Recurring themes when browsing strangers' journals:

1. "I'm just posting this so I can get to xx% profile completion,"
2. emo poetry about lost love
3. emo song lyrics about lost love (quoted)

*Note irony.

For those of you who don't know, The Story of O is a piece of BDSM fiction written by a revered French journalist on a bet. It apparently -apparently- borders on feminism because the title character O chose to undergo a series of horrifying tribulations on her own accord.

But as with any work of this nature, critics of course complain about how it's really the epitome of the objectification of women and "anti-feminist".

My friend briefly toyed with how Stockholm Syndrome could fit into all this, but eventually dismissed it because there was no reluctance to begin with and therefore no need to develop any kind of defense mechanism to cope with trauma. In fact,

O welcomes all this, understanding that the harsher the treat ments she endures, the more she proves her love.

But mental submission != spiritual submission, no? Initially the endurance of harsh treatment is defiant in nature, in that "you can't break my spirit" way ... when she eventually falls in love with her "captor" it's a complete submission.

The paradigm shift seems an awful lot like SS - not wanting to suffer (psychologically) anymore and thus deluding yourself into believing the abuse = love.

But of course, I've never actually read the book, so all this may well just be psychobabble.

"Feel the Blues! - It's calm on mondays" by nini

• Emiliana Torrini - Wednesday's child

• Charlotte Gainsbourg - Little monsters

• Nouvelle Vague - In a manner of speaking

• Bebel Gilberto - Azul

• Devics - Salty seas

• Autour de Lucie - La grande évasion

• Natalie Walker - Colourblind

• Jenifer - Donne-moi le temps

"The ordinary-sized stuff which is our lives, the things people write poetry about - clouds - daffodils - waterfalls - and what happens in a cup of coffee when the cream goes in - these things are full of mystery, as mysterious to us as the heavens were to the Greeks. We're better at predicting events at the edge of the galaxy or inside the nucleus of an atom than whether it'll rain on auntie's garden party three Sundays from now. Because the problem turns out to be different. We can't even predict the next drip from a dripping tap when it gets irregular.[...] and the weather is unpredictable the same way, will always be unpredictable."

 -Tom Stoppard, Arcadia

Nobody reads this shit, ever. Blog, no blog, who notices?

Also I was just glancing at the settings toolbar on the side and that little field that says "Formatting: Don't touch my html" - I, for some reason, misread as "Don't touch my mind". Now I'm a little disappointed. I like mine better.

Was going to post a snippet of an old blog entry from way back (2006). Certainly don't feel like it now. Toodles.

"divinci was the first notable source of this style of *secret* writing. just more proof that there is no such thing as an original idea, but many different angles to look upon them. :)"

The first time I attempted this "secret writing" technique I was, what, 6 or 7, and had a vague to non-existent notion of who da Vinci even was.

The mere fact that people come up with the same idea independently doesn't make it any less original.

Scaaaary.

The good news: CHEESECAKE

The bad news: I wore this pair of three-inch heels I got for my high school prom to the mall today and now my feet hurt like hell.

...That's pretty much everything that I did today. I feel so accomplished :).

Ugh. Summer.

I know it's over, and it never really began
But in my heart it was so real
And you even spoke to me, and said:

"If you're so funny then why are you on your own tonight?
And if you're so clever then why are you on your own tonight?
If you're so very entertaining then why are you on your own tonight?
If you're so very good-looking, why do you sleep alone tonight?

..."

It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate
It takes strength to be gentle and kind
Over, over, over, over, over...

In the words of one of my favourite writers, you have to be engaged and mean it to appreciate something like that. Everyone can listen to the same emo and screamo and claim to identify with their overwrought cookie-cutter elements of pain/rebellion/alienation/loss. But you have to mean something, to be able to say, I need him more than I love him. If you're not bothered either way about anything, then the music would just be a replacement for your real feelings, instead of an expression of them.

Here's a thought: the next time you listen plug in your mp3 player, actually pay attention to the lyrics instead of drown it out by humming along to it. Let me know what you get.