Comfy Veeky Forums Thread: Christmas Edition

socal. its usually pretty uncomfy because of all the tourists, but the two weeks we get of cold weather are magical and to be savoured.

although i guess sometimes it is cozy in a tripped out inherent-vice sort of way.

>tfw at my family christmas instead of a bunch of 7-up on the table there's just a ton of steel reserve and old crow
>tfw when there is no face for the mixed feelings I have about it

>tfw half of me wants to go full /pol/ and live out idyllic fantasy of old times but the other half is telling me how stupid that is

>reading
Middlesex by Jeff Eugenides. Really liking it, my mom recommended it to me and it's not dissapointing. I think he's done some cool things with describing scenes in fast motion like it's a movie and some shit like that. Only like 150pgs in but I'm liking it. It's fun
>writing
Just finished a short story today. I feel really good about it right now but i'm sure I'll be horrified when I read it back tomorrow
>Weekend
I'm sick but i've got no obligations so it's been good
>Xmas
Sure. Excited to catch up with the family and eat a lot

Hope everyone is well

>Mistborn: Well of Ascension
>A sci-fi fantasy (first novel, probs gonna be a shit)
>pretty rad—ate at a steakhouse today
>yes, hopefully'll buy myself a microphone to record with

>What are you reading?

I want to start finishing all of Edgar Allan Poe's works. It's perfect weather for it.

>What are you writing?

I'm trying to push myself to finish my third novel. Only a few chapters, but writing it makes me unbearably sad. It feels like ripping open a wound that's barely closed.

>How was your weekend?

Fine. I got to go home early yesterday and was off all of today. Very comfy. I'm getting drunk.

>Looking forward to Christmas?

I suppose. I'm not as happy as I should be for it, though. I guess my seasonal depression is still festering.

>The Fall. I read The Stranger a few years ago. Didn't care for it. This is much, much better imo. Maybe I'll revist the other one.

>*muffled screams from within a vortex of self-doubt that has left me impotent for the past couple of years*

>I work on the weekends, alone in an office. Relaxing, but with a nagging reminder that I'm wasting my life. Saw Rogue One with some friends on Friday. Movie was okay. Seeing friends was nice.

>Absolutely.

Why do you feel like that about the novel? Is the content highly personal or autobiographical. What's up user?

>tfw for the first year, our old anniversary passed and I didn't even think about it

Don't know whether to feel good or bad about it

Feel good, it means you're moving on.

>reading
The Bible. God darn it, Isaiah, did you have to have a vision for each city of the Levant? After I'm done with him I think I'm skipping the rest of the prophets and the Apocrypha because I want to read the gospels by Christmas.
>writing
No discernable talent. Just see below.
>weekend
My home is always noisy but the park is still and dead as if preserved for ages under a glass dome. We've had no snow, but the air has been below freezing for a week now. Despite that, the pond isn't frozen through; it's enough for the seagulls to bully and chase the meek ducks around the lotus carcasses--I hate those noisy garbage-diving brutes who have taken over the skies and roofs of the city these past years--but not enough for me to cross over. Every year I attempt it and the past two years I gave up less than a third of the way over when I heard cracking sounds. It doesn't help that I weigh about 125 times as much as the seagull boss--and he's a fat fuck. The sunsets have been divine too, as they always are this time of the year, over mostly clear skies with streaks of white clouds that cycle each evening through hues that are as indescribable as a lovecraftian monster--colours out of space, indeed. Much fewer people too: gone are the rowdy youths of fair weather. I only see one or two teenage couples who must be really, really in love to sit still on a bench like that for almost an hour--but they still give up before I do and I take secret pride, as we exchange slanted looks, to be even more resilient to the cold. I imagine myself shouting after them in a hoary, righteous voice: "I guess the burning flame instilled into my spirit by the Word of God is greater than the fire kindled in your loins by your clumsy kissing and lecherous groping! Ha!". But only my eyes move below my russian style fake rabbit fur hat and minutes later I insert the kindle back into the backpack with stiff fingers and a rehearsed move, the way a robotic arm inserts a glass pane into a car body. I dropped it once from my unresponsive fingers onto a clump of dead sod but, like me, it was too cold to die. Then I circle the pond and look for a brick. Up until the sixties on this site there was a brick factory and its last, stillborn bricks can still be found along the shores, now that the water is low. If I find one I throw it to test the ice; yesterday it broke with the sound of dried bones, easily. I'll try my crossing in the new year.
>Christmas?
Best time of the year.

