*** 8.29.25, dogra magra, the japanese anti-mystery novel, and umineko.
so anyone who's stumbled across my site knows how obsessed i am with umineko when they cry. it is my mission to find as many things as i can that make me say, "wow, it's just like umineko," likely to the annoyance and fond chagrin of my friends. naturally this involves trying to check out east asian mysteries and the supposed japanese anti-mystery novel and the honkaku and shinhonkaku genres, but it seems like only recently and largely in thanks to bungou stray dogs (a manga i Do Not Like) that interest in bringing honkaku and shinhonkaku to western audiences has taken off. i suppose i owe much to the anime boy version of ranpo edogawa. and it's probably because of bungou stray dogs that i was able to get my hands on an english translated version of the decagon house murders, a mystery that is more or less the one that marked the advent of the shinhonkaku era, and also a clear inspiration for umineko. this is the only begrudging thanks i will offer bsd. ok. moving on.
regrettably i can't find many good english-translated sources on the anti-mystery elements of the shinhonkaku genre and much less any scholarly sources about it. so here is a link to the jmystery wiki and what they have to say about the japanese anti-mystery. note that umineko is even listed here!! wow!!!!
so what started all this? well, my local independent movie theater is going to be doing a showing of the 1988 film dogra magra, which i had never heard of before, but after i read the synopsis on my theater's page, i immediately knew i had to go, and i also learned that it was based off of a novel. and so i tried to find information on the book. it doesn't seem like dogra magra has currently been translated into english. however, it is clearly beloved in japan, and i am certain that ryukishi07 has read dogra magra and the other two 'great mysteries' of japan. so i would like to read them too. for now though, i simply have to document the mysteries here for my own memory. the three great mysteries are: dogra magra (kyuusaku yumeno), black death manor mansion case (mushitarou oguri), and offering to the void (hideo nakai). unfortunately, english information on all of these seems sparse, with dogra magra only really having any semi-widely available info on it thanks to the movie.
in the process of trying to find some version of dogra magra to read, i found demon crane press (and i have included a link to them on /cool as well so i don't forget about them). they have a snippet of dogra magra available to be read, but i presume the entire translation is still being worked on at this time. hopefully it is up soon, but at least there's a sample you can read!
jmystery wiki also seems fond of disco 🟊 wednesdayyy which has a very eye-catching name, and has illustrations done by KEI (you know, the guy who designed hatsune miku?). i have also included a link to disco wednesdayyy's translator group, sway translation, on /cool. i'll have to begin this series as soon as i can, since i'll have to wait on dogra magra since my japanese is quite poor. on that note, i really can't wait to watch the movie!
*** 8.22.25, saddleblasters & noise.
today i read a post from saddleblasters about noise performances and writing poetry about them. i've included the link on /cool but here is the link for ease of reference as well. it got me thinking about the few noise performances i've seen; the full-blown catharsis, the bone-shattering involvement of the performance art elements noise forces an audience and its creator to give itself up to. i don't really listen to 'quintessential' noise much (if such a label exists), although i do dabble in the occasional oldschool merzbow album here and there lol. my favorite noise musician is probably uboa, and even then i mostly reach for her release the origin of my depression over her more noisy stuff.
anyway i digress (as usual). a few years ago i traveled a few cities away to see machine girl. the opener for their concert was a noise musician who i unfortunately do not remember the name of. it was my first time seeing a noise musician perform. she had very long nails and a spinning record table thingie with a few different noisy vinyls spinning next to each other or something. can you tell i am not a musician. she would drag her impressively long nails over the vinyl and dig microphone cable grooves into the vinyl. she hooked herself up to those microphone wires and dragged herself across the floor. she'd whisper unintelligibly into the microphone and do some shit with the pedals to make the samples of her not-words cut and loop and interweave overtop of each other. she looked--and this was probably the most impressive part of it to me--incredibly bored. she was so thoroughly immersed in her art and its creation and the emotional output of it all that there was nothing on her face even as her brow shone with sweat and her hair started sticking to her forehead. it was probably the best opener i've seen. a sea of people undulating to the rhythms of absolute static and scratching and not really moshing because you can't really mosh to noise but getting so caught up in letting the sound 'become' them in a way that i haven't seen or experienced in any other 'traditional' music experience.
as an industrial fan it does make me wonder if this is how early SWANS fans felt in those overheating rooms with michael gira screaming at them and blowing out his speakers with his guitars, before what i as a dabbler and an outsider understand to be the 'true' advent of noise as a genre, if this is what people who listened to throbbing gristle and the like experienced when turning on 20 jazz funk greats for the first time; industrial has changed a lot, and the experience of its soundscape with it. anyway, every time i see an opener i don't know i definitely compare them a little bit to that noise artist. i wish i remembered her name.
