#hereyoutry

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hereyoutry

you gave me the link to the punpun thing which is more than 99% of the population has done for me also you like a lot of my posts thats tight man righteous keep being cool

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hereyoutry replied to your post:hereyoutry replied to your photo:im grateful to...

blackinque.imgur.com this is my favourite manga of all time btw

ohhh i am glad + likewise!!! i appreciate the hookup

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hereyoutry replied to your photo:im grateful to this person for translating one...

It’s been fully translated for about three weeks I think

where!!! where!

[shurgs]

I want this moment in its entirety. I want this moment to condense into a shower of liquid which I can then absorb into the pores of my skin and even deeper than that so that it soaks into the marrow of my bones. I want this moment to be plastered over the bedroom walls of every angst-ridden teenager in place of genre-appropriate bands and ephemera. I want this moment to be processed into an expensive skin cream in a container with a twist-top lid which I can rub over every square millimetre of my body. I want this moment to sew itself into a full-body suit with a thread count so high that neither air nor sound nor light can pass through, then I will wear this forever. I want this moment to replace all of my vital organs so that I will rely on this moment to keep me living for however long. I want this moment to replace the sound of a heartbeat. I want this moment to be playing on a projector screen at my funeral and a DVD of the moment to be placed in my coffin. I want this moment to be photographed and for those photographs to be burnt to ash which I will then snort using rolled-up, limited-edition 500 dollar notes made in celebration of this moment. I want this moment to be digitally captured and then printed out, the printed image put through a paper shredder, then I want to eat the moment, once digitised, now shredded, in an assemblage not unlike a bowl of plain spaghetti. I want this moment to be seen only in complete darkness and complete light and everything in between. I want this moment to be a recurring dream that I never wake up from. I want this moment to be depicted in every cloud and every constellation and every fatefully arranged bird shit streak on the sidewalk. I want this moment to replace film and television and books and the internet and maybe even more than the internet if that is possible. I want this moment to become a tumor that grows from my frontal lobe until it gets so big that it pushes up against my eyes and I am blind save for seeing this moment. I want this moment to replace what my piss smells like. I want this moment to be every prayer and every song ever uttered or sung. I want this moment to be interrupted by an atom bomb explosion so that when I close my eyes the image of this moment is burned in shadow across my cornea and also across the walls and the ceiling and the floor in the places where people and things and I once stood. I want this moment.

[shurgs]

VHS

I can't sleep.

Lately it's been that I come alive around the midnight hour.

In the shade before yesterday morning's sunrise I typed a lengthy email; half apologetic, half vindictive, that I had been putting aside for a while. I also typed up the short post directly below this.

24 hours before that, I was writing without pause for one and a half hours. I was hemorrhaging words and there was no one around to stop the bleeding.

It was amazing.

I said to myself not long after, somewhat self-assuredly, "I guess this is what a writer must feel like."

This might not be so much of a revelation to others, but it is to me. For the first time in a long while, I feel that not only can I be bothered to write, but I'm able to do it in a way that feels (somehow simultaneously) effortless and challenging.

I was thinking about all of this as I stared into darkness, waiting for thoughts to quieten, as a teacher standing in front of a classroom would wait for raucous chatter to subside.

I focused on the snores of the dog underneath my bed. I slowed my pace to match the rhythm of her breathing, and faded into sleep.

I napped for a little before hearing paws tapping against my door (I'm a light sleeper). Acknowledging my part in this ritual, I opened the door and stumbled back into bed.

The dark hurt my eyes.

As is common for an overactive mind in times where it is least needed, I remembered a certain memory.

I was standing at, or should I say standing below the counter in Civic Video, having picked out my 3 tapes for that week.

$1.10 movie rentals on Tuesday had become routine since living with my new guardian, and I took my time scanning the shelves and reading the blurbs, determined to make use of my weekly quota to the fullest.

I peered up at the lady behind the counter, who I now realise was probably not as old as I thought, it's more likely she was around my age now.

She had a familiar face, and I instantly recognised it. She was the PE teacher in training who had been doing practical work at my primary school a few weeks prior.

I remember that we got along well, and I participated more when she was directing what ball games we would play.

Knowing myself around that age, it was most probably because of a certain fondness for her that motivated me.

I put the plastic boxes on the surface between us and timidly looked at her smile. I didn't bring up that I remembered her, I was too shy.

"Oh! Fancy seeing you here! How are you going today Matthew?"

I was ecstatic, but I didn't show it. I just nodded slightly and said, "Good thanks."

I handed her the money and while she gave me the tapes I asked if she was going to come back to St. Joseph's again.

I forget her answer, but the next thing I said was, "It's my birthday today."

I imagine I probably smiled directly after saying that.

She smiled back then said, "Hmm, is that right?" and visibly thought about it for a second. She leant down behind the counter, stood up, and held out her hands towards me.

In her hands were huge strips of silver foil. Each strip was actually comprised of individually wrapped rectangular sections, linked at each end.

They were part of a promotion around that time. Inside packets of chips were those little foil rectangles, and once you opened the slippery buggers, they were covered in salt and grease you see, you'd be rewarded with a holographic Digimon card.

Later when I got home I would count over 100 cards.

"Here you go. Happy birthday."

She winked as she said it.

It wasn't until I typed those words that it actually dawned on me. That was my birthday.

I just flicked through the calendar on my phone, and lo and behold, on May 29, 2001, it was a Tuesday.

It was my 9th birthday.

I can't remember what else I did that day.

I forget what the movies I rented were.

