Website and all contents thereof property of Maren Wasser
Contact me - marensdasein@gmail.com
Hello, hello, hello again everyone. I do remember that I have a blog on occasion, and sometimes I do feel a little guilty for letting it sit. Finally I've made myself guilty enough to actually type some shit. Also, like, this is one of my weirder quirks, but I actually find the tactile action of typing itself quite pleasurable. Not sure what it is, maybe its because I got really into The Typing of the Dead (a port of The House of the Dead arcade game but instead of pointing and shooting; words and phrases appear above the zombies' heads and you type them as quickly as possible to kill the zombies) as I was learning how to type so I now strongly associate typing with a fun video game. Anyway, my life is still ticking along. My transition continues to yield the results I've wanted. I've even started to work on training my voice to sound more feminine. It's pretty frustrating work, and requires consistant practice and attention, but if you know me you know how much I like to talk. I've also been cast in a local community theater production of Let the Right One In not in a role that's particularly meaty but I do get to set the tone by dying quite grusomely within the first handful of minutes. I also have the privilege of closing out the show as a train conductor. All in all, it's a pretty low stress, fun addition to my life in which I must "...make strange noises... Noises of pure fear... not crying... not screaming, something far worse." Which is easily the best stage direction I will ever have the privilege of performing. As for my other hobbies and interests, I am being quite neglectful of my writing; which has, in no small part, contributed to my guilt which has motivated my blog post here. I really have no excuse. A consistent work schedule and no real significant demands on my time in the evenings leaves me a good handful of hours in which I can crank out some words. Unfortunately, I find myself drawn down the pit of infinite scrolls. Like, I've long known my social media use isn't the healthiest (whose is), and I've even gone out of my way on both this blog, and my Bluesky page to express my general frustrations with social media, and yet, hypocritically, I find myself whiling away the hours on, at best, meaningless fluff thats instantly forgotten, and at worst just the most vile shit. If it's not that I spend my time watching movies and playing videogames. More the latter recently. Did you know Metal Gear Solid 3 is actually a pretty stellar game? Cause yeah I've played through it twice now and I'm working on a 3rd. You'd think I'd burn out on it but nope. Even weirder when you find out that I think it's grossly overrated. Anyway, the spooky season is almost upon us and I need to read more so I've been diving back into the work of my favorite horror author Clive Barker. Ever since I was first exposed to his work through Hellraiser I have been perversely attracted to his particular brand of carnal, gruesome, and Catholically flavored horror. My favorite work of his, Cabal, is definately overdue for a reread. Especailly since I'll soon be getting a very fancy collecters edition of Barker's own movie adaptation of Cabal, Nightbreed. It's no understatement to suggest that Nightbreed, and by extension Cabal played a huge part in my journy of self-actualization. It's basically a coming out story in which a young man finds out he's really a part of a persecuted, and literally underground, society of monsters (the titular Nightbreed). He turns out to be a prophecised messiah figure who leads them in a battle against a mob of police and a radical right wing militia. It's a huge source of inspiration for my novel. I even directly quote it in my current draft (kind of a risky move, but ehh I can always change it later if/when I'm getting it ready for publication). It's a great time and a very cathartic read with some truly stellar prose.
"They stole such authority for themselves, these people. Made themselves arbiters of good and bad, natural and unnatural, justifying their cruelty with spurious laws. Now they saw a simpler law at work as their bowels remembered the oldest fear: of being prey."
-Clive Barker, Cabal
But anyway, enough fangirling about Barker out of me. I've also continued to buy and build Gunpla, and not just Gunpla, but also the Armored Core VI based 30 Minutes Missons line. My total plamo (plastic model) count is up to 6, with Milk Tooth from ACVI still sitting in its box waiting to be built this weekend. I'm already at a point where I'm running out of storage space on top of my book case where they guard my plushies. So, I'm now in the market for some display shelves. Ideally I'd love a fully enclosed transparent acrylic display cabinet I can set down on the floor, but a perusal through Amazon has only yielded glass options. Not hateful, but heavy and scary to move. I'm sure I'll find somthing eventually, and in the mean time I'm sure I'll find nooks and crannies in which to stuff my growing plamo collection. That about covers the updates I think. The world continues to be terrifying, but at least my personal life continues to actually pretty nice and together. The one two punch of transitioning, and getting a job that's actually worth a damn has just improved my life immeasurably and I can confidently say that, despite the constant attacks from the political right against my very existence, I'm the happiest and most fulfilled I can remember being!