Who Is This 'Miss Jean Louis' Really?

  She goes by 'Jean Louis' and appears to identify as female and a Misha Collins wrangler. That is all we know for certain about the enigmatic figure behind the head of the international institution of chaos, gishwhes. (At time of print our fact checkers had received conflicting information on the exact deployment of upper case in the orginisation's name, presumed to be a deflection strategy.)

  Was she named for a French king? A pair of trusty denim work trousers? A badly aimed dart that narrowly misses the head of an innocent drunk in unfortunate proximity? We can no more speak to the veracity of these claims than to the unceremonious exile of a certain green leafy vegetable this year.
  She's either very good at her job or exceptionally bad, judging by her charge- a Mr. Misha Collins. His public desire and outbursts are notoriously silly and unfiltered, suggesting that Miss Louis definitely has both her hands full and possibly a vault's worth of suppressed antics and wildly engineered cross-species. There has been talk of something called a "Jefferson Starship" which necessitated nigh on an actual apocalypse to contain, although we cannot confirm its connection to the more benign Wooster, Fograt, Elopus or Slangaroo.
  Our on-staff identikit artists were tasked to come up with a likeness of Miss Louis based on fourth-hand accounts, numerology and a vague sense of unease brought on by the indefinite article. Mysteriously, their rigorously scientific pursuits returned only a question mark in a proprietary typeface and for one unlucky intern, sleepness nights plagued with visions of an oversized sock monkey face. When asked for comment, close personal friend and capital tormentor William Shatner returned with only, "This email address is invalid, go away." Curiouser and curiouser.
  Of course rumours still abound that the identity of Miss Jean Louis is a mystery even to Mr. Collins and the discovery of which will be the subject of an item in the notoriously secretive gishwhes hunt in future years. Only time will tell. Until then, we can but speculate, stare longingly at punctuation in Helvetica and make forlorn evening gowns of a now discarded, slightly weepy cruciferous vegetable.

Public Service Announcement

   Hello audience of one. I've taken a step back from blogging, largely because it hasn't held quite the same attraction for me since it became apparent that I don't really have the freedom to write what I'd like to write about, but also because other shit is just happening all around my ears and takes up most of my breathing moments. However, I was struck by a thought today that has visited me before, and I was about to post the wordiest, most didactic Facebook status ever when I stopped and realised I still had a little platform here I could utilise.
   So, point: My dad is gay. He was married to my mother for more than 20 years, and through the systematic sledgehammering he took from his ultra-conservative, religious upbringing and just the generally crapsack world we live in, he forced himself to not only live an oppressive existence for most of his adult life, but also had to suffer the belief that he was this pervert and evil sinner too. In one massive act of bravery, he finally managed to come out mid-way through his 50's, and is finally living the life he missed out on for so long. He is happy with his new partner, and has been able to free himself of the constrictive guilt and punishment he had been imposing on himself, which makes me happier than you could possibly know.
   All of this said, I have an opinion here that I suspect isn't going to be the anchor of my eventual platform when I run as president of the universe. It's not exactly in tune with the popular thinking, but it's been bugging me enough that I opened Blogger and had to try to remember my password to write something.

   I'm getting more than a little fatigued by the whole battle bewteen the LGBT community (and its supporters, of which I am a genuinely fabulous member) and the rest of the fuckwads who like to shake their angry little fists in protest over buttsex. It's just getting to be too much for me. Put me in a room with some tight-lipped, conservative moron shooting their mouth off about the abomination of the gays, and watch me go in Debate Team mode. I will righteously smack that somvabitch down with all manner of shiny biblical references and scholarly points. BUT.
   I was scrolling through my Facebook feed quickly, just to see if anyone had had a surprise baby or significant lottery win, (cause fuck knows there aren't enough hours in my life to actually engage with Facebook anymore. I WILL NOT PLAY MAFIA WARS WITH YOU, fuck off.) and there were at least three different posts by three radically different people with pretty heavy-handed gay content. One was a fairly innocuous article by some religious website outlining why Christians are wrong to use the bible to piss all over gay people, which is a point of view I'd like some bumber stickers of. (I don't have a car, but I'd be happy to affix one to my cat.) It was a good article, and I'm glad that the point that Jesus was all about the brotherly love is being made more frequently and articulately from within the whole ugly establishment that's responsible for the modern day stoning. The other was a little more ham-fisted, and actually made me so angry I kind of lost that little bit of my soul that would have been tempted to rug-munch at all.

www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=1377661702449130

   Now if you don't feel like watching that video, here's a rundown: in a world where homosexuality is the majority and socially acceptable lifestyle (the Bible apparently says it's bad eggs to lie with the opposite gender outside of "breeding season", which might well be my favourite thing ever), a little girl realises she has heterosexual feelings for a boy and gets mercilessly ripped to shreds by absolutely everyone. Her two mothers are apparently full-blown arseholes and try to push her towards football and karate, because no child of theirs is going to be a 'ro. The children at school unanimously decide to physically beat her and bombard her with text messages encouraging her to kill herself. Of course, eventually she does, in the most protracted, clumsy little montage this side of a Ricki Lake pre-taped confessional.

