Diary Entry #110

My heart is troubled and anxious, today.

Unrelated to most of the anxiety, I am doing my quarterly exams and starting some of my finals projects for this semester.

But not before I clean my home, do laundry, and get groceries.
We're productive procrastinators, here at Meena Dhalgren.

As I kind of bust my ass, I find myself thinking, "That three weeks off next month can't come soon enough," even though it will expressly be a time of scarcity for me. 

Like Coombs used to say, you can dream about food but you'll never eat enough sleep.

-

Diary Entry #108

I've renewed my lease to cover the remainder of my Associate's Degree, which is basically just the rest of the year.

I crunched the numbers for September and it looks like they're liable to pay me about a third of what they typically do, due to the fact that the College will not be in session for most of the month. 

It sucks to be broke on your birthday, but that's okay.
I'll find something worth doing, even if it's just getting a slice of pumpkin pie and a cup of coffee like I usually do. 

I've had a request for an appointment in my inbox awaiting confirmation from one of the head faculty members here at my school. I called it and said, "Is everything okay?" and they said, "The Staff at the school is deeply impressed with you, but also concerned that you could be experiencing housing instability and depression based off some of the things you write about in your class papers." 

It made me feel safer to know that somewhere, faculty is keeping an eye out for me, and that despite an assessment of "at risk for homelessness," I have still certified into the "Freak Genius Club". It feels like something of an underdog story to think about it that way.

I'm very tired. Last week operated at a pace that I don't think I can sustain again. I think I made a lot of good and meaningful memories and I am proud of what I have to show for it, but also, I think I burnt myself out a little.

I got to meet June, and her room-mates.
The experience was very good - she is beautiful and kind, like most women I know. When she smiles really big, she has a moé fang on one side that warms me when I see it.

We met up, talked at length, got dinner, and watched everyone play PalWorld and Planet Laika which was very interesting. The whiplash was real between "3D 'Caves of Qud'-level tonal dissonance pet-raising base-builder game" and "PlayStation Space and Familial Abuse Simulator (Plural Ver.)"

I think Steph might have landed a job, which is really cool.
That girl works so hard and passionately. We sat down to work, and she really just said, "It feels good to be active," and took off like a bullet.

Seeing Steph do anything fills my heart with the knowledge that people are out there doing there best. Once she has inertia, she is indominable. The image of her working over my disassembled laptop like a jeweler, effortlessly picking through its delicate components will probably stay with me for as long as I know her.

We're approaching finals season for this set of classes.
It's exciting to think that in just two weeks, I'll have three weeks of breathing space. What'll I even do with that kind of downtime?
It'll be so nice. Maybe I can draw with enough consistency to make the stuff I am really proud of again.

We'll see.

-

I spoke with Ana today.

Becky told me I am her friend.

Diary Entry #107

I spent most of today at Beckyhaus.

We had lunch at a ricebowl shop.

After that, we worked to clean the place up and refurbish an Air Conditioning Unit that had been passed to Becky and Bea under kind of skeezy "It's your problem, now!" circumstances, but we got it mounted and running, so who is the real victor here?

I narrowly caught the last bus home, and spent the rest of the evening pulling nails for the little old lady I live with as she tries to restore the room that was previously occupied by the Mysterious Ferret Man. We sanded all the crystalized urea off the boards earlier, and repainted with an odorproof coat. She said wants to stain and proof the floors. It has been awhile since I have done that kind of work, but I have done it before.

Tomorrow I'm gonna knock out the last of my graphic design homework and catch a ride up to meet a neat stranger and her partner.

I hope it goes well.

On the way to Beckyhaus, I helped a lady in a wheelchair cross the street and get onto the bus. Tamago said it was a very girlscout thing to do.

I think I want to draw myself in the Sulfie girlscout outfit at some point, when I have the time.

My birthday is in one month.

I will be thirty-four.

Diary Entry #106

It is Tamago's Birthday.
I have gotten him a silly hat.

I would like to draw for him but I also have two days to knock out all of my remaining work because I am taking the train up to Becky's tomorrow, so there's a small sense of urgency to clear the board, so to speak.

Today is also the release date for Chambersoft's Babylon, Ohio.
I had the pleasure of reading Babylon, Ohio pre-release and it, as most of Chambersoft's work does, hit pretty close to home for me as an inbred loser who descends from a long line of troubled and religious Oklahoma trailer-trash.

I hope people like it.
I kind of want to draw Marie.
She was my favorite character in it, because I feel like I'd lived with her when I lived with my Uncle, Charlie.

