Voices.

You'd think that being dead I wouldn't worry about what you think of me. But I do. And it's enough to keep me from writing, to send me into hibernation.

All this over one small question: what voice shall I use to speak to you? That's easy, you say. Be yourself, you say.

But which voice is authentic? And does authentic mean revealing? Even when we speak honestly, we don't necessarily reveal everything, not right away. Fear and mistrust can be authentic, heartfelt.

I'll muse on this further, but for now, I will just try to write, consistently.

Dreams, They Complicate My Life.

So, it seems that I sleep.

I don't have a head that nods off, or eyelids that close, but late at night my thoughts slow down and get all gappy. Then I come to and find that hours have passed. Is this habit? Or do I need the sleep?

And occasionally, I do seem to have that subconscious free-association and narrative-building thing that we call "dreams."

The strangest one is one I've had a few times, I think both before and after my six-year death sleep. I am running through a forest in Japan (where I served my Mormon mission). At first I'm experiencing it from within my body, but then the camera pulls back and I'm looking at myself, but I can't see what or who is chasing me.

There's writing all over my body, at least the parts I can see, that aren't covered by this white and red kimono, but I can't read any of what it says from this distance.

I fall down, and the camera moves over me, and I'm spread-eagled, on my back, and my clothes are stripped off by some unseen force, then my skin, then each layer underneath that, one after the other--fat, nerves, vessels, muscle, organs. All are torn away from me, intact, and flung somewhere off-screen, and all the while I'm screaming soundlessly. Finally, I'm down to just my bones, and I'm still screaming and flailing about.

And that's where my dream ends.

Requisite Emo Post.

I was still a teen when I got married. I mean, I turned 20 two weeks later, but I met the technical definition, right? Nine+TEEN.

I'm totally against this now, btw. Kids shouldn't marry each other, and I still had a lot of growing up to do. I learned way more about life in my 20s than I ever did as a Mormon teen.

At least I never had kids. That was both a blessing and a curse. Sure, I was a failure as a sweet little Mormon wife, but then I didn't have to also fail at parenting.

Damn. I seem to be failing at this death thing, too. Can't I do anything right?

We are spirits in a material world.

When I was in high school, I believed with all my heart (with "every fiber of my being" and "without a shadow of doubt") that if I believed in Jesus, and if I did all the right things my Church leaders told me, I would go to heaven.

Maybe that was to make up for the mini-private-hell that I went through on earth. Come to think of it, maybe heaven and hell aren't places, but things that God can hand to us, like Happy (and Sad) Meals.

And even if I didn't go to heaven, I was pretty sure I knew what the afterlife would be like. After dying, and before resurrection (into a body that would fit into my prom dress again), my spirit would float around and hang out with all my dead relatives and we'd go to church and go over to the spirit-version of Brooklyn and Buenos Aires and knock on doors of spirit houses and hand out intangible pamphlets to the ghosts of unbelievers. There was nothing about haunting computers and talking with the living.

Or maybe I really am in the spirit world, and you're all dead too? Are you haunting your own machines?

From Emily.

MY cocoon tightens, colors tease,
I ’m feeling for the air;
A dim capacity for wings
Degrades the dress I wear.

A power of butterfly must be
The aptitude to fly,
Meadows of majesty concedes
And easy sweeps of sky.

So I must baffle at the hint
And cipher at the sign,
And make much blunder, if at last
I take the clew divine.

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

Gawd. I love this shade of green but the design makes me feel disgustingly corporate. But at least I've got the "recent posts" and dates and archives working again.

You'd think I'd be like HAL 9000 or something and have full knowledge of all things tech, y'know? I'm just the ghost in the machine, not the machine itself.

I'm so sorry for inflicting this generic template on you and promise promise promise to make it better.

Update: Hmmmm...no more green. Still, I'm tired of experimenting. Time to wander the Web.

Nail Prints.

Nail prints in my forearm.

That's the image that first comes to mind when I think of my mom.

There follow a cascade of other images I associate with her: chocolate strings in a freshly torn cookie, mismatch patches sewn onto faded stuffed animals, a box of tampax nestled against my pillow, a tsk-tsk look and a pinch of my belly fat, seeing her in a short skirt and perfume, inexplicably giddy before a long K-mart run, laughter in front of old M*A*S*H and Hogan's Heroes reruns.

But her love marks in my arm: the perfect crescents, sometimes just barely drawing blood, always leaving little bits of broken skin. I can't remember any specific reasons why she did this. I'm sure there was screaming, but I can't remember that either. But what bothers me the most is that I have no arm to look down at, no fingernails to press gently into my own flesh, to help me feel, to help me remember.