Thank you for reading my diary entry.

In some way, yes, it is highly personal.

I've made a habit of writing things for people who I've lost. I've written a huge novel for a first love, another for yet another lost love, and this one for my most recent loss.

The plot is similar to the way that I had lost her. I have to remember how it felt to fall in love with her, and how how it felt to lose her.

It becomes painful and repetitive.

Woops, sorry. Meant to reply to

I love you, user.

I think we're all a bit lonely here.

This is the comfy thread. Diary entries are not only accepted they're encouraged

Oh. And I thought the board etiquette required you call me a tryhard pseud at this point.

Pic related: it's the fackin seagulls bullying the lovely ducks, I swear on me mum m8 whanathesedays...

>1984 by George Orwell
>a really, really, really shitty novel that I haven't even finished halfway through yet
>boring
>just for the food

>Tennyson's Idylls of the King
>shitposts on /pol/
>excellent, saw Rogue One and enjoyed it, went for drives/walks/dinner with the wife
>very much so

You need something comfier in your life, mate.

Recc me something comfy. I only just started reading seriously tbqhwyf

this sounds pretty comfy

story on how you and your wife met?

A bar, actually. Many summers ago ;_;

We were both partying with our respective friends and bonded over Polish jokes. Exchanged numbers and went our separate ways, ended up meeting up and doing coffee/going for walks together, and then were each others' New Year kiss

Dated for five bumpy years, broke up, didn't speak to each other for three years, she moved to England, we just randomly started talking again, then we were talking every day, then we decided to go on a spontaneous Cuba vacation 8 weeks from then, and somehow a few weeks later we just ended up with "screw it, we're eloping."

Celebrated our first anniversary in November.

>The Waves
>nothing. restarted my tumblr because of boredom
>cozy
>yes, especially since last Christmas my mother was still sick. I'm not getting a car or anything, but this year my parents also went all nuts on gifts.

Can someone help me stop embarrassing myself? I've been using the word pretext completely wrong. I always assumed it was related to subtext, as in if subtext is the undertone of some writing, then pretext is the established things we know about the writing in relation to what you're analysing at the time. So say the pretext for this happening is x and y, which are thing we found out earlier. I had no idea it had to be a fucking lie or attempt at deceit or whatever. Is there a word you can use in analysis that actually means what I thought it meant?

surtext

Context perhaps

Those both work. I feel slightly more retarded for not using context though. Thanks anons.

That's a great story my man

>La Rochefoucauld's Maxims
>My dissertation
>Pretty good, back from uni and eating much more than usual
>Yessir

>Hoffman's The Golden Pot and Dostoievski's Crime and Punishment
>A haunted house novel
>It was great, very relaxing
>Very much

Third novel? Did you get published or self published?

>portrait of the artist
>weekend was nice, it was my cousin's birthday so big lunch with the whole family
>do not write
>yes, hopefuly will get gravity's rainbow and mayyybe 2666

Great story. It's going to end badly though, I can feel it.

think comfy thoughts my man

Published

I want to write someone a poem but I'm struggling to come up with a metaphor to base it around. Needs to be positive, probably with a negative backdrop. Finding meaning in the little things, something along those lines. If anyone has any ideas I would be very grateful.

wow senpai, i read portrait of the artist two years ago at xmas time, then at swim-two-birds last year, now i'm finishing another irish comic novel.

i didn't realize it until now, but something about christmas makes me reach for joyce and o'brien.

hope you enjoy it

can you be more specific? give context and/or a similar but worse metaphor that works for you

>i'm like a metaphor

>A Confederacy of Dunces
>several scatterings of poetry and suicide notes
>shit. Don't depend on people who you think are your friends but will inevitably ignore you for weeks on end.
>if I can escape the city and hide out in the country I will like it.

She is very down and ill. I want to write something encouraging and comforting but not blatant or patronising.

I can't think of anything that isn't painfully obvious, like flowers growing from ashes, etc. Something involving water would be nice, I think

>what are you reading?
The Idiot. It´s absolutley great. It might become one of my favorites.
>what are you writing?
I´m sporaically writing poems, if that counts. I´m not planning on publish them really.
>how was your weekend?
Spent reading The Idiot all weekend.
Looking forward to all the free time i´ll have, not much else.
I´ve stopped recieving gifts on christmas or my birthday a long time ago. I didn´t ask for them either. I could ask anything anytime of the year from my parents and they´ll comply. Right know, i´d only want meny to buy books, since in my hometown there is no bookstore, an earthquake brought it to the ground some months ago.
As for the christmas dinner we have at my house, i couldn´t care less. I don´t really get along with my family, and don´t have much common or something to talk about with them. I just sit around quietly, wanting only to be in my room reading something, and hoping the annoying "Why are you always so quiet? Talk some more!" doesn´t happen, though it always does. That always makes me uncomfortable, since i really have nothing to say to them.

