Dandy Lions

It was the best of times, it was the blog of times.

2011-01-11T17:31:00.004+11:00

I cant decide on a platitude to summarize my ironic and well overdue shift to a new medium. Something about a better ship and a sinking late than never or a house made out of rocks. Anyway, hop aboard the misery train haters.
TUMBLR THIS

2011-01-10T00:12:00.006+11:00

The depth of your cuntfuckery are astounding. But then again, so was that one episode of Futurama, and its not like I hold it against Matt Groening.
Things I will hold against Matt Groening:
1. Making me cry in Jurassic Bark.
2. My body.

EDIT:

I can neither confirm nor deny that I wish to retract my last statement.

2011-01-09T16:49:00.014+11:00

For a little while there I was concerned that I had lost the fury which constitutes 72% of my existence. For a moment I was afraid I had joined much of the populace in simply experiencing bouts of mild irritation, and lingering harmlessly around the 'somewhat peeved' end of the anger spectrum. Alas, a quick shuffle through cyberspace and a moment in retrospect have catapulted me right back here to realm of unfathomable rage. With my shaky hands, clenched jaw and tensed muscles I now feel right at home. But I'm torn between venting some of this anger because I read something, somewhere once about how being mad as fuck all the time can give you cancer. And with all the smoking and drinking and talking on the phone and standing in front of microwaves and laying in the sun that I do, I can already hear that slimy fuck building a case against me. So maybe I let some of my fury ease out my fingertips and take refuge on this page, but the thing is, Ive fallen for that trap before. The blank screen offers the promise of catharsis but no matter how ambiguous and surreal, how heavily laden with metaphors or how many dark images of red wine and smoke I use in my self-indulgent dribble which helps me feel just that little bit lighter, there is always someone narcissistic enough to see themselves in whatever I write and tear me apart for it. Narcissistic and vindictive and nasty as fuck remain the elusive and collective someone. Apparently the blogosphere is now the territory of titty photos, pseudo-friendships, passive aggressive or just plane aggressive outburst and spite. Its omniscient and malevolent ruler is a King named Arrogance and goddamned I try like hell not to bow to him.

2011-01-05T16:44:00.001+11:00

Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.

2010-12-30T12:48:00.000+11:00

"Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share."
— Mark Z. Danielewski (House of Leaves)

This Guy

2010-11-24T23:36:00.002+11:00

Holy Motherfucking Christ

2010-11-19T13:35:00.003+11:00

I took this on Monday coming over the Blue Mountains at about 7 o'clock. It was stunning driving through the fog and watching the sky transform. Dad and I were headed to Orange for a funeral, under different circumstances it would have been a really beautiful trip. The only time I ever go to Church these days is for funerals, fortunately until Tuesday I hadn't been for nearly four years. I went to Mass every Sunday for 14 years and then nominally for another 4. I knew every hymn and prayer and when to sit, stand or kneel. I would sit in reverie and pray during the silent moments and take communion like it actually meant something. But I found myself sitting in the pew on Tuesday forgetting which direction the sign of the cross went in, I mumbled through all the responses and remained clueless as to when to sit, stand or kneel. I stopped taking communion years ago, so I sat awkwardly during the procession and realised that I truly believe in nothing. A big, Nietzsche-shaped nothing. I had gone from a child who prayed every single night and truly celebrated the birth of Christ every Christmas,to a blaspheming, sacrilegious atheist. I suppose it happened gradually, but up until Tuesday I had never really mourned my loss of faith. I have been through tough times and never one felt like calling on an intangible spirit for strength. Ive done unimaginable things and not thought about hell fires as a consequence. I don't know, maybe I have been right to celebrate my loss of faith rather than mourn it. But sometimes, just sometimes, I get into bed and unconsciously begin the Our Father before remembering the words don't mean a damned thing to me anymore.

Vonnegut: 8 basics of creative writing.

2010-11-14T23:20:00.001+11:00

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Fuck yeah summer reading!!

2010-11-13T23:16:00.003+11:00

Just started House of Leaves despite promising myself I wouldnt touch any of my birthday books until I had adequately destroyed University with my sub-par knowledge. But I blew my figurative load all over the first page of this book and now I'm struggling to put it down. Bookdepository.com.uk is like porn for the literate.

2010-11-11T22:10:00.002+11:00

Maybe its the red wine talking, or maybe its the ability to finally eat and sleep again or maybe Ive finally found the right combination of chemicals or maybe it's you. But whatever the case, I've got a feeling I'm going to be just fine. To borrow a phrase from Blake Schwarzenbach, 'Its like they handed me my life, for the first time it felt right'.

2010-11-02T22:19:00.002+11:00

I finally feel like things might be right. I feel fine.

2010-10-13T19:09:00.002+11:00

"But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathe, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four o'clock in the morning."
— Haruki Murakami (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle)

2010-10-07T19:17:00.002+11:00

Ive had a few ideas lately, and nothing makes me happier than the formation of a new idea in the quagmire of my mind.

