Black As My Soul

And Then I Knew

In answer to a question:

1. Bare breasts: Top was pulled up, bra cups pulled down.Tender and delicate.
2. The glint of chrome on an inexpensive cheese grater, the kind to finely grind Parmesan or Romano.
3. Fear.

Just the briefest moment was all it was. No more than that. I don't know where these ideas come from, but it was mine.

So then, "No." It was not a phase, neither had it gone away.

It occurred to me that I think in images, fairly literally. Impressionistic moments. To these I can assign context, emotion, causality, narrative.

Some of that is no doubt attached to the media I most consumed as a young man: Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, Cheri, Oui, Swank, High Society.

Even in the golden age of the VCR I did not prefer video.

Because I am not the director.

Letting Go of What I Am Not

I have spent a lot of time defining myself as "I am not this," or "I am not that," or "I can't do this," or "I would *never* do that."

Frequently, as I can not know the future, I have been wrong. Furthermore, I have limited myself ways that I didn't understand until the moment when I knew that I was, and that I would.

I choose to put my energy more fully into what I am, and to what I might be.

Back-Pedaling, RE: I Killed the Twitter Account Today.

Updated: 4/21/2009

I don't know much, save for I am embarrassed about yet another tantrum online.

I created a different Twitter account, "awareoflust," and I have linked to it on my "About" page.

I'm still trying to simplify and sort things out, but I realize some purges are destructive. Unfortunately it was not until well after the nuclear strike was launched that I began to think perhaps I had been hasty.

I really don't understand my mood swings, nor do I understand how you, dear reader, tolerate them.

Please accept my apologies for misdirected rage.

Previously:

Sinner is not a micro-blogger. Though in some ways I began that way, with the old posts of a mere sentence and no title.

Sometimes I miss those days, more of a stream of consciousness with less self-analysis.

I am here.

I will be here.

I Was Wrong, Of Course.

There is much written about your nature: the essence, the aspects, and the powers therein.

Not trifles.

Again, I am in awe.

But beware. My essence and my aspects are coming into focus.

Because Sex Is Frightening? Because Sex Sells?

Because of recent decisions at Amazon, some folks are thinking it may be necessary to redefine Amazon Rank.

Via Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, via Sexual Alchemy

There is Still Ink in the Well.

The ink is so rich with ochre that I cannot see the bottom. Darkness that can stain and spill and spread and make opaque, yet with which forms can animate and take shape, creating visions, modifying sensibilities, affecting change.

In my head sometimes I feel like I am still 17. Perhaps this will not change. Seventeen-times-seven years may come and I may never understand where the time has gone.

The crows and the bees they speak to me. Messengers and signifiers at once. I don't think this is strange anymore, though I don't pretend to understand it yet. I hear more voices than I ever used to, or perhaps I now I notice a language where before I was told there was noise and no purpose. I am listening.

I study the holy writs, the codices, the histories, the epics and especially the things that are not any of these. I want to know, and do you know I have learned much.

But all of these have so very little to say about the most human part of us, why we want to multiply.

Lust is a very deep vein. I drink heartily.

Trying to Break Through the Feeling I'm Overwhelmed

A post in which I will whine and feel sorry for myself.

For almost the past two years I have worked two jobs: a full-time Monday-through-Friday proposition, as well as a part-time job in which I have worked anywhere from one to three evening shifts on week nights, then two eight hour shifts on alternating weekends.

You know, it's not that much work in the sense that it's about 56 hours per week. I've put that many hours in at one job, easily. I've worked 80 hour weeks. I'm a trooper. I can do it. And I'm willing to do whatever is required. This schedule amounts to 12 days on, 2 days off. 12 days of a minimum of an 8 hour shift, 4 of those 12 days I work 12 hours. Again, I know some people work every day. I know some people have no job and I'm complaining about two.

I just feel like, fundamentally, I am doing it wrong.

I have become fiercely protective of my time off. On evenings that I'm not scheduled to work, I don't want to do anything but go home. I have friends who have weekly or more often gatherings. I show up once every six months or so, mostly because I feel guilty that I'm not around more often. I tell my friends what my schedule is, then when they schedule something on my free weekends, I get pissed. I want to sleep in and do nothing. No demands. No schedules, no rushing off. I need my down time. I need it so that I can recharge and face the world.

I feel neglectful of my pets. I don't like that when I get home at night they want to play and I want to be left alone. I don't like that when they see me in the morning they want to play and I'm trying not to step on them while I rush around trying to get ready for work.

I feel neglectful of my Flower, of my love life. She needs me. Here again I've set my routine up wrong. The time flies away from me. After work, dinner, a TV show or two, reading news, and suddenly it's 11:30 PM. I finally feel relaxed from the day before and I should be sleeping and resting for the day to come, but this is when my mind becomes the most noisy and sleep comes least easy.

By the Tuesday after my weekend off I'm waking up tired, angry, and late again.

I'm doing it wrong.

Where this blog is concerned, I have terrible writer's block. So, instead of writing post after post in which I say nothing, I have chosen not to write. Additionally, I've chosen to rein myself in with regard to writing stuff that's simply about anger and judgement–or worse, boredom. I want my posts to be something that I would find interesting if I were to encounter it randomly surfing from another blog or from a web search.