Sorry to be back so late. Why not try The Cyberiad by Lem? You can even drop 1984 and forgive yourself for not having finished it. It's Christmas, after all. You can get back to it after new year's. Go on, it's all right. You'll like it, give it a try.

> Gravity's Rainbow.
Given it a few shots before and failed. Flying through it this time and really enjoying it.

>The novel and I've been on for half a decade, my journal, and maybe something new.
I've reached the point where I'm boxed into a corner with it. An obsession with perfection and symmetry has made progress painful. I'm deciding whether to give up on it and just write some maximalist post modern novel on internet culture. Write what you know amirite?

Weekend was okay. Fucking cold but lots of time for long bike rides through the countryside. Saw some old friends from high school and got drunk bowling.

Not really. Going back to work for my father over break and feel alot of anxiety over it. Christmas will be okay with my family, but any happiness will be eclipsed by tiredness and anxiety from work like last year.

as a disclaimer: i'm not a poet, nor have i read much poetry. my favorites are the romantics like donne, wordsworth, keats, coleridge, etc. i don't know about your woman, but these styles are generally seen of as cheesy by most today.

that said, you might want to go into greek mythology if she can stomach it. something about the river lethe making one forget about how beautiful health and life is (or yada yada) could be good—especially if she's doped up on nyquil.

although (perhaps) done to death, keats' "ode to a nightingale" is the best example of this style.

a more mundane metaphor, from lao-tzu:
>Who is there that can make muddy water clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will gradually become clear of itself. Who is there that can secure a state of absolute repose? But let time go on, and the state of repose will gradually arise.

for something with a realist bent, robert frost:
poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44260

most metaphors are themselves cliche by now, but the poetic art lies in how you can present it. recounting, some good metaphors are winter to spring; muddy vs. clear water; indulged amnesia; migration (in a metaphorical sense); the taoist human/butterfly question (aka the biggie smalls IT WAS ALL A DREAM ending). good luck!

>"Why are you always so quiet? Talk some more!"

I hate this shit so much. What kind of response are they even expecting out of this?

>what are you reading?
Reading the mistborn trilogy. Shit's good, senpai.
>what are you writing?
I just finished writing a short story about a wife who believes her husband is cheating on her.
>how was your weekend?
It was okay I suppose? Nothing too exciting happened.
>looking forward to christmas?
Not entirely. I just like the cold weather is all.
(Pic related)

>what are you reading?
ishiguro the remains of the day
nabokov's memoir

>what are you writing?
short fiction, awful cover letters

>how was your weekend?
comfy enough - cold light snow, spend evenings drinking, listening to music, and finishing up term papers

>looking forward to christmas?
yea spending time with family and just not doing anything for a couple weeks sounds nice enough

thinking about presents right now - little sister really enjoyed 1q84 and my other old murakami books so getting her the new one with his interviews on music

>>what are you reading?
Silence by Shusaku Edno. I was mostly motivated to read it by the Scorsese movie that is coming out, but I'm not particularly enjoying it. I just want to finish it so I can start on Lonesome Dove.
>>what are you writing?
A presentation for school.
>>how was your weekend?
Shit, like always.
>>looking forward to christmas?
No.

>What are you reading?
Child of God by Cormac McCarthy, A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin, and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea by Yukio Mishima. Trying to get through three short novels to reach my yearly quota but idk if I'm gonna make it bros. I did just finish War and Peace though so I'm a bit exhausted.

>What are you writing?
A play about incest, a fantasy novel about a plague ridden city, and a short story about a professor whose affair with a student breaks up his marriage. They're all moving very slowly.

>How was your weekend?
Boring and uneventful. Home from uni and mostly just trying to motivate myself to do things. Made a damn good hot toddy yesterday though.

>Looking forward to Christmas?
Absolutely. It's probably my favorite time of the year.

>What are you reading?
A couple of Terrence Rattigan plays for my return to Drama School after Christmas. Not bad at all.