Diary Entry #105

Things remain tense and unusual.
The BPD Room-Mate has discovered they are pregnant. 
An intense tension within the house kind of has everyone confined to their rooms. 

I went to class today, and cleaned my room.

Dorothy, Maeve, and I met-up briefly.
We talked about life, hugged-out all the distance between us, and shared a pastry and drinks.
It was so good to see everyone.
Every time I meet up with those girls, I'm reminded that I know the best people in the world.

Becky and I are meeting up for coffee and a meal on Saturday.

Diary Entry #104

I spent yesterday visiting Steph.

The route to get there was new to me, so I was a little anxious, but it wound up not being so intimidating.

Though there's a significant walk at the end, it felt good to be in the sun a little. The skin on my collar is sensitive from it, and I suspect I have gotten a bit of color.

Steph is very talented. I watched her disassemble my laptop to poke around in it — she looked like a jeweler, with her many small screwdrivers, non-conductive presses, and leverage bars. Clicking minute pieces in and out while talking quietly to herself — it was fascinating.

As a child, I was never permitted to learn what she was doing — the risk of learning how to assemble and disassemble a computer was simply too much; the expenses were too high if I broke something — so seeing someone else very casually demonstrate this requisite knowledge was very cool.

We shared a dinner of mapo tofu and cumin lamb, and hoofed around the grocery store a little and before I knew it, I was on the bus home while the sky turned orange and dark.

During a portion of our hanging out, we used my laptop to test if some spare RAM cards were bad — and while everything re-initialized, we ate figs and talked about our friends.

I talked at length about Becky.

About her cinemaphilia, and her mysterious, fascinating museum of a home. About her always picking me up from the bus-stop, and walking me back to it. About folding clothes with her, as she played Animal Collective for me, and we passed a cup of ice and cheap booze back and forth.

The bus ride home was filled with the weary happiness that I had made a new friend. But more than that, it was filled with gratitude for the friends I have, too.

When I got home, I told Becky how grateful I am to know her, and that I am thankful for these memories of combing through the record store and drinking cold black coffee with her.

I said, "When people tell me, 'Kiss your friends,' I think 'I wish I could do so without being disrespectful or complicating Becky's life " — she laughed it off and said not to worry about it, and that kisses aren't really things she does with folks anyways.

But she does play Animal Collective for you, and invite you into her museum, no admission. She lets you know that you are worthy of time and care.

And what's that, if not being loved?

Movie night has fallen through, and though I'm a little disappointed, I can't help but think, "I could visit Becky, and be surrounded by warmth. I bet she even has a good Cronenberg movie we could watch."

It feels like it has been awhile since I have drawn. I gotta draw at some point.

Diary Entry #103

Weary day.
I feel frustrated.
I washed myself, and combed out my hair.
I drew a little.
I was given a book to read.
A friend is unwell.

Movie night next week.
I am making a cake.
Dinner with a prospective room-mate Wednesday.

The 'now' feels stagnant and sick.
The future feels cautiously optimistic.

You know how it is.

Diary Entry #102

Today I took a bite of a fresh fig.
The flesh was dark, and beneath it was a thick, white rind.
And the interior was ruddy pink and meat-like, syrupy in earthen sweetness.

I suddenly really, really wanted to bite Metael.

It is raining very pleasantly.
I have much work tonight, but I'm somewhat unconcerned.
I just want to draw.
No more responsibilities.

I got a notification from the college that said I have been admitted to the Freak Geniuses Club, as Graphi calls it, but I don't think I can enjoy their benefits as a student who is soon to transfer for a Bachelor's, attending on a Navy Separation stipend.

ACHE_VERMIN updated; there's new artwork for its many scenes. I have to re-smoke it, because it was very good.

Tamago's birthday is soon, and I am kicking myself somewhat for not being more-prepared to celebrate him.

—

I am working through all things I had procrastinated about.

The Palmyra Sisters and I took the opportunity to watch the first few episodes of GunBuster and there is a prevailing notion that Jung Freud is the coolest to ever do it. 

I kind of want to draw one of the Palmyrans in the inexplicably fanservice-y pilot outfit.

I probably would've done it today but Ryo did some Izzy Shadownothing fan art and I couldn't help thinking, "Yeah—! That girl does kind of rule. Let me contribute, too."

But now that I am free again, I just wanna draw Monitor...

Writing Snippet #3

A YOUNG, STUNTED CLONE MURDERS AN ADULT HUMAN BEING AND CRIES HERSELF TO SLEEP.

They used to call these things by fanciful names - my model in particular used to be called a 'Nuclear Cavalier' at some point, but it is hard to imagine such dignity being extended to it now:

It looks fat and sluggish in its ablative plate.