2010-10-03T12:42:00.003+11:00

This was on Friday or maybe Thursday but probably Friday. I spent the best part of the day tucked behind a rock and out of the wind, I packed myself a picnic, including some VB and a perfectly rolled, albeit very small joint. I have some fucked up form of arthritis at the moment so it was purely medicinal. Along with the perfectly compiled playlist and a new book I settled into the sand and eased myself into the afternoon watching the sun dawdle across the sky. At some point, just before drifting off to sleep I remember thinking to myself 'shit yeah' and smiling ever so slightly.

2010-09-14T22:33:00.008+10:00

I obviously take issue with 99% of things I encounter on a daily basis, BECAUSE I AM AN ANGRY CUNT. But if you* really want to hear about (which you probably don't) my biggest issue of late is the proliferation of meaningless pop culture references and naked, overly sexualized women on so many tumblr's I see. What I just don't get is how those embracing the tumblr phenomenon generally subscribe to leftist ideologies of equal rights and independent thought, yet so frequently reproduce standardized forms of popular culture, and reinforce dangerous sexist ideologies. Yeah, yeah, I'm a self righteous, elitist bitch, but I'm surprisingly ok with that. My point is, that no one seems to have anything unique to say, instead there is an entire culture built around reblogging scenes from movies, TV shows, quotes from authors, musicians etc. This pseudo-creativity is dangerous because it distracts everyone from saying what they really want to say. Independent and oppositional ways of thinking are replaced by aesthetically pleasing yet completely meaningless images which reinforce what mainstream culture has already told us to think.

Which brings me to my second privileged white girl rant, I find the constant stream of naked, skinny women in every corner of the blogosphre to be pretty despicable, mostly because it is always done under the guise of art or creative expression. A photo of a naked woman with her breasts brushing up against a table and her legs spread out behind her is there to be looked at, to be desired, to be craved. Not to be valued and engaged with. So what if the image is in black and white and shot in some 'artistic' manner, the woman is the object of nothing but sexual desire. Her value is her breasts or butt and she is minimized to her body parts, fragmented and in turn dehumanized. She is positioned for the male gaze and constructed as an object, an 'other'. All this does is reinforce dominant power structures such as the dominance of males and the exploitation of women.

I already know how my observations will be received, I mean a girl on the internet having an opinion? She must be a fat, jealous wench. But maybe just think about it for a moment. Or dont. I dont mind.

* The collective you. Calm down ya'll.

Legalize Gay.

2010-09-12T18:53:00.003+10:00

Me and my wife gun get so married when that shit is legal. She obviously wears the pants and she is also an unfaithful whore and last night she got all domestic violence in my grill (its ok guys I deserved it) but we are going to live out a long, sexless marriage for the rest of our days. Im excited for our enGAYment party, and brawls in Ikea and life as a second class citizen.

2010-09-12T02:26:00.003+10:00

I have so, so much anger. At you, every single cock sucker looking at this right now and laughing at me. BUT do you want to know why I am so much better than you? Because I spend every day of my life trying to be a better person. Because I learn as much as I can and not to flaunt it on the internet as some form of pseudo intellectual bullshit, but because learning is the best way to understand and contribute to a culture you may otherwise hate. AND because I am helping to raise a child with severe learning disabilities, I, along with his Mum and teachers am half the reason he can walk, and communicate the way he does right now. I spend the best part of my day loving and teaching a small and very special child. Because there is shit out there much more important than internet cred and meaningless photos on a tumblr (which in my opinion is the lowest form of pop culture, which glorifies the meaningless repetition of worthless and dangerous cultural artifacts BTW.)Because I love and hate the way any human should, kick me while I am down, BUT I AM FUCKING RAD

PS I hear grammar is primarily for the sober person, one of which I am not.

2010-09-10T14:29:00.005+10:00

OH NO IM PROBABLY GOING TO KILL MYSELF BECAUSE I MISS YOU SO SO SO SOS SO SOS SOSOOS MUCH.

Listen, they say write what you know. Thats what I do. Everything I write on here is for me. No one else. If you are here because you think its hilarious for Dane Cottee to humiliate me like this, then please leave. Im sure there are some naked, anorexic girls on a tumblr somewhere waiting for you to viddy them.

Yeah, google stats is a hell of an app.

2010-09-10T11:46:00.002+10:00

"What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war."

Easily the most amazing book I have read all year.

