My sleep cycle is fucked...
Sep. 17th, 2003 01:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksNOTE: IT IS 2 AM. THIS ENTRY RAMBLES ALL OVER THE MAP. IT IS INCOHERENT AND PROBABLY REDUNDANT, BUT I REFUSE TO SPEND AN HOUR TYPING TO TRY TO GET BACK TO SLEEP AND NOT DO SOMETHING WITH THE RESULT. NONE OF THIS MAY HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING EVER. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
...As is proven by the fact that I just woke up and can't get back to sleep. I seem to be on this steady schedule now of sleeping from 2-8 AM and from 2:30/3-5 PM. This is just when I crash; if I lie down to sleep at any other time, I stare at the wall, and if I try to remain awake during these times, I fail miserably. For obvious reasons, this sleep schedule does not work, so this evening I attempted to go to bed at 9 PM, managed to fall asleep by 11:30 through sheer dedication and boredom, and woke up half an hour ago with a severe case of hyperactivity. *Nothing* is working, not even reading Thucydides. Not bad fanfic, not good fanfic, not hot shower-- heck, not even Greek translation.
Doesn't help that my hall is frickin' loud, either.
On a completely different note, I am finding it rather strange that the things I do for my own personal reasons because they feel right wind up affiliating me with various subcultures. Heard myself referred to today as a goth. Became somewhat confused. Started running through the signifiers of 'goth' in my mind, and am kind of startled really. I mean, OK: obsession with death? Well, not lately. Reads a lot of horror? Yeah, and I write the stuff. Always have. This has a great deal to do with my personal mechanisms for dealing with fear. Wears a lot of black? Yeah. In the immortal words of Neil Gaiman, it goes with anything, at least with anything black. Also, I do a lot of thrift store shopping, and one's choices of thrift clothing tend towards either black or, you know, fluorescent seventies abomination. Odd-colored high-maintenance hair? Yeah. But I'm only trying to achieve the color it would be if nature had been sensible to begin with. My hair should be blue. This is a fact of life. Interesting body modifications? Yeah. But again as with the hair, I'm trying to achieve what has been obviously present to me all along. I mean, when I first got my nose ring, in my first few weeks at the Mawr, nobody noticed. Because they all assumed I'd had one because it fit so perfectly into my face. I had to point out to my customs group that I had a new and obvious facial piercing. I've now had this ring for four years and occasionally forget that there were times in my life when I didn't have it. It's a part of the body, not a fashion statement. Same with the tattoo, and the other ones I'll get eventually. Weird and high-maintenance makeup? Hell no. Except on special occasions. Too much work. Emphasis on out-of-period, frilly, and fetishy black clothing? Um. Yeah, actually. I buy what's comfortable. Apparently I am an oddity in that I am genuinely most comfortable in a corset, a short skirt, and stockings with garters. As in, physically more comfortable. My posture is better and I move better. It still feels like drag, though. Dresses have always felt like drag to me. That's what makes them fun. Out-of-the-ordinary sexuality? Gee. Really? You think? Obsession with obscure and cultish music, art and literature? Well, not the goth stuff. Though I will admit to a fondness for Rasputina, thanks to Syona Keleste, and a deep respect for Poppy Z. Brite despite having a love/hate relationship with-- dang, can't remember which pronoun this year-- her/his work. (Side note: WHY do all my favorite subculture-type women writers turn out to be trans-men? WHY? This makes THREE. I find a writer, I go, gee, she's really out there in a way women tend not to allow themselves to be in this culture, she's writing about issues and wants and patterns of living that most women simply won't admit to, this is so cool, and then she transitions, usually into a gay man, and doesn't even write an interesting book about it. It's that last bit I have trouble forgiving, really. Please just once could I read a woman who writes interestingly about non-mainstream issues in the manner these writers do and stays female. I find the whole trans thing interesting and cool but these are not issues I am interested in writing about, just in reading about, and I'm starting to feel like my gender are complete and utter wimps about some things.)
(Well, it's mostly my gender. I sleep with women. I've never been overly convinced about being one, although I am decidedly absolutely *not* male in any way. I just get kind of confused when people treat me like a girl. It doesn't occur to me as really high up on the list of things that define me. Even my feminist tendencies have always been along the lines of 'how dare the world treat these wonderful people to whom I am very attracted in such a way... oh, and the world seems to treat me in the same manner too, which pisses me off just as much, now that I think on it...'.)
