Saturday, September 15, 2001
purple ink
I joined this mailing list the other day after finding myself linked to one of its messages. It's not an art-specific list per se, or a writing list -- just a group of generally creative people all under the journal-writer subject heading.
As is to be expected, most of the talk lately has been about the terrorism of 911. But inbetween the messages of fear and resolve, patriotism and regret, there has been the most wonderful project for this month posted lately that I'm just loving. It's astrological in nature (which always piques my interest), but for each sign there's a bunch of freewriting questions/prompts that have just got me going, so to speak. If you're a journal-writer, there's a lot of good stuff there. Do check it out.
It's also got me going on a one-shot zine idea I started and never had a chance to finish called "Desert Sands", which is roughly astrological (12 stories, one for each sign), and roughly about living in the desert (here, at least, which is on the cusp). Since I'm really into this idea of finishing one thing before digging myself another hole to play in, though, I've been working feverishly on this issue of IQ instead today, so that I can concentrate fully on what's on my plate: finishing the subscriber issues, updating the web pages, doing the hanging gardens, and then maybe Desert Sands.
In the last 24 hours or so, I've come to realize that this terrorism can -not- defeat me. Defeat us. We've got to move on, move forward, continue with business-as-usual, or they've won. And the rebel part of me simply will not let that happen. My life, my creativity, my projects, my art -- they're my -own-. No zealot freak with a murderous bent can take that away from me. I was lucky this time...I wasn't in a building that was targeted, I wasn't injured or killed. And though I mourn for those innocents who were, I claim my life as my own, and this life is MINE to do with as I see fit.
I'm not going to sit around. I may not be at 100%, and I may never be as trusting as I was before, but I am alive, and I will go on.
--------e
terrorized no more
Posted by beth @ 09:07 PM PST [Link]
ugh, yuck-o-la
When I printed out this article and showed it to H last night, his first response (after many disgusted noises) was, "This is why we have free speech."
I looked at him, confused, since I -know- he didn't mean he agreed with this nonsense.
"So the wackos can be easily identified. They say 'blahblahblah' and we say, 'ah-ha! there's another one'."
Good point.
----e
Posted by beth @ 08:39 AM PST [Link]
Friday, September 14, 2001
memorial service
I'm sitting here watching the memorial service at the National Cathedral. The officiant has called upon the God of the Jews, the Muslims, the Buddhists, and the Christians. It is, truly, a multi-faith service. (Why we can't have this all the time, I don't know. It's so -healing-, in a way. No division. Just togetherness.)
The singer is singing "America, the Beautiful", and I'm crying. Tears are streaming down my face like rivers. I can't stop. NBC is cutting away to images of the rubble, of the carnage, of the raising of the American flag over the destruction. I'm intellectually aware of the conscious manipulation of my emotions by the station, by those giving the ceremony, but I'm giving in. If there's no grief, there's no healing. So many dead. So many just -gone-.
The song is ending. I can't help but feel that it's a dirge, a funeral cry for not only those lost, but for our innocence and our naive bravery. For our country as it was, as it evolves into what it will be.
Rachel weeps for her children. New Yorkers weep for our brothers.
We weep for ourselves.
--------e
Posted by beth @ 09:17 AM PST [Link]
column
Someone sent this column to me in email this morning.
Damn yeah.
-------e
Posted by beth @ 05:20 AM PST [Link]
dream 1
I had this dream last night. (Well, this morning, since I went to bed at 7p.m. and got up at 3 a.m. for some unknown reason.) Warning to our more sensitive viewers: it's weird.
I was at this sort of meeting in the basement of my Mom's house in Norfolk, but Norfolk was actually Columbus, NE, not really Norfolk. The architecture was different, but in dreamlogic, that's where I was. After the meeting business was concluded, they announced that they'd brought in Joe Jackson to sing for us, as the entertainment portion of the evening.
Joe Jackson (the "Steppin' Out" one, not the Jackson 5 one) came in to sing. He was gaunt, and, honestly, looked more like an Osmond than a 70's disco king. He started singing to a recorded track, and doing this little dance thing that was -awful-. I mean like a 60's girl group type thing, with hand movements and all. I was totally embarrassed for him.