*** 8.20.25, i saw NIN and street sects and youth code and--
and i love industrial!!! agh. the NIN concert was amazing; it's no secret how much i admire trent reznor, so getting to see him was a dream come true especially considering how expensive concert-going is becoming and i don't think i'll ever have the opportunity/budget/etc to see him again. not that i really mind to be honest...i definitely prefer smaller concerts over big ones and this was a huge venue. at any rate, they played a pretty wide variety of tunes and did a lot of song-mixing and melody-interchanging (i am not a music student) and the acoustic-stripped opening of right where it belongs changing into somewhat damaged's ending before leading up into ruiner was something he did for me, specifically, i think.
naturally the background world, my favorite NIN song, did not feature in any capacity, but that song is 11 minutes of mostly devolving static-loop so i wasn't really anticipating hearing it (although it would have been awesome) but they did play other stuff from add violence, and i wasn't expecting to hear any of those songs at all.
i thought it was fun how boys noize's opening set led right up and into NIN without the typical break between the opener and the headline act; the set became increasingly chaotic and frenetic with more static and 'background noise' the closer it got to NIN's opening, only for it to crest and crash back down into silence for the stripped-back beginning. agh, just an amazing concert.
really my only complaint is that i was pretty much the only person in my entire seated section standing up for the whole concert grooving, and the audience was pretty...interesting. it was like 50% dads, 30% alt people, 20% what i will only refer to as 'weirdos.' the people standing in front of me in line outside of the arena had pro-military tattoos, and i just don't know what kind of unawareness you have to have to like NIN or the industrial genre in general and be pro-military. but NIN is a big name now and has been ever since i got into their stuff, so i guess it's not something to be too surprised over. i had fun looking at the other band shirts people were wearing. there were a few middle-aged men in ministry and KMFDM shirts. shout out to the one guy who was wearing a counting crows tour shirt? i saw two people wearing deftones shirts and they were both late-teenaged or early-20-yo girls (to be clear this not a dig at deftones or deftones fans). i just thought it was interesting the sort of in-crowds that popped up simply from the differing band shirts; ministry and KMFDM have obviously been household names in the industrial genre for a while, so older men wearing their merch kind of makes sense, and deftones has had a resurgence with a younger crowd; i think back to the 15 year old i saw last year at the suburban mall i grew up going to who was wearing a type o negative shirt. again, not a dig. just interesting to note the bands that have gotten popular with young crowds again vs the ones who aren't. it's also worth noting when i saw ministry the crowd was actually surprisingly well-split up with long-term fans and young people so i'm not sure why i only ever see older men wearing ministry merch cuz there's plenty of not-men people my age and younger who still listen to them lol.
ok, enough about NIN. i saw youth code the other day too on their industrial worship tour, joined by street sects, king yosef, and insula iscariot (who i had never heard of prior to the show but was awesome). i didn't know there was going to be a tour until about a week ago but i scrambled to buy tickets when i realized youth code and street sects were there. i saw king yosef open for HEALTH a few years ago as well and really liked his energy; unfortunately his studio stuff is kind of less my vibe but he's a blast to see perform and this continues to be true. he has a very personable and friendly energy which is always nice to have in between blasts of industrial metal. so i was happy to get to see him again. now, i like youth code--a lot--especially because industrial groups with women are pretty hard to find. but i LOVE street sects. and i honestly didn't think they were going to keep making music or go on tour again; their last album came out in 2018. i was sending my boyfriend their albums to listen to before the concert so he could be familiar with them and noticed, surprisingly, they had released TWO albums only the day before, one under the street sects name and one under the name street sex 'cause it's a more darkwave synth-pop-y project.
so we go. and i sort of overestimated how many people who would be there that would know who street sects are but they were the second opener so the crowd was still a bit dead--that's fine though, cause i still got to move around and be a bit rowdy without people being annoyed. i'm not someone who goes into pits but i like being able to do more moving than standing arm-to-arm with people and swaying slightly. of course the set was amazing. the abrasiveness, the heavy doses of artificial fog so leo looked like he would emerge out of nothingness to rage into his microphone and disappear back into the nothingness. there were two people slightly to our left and in front of us who were ecstatic, and when leo came down to walk through the crowd for a song, they looked shot through with giddiness.