   You’ve been waiting for me to make my contrary view, and this is it: No. Look, it’s an entirely valid argument to make, that the status quo is taken for granted and that the people supporting the casual ostracising and targeting of gay people and children aren’t really cognisant of the harm they're doing, or of how singularly evil and arbitrary their judgments are. How the very ever, this is not how you go about making that point in a poignant or finessed manner. I know exactly how cruel and institutional the abuse towards gay people can be, how cruel children and parents and how relentless the struggles of these people are. While the switching of the roles for the sake of a short film might be an interesting rhetorical device, it becomes a little bit redundant when you don’t really portray those struggles with anything like the realism or nuance that helps it hit home. Yes, these children suffer unbelievable bullying, both physical and emotional, but this girl has apparently been outed as heterosexual for all of a week, and the biggots at her school have all, every single one, dedicated their every waking moment to tormenting her and sending her messages urging her towards suicide. Apparently, they wake up in the morning and immediately set to the task of smacking her around and calling her a faggot, go to school solely to mistreat her, and until they go to sleep sit on their cellphones obsessively sending her those messages barely taking time to eat or bath or masturbate or whatever it is 12-year-olds do after school. When you have to wave a massive banner around shouting “THIS IS TERRIBLE. SEE HERE HOW TERRIBLE IT IS” instead of just showing us how things are and letting the terribleness of the situation make itself obvious, you’re just going to sound like a loon who doesn’t understand the problem properly. This little girl might have had 12 full years to soak up the knowledge that her kind won’t be tolerated, but only really contemplates the personal ramifications of it and only suffers the violence and direct prejudice for something like a week before cutting her wrists in the most emotionally manipulative manner imaginable. This is just fucking stupid. For one thing, the children suffering this kind of bullying generally suffer a more insidious, ever-constant low-level threat that relies on the promise that it could (and does) flare up at any moment and escalate to the kind of all-out violence depicted here, which is far more psychologically damaging and scary than one afternoon of an all-out brawl. These kids endure years of having to hate themselves for their own feelings, and having to wrestle with themselves on it back and forth. They have to deal with much more fundamental reminders in the home that their parents would hate them for what they are. To condense it this way and to reduce it to the almost abstract idea of simply getting beat up is really to undermine the actual seriousness of the problem, and moves away from being helpful and sincere towards being self-righteous and obnoxious.

   That’s my problem. Or to put it slightly differently, I think the whole gay rights vs. homophobic bigotry debate has gotten ludicrously out of hand. I’m getting so tired of staring at post upon post, article upon article like the video above that seem to think what we need to be doing is shouting as loudly as we can, and to go “look how evil you people are” whilst printing up the martyr badges. I’ll reiterate my previous statement: No. Stop spending your energy trying to rationalise and prove a point to the mindless, arsehole citizens of the deluded right wing- their numbers are dwindling anyway. A majority of Americans are now in favour of gay marriage, and most of the 1^st world countries (and even shitty little wannabe 3^rd world countries like South Africa) actually have legislation upholding those rights. More and more, the evil little whiners who like to throw Bible-shaped rocks at gay people are the hold-outs, the people who will be replaced in a couple of generations by more homogenised descendants.

   My dad’s parents were Seventh Day Adventists who believed that observing the Sabbath on a Sunday was sinful and ignorant. My father is a secular Christian who believes in equality. I am a raging arsehole atheist who will happily pee on the ignorant, conservative right and say I thought they were on fire. We progress. As slowly as it may seem, we inch forward a little every day, and even though we do our damndest to raise our children to hold our own biases and prejudices, they are inevitably eroded by the march of an ever-more evolved world at least enough every generation to ensure their eventual extinction. What I’m saying is, all of this noise is unnecessary and a little bit counterproductive. Can we just recognise that while the fight for equal rights and the humane treatment of gay people (hell, all people. There are a great many injustices in this world, and a lot of people living under the oppression of their gender, sexuality, race and beliefs) is still vital, but that we are past the part of the program where we need to explain it over and over again? When you go to such lengths to illustrate why that kind of hatred is wrong, why the Bible really supports love over judgment, and why we should be treating other human beings with the most basic kind of respect, you’re only indulging the argument. I’m sorry, did you say that laws restricting the basic rights of gay people is A-OK because your little book mentions it briefly in between urging you to shun a menstruating woman and beat your child to death for swearing? Fuck you. You’re not only wrong, you’re delusional, and there’s no applying logic to crazy. It’s really OK, entertain yourself with those little notions and warm yourself by the fire of your dying culture, because your children and your children’s children will grow up in a world less and less tolerant of ignorance and cruelty, and eventually your ilk will be the ones having to form minority groups to protect your right to idiocy.

   It’s fucking 2013, and barely at that. Shit, two minutes ago I turned 21, and tomorrow I’ll be collecting pension from the government. I want to make it clear that I'm not talking about countries where gay people are routinely executed and tortured, nor am I taking issue with the fight to root the absurd-minded despots out of government where they can cause actual harm by inflicting their personal beliefs upon legislation. Those are very valid fights to be fought, and we're still some ways away from making sure people aren't dying for their sexual orientation. I'm talking about the social conventions and the movement around 1st world acceptance of lifestyle, which is a very different kettle of fish. Well it's a kettle of a related species of fish, but the point holds. But we are so massively past the phase where we even need to explain to grown-ass, well-fed human beings why it’s OK to love whomever the fuck will have you, or why it’s properly nuts and indisputably repugnant to treat anyone with any less dignity than you’d like to be treated with yourself. I really, really think we can settle into the phase where we can just be happy that the actual, statistical majority of rational thinking adults are clued up, and accept the opposition as the bizarre minority it is. The social stigma is turning towards those nutjobs, and believe me, if they weren’t inclined to be decent human beings to start with, a piece of emotional blackmail like the video above isn’t going to change their hearts and minds. But simply scoffing at their lunacy like the village drunks they are will.

   Just dismiss them, people. No one wants to play with them anyway. And stop cluttering my Facebook wall with kittens requesting Likes for Jesus, that shit is giving me hives.
 

