Oh beautiful day: part two

The Polish and African neighbors were all in it together. You wouldn't want to be talking too loudly, because then they'll hear we would be leaving. The manic paranoia crushes your a heart a bit as it stares you into the face. Am I really going to do this with the mum and the dad? The sun's out, warm and comforting, oh glorious Sunday, but there's a nagging chill inside. One could say it is fear and trepidation.

Dad's all ready for it, with sturdy walking shoes, and a backpack for the books. Mum and dad chat away about the places they used to live long before I was born. About people they used to know, but oh how they can't remember their names. They share some comforting cliches about old age and the memory going. Mum asks whether we're being followed by a car. That's a conversation stopper right there, mum.

We walk into the tent, get our bearings. They both get a pull cart for the books, and off they are, dad towards the science and life books, mum towards the English section. Dad bunkers down solidly. Mum's looking slightly panicked, not really looking at titles or covers, just breezing past, one eye looking for the exit.

I ground her. Together we do the English section. The urge to flee is right under her skin, groping for excuses. Shouldn't you look out for your dad, where is he? But dad's only five meters further down the isle he started by the time we're finished. His cart is filled to the brim though. All books of science, very interesting! We need to check out and come back for more! I drag up the zen mothers all over the world find somewhere deep in their bellies when talking to wayward children. We're not doing that, dad. Don't you have plenty of books already? Besides, my car isn't big enough. But some of these books are only 2 euros! The manic desire to own everything that's on cheap offer staring brazenly into my face. They start chatting, hoorah, and mum forgets she wants to flee and dad forgets he wants to by the world for a penny.

The chill nags, like a sleepy cat repositioning on my lap.
I come from these two broken people.
Am I like this?
If not now, than later?

And upon this burden gets heaped the praise for their prodigal sons, who are not here to drive them to bookfairs on their only free Sunday this month. Not here to face their demons. Their amazing first born. Their amazing second born.

And by the time we're home, and they can rest from this formidable excursion, the world has gone grey to me, again, and tasteless. No matter how well the sun shines.

Oh beautiful day: part 1

The sun shines bone warming rays. The air still got that brittle cold from a spring night with clear open skies. Today we go on an expedition, me mum, me dad, and me. But first, what comes before...

Mother
Me mum threw everything out, old clothes, old books, old friends. There are walls around her. Within she is alone. All alone. Nothing but strangers around her, and new things she doesn't always remember buying. New stuff that isn't as good as the old stuff, but the envious and petty people took all that stuff away. She doesn't remember throwing everything out. I've learned not to point that out, because she's a proud woman, and she forgets many things but things like that. She's not crazy, I'm a snotnosed brat that always knows better, is what it is.

So there, I shrug, and frown a bit, and make noncommittal sounds and just let her explain the strange world she lives in, when I'm not around. Everyday I fight silently, to get her past her own walls. Small steps, little sips. I visit every day. When I don't I call. Everyday five minutes or more to break the monologue in her mind with which she builds those walls and mans them with envious neighbors that live in the ceiling and make noise just to spite her.

Father
Me dad's a hoarder. Discounts are his addiction. Five for the price of six makes him buy two packs of something he does not need. The amount of stuff a person can buy in case per chance one day one might need such a handy two-penny piece of plastic crap is amazing. We should go back to his house one of these days to get a few bobs and bits he still needs, and then he can sell the house.

Me dad, like my mother, forgets. Since the brain clot, not a lot gets written down in long term memory. He manages, with little notes. He adapts. He's a good little soldier like that. But what he doesn't remember is: things change. At first it's maddening, having to explain again that the clothes he has in the apartment are all the clothes he has, and no, there is no closet in the old house filled with clothes. Then it becomes maddening, because every time again I have to explain how come all his cameras are gone, all his flashlight, all his clothes, anything of value, and every time again it breaks his heart. And I wonder if he's ever going to remember once we do sell the house?

Events leading up to the expedition
Dad saw a notice for a bookfair in the paper. He's never been to one. He lies, because he thinks it will get him what he wants. In this way parents become like little children. But yes, I'll gladly spend a few hours of those hard to come by free days, to visit this bookfair with him. I'll be having to break his heart about the amount of  books I'm willing to stow away in my car. He might not be able to cope with it when there's too many people around and than he'll want to go home before have laid eyes on a first title. But I'm thinking maybe I can get me mum along, out from behind her walls? I'll sell it as like I don't know if I can cope with dad if he gets funny. I know it makes her feel strong, when she thinks she's in better shape than dad. So of course she will come; she won't tell me it's because she really needs to get out of the house but is too afraid of the world, but says she'll help me with dad. So in the end we all lie in preparation of the great expedition.

The Valley

Goddamn, and it's hot and dry here. For as far as they eye can see. Wish I had a smoke now.

I dared God didn't I? Said next time I would hold up my goddamned dead cat as the accusation it was meant to be.

'xcept, cat didn't die. Just got that damned luxury hoe disease: diabetes. Yup, right when I finally thought I got my life back where I wanted, with dad living in his own place, crazy mom in the other, 'social' brother somewhere where everybody can see the pics and nobody ever question whether dude has his very own mom and pop alive yet besides mom-in-law in the pics.

