owie

you'd think i'd be used to facial trauma by now

Busy

I've in transit the past few days, so that's why you haven't heard from me. Seems Smilley's not even IN Santa Fe, it just killed a few people to lure me here so it had more time in Lafayette.

I'm close, though, but I'm not there yet. I'm tempted to stop by home while I'm so close, but... I also feel like I've burned that bridge already. No use in trying to cross again.

So Much Teenageness

I'm going to skip some of the next stuff. There's a lot of wangsting about not being able to stop it, not finding any good clues, wondering when the next body was going to show up, fretting about who the next victim would be, trying to get a solid lead on Smiley's characteristics and MO, and philosophical ranting about the nature of smiling. I might post some of the highlights, though.

I mean it, there's like fifty pages of this bullshit. I am so not fucking kidding.

It's weird to think this all happened less than half a fucking year ago. I look back at the old me and see someone completely fucking different. Maybe, in some ways, I was.

In recent news, I saw a cop get peeled like a clementine the other day. So there's, um, that.

Shit, I hate the southwest.

Man

Fuck Santa Fe.

URGGGG!!!

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN SUNDAY, MARCH 6; 6:46 AM

Do you know how much information there is on the Slender Man?! Jesus Fucking Christ!

And it's all contradictory! One site says the (X) repels him, the other says it empowers him! One site says he has no weaknesses, one site says he's too stupid to understand heights, one site says he can be repelled by fucking lasers. I'm not even fucking kidding, people. Fucking lasers. Jesus Christ. Hell, one site says he's a fallen god or a faerie or some shit, I don't even know. And maybe he has telekinesis?

Sometimes he's inscrutable, sometimes he has human minions, sometimes he has twitter fights, sometimes he authors blog posts and hangs out with confused teens, and sometimes he just wants twenty dollars. What. The. Hell. Sometimes he does things because he can, sometimes he's part of some huge and vague game with every other fucking boogeyman in the world. Sometimes he just disappears people, sometimes he leaves their insides out in big trashbags. Sometimes he has tentacles, sometimes he's a tree, sometimes he has a face but it's different depending on who looks, sometimes it's blank.

With all this stuff out there, how can someone know what's true and what isn't? How do you separate the wheat from the chaff?

God, I'm getting poetic again. I should take a fucking pill for that.

You know, maybe I should just try shooting Smiley. I mean, it worked so well the first couple of times I went after it with a gun, but maybe now's different.

Too bad I don't have a fucking laser.

Jesus Christ. I still cannot believe the fucking lasers.

Well, should get ready for Church. My guess is we'll be praying for the still-missing girls, like every church in town has been doing, every Sunday since this began.

This is Falling Apart

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN THURSDAY, MARCH 3; 5:55 AM

There are many ways I could start this, so I'll just say it outright.

When I opened my locker on Monday, Vanessa's nude, mangled corpse fell on me. It was bound in straps and long, torn sleeves and it was still warm. Her heart had been removed with something precise and impossibly sharp, just cut out along with a section of her ribcage. Her fingernails were missing and her skin was covered in cuts and scratches, her nose was missing, and her eyes looked as though they had been burned from her head.

I was told most of this afterwards because at the time I was screaming hysterically and trying to kick the corpse off of me. I want to call myself stupid or weak but honestly I agree with Tara, that was a perfectly fucking acceptable reaction to the fucking situation.

So there I was, struggling to throw her body off of me, getting caught in the straps and struggling like a fish in a net when I stopped, because IT was right fucking there.

I don't think anyone else saw it, but the Smiling Man looked down at me and offered its hand. It had torn its sleeves off at the wrist, torn the straps of its jacket off wherever they were. It had a head of messy red hair hanging in its face, partially covering up its impossible fucking eyes.

I didn't take its hand. It kept smiling at me, and then vanished.

In good news, the police don't think I did it anymore. But they do think I'm connected to the killer, so I'm under even tighter fucking observation than before. I'm surprised they're not reading this being typed over my fucking shoulder.

I...I don't know what to do anymore. It's changing, somehow. I think...it's like that Jack of Thorns guy said. It's giving itself its own body. I need to get in contact with him. He knows something.

But then what? It's fucking toying with me. It's FUCKING TOYING WITH ME.

Tara's been quiet. I'd like to think she's just afraid, just in mourning for Vanessa...but no, I think the wheels are turning. I think she's getting in over her head. And I also think that the minute I stop being amusing to this goddamn monster it's going to take her, like it almost did when I sold out Felicia.

That reminds me. The latest bouquet was found in the Junior High, across the street, in the locker of a seventh grader.

I don't know what to do. I feel like I should be doing something. I feel like this is my responsibility. But how can I fight a thing like this? Is it even possible?

Maybe I should look up this Slender Man thing that Tara mentioned. She's talked about it before. Maybe, if they're similar enough, they share a weakness.

NOW addendum

I could post more self-indulgent, inspirational bits about how fucking badass I am, but honestly I'm tired of writing about monsters. I mean, I deal with monsters all the time. Honestly right now I just want to write something else and get my mind off my uterus for a while. Yeah, TMI, deal with it.

Also, I haven't really been feeling well lately, mentally, and, well, talking about music seems to work for other people in similar situations.

I don't think I like Who Killed Amanda (Fucking) Palmer as much as I like her Dresden Dolls stuff. I mean, it's alright, some of the songs are pretty catchy, but her group stuff is so much better.

I dunno, maybe it's too over-produced? I mean, it's not bad, but I'm not sure there's anything on the album quite as good as Gravity or Delilah. Maybe I'm just nit-picking, or maybe I just automatically recoil when I read or hear the name Ben Folds like a vampire recoils from a cross.

Oasis is pretty fun, though. I really like lyrical dissonance.

Part of it is, I think, that I really liked the earlier stuff, which is weird because before Punk Cabaret I mostly listened to stuff my dad liked-- the Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Queen, Van Halen (Between this and taking me hunting, can you tell he really, really wanted a son, yet?). But when Tara introduced me to the music of Amanda (Fucking) Palmer and Brian Viglione, I found myself, kind of against my will, loving it. And WKA(F)P is different. That's part of the point, though. A lot of it is stuff she didn't want to release on a Dresden Dolls album because she didn't think it would fit. And I'm glad she released it here rather than on a Dresden Dolls album.

Also, I miss Brian Viglione. His drumming is fucking amazing, especially if you've seen it done live. I mean, even though I'm not really into this whole 'sex' thing, I would fuck Brian Viglione in a heartbeat. I don't think I'm even attracted to him, personally. I think it's some weird fucking primal thing about those drums.

Speaking of Dresden Dolls, I kinda wonder if the Orange Man from Slide is another "Fear", or if he's just one of the thousand references to getting molested Amanda (Fucking) Palmer puts in her songs. I mean, just from a little research I'm finding a lot of them labeled the ____ Man. Hell, the...whatever the fuck it is I'm chasing, Mr. Smiles (I've decided not to give it the dignity of the longer version of its name), was originally named the Smiling Man by its originators. They're like anti-super heroes. Invulnerable, unbeatable, and undeniably evil. Sweet dreams!

Anyway, back on topic and away from the depressing one, my favorite part of Who Killed Amanda (Fucking) Palmer is the end of the thing Gaiman wrote on the back of it. (which is a weird thing to be my favorite but I digress) "If you see Amanda (Fucking) Palmer on the street, kill her. That way she'll live forever."

Fuck, if you see Jeanette (Motherfucking) Cotton on the street, give her a sandwich and some fucking ammunition, that way she'll live a few more weeks.