I've hardly written a word of fiction in three years. Honestly, I'm really stressed about my financial situation. I'm angry at myself that it hasn't gotten better, faster. And frankly if there is any one reason I haven't written erotica, I feel that it's the financial drama that has sucked the sexiness right out of me. And by that I mean that I don't feel sexy when I'm worried about making the paycheck last.

And it comes back to me feeling that I'm doing it wrong.

What keeps me going is that the world does keep turning. For all of my doom, gloom, paranoia and anxiety, the world keeps turning. The Sun keeps rising. Flower keeps choosing to stay with me. And I, and we, have always found a way.

So it is, I get another chance to get it right.

Magus

As though from nowhere, suddenly there you are in a place which until a moment before was completely unknown to you, yet here it is like it has always existed.

The room is dark. Some sort of books and equipment. Not rigidly organized. Your eyes are still adjusting to the darkness. Not really an office, but about that size. Like a laboratory or a kind of library?

There is a tall, dark silhouette in front of you, a man, apparently, facing his desk or table... or workbench. For the moment, his attention is not on you. The room is quiet. You remain still. You are observing... something.

The source of the warm light in the room is in front of him. It seems to dance, giving life to the shadows.

When his head turns fully to one side, and he pauses, you can see the outlines of his face in the contrast of bright and shadow. As you try to place his face, you also realize he is looking at you, meeting your gaze with a slight nod.

Did you bring yourself here? Or did he call you?

All The Presidents' Girls

I am deeply intrigued by All the President's Girls. It's a page that features understated oil-on-paper portraits of women known or alleged to have been girlfriends or mistresses of Presidents of the United States of America.

The link above takes you to a thumbnail page. Each portrait (head and shoulders) appears on its own page with the name of the woman in the portrait and the President with whom she is associated. Your mind is left to fill in the missing information with what you know or don't know.

Via BoingBoing

The Man Behind the Curtain

Slowly, everything is revealed. Less and less is hidden away.

Life is more comfortable. 

There Is No Void

Venus, your pentacle.

Hera, the milk from your breasts.

Nut, the stars on your skin.

Vascillation: Expansion vs. Contraction

One continual struggle I have is the focus of this site.

• Do I leave this blog simply as a repository for the things I cannot or would not say in my day-to-day life?
• Do I write every neurotic, anxious, random or repetitive thing that comes to mind?
• Do I wait for focus, write, edit and post only polished and completed thoughts?
• Do I expand the topics I write about, giving me more fuel for more posts while simultaneously risking alienating long-time readers who may have no interest?
• Do I compartmentalize myself into small sub-projects (multiple, focused blogs), each of which only can receive loving attention in limited time-slices?

And then I get a little angry at myself for worrying about all of the above.

Of course, there is no one blog anywhere on the internet that represents the entirety of a person or the entirety of a group. It's not possible that the words and symbols I use to describe myself could ever stand in for who I am at any moment in time.

This is the sort of angsty crap that keeps me from writing.

Technical Difficulties

I seem to be having issues with email. I'm trying to get them cleared up, but some test messages I've sent seem to have gone into the aether.

I located one old DNS record that was in error. Removing that may have helped somewhat. May take hours or days for that to go away, unfortunately.

Also trying to determine how/why TypePad is behaving as though it's my domain registrar. Very confused about that last. They are showing as authoritative for the blog domain, though they are not my registrar, and my registrar's MX records are correct and show as correct when I do look-ups from various networks.

Some gets through, some does not. This is me not knowing where my email is going.

Gratitude

Flower: i just miss you
Flower: that's all

Sinner: I don't like being away from you
Sinner: Not at all
Sinner: It's hard seeing you for a few minutes and then taking off again

Flower: i know 
Flower: i'm just grateful for that time however small

Sinner: Thank you for saying that.
Sinner: I know you're not just saying that
Sinner: My point is,
Sinner: I needed to hear it, to remind myself to be grateful for what I do have
Sinner: Thank you

Flower: i love you

Sinner: Flower, I love you.
Sinner: Will you marry me?

Flower: : baby :
Flower: in a million ways on a million days
Flower: yes, yes, yes

She still loves me.

Too Many Things I Could Write

Every thought takes on its own life.
Takes my words far from my original intent.
Posts begun yet left incomplete because they stray.
All stray.
That's not what I wanted to write.

I worry about the well running dry.
I worry about repetition.
I worry that I'm too worried.

This too will pass.

I am impatient

I'm Very Cautious

Some would say cautious to a fault.

Sometimes I need you to come get me or to say, "Come here."

That doesn't mean I'm a puppy who comes when called.

It just means that I like certainty. I like to go where I know I'm welcome. And I need you to know that nothing is taken for granted.

Where I fail you is in how I keep forgetting the certainty, requiring reassurance. And because I forget the certainty, I don't express my own desire.

Forgive me.

"I'm a Man With a Mission..."

"A boy with a gun

I got a picture in my pocket of the lucky one

Who doesn't know

I'm a big mess..."

~Devo "Big Mess"