lalilulelo

In the third person, or Mary Sue-age

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 13:47:44 -0500

It was easier — no, more interesting — to define J by what she was not than what she was. After all, she often playfully skimmed at the boundaries of what she could have been but ultimately chose not to be, lines that seemed to grow more solid now and more porous next with each wave lapping the beach.

She was not unfriendly, in the manner of a neighbour who was happy to chat from behind white picket fences but had no intention of ever stopping by for tea and cakes.

She was not boring; her witty and unexpected, off-the-cuff remarks hinted at a variety of interests and a mind that keenly absorbed and studied the world, appending each new fact and idea to an ever-blossoming mind-map in her head.

But these fragments of conversation were never quite enough to complete the puzzle that was her; it was an informed guess at best and fanciful deductions at worst. Smoke and mirrors filtered her inner light into scintillating conversations.

She was not uninterested and unengaged in the world, by the same token. She could make you feel like the most fascinating person who had ever lived before suddenly drawing her attention elsewhere, back from invisible lines that you fear you might have crossed by accident as you recounted for the fifth time how your second aunt sent to America’s Funniest Videos a tape of you scooting across the kitchen floor like a dog on your naked baby bottom, and winning a consolation prize for her efforts.

Then you’d feel indignant, slighted perhaps, yet afraid that you’ve bored her with your self-absorbed chatter, but she would smooth your furrowed brows with her Cheshire Cat smile. Wipe the slate clean. Fade to black.

Then you’d meet her again tomorrow, or the week after, and the whole cycle restarts itself and you’re addicted to the attention she dangles before you like a girl playing with her kitten.

She was not happy most of the time, but neither was she sad enough to know how she truly felt.

—-

What few qualities she had were _____, _______, ________, ______ and _______. It was how she applied these to what she was not that imbued her not-ness with meaning. Just subtraction and elimination.

A fortune-teller once told her she spent her eons worth of past lives as holy men and women, cloistered away from one lifetime to the next in pursuit of God and the truth, lifetimes when she had not really lived.

Perhaps these reincarnations explained her seemingly spare personality — if facets of a person were tools of the soul, she never had to carry around much anyway as she lost most of her baggage coming back.

Cut from a different cloth, the warp and weft richer here and cruder there, embellishments were unecessary when the very fabric of her nature was complex enough.

photojojo: Here’s a fun weekend project! Shadow play. Set up a...

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:18:22 -0400

photojojo:

Here’s a fun weekend project! Shadow play.

Set up a light (a big bright one!), grab a couple of friends, and snappity snap.

Photo by Russ and Reyn

graphiceverywhere: I’m like a butterfly (by Heng Swee Lim)

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:13:42 -0400

graphiceverywhere:

I’m like a butterfly (by Heng Swee Lim)

omgsexyfood: Goat Cheese Drop Biscuits

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:13:09 -0400

omgsexyfood:

Goat Cheese Drop Biscuits

As much as I want to blame this clusterfuck-in-the-making on that selfish bitch, I know I only have...

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 20:27:59 -0400

As much as I want to blame this clusterfuck-in-the-making on that selfish bitch, I know I only have myself to hold accountable.

Awh, hell, Imma roll up my sleeves and make it work - I’m not petty like that cow!

Yeah, I check everyone out too. (via postsecret)

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 10:38:47 -0400

Yeah, I check everyone out too.

(via postsecret)

(via graphiceverywhere)

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:10:38 -0400

(via graphiceverywhere)

icanread: (by selvselv)

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:53:09 -0400

icanread:

(by selvselv)

jocelynbernard: New rocks (by Geninne)

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 01:32:15 -0400

jocelynbernard:

New rocks (by Geninne)

Between the sweet, fluffy lies and the bitter, hard truths, I don’t know where I stand...

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 01:12:50 -0400

Between the sweet, fluffy lies and the bitter, hard truths, I don’t know where I stand anymore.

—-

As every day throws life into sharper relief, more flaws emerge where strengths used to be.

—-

What am I going to do when the lights finally go off?

—-

Don’t come too close, you’ll see how awful I am and everything you ever liked about me is a lie.

—-

I’m sorry. For being me.

The past does not exist for its own sake; it serves as a foundation for the future. Understood, at...

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:21:00 -0400

The past does not exist for its own sake; it serves as a foundation for the future.

Understood, at last.

piratekitten: Josh Ellingson

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:19:45 -0400

piratekitten:

Josh Ellingson

"I have faith in humanity. I just don’t have faith in me."

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:01:00 -0400

“I have faith in humanity. I just don’t have faith in me.”

- Me, to my reflection on a beer bottle.

graphiceverywhere: thedailywhat: Tee of the Day: “Earth’s...

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:59:29 -0400

graphiceverywhere:

thedailywhat:

Tee of the Day: “Earth’s Krust” by David Staffell.

Staffell explains the origins of this design:

This design came to me by accident. I was googling around the subject of Krusty the clown for a simpsons themed tee design, and the autocorrect directed me towards images of the cross sectioned earth. I noticed the magma core matched the colour of Krusty’s nose and…that was a thoroughly boring story, sorry.

(TFA: One day only!)

[teefury.]

perforashyunpeh: lainieyeoh: michaelk42: iam12yearsoldandwhati...