What is *up* with the traditional goth excuses for poetry, anyhow? I've been wanting to write a Really Long Rant, with examples, about poetry and what I think it is and isn't and should be and shouldn't be, and it's too late at night to do that and anyhow I'm not mentally organized enough at the moment and I'd have to dig out my collection that has the poems of Emily Bronte and I don't want to, but I think the goth subculture is among the worst offenders in the *things* that have happened to poetry and its proliferation since the advent of the Internet. I won't even read poetry online anymore if it isn't by someone I know personally. I just won't. Hell, I barely read poetry in the New Yorker anymore, not since they fell prey to the new generation of people who think they may eventually have a chance of becoming e.e. cummings. Which they don't. Because nobody else is e.e. cummings, and *certainly* nobody else is Dylan Thomas or W.H. Auden, no matter how hard and how publicly they try, and o some of them do try publicly. If I see *one more* bad goth imitation of the 'altarwise by owllight' sonnets I am going to throw something and scream. It's like people imitating Lovecraft, or Tolkien. One just wants to *beat* them with the Complete Works of whatever writer they are blatantly not succeeding in living up to.
I think I managed to cure myself of imitating other writers. Even though I ran across Tolkien at an early age and he had a strong effect on me, fortunately a great deal of that effect was negative (screaming nightmares) so that he never managed to take over my dream world. I've always quite agreed with Ursula LeGuin's prayer of thanksgiving that she did not read Tolkien until she was twenty-five. It's strong stuff for a young writer, but I've never seen any sign of it in me. This is good. My other early loves tended to have restrained and unobtrusive prose styles, be slightly British, fond of clarity; it didn't stick. The first signs I ever saw of a writer doing anything to my own work were when I hit Angela Carter at the age of oh fifteen or so and really discovered adjectives and imagery. She taught me the sensory effects of prose and some of her language still crawls over my skin at night, but it's taken a long time for me to sort out which are my personal images, which are found in her perverse dreambook, and which are common property because everyone shares them. Patti Smith got to me too, with her insistence on writing as a physical act. That's why the novel is longhand. Prose does not feel real to my hands when I filter it through a computer. 'A good poem should use every muscle in your body', she said. Well of course. How can you shape language if you don't let it shape you? The third writer who turns up in my work is John Crowley and my capitalization and punctuation habits are his and nothing can be done really and that is all there is to it. I don't mind too much. He taught me the use of the properly Capitalized phrase. But I don't see too much of any of these writers, or of any of the other prose stylists like Eddison or Dunsany or Peake or godshelpus Lovecraft, and I refuse to use a plot I've ever read before, so I don't worry about my influences, really, or I try not to.
The novel goeth. About to get to a tricky bit. Scheduled for eight this morning. I should really try to sleep again it being about the time I usually drop off.
Oh, and Earis, my comment function isn't working but *hugs* and should we get together on a regular basis about the Herodotus? Pain shared is pain halfed or at least pain enjoyed more, depending who you ask and when.
I should do that poetry rant next time I'm really stressed. It would be so much fun.
I think I'm a goth by default. Does this mean anything at all?
Sleep.
...As is proven by the fact that I just woke up and can't get back to sleep. I seem to be on this steady schedule now of sleeping from 2-8 AM and from 2:30/3-5 PM. This is just when I crash; if I lie down to sleep at any other time, I stare at the wall, and if I try to remain awake during these times, I fail miserably. For obvious reasons, this sleep schedule does not work, so this evening I attempted to go to bed at 9 PM, managed to fall asleep by 11:30 through sheer dedication and boredom, and woke up half an hour ago with a severe case of hyperactivity. *Nothing* is working, not even reading Thucydides. Not bad fanfic, not good fanfic, not hot shower-- heck, not even Greek translation.
Doesn't help that my hall is frickin' loud, either.
On a completely different note, I am finding it rather strange that the things I do for my own personal reasons because they feel right wind up affiliating me with various subcultures. Heard myself referred to today as a goth. Became somewhat confused. Started running through the signifiers of 'goth' in my mind, and am kind of startled really. I mean, OK: obsession with death? Well, not lately. Reads a lot of horror? Yeah, and I write the stuff. Always have. This has a great deal to do with my personal mechanisms for dealing with fear. Wears a lot of black? Yeah. In the immortal words of Neil Gaiman, it goes with anything, at least with anything black. Also, I do a lot of thrift store shopping, and one's choices of thrift clothing tend towards either black or, you know, fluorescent seventies abomination. Odd-colored high-maintenance hair? Yeah. But I'm only trying to achieve the color it would be if nature had been sensible to begin with. My hair should be blue. This is a fact of life. Interesting body modifications? Yeah. But again as with the hair, I'm trying to achieve what has been obviously present to me all along. I mean, when I first got my nose ring, in my first few weeks at the Mawr, nobody noticed. Because they all assumed I'd had one because it fit so perfectly into my face. I had to point out to my customs group that I had a new and obvious facial piercing. I've now had this ring for four years and occasionally forget that there were times in my life when I didn't have it. It's a part of the body, not a fashion statement. Same with the tattoo, and the other ones I'll get eventually. Weird and high-maintenance makeup? Hell no. Except on special occasions. Too much work. Emphasis on out-of-period, frilly, and fetishy black clothing? Um. Yeah, actually. I buy what's comfortable. Apparently I am an oddity in that I am genuinely most comfortable in a corset, a short skirt, and stockings with garters. As in, physically more comfortable. My posture is better and I move better. It still feels like drag, though. Dresses have always felt like drag to me. That's what makes them fun. Out-of-the-ordinary sexuality? Gee. Really? You think? Obsession with obscure and cultish music, art and literature? Well, not the goth stuff. Though I will admit to a fondness for Rasputina, thanks to Syona Keleste, and a deep respect for Poppy Z. Brite despite having a love/hate relationship with-- dang, can't remember which pronoun this year-- her/his work. (Side note: WHY do all my favorite subculture-type women writers turn out to be trans-men? WHY? This makes THREE. I find a writer, I go, gee, she's really out there in a way women tend not to allow themselves to be in this culture, she's writing about issues and wants and patterns of living that most women simply won't admit to, this is so cool, and then she transitions, usually into a gay man, and doesn't even write an interesting book about it. It's that last bit I have trouble forgiving, really. Please just once could I read a woman who writes interestingly about non-mainstream issues in the manner these writers do and stays female. I find the whole trans thing interesting and cool but these are not issues I am interested in writing about, just in reading about, and I'm starting to feel like my gender are complete and utter wimps about some things.)