He put on a recorded version of one of his songs (I don't know what song it was), and went to the back of the room while we watched this video of him singing. At one point, I looked back at him, and he was actually doing a -backspin-, like breakdancing backspin, on the floor while nobody was watching. Very strange.
Fast forward. After everyone had cleared out, I was still downstairs. Joe came down, and to make a long story short, I seduced him. We crawled out a window (so my mom wouldn't find us), and proceeded to have mind-blowing sex on this ledge outside the basement window.
Afterward, I went for a walk, while Joe packed to go to his next gig. I walked past one of the places in Columbus where I used to live, and talked with Kathy (the house mother there), who had a 7 month old baby, while we walked. It was a strained conversation -- I don't remember totally what was said, but I do remember thinking that losing a pound a week wasn't as good as losing three-and-a-half a week, or somesuch. And I do remember that Joe wanted me to go on to the next gig with him, so I had to hurry to get back home.
The dog woke me up.
This is one of those where I am -totally- interpretationless. Any thoughts? Email me.
-------e
Posted by beth @ 03:07 AM PST [Link]
Thursday, September 13, 2001
day three
I realized yesterday around three p.m. that, due to the news coverage I've been watching, I haven't seen a commercial since I woke up on Tuesday. Not a single one, spam notwithstanding. Since they've pre-empted the regular programming, there just haven't been any, in case of breaking news. This morning, watching Northern Exposure on A&E, it feels strange to see them, to see evidence of commercialism, of the thought of buying anything. It all seems unimportant all of a sudden.
Yesterday, I went downtown in hopes of taking my mind off things. There's a streetfair down there held weekly, where they fill a two-block area with vendor's booths and clowns and live bands. It's easily one of my favorite events in Riverside. So many people and artists, an energy in the air.
It was a ghost town. Several people milled around the empty area, confused that nobody had shown up. (It was cancelled.) I sat down at the side of one of the fountains, listening to the water trickle down the rocks, and watched a discarded plastic bag float by on the remnants of a warm Summer breeze, and I wondered for a second if this is how it was going to be. Have the terrorist events of the last few days broken us? Or are we like a VCR on pause, waiting for someone to press play again so we can forget?
I came home, made dinner, and washed the dishes on autopilot.
Will anything seem normal again?
------e
Posted by beth @ 08:55 AM PST [Link]
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
second day
Last night on the news, they showed a man and his two teenage sons carrying U.S. flags and signs that said "BOMB AFGHANASTAN" and "KILL THE TERRORIST BASTARDS".
And I cried.
When the terrorized become terrorists, who wins?
--------e
Posted by beth @ 10:46 AM PST [Link]
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
latest word
The latest word is that 800 are dead, just at the Pentagon. That's not including anyone from the WTC themselves. I am just sick.
Something's going to have to be done domestically. We've easily got billions of dollars in damages, untold numbers of casualties, and even more people affected by this, directly or indirectly. Over the past hour or so, I've been pacing, walking away from the computer and back again, trying to figure out what I can do that won't make me feel so impotent and powerless to help.
I think I'm going to try to organize some kind of art sale to get some money to send to the Red Cross. (Or some other organization for clean-up/victim help.) I haven't been able to come up with much more than a skeleton plan, but at least I won't be just sitting here doing -nothing-.
Giuliani just said they've found two people alive.
Maybe it's okay to hold out hope for more now.
------e
Posted by beth @ 08:40 PM PST [Link]
denial
We're denying an Afghan attack. Since it would likely be in our best interest as a country, politically, to accept blame if it was, in fact, our retalliation, I think I believe it.
The problem is: I'm not sure what to believe.
200 firefighters dead from the rescue efforts. Two HUNDRED. 100 dead at the Pentagon site (including the passengers). Current deaths in NYC: over 1000. Before they even get in the building.
THere's so many shadows over the US right now. I knew that there were countries who didn't like us -- groups that didn't like our politics. But there's a difference between not liking our politics and killing (at last count) 1300 of our citizens. Innocent people. Crushed, burned, mangled. Bodies, souls departed.
I feel impotent, targeted. Immobilized by fear, but desperate to help. I gave blood. It's not enough. I have the urge to go to NYC. Clean the streets. Hug the families. Try to restore my innocence. Just do something. Hold a bake sale to send them some money. Anything.
