Topics

16

Or Kill Me / But I'm Fine

« on: June 05, 2020, 12:41:31 am »

I got pepper sprayed but I知 fine
They trapped me and beat me with their bikes but I知 fine
I got hit in the leg with a rubber bullet but I知 fine
My eye ruptured when they fired a tear gas canister at my head and I am probably going to lose it after surgery tomorrow but I知 fine
but I知 fine
but I知 fine
but I知 fine
We keep saying it because we are breathing
Because others are not breathing
Because we don稚 want you to worry
Because we don稚 want to take up too much space
but I知 fine
And how much more would have to happen
how much do we need beaten out of us
How many tears do we shed
Before we admit we are not fine?
They are shooting at us
They are arresting us
They are running cars through us
But I知 fine
I知 not

17

Apple Talk / What We Do On February 30th Is Sacred

« on: May 14, 2020, 08:37:51 pm »

fucked if I know what that means, I woke up with the sentence seared in my forebrain. Have at.

18

Or Kill Me / Enlightenment

« on: February 18, 2020, 04:56:47 pm »

Enlightenment

listen to everything around you
listen, and tell me everything is well and good
listen and tell no lies

open your eyes and watch
see what happens in the shadows
what we hide from sight to keep up our perfect facade
to say that we are better than them
to say that it could be worse
to say at least you don't live there
excuses; all of them
told from those who annot see, and those who choose not to
those who are lucky enough to close their eyes and ears

many cannot
many are forced to see
many are born into what we say is not
we say they lie
we say it is their fault
we do not trust them
we should; you should

when you close your eyes the world is perfect
when you close your eyes the world is kind and fair
do not lose sight of that
envision that world and make it a reality
but never forget that it is not
never forget to look into the shadows
never forget the people that are hidden
never forget how they will be hidden
never forget how they will try and slander their names
the names of innocent; of victims
question who they push as heroes
question the words they use
question what you believe
and what you are told

19

Apple Talk / New version of QGP site up!

« on: December 09, 2019, 06:59:32 pm »

qgpennyworth.com is now 153% less shitty!

20

Literate Chaotic / This Guy

« on: December 09, 2019, 06:58:14 pm »

https://seat-safety-switch.tumblr.com/

Author of one new piece for Holy Nonsense already, I am probably gonna see about poaching a couple more of his before all this is over. I just love the tone.

You have to be really careful when you go videogame hunting. In times long past, videogame players used to have heightened reflexes from hundreds of hours immersed in their murder simulators, fed a steady drip of intravenous Mountain Dew and Doritos. Nowadays, though, you池e much more likely to be beaten half to death in the parking lot by gangs of 12-year-old girls dressed as Snorlaxes seen through the prism of a cocaine nightmare. As such, I was certain to dress boringly, and tuck away a few razor blades in my palm, just like when you go for a Boxing Day sale on gently-used DVD players.

21

Or Kill Me / Season of the Hag

« on: December 09, 2019, 04:46:10 am »

It is the season of the Hag
The season of the Sin Eater
A time of silent screaming
Of no resolution
Of no end to work
It is the season of Madness
Black cats and black hats
Of enthusiastically being the bad guys
Jerks for Justice
And I am no worthy vessel
All cracked and chipping
My alchemy unfit to the task
Of turning shit to purest gold.

22

Apple Talk / Coffee

« on: December 03, 2019, 05:30:57 pm »

Caffeine blocks adenosine, a neurotransmitter that makes you feel sleepy, and that's how it does the thing most people use it for: stay awake or wake the hell up. There's a lot more going on in the brain, though. It increases transmission of dopamine (motivation and pleasure), raises serotonin levels (focus and mood), and acetylcholine (may help long term memory). It's a well known fact that people with ADHD have different reactions to caffeine than the general population. Some folks don't bother with it because "it doesn't wake me up" and others seek it out aggressively because "it makes me feel better."

So I'm sitting here, looking at my mother's 5 coffee a day habit, going huh. And her bouncing back and forth between a million projects, and her inability to hold down a job, and her seeking out new found family units every decade or so, the sorted-but-still-somehow-cluttered craft supplies all over the old house and the attic. And I wonder about what her college trajectory would have been without me, whether she was holding it all together or if it was a constant struggle. I think about her ability to balance a checkbook and get done the barest essentials, and how it got foisted on her when she was ten and filed under "do this or die" and how different that is than the normal lessons in adulting we get.

