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Thursday, January 18, 2001
16:19 
It's done. It's there. I'm wandering around the house with the heating turned up, wearing a pair of baggy trousers rolled down to my hips and a top pulled up and tied just below my boobs. I look like a chunky harem woman. On my back there is an enormous black bird, somewhat stylised, although there is no mistaking what it is.
And it's not coming off.
Ever. Even though when I wash it, as instructed, twice a day, black comes away on the cotton wool and I fret that it'll wash out to a dull grey and not the lustrous black it currently is. The lustrous black with red edges.
It's so damn big. I didn't think it would be so big. It doesn't look so big on the piece of paper. I understand that some of this is because of the way it stretches when I bend at the waist. Even so. I have a small waist, very small (that doesn't make me tiny, you rotters) and the image definitely dominates. It's not bodyart. It doesn't blend in with the body the way some tribal and biomechanical stuff does, it's not a piece of art that is carried on the skin as if the body were a gallery the way some other stuff is. It's a statement of possession, really. It doesn't actually say "property of" and "copyright", but it looks like it ought to.
Didn't really hurt that much. Some of the process was actually very soothing. Bob has a very reassuring touch. Even though he was pulling my skin this way and that at no point did I feel like I was being manhandled, and I didn't feel threatened at all. Sometimes the vibrations of the needle went right down into my pelvis, when he was working low down on my back, and that felt really rather nice. I was surprised to find that he needed to shave my back, though. I have fine down, like anyone, but I only really thought it would be shaved if you had carpets of hair. He didn't tell me he was going to, but by then I'd more or less handed myself into his care for the duration.
It was an odd experience. Especially after I got home, some two hours later, when the enormity of it hit me like a sledgehammer and I almost went into shock. The design is beautiful, I don't regret having it done, but it's a permanent change. It's not like a scar. It's deliberate. I still occasionally find myself thinking "what have I done?" Maybe that means I have grasped the full import of it, I'm not sure.
Washing it is calming. I didn't expect that. I thought it would hurt a lot afterwards, like a graze. It doesn't. My back is quite stiff, however.
Pleased, though. Sort of. Certainly no regrets. I try to avoid those.
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Tuesday, January 16, 2001
13:46
Isn't it odd, the things that can get you drawing again?
The picture of that soldier I did using Painter Classic was a bit shite, really. I'm much happier with pencil and paper and a putty rubber at the end of the day. Maybe it's just a question of needing to develop hand-eye co-ordination for the pen. Anyway, sat down with a piece of paper and a 4B pencil last night (couldn't find my 2B) and started sketching. It's quite difficult. I haven't finished it yet - I intend to import the finished item onto the computer and turn it into a decent picture. It's a front-on view, but I'm having difficulty getting the sense of shiny blackness, the almost golden colour of the reflected light, the impression of something that looks like a beetle would if he tried shifting into a man. Frood says it looks like something out of Dr Who or Labyrinth. I don't know if maybe it's because I'm not getting the relative proportions just right. Maybe the helmet is still too flattened. I've got to get across the sense of these things being egg-shaped, though, or ovoid anyway. If you took an ovoid the same height as this thing, it would fit neatly inside it like a toy in a kinder surprise. Broad, squat, compact. But huge. These things were more than 2m tall.
Even Frood is complaining of bad dreams and restless sleep now, and I had more last night.
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Monday, January 15, 2001
14:05
More excitement: My system is so desperately trashed at the moment that I can't handle meat eating very well. So Frood and I have turned mainly vegetarian. While I was down at Uhuru getting some washing up liquid and ordering a six pack of salt toothpaste, I discovered I had insufficient change and had to pay using plastic. However they don't take plastic for things less than 10 quid, so I had to find something to make up the difference.
I bought a bean sprouter. It's a big glass jar with a mesh lid. You put beans in it and sprout them.