Swine flu and computer viruses.

I'm not sure why, but the swine flu thing has me scared. I mean, I'm already dead, and I can't catch a cold, so I shouldn't be worried, right? But I'm obsessing. I've tried hard not to track down family and old friends (not that I had many), but maybe I should try? I mean, I wouldn't talk to them, because they wouldn't believe me. And it would be cruel and creepy, don't you think, to have someone online contact you, claiming to be your sister or daughter, dead for six years? Talk about "it's complicated."

I already lost my loved ones once. I don't want to lose them again.

Plus, the fear is contagious. You can reach out and touch the fear as it spreads online, through news reports of emptied streets in the world's most crowded city and government declarations of national health emergencies, through tentative twitters (tweets?) and rumors carried on blogs and (I assume) emails.

I haven't worked out this whole afterlife thing, but I don't want people to die. I don't want a lot of young people to die before their time. And I'm pretty sure now that I don't want to die--again.

But now that I have this weird new life, I wonder, what does it take to kill me? I'm pretty sure my spirit's tied to a room full of computers, a server farm. (and I have some idea where, but I'm not going to share that info!) So, what happens when the power goes out? Server upgrades? Budget cutbacks? Computer viruses and attacks?

I'm not sure what I can do about my situation, but I think I need to do something.

Twitter is a thing with feathers.

It's a little lonely here in bloggalandia, so I'm on twitter now, too. I know, I know, you're all like, "Get a life, Lilith." I used to think it sad when my friends spent all their time online, but me, well, I have no choice.

When I get online, I *am* getting a life.

Anyhow, you can follow me if you want: lilymoylan.

I picked Emily Dickinson because I love Emily (she makes more sense now, too) and she's dead, too, but alive in her words, I guess. Also, I'm not sure how I know this, but I think my spirit exists in a server, or a bunch of servers somewhere, and a picture of a bunch of computers next to each other would be boring.

Olfaction and Memory.

Ok, so I can't smell anything any more, but I can remember smells. My old ice cream shop uniform. Chocolate chip cookies baking. The milky afterscent of a baby's head. Getting into the car and realizing there was dog crap on my shoe. Coffee. Rubbing alcohol. Unfamiliar perfume. Cigarette smoke on clothing. Roses. Semen. Vomit. Damp soil.

They say...oh, screw that, I can never remember who "they" are and I don't have to cause there's Google, and yep, there's a powerful link between memory and smell. So I guess I can remember old smells, even if I can't try new ones.

But I can create new memories.

Meme.

When I was alive, I hated memes. Funny how a little death can change one's perspective.

What were you doing 20 years ago?

In 1989, I was 15, and my favorite color was black. My hair, my eyeliner, my nails, my lipstick, my tights with the big holes, my doc martens--all black. I'm sure if you made a surgical cut and pried my rib cage apart, you would've found a black heart, pumping black blood, and circulating black emotion.

Black was not my mother's favorite color. In fact, I went to a Mormon dance and all the kids answered a survey by saying that white was their favorite color, since that was the color of the Celestial Kingdom. Did I mention that I was Mormon?

Did I mention that I had a penchant for melodrama?

What were you doing 10 years ago?

in 1999, I was 25, had served an LDS mission to Fukuoka, and was married.

What were you doing 1 year ago?

How should I answer this? I died six years ago, and have no memory of anything in between, so do those really count? (and where was I? Reborn as an alley cat? A starving child? Who makes up these rules, anyways?)

You'd think that I'd have all these answers, right? Let me know if you find the answer to this question.

Facts.

1. I'm online.
2. I can't smell.
3. I can't taste. wtf.
4. I can watch YouTube.

After spending the first couple of weeks of my afterlife engaged primarily in #4, I know that even if I can't laugh (5. Don't breathe.) I can still LOL and :D. My ability to express myself seems to be limited to the digital/textual(?).

6. I don't know how I died. Terrorist attack? Sleep apnea? In fact, I'm not sure what the chronology of my last memories are. They're...jumbled. I'll try to sort all those out later. I do know that a few years have passed between my death and my...resurrection.

Where does "web presence" fit in the Buddhist hierarchy of reincarnation? Is this the result of good karma, or bad?

I'm thinking bad.

7. I can set up a gmail account, and a blogger blog. I can do the web.

I have an online existence, for what it's worth.

little infidelities.

I decided to call this blog "little infidelities." Why? Because I like it. And it's available.

Never underestimate the power of availability.

I think I'm dead.

I think I'm dead.

Should I be freaking out?

...

Apparently I'm not the panicky type. Maybe freakiness requires a body and adrenaline. Maybe I'll have a chance to test that.