The Reptile House — Revisited.

+ the photo montage that played that night:

Must read.

Via cereta

"she whom the moon ruled
like us
levitating into the night sky
riding the polished lenses"
-Planetarium

"Find someone like yourself. Find others.
Agree you will never desert each other.
Understand that any rift among you
means power to those who want to do you in.
Close to the center, safety; toward the edges, danger.
But I have a nightmare to tell: I am trying to say
that to be with my people is my dearest wish
but that I also love strangers
that I crave separateness
I hear myself stuttering these words
to my worst friends and my best enemies
who watch for my mistakes in grammar
my mistakes in love."
-Yom Kippur 1984

Adrienne Rich

How to Dance Goth from APBS on Vimeo.

Brilliant.

If you don't know his name by now, learn it, and remember it.

Someone not at all close to me, but whom I knew, killed himself last night. He was only about 40. He had issues (a rather major drinking problem, for one, which likely precipitated the suicide). But it's still shocking. I didn't even know him well (I am close to people he was close to, which adds to the distress), but find myself reeling today.

I think every time something like this touches us, however tenuously, it has an impact. Today I've found myself doing a lot of staring off into space, and I'm finding it hard to focus on the concrete. I'm sort of lost in the abstract.

Most everyone has thought of killing themselves at one time or another. Frankly, around this time last year, I was thinking as seriously as I ever had about it myself. But I could never do it. I don't understand how anyone with connections in this world can do it. Every time someone I know has committed suicide, the negative impact on those left behind has been devastating.

So I'm just going to say...if you ever find yourself seriously thinking that you want to end it all, reach out. Any of your loved ones would rather deal with a drunken, sobbing, incoherent phone call at 4 a.m. than the news that you're gone. You don't even have to talk about what's bothering you if you don't want to. Just tell someone you need to connect with another human. We all need that. It's not weird, it's basic.

...rarely would a day go by when I didn't post to this journal. It was my place to share: News, plans, rants, emotions, you name it. But now, I share elsewhere. Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook. Places that make it easier to share shorter things quickly.

I planned to reserve this space for what we tag on Twitter or Tumblr as #longreads - but I notice I've been keeping it short here, too.

I do really want to get back to writing more regularly on LJ, whether long or short, and I think I will soon. Once I get through the next few weeks, and my life shows me how much time it will give me for such writing. In the meantime, I'm well. I'll be back.