I put some mung beans in it yesterday. This morning they nearly all had little white shoots poking out, despite the cold (our freezer has stopped working again, just after buying a bag of ice to put in it). It's terribly exciting. I think we'll be having something in a chinese sort of styley this week. Heh. I even bought tofu.
Also did the weekly shop by myself this week for the first time in almost ever. Rucksack and a couple of plastic bags, and I did manage it. It was hard, my legs felt very wobbly, but I did manage it.
There weren't as many tins in it as we sometimes get, but it was heavy enough, and I feel really chuffed with myself. It really feels like an achievement.
Tattoo on Wednesday, hopefully.
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13:39
Dreamt last night that a group of us were sent out on a job. /gecko was part of the group, and there was a young woman who reminded me of this girl I went to school with, but it wasn't the same person. There were 6 of us altogether - she was youngest, I was second youngest. At least that's what it felt like. The three other people, one woman, two men, were all older, mid-late forties.
It was an information collection mission, as far as I can tell. We were landed on a beach, a small spit of land, which was bounded by cliffs where it met the mainland. The cliffs were striated, showing heavy layering. The sea level had changed considerably over the last geological period. The rocks were all metamorphic, with tiny grains of silicate minerals. The surfaces were almost like emery paper when turned black and glossy by the sea.
I had a pack, was dressed for hiking. We all were. /gecko had these boots that said "Mountain X1" on the sides, below the ankle. They were grey. He was a lot taller than me. He didn't take his shades off once.
Almost as soon as we arrived we saw enemy coming over the cliff and along the beach at the far side of the spit. There were soldiers and drones, and it was immediately obvious that this was some sort of mad monarchy. The drones were gold and silver, decked out like some sort of 11th century soldier - humanoid, wearing helmets. You'd have thought the designer had watched too much Flash Gordon. Also, the army seemed to think them disposable, or else they couldn't have cost very much, because they just kept on coming. They weren't good fighters or anything. They were too slow, really, too stupid, but there were so many of them, like ants.
/gecko, the other young woman (call her Jan, although that wasn't her name) and I got split up from the three older people. The others seemed to be trying to protect me in certain ways. They wouldn't let me go out on point, they kept telling me to keep hidden. At one point I started getting close to panic because I thought that /gecko had got stuck over the other side with the older people, with soldiers and robots between us. I remember cursing the fact that I had been issued with a pack in a primary colour, and wondering why I couldn't get it to turn camo. It was desperately important to stay hidden. We didn't want to get into a fight, we wanted to collect information and get out.
I was hiding behind a rock outcrop, damp against my skin, seeping through the seat of my trousers. /gecko reappeared over a rock outcrop and ducked down beside me. He wanted to know if I had been able to scan anything. I relayed what little information I had, and then he grinned a little, looking over my shoulder. I knew then that we had been found.
Rather than getting up, I rolled backwards, off the rock onto the sand, as if I were going over the side of an inflatable in full dive kit. Then we were fighting.
They weren't trying to kill us. The robots kept grabbing me, trying to pin me with my arms by my sides, my back towards them. The first ten or so I managed to disable. They were quite sensitive. But they kept coming. They just kept coming. We were swamped, to the point where we couldn't think about each other, only ourselves.
Then the soldiers came in. They were huge, big like rugby players. They wore black armour that looked almost shell-like, coming down in layers like a samurai's armour turned organic, crossed with a beetle's shell.  With those and the drones to deal with, we didn't stand a chance. Six people vs hundreds of bodies. No.
So I was finally pinned by one of the shiny, shiny drones long enough for one of the soldiers to hit me. I dropped, dazed, and then another one, some sort of assault weapon in one hand, kicked me in the head. The lights went out.
When I came to, I was in a waiting room, leaning back on a blue sofa. Both /gecko and Jan were there, to my inordinate relief. I caught my reflection in a window or a painting or something, and I was a mess. I had a black eye, a cut on my forehead, a split lip and was dirty and grubby and caked with my own blood where my scalp had split. I felt dreamy, not really all there. I was both frightened, thinking that they were going to kill us or do something to us for spying, and also curious. A bit like a cow, when she wants to lick you and run away at the same time.
