Good Stuff...good links for those who are fanfictionally inclined, particulary to Buffy
Season Noir:The best Buffy fanfiction, maybe the best fanfiction period.
Also really good Buffy fanfiction. Nipping at Season Noir's heels.
Really Good Buffy fanfic--even closer to the goodness that is season noir
Hi, I'm Erica and I am a loser.
For those of you intersested in my loserness, please continue reading. For those of you who aren't..enjoy the beautiful landscapes or bugger off!
Here are some idle notes that might one day become something. Most of them were written while in my English class with my kooky, but loveable English professor. They go backwards, so the first you see is the newest. (If you want to 'get me' then its probably best to start at the bottom)
Rant
People don't go mad all at once. It is not, unless there's a singular traumatic event, it is not all at once. It is so slow--it is so slow like a glacier breaking away from the mainland, buckling under the pressure. It is so slow like the drift of said glacier out into the sea. Poor, lonely glacier. Doesn't it knife your gut to watch it go? And then something simple, basic--like vanity--brings me back. Can't drift too far, so soon. 'Cause I'm going to look like a disease tomorrow. The red lines tracing my blue-white eyeballs, the bruise colored half-moons underneath. That haunted look, which makes me laugh because it is the actual feeling of haunt that brought me to this point. Nerves are scattered across the floor like flung spaghetti. Stutter movements in my hands--my so weary hands. Who would have guessed that they needed sleep too? I hope she's fucking him. I hope shes's fucking him and that it's really good, too. It's not that its her fault, certainly not. Not her job to be in here so I can sleep. But if I can't, if I have to feel the tiny, invisible hand trying to force my right eye shut--then at least it should be for a purpose. Not just having a conversation, I hope, but getting laid. I peer an exhausted eye over all my demons and angels, be still, be still. I can't follow you, my reflexes are not up to parr.
Rant
It's really just too much. Really just too much fore one person, one individual to take--but there are worse plights than mine! I can't sleep. I see her coming t owrads me, dark hair covering the horror of her face. My mind keeps trying to guess what's behind that hair. I hate you! And I hate myself for allowing you to come into my life. Damn you back to whatever hell you crawled out of. My roommate opened the window--hot, she's always hot. She's always opening the window to let the air in--to let me out. She has no idea, casually sliding the metal and glass contraption, no idea how often I've thought of dropping myself out. Oops. Then Erica is all broken up and they can put her back together and throw away the pieces that don't fit--that shouldn't fit. I will always be weird...and that shouldn't bring me to the crouched position, with the tears and the hopless gesture of head in hands. It shouldn't, it shouldn't. I just want to go to bed unafraid. I hate seeing her not-face when I close my eyes. I hate the drag of my eyelids--pleae let us shut, please. Well stop flashing up her image, then! And I won't snap them back open. Every click, sound,snap, creak, like the chord of omnious music--stretched out, agonizing. Can't you see the opera singer holding out the note with a gun to her head--don't stop, don't stop until it breaks. Don't stop until that familiar heartthud that lets you know that they have not attacked--not yet. Funny thing, that heartthud. Stopped, questioning. Do I speed up? Do I fill her veins with blood so she can run or fight? Maybe everything is okay. Maybe I don't need to speed up. Wait for the signal from the eyes and ears--everything is okay, then? No need to speed up? Thump. Keep living.
Rant
Writing papers used to be easier, I think. Maybe its just because I have to write so many of them now. But shouldn't that make it easier? I'm rambling, sorry. Words should come, though, they should flow. Even in an English paper, they should--if the thoughts are there the words should be there to back it up, right? Words shore up the thoughts--otherwise the buildings would collapse. I shouldn't get on Microsoft Word and fool around with the page setup because I don't know how to begin. Sometimes writing is just like taking a shit--its something I have to do. Right now I'm constipated. Sorry for the vulgarity--'writing is like breathing' was taken.
Rant
I miss innocence. I mean sure the debauchery in college has its high moments. But there is a lot to be said for innocence.
