There · is · only · One · Direction

To the girl who called me, crying her eyes out - w4m - 28
Reply to:pers-nhybv-1201029431@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
Date: 2009-06-02, 1:11AM MDT

You had the wrong number. I have no idea who you are but you called me crying your eyes out, asking why I had to leave, pleading your case, in between bouts of righteously unattractive snot-sucking followed by more sobbing. Did my voice really sound THAT similar to the right-number guy? Apparently so, because after a few minutes of me playing the part and feeding your mucus-filled frenzy you put your angry friend on the phone and she was fooled too (and I wasn't even changing my voice!). Neat. In retrospect it was...well...pretty mean, I guess, but I was caught up in the moment and I didn't really think about your feelings until after we hung up, or rather...until I heard some strange noises in the phone and the line went dead. To be honest it was hard not to laugh, but I triumphed and help back, and you kept balling, and I kept trying not to laugh. Sorry 'bout that.

By the way, now that you're single wanna grab lunch sometime?

* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 1201029431

"I am thy soul, Nikoptis. I have watched
These five millenia, and thy dead eyes
Moved not, nor ever answer my desire,
And thy light limbs, wherethrough I leapt aflame,
Burn not with me nor any saffron thing.

See, the light grass sprang up to pillow thee,
And kissed thee with a myriad grassy tongues;
But not thou me.
I have read out the gold upon the wall,
And wearied out my thought upon the signs.
And there is no new thing in all this place.

I have been kind. See I have left the jars sealed,
Lest thou shouldst wake and whimper for thy wine.
And all thy robes I have kept smooth on thee.

O thou unmindful! How should I forget!
--Even the river many days ago,
The river? thou wast over young.
And three souls came upon Thee--
And I came.
And I flowed in upon thee, beat them off;
I have been intimate with thee, known thy ways.
Have I not touched thy palms and finger-tips,
Flowed in, and through thee and about thy heels?
How 'came I in'? Was I not thee and Thee?

And no sun comes to rest me in this place,
And I am torn against the jagged dark,
And no light beats upon me, and you say
No word, day after day.

Oh! I could get me out, despite the marks
And all their crafty work upon the door,
Out through the glass-green fields. . . .

* * * *

Yet it is quiet here:
I do not go."

by Ezra Pound

In a nod to one of the greats, I am a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry.
End of update.

"If you should go
I won't have you to blame
for my unhappiness,
for darker days.

When will I learn
it's not your fault,
that breaking down
cannot be cured
by breaking up."

"She smiled, teeth white and sharp under lips like bloodstains."

Dear Senator Ted Stevens,

Contrary to the opinion of John McCain, I don't think it is time for you to resign.
It's time for you to go to prison.

Culpability is not optional.
Thank you,

~HelixNine

You know, I don't usually feel like I'm a particularly talented writer.
It's not until I have to read other people's writing that I feel like I have any talent at all.
Sadly, when I do (as I am now) I am usually fairly shocked at how poorly people write.
So, here are a few guidelines inspired by the writers in my English 321 class. Consider them a collection of helpful hints for when you do NaNoWriMo - or write at all.

1) Tense. Yes, it's important. Unless you really, really know what you're doing - pick one and stick to it. Bouncing between them does no one any favours.

2) I should have to say anything about spelling, grammar and the like... But "where he had wakened up"? Really? You're fired.

3) Learn how to write dialogue. Even just a little would help.

4) When the characters in your story are stereotypes, your story fails. Characters should, ideally, be pretty multi-dimensional, okay? Particularly the central ones.

5) When a character is chasing another, red-faced, down the street for sleeping with his daughter, he's probably not going to bring you tea when he catches you. I don't know what world you live in, but fiction needs causality. If it doesn't make at least a little sense, I don't want to be forced to read it.

6) If you're going to send a character into the wilds on page two, try not to forget about him by page ten. Don't introduce things you're not going to use. It's sloppy.

7) Among the things I want in a story is for it to go somewhere. If all I get is "Then I saw a dog. Then the dog chased me. Then I got away. Then I saw a bird. I thought 'birds are nice'. Then I went home.", I'm not going to be very impressed. If you're going to tell a story, make sure it's worth telling for someone.

8) Which brings me to this: Generally speaking, something should change for at least one of your characters by the time the story is over. It doesn't have to be a big thing. Generally speaking, though, I want a reason the character is telling this story. Not another day in the life, you know? Give me a turning point for one of your characters.

9) A climax to the story would be good. You know, some moment that stands out. That turning point, for example...