New Year's Easter

   I think I'm fairly reasonable as a person. I have so many stories- lord, so many stories- generated by my crazy lot of kith and kin, and I have only mined maybe a tenth of the really good veins of drama here or anywhere. There's a certain element of risk to a blog like this one- whatever way I go, if I'm writing decently I'm really going to end up making someone's bad decision public. I try to limit this reasonably to things that I can talk about (most of which are just so damn funny in their scope of ridiculousness, it would be a crying shame not to share), and I tend to edit around even the most amusing things some of my posse have gotten up to if it wouldn't be fair to do a song and dance around it.
   But every so often, a repeat offender will either go to such gorgeous lengths of stupidity or offensiveness, and then even a friends-and-family protection order will go bye-bye. I'm sorry, but dem's de rules: you shit in my shoe, I paint your bedroom with it. I've racked up some spectacular bullshit of my own in my time, and frankly most of the day is spent wanting to poke my own eye out for the sheer units of moron I pump out from hour to hour, and I'm sure if anyone else wrote delightful if horribly pointed stories about my personal kind of stupid I'd shrink into myself. But at the end of the day, I have to own that shit. I make a choice either to be a prick or to be sensible, and whichever direction I choose inevitably has a receiving party who has all the right in the world to feel wronged. It just baffles me that if any one of all my varied acquaintances throws a tantrum or spews vitriol everywhere that you could possibly feel so hard done by when you see it laid down in black and white. I mean for fuck's sakes, perhaps it wasn't your finest hour, but chances are I took the time out of my day to write it down because it was both funny and largely inexcusable. Probably both with a dash of "I don't give a fuck whether I treat you or anyone else like something I stepped it, bask in the glory of my magnificent arseholedom" thrown in for good measure. But having it described to an only slightly wider audience than my cats is the cardinal sin? As many an excellent Jerry Springer audience member has helpfully quipped: Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself.
   Roundaboutly what I'm getting at is that I've ended up editing myself more than I'd like here. Not so much in what I write down as in what it is I end up deleting again after it's been published. Since I really only feel justified in writing about the more egregious examples of wank, they do tend to attract the most hissy-fits and flounces once they go up, and I've twice been asked now to take stories down in respect for family ties and such. Both times, after having to think over how comfortable I am with bowing to that kind of pressure I've decided that's not the kind of dick I want to be (I want to be an entirely different kind of dick, obviously) and I've taken them down. If I had gone the route of a printed autobiography I suspect there would have been just as much if not more bitching, but I don't know if there'd have been quite as easy an expectation for me to "take things down" or whatever the print equivalent is. Somehow a blog, being digital and easily altered, is not quite as free to enjoy impunity in honesty as a physical book would be. I suppose the flip side of that- at least for me- has been that in writing something as ephemeral as a blog over a book, it's been easier to allow myself more liberty with people's names or relationship to me. There's a feeling that largely the people reading this either already know your shenanigans or will never know who you are anyway, and perhaps in that I have been remiss. From now on if I tell you about someone who's personal topiary gets shaved into a heart-shape, I'll take more pains to at least give them a cursory veil of anonymity.
   One day I'll write you that book, and you shall all cringe and cry with laughter so help me Judge Judy, for I shall plumb the depths of unwritten material that is simply growing riper where it waits in my Bag Of No. It shall be a glorious day and all shall feast on pastries and wine, but until that day I'll curb myself to within the limits of appropriateness- without cutting down on my arsehole quotient too much. Fair warning though: if you're going to be a buffoon, be it somewhere out of my eyeshot, because that shit is fair game.

   I've been quiet for a while, largely because I now have stairs to climb at home and that tires me the fuck out. Can't spare no energy for the typings after two flights. There's been moving and subsequent unpacking and keeping an eye on the size of the spiders in the bathroom and heart attacks and laziness. I shall be endeavouring to get into more adventures and angering the locals now that my hiatus is over, and if I were you I would expect at least one instalment of Why I Love Shitty Reality TV by Snofferol. My PVR is now my best friend, for it affords me the luxury of watching both Cake Boss and Don't Tell The Bride, even if the geniuses at TV Central should decide to schedule both at the same time.
   Happy New Year's Easter from Pie HQ, next time I'll bring pictures.

Here's A Fairytale You Haven't Heard Before

A man was beset by a fever. So long ago now that we have lost the words and numbers to give the year a name, the man named Banausic was seized by an unrelenting fervour and drive to built a great wooden hall that would have the ring of the gods. He was not blessed with the why of it, but was simply instilled with the how, and over the years of his life he built a house so magnificent that few would ever enter without fear of spoiling its acoustic magic and specific cadences.

When the hall was finished, he was left at a loss as to its purpose: no one could deny the beauty and the majesty of the thing he had built, but there was no obvious answer as to what was meant to dwell there. A travelling salesman came to Banausic peddling trinkets and jewels: a man who has his own story told some other place, as important to the gods as Banausic was. He had brought with him the intended inhabitant of the Acta: a book.

It looked no more impressive than any other book Banausic had ever laid eyes on- but then, Banausic could not read, and so the astonishment of letters linked together on a page was lost on him even when they spelled out his own name. But he did not need the talent of script to know what he held in his hands, because a man chosen by fate is often imbued with odd instincts and the right urges so as to end up in the right place. In the very centre of the back stalls, he laid out a place for the book that seemed to radiate the sounds and melodies of the hall itself, and he knew he was right. This place was meant to be a library; a repository of words and stories and knowledge and fables. Because Banausic’s part in the shaping of the hall had reached its conclusion, he died then without much ado and with no fanfare at all. The hall, however, was not yet finished.

People came from every corner of the proto-Thulian island to bring written words to feed the Acta. Wise men wrote ideas and sketched plans for marvellous machines; old, lonely women scribbled in broken handwriting accounts of their dead husbands and passed-away sons, just wanting them to be remembered; children drew broad picture stories of talking animals and imaginary friends, and those were as important as the histories of the land itself. Men were commissioned to gather those histories and bind them on parchment, to create analogues for the world in flat sheaves of paper, and all of them were stored in the annals of the great hall for wondrous posterity.

Many gods and sprites take hold on the fabric of the world from the sheer power of belief in their existence: you cannot vest that much collective energy in one force without breathing some life into it. The people of the island believed in a great number of creator gods and hellish devils and lesser imps, and even with so many faces these gods and devils and imps clawed their way into being on the back of the tributes offered them- and they were quite right to do so. The creatures of the Acta, however, did not come to their lives through belief but uniquely among their kind found hold here by necessity.