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 11:07:54 -0400

perforashyunpeh:

lainieyeoh:

michaelk42:

iam12yearsoldandwhatisthis:

gamejournos:

ronworkman:

The state of online journalism (thanks Sam)

This is alarmingly accurate.

Online “journalism” or “ad load generators.”

It seems like only a few years ago that freelance journalists were taught to pitch for stories with numbers to editors. They’re easier to sell. 50 year anniversary of Ye Olde Steakhouse! Top ten bars to visit in Asia! Five Notable Start-ups!

Now these lists look like the only format for some websites that aggregate (occasionally steal) content from others. I think that in the online design world, Smashing Magazine popularised the meta-lists.

doworkdesign: via Forgotten Hopes

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 11:06:20 -0400

doworkdesign:

via Forgotten Hopes

graphiceverywhere: ryanselvy: Anything Unrelated To Elephants...

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:31:35 -0400

graphiceverywhere:

ryanselvy:

Anything Unrelated To Elephants Is Irrelephant

SnorgTee: $15

Black hole

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:30:00 -0400

When I was eight years old, keeping a diary was at the occupation du jour of many a convent-going girl harbouring not-so-secret dreams of best-selling authorship - an irony if you took into account that a diary, a refuge for one’s secrets, was being shamelessly flaunted like a status symbol (I have a hardcover book! And I write with rainbow pens! I bet you don’t have one! Or either!), an intimate, personal artifact is being homogenised into so many little squares made of ticky tacky - not leather, ‘cause it’s too… old - that looked the same and housed even more similar secrets.

Without divulging their contents except when necessary (I wrote about our fight and how I hated you so much I could not friend you ever again you stupid dumb useless stupid stupid dumb dumb!), just like a Disney summer blockbuster trailer that tells you nothing and everything or the coquettish lasses they read about aloud in English Lit 101 that their mummies fervently groom them to be, these manuscripts were pimped with all manner of stickers and blinkies and doodads bought from the same stationery store in school as each girl tried to make hers more singular, more special, more “personal expression”.

My sister was one of these secret-keeping exhibitionists who, like many other coy little convent girls who seamlessly teased and threatened by turns, made sure I knew she had a diary and was regularly filling it up with wonderful things that had nothing to do with me and horrible things that had everything to do with me, when I was not the catalyst of her problems.

If her life were neatly diagrammed into the circles of a Venn chart, my neighbourhood would have been squarely among the blue-blacks and brown-greens she hated and would no doubt have used to colour her circle of awful things.

She hated me because eight-year olds are stupid and bratty that way, and I was a most prime specimen in that respect, she would repeat with so much consistency, discipline and energy that I thought it deserved applause when I wasn’t cursing her out (stupid stupid dumb dumb idiot moron nincompoop fool impostor devil’s daughter hate hate hate die die DIE).

Anyway, diary-keeping was so popular that even our Aunty H, most certainly far beyond convent-going age, had heard of it and it became fodder for our conversations over lunch (which I found incongruous because why talk about something so purportedly private?)

While sis prattled on about the who, what, why, when and how (I like to write on hardcover notebooks because they look so special and serious, with my Pilot G-7 gel pen - have you heard of it? - because the ink is so nice!) of the craft, I paid full attention because:

a younger sister will always want what her older sister wants;
I wanted into this whole culture, never mind that I had been at the receiving end of convent-girl politics via this diary-keeping business, and;
I wanted to hurt people to/and feel special too.

Aunty H listened with a patience only found among people her age, and smiled at the end. She turned to me and asked: “Do you want to keep a diary too?”

Boy, did I ever! But I held myself back, partly out of shyness and partly because I was excited, doggammit!

She did not quite wait for my response, in her infinite wisdom that again was only found among her ilk of oldies, and very simply declared: “I have never kept a diary.”

Whoa, seriously? Isn’t that supposed to be sophisticated grown-up business? (And I still remembered confusing sophisticated with elegance as a child. More proof that I should not be a writer, hah!) We were surprised, my sis more vociferous in her display than I was.

Aunty H, ever smiling, said: “The safest place to keep a secret is in your heart. Diaries can be stolen, your secrets exposed. I keep mine safe inside.”

Such genius! Such elegance! Such simplicity! I wanted to pipe in plus it’s cheaper too! but did not want to mess up the zen-like composure of her message.

So I took her advice to heart, perhaps too strictly and literally, for I kept all my secrets concealed as best as I could, so compressed within that the mass of thoughts, emotions, memories and knowledge collapsed into itself like a black hole, sucking in innocent ideas and expressions in its ever-growing ambit.

Which leads us to today, my inability to express myself. The black hole is obvious in my silence, my refusal to look straight at you, and my nonchalance. I really can’t give a shit, too bad, so sad.

Words unspoken will die messily, like suicide bombers they take many more with them, unfortunate casualties in this web that tangles over time.

Ideas uncommunicated, unexecuted. Thoughts unshared. Opinions unargued. Insults unlaunched. Jokes unused. That cancer of silence metastasised, killing them all. And it’s all my fault.

The sound of silence rings hollow.

FontStruct: Make your own fonts

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 00:22:06 -0400

FontStruct: Make your own fonts:

It’s like the Internet equivalent of crafting a bespoke accent. Cool, no?

Mourning

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 12:22:57 -0400

Something, someone, somewhere, sometime ago.