(Well, it's mostly my gender. I sleep with women. I've never been overly convinced about being one, although I am decidedly absolutely *not* male in any way. I just get kind of confused when people treat me like a girl. It doesn't occur to me as really high up on the list of things that define me. Even my feminist tendencies have always been along the lines of 'how dare the world treat these wonderful people to whom I am very attracted in such a way... oh, and the world seems to treat me in the same manner too, which pisses me off just as much, now that I think on it...'.)
What is *up* with the traditional goth excuses for poetry, anyhow? I've been wanting to write a Really Long Rant, with examples, about poetry and what I think it is and isn't and should be and shouldn't be, and it's too late at night to do that and anyhow I'm not mentally organized enough at the moment and I'd have to dig out my collection that has the poems of Emily Bronte and I don't want to, but I think the goth subculture is among the worst offenders in the *things* that have happened to poetry and its proliferation since the advent of the Internet. I won't even read poetry online anymore if it isn't by someone I know personally. I just won't. Hell, I barely read poetry in the New Yorker anymore, not since they fell prey to the new generation of people who think they may eventually have a chance of becoming e.e. cummings. Which they don't. Because nobody else is e.e. cummings, and *certainly* nobody else is Dylan Thomas or W.H. Auden, no matter how hard and how publicly they try, and o some of them do try publicly. If I see *one more* bad goth imitation of the 'altarwise by owllight' sonnets I am going to throw something and scream. It's like people imitating Lovecraft, or Tolkien. One just wants to *beat* them with the Complete Works of whatever writer they are blatantly not succeeding in living up to.
I think I managed to cure myself of imitating other writers. Even though I ran across Tolkien at an early age and he had a strong effect on me, fortunately a great deal of that effect was negative (screaming nightmares) so that he never managed to take over my dream world. I've always quite agreed with Ursula LeGuin's prayer of thanksgiving that she did not read Tolkien until she was twenty-five. It's strong stuff for a young writer, but I've never seen any sign of it in me. This is good. My other early loves tended to have restrained and unobtrusive prose styles, be slightly British, fond of clarity; it didn't stick. The first signs I ever saw of a writer doing anything to my own work were when I hit Angela Carter at the age of oh fifteen or so and really discovered adjectives and imagery. She taught me the sensory effects of prose and some of her language still crawls over my skin at night, but it's taken a long time for me to sort out which are my personal images, which are found in her perverse dreambook, and which are common property because everyone shares them. Patti Smith got to me too, with her insistence on writing as a physical act. That's why the novel is longhand. Prose does not feel real to my hands when I filter it through a computer. 'A good poem should use every muscle in your body', she said. Well of course. How can you shape language if you don't let it shape you? The third writer who turns up in my work is John Crowley and my capitalization and punctuation habits are his and nothing can be done really and that is all there is to it. I don't mind too much. He taught me the use of the properly Capitalized phrase. But I don't see too much of any of these writers, or of any of the other prose stylists like Eddison or Dunsany or Peake or godshelpus Lovecraft, and I refuse to use a plot I've ever read before, so I don't worry about my influences, really, or I try not to.
The novel goeth. About to get to a tricky bit. Scheduled for eight this morning. I should really try to sleep again it being about the time I usually drop off.
Oh, and Earis, my comment function isn't working but *hugs* and should we get together on a regular basis about the Herodotus? Pain shared is pain halfed or at least pain enjoyed more, depending who you ask and when.
I should do that poetry rant next time I'm really stressed. It would be so much fun.
I think I'm a goth by default. Does this mean anything at all?
Sleep.