The power of words written down and kept is so immense and so focused that there was created a deep and abiding need for a personification to be in charge of them. A hall so inlaid with the meaning people bestowed on it- one so directly guided by the hands of already-existing gods and fates- could little exist without its own sprites than a nor’easter wind be talked to sleep. Out of the first book (whose contents are as much a mystery now as the nature of these forces themselves) rose a satyr of a kind, the thing which both inhabited and was made of the Acta and channelled the forces of words and stories stored all in one place. He was the Omphalos of the Acta; the centre point of the little world it created.

He was a benevolent thing and slept in a small nest made around the book, lodged high in the back stalls where he could overlook the wooden hall and simply love all his words without missing a corner. For a hundred years he was happy and content like this, and the library thrived. Words were brought in and taken out when people came to read- they took with them in their heads such varied thoughts and tales that came from places they had never been and concerned places they would never go. In this way, the world became bigger.

But even for the demiurge of words, years become long and oversight becomes less pressing. The Omphalos spent more and more time asleep, and as the nature of the Acta changed its needs changed, giving rise to new sprites of necessity.

It came to be that the Acta carved the first Father Librarian out of need, an old man like a monk who roamed the stacks and stalls, dry and dusty as the pages themselves. He was closer to the new idea forming around the books here, the idea that they were immortal and invulnerable and needed little tending at all. It became somehow imbedded into the minds of people that words and stories kept themselves, and because they were there the job was already done, and the value to be gained from them inherent in their existence. As sacrosanct as the Acta was, it became a white elephant that held a symbolic worth, and if it was not completely forgotten it was certainly demoted to a dead hall where few ever visited.

Of course the Father Librarian was built specifically for his task, and cared a great deal about the sacred nature of words. He did not believe them to be playthings either- the idea that anyone could lay eyes on the scripts in the hall at any time seemed deeply wrong and he was invested in the protection of their inaccessibility over all else. He was joined- out of his own need- by a small thing that had no other purpose but to study the texts and keep them in its head. The Father Librarian would never have dared the outrage of rising above his station and studying them himself, so the little thing that followed him around the maze of the hall became the place where knowledge went, and was the place where it then stayed.

This is how it was for an awful long time. For every year that passed, the Father Librarian would climb the back stall and quietly hang a tributary trinket over the place where the Omphalos lay sleeping, and for the rest of the year he and his little thing would be left in peace to roam and read. Nailed over the small nest which was secreted behind panels and shadows, a collection of small toys collected and grew: bells, rings, whistles, coins and horns. There seemed no point to ever rise and disturb the peace of the hall, so the Omphalos simply left the care of the words to the Father Librarian and his little thing, curling up on his book and simply slumbering deeper every time he felt the urge to move.

The collection of gifts over the Omphalos’ sleeping place had grown immense by the time The Girl came to the Acta. She was as much a part of its story and its personified powers as the Omphalos and the little thing and the Father Librarian were, although she came from a separate need and so was not recognised by them. Like an alien, she was found wandering the aisles, taking down volumes and scrolls and perusing them before returning them to their resting places. Likely she was walking there a far longer time than even the sprites of the Acta knew, for when the Father Librarian spotted her she seemed to know the place well and felt comfortable breaking the hierarchy of knowledge. She had no regard for the rights of the books not to be looked on by common eyes, and consumed them lightly, almost trivially, as though for entertainment. The Father Librarian seized upon her and- as politely as he could, being so out of practice in speaking with an outside person and a woman to boot- demanded to know her purpose there. Admittedly, the words “seized” and “demanded” may be a little strong for the manner in which he confronted her, but he had surely meant those sentiments when he had neared her even if his nerved had failed and delivered softly spoken words instead.

With large eyes that looked at him so earnestly he was at a loss for himself, she told him she was there to read. She disarmed him so that he simply led her through the stacks when she asked for a tale of bravery or a book that could teach her of birds and even found himself blustering on about certain texts in long-winded accounts as he did so. The little thing watched sceptically and jealously, following behind at a pace. It was less charmed by her dark hair and tall frame, and so was not quite as quick to allow for innocent intent.

The Father Librarian was so indeeped in a recounting of the census book from the second stack on the third floor that he did not notice when she leaped off and soared into the rafters, gleefully climbing into the ceiling beams and jumping from the top of one stack to another. When he turned around to find her gone, he looked up and was revolted by the noise of joy and disruption she was emitting all through the hall. For the first time since a hundred years after its inception, the wooden walls and paper aisles rang with a beautiful diapason- the song of the Acta that had lead Banausic to give his life to the building of it in the first place.

She scrambled into the buttresses and scampered their length along the walls, the Father Librarian and the little thing chasing after her as best they could. They had not been outfitted with agility or flight by their necessity, and found it terribly hard to keep up. They found the ladders and climbed up the stacks to catch her, huffing and heaving all the while. She slowed down for a moment to allow them to catch up, and then stopped. The Father Librarian howled at her, for all his words at a loss to express to her exactly the damage she was inflicting here. He could not jump the space between where he stood and she was perched, so tried to reason in desperate sobs with her to come down and allow them to restore some balance. She smiled a slow smile that had no malice but was wicked beyond belief, and in one quick motion her hand shot up through the rotten wood of the ceiling. When she pulled it back it was smeared with a dark brown blood, and she held the liver of a bird that had been sat on the roof. Its life had instantly as her hand had expertly plunged into its belly and plucked out the liver as though she was picking a lazy fly from the air.

