Post Thesis Shock Syndrome

I swore it wouldn't happen to me. I mean, how can you suddenly dive into such a low after getting the monkey off your back that's been keeping you from sleeping and eating properly for the better part of twelve months?

But happen it did. Boy, have I been nasty the last few days. It's a combination of not knowing what to do with myself, being exhausted but unable to sleep, and knowing that it isn't quite wrapped up yet because I still have to wait 2-3 months before I get the results.

There has been crying. There has been snarling. There has been anxiety and irritability to the point of crying again.

The good news is that I think I'm starting to get over the worst. People can finally start talking to me again without the chance of losing a limb (sorry babe). This has been one of the worst come-downs I have experienced ever, which just goes to show that you do not mess around with language, books and literature. That stuff make you cray-cray.

In The Blood

I never knew my paternal grandfather. I have a photo, somewhere, of him holding me when I was a few months hold, but sadly, I remember the onesie I was wearing at the time better than I do him.

The one thing I do know about him is that he was a writer. Poetry, mostly. A collection of his poems were compiled by someone in my dad's family and bound, a handful of copies that were given to members of the Jamneck family. Some years ago, I think when my dad finally started believing that I actually wanted to be a writer and it wasn't just a phase, he gave me his bound copy of my grandfather's poems. I've been carrying it around with me ever since, but it always remains hidden away, in a box somewhere because I am paranoid about something happening to it in between the frequent moving that comes with not owning your own house. The promise is that, once I sign a deed, the copy will come out and onto the bookshelf.

In the last couple of years, however, my uncle has been working on getting my grandfather's poetry out to a wider audience. He has finally collected most of the poetry together on a site, called Leopold Jamneck - Verses

The poems were written in Afrikaans and English. My grandfather had tried to get his poetry published, but he had been turned down by at least two publishers in the Apartheid era because of the anti-Apartheid stance of his work.

My grandfather's work has allowed me, in a way that is very personal to me, to be able to connect to him, even if we never knew one another. I am somehow always a little surprised by the spiritual nature of some of his poems. I have no idea why. Maybe because I see something of myself, of my own thoughts in his work. Maybe the surprise is actually a buffer for the disappointment I feel at never having known this other writer in my family. I'm sorry I never got to know him better, because I think we would have had some interesting conversations. I think I might have been able to talk to him about things I struggled with when I was young, things that I felt I couldn't talk to other people about simply because they were part of the status quo.

Here's to meeting you in another life, oupa.


"Many people want white supremacy;
I ask for the supremacy of Love.
Many preachers say we have three foes to renounce –
the Devil, the World and the Flesh.
But let me remind them that the Devil is within Man
and I have been told to love my fellow-man."
                                                                                             -- Leopold Jamneck

Happy New Year!

...and that's the last time I m going to say it, because really, once is enough.

I'm not quite sure what to expect of 2012. Last year was a bit of a banger, literally, particularly with the planet going wild on the natural front. It's been raining in Auckland for the past few days and muggy as hell, so I can't really get away from the fact that La Niña is going to continue being a bitch as we proceed into the future.
(CHINA and AMERICA take note)

In two months my thesis has to be finished. I'm feeling unnervingly calm about it at this stage. I've just passed the 30K mark of what needs to be a 40K document, and that's excluding the intro and conclusion. I need to tighten and firmly establish my argument however, because though I know what I'm writing about, I need to make sure others will find it illuminating rather than confusing. Ladida. Such is the nature of writing on the ambiguity of language, which inherently falls short of communicating emotional experience. Humanities - there's nothing humane about it.

[Lordie, thank you, the fireworks have stopped. Cats are both asleep, though the eldest was back chatting me earlier because I wouldn't let her out.]

So, with the thesis ending, I can finally direct all my energies at THE BOOK. It's practically all there, it just needs to be written. I have applied for a tutoring position in the first trimester at AU again, so fingers crossed. I have one or other two things up my sleeve, but don't want to let the cat(s) out the bag just yet.

