Ach. It's one twenty at night. I'm trying to think of a good last post. Don't get too excited; i've only been thinking for three minutes. It's one twenty three.

Notices of resignation on the internet are always a bit absurd. In a sense; who cares? Well, I care. I've been writing here since, what, 2002? Since I was...16? Christ. It's been an interesting time.

We'll see what further. Things are always new. There's always more to see. Always more to say. But for a while, i'll let myself be more mum. There's no need to shout.

Luckily, livejournal doesn't require any maintence. I'll leave the past entries, all mostly meaningless several thousand of them, up. I'll want to remember who I was occasionally. Prospective employers will want to know all my dirty secrets. (Employers; I am a Okay Dude. I am Enthusiastic, and A Team Player. Pay me many moneys.) Random googlers will want to find porn and be confused. It'll be great.

Anyways, enough talk. This is my last post. Whoever you are; thanks for reading this far. If you'd like to keep in touch, my email is in the userinfo.

It's one thirty two! I hope you are well.

Dear Internet,

I have a girlfriend in America. Her name is Leigh. She is very pretty. And smart, she has forced me to add, but then she forced to write this whole thing, so no matter. I do, despite this, love her like crazy. She's a wonderful soul, even if she doesn't believe in them.

She should be happy now. Further messages as warranted.

yrs,
Idan.

Another day, another pack of Camels. Another low level quiescence of meaning, another fruitless search high and low for whatever I feel quite strongly I am looking for. Kupek wrote, Poker, pot & booze could help me wipe away these blues, and I suppose this would apply in this situation as well, but I have neither of the latter at hand at the moment, and the only playing cards in this house, I kid you not, are two sets of Tarot. Where was I? Looking for meaning. This is a daily quest in the halls of my mind and body & combined self, of course, and looking at it from outisde this may be a positive method, but it's quite annoying from the inside, you may trust me on this. Constantly re-examining - or worse; feeling like you should be re-examing - your self-worth and ideals is a fucking hassle. These fucking indefinables will drive me mad one day, or sane, or perhaps both. What's that, body-mind-self? You feel like you should be acting? I'm glad. Thank you for that. If you'd be so kind as to give me any directions? No? I appreciate it.

It's allright if your eyes have gotten fuzzy and indistinct by this point. My father has hit upon a definition of truth which I believe does well; 'That which raises an echo within you'. This is all echo talk, here, and mostly for my own benefit. I meant to say something here, but I started typing with honesty, which is always dangerous. Ah; meaning. When I cannot find meaning, when meaning hides somewhere just behind my head, when the hollow in my chest begins to make itself noticed and I cannot calm it, I will look at least for some sort of reminder of self. A booster, an answer to the constant badgering questions from the self, even if it is an old answer. "Back in 2007," I will say, "This person thought I was worth something." This will if but for a moment calm the beast within my chest. My good and I dare not think how many-years-long (5, I fearfully calculate. My god.) friend Lachlan keeps a folder with the many compliments he has garnered for one thing or another collected therein for his moments of weakness. I should have done the same, if i'd have had any sense.

This journal has always been a pressure valve, and functioned well for that. But I am becoming a little too proud, and perhaps worse, a little too fulfilled. The scream to the emptiness is wearing thin, and in any case the scream to the well-known cast of near-emptiness is not the same. I relieve my madness here and there, but perhaps a text file would do as well. This whole thing has become static, too static. Meaningless. Existing only to be shouted at. That's no sort of audience.

What I meant to say, in all of this, is that i'm seriously considiring leaving this whole thing behind. But there will always be a little bit of the validation-seeker hidden in me, behind the beard & tattoos. Come then, my invisible audience. Give me your thoughts. Maybe there's still something in this format that can inflame me. If not, well, in life you discard or are weighted down. Another day, another pack of Camels, right?

What is it now, evening? Past six, that's evening. Good evening.

A long, long time ago, I discovered the internet. And the internet in those heady long ago days was a different one from now, when even TIMECUBE did not yet rule five-dimensional space, when making a Lolcat would have taken several hours of long coding, when we walked in the snow to school five miles each day and ate bears we had to battle to the death barehanded and we liked it; it was a nerdier internet.

Or perhaps I was nerdier. In any case.