>What are you writing?
I said fuck it and decided to start on my novel a few days ago. I have a feeling it will occupy a lot of my time and will take me a while to complete (I've had a lot of ideas brewing for a long time and now it's a case of getting them down and fashioning something exiting and readable and expansive out of them). It's called Chameleon Day, if you're interested (there's a Talk Talk song of the same name).

>How was your weekend?
Pretty uneventful, already bored of being back home for Christmas. Went out clubbing on Saturday which was ok.

>Looking forward to Christmas?
Not particularly, it's always very forced and awkward in my household. It's my birthday on the 23rd and that'll be better because I can meet up with some mates and have a good time.

>Plutarch
>nothing, learning attic greek
>work and study for finals, but pretty comfy
>Yes, I'll finally get some quality time with my gf

wtf I love 7up now

>Voyage of the Beagle
>a very possibly autistic Veeky Forums period piece thing
>bretty gud, I love winter
>Absolutely, I needed a break

Sorry for the late reply, but thanks for this. She likes Greek mythology, but hates forgetfulness (TBI), so I'm not sure that Lethe is a good idea. Might look for something else there, though. I enjoyed the Frost poem. Not what I'm aiming for, I think it's fair to say, but full of interesting ideas.

I think I will look for a mythological concept/tale to work around

I think I remember you from a green-text your plot thread. Your story ideas were always very well thought out. Good luck.

>what are you reading?
Cleansed, by Sarah Kane.

>what are you writing?
A short story told from the perspective of Medusa at the exact moment her head is in the air after Perseus decapitated her

>how was your weekend?
It was alright, I guess.

>looking forward to christmas?
A little bit, but not really.

>Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, just finished Child of God by Cormac McCarthy
>scraps of a romance novel aimed at 17-24 yr old college girls
>pretty good. spent time with my mom and sister and then took my gf out on a date tonight
>yes actually. nothing like laying on the couch, wrappin up in a soft blanket and reading under the lamplight

>Parts of TSZ and On the Geneology of Morals
>A script for an upcoming video about nietzsche's idealogy being represented in a particular anime
>Shit, had to move my moms stuff the last 5 days out of my childhood home which was just sold.
>Eh, maybe, I'll get some money and good food and maybe some chill vibes with family members if things aren't too tense.

>You're always so quiet user, why don't you talk more?
>Um, alright. (?)
>So how is college? You've gotten so big since the last time I saw you and you look really attractive
>Um college is good, still figuring things out you know and thanks
>Alright honey, well keep up the good work
>Yep, bye.

How to awkward adult in 2016

handsome* not attractive

>Chameleon Day
I like that title. Good luck.

So many college kids talking about their moms, their girlfriends or boyfriends, getting presents, spending time with family over Christmas dinner, going out with friends, partying on birthdays, having a good time, a nice dinner out, a nice evening in, under the blanket: it feels like watching a Hollywood movie, a comfy comedy, simple, soothing and unreal. But it is real for you, it's everyday life, isn't it? How healthy you all are; you're handsome and hot, full and rested or pleasantly tired and hungry for more. You're beautiful as young gods. And you'll probably ridicule my ramblings, if you pay them any notice at all, and you'll be right to do so, for young gods are always right. I hope you enjoy it while it lasts and I hope it lasts forever for you.

>A Canticle for Leibowitz and will be re-reading Solaris once I'm done.
>Random short stories for practice/fun
>Pretty good, I have no work this week so I have lots of time to read.
>Yes, will be hanging out with a few friends this year instead of family, so it should be fun.

Ha Joon Chang's "Economics: A user's guide"

I'm not wise enough to write. My weekend sucked, and no, humbug.

Thank you

Good to hear about hopscotch. I've been meaning to read it.

Such a sad thing isnt it, how the old think about love while the young dwell on death.

>He doesn't Christmas with hedonists

>portrait of the artist
>conspiracy manifesto big-data conglomerate masterpiece
I'm doing pretty well. I'm polishing up some programming work, finished some finals tests, and started working out for longer periods (15 min scattered up to 2 30 min sessions). Life's good

Oh yeah

>what are you reading?
The grapes of wrath (which I am enjoying.)
>what are you writing?
Nothing. I am too lazy.
>how was your weekend?
I'm not sure. I hate fucking cricket, but it meant I got to spend lots of time with her. Not sure if that is a good thing or not though, it makes me feel like shit afterwards.
>looking forward to christmas?
I can never tell if I am looking forward to it. I am happy about the thoughts of getting gifts and spending time with certain people, but the idea of gifts haunts me. Also, when people are too into the Christmas mood it makes me feel sick. I never feel so lonely as when I am celebrating with my family.

