No, I'm not counting the minutes until the download of Prison Break S2 is completed, and I'll no longer have to molest my magazine but can go back to licking the TV. Please. I'm way too cool and mature for that. I passed thirteen a long time ago. Michael. Lincoln. Yeah, whatever.

*whistles casually*

Yep, just sitting here being respectable. Prison Break's just a TV show. It's not a lifestyle. Take it or leave it. No big deal either way. I'm not addicted or anything.

Nope. No Prison Break junkies in this house.

*implodes*

Okay, so, it's like, wrong, to want to roll up a magazine and have my wicked way with it, right? To rub it all over my body, and, maybe, kind of lick it?

I'm a grown man, sort of, but that Wentworth Miller is one pretty, pretty bloke.

Fernando must have sex with Michael. Must throw him down on a table and ram his cock in. Maybe that will be enough to keep me away from the magazine.

Woof.

I'm a psychological cartographer. (It sounds so much nicer than navel-gazer, which means me think of belly-button lint. Yuck.) You have to be in cyberspace; the textuality of it demands analysis, the definition of borders. I've been thinking lately about friendship boundaries, about what I expect to give and receive.

I need people who can tell me when I've fucked up and who can admit when they've done it. I can't respect those who never accept blame; I mean really accept it, not get defensive and slingshot the blame elsewhere (they can do that at first, but then I expect forgiveness and understanding).

I determine whether or not someone's worthy of friendship by how they handle a bump in the relationship: if they run away, ignore the problem or cast blame, I know they're not worth it. If they scream, but with a goal toward understanding, then they're keepers, and I love them.

I don't trust people who measure a relationship by how few fights they have; I trust those who measure a relationship by how they handle those fights. Because the occasional fight means that the relationship has moved beyond the superficial, that it's about things that matter. You should always bleed over the things that matter.

As I write this, my conscience is whispering, "Hypocrite." While I recently did the confrontation-discussion-reconciliation thing with one friend, I didn't with another. I skipped confrontation because our friendship, such as it is, is new; I couldn't think of how to say what I wanted without sounding as hostile and as hurt as I felt.

I'm worried that if I say how I really feel, I'll squeeze the friendship 'til it breaks, and so I'm doing exactly what I shouldn't, and that's repressing my feelings. Fuck. I just don't know if the other person is ready to hear what I have to say. *chokes on excuses*

Okay, I'll do something about this one. The person is forgiving and understanding--I know that. I'm acting like a big ol' baby, which is exactly what I hate most in other people. I owe an explanation, and so I'm off to write one.

Damn conscience. *kicks its ass*

*I would like to be admired. Not just a passing glance, not just a "yeah, that's okay, excuse me while I go water my plants," but you know, someone actually admiring me in a generally-ongoing way. I see it around me, like standing under a magnolia tree in May, with these beautiful fat pale-pink blossoms trembling over my head. Unreachable to me.

*I'm writing, and my prose is as dry and dull as my hair. I don't think there's anyone who genuinely loves my stories, except me, sometimes, when the words unstick from my head and fall in a kind of mystical order. I hate them later, always, when there's distance, and I see the dry chunks of glue on their backs and sides.

*My LJ is excruciatingly boring, and this entry won't help. Maybe if I talked about Persia. It's the most beautiful word, so resonant and exotic. A tapestry of a word. That's what Edward Said would define as Orientalism, but I know, at least, that I'm not thinking of Persia as a real space (i.e. Iran), but as a locus of pleasure, like Yeats' Byzantium. Have I ever asked that question here, about where people would go if they could go anywhere in time? Sometimes I've asked my friends, and the answers were always revealing and fascinating. It's funny, but I can't remember what I usually say. Right now, it would be mythical Persia, except that I'd probably be completely disempowered--damn reality! My other choice would be ancient Rome, and I'd be a male-hetaera with loads of cash and a special client list that included only brilliant men and women, so brilliant their looks didn't matter. We'd talk about art and poetry, feast on larks' tongues and Falernian wine, then fuck all night.

*I have the most terrible translation of Ovid's Amores, although occasionally the poetry overrides this: "A lofty building is sheathed in gold leaf, blach earth lies hid under marble, fleeces are dipped and redipped in cauldrons of Tyrian dye, while Indian ivory's carved into exquisite objets d'art..." Well, maybe not great poetry, but so embedded with the beauty of place that I want to climb between the words and sleep.

Warning: NC-17 Shakespearean ramblings.

I just like the way that sounds: "Dark Hearts and Desire." I could write a story about it, something that looks romantic, then crunches your spleen.