Idea for a story brewing after watching a BBC doco about the 16th Century British pagans and their beliefs about fairies. You thought the old "make a witch float" theory was brutal? Meh. Fairies were where it was at, bro.

And so, let's not forget that it is finally 2012. I am apprehensively looking forward to sitting back and watching all the banana-batshit-crazy that people are going to come up with in their preparations for the end of the world. Word up, peeps, if it was going to be a black hole, we would be gone-burgers by now.

I wonder if people would have learned anything from the failed appearance of the Rapture last year. All I know is that somewhere there are Mayans sitting around a fire, LMAO.

Dragon Tattoo Fashion Line - What?

Maybe it's because absoloutely almost everything these days about the world makes me want to go out and buy a real sturdy baseball bat, but this (pictured) just gives me a serious case of the what-the-fuck.

Oh hey - you too can look like someone who has been sexually, socially and morally abused. Because, you know, it's cool. We all want to be those people.

Or maybe they're saying you too can be your own hero by overcoming those things and kicking the shit out of everyone. Who knows? I don't. It still doesn't change the fact that someone out there is selling a fashion line pushed by violence against women. It makes me want to go have several showers. I seem to be becoming ragey in my old age.

Lovecraft and Psychology

Quick Question:

For all the Lovecraft nerds: A well-known critic on the Gothic makes the claim that, compared to Poe, "Lovecraft is devoid of psychological interest". The statement is awkwardly phrased, and I'm not sure if he means Lovecraft as writer, or "Lovecraft" as a body of work. Thoughts?

For reference, the statement is from:

The Literature of Terror, Vol.2 by David Punter (UK, Longman, 1996), p. 38

Stupid Truly Is...Stupid.

I want to know how to deal with stupid people.

Oh no; are you one of those people that think it's cruel to call someone 'stupid'? Tell you what - give me a better word and I'll use it. Because stupid sure doesn't cover the crap I see on TV, the internet, or newspapers. But let's see what the Oxford says about stupid:

adj.

Having one's faculties deadened or dulled; Emotionally or morally dull or insensible; apathetic, indifferent; Wanting in or slow of mental perception; lacking ordinary activity of mind; slow-witted, dull; Characterized by or indicating stupidity or dullness of comprehension.

I tell you, it's a stupid world we live in.

It's hard for me to be apathetic. Over the past few years I have done a significant amount of mental work to not get upset about things that are out of my control. Lately, though, it seems as if my Zen barriers have begun to break down.

Things affect me more than usual. I want to go out and hit people senseless. Cruelty to animals, especially - it fills me with a deep and chilling numbness, swiftly followed by raging anger that makes me think I would actually gravely hurt someone who hurts any living thing that they consider inferior to themselves. I'm thinking if we wake up one morning and the animals all have shotguns, we'd be living in a better world a week later. Don't even get me started on the shit people do to one another.


The worst thing about all of this is that there is precious little you can do that will actually allow you to see the difference you're making. I like to think that I do have an impact, that I can make a difference. On most days, I believe it to be true. But I also know that my little efforts, and all the other amazingly awesome people's little efforts will really only start making a noticeable difference a few years from now. I might not even be alive when that happens. Most of the time, that's OK with me, too. But it makes days like today very hard. Have we become so numb, so clinical, so materialistic that we really just don't care? Or are we scared shitless of the path we've carved out for ourselves, and we are all just going to join the party until we finally walk into the flames?


So, from tomorrow, I am going to make an effort at calling people 'stupid' instead of all the horrible things I have been calling them lately. Sure, it feels less satisfying. Somehow calling someone a 'fucktard' makes me feel so much better. Still, "emotionally or morally dull" and "lacking ordinary activity of mind" are not too shabby. I just wish I could have been Dorothy fucking Parker in my execution.

Short Story In Something Wicked

My story "Into the Black Abyss" features in the current issue of South African spec magazine, Something Wicked.

The story is a journey into the African Congo at the turn of the previous century,featuring a small group of adventurers that go in search of answers to things that are best left undisturbed...

Issues are available in eBook, Kindle compatible MOBI and ePUB. You can also choose ALL VERSIONS to receive a zip file with all available formats