10) No character is perfect. No one is a little angel. Stop identifying so much with your characters that you're unable to let them fuck up. They need to fuck up. Just like you. It's how they grow.

There will be a million exceptions to these rules. I'm sure anyone can find at least a few. That said, we learn the rules first, we break them afterward. It should not be hard to get the basics of all this down. Really.
This is an intermediate writing class. No one should fail on these points.
For those of you doing NaNoWriMo, good luck. For those of you who aren't, write something.
Thanks,

~HelixNine

So, here am I, walking down the sidewalk to Bazil's place.
Walking in front of me is a woman and her daughter, a little girl of about 5 or 6 years.
And she starts jumping up and down yelling

"Mommy! Mommy! I saw Jesus, Mommy! I saw Jesus!"
The girl's mother, like a sensible human being, replies

"Who told you about Jesus? I never taught you that."
To which the girl replies

"Nobody, Mommy. I *saw* him! I saw Jesus!"
At this point, the mother and daughter have rounded the corner.
When I round the corner, the girl is sitting on a bench and her mother is tying her shoes.
The little girl looks up at me, points and shouts

"That Jesus! See?"

Suffice it to say, I got a giggle out of that.
...and I've been called worse.

Dear Governor Palin,

You were found guilty of ethics violations and abuses of power by an Alaskan legislature probe. Your campaign spokesperson responded "This was a partisan-led inquiry run by Obama supporters and the Palins were completely justified in their concern".

I'd just like to point out, there are no Obama supporters in Alaska.
[Well, they're a distinct minority, anyway.
And it was, importantly, a bi-partisan probe.]

Thank you,
~HelixNine.

Dear John McCain,

Until you produce a platinum selling rap/hip-hop record, you are henceforth no longer allowed to call yourself "The Original Maverick".

Point of fact, the word Maverick originally referred to an unbranded calf. Just so you know.

Thank you.
~HelixNine

Dear Charles Taylor Jr.,

It's only not torture when we do it.

With sympathy,
~HelixNine.

Dear Corporate America,

It's actually fairly simple. You rely on the populace in order to stay in business. In order to maximize profits, however, you opt to poison the populace. How were you intending to stay in business?

This sort of fallout is what happens when you exchange integrity for profit.

Best of luck.
~HelixNine

Dear Women,

Emphasizing your bodies in an effort to distract us from flaws in your personality is a cheap, shallow and obvious tactic not befitting creatures possessed of higher reason.

In fairness, it does work.
~HelixNine

Dear United States Government,

It's all very well to chastise Russia for "not respecting Georgia's territorial integrity" if, and only if, you're not conducting cross-border bombing missions into Pakistan. Have your cake or eat it. Attempting both makes us all look like pompous idiots.

Thank you for your time,
~HelixNine

Alive and mostly well, though a little sad about various things.
Still interested in Visiting New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Anchorage, Annapolis and New Orleans, though not in that order.
Classes are going well, should graduate December.
Approved for the UK Ancestry Visa.
Writing is still going well as well, though it needs more work. Going to set up a schedule under which to do that. "Do Not Disturb" Time, as it were.
Money's a little tight. Looking for work, may have a few options through UNM, elsewhere.
Strange absence of the first person singular pronoun in update.
That's all for the moment.

Still in the process of starting up, Halflit.net is also in the process of F*çking Rocking.

Ever since I was smaller than I am now, I've had trouble with notebooks. I can't get enough of them, for one. For two? I never write anything in them. Particularly the ones I like.
It goes like this: I get a notebook for the purpose of writing things in it. Then I don't know what to write. Nothing seems good enough to put in my nice, pretty, new notebook. And so it just sits there while my thoughts die slow, agonizing deaths in my head.
So, I though, why not force myself to write in it right away? So I try... this helps for about a page... and then I start to despise the notebook. It's not living up to my standards anymore. I can't find a consistent voice now... because the voice I just wrote in was CRAP!
Do you see my problem?
LJ is kind of like that, too.

"There's Gonna Be a Party When the Wolf Comes Home."
Who will be in Los Angeles the 8th - 16th?
Who will be in New Mexico the 16th - Jan. 5th?
Who wants me to visit them elsewhere?
Who wants to hang out?

I can't remember what I was doing this time five years ago. I don't know what I wanted, where I thought I was going or where I'd be. I have trouble locating 'passions' for things. I don't know what I'm passionate about. I just know some of the things I'm good at.

I'm leaving Australia in two weeks from today. I haven't seen the US in six months and I'm looking forward to coming home.

