adamantine tongue...?”

“Who would want to kiss you then?!”

“I would simulate your kissing me.” Duh, his tone says. He smiles, obviously proud of himself.

The first step

One of my biggest fears is writing a novel, because it is the one thing I want to do most in life. The very idea of spending hours, months, years--time that doesn't register--immersing myself in the sweet pleasure of putting to paper words that demand to tumble forth -- furiously producing page after page in the darkest hours, or a quick, delighted scrawl on the back of a bill in the train -- and then re-reading it and realizing it is almost all shit -- the very idea is crippling.

The generation gap

That feeling I experience when talking with people who (I realize only belatedly) proudly reject reason, who are unwilling to even consider alternative possibilities even in the face of irrefutable evidence: stark terror. I feel a desperation that claws at me with long, dark fingers, tightens its vice and I feel like I am being engulfed in an abyss of nothing.

I'm exhausted.