before their set i (of course) bee-lined for the merch table and got a shirt, and i didn't realize that leo was running the booth himself lol (i don't know why i assumed he or shaun wouldn't be there themselves?) and he commented "thank you!" so meekly when i bought the shirt. it's fun to juxtapose an artist's personality with their work; he's so confident and abrasive and loud on stage. i went back up later after their set to buy the dry drunk vinyl with my partner and shaun was there this time running the booth. some other concertgoer (16volt shirt btw) asked him what the vinyls were and he commented that one was for dry drunk and the other was for street sex, "their new pop album." at this point i chimed in "it's amazing, you should go listen to it!" and shaun gave me SUCH a wide-eyed and clearly happy expression, one that i could only interpret as 'wait you listened to it already?' lol. so of course at this point i was just like, "oh yeah i really love both the new albums, i was so happy to see you guys had some new releases." he was really nice and sweet about it and clearly trying not to act too embarrassed over the idea of realizing that people keep up with and actively follow his band, that people came here for street sects. i got him to sign my vinyl and he said that leo was "hiding in the van" but that he'd have him sign it later lol.
while killing time i asked him what his favorite song to perform was and he thought about it a moment and unfortunately i couldn't quite hear his answer in between the music the bar was playing in between sets but i think he said "collared, kept makes a great closer." i also had fun catching smatterings of king yosef's conversation with the people slightly to our right. youth code was amazing too but of course being the headliner most everyone was there for them, so i don't have as much to say about that except for they were awesome and it's really cool that we get new industrial acts and i have a lot of respect for them for being one of the few acts who really felt like giving it a go in the 2010s when the genre was kind of dead. industrial's getting an up-tick of interest again now though so it's paid off for them; apparently this is only their second ever headline tour and they've been making music for about a decade.
once again i had fun trying to look at the other band shirts people were wearing and trying to get new music recs. pretty sure someone was wearing a choke chain hat which is cool--they're another small industrial act i enjoy quite a bit. skinny puppy shirt guy talking to coil horse rotorvator shirt guy. the other guy in youth code was wearing a ministry shirt, of course. waiting in line for the bar we heard some people behind us talk about seeing have a nice life at a venue a few doors down back before the pandemic and my partner and i both went "OHHHGH..." and had to turn around and go "ok sorry that just sounds like it would have been awesome," and of course the guy nodded sagely and was like "it was." i did also get hit on after insula's set which was funny because that doesn't really happen to me very often when i go out. the guy was super nice and also not-weird at all and still kept talking to us when he realized i was dating someone, so i hope to see him again in the future. thank you for the ego boost.
this blog post doesn't really have a point per se (not that it needs one) but putting two vastly different concerts in the same genre back to back like that was fun and interesting to compare. it also re-reminded me how much more i prefer smaller concerts to bigger ones; NIN might be probably my favorite artist, but between seeing them again or seeing street sects again, i'd definitely pick street sects. it's also special to realize and remember musicians are of course just normal people, and talking with shaun and leo and seeing them be so surprised and happy over the idea of people really loving their stuff also made me happy in turn. listen to smaller artists and support them, buy their merch, show up for opener acts. have fun! music forever!!
*** 8.17.25, sea talismans.
*** 8.7.25, i have got to get into weirder media.
the visa/mastercard debacle that has restricted people releasing adult content on sites like itch is massively disappointing to watch unfold. about a month ago i downloaded a bunch of VNs off of itch that had been made for the toxic yuri VN game jam and it's sad to think that probably a good 80% of those games probably got delisted or removed mere weeks later. the verdict of my thought process mostly is just "i have got to get into weirder media" so i won't say much more than that but... yeah. i gotta get into weirder media. it's crazy that shit like this can happen, that the mere act of downloading a VN made by somoene who was bored for day can essentially be chalked up as a borderline criminal act worthy of censorship purely because a company with a monopoly on processing money of all things says it has weird content. i mean yeah people being punished for creating 'taboo' content has been happening forever, but still.
*** 7.14.25, it's all about goth.
just had a nice little moment going to a spanish post-punk event the other day and someone excitedly grabbed me by the arm in drunken reverie to say, "hey i've seen you before!" :). this was, of course, the man me and my partner affectionately call 'pirate guy' and have also seen around before. it's nice to really feel part of a scene. this album is on my albums-i'm-digging page but contra by paranormales is such a gem of a spanish coldwave album. absolute must-listen if you like boy harsher. we keep hearing vertigo when we go out and it's really good.