[shurgs]

A Brief and Vague History of Certain People I Have Met and Pithy Statements About Them

What’s in a name?  

I attempted to write something about a young man doing some sort of thing, while other things happened.

But I got held up on the first sentence:

“X couldn’t sleep.”

I couldn’t think of a damned name.

Well, I could, and I thought of many, but each name felt inextricably tied to people I knew with that name, and the ideas affiliated with them.

Like ingredient lists on jars of sandwich spread brands, each name had a set of qualities or short description attached to it.

Of course I knew most of these connotations would not be shared by other people, they were needlessly ignorant and probably baseless.

Still, I picked up jar after jar, turned it in my hand, squinted at at the miniscule print, and swiftly returned back into the shelf, unsatisfied.

George: Probably chubby.

Aaron: Definitely obnoxious.

Max: Deceptively named.

Ronnie: Vapid and attention seeking.

Michael: A mummy’s boy.

Ryan: A cunt.

Jordan: A tall cunt.

Even the names with positive qualities weren’t  any good. They didn’t fit the character I wanted, the one that hadn’t actually been formed properly yet.

So I kept searching through the jars until I eventually gave up.

Some of the labels were longer than others:

Kayla: You know many of them but you don’t ‘know’ any of them. From face value they seem pretty boring

Kate: You once wanted to try this brand constantly as a child. It had the most attractive packaging you’d ever seen, but you were disappointed when the condiment not only looked like shit, it tasted worse.

Mark: You only bought this for the free toy it comes bundled with.

Matthew: The literary equivalent of auto-fellatio. Keep out of reach of wannabe writers.

[shurgs]

I'm only talking to you because I want to buy a karate mat.

If I have the karate mat then I can practice karate, if I practice karate then (after doing a bunch of other arbitrary actions (like talking to you, for instance)) I can finally get the giant Japanese ornamental lucky cat.

Don't ask why I want the cat.

So I plan what I will say to you for the next few phases of our conversation. I compliment you, flatter you, ask about your day, we discuss work (in that order). I don't actually know what day it is, but it's Japan week.

None of it feels like real conversation.

(Truth be told, looking back all I remember is both of us speaking gobbledigook and I was thinking about soccer balls on fire.) 

When I run out of energy I stop talking to you. All I can do is sleep, eat, shit, piss, shower, watch tv, play guitar, go on the internet and check the mail. 

Admittedly, that's a fair few things I can do, but none of them involve interacting with another human. 

I can be bothered going to your house, hell, I can even play guitar for hours on end while you sleep, eat, shit, piss, and shower. 

But I can't say a single thing to you. Or anyone.

So I sit on the computer. 

I read.

I read recently that some people in Japan want to create a backup Tokyo in case the Japanese capital is ever destroyed to a severe enough extent that another, completely separate, city can quickly fill the void. 

As one its chief proponents put it, as if asking if haloumi was delicious (and it unequivocally is), "The idea of being able to have a back-up, a spare battery for the functions of the nation, isn’t this a really good idea?"

A twisted mind, (or someone shit-stirring) might say that the Sims is a spare battery for the functions of life.

The proposed backup city may not have as succint and catchy a name; tentatively IRTBBC (Integrated Resort, Tourism, Business and Backup City) or NEMIC (National Emergency Management International City), but there are similarities.

It's the inclusion of resort and tourism, right up the front, that gets me thinking.

Plans thus far include the building of office complexes, resort facilities, theme parks and casinos. Enough to offer a small semblance of a real city, in much the same way the Sims (particularly the streamlined and consequently limited Sims Social) offers a picaresque (but ultimately cruel) semblance of real life in the houses and people and interactions afforded to the player.

If this proposed shadow city is built, and if in the event it is ever needed in the wake of the destruction of Tokyo, what would happen?

Would the tourists on board a plane to Tokyo be gleefully informed mid-flight, that their holiday destination no longer exists? 

I mean it will be still be there just like on the map, but the bright neon lights of Akihabara will be shattered and unreadable, the streets of Shinjuku barren and frozen, the choruses of clunking of pachinko machines will be silenced. 

It won't be like the pictures or the videos any more.

The pilot will announce that the flight will now land in the IRTBBC or NEMIC or the better name they will have decided on by that point, and everyone will breathe a sigh of relief. 

The air stewardesses will distribute pamphlets as a video about the many fun-filled activities begins playing.

They won't forget to mention the free holiday package provided by the Japanese Tourism Association as compensation for the change in plans.

As national forces and foreign aid helicopters rush to the fallen capital, the tourist-filled plane will begin landing in Tokyo 2. A father will look out the window at the smouldering city, too far to see anything in detail save for the smoke.

The plane pivots and suddenly he sees roaring rollercoasters and glittering skyscrapers.

I click on my Sim and use one unit of energy to mop up the puddle in the bathroom. I have to clean something to advance my pursuit of the Japanese cat.

Next to my hand, my actual hand, is a cup of tea with leaves by now older than most kids in kindergarden. Littering my room are piles of newspapers, discarded clothes too torn to even be used as rags. The windows haven't been opened in months.

But I'm not noticing any of that, my eyes aren't looking at anything but this small window into an even smaller, simpler, cleaner world.

It's Japan week in Sims Social.

Soon, my friends will stand in awe of my lucky cat when they witness it. They will stand awkwardly in my room, not knowing the harsdhip I faced to obtain it, and everything will be right with the world.

The smouldering city is too far away to see anything in detail.

Image sources: pinktentacle, Sims Social