This bridge was written to make you feel smittener

Well. The haich is rising. This explains my erratic behavior lately.
It will pop up suddenly, for a few seconds at a time. Enough time to look around. Enough time to take control. Enough time to scare us. It wants us afraid. At some point it stopped being a dumb beast... it's part of me, after all. It's learning. It's changing. It's getting stronger. Strong enough to break the bonds holding it. Who wouldn't be afraid?
I doubt anyone will recognize the seriousness of this. Night and darkness is one thing... but then I showed it daylight. I showed it compassion. I taught it how to hunger. And should it break free, there's no telling what it will do. No doubt it will involve destruction.
Mostly I'm afraid for Tasha. Most people would be merely strangers, faces, unknowns, but it knows her. She is the only one who has held it, who has shown it kindness, who has looked into its eyes and not been afraid. Liz was the first human it saw, but Tasha... I don't know. It knows her face, her flesh, her, for want of a better word, scent, and if it finds her again I don't know what it will do... the haich is a beast. A monster. Locked away for so long, I doubt it will be kind.

Skeleton fought it once today, when it tried to break free. The battle tore through my mind. The pain was excruciating. But he won... this time. I hope this will end soon.

And... dammit, I miss Tasha. It's cruel to make me see her every day, hear her laughter. She deleted her blog. That hurt; in this subculture our blogs bind us together in a way. Maybe she didn't want to remember me. I wish I didn't want to remember her anymore. I know that she's happy and all I can think about is her tears, my blood, and all the times she told me that she loved me. It's not fair. I shouldn't have to relive memories like this. I hate memory. You always have to dig to find the good parts.
I wonder if she loves and hates me as I love and hate her... no. I doubt she loves me at all.
I don't move on. I just suck in someone new to hold and hurt me.

I blog more when I'm depressed. Hm.

"I used to worry about being consumed by the church of mediocrity the world keeps building around itself until I realized that the so-called experts they made me talk to were full of shit." That's the sentence I'm using in my latest Lit project. Interesting, at least. Still needs work.

I'm so tired. I haven't slept at all lately.

Oh, and I finally got round to changing my blogger name from Sevenfold to Nine. Should have done that ages ago.

I think my problem with dealing with my emotions might stem from the fact that I keep them so hidden. No one else seems to care so I tell myself I don't either. Then on the occasions I do open up I either make someone upset, or afraid for me, or more often than not told in one form or another to stop saying such things, we don't want to hear it. So I stay locked up so everyone can go on pretending I'm happy. No one who opens me up is prepared to accept what comes out. Maybe if I felt confident to act like myself, truly myself, and screw what other people think of me... but it's been made clear that's not acceptable. Being recognized for the way you think and feel is out of the question.
At this point, predictably, I'm going to say that I'm just moping and droning on about the same things without doing anything about it. Maybe the reason I keep bringing it up is because I want someone to take it seriously, maybe help me deal with it. Again predictably I'll call myself selfish, but seriously, I HAVE PROBLEMS. Why can't anyone recognize that these aren't just words?

Afraid of rejection. Afraid of people turning away. At least... those I care about.
Always afraid of scaring away the ones I love, dragging them down with me until they hurt me to get away. That's what I'm afraid of. That's why I insult myself every time I bring it up. Afraid that I won't feel wanted and helpful. Fear is always there. It's wrong to live in fear of love.

Freud would have loved me

I've decided not to have thoughts or feelings any more. They've never been popular with anyone. I'm always scared or angry anyway, so it's not like I'm missing out on a lot. And my opinions never seem to improve anyone's life. So I'm just going to stop. Honestly I doubt anyone will notice.
It's tempting to pull a phantom: disappear, desperately reach for happiness, kill without mercy, destroy the world for showing no compassion to me. I couldn't do that, though. And death is, at the moment at least, unattainable. It's all locked up too tight, anyway. I can't even make myself bleed; it wouldn't help and people would only make a fuss. All I can do now is sit here and stew silently in this... hate.
And to think, all I really wanted was for someone to tell me, fully and in all honesty, that I was beautiful. I guess that was too much to ask.

Then, in a sudden gear shift,

Underwent a Reconstruction today. Confused, vision occasionally blurred, no sense of balance all morning, twitching, extreme paranoia and music galore, it's not the most pleasant of experiences but I'm somehow aware that it's much, much better than the alternative. Woke up for real sometime during math with a polished ego and a rubber bubble glurbing angrily in the back of my mind. The point is I'm feeling better.
Depression is something I do my best to keep to myself. I know full well that if I don't get better myself Skeleton will intervene before too long, so it's not worth dragging other people into. Life's too short to spend it miserable.