I could, if I weren't stuck in the subjunctive, write about Iago and Othello, about whispers and murder. Because Iago wanted to fuck Othello--there's no question, with his mouth so close to Othello's ear, whispering, always whispering. He'd never say what he meant; you'd have to read the truth in the lies, flip every word on its belly like a beetle or a scarab. He's hieroglyphic.

Even he knows it: "You'll not hear me," he tells Roderigo. And what does Iago talk about? Lust. How we need to control it: "Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are gardeners." Right. And whose garden would you like to plow, you repressed bastard?

So Desdemona dies, pillow-faced, and Iago prowls along, tail twitching, and rubs against the grieving murderer Othello. And it starts, just a touch, false comfort from Iago's lying hands. Othello hates women now, and doesn't stop him. Maybe, at first, he doesn't feel anything, just leans back against the wall with his eyes closed.

That rich, embroidered Renaissance fabric of his shirt is gently tugged open, and while Othello grieves, Iago touches his exposed chest, lightly, almost reverently, caresses the hardening nipples, then slides down Othello's body until he's kneeling like a penitent. Kisses everywhere on those strong soldier's thighs, then higher, open-mouthed and wet, until Iago is sucking, oh, sucking so hard and happily on Othello's cock.

Othello says things, about thunder and whispers, and thrusts a little now, his eyes still closed. Iago has this fantasy that Othello will open his eyes and not shout, not draw his sword. It's another lie, and he knows it. Still, he licks and sucks, his own eyes opened and trained up, watching and nearly loving Othello. And for the first time, his tongue is completely truthful. When Othello comes, it's quietly, a warm gush that Iago swallows, not spilling a drop.

Later, Othello will say to Cassio, Ludovico and Gratiano: "Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?"

Then Iago will say simply, "What you know, you know. From this time forth I never will speak word."

What more is there to say?

In the Middle Ages (my favorite discursive playground), saints and would-be saints committed abject acts in order to erase their selfhood, to dismantle the boundaries separating exteriority from interiority. By deconstructing the limits of the physical self, the saint moved closer to God; no longer Other, s/he was closer to a divine Oneness.

The acts that led to this breakdown were, by necessity, grotesque. How do you overcome the concept of physicality except by defusing its meaning? Since we define somatic selfhood through the concept of physical limits, the saint would eat the pus of lepers, drink flea-ridden bath water, and perform other horrific tasks so that the space constituting the "I" would no longer be "I," but "we," a plurality of self that encompassed not simply the bag of bones marked "me," but all physical space, all space, and so, God.

I'm no saint, but I'm fascinated by the idea of what goes into my body and what comes out, not in physical terms (no scat fetishes for this boy), but emotional ones. I have this need to expell negative emotions, to perform psychic exorcisms so that the anger, annoyance, sadness leave my body. If I don't articulate them, I feel like they'll literally fester inside me, turning green and rancid as lepers' pus.

I guess I'm a product of the pop-psych generation, except that I take it to new heights. It's partly one of the reasons I write: this kind of primitive superstitious fear of negative emotions. Writing is a talisman against that, a charm against the bad mojo hiding behind my liver.

The people who skip the exorcism, who pat themselves on the back for their restraint--when I picture them, they're outlined in puke-green. It's leaking from every orifice, or worse: piling, cancerous, in their bowels.

This would be the fancy-ass way of saying that today sucked, and that I need to write those words down. Had a nightmare, fought with a friend, let someone down, received crit on my favorite story. Little things. Mosquito bites. But fuck.

Maybe I'll go have a bath, soak in steaming, grapefruit-scented water.

I promise not to drink it. ;)

Long day. Big rant. Catharsis coming.

So. Some people think that a public journal is a TERRIBLY BAD THING, equivalent to, like, I don't know--genital herpes? It's all autoerotic masturbation or Amsterdamian whore-behind-the-glass exhibitionism. Too trite. Too common. These preservers of public morality wrinkle their noses and pucker their assholes like Victoria's ladies in waiting, and stare down their noses over their scented hankies at us juvenile perverts.

Well. I'm a writer. It's what I do. And you know, to me as a writer, it matters what people think, what's swirling around in the toilet bowl of their brain. Of my brain. And writing this diary, reading other people's lets me see that. I watch. I think. I learn.

And then I write my goddamn ass off. Because what you get here is people, raw. Yeah, sure, sometimes the entries are self-consciously narcissistic. Sometimes they're stupid, dull, boring and witless.

But sometimes, a lot, they're about people grabbing their hearts and squeezing 'til the space marked "Event" is filled. Ever heard about honesty? Catharsis? Guts? If you don't have the balls to be human in public, then, baby, you just don't have balls.