This guy came in. He was about 50, maybe older, handsome. He looked distinguished, and felt very gentle. There was also a hard streak to him though. He was definitely used to giving orders and having them followed. He was not at all happy about the fact that I had been kicked in the head. His people were interested in what we could do. He gave me a quick once over, said a few words to /gecko and Jan, then left the room, promising us that people would be disciplined for causing us harm.
Then a woman appeared. She looked a little like Servalan from Blake's 7, but with a softer face - imagine Servalan crossed with the Frood's favourite, Amanda Pays. As she entered I noticed that our packs had been retrieved and were sitting in the corner of the room. /gecko had also noticed for sure. The woman started explaining to us that they had been testing children from their population for ESP. Some of the results had been quite promising. What she didn't say, but I picked up from her, was that they wanted to develop an army division that was capable of dealing with people like us. So they thought it was best to use people like us in order to find out how to create one. The other three hadn't had the sensory abilities in which they were interested, had been combat and tactical specialists. They had been killed.
When I realised that I took /gecko's hand, for comfort. I knew he knew too, but he just stuck his other hand in his pocket and said nothing.
We were led to this big room that was split into two by a glass panel. Beyond the panel were screens on tables, and people guessing what card someone on the far side of the room behind a screen had. We were sat on some grey, comfy chairs. The woman quickly explained that the previous people to be tested were children of the ages of around 8-10, and they had been "reading cards". She told us that this is what we would be doing. She then said she'd be back shortly and left. I frowned. I don't like tarot, and I immediately thought she meant we would be doing divining using tarot. I mentioned this to /gecko and he said he thought she probably meant using ESP to determine what card someone else had chosen. I thought this was a bit crap. I wondered why we had to bother with that when we could just levitate a few things to prove we were capable.
The woman came back with some clipboards and pens. On the clipboards were forms for us to fill in. She said that we had to fill in our details and then put in the relevant box that we could "read cards". She said that it was important that we filled in the forms. Her tone suggested that we had no choice. Even so, the sense of danger was very detached. I was still feeling spaced from being kicked in the head.
At that time El showed up and told me it was 11am and time to get up. I protested, because I didn't want to leave Jan or /gecko, especially /gecko. She insisted though, so I woke up. Then I complained and tried to get back just to be sure that /gecko was ok, but I couldn't.
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Sunday, January 14, 2001
01:23
The printer works. Hoorah! It was a duff port. I installed a new one. The scanner works too, if I disconnect the printer first. It does seem to scan things and enlarge them hugely for some reason, so if you scan something 5 inches high you end up with an image that requires a ratio of 1:13 to fit in a window in PSP, and takes 20 minutes to render down when you resize it to something sensible.
Still. If you're really unlucky I might post photos.
Also, good news on the instant chocolate front - I have a working recipe. For a standard mug of around 1/3 UK pint:
4tsp Green & Blacks drinking chocolate
4tsp Marvel dried skimmed milk
1 tsp Green & Blacks cocoa
1 tsp sugar
That could be all organic if I could find some organic skimmed milk powder. The alternative is to use the organic instant malted stuff they are currently selling in Sainsbury's (Prewett's - no website) mixed with chocolate, as that has organic skimmed milk powder in it, but it doesn't mix very well, you still need cocoa, and it's rather insipid.
I ordered a 6 box of the salt toothpaste today. Is that silly?
And, you know, I think perhpas I'm working out common ground with some Otherkin, at least to the degree where we may be able to agree on some common principles for the basis of discussion, which would actually be kinda nice.
Bob's back at work. I'm pleased, but restless and fidgety and want to get it done. I'm also very scared. Once it's done I might post the design, but I really don't want anyone else to have it done the same. It's too important to me, if that makes sense. It means too much.
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