Please, if there's anyone reading from NYC, or DC, or PA, know this: I'm praying to whatever God will listen. For you, for us, for them.
------e
Posted by beth @ 05:19 PM PST [Link]
attack
They're showing video. This can't be a mistake, can it?
Posted by beth @ 03:08 PM PST [Link]
attack?
Oh fuck. We're attacking Afghanistan.
Could this get any more horrible?
Posted by beth @ 03:06 PM PST [Link]
endless
I can't stop crying. It just keeps getting worse and worse. The 7 World Trade building just came down. The only thing that makes it even remotely better for me to comprehend is that this is just a result of the earlier attack and not another attack itself.
There's no place that's safe. There's nowhere to go that would give me my innocence and trust of safety back. New York City, which used to be kind of a twisted utopia in my fantasies while growing up, seems sinister and horrible. All of those people, all of those icons of what America means. How can they stay there now? How can it ever be the same?
Governor Grey Davis (sp?) just announced that California has threats, but they're dismissing them as not being "credible". How can any threat be taken as "not credible" in light of what's just happened?
A person on my journal's notify list sent me an email. She's in NYC. She watched it happen from the island. She saw them collapse. She has friends in the city that are unaccounted for. All she asked for was my prayers. I want to give her more, I want to give everyone more. I want this to disappear like an awful, macabre dream.
Will anything be all right again? Is it over yet, or was this just the beginning of a war started by a faceless (as of yet) attacker that we can't see coming? Who is safe?
There's too many questions. I just can't comprehend. I can't stop crying.
Posted by beth @ 02:40 PM PST [Link]
lax stupidity
All the journalists out here are saying that they're worried about L.A. because two of the flights were headed here. They're closing down just about everything.
At least to me, it seems obvious why three of the planes were headed here: There's more fuel and larger tanks on a cross-country flight. More fuel = bigger explosions. Duh.
I'm still scared to death. I can't imagine how NYC residents, or DC residents, must feel right now.
-----e
Posted by beth @ 10:10 AM PST [Link]
stop the hate
Another painful admission: I used to think that the conflicts in places like Ireland (between Protestants and Catholics) or Israel (between Palestinians and Israelites) would just STOP if people would just stop taking shots at each other. That the whole cycle would just stop.
But it's not that easy. After three hours of watching the scenes of utter destruction on the news, and then seeing the Palestinians dancing in the streets, I want to rip their faces off. I want to scream at them. Don't you KNOW these were PEOPLE, just like YOUR fucking family?! I want the president to just bomb the living shit out of the whole damn area.
And it won't solve a goddamn thing. But I want to. And suddenly, all these ongoing, revengeful skirmishes elsewhere make more sense. I feel awful. Awful.
------e
Posted by beth @ 09:58 AM PST [Link]
dear god...
I woke up this morning earlier than I should have. The old gardeners showed up unbidden and the leaf blower was loud. (Our windows were open -- it's been uncharacteristically cool here.) Once up, I checked my email, like usual, and found that NYC'd been attacked.
I immediately thought about my friends out there. East-coast Beth. Dori. (whom I haven't spoken to in ages, but still...) Katie. I just sat here at the keyboard and cried. Images of the planes running into the sides of the World Trade Centers, Manhattan burning and exploding, the Pentagon being hit, over and over through the magic of television.
It feels like a war is coming. It feels like nothing is safe. Yesterday, I worried that my butt looked too big in my favorite skirt. Today, I'm worried that my world will explode in a hail of fire and debris.
They're evacuating downtown L.A.. They've closed LAX, the borders between the US, Canada, and Mexico, my whole world is on alert. Palestinians are celebrating, handing out candy to children, dancing for the deaths of the oppressors. I'm horrified.
I don't think I've ever been this worried that my little sphere is under attack. We always just assume the U.S. is invulnerable to attack.
Times like this remind us that that just isn't the case anymore.
----e
Posted by beth @ 09:31 AM PST [Link]
Monday, September 10, 2001
FOUNDWORDS
Oh, and I finally fot the found words section up. If you want to try your hand at it, send me a scan of it. I'd love to see what you do, or put it in the gallery, with your permission. :)
------e
Posted by beth @ 09:33 PM PST [Link]
TALKING OUT OF TURN
Sometimes I feel like I'm very seriously between a rock and a hard place.