It's in the little big things, isn't it? Seriously, I'm so happy it ain't the kidneys that went kaphloey. Slightly gnnnignni at the vet for not wanting to check his blood earlier because something's been wrong for a while, and no it's not a sudden flea allergy but hey in the meanwhile he lost all his ballast and more.

Happy happy. But this is me, getting up at least 7h30 to feed a cat and jab him with insulin, for the next ten years or more. Being home at 19u30 to 20h to do the same. Shit bastards were supposed to be my freedom in comparison with kids.

I hear you say, digiblips, that's where and when one learns not to dare God and shit.

You're using my cat against me, bitch? I'm going to find the nastiest chthonic bastard and team up to bring that fuck down, yeah.

Tired

• of people who should know better, since writing is what they do, than to contribute to the easy pegging of names/words to people, whether the issues are racism, religiously inspired dumbassery, feminism, and all other sorts of morality based judgments. We've got enough crap like that going on TV and the blogosphere as it is.
• of people who should know better twice-over, since writing Sfaich is what they do, than to contribute to reigning and ever-growing dumbassery that everything can be reduced to one simple word, one single issue. If world-making is already such a daunting task, why not learn from the experience and deduce that the real world is an even more daunting place to describe accurately?
• of people who should know better thrice-over, since they have hands-on experience on dealing with readers who may or may not give the whole extent of their lifework but a casual glance before making an easy single-word judgment based on a paragraph or even one book out of many. If you're not prepared to read up on the complicated field of ethics, don't make simple judgments based on an article or two, and especially don't parrot others who were obviously just as lazy.

Or, to quote my man Marcus:

Word after word, every one by itself, must the things that are spoken be conceived and understood; and so the things that are done, purpose after purpose, every one by itself likewise. And as in matter of purposes and actions, we must presently see what is the proper use and relation of every one; so of words must we be as ready, to consider of every one what is the true meaning, and signification of it according to truth and nature, however it be taken in common use
~Meditations, Book VII.4

DO YOU SMELL ME DED?

You know, yesterday I was getting all stressed about the tons of serious but rubbish words I've been typing out lately for the fencing club's paperwork, feeling quite miserable about the timeflippingsink it is. Today's silver lining: well, at least this work earns money! Alright alright, it's all for the club, but it's money, right?

So, as stress relief I started sorting through my memory box (see piccie below: yes, it a big shiny black box and it gots all kinda memories inside) and came across my first rejection in life. It included the reader report of my far too short and supershitty work of art (hey, shit happens when you're 16). The reader ends his or her short report with a remark that, while my piece was too short for publication, I'm one to be watched.

I might go hardieharr (with black stuff oozing through the teeth) at that particular line now, 20 years later and hung over from all the recent sockboozing. But it does sort of warm the cockles of my heart that there is ... something. Whether that something can ever become something marketable, well... That's a whole different story.

No, the real funny thing is that my brain is a paranoid misanthropic bastard, so for years I never really *saw* that letter when I came across it. I just saw NO THANK YOU and TOO SHORT and NEEDS WORK, instead of QUITE ELABORATE STYLE AND THEMATICS FOR A 16Y OLD, GOOD NARRATIVE SKILLS.
And, it's not like the tealeaf reading I could be doing with the recent rejections; no no, those words are actually there, black on white.

Really, who needs a brain like that?

Black Box

Duplicity

So, once in a while my mind produces an ethical brainfart. I'm thinking it comes from a cousin of the Cow Watcher, since the idea/question comes to me in the same way as most of Cow Watcher's ideas for plots, stories or characters: not quite out of the blue, but finding a basis in a strange concoction of unrelated subjects occupying my mind. I can usually trace down pedigrees or roots of such light bulbs (or halo spotlights in the face interrogation style, depending) but most of the time I don't even want to.

The latest ethical brainfart is:
So, Stephanie Meyer. She's famous. She earns lots of money with crappy writing concerning a subject she confessed (or self-proclaimed) to know nothing about.
I can see where an agent and/or editor grasps the novelty of her ideas with both hands, but surely at one point one of those "professionals" must have also grasped the ideas that while the books are aimed at a public that will easily forgive crappy writing and the novelty would easily make the series a major hit (ka-ching!), the backlash at Meyer's creation and person would be enormous. Let's not forget that the backlash was already huge on J.K.Rowling who at least is a better writer.
The main ethical problem being: agents and editors are all about their darling authors and how they really like to treat them well and have long relationships with them and such, but the Meyer case seems to prove duplicity in motive. While I do find some amusement in the ridicule surrounding Twilight, some part of me wonders about Meyer: Is money enough to ignore (or pay the shrink bills or medication needed to get to the point of being able to ignore) that for every loving fan you have a hateful fanatic? That for every website expressing total love to your creation there's two finding all new ways to mock it? Loving fans are already an image from nightmare hell to me, hating fanatics are ten times worse. How does she get up and/or look in the mirror every morning? Somewhere along the line, one of those professionals that love their author so should have explained the dangers of being a bit of a deluded twit to Meyer, methinks.
Yup, duplicity. Not unlike the duplicity of the claim that they really hope to find excellent authors of novels that will survive the centuries (a formidable task considering the enormous slushpile), but they are simply forced to settle time and again for whatever sells. And this methinks is the logical consequence when you have agents work on commission whilst unable to dictate the market. Or something. It's a bit of a complicated brainfart anyway.