What is it, though? that sterling white purity? That cleanliness? But remeber innocence=ignorance. You can't know about the world and be innocent. You simply can't.
But there's Christianity. Good and noble, Pure and True! But I am raging against the Light. The Light doesn't place any value in a good fuck other than the procreation that would result from it. The Light doesn't read Tess and cry, knowing this is some poor girl's story. The Light is cruel because it has all the power and leaves children in hovels, broken, drownining in their own waste. Rage against the Light!
Where's my joy? Where's my peace? Where is my mother-fucking guardian angel?! Where was hers, Tess, while she was being raped?! Fuck you Light, if you can offer me no explanation for these things. I am scared of your power because you have no heart. There is no excuse, none. And you wonder wy people wish you out of existence. If I cannot wish you out of the whole world's, then at least my own. Because of your cruelty, because of your abandonment. Because of your callousness. No, I will never understand a god such as this! Rage, rage, rage against the Light. Rage, rage, rage. So scared now. But must be, best to be honest. I still believe in that, you know. I believe in honesty. Yet my cowardice begs me to step down. Six years of Christianity taught me that God is angry--angry at those who don't respect/love/worship Him. Particulary those who fell away from the faith. But I never used, you, Lord. Well maybe I used You in the sense that I worshipped You in order to get to Heaven. But not to get to Wash, not to get a car, not to not be left on the side of the road, not for any of those things--I didn't, I didn't, I didn't. I don't think I did.
Rant
I imagine that moment, when one of my favorite songs hits the climax, that feeling in my heart--I imagine that's what an orgasm must feel like. Peaking and then that glorious rush back to Earth. I know I mythsize (is that a word?) sex way too much. I'm setting myself up for dissapointment. If sex was as great as all those fanfic articles, well, frankly, no one who's had it would do anything else. People would shag like bunnies constantly. But at the same time, says the glimmer of hope (or lust?) it must be pretty good because people (particularly men) go to such great length to get it. And all that natural urge--me the virgin, only held back from masturbation for the sake of dignity and denceny--that can't all lead to a big, fat nothing, right? Giggle, giggle. One of my biggest fears is that my husband will suck in the sack (which is so not to be taken literally)'Cause that would be, you know, BAD. Not like oh-my-God-I'm-going-to-die-a-horrible-painful-death-bad, but more like someone-just-drove-a-bulldozer-through-my-custom-built-house-and-the-plans-were-destroyed-bad. This fear is compounded by the fact that I don't want to have sex until I'm married. Oh, well. At least I won't know the difference. Unless, of course, its really bad. I heard a girl say, in a rather accusing tone, my ex-boyfriend took my virginity. As if they were just sitting on the couch next to each other and he ripped it away from her.
Rant
Every moment is another chance to turn it all around. If I didn't believe this were true, I wouldn't be able to get up in the morning. I would look at all the mistakes I've made and judge myself lacking, unable to be made whole. I would let my blankets swallow me, unwhole. Snorts. "Went to see a man about a girl." What happened to Lelah? I think I left her stranded. But that's alright, she won't make it to class anyway, she doesn't need a ride. I--she never sees God. Really, Proffessor Leb*****, you should look harder. Whip cracking at my back, "Yes, I am sorry. I return to being a peon in your kingdom. I dare not elevate myself, forgive me, it is blasphemy, I know." I do want that fairy tale. Literally, I want that fairy tale inside of me. Throbbing, pulsing, alive, and no longer in my head. And afterwards, arms entangled, I want whispered love-words, or gentle rubbing or that glorious two-person sleep where his heartbeat is my own. I hate sleeping alone, yet that is all I have ever known. My eyes have become desperate. Ugly boys become passable. Average boys become heroes. A lack of ego becomes nobility. My eyes decieve me...and I allow myself to be led away and raped.
Rant
The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. To just get up every morning and start another day. To get out of the bed-sheets and comforter around your body, coaxing you to stay, and drop your feet down into the carpet, bones whining in protest. And I'm trying to be poetical, but I'm angry. I'm angry at myself. Angry that I read Buffy-porn instead of do work. Angry that when I actually work and I meet a brick wall, I simply bash my head against it, idilly admiring the sound of my brain splitting apart and the feel of the blood running down the sides of my face. I fixed my eyebrow with a pencil today. Just drew a small half-line to replace what I fucked up last night. I keep trying to do the same thing with my academic career.
