lettered | Ate, got robbed, ate some more.

I have drama! Not whiny emo drama either, I have true, juicy drama!

So there I was, eating my gyro at this Greek place where once we dined with Destiny's Child, and while I was in the restaurant, someone bashed the back window of my car, and made off with Against The Day by Thomas Pynchon! This was a book my brother gave me for Christmas! The fourth worst thing about it is I write lots of notes in the margins. The third worst thing about it is I tend to keep cds in big thick books, ~~and I think I had Mercy Brown in this one~~ (eta: Mercy Brown was not in Pynchon, it was in Harry Potter! So YAY). The ironic thing about Bad Thing #3 is Mr. Whosit made off with Pynchon, but left my cds (2 notebooks full of more than 100 cds. They got whatever cds were in Pynchon). I'd say the guy had taste, but that suggests my taste in music is bad, which I don't think it is, because it's mine you know, and also, you have to wait for #1 for the full extent of his awesome discretion. The second worst thing about it is I have to replace my window, and that's going to cost a lot. Bummer.

The worst thing about it was Pynchon was in my bag with my laptop. This guy is now in full possession of a computer full of Buffy porn, Harry Potter porn, that random RPS porn . . . and the back up disk inside that contained back ups of everything I ever did in undergrad. It was in there so I could html my POTO fics to put up for

my_daroga. In some ways, this is all

my_daroga's fault. Kidding! But anyway, they got the POTO non-porn, too.

Luckily, my dad had a copy of that disk. Also luckily, I'm a great big old loser who hasn't done much original writing in the past year, and that's the main thing I'm always worried about losing when I lose stuff. Some of the little (and most important) I've done is backed up. The rest I can't really even remember, so I'm not too stressed about it.

There were some vids I dl'ed, and some bookmarks I should've put on del.ici.ous, but actually, things are not looking too bad.

The only other thing on there was fic. Lots and lost of unfinished fic! Like that total crack Angel/Spike all human AU where they met as young anarchist terrorists, and Liam taught William to blow things up, and then they meet years later and Liam is Angel, a much more legitimate revolutionary warlord, and Spike is so burned out by all the desertion and betrayals and that stint he spent in prison where Liam never came to save him, that he's a whore for the dark side in both the sexual and the metaphoric sense. Yeah, that fic is gone forever.

And a couple chapters of Best Souvenir (eta: only about two chapters, I think! YAY. I had more backed up than I thought). And whatever I had of the third fic in the War Stories series I'm still trying to do. Since Chrisleeoctaves sent me back all the bits I sent her of my big massive epic thing I still have most of that, so yay, and I still have some other chapters of Best Souvenir, so yay, and for some reason I was always freakishly scrupulous of backing up whatever I have of my Buffy/Connor novella, so yay.

Hopefully it won't be too long before I get a new laptop. Since I'm living at home, I definitely have the money for it, it's just a shame I have to spend it on this. And a shame I have to use this computer because it sucks monkey feet.

SUPER SPECIAL NOTE TO K and

samsom: POTO fic won't be up at

tkpfics for a while.

SUPER SPECIAL NOTE TO stoney321, redbrickrose or stultiloquentia: could one of you send me back that H/D fic I sent as an attachment, as I don't have that backed up anywhere? Thanks so much. I'd be sad to lose it, even if it *is* 100 pages of H/D with no H/D. I'm sad the 15 pages I wrote since I sent it to you is gone forever! eta: THANKS STONEY!

SUPER SPECIAL NOTE TO

brandil: uh, I'll send you that fic when I one of the ladies I've already sent it to forwards me a copy.

I know there are things I will be missing over the next several months, but hey. They didn't steal my car, I'm alive, and it was a really good gyro.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I think guilt is actually a very Western religious phenomenon. Asian religions/cultures seem to be much more about shame/face.

(What's the difference between an Italian mother and a Jewish mother?

An Italian mother says "eat this, or I'll kill you."
A Jewish mother says "eat this or I'll kill myself."

Thank you, I'll be here all week.)

I absolutely agree that some people are just born with something fundamentally missing. I met quite a few of them when I worked in Psych, and they freaked me the fuck out. Not to get all religious, but seriously? It was like they had no soul. You could see it in their eyes. Creepy as fuck.

I do not miss it. But I remain fascinated from an academic standpoint.

I think guilt is actually a very Western religious phenomenon. Asian religions/cultures seem to be much more about shame/face.

Oh, definitely agree there.

My mother raised me the Jewish way, I think. My childhood was spent in efforts not to make her sad. More than I'd like to admit of my adulthood, too.

It was like they had no soul.