And yeah, I know she had some CPTSD stuff going on, and a different easily diagnosed neurological disorder that explains the dyslexia and early struggles. But NF isn't necessarily the culprit when you're looking at adult behavior.

So I'm just sitting here, going huh.

23

Or Kill Me / Upset Them

« on: December 02, 2019, 05:59:44 am »

I know some of my friends are having a rough go of it right now. Some of you are having trouble thinking of reasons to wake up tomorrow. It's that time of year, it's okay.

I want to remind you that you should keep taking care of your meatsack and keep living, not because I would be sad without you or the world would be a darker place or whatever sappy bullshit you can get off of an inspirational poster. Nope, I'm here to remind you that you should live because it will piss off someone who deserves to be mad.

Listen, you're a weirdo. You don't fit in the mold and you never did. There are people who love you for that, but there are also people out there who get in a snit about it. There are people who wake up angry every day just knowing that there are people like YOU in the world. These people get their undies in a bind about you just going about your life being your best self. Fuck them. You should live because it upsets them. You should live to spoil their rotten view of how things are supposed to be.

And sure, you can live for the other weirdos, so they can see you in the distance and know they are not alone in this world, that there are others who are making a go of it in the wilderness, surviving in spite of everything. But the burden of their expectations and longing can be heavy in the small hours of the night, and sometimes you need something white hot and pure to hold on to.

Sometimes you need spite. If you fall off the face of the earth tomorrow, the assholes will not notice and will not care. If you continue to live, you will be a thorn in their side forever.

24

Apple Talk / NO MORE MARINARA

« on: November 30, 2019, 03:54:39 am »

http://nomoremarinara.com/

Ok, which one of you fuckers is responsible for this?

25

Apple Talk / Loss and Patterns

« on: November 25, 2019, 09:49:17 pm »

I live with pretty significant tinnitus. I've talked about it a bit before. There are plenty of things I can try to blame it on, from earbuds to my kids' screaming when they were babies, my loudass husband or the chant-leading I do. Fact is, my generation is LEADING THE CURVE when it comes to early-onset hearing loss, and I can remember having persistent (albeit less intrusive) ear-ringing all the way back to Kindergarten. But this isn't about environmental noise or generational misery, I wanna talk about chickens.

My landlord (who lives downstairs) keeps chickens. I think there are about a dozen of them, a mix of brown and barred rock hens. One day my husband was lying next to me and said something about "those fucking chickens." There was a pause while I looked at him in utter confusion, and then he remembered. "Oh, that's right, you probably can't hear them."

It's weird, because I can't really think of myself as disabled. I can manage in most situations just fine, even if I do sometimes have to ask people to repeat themselves, or turn my good ear to face someone speaking softly. There are times I just smile and nod (and my smile and nod game is ON POINT, lemme tell ya). I can do phone calls and I can usually keep up with television, and movies are so loud now I'm pretty sure the dead can make out the dialogue.

But this isn't just a story about loss.

I started writing this because those fucking chickens are at it again. See, now that he mentioned they crow at random hours of the day, I can make sense of that part of the noise, hear it clearly even though it's softer than the racket in my head. It has become Signal, and brains are very good at picking out signal. This isn't unique to the chickens, either. When I'm listening to music it can take a sometimes distressingly long time to catch the beat, to find a lyric or something to catch my pattern-seeking on, but once it catches it's like the whole thing comes into focus. Confusing sounds settle into familiarity. I can sing along if I want to.

Things are getting worse. I feel sometimes like I'm in a race against the clock, trying to cram as many auditory patterns in my skull as I can before things pass a threshold and new information can't be put in. Because I know even if I completely lose this sense, I will be able to fake it quite convincingly. I ill be able to parse the faintest hints of a song, the look of a face as words are being formed, and I will hear the whole pattern. It may not be entirely accurate, it may be dead wrong, but there will still be that internal experience of sound.

Even out of the primordial chaos, I will be able to fabricate the chickens crowing.