*** 6.30.25, goth night last night.
said fuck it and drove us about an hour to check out a goth night in a neighboring city. it was pretty lowkey since it's not a big city, but i had a pretty good time. the goth nights i've been to in my city have been hurting for industrial music, which therefore hurts me, i'm definitely more of an industrial fan than a goth rock fan--especially when i'm out clubbing and want to dance--but no one is as interested in playing older industrial except for the obligatory pretty hate machine track and a skinny puppy track or two. i think i've heard TKK's 'do you fear for your child?' once. anyway last night they played headhunter by front 242 and i was pretty much the only person out there dancing consistently. it was pretty fun to mirror the DJ by holding my hand up to reflect the chorus's number progression and then the DJs played to me for the next few songs which was nice and meant i got to hear some older industrial i've never heard before. enjoyable night. worth the hour drive. i won't be able to do it every week or anything but i'm glad we went.
*** 6.29.25, HEARTLOVEPOWERTEMPLE.
clear glass mention! i got a little sidetracked from this VN by clair obscur but hopefully i'll be done with it soon. i really like the format and creativity VNs and kinetic novels offer their creators and HEARTLOVEPOWERTEMPLE feels like a great encapsulation of what the medium permits for when you force yourself not to care and just make something you feel deeply passionate about. doujin for 20-something year olds who miss 2008 deviantART and have a fascination with religion as a narrative theme and overinternalization.
*** 6.8.25, i turned 26 yesterday.
i don't think i have much to say about it, emotionally-and-growing-old-wise. but it was a very special birthday, the kind of day that makes you feel incandescantly happy and grateful; it's been nothing but storms here for the past week and a half or so. it was sunny yesterday. i was also lucky to have my birthday fall on ILD for summer so i got to go to a fancy high tea meetup my local comm organized and it was really nice. i liked my coord and tried to be very indulgent with it and focused on wearing items that i get the most excited over and got a lot of compliments and questions and stuff. and afterwards we went to a rhythm game arcade and then got korean food for dinner. it didn't rain or thunder once. i felt very cared for and loved and that's all thanks to my partner.
i'm coming down a bit from the high of such a wonderful weekend and experiencing some melancholic feelings now. and some more apprehension. and thinking man i need to quit my job. but i was very happy this whole weekend and i don't want the happiness of this weekend to be overwritten. and i don't think that reflection needs to be tied to sadness or making good things feel more sad when you turn them over a few times in your hands.
*** 5.31.25, tattoo 2 + hex mundi perfumes.
maybe branding's rotted my brain but i want to get one of these lone star beer can guys rust makes.
i had some perfume samples from hex mundi come in the other day. rachael (blended + named for the blade runner character) and possession (for the old horror movie) ended up being my favorites. i had a surprisingly emotional response to rachael. the perfume notes are petrichor + violet + tobacco + leather + tart cherry. i didn't think i'd care a lot about it; i'm not particularly drawn to cherry and it tends to be a pretty dominating note as well as being blended mostly in sultry/sexy ways that i'm not drawn to. but i love blade runner (both movies) so obviously i gave in. but this. a rain-drenched sad cherry, a single blast of red color in a dreary landscape. it gets the upheaval of rachael's character in that movie quickly: a femme fatale by design and pitiful by nature, programmed to feel like she is alive and cursed to feel deeply lonely for daring to believe she could ever be 'human.' anyway i'm blaming part of this on the fact that my period started a day later but i smelled it and got deeply sad for her and her character.
as for possession, the other perfume that stood out to me, it's kind of everything i've wanted since i first started getting into perfume. matrimony vine + vanilla orchids + cement + creme + amber. yeah this has it all. a green-forward but still quite vanilla scent...but wow that cement note comes through. i think it channels the spirit of possession and especially the architecture in the movie wonderfully. anyway this does it all for me. powdery florals. greenery. vanilla. something bizarre as hell (cement). it's sweet and traditionally 'good' to smell but with just an element of coldness to it. you are not welcome in thie perfume's landscape even though it smells inviting.
*** 5.30.25, surprise it's about swans again
from killing for company from the great annhilator:
And now we're slipping through this millennium
We should feel sorry for the people
And can I kiss your skin?