Perhaps the Father Librarian and the little thing felt a wave of acknowledgment at this. They could not know it, but this was the first Cantrip in an unspoken, unwritten prophecy to usher in the next part of the life of the Acta. It was the first of three defilements of this house, and whether they knew it or not, this outrage was a part of the mythology that lived there. If they did not feel the weight of its importance, it certainly held them in place. They found they could not follow her as she swung and catapulted ever deeper into the attics of the Acta, and could only stand impotently as she disappeared from their view.

 It’s hard to say exactly what The Girl was. If the Omphalos was a creator demi-god, spawned from the first words of that book, then the Father Librarian was surely a keeper spirit flanked by a sprite. She was something wholly unexpected and- by needs- broke the form entirely. She is now known sometimes as the Dancer or the Terpsichorean, dancing through the branches of the World Tree, but there’s no one alive to remember her nature precisely. She moved this way from beam to beam until she came upon the heart of the hall: the Omphalos’ nest. He awoke and was taken aback to see any creature at all here where he slept, but to see one so lovely and piercing was the most unlikely thing. She smiled again, and he could not help but be seduced.

In taking him, she had enacted the second defilement of the hall, and everywhere the music rang.

Afterwards, she took him by the hand and led him through the place that was his own. She showed him the tributary wall and he was delighted for a moment before its more dilapidated nature brought him back down. Going back to the beginning of the line of silver toys was like looking into a tapestry of history- the first gift was beautiful and untarnished, and had been placed there with much care. But as far as he travelled along the line, the further down history he could see, the gifts became more mottled and cheap and hastily chosen, and it was clear that the need for him was diminishing.

She asked him if he read.

He could not understand why he should have to do so. If he persists here solely as a token of that first book, is he not already made of words himself?

She fetched him volumes from high and far shelves and brought them to his nest. She watched him read for the first time all the anchors of lives and ideas he had presided over in sleeping and waking times, and it was clear that he had only understood them now. By taking in the notions and knowledge of others, he began to understand the need for the Acta, for himself, and- with a growing feeling of heavy sorrow- the need that had created the Father Librarian.

He knew that the world understood that words were safe here, and that they could not possibly need anything more from them if they were. If the work had been done to gather the words at all, there was no longer a need to spread it and make the world any bigger. They had made a Librarian who stood in for them in their contentment with the hoarding of stories and the safekeeping of them, and then promptly let them sleep there unhindered.

As all the people of Thule know, water is the fear of the dreaming, and fire is the fear of the waking.

The Girl took the Omphalos by the hand and they saw everything that the hall held. Long forgotten tributes to dead husbands and passed-away sons; minutes, hours, days; the histories and wisdom of so many tribes there were no numbers to count them. She took him high into the rafters and smiled. From her pocket, with a hand covered in dry brown blood, she took a match and lit it, and handed it to him.

The hall rang happily with deep wooden tones and dry words took light.

           Perhaps we need to lose the words again so we can care for them once more.

Can I Be Sexy Pie?

   I have gone to extreme measures to take my mind off the fact that we're meant to be moving (the d-day has moved from the 30th of November to the 7th of December and subsequently to the 10th) in 3 days time, and not only have I yet to pack up the Disney encyclopaedias, we are- after a brief, flickering moment of hope- once again staring down homelessness. There was a duplex townhouse that appeared ripe, but as a consequence of the unfathomable measures of dicking about perpetrated by the agent in charge of it, we found out it wouldn't be available for occupation in time exactly yesterday. This essentially gives the man a usefulness quotient of zero, and I wish pusturating arse-boils upon him for the duration of the holiday season. Scrabbingly we are now searching again for a place to store me, my uncle and the cats (not to mention my library and entire museum catalogue) once we're booted out of Casa Birkenstock, and my palms are not sweating nor have hives broken out anywhere near me, because I just spent the last four hours exploring the rather purple depths of Bid Or Buy.
   For those not of a South African persuasion- Bid Or Buy is essentially Ebay. When I have more money and time on my hands than sense, this is where my consciousness eventually ends up. There are some really nice vintage shops selling lovely bits and pieces, and I have given a fair chunk of my custom to them over the years. Today, I bring you goodies of a slightly different bent.

   I am fucking fascinated by the idea of "sexy" or "slutty" suchandsuch costumes. There just seem to be a set amount of visual archetypes that we are led to believe are tattooed upon the bit of the male brain that's in charge of allocating blood-flow. I think the male brain is lead to believe this too though, and I've not yet heard any vociferous objections raised or seen any bans levied against the Sexy Nurse livery, so I think belief here goes untested.
   Now I understand some of them. The aforementioned Nurse I get- it's already a uniform even before you start cutting out strategic bits of fabric, and uniforms are fairly traditionally perved upon by both sexes. Not my thing personally, but still, power to everyone on this front. The other dimension to this of course is that nurses take care of you, lavish over you, and stand at least a higher than average chance of coinciding with a spongebath at some point in the future, so Sexy Nurse = sense.

   In the Bid Or Buy selection, your options for Nurse vary wildly between the more or less logical example here, to the point where you start wanting to offer the poor girl a coat of some kind.
   With the assumption that those who take care of you would be a turn-on, it follows that someone serving you would make your arse explode from excitement.