Rant
My parents have given in to surburbia. It seems wrong, somehow. Like maybe your life should start out surbuban, not become that way. Not each brick layed down with pain and precision, yellow, leading to the wizard and they bravely ask him for a house to complete the transformation. Ahh, the house with the two car garage--and two cars to put in it! With a deck and room enough for everyone and room enough to spare--complete with neighbors who bring apple pies. And they're brave enough to ignore the skin of the new family. Not exactly what they would have hoped, but they're not racist, no, of course not, the matron says, fingering her golden cross as she talks to her good friend over coffee. Its a nice house, actually. A really nice house. Still a little sterile--my father frowned when I brought food into the living room--but homey enough. It was my room that brought me to my knees when no one was looking. Not the smallness, I now share an only slightly larger space with two others, just that I wasn't there anymore. That when I packed up and went to college, all of me, all of me went. I thought I would come home to find pieces of myself there, but the icons of my high school days that my mother had lovingly put up were devoid of emotion. If I missed me I would weep in that damn room. I hope my mother doesn't. So I came home to realize I didn't have one. My parents moving only days after I left for college, moving twenty minutes from our former city-suburb lifetyle, to pure unadulterated suburbia, left me groundless. Its true what Thomas Hardy said, you know? You can never go home again.
Rant
I nurse my depression. When I say this, I picture a flower growing out of breaks in the concrete...but that's not really accurate. There is plenty of fertile soil to nurture the weed. I think I gave up on this class. I was fueled to writer better after my last terrible paper. I was driven to better, I was driven to dive into the text deeper. I wanted to do that new age shit--become the text, or at least live in it. But then, I hesitate, I wince, but then it didn't mean anyting. Maybe the text meant something but my analysis of the text--that meant nothing. "I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry." I love that quote, even though I don't really believe it. As much as I would like to go on a discourse for the reasons why--not today. Not today. Too much sadness and sleepiness today. Too much melancholy to be stirred into a passionate argument. Too much, too bright, I want my bed. So cold--ice water dripping from my fingertips. I used to think it was in my veins. But its not. There's so much feeling there--so much compassion and depth. Not perfect, not at all, but I do, everyday I do--care. And there's a love there for a religion I abhor. I must admit that when Paul taught the Phillipians what love was, I heard his words. I felt them in body--where they kind of echoed around, plesantly burning and scarring me for life. 'Love is patient.' How profound that is. That great first line that explains what love is. Not duty, not heart flutters, but patience. I'm learning to be patient. "He honed her edge and she bled against his. But not to death. She was learning how not to bleed to death." (Season Noir) How funny it is that profundity is not restricted to the immortal word of God or the words of His people.
Rant
I hate the way she writes. Not the words or meaning, but her physical act of writing bothers me. Erica, that's really fucked up. You know what I realized? I love it when people say my name. My name is so rarely said (at least to my face) that I always feel a little ray of sun every time someone says it. What a pity. How pathetic I am! I really should pay atttention. She's giving her word about Yeats. I think. We seem to be lacking on the analysis today. But she's all riled--mouth foaming, full of spit to spew out her point. Disgusting, I know. I don't feel the rain, I don't sit under her. Depression. Phobia. I need to talk about both. But only in reference to myself. Phobia first. I am seriously considering seeing a psychatrist about my fear of ghosts and demons. It is becoming--no it is--ridiculous. I have trouble sleeping and working when no one else is in the room. I fear my own shadow--a whip of hair trailing behind me, the glow of a television. It is enough to make one kill oneself. (Be free, Erica, be free. Let loose. No so much control) Stern face, now. Straining with effort. ("I answer only to you," Spike said--Season Noir) Tense now, every nerve on edge like a violin chord held at the summit of its range. Whining, whining; baby, come back. Sometimes you have to do that. Sometimes you have to call yourself a pet name--baby,sweetheart,ducks,--to bring yourself back from the edge. There is no one to do it for you. No one: "No one came; because no one ever does."! Hardy should have screamed that. Maybe he wanted us to feel it--poignant. Maybe that's why he ended it with a period, so that we would curse the fates. He already had in his heart. Come to the realization now, that I've settled for being dependent upon guys. I don't want to be alone. Not forever, not, really, ever. I like arms and have you ever felt their chest at your back? Everything is right, then. Everything is okay.