My first taste of this strange, MIDI infested cavern network was; well, let's be honest. It was Dragonriders Of Pern fansites. Those ones with the, well, blaring MIDIs of psuedo-harpy ballads? And, like, mazes of links which were like little text adventures - "You Have Reached The Fairy Castle (stolen image of fairy castle) [Click To Enter] [Click To Go To The Dragon Cave Instead]". My second taste of the internet was the Dragonlance fandom.

I liked dragons, shut the fuck up.

My main, as it were, hangouts with regards to the Dragonlance fandom were the forums of then fan-site Dragonlance.com, and, let's be more specific. The roleplaying forums.

My nickname on these forums, for reasons I cannot dream of recalling, was 'Joe_Ghostbuster'. Please don't google that. I'm serious. We're not here to talk about my original main character on these boards, because it is very embarassing - let's just admit I called him 'Ghostbuster'.

"Well, then," said some part of my mind, seeking symmetry in all things, "What about a character named 'Joe'?"

"Joe?" said the other part of my mind, vestigially classy, "That is kind of an obvious name. Besides, this is a fantasy setting."

"Aha!" Said the previous part of my mind. "It is such an obvious name because Joe is a sort of lying dude! It's a purposefully false name. I'm going to completely forget about the second issue with the name."

And so it was. Oh, horribly written, of course; immature, changing signature lines every five minutes, grammar a beast hidden from my sights in dark Afrique, character and setting consistency a myth, a thousand wrongs. But there he was. Joe. A lying dude who walked around with two totally cool throwing knives. He could juggle. He stole shit, and he could also play music. He had a sense of humour. He was a con-man. A joker. An asshole. A goddamn trickster character.

I swear to god, eight years ago.

I had just turned 14.

If we're all just sparks of light behind someone else's eyes, appearing only when they are drunk, or sad, or squint their eyes just so, does this mean I don't have to get a job again?

I cannot tell a lie. I read some books in July.

( Yes, I did read books. )

Tags: book review

Hey, internet! Are you bored at work! Well, get back to work! Are you bored at home, alone, smelling of masturbation? Well, so am I. And in celebration of this, herein follows the first chapter or two of the novellete Certain Fools, which took me about two years to write and about two minutes to consign forever to the trash heap of 'Not Good Enough'. But hey, who the heck knows, you might like it.

It is a pretty damn unsubtle story about a dude, and shenanagins.

( it really is about shenanagins )

Tags: "certain fools", write

As summer beats on throb throb throb and night falls only past eight, we continue these murky thoughts, we bear still our many scars from heat. We ponder our wardrobes, we consider renewing our passports. I read some books in June, which was so long ago, and here are my thoughts on them.

( BOOKS )

Tags: book review

Well, gosh gee willy, who woulda thunk it, but it seems that the Autumn 2008 issue of Greatest Uncommon Denominator, featuring a very short story by yrs truly with the absurdly long name "The Dragon's Thorn, Sword Of Kings (&Fred)", [As well as a novellete by the charming ombriel, just before in the Table Of Contents, amusingly enough] is avaliable for all perusers of quality fiction, poetry, general low-key madness. You too can own a chunk of history! I mean, since, in the general sense everything that happens is history.

You can own this specific chunk of history.

That's what I mean.

Tags: published omg

No long meandering discourse on vague ephermia cluttering my head at this moment, just a brief note that my audio short story, Oh, Right, The Sun Also Rises, is free all this week at Sniplits.com. If you have ever wanted to hear a narrator narrate some narration*, this is your chance.

*I don't want to think what they paid that dude for the sheer amount of silly words he had to say there.

Tags: published omg

If you ever visit Israel, you will find that this is a very strange country. Oh, all countries are strange. I will not begin to compare. But something here is strange.

Something is, and I will keep saying this until people realize what I mean, going on here.

Something is going on everywhere.

This is a poem that is tangential to that point.

( The Artists Colony In Tzfat (let no one walk in our remains) )

Tags: hooraypoem

Christ, dear internet, how are we going to get past this great mountain in our relationship? We have travelled far, internet, every stain on the car seats a treasured memory, every scratch on the paint a point where I got a little upset and apologized later. But this isn't something we can get by, internet, this mountain in the middle of the road. I was just going for a piss, internet, and then there was a mountain about Himalaya-high between me and the car. You didn't have to take this metaphor so damn seriously. How am I supposed to climb this? But i'll go, internet, for you I will tear every thread of my pants on these rocks. That is just how much I love you. More than pants. More than two pairs of pants.