  
   No, not serving you in that sense. (Actually, the above costume was labelled "Sexy Chainsaw Executioner." Looking at her current condition and the chainsaw in question I cannot help but conclude this lady is both spectacularly clumsy and in preparation to execute a small salami.) (And also, I'm sorry, but any apron that makes you look as though you're build like a troll doll isn't going on anyone's sexy list.)
   I meant that perennial favourite of all porn movies made before 1989: The maid uniform. This one also covers both the uniform and servitude angles, so it's always going to be a hit, and I'll concede a certain measure of sexiness inherent in the general design alone. Howfuckingever:

  
   This shit is no longer a fucking costume. This is now a woman with grossly mismatched tits and apparently microscopic areolae in a dust ruffle. One dust ruffle, singular. She does not even have so much as two pocket squares with which to retain the chastity of her chestal area, but for some reason it has been decided that she needs gloves. BUT, lest we endanger ourselves of covering up any superfluous flesh, they must by needs by fingerless gloves, of course.
   Not too long ago, a member of the male species did confirm for me that a cat outfit has real life, genuine fans, which came as something of a surprise to me. Perhaps I'm the only one, but I really thought that it was something of a lazy cliché without much basis in reason, but I was assured that as little as the cat ears and a tail facsimile of some kind was enough to oxygenate the nether-regions. I don't think this particular bias bears much psychological scrutiny though: the moment you try to find some kind of explanation for it, it gets progressively more creepy. I mean you could probably do something with the femininity of cats and their slinky movement, the the very second you scale it up to a woman in cheap cat-ears and a feather-boa tail, overthinking it really just turns it into a question of how realistic or animal you want your cat-lady, and for fuck's sake why. Some kind soul, however, has found a way to combine both the Sexy Cat and Sexy Maid genres, and this happened:

   So now you have a submissive feline in corsetry. I really don't feel all that comfortable right this second.
   Still on uniforms, I'll say that the whole nautical theme definitely has staying power. In fact, out of all of the general looks that were covered in every fashion, the Sexy Sailor was one of the few that I just genuinely liked the look of almost all the time. Damn it, but the sailor thing is just cute no matter which way you cut it.

   I would so wear that swimming. I realise my intended use probably misses the point of the sexy costume thing rather spectacularly, but still, that's adorable as all get out.
   I think the next one merits a deep and resounding sigh, because we have veered off from the sensible once again, and are now knee-deep in You Stupid Fuck territory. This one was called "Army Camouflage Costume."

   Upon viewing the illustration, I seized upon a vague suspicion, and via the magic of Photoshop have confirmed...

   That this outfit's capacity for camouflage vaguely equals that of a flamingo in a Mexican restaurant.

   Of course you'd have your Catholic School Girls...

   ...Who appear to be flying in the face of every single dress code restriction I remember being bound by since the first grade. And to match, here's the nun I'd like to imagine is in charge of Catechism class:

   I'm sure part of the appeal of the nun thing must be the idea of being disciplined by a woman in a position of power, and the whole ravaging of the vows of celibacy thing. Fair enough, I would very much take every advantage of getting on a time lord, which I'm sure is equally depraved and strange so I'll not begrudge some poor man in nun in fishnet stocking and bell-sleeved bikini top. That'd just be cruel. But my sticking point (hey now, nun of that. Fuck, sorry.) would have to be with the stupendous, fabulous idiot savant who wrote the item description. Firstly, in big fat bold letters I managed to misread the heading as

"Spunk Me!" Nun Costume

   I'm sure I need not explain in which ways that betrays my marvellously Freudian nature, but I don't think "Spank Me!" is that much of a step up really, filth-wise. The genius though was nestled in amongst the measurements and shipping specifics. The writer here is a man much like the beautiful mind that spent all that time crafting penis-spam emails especially for my pleasure. He has considered his audience and his subject matter, and as a tantalising little taster of the joys you could experience on the business end of this costume, he has chosen to entice you thusly:

"Papa dont preach to me

anymore

I've made up my mind 

to be a nun."

    I mean, come on. That's like porn haiku. I'll admit my first thought upon seeing those latex sleeves was something along the lines of  "No. Nononononono," but after such a great blurb I cannot but be wholly on board. Or holy on board. Or indeed, holey on board. 

   Again, I am really just so fucking sorry.

   Considering the time of year, it's not unusual that I came across every variant of the Sexy Santa Claus outfit, from the fairly tame...

    ...To the aesthetic first cousin of that maid's uniform I made happen at you earlier.

 

   Really, there's truly something for everyone. 

 

   There's Cleopatra as done by a David-Bowie-Man-From-Space-Porn Star...

   ...And Pam from True Blood as the world's most under-dressed pirate.

   I cannot understate the WTF value of the Sexy Sunflower idea, although I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere about pollinating.

   I found Sexy Grim Reaper, which consisted of an LED light skeleton printed on a leotard, and a Sexy Wolverine, to which I say: really? Haven't we done that already?

   Of course, my secret shame is that I would have every single one of the pirate costumes available shipped directly to my door and wear that shit like actual clothing. I've never met a flared sleeve (vampire-nun's pleather nightmare excepting) I didn't like, and I'm a medieval faire junkie, so no matter where they rank on the scale of slutty to shoe-lace-crammed-between-your-arse-cheeks, I want. Enough so that this isn't the first time I've trolled the adult costume section of Bid Or Buy in hopes of finding some plus-sized flowery thing horribly misappropriated as "pirate wear". They usually come with some gorgeous brocade military-look jacket or something with corset lacing, and I would wear all of it out into the world with jeans and my croc flats. 

   Look at that glory. It's all fucking fabulous, and while I'd be willing to get past the fact that most of them cost more than the amount of money I think a member of my family should be worth, they are also all "one size fits most," the utter wanking bastards. The only ones that come in baby whale sizes look like this:

  And I don't care what your bent is, but that right there is essentially what would happen if the gayest Barbie that ever there was got Hadron-Colliden with an all-female production of Pirates of the Chlamydian: On Stranger Rides. Again, I think the whole Pirate thing really just functions on Rule Of Cool over some deeper psychological drive, and maybe the fact that you get to wear boots so high they're in danger of invading your arsehole. Still, I don't really see the situation in which some guy is absolutely panting for a bubblegum flavoured first mate, no matter how many shiny fake cows died to clad it in tampon-blue.