The reactor that used to be its namesake has been replaced by far more efficient mechanisms over time. Cast, stamped, and filed-down like an action figure — she's got the shape of a hero, but she's kitsch if you look close.

We're not unalike. I've got a batch-number, too.

Cloned wrong and bad from public stock - dark hair, dark eyes.

I could be anyone. I am anyone.

When batch cloning first came into vogue, the Industrialist dreamed of subhuman labor that unpopular tasks could be offloaded upon - no more did those concepts have to be cleverly constructed through social mechanisms. But the Economist had a grander vision - subhuman labor you could tax.

Realistically, I'm a gun.

Wealthy people aim me at eachother, and I only cost a third of a paycheck.

I climb into the suit.

I load the utility hatchet into my forearm.

They call it a hatchet, but it's more of a broad, flat knife.

It ends in a crowbar head, in the event that I need to pry my way in.

I contemplate the handgun or a rifle.

The handgun has a higher caliber; it accompanies me.

—

The room is marble, or granite, I'm not sure, it's a glossy rock with lots of veins, or at least it's trying to be. The way it cracks under my feet makes me think it's fake.

I've been expected, though:

I'm not the most subtle creature.

Her machine is very human. She is very human.

I can tell by its sleek, angular contours, and how quiet she shoots.

I'm in over my head. The glow of her ocular sensor sweeps a haughty glare over me as I kite myself backwards, into the narrow corridors of the civic center. In the halls there's no real room for error: my circular error probable doesn't matter.

When she clears the door way, I pop three rounds down range, and watch her mechanized thigh explode, but not before she quietly empties a full magazine into me.

She pounces like a cat and eclipses my entire worldview as she does.

The pneumatic hiss of her dampeners distributing her crushing weight over me is terrifying. She pins my gun-hand, and I hear the servos whine in protest as she breaks my fingers to take the pistol from them.

She'll finish me with my own gun, if I let her.

She looks so expensive. She looks like jewelry.

I try to cover my face with my free hand to protect it, when I lock eyes with my salvation.

When I invert the mag-lock on the utility hatchet, it shoots forward with an authoritative clap. The pointed end busts across her ocular sensors, and I watch the smooth glass shatter like a jewelry case before i begin looting in earnest, pulling necklaces of cabling out of her face.

The haptic feedback in my destroyed hand feels good and vengeful as I push her face away from mine.

I split her at the shoulder with the hatchet.

And then down the middle, where the blood comes out.

Her pilot is as beautiful as her machine - a human being, though she looks more like a clam, right now - meat nestled in a shell.

I feel a cold sort of intrusion as I look at her nude breasts - hacked diagonally out from her clothing and underscored by brackets of fat and rib.

A twinge of envy - my body will never grow like that. This is as good as I get.

When I get to the hangar bay, they deduct my damages.

They deduct the three rounds I'd fired, too, and I feel grateful I'd finished in a melee.

I want to hate that other pilot for having things I don't, but as I look at the cloned flesh ejecting my plates and putting new ones in, I wonder just how miserable a life that human being must have had to be doing the same work as me.

The halogen bulb in my sleeping compartment clicks as I turn it off, and begin to dream.

I dream of a world where this isn't a way to eat, and we look the same, and there's no map or logo or number that separates us.

And I cry.

Writing Snippet #2

SUET AND TALLOW HAVE PSEUDO-INCESTUOUS SEX ON THE FLOOR OF AN ABATTOIR.

She had grown undeniably beautiful.

Her svelte musculature encaged by her bruise-colored flesh seemed to dance between all the hanging pink, reducing it into value. Slicing it down into its most valuable parts. The word 'Carnelian' takes its namesake from flesh. If flesh was a jewel, Tallow was a jeweler, cutting it into facets and presenting it in its most appetizing manner.

The difference between a carcass and prime rib was Tallow's reappraising touch, and for the first time in her life, Suet desired it: dress me, take out these ugly conflicted feelings, trim away my imperfections, leave only the things good enough for swallowing.

Tallow's taciturn face paused and seemed to notice, with a sort of wounded curiosity, her sibling's lingering eyes.

"Sister?"

Suet blinked and the world came back into focus. The lightless, cold meatlocker with its blood and ice and stink.

"Yes?"

"You just seemed..." Tallow turned her words over in her head, as she often did. "Very far away, I suppose."

"I was distracted."

The strands of Tallow's hair curtained her face as she split ribs into perfect parentheses of bone and fat.

thok-thok-thok-thok—

She didn't look up

"Distracted by what?"

thok-thok-thok-thok—

"Distracted by you."

thok—... thok.

