The toilets have exploded.

Not literally. It's just that all the pipes are backing up into the downstairs toilet, overflowing, and seeping out into both the living room and the garage.

HOORAY!

Today. Has Sucked.

Altered States

Ben Folds Five - [Brick]--- This is a bit of an experiement. I haven't done a late night/early morning stream of consciousness thing, in quite some time, and I've been up for what I'm going to call 21 hours, at this point. I have a fairly high level of caffeine in my system, no working toilet, and the determination and need to stay awake until the plumber shows up, first thing in the morning which, hopefully means 6.30 or 7 am. I don't care, as long as it's early. I want them here, I want it fixed, and then I want them gone. What I'm saying, here, is that I'm going to write, here, until I feel that i'm fucking finished. I'm going to go where my head takes me, and move from there, and I dont want any of your TL;DR shit.

Placebo - [Bulletproof Cupid]--- This is what it is. I've been thinking about a lot of things, lately, as you well know. I've been thinking about what it means to be a magician, to say that one practices magic, in this world. greygirlbeast calls Magick "The willful invocation of awe." moonandserpent sees magic as linguistic, psychological, and biologically Present way of attuning oneself to the world, to nature, and building oneself, as well as possible, within those things. (The Legendary Pink Dots - [The Island of Our Dreams]). There are other magicians, here, and I don't know exactly how to classify how they think of magic. How do you think of magic? Anyway, we can talk about that, later, but I want to point to those two, because one is rooted firmly in the efficacy of respect and mental orientation toward our environment, a recognition of that terrible complexity, that random chaos that orders itself, and allows part of itself to examine itself. The other approaches those components from the other direction, seeking to more readily and pragmatically apply the principles, taking that complexity and seeking to recognise that there are places where forces can be exerted to influence and change our perceptions and interpretations of them. Now, unless I've vastly mischaracterised these two positions-- and I'm really fucking sorry, if I have, but it's five in the fucking Morning, and I'm a bit... Wooo-- I want to say that I don't think they are at odds.

Electric Hellfire Club - [South of Heaven]--- Magic, for me, is the complexity of the universe, recognised, applied, dived into, absorbed, sucked into and expelled from oneself, in the effort to continue and expand the cycle of generative complexity that gave birth to itself. Every thing I do, every time I act, while taking as much of the complexity of the universe into account as I possibly can, I better suit and fit the universe. That is not to say that I'm going to do the "right" thing. That is not to say that anything will be right, because everything is right. But it is to say that there is an infinite complexity, or a set of complexity so large as to be so close to infinite as to not matter. If it is, in fact, bound, then we take that into which is bound into acount, and continue outward, yes?

The Smiths - [Shakespeare's Sister]--- But that's be discussed. Magic is the process of actively, responsibly, respectfully engaging this complexity, knowing that any and everything we do will have some effect, but that there is always the law of unintended consequences with which to contend. I cannot always know the end result of my efforts, and I, alone, can only change the universe, so much. My will is great, but I am only a single, embodied entity.

Gorillaz - [Man Research (Clapper)]--- I am, of course, everything, but fuck that. My sensorium is bound, expanded at points, but never flly encapsulating every angle of the infinite. I can't do it. Not and remain myself. Not yet. I have specific needs and wants and preferences that go into making me the person I am. For instance, I want my toilet fixed. I want a job. I want to have specific conversations with certain people. I want my old friends to miss me as much as I miss them. I want more people who understand my motivations, at least 80% of the time, rather than looking at me like I'm a fucking insane person. I prefer the colours black, silver, and red. I take integrity very seriously, whatever that means. I h ave desires that I don't always share, because no one asks the right way, or with the honest intent to know.

Guster - [Demons]--- These are parts of the things that make me (I can process caffeine like water and vitamin-enriched bread), and I like these things. To come to the place where that is only a small, vague part of what I am will be a large change. Obviously. This is why i have such an obsession with Mutual Arrogance, you understand? I Love myself, and it took me a long time to get to the place where I could say that, with certainty. That I could take even all the Bad Wolf/Great Destroyer parts of myself and say "I love that about me, even if it puts me at odds, even if it puts me outside of people, a lot of the time." Because they're me. I love destruction, deconstruction, construction, reconstruction, and neo-classicism/-romanticism. (Snake River Conspiracy - [Homicide]). Why? Because they explore shape and form, they explore building and making yourself what you are and want to be, they take outside forces and contexts and they take internal impetus and will and they meet, in the middle, and they say There You Are. And the more you recognise that, the bits and pieces, the better you are. And I want you to be as fully you as possible, because I think you have the ability to love all of those things about you, as well.