So, to all who think that ranting in journals is an affront to decency and dignity:

Osculare Fundamentum = pithy Latin phrase to demonstrate that sometimes rants are intellectual graffiti.

Pucker up, sweetie.

Today, I cried. The thing is, a couple of songs on an old Sarah McLachlan album did it, and suddenly there are huge crocodile tears, body-shaking sobs, the fist-squeezed heart.

I'm like, "What the fuck?" It wasn't an empathy cry as much as her music and lyrics created this little closet of emotion, and today, inadvertently, I walked in. I turned the music off, and my tears stopped. I turned the music on, and my tears started. And you know what I did? I thought, "Awesome! I've got to get this into my story, this raw, unlocalized sadness; it's perfect for Adrian!"

Then I started to laugh, not only because my tears were manufactured, a product of media manipulation, the response to generic expressions of pain, but because I was using this pain, manufactured or not, to sell my character's own angst. I've become a whore to the process, a cheerleader for simulacra.

But damn, it produced some good lines.

(Ed. note: Bryan refuses to believe that his thoughts are an attempt to metaphorize his real emotions, because he is not a wimp who cries at sad, pretty songs. Really.)

In the Anglo-Saxon period, Stonehenge was haunted. A site excluded from the boundaries of civilization, literally and metaphorically, authority exerted its power and killed men there, beheaded them so their soul could not reach God. A gallows stood nearby, but decapitation took place among the massive, broken stones and stark quiet. This is courtesy of History Channel, paraphrased by yours truly.

Now, my thoughts. I've been fascinated for ages by the juncture between inside and outside, by the significance of borders, by the rules cultures create to define the center and the margins. In Renaissance London, the theatre grew up outside the city limits, together with brothels and bear pits. The plays offered transvestism and travesty in all forms, the locus of liminality.

When I consider the killings at Stonehenge, I see a theatre of death, where politics and performance cojoin to demonstrate in vivid, bloody colour, the power of the inside. The deaths must have been theatrical, performative, or they'd mar their cultural meaning. What's interesting is that England at this time didn't have a strong dramatic tradition, beyond the scops and their songs; even liturgical drama is much later. So these executions are the theatre. Who attended, I wonder? Public, surely, like the theatre of execution that Foucault discusses in the 18th century. Or perhaps private, their impact rooted in whispers and darkness, rumour and mystery.

"Did you hear what happened last night?" Muffled voice.

Nod. "They say the ghosts danced, then stole his soul."

"I heard the Devil himself appeared and ate the poor bastard's heart."

Imagination as political tool, more powerful even than sight.

Bleeek! How come, no matter how hard I try, I can't fix things? How come sincere contrition, honest explanations and offers to make amends aren't enough? Why be friends with people who are happy to suck you dry, but can't give dick back? And screw the shitty parallelism; I need to get this off my chest. Why does writing it down help? Imposing a distance, I guess, forcing rationality into pure emotionalism (and the chance to use words ending in "--ism").

In polyphony, you hear simultaneous but different melodic lines. That is, two voices sing different melodies at the same time, and the result, which theoretically might seem chaotic or confused, is quite beautiful. The plurality there fascinates me, because it's taking an argumentative form and transforming it so that difference becomes harmony.

Why doesn't this work in other situations? I state my position, you offer an alternate viewpoint one, and so on, until we have a fully-developed stance, not a fist-fight. The answer, if you listen to polyphony, is quite obvious: neither voice tries to dominate the other.

Arguing should be like polyphony or good sex: balanced and beautiful.

My muse is melancholic. If this were the Middle Ages, we’d bleed the bitch until balance was restored, and I could write again. My dialogue looks like a dinosaur wrote it, then sat on it. Not pretty. Listless prose overall. It needs an infusion of blood. I need an infusion of blood.

It’s not helping that the Torchwood slash I’ve been reading (elouisa, babe, it’s all your fault! ;)) makes me constantly horny as all hell. No matter what I do, images of Jack and Ianto in various positions are there to haunt me. It’s not helping that I find Michael Scofield so damn fuckable either (I'm in the middle of the first season of Prison Break, and I adore it). So I drift off into daydreams and fantasy. And that can be a dangerous thing in my case.

Like, if I lived in 18th-century England, I’d be at the theatre right now, watching The Married Beau and listening to Purcell’s wonderful music (and perhaps giving a handjob to some cute be-wigged stud in a velvet-lined box).