Rant
Good day. Not really, but good mood. La de da. Augghh! Writing come forth! Come forth now!!! Spuffy was rolling along nicely in Arabic. What will I give Lelah? Will I give her everything I never had? Will I make her perfect? Pure and good? Evil? Do I believe in an in-between? Morality is a slippery fish. Tierney is right. I should purchase a fucking buddy. Who, though? Who wants a couple of snogging sessions with no consequences, is good looking, and not abdominable? Who? Think brain, think. No one is really attracted to me here. Umm, good day, good mood, refuse to get down about that. Next! I think literary hunk is staring at me. Or maybe, *through* me. Hmm, interesting. Not a snogging partner! Dothing think that. Teenage valley girl, "eww." I really should not go to bed at 5:30. Sleepy, now. Maybe even a little slap happy. Wench! Stop looking at my writing. Don't like her, just a little troll--bad feelings, shouldn't say that, quite mean. STOP LOOKING!!! "Give to Caeser what is Caeser's and God what is God's, what happened to that with the politicizing of religion." Such a great point! Nice job Professor, Leb*****.
Rant
Oh, murderess. Nice. I don't think I want my paper back. I used blank diction--she's going to murder me for it. Hey, five minutes into the class and she hasn't talked about sex yet. I need to e-mail my former teachers. No one is paying attention today. Everyone is in their own world--islands, lapped by the sea. "No man is an island, entire of itself. Each is part of the continet, a part of the whole." Something like that, from John Donne. Sweet Lord it reeks in here. I feel nauseated. Maybe I'm not cut out to be an English major. My writing really isn't that good. And I'm having writer's block. How can you have writer's block for a journal? Oh, shit. I just openly rolled my eyes at one of her comments. Arghh, that can't be good--for me, I mean.
It was bright of course. The coldest winter days are the bright ones. The sun mocking the earth's inhabitants with a golden light. Etheral. The way you would picture Heaven--cold and bright. After all, anything that is perfect cannot be warm.
Rant
Fucking fantabulous day. Way too sleepy and Buffy-filled to give a flying flint about anything really. Smile, smile. Grin, grin. I have to put my face in my hand to hide it. Oh, God, need to laugh so bad--smile forming, eyes watering, holding my breath. "Faster than a porn site through a DSL line." Awesome quote. "Secularizing of a metaphysical beginning." I actually understood that, Prof. Breathe in, breathe out (the song). Isn't it funny how I normally would never have my ass in some guy's crotch? Parties are so funny that way. Take Johnathan, for instance. Nice guy, jameel (prounciation of Arabic word for classmate);after all. Fellow Ervin. I see him all the time, wave, smile, speak. At a party--no words, ass in crotch, grinding away. Again the laughter, control. "This is important because we need things to torture us." I get to giggle. Quiet class today. 'Milk to market' makes me laugh. So plain, so simple. So opposite Spuffy porn. Gotta stop with that. Gotta give that up. Oh, damn. She just said 'humilating.' Reminds me of ass in crotch, but not my own, and much more literally. Everyone thinks these things--I just write them. Pleased when Professor Cain said 'shit' today. Like 7-10 minutes left, I can make it, I can make it.
Rant
What is the name of Lot's wife? Can't remember. Lelah turned, dark hair ribboning away. It was cold, really cold that day. She had watched the branches shiver as she walked through campus. Brittle leaves broke off--crunch,crunch--beneath her feat.