26

Or Kill Me / It Will All End In Tears

« on: October 20, 2019, 10:07:26 pm »

It will all end in tears and I choose this with eyes open.

It will all end in tears because everything worth a damn does, because even happy endings are endings and there are things we never want to end, because even good things can go wrong and if you never leap you never know so get over the ledge already.

Oh you: once burnt, twice burnt, too shy to get burnt again, there is nothing I want more for you than to be burnt again. To feel every nerve on fire, to know you have a heart for sure because it is breaking.

It will all end in tears and what else could you possibly hope for? A quiet life was never for us, a life of listless apathy. There is nothing worth having that is not worth crying over, that will not make you cry in the end. And there is a difference between loss and abuse, between the things we have to leave the things we should have known better than and the things that make life worth living, that make life hollow in their absence. Not every pain belongs on a pedestal.

Oh you, in your doubt and your ruminations, I wish nothing more for you than to know the tears that have been shed, that will be shed, in the wake of your presence. The beautiful mess you have left and are leaving.

It will all end in tears, and you are worth crying over.

27

Or Kill Me / The Revolution Is Not In Need Of Martyrs At This Time

« on: October 12, 2019, 06:24:15 pm »

This letter is to inform you that The Revolution is not in need of any martyrs at this time. We are all set on names for hashtags, on candlelit vigils, on impassioned pleas from mourning relatives. The blood shed on the streets already is quite enough for a lifetime of fighting, thank you.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Those among you who are feeling too sharply the weight of the world, who are carrying your own personal fights and disappointments, who have been quietly looking for a way to unburden yourself without abandoning your post, know that you are heard. Unfortunately a death on the front line is no longer a valuable contribution to the cause. You will need to find your peace in other ways. 

There simply is no need for another man on fire, another woman shot down in her prime, another body found in suspicious circumstances. There are no openings for dead heroes at this time. We are, in fact, overstaffed in that regard.

You need to get your shit together. We need you fit for the fight. We need your boots on the ground and your voice on the megaphone. We need your labor, your time, your experience. Take a break if you have to. Seek out comfort where you can find it and comfort others as you are able. We need all of you. Alive.

Again, The Revolution is not in need of martyrs at this time.
Thank you.

28

Or Kill Me / Found Fragment

« on: October 12, 2019, 05:41:10 pm »

But there is something that you've missed
In your raucous journey of the soul
You've cataloged the holy texts
But words alone won't make you whole
You were sent to learn, to teach
To write the story of yourself

29

Aneristic Illusions / What Happens When a Discordian Runs for Office

« on: October 04, 2019, 05:10:44 pm »

We're closing in on a month to do, so I thought I would provide you all with some updates.

1) Nobody gets the apple. This makes me so happy you don't even know.
2) I have learned how to make people I don't like do emotional labor for me. This is a beautiful thing.
3) People I don't know know my name. This is deeply uncomfortable for someone who spent a long time going almost exclusively by aliases, but I'm dealing with it.
4) Accidentally dropping the Candidate Mask in the right crowd wins you friends and potentially votes. Gotta read the room.
5) I am not above accepting votes from folks letting their boners decide.
6) An old woman told me how enthusiastic she was that they will be lowering the voting age to 18. She is my best bet for getting any votes in her senior housing facility, which is also a polling location.
7) Smiling with too many teeth is now my default setting.

30

Or Kill Me / I See You

« on: September 23, 2019, 07:06:08 pm »

You are here and you have risked so much and whether you knew how difficult this day would be when you got up or you have stumbled into the deep end it's ok either way. You are here. The work you are doing matters.

You have chosen your outfit, chosen your footwear, chosen the things you would carry and the things you would leave behind. And if you have done a good job and these things are serving you well or if you did not know that flip flops are not protest wear it doesn't matter because you pulled yourself together you got out the door you are here. The work you are doing matters.

I know this is not all you are doing and I know that everything you are doing feels like it's never enough, like there's never enough progress, never enough of yourself to go around. I know you have lost things to this fight.

What we do is not heroic, is not cinematic, is never ending. It is work. And some days you do it on the street and other days there are other avenues. The war we fight exists on infinite fronts. And if you have never gone into battle before, you are here now. You are part of this. You have chosen the side you will stand on.

I see you.