No, this is how I feel, too. I've never met someone like that, don't think I've ever even seen any, but a few of the people I hear about in history and on the news, I just don't think it's *possible* for them to be good people. But I tend to think this is rare; I like to think even those who seem the worst can be redeemed. 'Cause otherwise we're screwed.

I remain fascinated from an academic standpoint.

Me too. And, a spiritual one, I guess.

I meant, the Jewish example as opposed to the Italian one.

My dad was totally the Italian one and the only thing that ever taught me was not to get caught.

To be redeemable, you have to have empathy for other human beings. That's what these people are missing. They torture animals, children, anyone, because it feels good for them. They're the center of their own universe, there is nothing and no one else. Usually, they are very smart, and manipulative.

I worked with one kid who threatened to rape me and the other female staff in the parking lot (he would have done it too, I have no doubt, were he not in a locked unit). But when his mother came to visit, and we told her we recommended he go to another locked facility, for a long long time, he clung to her and called her mommy and bawled like a two year old. She agreed to take him home. Then she left and he wiped his face and grinned at me. Like a movie. Creepy little asshole, and I hope he got hit by a bus before he could hurt any more girls.

This would be why I became a Speech Therapist. Most stutterers don't, you know, kill people and eat their brains. *G*

you have to have empathy for other human beings. That's what these people are missing.

Yeah. I just think the capacity for it, in a few people, is actually *physically* missing, or messed up. Scientifically. In their brains.

Also, that's really, really fucking scary, D. I'm glad you don't do that any more, because even watching something like that in a movie is fucking scary, and sad, and awful, just the *thought* that people can be that way is such a terrible thing. And I admire the people who have to work with the reality of that every day; I just think it would be so easy to be touched and destroyed by that ugliness, and that horror. Most people live by trying to forget it's there, even when they know, even if they've dealt with it.

Yea, it's totally why I left that career after a little over a year. It made me feel oily every day, like there wasn't enough soap in the world.

There is scientific evidence to suggest their brains are wired wholly differently than ours; their response to pain and negative stimuli is fucked up. Like, with normal people, if you show them a green box and zap them with electricity, after a few trials, every time they see a green box they spike a fear response. People we'd call sociopaths do not show that response, regardless of how many times you jolt them. Their body requires an enormous amount of stimuli to get aroused, or afraid, or get any kind of high adrenylin level response. Weird, hunh?

LION.

Let me reiterate. So glad you did. At the very least, in my head you are totally friends with my speech therapist s-i-l, and you talk speechy things about which I know nothing! Which is maybe just a little odd, because it happens in my head.

Yeah, weird. You can't even Clockwork Orange em up, huh (not that that would be the way to go, either). But it doesn't surprise me. In the way that autism, for instance, doesn't surprise me. I do wonder how the lack of response really relates to the concept of empathy, though.

Well, I mean, if they can't feel it, it's possible they think no one else can either. But I doubt it. They do horrible things because it's what they need to make THEM feel good. They are aware torture doesn't feel good to the person they're torturing. But they're very clinical about it. And they just - don't care. They say things like "it took the cat 5.6 minutes to die." It's fucked up and scary and I really think G-d left something out of them.

Hee! I'd love to meet your S-I-L. And talk SLP stuff you do or don't understand. YAY!

More lion. Jus for you.

I just wonder...why that makes them feel good, if they can't feel anything, or can't really understand what the other person is feeling. COuld be curiosity, I guess, about what other people do feel.

I don't even know what SLP is.

LION. AGAIN. I fucking, *love* that icon. With, like, the light. Wow.

Yea, I don't know either. And since they're you know, sociopaths, they're probably lying anyway.

SLP= Speech Language Pathologist. :)

LION. HE'S A VERY BIG LION, KITA. Yes, yes he is.

And here is his boy with the pink, pretty mouth.

they're probably lying anyway.

My thoughts exactly.

SLP: I did know that. I think? S-i-l has big terms and stuff. She says the most interesting things, but sometimes I get confused because I suck at all jargon. But she's great because she talks about it without making me feel dumb. She explains shit!

Sadly, all pretty blonde boys remind me of Draco Malfoy now. I need to go scrub my skin off, or something.

HAHAHA. Oh, dear. I am so sorry about the Draco Malfoy thing.

I WILL EXPLAIN THINGS TO YOU. Sit here. Let me tell you all about the anatomy of your tongue. Or you know. HIS.

I would prefer it if *he* taught the anatomy of his tongue. To Angel, or something. He could give Angel linguistic lessons.

That should be a fic.

It should be. A Connor blows Angel drabble. Yeah.

Ate, got robbed, ate some more.

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