The cleaver slowed to a hesitant pause.

Her shadow seemed to triple in size in the silence.

How was she distracting?

Was her violence showing? Was her destructive tendency manifest in the bloodshed of her work? Was she cold and indifferent, working as Suet spoke? Had she interrupted Suet's thoughts? Had—

The gentle touch silhouette of a hand against her apron dispelled the infinite possibilities.

"You looked very beautiful in this instant."

"Pardon?"

Flanked by corpses, arms deep in cut-proof mittens and watery blood, the words fell-out like so much offal and vanished onto the floor.

"I said you look very beautiful right now."

"Right now—"

Tallow seemed incredulous, eyes re-evaluating the parts of herself that they could see.

"Yes. Bring your face down here."

She did.

The purple flush of red blood beneath her blue flesh. The puffs of breath, hanging in the cold air. The bunches of her hair, wreathed around her ears. Her peeking fangs—

Suet kissed like a street urchin.

Suet kissed like an older sister, wise to all the secrets of the world.

Walking closer as she did, doubling Tallow's folded body so that it collapsed in on itself, and she fell hard to her rear around the tile and packing-ice.

"Suet, I am unclean—"

"Then take your mitts off."

"No, sister, I—" her ears burned and hung slack from her face like a beaten dog. "I am dirty."

"We're unclean. We're two girls on a slaughterhouse floor."

"Sister—"

That word was doing more for her than she had expected.

"Sister—"

"Sister—"

Suet fit perfectly into the gap between Tallow's lap and chin. Her hands were the precise diameter of the loose ends of her bunched hair.

This is what sisterhood was.

Perfect understanding of the nuance.

Tallow's hips ached from being pushed, and complained from being exposed to the cold, but now, stagefright and shame had paralyzed her. Her pulse shot through her exposed body. Taut prey musculature.

A shift of her hips was all it took to make Suet dizzy. All her blood had shot to her face, heart pounding in her ears like so many cleaver-strokes:

thok-thok-thok-thok—

She pushed her chest and face into her sister's body. She smelled sweet in contrast to the stale iron of slaughterhouse air.

She walked her heels forward, straddling her sister's hips.

"Suet—"

The wetness of her underclothes stuck to Tallow's spasming hips like wax paper to meat.

The evidence was there. Palpable. Warm.

The only warm thing in this room.

The desire for something closer.

The air bit Suet's legs. She held the hem of her dress between her teeth. Reclining languidly with Tallow's bangs in her hands, tentative little rolls of her back, like easing into a too-hot bath.

"Am I your first?"

"No—"

"Well, I am the one that counts."

She wrenches Tallow's head down into a kiss again. Those claws, free from their mittens, wrap around her possessively.

She washes away the abuse.

Conjures beauty.

Dispels all the filth and scars by acknowledging them as mutual.

"Haah—... Sister."

Tallow's senses are concussed. Ears ringing as her field of view wobbles under the rise and fall of Suet's body. Her doll-clothes are so much more affordable and beautiful than regular clothes. She feels like paper next to parchment, wearing her sisal dress and apron.

Suet looks like a fairy.

Suet looks bisque porcelain perfect.

Suet tastes like evening tea.

And feels just as warm, warm, warm—

"Aah—"

It's to be expected with first-timers, after all. Suet grounds herself. Collapses into her sister's quivering legs. Sex pools out from her and puddles onto the floor, steaming.

More— More— Just a little more.

Her sister's overstimulated claws grasp mindlessly for her. Cut the ribbon and lace of her one-ply chiffon and velvet to tatters with their carelessness. That reappraising touch — make me more than I could ever be alone, Sister.

That dazed, soft expression.

The needling welts beneath ruined fabric.

Every "Sister—" mewled past her lips.

Suet's face pales, her cheeks burning. She realizes her proximity to oblivion. Hanging from the precipice by Tallow's bunched hair. She just has to fall. She just has to let go. She just has to let go.

She lets go.

The coarse silk of Tallow's hair tumbles from her hands, and she falls backward upon her sister, unsupported. The ruinous pleasure radiates off her.

Tallow, for the first time, initiates a kiss of her own. Amateurly clinking her teeth off Suet's, her poking tusks pressing into her cheekbones. Scenting her perfumed hair, drowning out the world. The air is heavy with the dry cold and sour with sweat and release, but every breath in Tallow's lungs is meadowsweet shampoo.

The room begs for words:

'I love you,' 'stay with me,' 'don't leave.'

But the perfect understanding of nuance doesn't permit any.

Everything is as silent and still as the hung bodies of the slaughterhouse.

Peaceful as death.