Imminence

[greenstorm]

http://s34.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2D2ZBJUJ1P8WN14W7K9Q299441

My life is about a second after imminence (which I read is a constant feeling in many women's lives). I'm *there*.

I feel annoyingly arrogant when I try to convey my spiritual fulfillment on lj. It's because I'm inept at describing the good stuff. I can be angsty well. Unfortunately for my lovely lyrical livejournal, I've just no reason lately. Back to laundry-lists, I suppose.

People make me happy. Things make me happy. Events make me happy. I make me happy. Music makes me happy. Sex makes me happy. Food makes me happy. Money makes me happy. Helping people makes me happy. The city makes me happy. Plants make me happy. Cold toes make me happy. Showers make me happy. Aquariums make me happy. Ridiculousness makes me happy. Words make me happy. The way air swishes past shower-warm skin when someone walks behind me makes me happy. The vibration of the computer speakers through the keyboard and thus my fingertips as they play REM makes me happy. Making food makes me happy. Friends make me happy. Communication makes me happy. Meditative internal monologues make me happy. My boss makes me happy. Potential makes me happy. Escapism makes me happy. Adventure makes me happy. Home makes me happy.

I am happy.

Just think, I could have put each of those on a seperate line.

Comments

[bthomasac.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've felt happy too over the last week. Happy, peaceful, tranquil, etc. Anyone familiar with me knows what an anomaly this is. Maybe the happiness bug is contagious.

Deciding I'm not going to continue in university makes me happy. Getting a new article published in Pyramid with a personal "thumbs up" from the editor makes me happy. Having my proposal for a book accepted by Pyramid makes me happy. Thinking that I have enough money to just write for a few months makes me happy. The possibility of finishing my novel makes me happy. The dream of being able to support myself on writing, and therefore never needing to leave my little apartment save for food or theater runs makes me VERY happy.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

How do you usually feel?

What is Pyramid?

What got published?

If you never leave, I really will have to visit.

[bthomasac.livejournal.com]

I usually feel stressed and on edge, with bouts of panic and depression for variety.

Pyramid is the magazine for Steve Jackson Games, one of the biggest role-playing publishers. SJG is mainly known for GURPS (Generic Universal Roleplaying System) and Illuminati (a card game where you play different secret societies fighting to take over the world). I've published a few role-playing articles in their magazine.

They publish a lot of really weird, neat stuff. A lot of their suppelments cater to weird mysticism and occult insanity, which is stuff I adore. They have Kenneth Hite as a columnist for Pyramid, who's the master of thinking up bizarre connections and occult theories to things.

Do you mean you'll have to visit because I won't go to you, or you'll have to visit because you're curious about my hermitage?

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

Wow. Sounds fabulous. You'll notice a lot of that in vintage Greenie ljs, unfortunately. Is this going to be a permanent change?

Huh. Any way I can read these without buying the thing? ;P

Yes, I remember Moris.

The former.

[bthomasac.livejournal.com]

A permanent change? Maybe. If I manage to get a job I like, or can at least tolerate, then perhaps. If I'm able to finish my novel and publish a few gaming supplements, then there's an excellent chance.

However, I have thought there's a definite possibility I'm predisposed towards depression. It does run in the family. That being the case, there's a possibility that even if my life became perfect, I'd still eventually fall into a twitching ball of stress.

I'd be frantic about whether my next novel will match the quality and acclaim of my previous ones, worry that my wife and I are getting too involved in our phenomenally successful artistic careers and not spending enough time with each other and our children, and be frustrated that I'm getting too many invites to dinner and parties by all the brilliant and creative people I'm friends with, resulting in me turning down too many of them.

What a horrible thought. That I'm predisposed, to misery.

Well, though people generally aren't allowed to make more than one copy of Pyramid articles, as these are written by me, I can probably get away with it and e-mail you them if you wish.

Rex Mundi is basically me if I took drugs, didn't need to work, and instead of writing spent my time trying to pick up girls at parties by claiming I'm a messiah.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

I'm fascinated by the feedback loop we set up around internal and external triggers for misery and happiness. These things always seem to piggyback off each other both ways.

You do sound pretty cheerful in this comment altogether, really. ;)

I'd love that.

Oh dear. So I'm trying to picture a Rex who doesn't take drugs, works at a job he hates(?) and writes instead of picking up girls at parties. That should be you. Having some trouble here...

[bthomasac.livejournal.com]

Oh, those lovely feedback loops. Some favorites are when I'm so overwhelmed by a surfeit of work that I'm too stressed out to do any of it, or when I find it depressing that I've gotten depressed. Those are usually good for a dark chuckle.

Well, I have a certain grim cheerfulness when I get depressed, ironically enough. As I've occasionally said, it's like meeting an old friend. I suppose my love of both gallows humor and self-deprecation allows me to see the lighter side of my misery.

Well, worked at a job he hated a year ago, then took four months off to write, then went to school. Currently most of his free time working on a mystic occult novel with vague autobiographical overtones in which he explores various bizarre theories.

Rex Mundi lay on the grass high on a freakish cocktail of drugs, trying to stop the evil narc fairies from stealing his drugs, and trying to convince impressionable, attractive young theurges that only he could protect them from the mind-control rays of the evil saucer creatures.

I crouch in my chair wired on caffeine and try to write about wars between narc fairies, attractive young mystics, and saucer creatures, or is it narc mystics, attractive young saucers, and fairy creatures?

We both rant in our own worlds, and are introverts at heart. The main difference is that he gets laid, and I get published.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

"Grim cheerfulness." Mmf. The joy of hanging on to your life by the skin of your fingernails and knowing you're still laughing at it paled for me a bit ago.

That last line is almost clean enough to qualify you as a writer, though. ;)

[bthomasac.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not really hanging onto my life by the skin of my fingernails. And frankly, I doubt I'd find my depression half as amusing if it actually was the result of real problems as opposed to simply my laziness and Eeyore-disposition.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

That's reassuring. I think.