For Me

2010-09-09T23:30:00.005+10:00

Ive spent the last year and more trying to rebuild myself from where I was when I last saw you. That equaled a googolplex bottles of vodka and however much weed my money could buy and any, I mean any other drug which would pump serotonin through my brain. It hasnt been easy, in fact its been the hardest year of my life. I had everything about myself that I once valued torn away from the bones they were tangled around. For a while there I had nothing, I mean nothing left inside me to value, to justify my existence. One night I ended up in hospital after eating every single drug I could find in the house, all because some girl I had never seen in my life yelled at me in the toilets of the pub because I was the 'ex girlfriend'. Since then Ive taken everything the doctors have told me to, Ive become so incapable of feeling that I take drugs on top of my drugs just to remember how happiness feels. I have sex with men who treat me like shit just to remember what it feels like to really hurt. Here it is, here are the humiliating details which constitute who I am today. Do you want to know more? Do you want to know about the time I slept with someone 10+ my senior because I was coked outta my mind and wanted to remember how it felt to feel anything. Humiliation, disgust, pleasure, anything. Well you'll be happy to know that I felt nothing but humiliation and disgust when he wanted to cum on my feet and how I said no but let him fuck me 3...maybe 4 times after that. You want more? I always do. Well I sometimes think when Im drunk that someone is bound to fall in love with me and all I have to do is put out. You want to know about the time I nearly choked on my own vomit in the bath tub? Or how I swam so far out to sea, drunk in the middle of the night and and hoped to drift away. No? Of course you don't. Because these are my stories, but they are here because of you. They are here because you want them to be. You want me to feel all this hurt and pain and disgust. I know you do, otherwise you wouldn't say or type or write the things you do. Please, just let me be, these are mine.

2010-09-06T06:02:00.003+10:00

Eat my dick, Junkie VonCuntface. Although your vapid narcissism would have you assume everything I write is a heart wrenching portrayal of my unequivocal lust for you, truth is I was writing to a criteria. And seeing as your'e still probably the most fucked up thing that's happened to me, a nonlinear, self reflexive piece about dating an emotionally abusive junkie makes for a delightful HD.

Spring

2010-09-05T05:52:00.003+10:00

Its Sunday evening and I haven't slept since Thursday night. Instead, Ive been a dead Asian school girl pill'd to the gills, covered in blood and playing in the rain with a magician. My life could make more sense, but I probably wouldn't change a thing.

2010-08-24T23:35:00.002+10:00

Things Which Did Not Happen.

The bedroom falls silent and the fury which holds our spines so taut eases and then subsides. We bend a little but dont break. We speak in whispers and in the gentle tones reserved for those we love. The book you didnt throw is still beside my bed and page 98 is still doggy eared and halfway down the page there’s a a sentance I never underlined. You move to the door which I didnt slam and you dont leave, not just now, but you close it and move towards me. Im on the floor with my knees tucked under my chin and Im not crying and Im not shaking and Im not thinking about a hundred differant things and ninety nine of them aweful. When you sit across from me you tuck your knees under your chin just the same as me. Our shins are touching, our sad pale legs are bony and bruised. Your leg hairs and mine tangle a little and its the last time we touch, I say goodbye and the words hang around my mouth like flies before landing on your potruding bottom lip.

Things Which Were Not Said

I said,‘Does it hurt?’
‘Very much so.’
‘Will it always hurt?’
‘Maybe’
‘I loved you, but I dont know where it went. It was here I promise, I felt it in my fingertips and in my eyelashes just before sleep. I loved you more than I hated jelly and reality TV and the sound of car horns, and myself.’
‘I know.’

Things Which May Have Happened

A door was closed. The coffee cup falls from the desk. The book blows open.

Things Which Happened

You take everything you own and tear the room apart. You rip your books from the shelf and clothes from the wardrobe. You dont look at me for a long time. I sit on the bed, then I stand, then I sit agin and I try to speak inbetween the spaces of your screams. You throw a book at the wall where my head was moments ago it flutters to the ground like a shot bird. Its wings are spread apart to the page I’d already read with the sentance ‘Disapear Here’ underlined in lead pencil. I throw a coffee cup and the two day old coffee splashes against the walls and the cup doesnt break although I wanted it to. Then you look at me and the anger you feel which is pulling at every single muscle becomes apparent and I wish you hadnt looked at all. You were hideous when you were angry, so I told you this and you said,

Things Which Were Said

‘You - you are the worst person I have ever met. I never, ever want to see you again.’

Things Which Should Have Been Said

‘Will it always hurt?’
‘Definantely’.

Can't out-hipster me.

2010-06-22T22:45:00.002+10:00

june gloom?

2010-06-04T16:23:00.003+10:00

It is now officially June Gloom, Ive got the scarves and jackets to prove it. Surprisingly though, I haven't had a drink all month. Im knee deep in Uni work and trying like hell to get good marks this semester. Currently rocking some D's and HD's for advanced creative writing. Yeah, thats right I can use my thinky-hole real good (better than any other hole.) So Ive got a feeling this Winter is going to be ok, I mean my Dad bought us a fantastic heater and as far as I'm concerned heaters do keep you warm at night, and from my experience they don't leave you in the morning to find another hole to keep warm in. You know though, my favorite thing about winter is taking off my scarf and running it through my fingers to feel the warmth my neck left on it. Something about it is so comforting, and some days its the best way to realise I'm completely alive.