Boys Next Door

I just read the most INTENSE manga.

Have you ever read, or seen, something that was horrifying, depressing, shocking, beautiful, inspiring, all at once, but was still good? I just did. And by "good", I definitely don't mean that it left me with inspiring, happy feelings. I mean that it blew my mind. I can't decide if it's a horror story, or a love story, or a psychological teaser, or... what.

It's a manga titled "Boys Next Door." It's one volume, only three chapters, but the story is so well told I feel I've just lived an entire lifetime. It follows the love affair of two men; Adrian is living a double life: he's a kind-hearted teacher helping abandoned children during the day, and during the night he's a serial killer. Lawrence is a male prostitute.

It opens at the climax, and then quickly rewinds to show the steps that led to the critical point. There are a lot of flashbacks because the past is a crucial part of the present. The plot is as full of twists and turns as a labyrinth, moving forward quickly. The characters are twisted and complex. The art! It's gorgeous, dark and grotesque, lush and haunting. The layout is perfect. A starved sort of beauty.

If you don't want to read something unsettling, don't read this. If you're homophobic or have a problem with yaoi, don't read this. If you don't like bloody stories, don't read this. But if you want something intense, something that'll play with your mind, something that'll take you on an emotional and mental rollercoaster, something that'll make you think and question, then read it. Devour it. Sit down some afternoon with a cup of coffee and a teddy bear and chug it in one feel swoop. And when you're done with it, don't do anything. Just sit there. Sit there and let it simmer in your mind so you can get the full flavor of it.

"Cook me for a day and night... make me into stew. Afterwards, suck my bones clean. When my entire body has been eaten by you, I can finally become your flesh and blood. Then... I'll belong entirely to you..."

Read Boys Next Door

Meet the World

One night I had a conversation with myself. I was lying there in the dark in my room, thinking about the future (as I usually am), and I thought, "I think I'm afraid of the world."

So I asked myself, "What are you going to do about it?"

I am going out to meet the world head on. No more flinching or hesitating or avoiding. I am going to (as Nike says) just do it. I am going to be unflinchingly honest and stop caring what people/colleges/employers think of me as a person. If they don't like my views, too bad for them.

I think perfectionism (and procrastination as well) is a shield. You go around pretending that you're not getting anything done because "it isn't ready yet" or "it's not perfect yet". I say, no cigar. Sugar. Bueno. Whatever. No whatever.

There's no right way to get through life, so does it really matter which way you go about it?  So what if you fail? You have to fail a lot before you ever succeed, and since you learn from failures, the more you fail, the smarter you get.

This all sounds great, but the truth is it's hard to remember when I'm actually out there.

A Tarot Sign

I was sitting at Avanti's, waiting for my pizza and looking for a pen in my bag, when my hand fell upon my pack of tarot cards. I paused. I had forgotten that they were in there; they were in a side pocket that is rather inconspicuous if you're not looking for it. It felt like my hand wanted to stay there, wrapped around the cards; so, I pulled the pack out. I put my hand into the plastic baggy I keep my cards in, and my fingers were drawn to a card in the middle of the deck. I pulled it out.

It was a major arcana. Judgment.

I didn't know the exact meaning, but it felt significant nonetheless. I stared at it. It has a painting of an angelic creature on it, blowing a trumpet. When I got back to the dorm, I looked the exact meaning up.

It's a challenge.

The judgement is the moment where you're supposed to face your past; not just face it, but resurrect it, forgive it, and put it to rest. In other words, there's something I have to do. Something I've been putting off. I can guess what it is well enough, but whether I admit it or not is another matter entirely.

Spartan Beauty

I've been thinking a lot about being poor, which sounds strange when I say it.

What started it was reading Holly's  Black's Modern Faerie Tale series and listening to an interview with her saying how she wanted to keep the gritty realism of life in her books. The characters in her books are mostly poor. The only one I can think of who isn't is Val, but she doesn't count. She and her mother are probably middle class, but Val runs away and lives on the streets. Dave, Lolli, and Luis all live on the streets, too. Kaye and her mother move from apartment to apartment, frequently living with her mother's friends and boyfriends. Kaye works to help support them until she decides to stay with her grandmother. Corny lives in a trailer park and works at a gas station. Roiben lives under a hill of dirt, and he starts out as a slave to the fairy queen.

