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Life really does align in weird ways.

My bully from 5th grade who snapped my glasses in front of his friends just found me on social media a few weeks ago.

He wrote me a long apology saying how he was now a father to a 3 year old little girl and was taking her to get her first pair of little glasses in the next few days—and it brought back what he did. He said couldn’t ever handle the idea of someone doing that to her.

My first instinct was to tell him to get lost, but I realized I was getting what I always prayed for. I just wanted the people who were mean to me to eventually understand it—even if it took a personal experience to relate to and 14 years to open their eyes.

A piece of me healed in that moment as I gave him glasses advice for his daughter because I was the same age when I got my first pair.

Kids are really ruthless, but it takes a healed adult to reach out to apologize. And there is always time to change; it’s never too late.

[hug-o-saurus]

"immortality sucks because all your friends die" all your friends die anyway. those we do not mourn are those who mourn us.

"immortality sucks because you forget who you are" we always forget who we are. do you remember who you were at four years of age? who you were at fourteen? "who i am" is a shadow cast on the wall.

"immortality sucks because" skill issue. skill issue. skill issue. give me your liver

[hug-o-saurus]

If you think people used to willingly stare off into the distance before smartphones, my dad told me he had this psychology assignment when he was in college in the 80s which was basically

Go to a restaraunt by yourself and eat a meal without a newspaper or journal or anything else to keep you occupied and then write a report about it

Which tells me that this was a way for a professor to inflict psychological torture on their students and that people used to bring little things with them to keep them entertained. Shown by those old pictures of everyone in a trolley reading a newspaper with one hand.

Frankly I think that the human brain has been craving smart phone forever. Perhaps we use it too much at times but if this was 1985 we also wouldn’t be talking to people. We’d just be looking at newspaper or drawing stuff on notepad instead. And the old people would all be shaking their fists about how kids spend too much time looking at that damn TV because yes this discourse has been going on long before smart phone

[hug-o-saurus]

It’s weird how everyone hating you when you’re nine years old still affects your self esteem when you’re 26 like yeah nobody came to my birthday party but that was like 17 years ago why is it stopping me from going to a gay bar

[hug-o-saurus]

the secret to life is always having something to look forward to

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[hug-o-saurus]

About Song of Achilles and Circe

I have read the song of Achilles, and I have not distinguished myself from others who have gone through its totality. I have cried and felt so much for the tragic lives of Achilles and Patroclus and eventually their bittersweet ending. I remembered certain scenes that I held affection to: the dinner at the banquet halls where Achilles first took notice of Patroclus, juggling his figs and letting the boy catch one of it; the night they spent together in the same room whereafter Achilles would lean and press his face on Patroclus' until their nose touches; the decision patroclus risked just to be able to stay at Achilles' side, travelling whilst doubting Chiron's acknowledgement of his intruding participation; the cave they first touched each other; the kingdom where Achilles, concealed by his feminine identity, identifies the deprived Patroclus as his husband; the tent at troy where they resumed their intimate touches, where Patroclus kneels for achilles' mercy, and all, where Achilles' would spent his grief after losing Patroclus as a result of his delayed sympathy. Even the brief words of Odysseus struck me: his careful wiles that he devises seemingly out of the blue and his persistent longing for his wife and son that was out of his reach—and I find it difficult not to be attached to his character when throughout the book he delivers such an impression that rivals both the major characters. Listing it now, it seemed I have not erased much of its mark upon my mind, and among some of those my mind had left over and did not drag across time were my first impressions of certain passages in the book: whether there were sentences that felt unbelievable or felt detailed enough to bring doubt whether such source held its facts, or whether some expressions or scenarios were unconvincing, lackluster, and clichéd. 

Still, I would bravely draw a conclusion that the succeeding book was not nearly as magnificent as the preceding book was. Although they did not dabble on the same characters—at least, not as much and not holding the same relevance in each book—still, they were both speculative fiction, more or less. 

But from what I perceive, through the insufficient sources of its tale spread online, I believed fully that Circe was more speculative than the Song of Achilles, although they have the same core of Greek mythology. Perhaps I might have drawn out more opinions about personal perception than other else when criticizing the latest book. I could pinpoint that my reoccurring (albeit small) distaste while reading Circe was the fact that the novel spun even the minutest expression of the gods and goddesses. Although I could agree on some occasions that a certain expression was definitely convincing (i.e., superiority complex), otherwise it was oftentimes that my doubt would arise after a page or two. I was shrouded always with doubt over the unruly certainess used in the book over the nature of the immortal beings whose lives were otherwise secluded and mysterious. I find this cloud thickening over time while I occupy myself with questions: do goddesses really deliver childbirth in such a manner? What about the cutting of the umbilical cords? Is it not unnecessary? Think of how Zeus birthed Athena through the head or the calves. The poets do not record such details in their poems. Where are these also part of the speculative fiction that the book was coupled with upon publication? Did Hermes actually meet Circe? or did Daedalus? Was it ever stated that Athena came for Odysseus' unknown son? Did she try to harm him, and was it true that Circe drove her off? Was the trygon's tail ever present in Odysseus' actual death? I thought to myself many more questions, and each time I forgot them like a cloud of storms unrolled. Perhaps I was too keen and meticulous over details on a book that is otherwise branded speculative fiction, and perhaps if I had insisted more on its accuracy, I should have read instead credited studies and every written records that would be a more accurate retelling of the event than the novel Circe, or perhaps I hold this keenness in me—or that it grew even larger in presence—because I have refused to believe some passages simply because it was hard to accept: that Daedalus likely did not meet Circe, and neither did Hermes, or even if he did, it was perhaps not the same relationship they had in the book. And perhaps, most of all, the greatest denial was in reading the characters' recollection of Odysseus: that he was nowhere near his character from where I first read him. 

 

Although I would claim that this book was not as fascinating as The Song of Achilles was to me, I wouldn't say it was hard to read or boring. Perhaps the clear distinction between the two books was that in Circe you had to look for the pages where it was most compelling and from there on use it as a motivation to find another sign of charm, whereas the preceding book hardly needed any hunting at all—it was captivating from its first to last. However, both have their own unique charms. 

Both books have struck me with an invisible ache, certainly, although each in their own way. If I were to describe it, The Song of Achilles would have an ache attributable to a whole tragedy, as the book was laced with it: foreshadowings on the first pages and regret and grief on the last. When I finished Circe, I realized the ache occurred spontaneously in brief moments, because I recognized its tragedy as fragmentary: the unrequited love for Glaucos; the casual yet poisoning relationship with Hermes; Odysseus's brief arrival and departure; the heart-wrenching familiarity of the chemistry his son would later bore towards Circe; and, to a greater extent, Daedalus. 

There was always an ache whenever she recalled his name, his work, or Icarus, his dearest son, or Egypt. And a great ache also when she would much less mention his name, until it faded away as if a passing memory. One second after, she mentions his name no more. I had loved to think that she loves him truly, and he loved her the same. I had loved to think I was certain it was his mortality and her immortality that barred their access to each other. Perhaps.

I would have certainly, most ardently, loved to see another version of the story spun about the two of them. Perhaps that was what I was looking for until the last pages came to an end.