Yeah, I know. It's been a weird year.

I read some books in May!

( yes books )

Tags: book review

Hey guys, it is 22:22, just now, precisely. Ok, not anymore, but let's roll with this. 22 is twice 11, which is twice 5 and a half, which is twice two and three fourths, I think? I've lost my train of thought here. Maybe I meant to make a point about the infinitude of numbers. Borges wrote an Argumentum Ornithologium, in which a flock of birds containing no more than 10 but no less than 3 birds flew above his eyes in the clear blue sky above Argentine. If God exists, he points out, then the precise number of birds is known. If He does not, then it is not. Between 3 and 10, he continues, is not a number we can comprehend. Thusly, God exists.

I wrote a romantic poem the other day, but then Joey Comeau says that romance is all about the other person being a fucking whore. Which is a misquote. And not appropriate for children! What I mean to say here is that human beings find it difficult to merge into a single omniscient creature of light, only managing it for seconds and by accident, when reading together, or sleeping, or drinking orange juice, oops! Honey, we seem to be shedding rays of beauty on the couch. Why, so we are!

What this has to do with numbers is that if we can find a good '+' sign that means 'two human beings[...]' a lot of people could give up poetry as a bum deal and get real jobs. And haircuts. Think of the lift to the economy, my compatriots to divine conspiracy. At a stroke, we'll have solved any mortage crisis you got. We'll keep a study group open for '-', '*' and '/'.

Let's not talk about '='.

What I mean when I say 'my compatriots to divine conspiracy' is 'people with souls'.

What I mean when I say things in general is 'Oh, hello!'.

Dear internet,

I am seriously considiring just giving up writing as a bum deal and focusing really hard on my other gift, which is prostitition. I could work on my oral. I could practice my anal. I could bone up on my boning. See what I did there? I just made the best pun possible in the English language. My services as high-class prostitute and linguistic contortionist will be fully affordable to the connoisseur. Call now. Avoid the rush.

Unorder is a sign of the unordered mind. Anyone who has ever visited me would nod knowingly at this point, jumping over the laundry basket, trying not to trip over any books. Alas, all chaos falls to extropy at last. The apartment is clean, yes! I swear to this, and even all of my books are actually in shelves. But what is this proliferation of bookmarks when opening Explorer? Why! Unorder! I will rectify. Oh, how will I rectify.

( By linking the damn things. )

Tags: linky linky

Scenes Without A Home Theatre (#61);
Marty Birenbaum was not a name you'd expect a dragon to have, but there you go.

( I did read books in April. )

Tags: book review, scenes without a home

I've just finished Orson Scott Card's Empire, and I feel really dirty. I'm not talking delightful romp-through-mud dirty here, I'm not even talking enjoyable-yet-questionable-deviant-sexual-act dirty. I'm talking injected-horrible-right-wing-american-politics-into-my-mindstream dirty. I'm talking three showers to feel better. And some enjoyable yet questionable & deviant sexual acts. Together, if possible.

Tags: book review

Hey, folks, has modern life got you down? Are you framing coherent sentences? Are all your concepts aligned in neat rows? Are you feeling sane?

Let me help.

Tags: video

The magican; 'wizard', right, he 'casts spells', right, he can turn you into a frog; what the hell is this? To what does the magican here connect to? What does 'magican' mean, anyway? It means 'One who knows'. Is this an innate knowledge? Surely the description of every wizard mage and sorceror in fiction and history is better termed as 'shaman'. Magic isn't something unreal, something illusory. It's something more real. It's a connection to the axis mundi, link between higher and lower planes, earth and skies, life and other-life. Because the Shaman knows things, the Shaman can do things. A stick will do as well as a wand. A crude drawing as well as an ancient artifact. It's all symbols, isn't it, it's all reality hacking, it's all playing with what you got. It ain't goddamn magic missile.

Tags: flax's guide to become fringe writer

Jesus christ but you're all fucking boring. I've been filled with the inexpressibe, unkenable, unspeakable urge to read some very bad Swords & Sorcery; and i'm not talking Michael Moorcock here, i'm not even talking Terry Brooks bad here. I'm talking Dragonlance fanfiction bad. I'm talking not-ready-for-prime-zine caliber, here. Fuck if me I haven't lost touch since I was 15, though. If only I had known, when I was a 15 year old asshole, that one day I would be filled with this strange junkie urge to read about thieves and princesses.