Alright. Totally humiliated in my English class. That was fun. I remember last night, making a pact with myself that I would shut up. I remember looking at the mirror with guilt and shame over some social sin and vowing that I would not subject myself to that again. It's not that everyone remembers my social sins--but I remember them. I remember them! And I feel my heart break every single time. I am insane, I know. I've spent so long building an image, only to pull it down with my fingers--desperately clawing, stone tower (idol really) grinding it beneath my own feet. "If my heart would beat it would break my chest." "And she worked herself on his staff, like a nun lossing her vows"(Season Noir) Are you serious? Am I really going to cry? Because that would be insane. I would be a true loser then. And yet so noble... Does she feel slighted. I'm not angry. Wait, why would she care if I were angry? But I'm not, anyway. Only embarassed. And resigned. Simply resigned to be a dumbass. "No one knows you are a fool until you open your mouth and remove all doubt." That's from the Great Book, but slightly modified for my lack of memory. She kind of looks at me--for an analysis, an input. I down-cast my eyes--I am done.
Rant
I'm becoming quite the cynic. I really should pay attention, considering the fact that I'm going to her office hours today. She's in rare form today--all worked up. "Get it heard, service the girl...Right, girl does not want to be serviced because there's no spark." Umm. Lovely. "I love you so much it burns me, like I'm seeing the sun again." No Daddy, I am as pure as the driven snow. She's ruining the book. Lalalalalalalalalalalala. Notes from the Madness. I mean really, when you are bottled up, when your spirit has to sit--that's when you go mad. Umm...suicide. I do like Tess. She's a bit of a dumb-shit, but I like her. "The gods are intensely intersted in us. They're always coming down and raping us." Notice how literary hunk keeps looking at boyfriendladdendancer. What's that line, Spike? "Can I get you a sodapop? I think I'm in love." Leering, grinning--sexy as hell. How many men can be sexy while leering? THE REPUBLICANS ARE TAKING OVER--maybe American Imperialism is at hand. Ominous, dark, dark day. I am going to start keeping a tally of how many times she mentions sex. Umm. Flat white stomach. Yum. Hmm, smile, I'm black.
Rant
What the hell do we talk about in this class? I wonder. Sometimes its so deep it has no relevancy to anyting. I want to scream, "stop already!" But I can't. And when she knocks down a view that is different from her own I want to yell in her face--"were you there when Dickens chose that adjective? Did he consult you? How the hell, then, do you have ALL the answers? But she sits on the great throne of literary genius and I am yet a peon in her kingdom. The Great Queen is always right after all. I probably should not roll my eyes at the Queen, she holds my grade in her hand; not to mention my reputation. Have you ever though about all the horrors the sun and moon have seen? Always silent. Useless sentries. Literary hunk, look at me. Head Jester in the Queen's Court. "Yes'm massa"--Uncle Tom--"Yes'm I sees what you trying to say about that gal, Tess." Not me. Not me. When she looks at me with passion, I laugh. I am amused. I am not enlightend--maybe a little. Hey, she's ruining the book. Back to her passion and my amusement. Reminds me of how Drusilla would bite harder those who begged for their lives. She has to make a sexual innuendo every damn day. Really. 19th century literature is actually all about sex--they were just clever about hiding it. SEXANDARABICANDENGLISHANDSEXANDECONANDMUSICANDLABSANDSEXANDERANDTHEPRACTICEANDSEXANDLAUGHTERANDSEXFRIENDSANDSPUFFY--BUTTHATSREALLYSEXANDBOYSANDSEXANDVIRGINITYANDSEXANDWHORESANDTHESOUTHERNANNOYINGGIRLSANDSEXANDALLTHEOTHERERICASANDISITPOSSIBLETO.. Hey, she said something I agree with. All literature is about 'is it possible to be good and happy.' ANDSEXBYHER,THISTIME,NOTMEANDBOOKSANDBUSYANDPAPERSANDLONGELINESANDDEPRESSIONANDHOWCANIFUCKINGFORGET--FANTASY--ANDSEXANDSEXANDSEXANDFUCKMYASS. Oh, no she's on a soapbox.