It's funny, but I look at my friends list for livejournal and I find that most of the people on it are people I knew a long long time ago. I can't really remember who I thought I was, back then. Someone significantly different from who I am now, I'm sure.

Life has changed a lot over the past few years. I think I wanted to be a psychiatrist at some point. Maybe a lawyer or something. I don't really remember how I saw myself. Was I more confident then? Less confident? I was certainly more impulsive. I remember that. I seem to remember having more fun, then, too. But I don't really know. Maybe we just remember the good stuff? That's not true. We remember the stuff that we repeat over and over in our heads. Usually we remember our mistakes.

I remember a lot of things I'd rather not. Little things, you know? Little embarrassing details from when I was younger. At one point, in Kenya, I spent several hours staring at some animal skull I'd found. It had been bleached by sun and weather and I turned it over and over in my hands, just repeating how it was like an empty city, a vacant apartment building or something. And what I really wanted was for someone to ask me why I thought that, why I was comparing it to a city or a building. I wanted someone to ask so I could tell someone a theory I had about the nature of people. That society is becoming less and less a collection of individuals and more and more like a single, multicellular organism. I wanted to site a million different sources and explain that, with the advent of things like the internet, all people really ended up being were nuclei to the cells that were their offices or homes. Of course, no one asked me why I kept saying that. They just looked at me like I was totally insane. And why not? I'm sitting on a mountain slope in Africa talking to myself about how skeletons are like empty buildings. Looking back, I imagine that I would have thought that I was an attention-seeking poser, a pretentious ass, and probably a little homesick, too. Oh, and morbid, to boot.

I laugh at myself a little, when I think of things like that. Then I stop laughing and hope very much that no one else remembers it as vividly as I do. And of course they don't. Why would they? They're far too busy thinking about all the little embarrassing things they did to worry about the embarrassing things I did.

There are some very important people to me in the world. People for whom I have the utmost affection. Some of them are on this list. I've even told some of them that I care very much for them. I'm not sure I've ever said why. I'm not sure I even know why, in some cases. But a lot of them have just the hold-over affection from when I knew them last. Who they were when I knew them and the effects they had on my life. Seems like I've withdrawn from a lot of them. That's a situation that ought to be rectified. I think maybe I've been worried that they remember my embarrassing moments as well as I do.

My question is... if you were to think about it on your own, without the prod of this post. Would you think I've changed over the years? Has your impression of who I am altered much? If so, how?

Also: How have you changed? Why?

Allow me to recommend a film to you.
The film: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
The reason: It's a piece of art. Really.
High points: Visuals, Soundtrack.
Low points: Long and slow moving.
Tone: Melancholy, for the most part. But really beautiful.

Notes: Do not see this if your movie diet consists mostly of action movies or comedies. This is one of the most visually and auditorily(?) stunning pieces of cinema I've ever seen. See it as a piece of art. See it with friends who don't talk in the theatre. See it with someone (you'll get lonesome otherwise). I truly hope that it's still in theatres in the US. This is not a fast paced film - it's almost a mood piece. The camera work is amazing. The soundtrack (Nick Cave and Warren Ellis) is amazing. The film, as a whole, is amazing.

Hello.
How are you?
Things are fine in Perth. It's sunny here, and warming up nicely, which means it'll be about boiling by the time I leave in December to come back to the US. I don't mind the heat. I never have. I rather like it... my problem is the flies. For some reason, Australia has (and has always had) a surplus of flies. They're really annoying. We need to invent a mechanical super-predator to cull the population a little (mechanical since, of course, Australia has had some very bad experiences with biological introductions. Read up of Australia vs. the cane toad).
Anyway, I need some help with archetypes.
Give me some archetypes to work with. What's your favourite? What's your least favourite? Why?
Give me some examples of different character types and the characters that embody them.
I would love some input here, as my character data-banks are looking a little bare.
Thanks!

Not much to tell at this juncture. I am well, and still in Australia.
Been thinking on a subject... love (naturally).
And, though I have a theory of my own, I want some input.
What do you think makes the spark go out?
The passion in relationships dies all the time... there are hundreds of stories. I certainly experienced it myself.
What makes the honeymoon period over?
Where does the flame go and what kills it?

Also, recommend a film for me.
And, what's your favourite short fiction?
Where do I find it online?

Hello all.
How are you?
I'm feeling burnt out, just a little bit.
I hate to mention this in educated company, but I've been watching a fair amount of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I swear I only watch it for the articles!)...
And there is an episode in the first season called "The Pack" of which I'm rather fond.
What ever happened to being thoughtlessly cruel?
I used to be good at it and then it all went away.