Anything that features some sort of Thieves Guild would do me nicely, really.

Fuck this all, though, to be honest. I've had a strange day. Jesus, internet, you're not all up to date. Do you even have a clue where i've been this past month? I've been fucking everywhere, internet. Couldn't you have asked? You never call. Joannie's internet sends her a postcard every Hannukah. And what do I get from you? If I only knew any Yiddish, I would use it at you. There were days, internet, there were times when I told you every one of my secrets. If only I had some secrets, I would tell you them now. Do you have any idea how tanned I am, internet? I am orange, I am closing in on bronze. I have a ponytail. Every time I leave a festival and put on a shirt, and this is true, twice in a row so far, someone will give me a shirt. And good shirts, too, these are fancy shirts that are under discussion.

What the fuck have you been up to, internet? I'm asking. You don't need to be passive aggressive anymore. We can work this whole thing out.

1;
He sat down on the chair and looked at her. Her body was sterile, too clean, and she had never looked good in white. Her hair was still in a ponytail. There were huge purple welts all over her body and open sterile wounds with closed sterile bandages on them. She was barely breathing.

"Bella," he said softly, "You look like you've been hit by a truck."

They had told him she could not hear him.

"That's a joke." He said, smiling wanly at her from up closer, very close. "Because you were hit by a truck." She remained as she was, breathing slowly and harshly, machines making mysterious noises from all surrounding.

"You never did have a sense of humour." He muttered.

2;
He knocked on the door in quite a fervor, waking the whole household, and he shouted;

"Achmed Achmed! You have died of a colonic infection, and it is I, Death, come to collect you!"

At this the servants of the house were quite a frightened, and it took quite a while for one of them to peek through a crack in the door and see who it was. This servant, who was quite a bit brighter than might have been thought, examined Doctor Hassan thoroughly, from his previously-worn hat to the rags covering his body to his shoeless feet shod in only socks with holes in them.

"Sir Death," He assayed, "If thou shalt not be offended, I must note that you look just like that beggar who ever sits between the Mosque and the bank, and in fact smell much like him as well."

At this Dr. Hassan neared to the crack in the door, peered through it, and whispered to the servant in a conspiratorial fashion; "Ah, but that is merely a disguise."
"Excuse this humble servant of the recently deceased lord, Achmed Achmed, Sir Death," replied the servant through the crack in the door, "But for what reason would such as you need a disguise?"

"Why!" said Doctor Hassan, offended. "For if I were not disguised, do you think I could have come to this door unmolested? I would be assayed at every corner by a dozen widows, a hundred stillborn mothers, and a thousand owners of deceased cats!"

The servant considered this a while, and at last replied, "But, oh lord of the dry lands, as you have come to gather this vile one's colonic master, why does one of your puissant might require a door be opened to him?"

"Hrmph!" Replied Doctor Hassan. "It's only polite!"

3;
Wisps of cloud were strung like strangelets from every horizon to every horizon, to those who could know at last validating the obtuse mathematics of String Theory. And in a house on a mountain somewhere, in a hundred houses alone with wind blowing knocking on the doors, children were born to the end of the world. And the wind whispered to them;

Welcome to the world, little child.

And everything in the world was dying, though no one could point to the yellowing grass which would signify it, to the sickening animal which could give a reason to the dead, dead certainty.

Welcome home, kid, the wind whispered.

And the children born on the long end of the world were filled. Filled with else. Filled with the long end. Filled, also, because they had already been open, with the Big Thing.

And the sun set, and the sun rose, and nations countries lands and peoples carried on. And the sun set, and the sun rose. And the sun set. And the sun rose.

4;
The food arrived, steaming and bubbling or steaming cold, as per the dish. They were all extravagant and delicious, and they all turned to ash in Gina's mouth when she moved her eyes to the direction of her father. She drank more wine. While fragments of increasingly uncomfortable conversation flipped through the air around her, she idly fell into a fantasy of how this conversation should have gone.

"Oh, Jerry, you seem to have had sex re-assignment surgery, just like you said you would when you ran away from home at 15! I guess we were wrong to think you were just troubled." They would say.

"Yes", she would answer.

"We're very sorry for doubting you all of those years!" her mother would say. Her father would have tears in his eyes. "I go," he would say ponderously, "To commit ritual suicide."

"Bye." Gina would say. Then her mother would write her a check for a million euro.

Tags: stone&gina, write