SLOW MOTION EXCAVATION

Это мои тараканы в голове (This is a side blog, I follow back from my main)

[publicdomainreview]

Spectators watch the flight of one of Alexander Graham Bell’s tetrahedral kites in 1904. More pictures here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/alexander-graham-bell-s-tetrahedral-kites-1903-9

[slowmotionexcavation]

I never really thought I would be bad at my job. I always used to be at the top of my class in school and so I thought, naturally, I would be good at finding a job, and then I would be good at doing my job. To put it another way, I always thought that whatever it was that made me a good student (and it certainly wasn't hard work) would also make me a good worker. Then came the time when I couldn't find a job in my field because I can't do networking. It took me a while to realise and accept that, but I think even after that, I still somehow thought that I would be good at whatever job I would end up doing. It turns out, though, that almost any job will require you to socialise in some way, if not with customers then at least with your colleagues. And I am terrible at that. I am also the opposite of resourceful, both because I am shy and because I absolutely never will go above and beyond for any boss (I would say it's the anti-capitalist in me, but frankly a big part of it is the lazybones in me). And so here I am today, almost at the end of a job in which I performed not terribly, but not very well either. No one will miss me (and I will miss no one). When I'm done here I'll have to find another, similar job with as few responsibilities as possible. I will never get rich, or fulfilled, from working. This is such a different life from the one I had imagined.

[slowmotionexcavation]

May 2026

Another month.

I did some writing, although I also did some giving up on writing towards the end of the month. I had to let my story rest, for one thing (even though it should be done resting now), and for another working on my autobiography is always hard. But I'm making progress! Connections are being made! The hard thing is to keep writing as I wait to be more "inspired" (as I wait for things to get easier again).

Made it through the many holidays of May and I'm back to working four-day weeks now, poor me. But I've only got twenty days left at this job now, so I suppose it's OK. Being unemployed for a bit will do me good, even though the money will be tighter. I will be able to write more, read more, start exercising regularly again. I hope I won't get too depressed too quickly.

Anyway the summer heat is already here. Let's get ready for three months of melting and stewing.

[slowmotionexcavation]

Anyway I've got an end date to my contract and it is in five weeks. In five weeks I won't have to hear racist (and anti-vax!) drivel four days a week. In five weeks I won't have to get up at six thirty in the morning, hopefully ever again. I five weeks I'll be freeeeee (to somehow survive on unemployment benefits as I look for another job, but still).

I feel like a teenager, even though as a teen I was rarely excited for the summer holidays. I've been thinking this is ideal timing for starting to exercise again, for writing, for reading a bunch.

Only thing I'll miss this summer from my (old) job will be the air conditioning.

[pengosolvent]

[slowmotionexcavation]

Ce qu'il y a d'insupportable dans la résilience c'est l'idée que toute cette souffrance ne conduise finalement qu'à être normal. Accepter que ce que les autres ont sans effort, sans même en percevoir la valeur, ne nous est donné qu'au prix d'une double peine : le martyre et ensuite le chemin de croix de la guérison. Il serait plus souhaitable que la résilience en tant que dépassement permette aussi de surpasser le normal comme un supplément d'être. Devenir fou, devenir une voyante ou une sainte. Mais non, la plupart d'entre nous allons faire nos courses incognito, sans qu'on puisse deviner à aucun signe particulier ce qui nous est arrivé.

Neige Sinno, Triste Tigre

[slowmotionexcavation]

La torture crée une cellule d'intimité où on se met à exister dans les yeux de l'autre, et cet autre existe à nos yeux, de la manière la plus honnête qui soit. Du moins c'est ce qu'on croit, c'est ce que nous fait croire la sensation de nudité dans laquelle on est. Comme une drogue dure, la plongée dans une situation extrême donne la sensation de vivre plus intensément. C'est une sensation de vérité absolue. On se trompe, évidemment, mais il n'est pas facile de déconstruire une perception que tous nos sens, tout notre être, ont vécue comme une expérience indépassable.

Neige Sinno, Triste Tigre

[help-me-yes]

[slowmotionexcavation]

[slowmotionexcavation]

The Crones watching over me as I write

[slowmotionexcavation]

My top songs of the last ten years, according to Spotify.

[slowmotionexcavation]

Rock is not redundant. It has no rules. That's the point of it, so fuck you for telling me I have to behave like Eddie Vedder or Kurt Cobain or your fantasy of Kurt Cobain, who never lived to be a man, so we don't really know what he would do, do we? You didn't even know who he was. You didn't know what a glam-rocking, eyeliner-wearing, roach-scoring, feather boa-wearing person he was at that point, so just shut your mouth. We don't know what he would have been like if he had given all that shit up and gotten strong and clean.

Courtney Love in Allure, 1999

[slowmotionexcavation]

Endings are overrated; they are often the point when the writer bows to convention, and there is a lot more to a story than who gets the girl, or who dies. When I write fiction or drama, I know that my liking for a character is shown by my giving her a lot of page time and vivid scenes, however I may dispose of her by the end.

Emma Donoghue

[slowmotionexcavation]

[sourdough-seal]

“do you write for work or just for fun” none of the above. this activity is neither profitable nor enjoyable

[alcoholicanarchist]

that photo of hunter s. thompson shooting his typewriter is such a mood

[alcoholicanarchist]

[phobic-human]

May Day in Beirut, Lebanon, 2024.