What's everyone been up to?
Who wants something to believe in?
Who's frightened of the future?
Why?
If your eyes were naturally any colour, what colour would you want them to be?
Why won't anyone ever love me?
What's your favourite book?

That's all for today.

Hello all. I've been rather slack about posting lately. I will continue to be so, I'm sure.

First, read Mervyn Peake's "Gormenghast" series (three books). It's rather spectacular.

Second, if you've a fondness for the English language, read "Perdido Street Station" by China Miéville. It's entirely too overwritten, but it's beautiful from a writing perspective and quite inventive.

Third, I have fallen from my ivory tower and read a few of the Harry Potter books. They're not exactly literature, but they are fun. I imagine that they have awakened a few people only dimly conscious of the pleasures of reading, and I will credit them for that.

Australia is lovely and beautiful. And I'm not homesick, I'm nostalgic. Things will never be as they were when last I was there, and my life hangs in the limbo between phases most people move to without a second thought. I with I was young and stupid (well, more stupid) again.

I am standing on the precipice of my attempts to be a good person and looking down into the swirling black of the person I have been and, instead of feeling pride at my change, what I feel is nostalgia and longing for the person I have been.
It's troublesome.

On the whole, I am well but uncertain. That's another thing I miss, certainty. A phantasm, sure, but a pleasant one.

How's everyone doing?
I feel like I have been a hermit for so long.
Now my desire to emerge from my cave is tempered by the alien aspect of the world I knew when I left it behind.

So tell me...
What's life like on the outside?
What's life about (in basic, non-philosophical terms)?
How are you today?
What is one thing you enjoy?

The storm is passing. The anger and helplessness of feeling lost and alone in the world is fading. And it's quiet now. Quiet, still. A reprieve from the harm of the world, if only brief. Tomorrow will bring woe. But for right now, there is a moment of peace. The storm is passing and tomorrow we will rebuild. Tomorrow begins the toil of setting things right. But for now, for right now, all that there is to do is to lay quiet and listen to the storm pass.

You step out of your home, that mausoleum of collected memories and objects of faith, and into a world that waits with a thousand new experiences for each and every waking moment.
You close the door behind you and walk to the sidewalk as sunlight splashes across your skin, dappled with the shadows of the leaves of tree, lighting the rhythm of the breeze on your bare skin.
And you think to yourself "Today is going to be a better one."

'When I was a child
I spake as a child,
I understood as a child,
I thought as a child;
But when I became a man
I put away childish things.'
[1 Corinthians 11:13]

The world is right there. Take it.

Today I woke up feeling broken. You feel that way too, sometimes. Perhaps the term 'broken' is inadequate, though. Allow me to rephrase...
...Today I woke up with the weight of my entire past crashing down on me. Every victory and every mistake. Each mistake felt as though it was living on through my continued existence and each past victory felt as though it had died and would never return.
I felt lost and totally alone in the world, no longer having any sort of home. I woke to find myself halfway around the world surrounded in heat and mosquito-netting. I woke to find myself unable to get in touch with anyone I would consider a true friend. I woke without a place to which I belonged, without a family, a love, or a friend. I woke expecting to drown silently in myself and my past with no one to hear the echoes of the things I have done with my life.
Lost in the distance and totally alone, I found I did not have the will to even imagine beginning to rebuild my life. I found myself frightened to try for fear of hurting others as I have hurt others in the past. Kalee, Bianca, Fawn, all sat with the objective abstraction of myself in judgment of every mistake, every error.
It's funny, I know that everyone else in the world has felt the way that I felt this morning. Even if they wake up in their own beds, next to a person who loves them. More often when they don't. And I wonder, is this the burden of mortality? Is this what it means to be a perishable creature in a world that seems infinite? When the authors write of a person confronted with their own insignificance, is this the feeling they are describing? Or does it not have to do with being fragile and mortal and insignificant, but with something else entirely? Perhaps it's merely a product of our culture? This disconnected 'individualism' that we claim makes us unique and worthwhile? Perhaps it's just me, but I doubt it.
You have made mistakes, the same as I have. And, looking back on your life, don't you feel that regret for the mistakes you've made? Haven't you looked back at your actions and wished things could have been different? Everyone misses the people in life who they've lost. And when you ask them, they tell you 'Sure, of course I still miss him/her. I loved him/her and I guess a part of me always will. It's better now, though. I've moved on. That's what you have to do."
But they don't tell you about the nights they still spend alone in their beds, staring at the walls and ceiling in the dark, aware that they're crying only by virtue that they can no longer see clearly. That they feel crushed under the weight of past mistakes and the total helplessness of needing more than anything to make things better or say goodbye but being completely incapable of doing so. They never tell you that they lie there, clawing at the skin of their skull, unable to make a sound as the vastness of night consumes everything but their own tragic failure and they're left alone with their memories and the faint images of what the world might have been if they'd just done things differently, if they'd known better, if they had been less fragile, less flawed, less broken... ...less human.
I woke up today feeling this way, and I wonder, surely there's something else? Surely there's a way past waking up this way? People don't feel this way their whole lives, do they?