How am I doing? Anthropology is excruciatingly slow, biology not much better. Math is easy but tedious, at least for now. I handed in my second Lit project today. I'm still not writing to my fullest potential. Writing practice today:

6: An eye without a pupil, green as emeralds, dark and pure as sin itself, far from stupid but not quite understanding.
7: The ivory tower, golden brown as a field of wheat, flawed yet unbreakable, the idiot hero who somehow always wins.
9: A cube without a purpose, red as a robins bloodstained feather, innocent yet hated, the helpless bystander left holding the explosives.
4: A shadow in night, deep and merciful blue, inescapable as death, the only one who can wear a cape and mean it.
Actually that's not quite how 4 went, but I forget.

My. Fitzpatrick described me as "the really quiet one, the observer... he's got it all figured out." He likes me. He thinks I'm smart. That's going to be a boon for me.

I'm sorry... should have just kept quiet. Forget about it. It's over for now.

This will never get old, ha ha.

The Large Hadron Collider didn't kill us all. I'm almost disappointed.

It just seems to me that every time I make a move towards being comfortable with myself and maybe, you know, happy, something comes up to point out that I'm incapable of relating to other people in any way. Someone shouts at me without shouting and pushes me down. Every time I try to do something just for me, to make myself feel better, maybe without having to justify myself. But no one seems to want me let to do that.

I was in a bad state this afternoon. Called myself a freak, over and over again. Threatened myself. Said I was nothing, scum, a murderer, that I was glad we were going to die. I almost cried. I can be most cruel sometimes.
But no one wants to hear it. I'm not going to try to hide behind a chemical imbalance; the depression is my fault. It's me that makes myself and everyone around me miserable. Happiness is a choice, not a reaction to stimulus, and I always choose wrong. I just make everything worse, drawing people further and further into my web, tightening the strings around them... I am a destroyer.
Why can people not acknowledge that I'm afraid? Afraid of the dark creatures, afraid that the monster is going to escape and kill someone, afraid that Skeleton or some other voice in my head is going to kill me. I don't expect a padded room (nice as that would be) but can't someone just tell me that they understand? Every time I bring up my problems I feel as though I'm forcing myself on people. Why don't they want to listen? Have they no pity? Failing that, can't someone abuse me, call me a freak, push me around for being different? All I ask is that someone, anyone, accept me for what I truly am, not just the parts of me that they choose to perceive. Can't someone care? Or must my uniqueness forever remain unaddressed, mocking me?
The voices, always singing songs in my head... the cruel, mocking laughter... the deathly silence. Will they follow me forever?
And I'm griping. Listen to me moan, this narrow-minded, self-obsessed child. Will he never cease his whining? He could pull himself out of this if he chose. he just chooses not to. Why? Must crave attention. Pathetic. Should lighten up. You said happiness is a choice. Why don't you just choose life, freak? Why?

A different kind of drifting... narwhal?

I saw someone I never expected to see again today. All because of walls.

I sometimes sit on a wall at my school, in the mornings before classes and while eating lunch. It's a nice wall, long and flat, overlooking the plateau outside the cafeteria. A little path between the trees leads to an alcove and my perch, with a larger wall on one side and a web of branches on the other. I went there for peace, to think, and occasionally to frighten the grade nines walking below. The other day, however, one of the vice principals spotted me up there and asked me to come down for safety reasons. Fond as I was of the spot, it wasn't worth fighting for and I didn't really want to upset anyone. So I vowed to find a new spot to sit.
At the back of the school was another wall, a smaller one, separating the grass and concrete. It branches off another wall with a railing overlooking a sharp drop. It doesn't quite have the quality of location and the vegetation's somewhat different, but it's comfortable and the view is spectacular. I'm also more accessible to my fellow Litkids, who camp out under a tree nearby. So it's all good. In a way it's like being forcibly retired and moving out to a new home in the country.
Today I was on my new wall, enjoying the view and my lunch, when along comes a familiar face. We hugged. I stepped on her foot, just like old times. She said she wasn't angry anymore. I guess in a way everything worked out for the best. She lives in Montreal now, anyway.

Suddenly I've run out of words. I'm not certain why.

Mushrooms and Roses

I've got a pain in my chest. I've probably been too bent over, but sometimes I think I have a respiratory problem. I know it might be likely I've inherited my father's asthma, but that cleared up as soon as he came to Canada. So don't know, really.

One thing that bothers me about talking to people is that I keep assuming they can sense my emotions as easily as I can sense theirs. Online it's even worse, because I don't have that constant feeling telling me how they are. I often get confused, probably worse than most. So I don't know how certain people are feeling now. It makes me feel... helpless.

The other day we had to write something that implied a lot in very few words. I wrote this:

Like an angel cast from Heaven it fell towards us, making no attempt to stop itself, and just before the flash I told Erika that she was beautiful.

I'm becoming very concise.

Also I'm still sick. Possibly tetchy, but I hope not.

Tasting blood

I've been back from camp for well over a week. School has started. And I am STILL BLOODY SICK. I'm coughing like mad, my throat is slimy, my nose is almost impenetrable, it hurts when I breathe in and I've got a headache that can only be described as stonking.
So I won't really talk about anything much, because I'm completely fed up and will only be miserable about it.

