i really like the way it's just seems to wash over you, starting out with a hand using a pencil and erasing what it wrote, and then switches to show us hypertext linking here and there, before showing us yahoo over 10 years back.
tatoos, earrings, nose-rings, studs, extreme body modifications, none of the aforementioned do i have. so far all i have is a minor body modification: a forked tongue that is no longer forked.
possibly since seeing the first xmen movie, when one of the younger students sticks out his (bifurcated) tongue in response to a girl sticking her tongue at him, has the idea been implanted in my head: wouldn't that be cool.
maybe i should have gone to a professional place but it seemed like a simple 'operation'. i sliced only 10 mm into the tip of my tongue, but unfortunately my body has healed itself and the two sides have gone back together. the newly formed scar tissue (or should that be scab?) inside the mouth is lighter in colour and resembles a little wedge of beeswax at the moment. i'm not near a camera right now but i'll be sure to post a pic if i can get a good one.
the day after i did it i had to pull the sides apart as sides started to weld themselves back together, but now they have almost totally come back together. i think i'll wait until the tongue totally heals before trying again to slice it in two again.
how did you manage to do that? asked a co-worker. with a stanley blade, of course. this wasn't the response she expected, i could tell. rather than the result of an accident or biting my tongue in my sleep, doing it on purpose seems a bit crazy to some. no more than piercing your ears or nose in my opinion but maybe, just maybe, body mods should be left to the professionals.
warning: bulbboy does not recommend anyone slicing their tongue or other body bits with a sharp implement.
today (1st feb) our friend Christine was buried. there was a funeral mass first with standing room only. many of her schoolfriends were there. the church had light spilling in from both sides. it was quite possibly the most brightly (day)lit church i've set foot in. many have a gothic gloomy nature but this gave quite a different mood.
her parents requested that people wear some item of green clothing, as that was Christine's favourite colour. obviously there was still mostly black on show, but it was good to see more flashes of colour than you normally see at funerals.
the priest's voice reminded me of John Hannah in 4 weddings and a funeral.
during the mass the organist played i watch the sunrise. i remember at hymn practice as a young boy, a teacher with a glass eye would always request this hymn. he never got bored of it. i was bored of it as a child but i love it now.
the sound of Bruddah Iz (Israel Kamakawiwo' Ole) singing over the rainbow came out over the speakers. the sound of the ukelele was so soft that it sounded as if he was actually there using a microphone. that song is a tearjerker on it's own, but in the emotionally charged church, if there were any dry eyes, they didn't stay dry for long.
a beautiful song for a beautiful person. rest in peace christine.
where do we go when we die? into the earth? into the ether or the heavens? are we recycled and are reincarnated again, or is our energy turned into something else?
Do not stand at my grave and weep I am not there I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glint in the snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain, I am the gentle summer rain.
When you wake in the morning hush, I am the swift, uplifting rush Of quiet birds in circling flight. I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die.
it's a lovely thought that we go on to become something else. it's true that we often don't miss something (or someone) until they are gone, but i found out tonight that someone's passing can make us aware of things that would normally go unnoticed. tonight i went to a memorial service for Christine. it was a memorial service with a difference: it was more of a remembering. Christine's friends wrote memories of her, wrote thoughts they had, things they wished they'd said to her, and photos of her from child to adult. although it was a sad occasion there was a great deal of happiness in the hall.
there was a large moth in the hall also, just a little smaller than the bat that was circling my head some weeks ago. more than one person commented that maybe it was Christine looking down on us all. a few more told of similar things that day. would these things have had the same level of importance attached to them if their world had not been rocked completely? probably not, but it's at times like these that you realise that the small things really matter. small notes, gifts of a leaf, sharing a cup of soup, stick with you. whether or not it was Christine's soul fluttering above us, she has made us look at the world in a different way.
what is my memory? a gift of a bunch of flowers made from textile samples. :)