Part of what I love about these books is that the characters sort of "rise above" their circumstances. Not that they become noble, self-sacrificing martyrs; they're real, honest human beings who do their best and don't let where they came from determine who they become.

The other thing that got me thinking about this was reading about Hayao Miyazaki. I've become obsessed with his movies lately, and I read that his films pay hommage to the working class. Most of his characters have a honest determination about them that comes from having to work to earn their keep. In my favorite film of his, Spirited Away, Chihiro has to learn to work hard as a coming-of-age process.

There's something vulnerable, a wild beauty, about being a part of the poor working class. Maybe it's because life is simpler, less clouded with high-and-mighty morals. Maybe it's because there's a humility there that lets us all be real.

Her Name is Chi

And she is me.

Or at least, she's loosely based on me. Granted, she's a little thinner, and her hair is longer. She has super thick hair down to her waist, and it's always going everywhere. She has my brown eyes with fantastic eyebrows and my adorable button nose. She's got my olive skin tone and wide hips. Like me, she wears only black. She's a lesbian, like me, and loves coffee. She's a sarcastic geek with quirky habits.

She is a barista, working in the world of Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside. I'm writing a fanfiction for that series. It's a few years after the events of Ironside, and Chi is an employee at Kaye's coffee/book shop, Moon in a Cup. Everything is normal.

Then a woman charges into the shop, interrogates and curses Chi, and leaves.

What? But why? When Corny (now called almost exclusively "Neil"), Kaye, and Chi seek answers, Chi's curse is quickly lifted, but it leaves behind more questions. The woman was working for someone; who? Why did she curse Chi? Where are the disappearing fey going? Who wants Kaye, and why? Why is Chi missing her memories? Will Corny and Luis get back together? Will Kaye and Chi end up together? (No. They won't. Kaye is already paired with Roiben.)

Oops. A spoiler. Which is fine, since that what readers would have expected anyway. The real mystery is what's in store for Chi.

I have the whole story plotted out. It's going to be novel length, maybe a little bit short. I've been working on it. I won't be able to work on it this week because I have tests, but I'm hoping for next week. I absolutely refuse to post any of it until I have the whole thing done. This is just in case a) I turn into a slacker and never get it done (don't want people to enjoy the first few chapters, only to be disappointed that they'll never know how it ends), and b) so I don't end up having to fix plot holes in the early chapters as I write the later ones.

So that's what up. Just felt like writing a quick post about it, I guess.

Crazy Things

My, my. The things I write at 2:30 in the morning. I churned out this after reading the first few chapters of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance saturday night.

"So. Say I'm crazy. Say we're all difference kinds of crazy, and "normal" is merely the reigning madness. What does that mean for us?
"What kind of person am I? What's my crazy?
"I'm always going to be questioning, looking at the world through an unusual ontological lens. I will always be searching for myself, and my curse is that I will never find myself. And in the spirit of searching, I will always be challenging other people, poking holes in the way they see things, in who they are.
"How do other people see their own existences? Do you think they recognize the crazy, or do they catalogue everything into a mental system to keep themselves comfortable? They've got so much one-size-fits-all slang so they don't have to look too closely at anything; they can just slap a label on it and laugh. And they blink, like Nietzsche's last men. They have no focus.
"What is meaning to them? What is life or identity, or even intelligence? They think with cheap copies of ideas, mistaking them for reality. Nobody questions.
"What place does "crazy" have in this madness?"

Tarot Reading 22 January 2012

The Tower: a sudden realization, a rude awakening, sudden and uncomfortable disclosure of truth
Five of Swords: a conflict, possibly spiritual
The Stars: an aquarian card that looks to the future; hope and healing, the reassurance that there are resources to help you