Last night I read up to Lucifer #49. It’s not as bad as I expected. It’s not as good as the first 30 issues by a long shot but it’s not all that bad. In fact the ending of issue 49 was excellent. I think it was really the artwork that made it, two panels in particular (Elaine’s face half in the ground and Elaine holding the god of The Green) added a whole lot to it. A nice nice idea that worked really well.
Recently I’ve reread Peter Milligan’s The Human Target. It’s a shame this got canned. I’d like to see it go on as OGN’s, the trades must sell for there to have been 4 so far. My favourite piece of work from him is Skreemer, it’s an excellent book but it deals less so with identity than almost all of his other books. It’s a good theme, identity and he works it well. I have an urge to reread Enigmanow. I wonder if I’m searching for an identity of my own at the moment? I feel like maybe I have been for a while. Maybe I’m just boiling a hair cut down way too much but I’m not sure. The beard looks to be staying for a while, although that could change in a day. I guess I do regret having my hair cut and I would grow it again…except for the two years of effort it took to get it to a manageable length. I do not want to go back to that.
I fear I have lost my capacity for learning. I’ve certainly lost my motivation but at the same time I’ve lost my access. I need a driving reason to learn. Work gave me to me a few years ago and I learnt alot very quickly and very well. It’s all fading now and indeed it’s all useless now. If I had a reason, a real reason to apply that to something else I’m pretty sure I could do or learn anything. I’m actually not sure of that *right this instant* but I was not so long a time ago and given the right tools and the right situation I could be again. This time I’m going to have my college application in months in advance this year and I’m going to walk it to the college. Fucking Royal Mail has failed me way too much. I miss the skill and I miss the learning, it feels like a whole part of me is being wasted, hell it is being wasted.
So Hunter S. Thompson killed himself this morning, the bastard. I know he wanted to go out on his own terms at his own time but I never thought he’d kill himself. It’s disappointing and somewhat of a let down. I guess I expected better, I’m not even sure I ever thought he’d die. If anything in his books is to believed, he should have been dead ten times over by now, but he was never going to OD. HST just wouldn’t OD. I could have seen a prank or something like that going wrong and getting him or some loon, but putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger, man that sucks. God, I’ve love to have seen him speak at something. Learning about it because the first page to load up was LJ this morning, not so good. I should have read my emails first or just hit BBC news.
I didn’t sleep very well last night. It was late enough when I went to bed (1.30) and I read for at least an hour as I wanted to finish Lucifer off. But I was still awake after 4am and probably going close onto 5am. Not good for an 8.00am alarm clock. I was surprised I made it and that I made it into work. I don’t even feel so bad. It’s amazes me sometimes how much clarity of thought I can have when I’m not asleep. Everything can be seen, actions, reactions or to use a better phrase; cause and effect. Of course the best laid plans and they do go into some detail at these hours never survive the night. The memory and and ideas are intact but the bursts of willpower and determination and, indeed, courage never last past the final closing of the eyes for that night.
On a side note. I really dislike Google’s deal with Answers.com. I use to like the definition option alot. It was a good spellchecker and a good way to quickly get a term or a precise meaning. So when I said “cause and effect” a moment ago, being one of those things that I’m 95% sure on but not enough to go without checking, I thought it could be “cause and affect” and googled it to be sure. So the definition for “Cause and Effect” is a bloody Star Trek episode. Admittedly it’s a fine fine episode and one of my favourites but come on, that’s not a serious result I expect when I click definition. It’s annoying, I much prefered the straight dictionary interface.