I want you to be an equal partner in this complete fucking thing that is the universe, because when I'm you, I want to be able to as easily recognise how fucking awesome I am, as I am Right Now. do you see the depths and convolutions of this arrogance and selfishness? I extend it all to you, because I make sure that it eventually comes back around to me. It's a sick scheme, all right, but by gods, I'll make sure it works.

Bigdumbface - [Space Adventure]--- So I want everyone to look up and say "Hey. I fucking rock." I want people to look at their flaws, their failings, down through the years, and figure out what they can learn from them, how they can grow, because of them, in spite of them, and I want people to aspire to continually aspire to be more completely Them. I want you to be You, and the best fucking You that you can possibly be. And ther may be some problems with being You, as fully as possible. You may alienate people, friends and family, and shit like that.

Nine Pound Hammer - [800 Miles]--- This is an important question, isn't it? How much is integrity worth? How selfish can you be, in being youself, ruthlessly, unapologetically, fully yourself? We want to think that there are lines that we would never cross, in regards to others. That there are things that we would never do to the people we love, and the people we love want to think that they are immune to the worse parts of our natures. (Save Ferris - [Everything I Want To Be]). We may all be very, very wrong. Think, right now, about someone you love, romantically, platonically, familial, whatever. Now think about something they think you would never do, to them, some emotional hurt, which they think you would never visit upon them. Now think about who and what you are, fully, in every part of yourself. Think about the things that Being You means, and what that will do to the people who hold a certain conception and perception of you, in their minds. In the words of Malcolm Reynolds, "You wanna meet the Real Me, now?"

Coil - [Circles Of Mania]--- I don't know the Real You. Not fully. I don't know who you are, under pressure, when your life is on the line. I don't know who you are, in your private quiet moments, when no one else is there, away from the computer, swirling in your head, licking the edges of your own fractal whorls, to see if it bleeds....

There's an old story which I've never been able to remember where I heard it, but it's an Inuit story, a parable about the dangers of what we think we want. I think it applies, here:

Mystic - [The Life]--- A hunter and her son are out in the tundra, seeking food and pelts for warmth. Upon killing a food animal-- a seal or a carribou; it doesn't matter-- the mother takes her knife and coats it in the animals blood, and she lets it sit. When it is full frozen, she again coats the knife's blade in the blood of the animal, and lets it sit. Again, it freezes and, again, she coats the blade. She does this seven times, and then walks a fair distance from the kill, over a rise and digs a small hole. (The Black Heart Procession - [A Light So Dim]). She sets the knife's hilt in the hole, and covers it with snow and ice, leaving the blood-coated blade sticking straight upward.

Returning to her son, he asks her, "Mother, what are you doing to your knife? Won't someone take it, left out there on the plain?" And the mother silences her son, and directs him to watch, and to wait.

Time passes and, eventually, a wolf comes across the plain, sniffing the air. Quickly, he finds the blade and begins licking off the many coatings of animal blood. The mother and son watch and the son is astonished when, shortly, the animal falls over, dying or dead. His mother rushes over to the animal, and finishes it, and brings it back to begin the task of dressing and skinning it. Her son asks what happened, and she explains:

"The wolf, so desirous of the blood on the blade, continues to lick, long after the prey's blood is gone, and the blade's edge exposed, not realising that it is his own blood he now tastes. Eventually he cuts himself so badly that he bleeds to death."

Restarting the shuffle on the full playlist.

Tori Amos - [Girl]--- I'm still really quite tired, and I still have an indeterminate amount of time, before the plumber shows up.

So very few people on facebook put the full extent of their "How I Know This Person" details, on their profiles. I can't decide if this is a good thing, or a terrible thing. Seriously. I love honesty. Transparency. When it's chosen. I don't want to put full details of someone else up, without their consent because maybe I did some things with that person that they don't want other people to know about, you know?

Autechre - [Autriche]--- It's all very complicated. That said (and maybe I'll regret saying this when I've slept, but I doubt it), if you're on the FaceBooks, and you want to give full details of how we know each other, sordid or no, you go ahead...

But I guess that's what the approval mechanism is for, on there, huh?

I'm also in a confessional kind of mood. I will not absolve you of your sins, however, so much as encourage you to do them, again, but this time put your Back into it.

This is somewhere in the area of six pages long. No I'm not going to LJ Cut. I have the distinct feeling that most of you are just going to skip past this, anyway, so whatever.

I'm going to go, now.