Today's title comes from my favorite Iggy Pop song, "Isolation," from his amazing Blah, Blah, Blah album. That album is almost 20 years old but never gets old for me. It's one of the few in my collection I've owned on vinyl, cassette and CD (Pink Floyd: The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon, Gimme Shelter, couple of Bowie albums are the only ones that have that distinction). Yep, that good.
I was actually going to blog about anal sex today (for a lot of reasons), but got off on another tangent. I finished Robin McKinley's amazing vampire novel Sunshine (probably my fourth or fifth time reading that novel over the past couple of years--it IS the antidote to the *puke*light books--SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good!), and I wasn't in the mood to dive into another novel because I had other stuff to do, so I picked up Poe's Children, an anthology edited by one of my favorite horror authors, Peter Straub (that man has written some of the most fucking terrifying books on the planet; Ghost Story and Floating Dragon are two books that have never left me; ditto his psychological thriller Shadowland, which introduced two incredibly influential phrases to my lexion: "The secret lies in hating well" (TOO TRUE!); and "Once upon a time, when we all lived in the forest..." The anthology also has stories by some favorite writers (Joe Hill and Stephen King come immediately to mind); I collect horror anthologies because, in my opinion, the short story is the epitome of the horror genre. Some of the best, creepiest, most intensely scary stories I've ever read have been short stories or novellas. One of the greatest horror writers of all time, H.P. Lovecraft, wrote his masterpieces in the short form. Another favorite, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, wrote astounding short stories of the gothic and creepy variety. A contemporary author whom I adore, Jim Butcher, finally collected his Harry Dresden short stories, and I am slavering over reading that (but need to read the last Dresden novel before I can, and I haven't been in the mood for Harry recently. This will not last; I love Dresden and would date him if he was real).
Back in the 80's, Penguin published a series of anthologies with Edward Gorey illustrations on the dust jackets. Lucky me, my mother belonged to a book club and bought two of them, the ones dealing with ghosts and vampires. The vampire one is still in print and well worth investing in. Geek girl here has two copies of it--the original hardcover (sadly, minus dust jacket, dammit) and the current trade edition. I actually found another volume in the series--on witches and wizards--in a thrift store in Nova Scotia on the last trip.
BUT I DIGRESS!
Anyway, I tend to read in order--it's a discipline thing, because if I only read the authors I liked, I'd never read anything new. This is the other lovely thing about anthologies: I get a sample of authors without having to buy a lot of books. One of the stories, "Cleopatra Brimstone," disturbed the FUCK out of me. I have to reread it (and don't want to) because I found it a bit disjointed--I don't like disjointed--but it basically involves a brilliant young woman obsessed with butterflies and moths who is raped and runs off to London for the summer to recover whilst housesitting for some family friends in Camdentown.
Her rapist says to her, "Try and get away." This is all she remembers of the event. Well, in London, she comes across an odd club, and is inspired to get some cuffs and buy some fetish-inspired clothing and shave her head. And then she brings men home to fuck, ties them down to the bed, whispers, "Try and get away," gets them off, and as she whispers that to them, they shrink in their bonds down to a rare specimen of a butterfly or moth which she then mounts (leave it alone) as a proper collected specimen.
I cannot tell you how skeeved this left me, this act of diminishing. SKEEVED. CRAWLING. I'm shuddering right now, thinking about it. It just turns my stomach. I've been coming to the realization lately that my days of kink are pretty much at an end--nothing against the old BD/SM scene, but... *shakes head* Aside from the odd spank on the bottom during a good, hard plow from behind, I just don't need the accoutrements any more. I don't want to be tied up. I don't want to tie anyone up. It's too much fucking work. I want to shag and cuddle and love and just be happy in someone else's company. I don't need to degrade or be degraded, and I don't think you can go the BD/SM route without a bit of animosity/need to/be degraded. I'm past that. AND I'M NOT JUDGING ANYONE WHO IS INTO IT! This is MY decision for ME. I've said it before--I don't care who/what you fuck, as long as the kids and housepets are left out of it. Unless I'm taking care of my own needs, I'm just beyond the toys.
I had a realization driving today that probably my deepest, most intense fear--the fear of being diminished, reduced to a specimen, an anecdote to be collected and dismissed. "Isn't that CUTE!" This is why Potential Paramour got the heave-ho and blocked--he said this to me frequently, telling me how cute I was when I was upset.
Galadriel speaks of it in The Lord of the Rings, of being a diminished and dwindling people, immortal but growing irrelevant, hiding in their fortresses and keeping the past alive rather than being a vital part of the living and breathing Middle Earth. I usually equate myself most to Sam when I compare myself to a LotR character, but in reality, I think the one I most compare to (in some ways) is Gandalf--inscrutable in my moods and reactions. The fictional character I think I most resemble is Granny Weatherwax, no matter how dearly I aspire to be Nanny Ogg.
Yeah, weird headspace today. I mentioned last weekend being a bit on the shamanic side. The full was last weekend, and my magical side manifests strongest in the few days after the full moon. I feel like so many things are clashing inside me at the moment, and I'm trying to sort it all out and make some sense of it. Making lists, setting goals, and putting myself back in touch with my inner shaman.
I know some of you, my cherished blurkers, are pagans and know of what I speak. *sigh* Since coming out of the broom closet a decade ago, I've gone back and forth with my spirituality. I have a love/hate relationship with my shamanic side. It's deep and hard to stay on that path and live in the real world. And with everything that presses on me for attention, it's really easy to let that responsibility slip. I've start meditating again (or attempting to) and drawing limits around what I'm willing to sacrifice and what I'm willing to tolerate. I understand right now that going foward is going to depend on bringing all sides of me as close into harmony as possible.
It also means I have to step away from my isolation. I wrap solitude around me like a cloak--it's my armor, my protection for my battered heart and soul, much like my leather jacket and my omni-present cynicism and rage, not to mention my rather unconventional and direct sense of the absurd that produces my strange version of comedy. I have felt horribly out of place in my life of late. I lost a group of friends back in the Autumn (not a big deal--nice people in their own way, but narrow-minded and narrow-thinking in terms of ambition and life), and it has come home very hard that I haven't had a regular "gang" to hang with in a very, very long time. I somehow have always been the person people least think to invite to participate in the ordinary bits of life.
Part of it comes from being an only child; I am very much used to my own company and entertaining myself. I'm very comfortable with myself. I hate it. I want company, I want distractions, I want companionship. I want to be a part of something more than myself. It bothers me that I need love, that I need anything more than what I can provide for myself.
Part of it is the odd life I have. Let's face it, dealing with Mum doesn't exactly lead to a healthy dating life. Excuse me, but do you mind if I bring my mother along to the casino? *headdesk*
So, I'm going to sign off on that note. And write the post on anal sex tomorrow.
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