Better yet, what if I were the cosmic big guy in charge of the universe? I’d deify all the weird obscure geniuses, and curse to stinking tar pits those who didn’t worship me. I’d eliminate racism, homophobia, AIDS and the need to pay back student loans, and take for a harem an army of beautiful men. I’d spend my mornings curing the world’s ills, my afternoons writing slash, and my nights fulfilling my every desire with my stable of studs.

Oh, the chains of the mortal flesh...

Just returned from David Sylvian’s concert. It was fantastic! That man is so amazing, I got goosebumps hearing him perform World Citizen. His music meant so much to me for over ten years, and now seeing him live was such a great experience. The audience was very loving and appreciative, and David and the band were truly happy about such a warm welcome. Unfortunately, the security took away my camera on the entrance, so instead of illustrating the atmosphere with my own pics, I have to enclose the one I found on the internet.

Have anyone seen this little gem? :)

Now tell me that religion doesn’t make people stupider. When will humanity understand that all forms of organized belief are nothing more than a social pathology? Oh, and if their god really exist, those pants on the woman in the middle should be a mortal sin.

My, aren’t I back up to perky? You can say a lot of shit about me (and people do!) but I don’t pout for too long. All bow to the evil sorcerer sex demon!

So, I've been tagged by hege.

1. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
2. Tag seven people to do the same.
3. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag whoever wants to do it.

Okay, so here goes:

1. I suffer from dyscalculia. That basically means that I’m terrible at math, and generally, anything involving numbers (I cannot remember phone numbers, etc.).

2. I'm nocturnal. I usually go to bed just before the dawn, and get up late in the afternoon. I'm awfully cranky early in the morning. Luckily, I work at home so I can adjust my duties to my biorhythm.

3. I cannot start a day without a cup of coffee.

4. I'm allergic to cigarettes, and get a migraine if I'm in a smoky room for too long.

5. Bugs terrify me. The bigger they are, the stronger my horror is. I've tried to control my fear 'cause I'm aware it's irrational, but as soon as I see a buggy-thingy near me I just lose it.

6. I have near-photographic memory. I can usually recall every little detail about certain scene or past experience--sounds, smells, colours, faces...

7. I'm notorious for breaking the rules; ever since I was a child, the forbidden fruit always had the sweetest taste. It's actually kinda predictable, so...

Fuck rules #2 and 3. I tag whoever wants to do this and didn't already.

Okay, I have nine--no, eight--minutes for my rant, so here goes.

I hate people who whine about writing discussion topics on a writing list. We can't talk about fluff all the time, and the occasional DT, of a very mild and inoffensive type, shouldn't precipitate one of those, "I'm not bitching and whining" bitching whine-fests. And the one they always blame, implicitly or explicitly?

Me.

Look, if you're blocked, it's not my fault, okay? It's your fault. It's your brain. It's your history.

Take responsibility.

Be an adult.

Other cliched jingos that you won't see in sportswear ads, but maybe in a Mormon bible or something.

Look, I sympathize with insecurity. How can I not? I'm ripe with it. But...

I have to leave.

“You ride up my thighs
You’re tight on my ass
You climb up my crotch
You ruin my day
And fill my soul, you fill my soul
With hate!
It can’t be right
When they feel so tight
’Cause you – you ride up my thighs!”

This is just one example why SFU is light years ahead of any other TV series ever made. If there’s anyone on my flist who still haven’t seen it, you MUST do it now. Seriously. If you have the means at all, please watch this show. Rent it, buy it, steal it, I don’t care, so long as you watch it. There’s no excuse not to... Would it help if I bribed you? I don’t care if you don’t like to look at the dead people. It won’t matter, I promise. Just watch the pilot. If you hate it, fair enough.

Quizzes temporarily relieve boredom....

Dominance pushes you into erotic territory – You scored as The Top!

The Top likes to call the shots – sexually, at least. In real life, they may not show any signs of wanting or needing to be in control, but to achieve erotic fulfillment, The Top needs not only to give orders but also to see them carried out. Their sexual pleasure is of the psychosexual variety, which means that they intellectualize sex more than most of the other erotic types. They are often partial to leather and the accoutrements of bondage, and they frequently reward those people they can bend to their will. They may even like to deliver a bit of physical pain, but only if they know the recipient will enjoy that pain.

What is your Erotic Personality? Find out now.

* * *

Gacked this one from crossbow1 : The Online Dating Persona Test

The Billy Goat
Deliberate Brutal Sex Dreamer (DBSD)

Horny. Stubborn. Kinda cute. Slightly immature. And often found on rough terrain. You are The Billy Goat.