Okay, fellow revolutionaries, have we given the masses enough time to come to their senses? Commence purge in T-2 days.

I'm always surprised by just how much Australia feels like home.
And here I am. Home. :)
Next stop, Bhutan.

The Plan so far:
May 19th: Graduation from St. John's College. 10am. (You're welcome to show up if it's important to you).
May 23rd: Move out of current flat. (Anyone is welcome to help. I have lots of stuff to get rid of as well).
May 30th: Flight ABQ (Albuquerque) - PHX (Phoenix) @ 9:50 am (arrives @ 10:05am).
June 2nd: Flight PHX (Phoenix) - ABQ (Albuquerque) @ 2:00pm (arrives @ 4:05pm).
June 5th: Flight ABQ (Albuquerque) - BUR (Burbank - Los Angeles) @ 11:25am (arrives @ 1:30pm).
June 8th: Flight LAX (Los Angeles) - SYD (Sydney) @ 11:55pm (arrives June 10th @ 7:30am).
June 10th: Flight SYD (Sydney) - PER (Perth) @ 12:10pm (arrives @ 3:10pm).
June 17th: Flight PER (Perth) - SYD (Sydney) @ 4:25pm (arrives @ 10:25pm).
June 18th: Flight SYD (Sydney) - BKK (Bangkok) @ 4:40pm (arrives @ 10:55pm)
At this point, things get somewhat sketchier.
From Bangkok I head into India, then from India into Bhutan.
After 10 days in Bhutan, I return to India to do some exploring in the North East area.
On July 5th, I travel southwest.
By July 15th I hope to have established some sort of base camp.
After that, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam... and then we'll make it up as we go along.
I'm considering going North through China and catching the Orient express through to the East European countries and exploring a bit there.
I am, of course, open to suggestions.
EDIT: You all are, of course, welcome to flood me with teary-eyed goodbyes. That might be nice, too.

As I am moving to India in a month, and have to be out of my apartment on the 23rd, I find myself with bunches of stuff I don't really want/need. I will be posting some of the stuff I have that people might want, but there really is a good amount of stuff to be had, so... um... do something.

I'm leaving the country soon. Around the 4th of June or so.
I won't have a great deal of free time in those last few weeks, so I'm posting this now.
I'll be gone for a while. Probably a long while.
So if you need to get in touch with me for any reason, now is the time to do that.

All comments here are screened, meaning only I will be able to see them.
That said... on my crush list meme thing that I posted (http://www.thiscrush.com/tag.php?id=helixnine), I got two anonymous comments...

This: Because you're oh so sexy... oh jhess... ;)
and This: "I'll see you in the next life, when we are both cats"

Now, since I'm notoriously bad with this "memory" nonsense... who posted these?

We've put up a new MySpace profile for the Helix Group. Take a look, tell me what you think.
It may be found here: http://www.myspace.com/thehelixgroup
There is also a facebook group.
That may be found here: http://sjcsf.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2223868025

You scored as Batman, the Dark Knight. As the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman is a vigilante who deals out his own brand of justice to the criminals and corrupt of the city. He follows his own code and is often misunderstood. He has few friends or allies, but finds comfort in his cause. </td> Batman, the Dark Knight 88% James Bond, Agent 007 79% Neo, the "One" 75% Lara Croft 71% Captain Jack Sparrow 67% Indiana Jones 58% Maximus 58% The Terminator 50% El Zorro 50% William Wallace 38% The Amazing Spider-Man 38% Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

First three are quite good, no?

Travel plans (already arranged)
NYC, Dec. 28 thru Jan. 13,
Need places to stay. Anyone have any?
Please?

For a while I've been thinking about changing my name.

The reasons for this are fairly sound, but not something I want to discuss here.
Ask me sometime, if you so wish it.

It would likely be only my last name that changed (unless I find something really compelling)

So... to what should I change my name?

Please keep really silly answers to yourself.
Whimsical is fine, though. Hell, I kind of like the name Wintermute for a last name, so don't be shy.