    

   I can't for the life of me understand why you'd want to approach the whole Sexy Bride thing. Surely the whole idea of a bride really suggests having to wait for the sexuals? Is the appeal the idea of having been denied special privileges that you now finally get to cash in on like the end of Lent or something? If it's your wedding night (and you're not snot-faced on champagne) I'd be quite comfortable laying odds on you getting to, you know, lay odds, but wouldn't the promise of damn-near guaranteed sex rather be cancelled out by the knowledge that this is the very last place you'll get to lay those odds ever again? And just as a technical point: isn't there a bit of hooplah usually surrounding the wedding lingerie? I'd imagine this costume would either render that somewhat redundant or suggest that the bride is in the honeymoon suite, ripping off her Vera Wang princess gown to reveal underneath an essentially sluttier, skimpier version of exactly what she just had on. 

   There's a small chance I might be over-thinking it here. 

   Zombie Bride manages in one outfit to both call into question every issue Regular Slutty Bride does while also asking some damn awkward questions about necrophilic leanings, how and why this particular bride not only chose to wear black to her wedding but also came to be buried in the dress, and why the dress itself appears to consist of a black tutu that's been attacked by a roll of toiler paper. Out of all the odd tastes represented by Sexy Costumes Of Things, this might be the one where I defer to the "to each his own" school of thought. Best to let that dragon lie, really.

   I cannot possibly argue with Sexy Ninja. There's just no bone of contention that withstands that particular crotch of doom.

   Lastly, out of all the costumes I looked at, endured and then inflicted on you, I think that the following is the most likely to cause embolism and/or extended periods of weeping. Behold if you dare Sexy Pimp.

  Did not every boner in the whole wide world just melt? Hath not this outfit the kind of spasm-inducing, orgasm-killing power of a whole fleet of naked Steve Buscemis mid pole-dance? Is there a penis in the known universe that could will itself not to simply melt down its owner's butt-crack at the very sight of a woman clad in head-to-toe zebra print with pink fur trimming? I say nay, and I apologise for the last time today for any damage I may have wrought on your sex life or mental health with this post. I can only imagine the extent to be vast. 

   It would be reckless of me to leave you in this state, so as I bid you au revoir for now, I shall cheer you all the way back up with the following- 

 

   Good night and good luck.

My Late Early Twenties Thus Far.

   Helllllooooooo, my bunch of delightfully anonymous readers from progressively more unlikely corners of our lovely world. Boy howdy, do I have some stuff for you today. Let us start with the obvious- BIRTHDAY.

   There was a party, and even as I am writing this, there is actual, legitimate turning-23-ing going on. Some years ago, my ex Maartin and I threw a Tuxedo Karaoke party which was... less than karaoketastic. We decided to use the midi backtracks my mom makes for her singing students, but if you're not an Eisteddfod kid, it can be very hard not to hear mono-tonal generic bell-like sounds and stand in bafflement as to where the song starts or indeed which song it even is. We also went with the stellar option of trying to display the lyrics to each song on the computer monitor with "Tell me when to scroll down. Now? How 'bout now?" as regulation, and the end result was rather as much chaos as you'd expect. 

   This time I was going to do it right, and I was going to do it comfortable, goddamnit. Pyjama freedom for all. Of course when the invites went out, that meant more threats of nudity than I dare relay, and I wasn't even that hesitant to turn them all down. 

   Since the dreadful Tuxedo Karaoke, I had started scouting out karaoke tracks to keep just in case we were ever to attempt it again. Years of this hoarding means I have hundreds of tracks now, and the above picture is the front cover of the meticulously handcrafted karaoke catalogue I set up for my guests to use. It took some (ah ha ha ha. Some. I'm a bald-faced liar, "some" is wildly incorrect here) cajoling to get people to join in, but I had incentive. I had gold-foil covered chocolate Kruger Rands for willing participants, and they may well have mystical powers not unlike leprechaun gold.

   WARNING, ACHTUNG, Tangential Anecdote To Follow, DANGER DANGER:

When I was a kid, (all of the "kid" years, really, no need to narrow down) I was a fucking weirdo. (I'm a creeeeep....) PE and sport days were absolute obligatory, but the teachers knew me. They knew me well enough that when only a doctor's note could excuse you, I was the one sitting on the bleachers next to the kid with the broken leg, reading Thief Of Time. I didn't like sports, didn't like watching them, and didn't like participating- but to at least some degree, that was because I outright sucked ass at all of it. I tried out for the netball team, putting in many hours over weeks of hard work and training with the rest of the hopefuls, and didn't even make the M-team. Sometimes we'd play softball in PE class, and I LOVED being at bat, even hitting the ball sometimes, but then after that there was some form of running involved and rather a lot of angry people seemingly arbitrarily shouting at me to either keep running or for god's sake's stop on one of the, fuck, I dunno? Corners? Those things. Mostly, I didn't hit it, and it became clear that in this hellish sport, I was never going to be allowed to keep holding the bat, so that went pffffft too. In the sort of mini-around-the-neighbourhood marathon the school orchestrated for presumably Faustian reasons, the teacher simply handed me a water bottled and gestured to take a seat next to her at the first check-in point. Athletics like long-jump, and high-jump and what nots and doo dabs were never anything less than marrow suckingly embarrassing, and once everyone had realised I had a greater chance of actually, medically breaking my neck on the hurdles, I got to sit all that shit out. 

   But I'll tell you what: when accolades day came, and everyone who had achieved some kind of recognition for the semester got called up to the auditorium stage to receive their medals and hurrahs, I wished so hard for javelin throwing prowess I think I burned a bald-spot into Mrs. Potgieter's hair. I was always handed a little piece of paper with a gold sticker and some ribbon on it for Eisteddfod or the play, but all the people who had dared to hurdle their hurdles and jump their jumps (and rugby their rugby) always got solid, shiny, gorgeous medals. I cannot possibly express the extent of my longing for a medal. They seemed so tangible and irrefutable, and the weight of it around your neck must feel like the very measurement of real praise. In comparison, my little certificates were essentially no better than participation stickers to me. 

