Every couple of weeks I think I’ll pull one of my favourite quotes–usually lifted from someone’s sig file–and talk about it. Let’s begin with this one:
Some folks are like slinkies. They aren’t good for very much, but they make you smile when you push them down stairs.
— Unknown (from internet)
As you can see, I don’t remember where I got it from, and I don’t know who wrote it. But it is guaranteed to make me smile, even on a truly sucky day. I think about pushing some waste of space down the stairs and, aaah, suddenly I feel much better: my imaginary service to humanity.
When I first started living with Kelley, and I would casually say something violent–huh, I’d like to nail his intestines to a tree then whip him round the trunk a couple of times–she would pale. I think she thought she’d married a psychopath. But while I do think in brightly-coloured cartoon violence terms, I’d never actually do any of it. (Unless, y’know, threatened. Or really pissed off.)
Whenever I get email from people who say they really dig the Aud books except for when she, like, goes around all the time thinking how easy it would be to kill someone because they, y’know, so don’t believe anyone would think that way, I snort into my beer. I think that way. I think that way all the time. It improves many tedious situations. Try it.
Nicola Griffith 
This is absolutely hilarious. I’m going out in public today and most likely will smilingly push someone (in my mind only) down some stairs! Thank you.
Yes, we sociopaths need to link together. It is just oh so fortunate that we can imagine what we know we really shouldn’t do.BTW, Nicola, your feedburner service has a feature for optimizing the feed so people can click on a comment link in the email.
@ Pierce: yep, it does brighten a person’s day :)@rhbee: it’s those executive decision-making cortexes that make all the difference. And thanks for the comment link pointer. I’ll enable that.
“brightly-coloured cartoon violence” Yes. I like the sound of that. I’ve just walked through an “arts” fair three blocks from my rooms and what a lot of CRAP. The same CRAP as last year: sweet sentiments sewn into odd materials, and new uses for knarled bits of wood, and photos that are too bright and too dear. And how depressing that so many people are milling through pointing and deciding just which bit of CRAP to tote back to their castles. I wanted to take a flame thrower to the whole business and then see what people would do next. They’d probably blink in a stupor and mutter, “Oh no, there’s nothing cute to buy; what do we do now…!” oh, no doubt I’m seeking outward targets for lurking agitation in my days. But a flamer thrower: how clean, how quick, how definitive!
Great quote! I imagine them making a satisfying thud at the bottom.
@ jean r: Oh, god, I know what you mean about those precious fucking art fairs. Flame throwers, yes, pretty cool, but what I really really (reallyreallyreally) want for Christmas is a shoulder-launch RPG. Woo-hoo! Blow shit *up*!
Two dogs . . .Some Low level of rage runs through my thoughts like black&tan rotweilers barking and snapping and thirsting for blood.I know I can’t let them loose. It won’t do me no good.Still, they run,They rage,Seek solace on a page.Act out, . . .No doubt, . . . I’ll end up in a cage.But just once wouldn’t it be worth itTo let them all the way out.Get blood up the snout.I have to find a punching bag, a tackling dummy, a blocking machine;A way to vent my spleen.Just picture it: A meal on wheels made of corporate heads, millionaires’ homesteads, stars and starlets fresh from their magazine spreads.The growl snarls up and through me My chest vibrating . . .My voice gone vibrato,My jaws unclench, saliva flows.God, just to be raving pack of two dogsFinally let go.
Yes. It’s not how we feel, or what we think that counts, it’s how we behave. Actions matter most. I think there are times we all long to loose the dogs of war, or fire up that flamethrower, or drive the tank over the neighbour’s bicycle, but we don’t. And what makes us fine human beings is that we never will.