You're lusty, but typically monogamous, and all in all you're a pretty good boyfriend. In fact, you enjoy relationships, if mostly for the sex and physical companionship. You'd do or say almost anything to get together with someone, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

You're sensitive, you have a certain boyish charm, and you're eager. Therefore you probably attract guys who are serious about romance. But few who get close to you realize how unready for total commitment you are. People fall for you. Meanwhile, you maintain your emotional distance, and there goes another box of tissues.

You're perfectly capable of a long-haul relationship, but, right now, dating someone primarily means having a consistent, available, preferably not-too-chatty, hookup. You're a careful, methodical person, and you work hard at making things work. It's just that the type of man most likely to find your strengths endearing is also the most likely type to find your shortcomings heartbreaking. Someone with a similarly laid-back approach to dating would be perfect for you.

ALWAYS AVOID: The Billy Goat (DBSD), The Slow Dancer (DGLD), The Manchild (RBLD)

CONSIDER: The Playboy (RGSM)

Just finished with the last episode of Torchwood and now I am reduced to a pile of quivering pleading jello. This show has gotten under my skin.

Jack is definitely different than what I knew of him from Doctor Who. Here he's not just some flirty jester; he shows serious, complex and dark side of himself, and can go from icy cruel to truly caring and compassionate man. John Barrowman did an amazing job with this marvelous character. It was such a pleasure getting to know him better.

Ianto is a sweetie, but dammit, why don't they let him do something more interesting than making coffee? (Love his name, btw.) Tosh is really nice, and after that affair with a hot alien chick I liked her even better. Owen is the only one that I don’t particularly care about; his sense of humor irritates me, his attitude annoys me, and his mouth creep me out. But he goes well with the rest of the team, so I can tolerate him. And Gwen... she's so hilarious that I don't even know where to start. She brings smile to my face as soon as she appears on the screen. I adore Gwen.

I was disappointed when Suzie died at the end of the first episode because I liked her character too, and Indira Varma is always amazing; shame that they didn't kept her longer in the series. (She ends up being killed in every show that she appears, for crissake.) And they even played Gorecki by Lamb in that episode when she returned from the dead, which was a personal squee moment for me ('cos I worship that song... even though it always murders me).

A few episodes were a bit boring; I barely held my eyes open during Random Shoes, it was so dull. But most of them were truly enjoyable. Captain Jack Harkness is perhaps my favourite--it was so beautiful and sad that it almost drove me to tears... And the finale, oh boy, that's what I call intense. So much action and emotion, and when everything seemed lost, a happy ending--and a Jack/Ianto kiss! I felt my body melting at that reunion scene. (The homage to Brokeback Mountain didn't pass unnoticed either.)

And now it's over. Done. No more until the second season begins. Prison Break is my next stop, but I think I'll rewatch a few of the best Torchwood eps first. I can’t let go of them just yet. Oh, and if some kind soul from my flist could point me in the direction of some good TW slash (I'd prefer Jack/Ianto, but I'm open to all combinations), I would be very grateful. :)

Patterns. In the couch arms that curved like ram horns. In the wall tiles' black painted lines that tried sluggishly to form squares. In the folds of Caesar's robe as it fell to the floor. In the angle of Ares' body as he stood behind Caesar. In the goddamn way they both ignored him.

Again.

Like he was a slave or a statue. Not a king. Better than the last two nights, when he was an irritation, a puppy nosing around them. Maybe if they'd wash after sex, instead of showing up reeking of come. Weren't Romans supposed to be obsessed with hygiene? Maybe Caesar bathed in Ares' semen. He sure acted like it, the pompous asshole. Didn't even touch the food, either, like it was beneath his imperial self to eat anything Greek. Correction. Anything other than the big hot cock he stroked through the tight leather, like Ares' dick was his pet. Which it was.

Why even show up at all? They didn't eat. They didn't talk to anyone but each other. To flaunt, that's why. So everyone knew that Ares endorsed Caesar and his plans for world conquest, that Caesar got banged nightly by a god. Someone should tell this Roman pretty-boy what his he-man conqueror pose revealed. Well-adjusted people did not jones for world domination. Only Caesar would never admit it. It was all "destiny this, Fate-decreed that." Ares was the same. Not about the destiny, but about his whole fucking 'bow down and kiss me my blood-stained boots' attitude. No big secret that Zeus preferred a fistful of maggots to his badass son, enough to pop Athena from his head as a replacement.

Which would all be a lot more convincing if Iphicles didn't get hard breathing their air.

Happy birthday hege!
Hope you'll have a wonderful day.