Instead, here's
A Quick Guide to My Mood as Determined by Music

When I'm listening to:

• Anything with a lively beat: I am perfectly content with the world at large.
• Loud power metal: Alive and full of energy.
• Panic at the Disco and similar: I am slightly pleased.
• Shuffle, game soundtrack or random techno: Average.
• Nightwish and similar: I am slightly depressed, but no need to worry.
• Matchbox Twenty and similar: I am sort of depressed. Cheer me up.
• Evanescence or Gordon Lightfoot: Girl trouble. It will be safe to talk to me in two days.
• The Used and similar: Keep me away from sharp objects.
• Lux Aeterna: Run. Just run and don't stop.

Target audience

...she's in Mexico. Why bother?

Can't stay mad at me forever

First off, a quick review of the fourth Mummy movie (although personally I think it should be called the third, since The Scorpion King was in fact telling a virtually unrelated story and should be considered a spinoff as opposed to part of the main series, but whatever) which I saw two days ago. It was... mediocre.
First off, the acting? Bad. The old characters obviously have no interest in this movie, while the new ones seem to have little or no talent whatsoever. It's generally agreed that the new Evie has no place in this movie and should have been killed off sometime earlier. Speaking of Evie, her relationship with her husband is monotonous and completely without chemistry. The same can be said for the pointless romantic subplot between the now inappropriately loud and clueless Alex and the gratuitous stock chinese girl. (Another complaint has been that he lost his english accent, but I personally found both versions of him to be annoying. Maybe it's just me.)
The movie starts off well with a fairly well-done segment of backstory, cutting to an idyllic scene of fly-fishing. It's a good start. It's also memorable as the only part of the film that's well-paced. Sadly it goes on this vein for much too long, dragging a peaceful image of retirement on for far too long. Yes, they're retired, and they're happy. We get it. Move on. Finally they do, only to shove more exposition down our throats. Then without warning we cut to a poorly-done action sequence.
The entire film goes on like this; scenes of romantic subplot totally without chemistry, clumsy expositional dialogue, and claustrophobic action sequences with far too many close-ups. Within a few minutes you'll be begging for a wide-angle shot. All of the above are far too long. This goes on for some time.
The plot is convoluted and unnecessary. It's a movie that tries very, very hard to be epic, which leads to throwing absolutely everything into it regardless of whether it's relevant or even makes any sense. The yetis, for instance, could easily have been left out. As could Jonathan, who makes no actual contributions to the plot and serves only as a poor comic relief. In fact, the entire "pool of immortality" storyline could and should have been cut out. We know right from the beginning that they're going to fail to stop the Emperor from reaching it, so there's really no point to that segment of the story at all. We feel no dramatic tension; in fact, we don't even care. The audience wishes they would just get to the point. On the other hand, the likable mad pilot thrown in more as a plot device than anything else gets no story whatsoever. The evil soldiers who resurrect the Emperor get no character motivation past being fascists. If they'd just stopped trying to cram everything in and just build on the good elements that they have... well.
What I couldn't help but notice was the tendency to rip off other movies, namely Indiana Jones. If the crystal lighting the way to the [insert valuable thing here] wasn't a giveaway already, there's also the father-being-almost-killed-and-only-the-[insert valuable thing here]-can-save-him twist. That and aside from the colour of their skin the evil chinese soldiers were indistinguishable from Nazis. Change the uniform and no one would have noticed. I'd go on, but seriously, I'm sick of this review. It can't even continue on properly from the previous Mummy films, because apart from reusing characters it has next to no continuity whatsoever.
Despite all the terrible things I've just said about it, the movie wasn't bad. Hole-ridden plot and poor acting aside, it was still enjoyable. Some parts were not as good as others, but there was nothing in it that I genuinely hated. Many thought the end was anticlimactic but you know what? I liked it. Say what you will, for all its faults Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is still a likable action film that I don't regret seeing. Three out of five stars.

...that went on a bit longer than expected.

We went to the Buskers Festival today. Lots of street performers doing acts that can't be done by anyone else in the world, all of which seem to involve balancing and juggling. One person juggled an apple, a knife and a flaming torch balanced on the shaft of a bicycle on top of a pole, another (who looked alarmingly like BenLoka, that Youtube guy) juggled a hat, a plunger and a rubber chicken while balanced on top of a ladder, one guy juggled three knives blindfolded while spinning around on top of an absurdly tall unicycle, and one guy balanced a whirling lawnmower on his chin while people threw lettuce into it. You have to question how people discover that they have these talents.

I've started writing the story of my life. It's august. I have to be prepared for december. Perhaps if I focus on the past I won't have to worry about the future. I've never been to good at living in the present... to be honest, I don't entirely understand the concept.

Flickering beneath the waves

I wonder when things stopped being simple.
I won't go into too much detail about that right at this very moment. What I do know is that I'm going through a bad time right now, I hope to work my way through it in a few days, so for awhile I'm just going to shut up.