There's this store downtown that wants to give me a job, and I'm not sure if I want to take it. My other job can accomodate the hours that this place wants to give me, and it means that I'd have even less free time than I do now, but it means more cash. And cash is good. I'm trying to save up -- I found this great old Mustang that I'm thinking about picking up, and I could use some extra money to get me there. (I love classic 'stangs. This one's a '65 ragtop, which, although it isn't my dream car, comes pretty damn close.)
But I'm a little nervous about it. I don't know why -- it'd be an easy job. It's for a sort of new-agey store that all the SCA-ers around here go to, and I get all my little rosewood Buddhas from there. I know all the employees by name, so it's not like there'd be any problem to work there. But I'm nervous. For no reason.
So I told myself that if I went in for the interview-type-thing tonight (which is pretty much a formality), I'd go get myself a library card. Something I've been putting off, but could definitely use, with as much as I read. I went, and I got the card afterward, and I checked out a couple books that I've been really wanting to get.
Naturally, I was excited when I got home. H was having a bit of a crisis (pretty usual these days), and when I tried to talk to him about the job and the books, he actually told me that my talking to him was giving him a panic attack. So I stopped talking. Then he told me my preternatural silence was giving him a panic attack.
And he wonders why sometimes I feel like I can't do -anything- right.
Posted by beth @ 09:31 PM PST [Link]
WEB GOODNESS
So I finally made an index page for all the projects in the projects section. It's pretty pathetic when there's only two listed, and one of them doesn't even work yet. (I'm scanning the foundwords section as we speak.)
The thing is, I want my website to grow slowly. After doing those major-huge, mammoth-sized site updates like I used to when I had the time to maintain them, I'm just burnt out on having a huge to-do list that nothing ever gets finished on. I'm trying to design my stuff so that I can add to it at will, rather than feeling pressured to always add new content all the time. (Which is one of the reasons I don't do an actual journal-journal anymore online. My offline one is mcuh more fun for me, since nobody's checking back to see if I've updated.)
That's not to say there's not a whole lot of things I'd like to do. When I complained (a lot) about not having nearly enough time in the day to pursue all the ideas that I get, my friend Deb wrote me and told me that I'm one of those people who will never run dry. That I got lucky. That my feet are always overhanging into the well of creativity, and ideas float by like fish, waiting for me to grab one. Aside from being utterly flattered by this, I also think it might well be true. At least, I hope it is. I don't know what I'd do if I suddenly stopped having ideas.
I also wrote a new article for my suite 101 topic, but it won't be posted until December. I'm trying to write articles as they come to me, getting far ahead of what I have to have for this month. It's all in that same vein of making things easy on myself. There's nothing worse than having one day to write an article and finding you're completely blank as to what to write. Writer's block just sucks.
Interactivity on the web still fascinates me, too. I love collaborations and calling for submissions and seeing everyone's collected works, whether that's journal entries, artwork, or whatever. I wish I knew how to promote those kinds of things better. They get my blood moving.
Speaking of collaborations, Rambles.net is looking for review writers. You don't get money, but you do get free CDs and books to review -- ones that might be outside your normal listening preference. Which, incidentally, is how I came to just love the music of N. Africa. Really, anyone who writes should join up. Tom's a great editor.
dipping in the well,
--------e
Posted by beth @ 12:45 PM PST [Link]
Sunday, September 9, 2001
CRUSH
I have this admission to make.
I have a crush. A big one. And given the fact that I'm 30 freakin' years old, this seems like one of those things that I should have already gotten over. (The crushing part, not the crush-ee.) Especially when I'm already in a committed relationship.
Before anyone writes, let me say this up front: no, I'm not going to tell you who it is, and no, I'm not going to do anything about it, and yes, I'm aware that it's kind of stupid. No need to reiterate anything I already know. I'm also not going to do anything about it. But it's both good and bad for me to have this little condition.
It's good because I want to be impressive again. I want to expand, instead of contract, my brain. I want to get out of the box I've been in since I married the ex-jerk. I want to move forward.