And there is hunger in the desert
And missiles in the sky
And every soul is interwoven
Before the wrong or right
i titled this 'surprise it's about swans again' but really it should have been 'songs that make you think about metal gear solid'
*** 5.27.25, swans.
since getting my tattoo i have felt more and more connected to swans. i suppose it only makes sense now that i have one as a part of my body. i have always felt a kinship with them through swan lake growing up, wishing i could play or be odette, but now i simply appreciate swan iconography more and more and want to carry more of it with me. i think i shied away from it for a while, feeling i couldn't claim something so feminine, being transmasc. deciding not to medically transition felt like a difficult enough acquisition; i could not want to be a swan. it would be one thing if i transitioned and then decided to reclaim swans. but like this? no. it felt too transgressive. anyway i don't think i was consciously aware of it. i did the same with unicorns and my lady amalthea, sorry girl, i'll never again shy away from owning up to wishing i was half as ethereal and beautiful as you and that i was also a unicorn forced to be a girl. come to think of it as i type this, odette is much of the same just in the opposite way -- a girl forced to be a swan. i have no interest in dissecting that more than i have already in this post but maybe i'll circle back to it later.
anyways, after i tried to go on my swans the band kick again and i found that michael gira quote; cis 'respected musician master of his craft jack of all trades who creates punishing soundscapse' musician michael gira who named his no-wave band swans because they are "beautiful creatures with terrible attitudes" and released their first album aptly named FILTH which mostly just sounds like a guy screaming and playing ugly chords on his guitar before slamming it into drums...i dunno. i guess i felt like i could go back to it. so i did. and now i have that swan. and now it's more a part of me than i ever thought it could be again. whether i realized i was avoiding swans or not. it's nice not to avoid them. my only hang-up is that now it seems like everyone is getting into swans at the same time as me; everyone has tired of fawns and now needs something else...and here i am, too. haha. the desire to be different always sinks its teeth into you even when you think you've outrun high schooler individuality complexes.
*** 5.21.25, true detective s1.
i overall really liked true detective although i think it shines the most in the first 4 episodes. definitely have some nitpicks with the last 2 episodes especially, however, i really really loved this shot from 1x08. coupled with "well, i know we ain't in alaska, but it sure looks like there's a lot more dark than light." / "in the beginning there was only darkness. if you ask me, the light's winning," as the last two lines of dialogue for the season. rust seems to be having his "deckard finding a toad in do androids dream of electric sheep?" moment here when he hallucinates the supernova. a fake miracle is still a miracle. how can anyone take that from you?
*** 3.30.25, the count of monte cristo + food poisoning.
got some terrible food poisoning on monday and it really took me out of the game. feeling much better at least. but i feel very behind on everything i want and need to do. regardless, i finished the count of monte cristo today and i thoroughly enjoyed it. it was much easier to read than i was expecting it to be and the language in it feels quite modern and fresh; i was surprised at just how easily dumas captured people's human energies and how much it connected present-day to these made-up characters of the past. people have changed in very little ways i feel. "hope and wait." what an apt summary.
"Monte Cristo pulled him gently forward. 'Is it not appropriate,' he said, 'for us to spend the hours we have left like those ancient Romans who, when they were condemned to death by Nero, their emperor and their heir, would sit at a table decked with flowers and breathe in death with the scent of heliotrope and roses?'" i liked this quote a lot, probably mostly because i was like omg heliotrope mention. either way, documenting it here.
*** 3.11.25, gender.
i shaved the tails of my eyebrows off the other day which sent me into this state of thinking about gender again and performativity; i'm past the point of needing to really label my gender anymore and so much of my dysphoria is social rather than physical once i started mostly hanging out with trans people everything else got much easier for me to deal with. a 'ma'am' from the barista doesn't bug me. anyway i put off getting into lolita for so long because i thought for sure it would just aggravate my dysphoria even more, but i found it lessened it--lolita is, to me, almost akin to drag. it's a 'me' put on for a personal show that is still very true and real to who i am but performative and rooted in fantasy, someone who can't 'actually' exist and yet does. and i've found it actually makes me feel more confident as being nonbinary in my day-to-day. shaving off the ends of my eyebrows too, combined with some super blunt baby bangs and a huge bonnet and princess sleeves--this is obviously just for me but it feels like someone who simply isn't 'real' or 'can exist in reality.' and yet here i am. in the same way people don't understand that you can be trans and not want to medically transition. i guess feeling so performatively feminine has made me more comfortable in being a nonbinary person who is pretty much always just read as 'a cis girl'; choosing the sort of doll-like princess femininity that fascinated me as a kid but slowly felt more and more off limits the older i got and then became rooted in dysphoria as i understood more about myself--choosing it and playing it up to such a fantastic degree has really been freeing. and however little dot rectangle eyebrows and baby bangs play into this too, i dunno, but i like it. i feel like a digital angel clad in velveteen; a desktop shimeji ad on a community-run forum in 2001.
