Everything is normal when nothing's the same

It's been snowing non-stop for the last 72 hours. It's April. Such extensions of winter are not to be unexpected, and yet it's all kinds of news. The bitches complain that it should be sunny and warm and green this time of year, when we've had a winter that's been precisely that until recently.

As I stood out before driving in to work this morning, I couldn't help to think, finally... some normalcy in the seasons. I grew up with a lot of winter in my spring, like coffee with too much milk in it. I grew up knowing the biting north wind until the late days of May, and for years, that kind of chill touch has been lacking. The fact that it's back this year doesn't bother me. In fact, it's a welcome start to a region that, of late, has become little more than a semi-arid desertified wasteland.

Some might think this is heresy, but I politely remind them. I've lived here longer than most, and this land swims in my blood. The city you've built upon it doesn't change where you are, and what this place is.

If it's going to snow, it's going to fucking snow. Grab your shovel, grab your dicks, and get to work. Summer is a privelage earned, not a time arrived.

But you'll only catch them by surprise if you creep too

Strangely enough, that's apple juice. Fresh pressed - albeit from the noise they made making it, it sounded like it was fresh mulched from a wood chipper.

It's the eternal argument between fresh vs. cheap. Bargain vs. quality. Art vs. function. Which is more important?
Or perhaps a more important thought - does it really matter?
At times, it almost seems like an extreme luxury to have things to bicker over. It's something I've never been really good at. Fighting over things. In my mind, if you want something so bad, you can have it. If it's a material thing, it'll turn to dust eventually, and if all you want is to be right, you can be.

I've written stories about people, both in news and in fiction, who fought for things. And then when they got them, they were disappointed. It's the path of pathos, of obsession. Want something bad enough and it becomes greater than it is. It's what drives the economy. Oil is such a cornerstone resource because it's become essentially the only option for maintaining or increasing our mobility - a cherished right, in our minds.

But enough about that crap. Lately I've been listening to music. A lot of music. One particular act that's caught my attention is a group verbosely called No-One-Wished-To-Settle-Here. They're out of Gdansk, Poland, and they possess a fairly eerie, melancholy sound. A lot of borrowed radio noise and scratchy guitar loops. Kind of like if somebody had rammed Mogwai and Skinny Puppy together in a supercollider.

And of course, there's always Dark Captain Light Captain, which if you haven't checked out yet, do it now.

Anyway, I've tried making this post into something coherent, and I've already failed miserably. So for now, I'll just sign off and pretend I've accomplished something today.

A step to somewhere

I suppose I should update. I've been gone a week, and really haven't said much of my trip.

It was, truth be told, fairly rainy, snowy, and not entirely co-operative. The weather, anyway. I did take some pictures, but I'm too tired to post them up right now. So maybe look for them in the coming days. Or don't, it's your choice.

Other than that, I really don't have a lot else to say. My French, as usual, is incredibly bad. Yes. No. Hello. Goodbye. What? Sorry. That's my vocabulary. Punctuated by a plethora of expletives.

Maybe the real trip was when I got home. It's only been two days, and in those two days, I've taken almost 2000 mg's of assorted painkillers. Not all at once, mind you, but still. That's a lot of shit. I'm considering seeing a doctor about it, but knowing them, they'd just prescribe me bigger pills for bigger doses. I get frequent headaches, that's no mystery. Most are weather related, but lately, it seems like a lot of them are having less and less to do with the weather and more and more with... nothing. Inexplicable.

Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll find a brain tumour that gives me psychic powers. Maybe.
A bit of good news would be a major uplift right now, but really, I don't know if I could care. I could be given three weeks to live, and from today, I don't even know if that would be enough to motivate me.

Lethargy, I think, is the medical term for it. Lethargy, and apathy. And they fix both with pills.

I'm torn. I've wanted to walk into a clinic to get some help for a while, but the stigmas, not to mention the fact that psychological medicine is still in its early infancy, have stayed my hand. I don't need people staring and judging, nor do I need to be prescribed a drug that might help, but might also further fuck up the problem, whatever it may be. It's like having a Russian engineer working on an engine. He kicks the engine. Sometimes it works, and the engine starts. But more often than not, he just breaks it more.

Do I really need to step in with this shit? Or should I just buck up and be a man and face my issues down with a gaze of steel and a stiff upper lip?

In all honesty, I've grown pretty tired of toughing shit out. It gets to a point where I start scaring myself with my ability to shrug things off. That, and sleeping for 12 hours and still feeling exhausted is just great. You know. Shit gets done.

I sometimes wonder if it's a mystery illness that's spreading. A kind of sociological illness that passes from one person to the next as a kind of reaction to the way we've been going. I look at current events, and I can't help but notice how heavy my eyelids get.

It's just too much sometimes, I think. And it's only the worse because I'm alone in it. Maybe that'll change. More than likely it won't.

Circles

Hold your tongue,
you're always 'round in circles,
it's just no good.

You're always 'round
You're always 'round in circles,
it's just no good.

I just stand,
come wait until tomorrow,
it's just too long.

Eyes go wide,
that see your fires extinguished,
that sing this song.

You should be strong,
but you're always 'round in circles.

You should be strong,
but you're always 'round in circles.

You should be strong,
but you're always 'round in circles.

You should be strong.

-Dark Captain Light Captain

You called, and we answered

My hands worry over things, separate from the rest of me. That's all I am, a series of broken parts bolted together. I can't dance, because my legs only remember how to march. I can't draw, because my hands only remember how to tremble.

They sang a song across the world, across this tiny globe, and amidst our haze and melancholia, we answered. A low, droning, apathetic chord. Dripping with our own self-pity, we called back, like a rising tide. I was just one voice in that tide. I was just one drop. Back and forth, we rolled across the sea.

And I remembered, in this wandering thought, just how close we were. How heaven and Earth, were for that moment, separated by little more than a line drawn on an imaginary map. A legacy, I suppose, we embraced with our own tendency to draw lines where none existed before.

I heard God is an Angry God. I heard he also Loves. And how so I hear in divinity, it's very much a human. I have angry words for the Angry God. And I question love of the God who Loves. I ask as well, if his hands worry as mine do, or if that is merely a failing of mortals.

I heard there was hope for people. But they draw lines. Ever more lines. What is theirs. Their own. Each their own. Everything must be divided and divided yet again. I have heard that people are angry, and yet they also love. I imagine that there's yet another imaginary line between the two. One can love with just as much passion as one hates. And the two are just a blink apart.

And yet here I am. A drop on a tide that reverberates back and forth between both. Perhaps I'm a mark on an imaginary line. Perhaps I'm a border that will one day cease to be. Perhaps I'm between two things that forgot they're one and the same.

A thousand strings, knots and ties

I just recently watched a movie called Strings. It was remarkably good, for what it was. Given the fact that the entire story is about and portrayed by string puppets, the world they created was incredibly fleshed out and lifelike.

The entire movie is shot at puppet level, with just a bit of prelude at the beginning showing how the puppeteers move the strings about to make the characters come alive. The strings - namesake of the movie - are really a very fundamental plot device. In the puppet world, the strings are analogous to life, with damage to various body parts corresponding to the severance of their related strings. The most important string - the head string - is responsible for life, and severing it effectively kills whomever it belonged to. If only most other movies could be this well developed, I might actually go back to watching them on a regular basis.

The epic quality of the puppeteering mixed with a solid story and excellent voice acting made this a movie I'll probably go back to watching at a later time. If you see it on a rental shelf, I highly recommend you pick it up. You won't be disappointed.