It's bad because I feel guilty. It's not that I love H any less, but I feel like I'm cheating in my mind, even though, until this very minute, the possibility of cheating hadn't even occurred to me. It's just a fascination with another person, when I feel like I -should- be fascinated with my mate instead.
yours in confused chaos,
------e
Posted by beth @ 09:50 PM PST [Link]
EARTHQUAKE!
We just had an earthquake. It was tiny -- the people outside didn't seem to notice it at all (jaded Californians that they are), but up here on the second floor, the windows rattled, and the computer monitor bounced, and one very frightened Nebraska girl sent email to her (native Californian) friend in Canada that just said, "Holy shit! We're having an earthquake!"
According to the USGS site, we didn't have an earthquake. L.A. did. A 4.9, to be exact, which is pretty damn big. I was in a 3.1 once, and thought I was going to have to change underwear.
It's strange, being one who comes from relatively solid ground, to feel the whole world sort of tilting back and forth on its axis. With other natural disasters, there's something you can do. Tornadoes -- go downstairs. Floods -- move to high ground. Hurricanes -- board up your windows.
With earthquakes, you just sit very still and wait for the ground to decide it's too tired to continue. The world has no stable protection perspective-point. My ears ring during a quake, and I feel it in my back, by my spine, like someone's turned it into Jell-o.
I notice I'm cranky before a quake, too. Whether that's because I'm always cranky or I'm picking up on ground tension, I don't know. But it's weird.
The whole concept of the ground -moving- is weird.
watching for aftershocks,
-------e
Posted by beth @ 05:15 PM PST [Link]
ANOTHER USE FOR GAME BOY
And speaking of wanting to spend money I don't have...
Check out the pictures from a GameBoy Camera that was all the rage a few years back for the gameboy-aged set. Grainy, black and white, printed on an enclosed camera that stores up to 30 shots and prints them only on register receipt-sized thermal imaging paper.
I'm in love. They'd be perfect for an artistsbook or zine. (And of course, by saying this and generating interest, I'm driving eBay prices up. But it's too cool not to share.)
------e
Posted by beth @ 03:31 PM PST [Link]
ADDICTION II
I get off the phone with Louise and decide that I've been sitting still too long. Thinking that it might be good to organize some of this junk that's lying around (I'm scanning a lot of my art stuff that I haven't sold or given away for the site, so there's a lot of detrius), I pull open the canister with all my Sanrio stuff in it. (Second childhood.)
Inside, I found some gum that I forgot I'd had. It's Keroppi gum -- kiwifruit flavor. Instead of sticks, it's in hunks, like a candy bar, marked fifty cents.
One hunk later, and I'm contemplating selling blood to get more.
This is why I've never done drugs. I'm just an addictive personality, I guess.
will work for kiwigum,
-----e
Posted by beth @ 03:27 PM PST [Link]
THE ART OF TEXT
Some of you might already know, but a while back, I used to MUSH. It's an online game type thing where you virtually walk through rooms and interact with other players, that kind of thing. (In fact, it stands for Multi-User Shared Hallucination. Cool, eh?)
I was so bored yesterday that I downloaded another MUSHclient (the program used to play, without basic telnet, which pretty much sucks for that kind of thing), and logged on to a Las Vegas MUSH. Within minutes, I was feeling the old pull of addiction. Needless to say, I'm not logging on again. (Unless I'm very, very bored, and judging from my to-do list, that won't be happening this century.)
What struck me (in retrospect) is how much that format has affected me. I looked back at some of the few remaining MUSHes from the old days when I used to play ALL THE TIME, and I couldn't believe some of the melodramatic crap I used to write. I also found that when I was building these "rooms", I was pretty darn creative. I added in places where you could type a special command and see something close-up (via text -- it's a text-based game system, kind of like the old Zork, if you're old enough to remember that), or hidden exits where you could find whole new worlds that weren't visible on the surface.
I realized that I do that now. I make hidden areas and pages on my sites and in my artwork. I still have a fondness for navigation. I like the ability that makes a line of code into a hallucinatory world, away from the one we live in.
I guess I'm an escapist at heart.
------e
Posted by beth @ 01:05 PM PST [Link]