i wonder if mana-sama felt similarly when he started wearing EGL and made moitie; ignoring that he is of course a cis man. anyway, lolita for all!! alternative fashion for all!!! gender expression for all!!! y'know, funnily (or maybe interestingly is the better word) enough, the only time i've had anywhere near to a weird experience while wearing egl was at a gay bar. maybe i'll write about that another day, but i was surprised that out of everywhere i've worn a coord to, it's the place i expected people to be the least weird about it where people were acting bizarre and like i was being weird lol.
*** 2.27.25, man.
so far 2025 has been rough. not for any real rhyme or reason; i'm just burnt out and tired and feel like a white hot star existing without putting anything out or into anything at all. small white dwarf star. i know it's just seasonal. i know i'm sure to feel better in the summer. but whew. 2 almost 3 months in and it's been unrelenting. i struggle to get out of bed before 11; i struggle to stay up past 10. i am awake and i do nothing it feels. i had two days off work this week and that was nice. very needed. saw a concert. that was nice. i wasn't even excited. but it was nice. sigh. life feels sort of distilled and tracked by the little bottles of 5ml perfume oils; breathe and live and be transported. i'm glad in a world that sometimes feels cloyingly sterile for me to exist in i can have these: crystallized scent memories of places that do not, have not, and will not exist.i struggle so much to maintain anything this year. it will be better, but it is hard, and i am embarrassed by it being hard when nothing happens at all.
*** 2.20.25, on cruising (the movie!! lmao).
on valentine's day the boyfriend and i went to go see a sold-out (!!) screening of cruising starring al pacino at our local independent theater nd i have not been able to stop thinking about the movie once since we saw it. i kind of expected to feel sort of whatever about it but i absolutely loved it and think it's pretty damn brilliant. just absurd enough to keep me on my toes and yet quite grounded. i get why people didn't like it at the time it was coming out but i think it's totally worth going back to. we liked it so much we bought the blu-ray in the lobby, resulting in me having a truly bizarre but admirable tiny collection of blu-rays and dvds (i have 5 at the time of writing this; the thing, akira, american psycho, star wars episode III, and alien).
*** 2.6.25, hello.
one whole month already. can't believe i was updating as often as i was in nov-dec and now it's been a month without me touching this section. this time of year always feels too fast and yet unbelievably stagnant too. i wish i could say i do less entries here because i'm keeping track of time in my hobonichi but i've been pretty bad about keeping up with it (although i've been trying to backfill and just take up the space i haven't been using with stickers). existing is hard in the way that i sleep in far too long and work and am exhausted after work and then i have to go to bed; chores falling to the wayside, my body something i can't really hold up. i've been writing more but nothing personal or large-scale but it's nice to at least feel like i'm still being creative.
*** 1.2.25, happy new year.
i cut my thumb on a chestnut yesterday trying to peel it open. i don't know why this feels like a sign for the year, but it does--not a good or a bad one or a promise of things to come per se, but a summary in a nutshell. or whatever hamlet* said. something about the serendipity of it. i don't know why i want to call it serendipitious, but it feels that way to me. when i was out drinking on new years our bartender excitedly told us that our year was going to be good because our total came out to be something like 56.66 and she thought the 666 was also serendipitious, then tried to explain that she loves numerology and doesn't think 666 is a scary number. to her it's the "human" number. it highlights an intentionality on the physical and seemingly mundane. i thought it was a bit of a funny thing to explain to two queer people to not be afraid of 666--i can promise you despite my obsessive compulsions i have no fear of a number anymore, HIM beat that out of me with the song "your sweet 666" years ago. but more importantly i thought it was very sweet of her, i like her a lot and usually see her working there whenever i go. next time i will have to ask her what her favorite number combo is. i feel closer and closer to people every year and i'm thankful for it. anyway, may this year treat everyone well, i'm sure i'll update if my chestnut sign-from-whereever amounts to anything.
*act 2, scene 2: "O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a
king of infinite space—were it not that I have bad dreams."