   I complained loudly and continuously enough that my awesome dad (of whom you have heard not a little) did his darndest one day (maybe not his utter darndest, though. I feel there's at least a small component of "take this and shut the fuck up, kid" to it, he could have put his back into it a little) and covered a milk jug's lid in foil to make me a make-shift medal. 

   Yeah, it didn't work. But now, years later in my age and wisdom, I can look back at that as one of my favourite gestures ever. 

   

   My point is that holding one of these damn chocolate Kruger Rands feels like the medal I wanted, and I find it as hard to eat as a cake with a face. Excellent prizes for humiliating yourself to The Lion Sleeps Tonight, I think.

   Baby Sam came along and fairly terrorised the cats. This is a generation of felines who have never had to deal with terror more or less at their standing height, and so his gentle "coo"s- and, you know, inoffensive jumping up and down and squealing at pitches hitherto thought outside the human hearing spectrum- shot Tesla through the house like a little lilac-pointed white ball of four-legged piss-streak. Much like when Sam sneezes or coughs (or does anything that a grown-up does, but in miniature), it was fucking adorable.

   This is the moment I have been hoarding Karaoke tracks for. It's Brenda and Sam singing Sexy Back with all of the aplomb that goes with Brenda and Sam singing Sexy Back. I put out all of my hats, scarves, sunglasses and props (of which there are many) so people could pimp out their pyjamas to suit the song they choose.
   Here's Dirk doing two different songs (as evidenced by him wearing two different hats), but doing what looks to me like the equivalent of two moves from the same dance. To whit:
  

   Hey.

Ho.

    Then there's Duane...

    In Duane-like splendour.

    We have Juan to the far right, hiding his face from the camera. Since the instant film costs like R16 a shot, I think the man owes me a drink for this shit.

   This was Verdale's solution to instrumental breaks. Air piano, which is obviously awesome.

   And since I was behind the instant camera, you may wonder if there's any photographic evidence that I attended my own party. Behold:

   Yes, that's me doing Wicked. Somehow I realise I end up spending a great deal of my life dressed as a wizard, and I'm kind of OK with that.

   But of course, you don't want to know about the stunning solos that included such classics as My Baby Just Cares For Me, I Got You Babe and Baby Got Back. You want to know what kind of awesome presents I got, largely because that's all I've been talking about for weeks.

   My own personal death-timer from Duane. BEAUTIFUL. And now I can cosplay Mort if the urge should strike.
   I also got a shopping spree from my dad, which netted- among other lovelies- sparkly shoes. His reaction was of course "Where the fuck are you going to wear those?" to which Duane responded most pleasingly on my behalf "Everywhere!" in a tone that suggested it was exactly as silly a question as it sounds. I got a Sheldon doll from Dirk, who knows me on levels I apparently don't even know myself because holy fuck how awesome is that? I'd never have thought of that, and I was drooling over these dolls not a month ago. I obviously am not as Sheldon-y as I thought, because didn't even give half a thought to ripping the packaging open and clutching my little Jim Parsons to my chest.

   Brenda, who is inscribed upon my soul in many ways, got me more books. That's a little like buying a drunk a drink, which is why I love her. You know someone cares about you if they're willing to feed your all-consuming mania.
   So as mentioned, my dad sent me on a spree, which is possibly the wisest way to satiate a female on a birthday. I decided to go to Menlyn which is one of the bigger and more confusing malls in the area. This is place is huge and Escher-like in its lay-out to the extent that a few years back, a kid (who was actually a friend of Cousin Carla's, in this small world) stabbed two other boys in the video arcade and one died while the paramedics were trying to find their way out of the mall. My rationale in this choice was that at that size, Menlyn ought to have everything. Spoiler: they didn't have everything. But more importantly, when we arrived there at about 10 AM, as soon as we parked the car a screeching alarm went off and people started barrelling out in their multitudes. My personal favourite was the small army of ladies in hair foils mid-colouring running out in their hairdressing capes, although I do feel rather bad for the state of their follicular health after that. There was no clear instruction on what was happening or what to do, although the bomb squad and fire department seemed to be there, and a shop owner locking up told me she reckoned it was probably just a drill. Weeks later and I still have no idea what it was, although on the phone a security personage with the mall said it had been an actual fire.

   (Just as an aside: one of my favourite gifts I got was a tin of Hello Kitty sweets and a lollipop wrapped up in a foil plate. Seriously, that made my week.)

    There was also some pub-quiz doings a little while before my birthday which begs a repeat. Dad, I and Duane got our thinking hats on and won second place down at a golf-flavoured pub not far from here. I took home our prize of the world's most useless bottle of wine seeing as how none of us really drink and if we did it certainly wouldn't be dry red. But dammit, I had my trophy and I'd be a fool not to use its innate magnitude and sheer itself-ness to lord over the poor fools trailing in third and fourth and so on.
   There was also a very pretty boy there who looked like Daniel Radcliffe, and I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn that my spastic attempts at smiling at him and my efforts to glance in his direction without seeming Tina-Fey drunk went absolutely no-where. Progress though, at least I hazarded the chance to look Tina-Fey drunk instead of staring at my shoes.


   I'm willing to call this one a win. The party ended up at the exact intersection of Drunk and Too Drunk that yields inside jokes and cringe-laughter, and I got practically a week and half of festivity out of it.
   Now, however, my attention turns to that greatest of domestic evils: moving. At the end of the month I need to be elsewhere than the home in which I currently reside, lest the new owners take umbrage to my bibliomanic squatting. Also, you know: packing. Finding a place to move into and putting things into boxes for the express purpose of moving them hither to thither are two things I have not yet done. I have turned off the panic button for now, instead quelling it with lashings of West Wing episodes and too much sugar. I'm sure it'll be fine. Me, four cats and about four square acres of books-'n-bits on Brenda's couch will probably be a healthy life experience. Should that cease to be an option, I can always earn my way in pub-trivia winnings.
   At least I have a fall-back plan.