>I am happy about the thoughts of getting gifts
the best gifts you can ever get come from yourself

I cracked open a little book I have been writing, and I chuckled at the first chapter
>Chapter 1
>I've never been good at beginnings, so move on to Chapter 4

I don't know about that. It makes me happiest when my family get me books that they think I might like. Even if it's not something I like I am happy to be reminded that someone cares.

see
Seriously, it makes you feel so much better about yourself (especially if you're fat)

just to clarify, getting fit makes you feel better, not going to Veeky Forums and watching them sperg out

I wanna get Veeky Forums, but honestly I am too fucking scared to go to the gym at the moment. I am thinking about buying equipment to use in my house. Also, I am not fat, I am a rather tall and full skelly mode, I'm not sure if that's better or worse.

Why are you scared? Unless you are Julian Assange, you have no reason to fear a gym
You don't need to go to a gym right away, just get a bodyweight routine (that includes squats)

>what are you reading?
Blindsight by Peter Watts. I've been doing a ton of heavy reading lately and I thought it might be healthy to read something lighter and fun. I've been loving it so far.
>what are you writing?
A surrealist novel about purgatory, with purgatory itself represented as a series of mindbending tests to strip the mind of sin and impure thoughts by any means necessary. Sounds edgy, I'm sure, but it makes for a great vehicle to analyze the psyche of my characters.
>how was your weekend?
I got drunk, wrote, got drunk again, shitposted, got drunk some more, wrote some more, slept in the middle of the day, got drunk again, read some, then the weekend was over. My weekends blur together these days. I've been out of college and out of work for more than a year now. My old state of mind is being slowly hacked apart to build the new version out of the fragments.
>looking forward to christmas?
Sure, why not. My parents are great people. I've made a few nice things for them with my woodworking skills. They'll be getting me some money for games on steam and a bookstore gift card, that's what I know of. I also bought a couple massive bones for my dogs. Christmas, at its core, it comfy and I love it. I hate the commercialization though. The mutilated Christmas songs, the tacky decorations at stores, the rampant emphasis on buy buy buy, I hate it. It feels like society is trying to take a massive dump on a family and religious holiday that should be left to families and individuals to celebrate.

I know it is pathetic but I am horrified that someone will see me trying to change and mock me for it. Also, if someone I know knows I am trying to change and then I fail then that would be the most shameful thing I can think of. I have never been able to show people when I try, which always makes people surprised when I do things well. I will look into body weight routines, hopefully after a while I will be able to muster up the courage to go to gym.

Yeah, that's pathetic. However, everybody goes there for the same reason: to improve themselves. I doubt anybody would even notice you there unless you do something stupid or just be an ass.

i don't think i've ever related to a post on Veeky Forums this much

Nobody will say anything to you except asking if you're done with a bench/machine. Most gyms worth going to are pretty strict about not allowing people to be cunts about someone less fit than them, bevause it's bad for business. Also being a skellington is a better place to start than being fat, because muscle you put on will be visible much more quickly than if you had to lose fat to show it.

>Between books at the moment, finished Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings yesterday. Might reread some of my favourite shorter stuff; in the mood for some Bataille right now. Blue of Noon is my shit.

I'm writing my novel about sexy tank girls and it's going great. Currently detailing the exploits of a Churchill tank in Tunisia in 1943 as she comes to terms with being surrounded by younger, thinner and prettier American Sherman tanks in the aftermath of Operation Torch.

I just had two days off work Mon-Tues, so I guess that's my weekend, and I wrote, fucked a girl who is not my boyfriend who wants to be my girlfriend, saw some mediocre movies, and then got drunk had an argument with my boyfriend and now I feel vaguely like killing myself.

Christmas will be drinking alone. No family in the part of the world I live in.

But hey, at least my novel about tanks is going well. And there's a bottle of Suntory whiskey waiting in the nearby import store for cheap. So I'm actually pretty comfy in my misery.

This place doesn't have Sierra Mist? What kind of horseshit is this? Honey, get your coat

>reading
The Bible, but I'm only on the editors' introduction. The different hypotheses about the composition of the Torah fascinate me. Karamazov, and the sincere unquestioning faith of the women who go to Elder Zosimov is making me consider Andrei Tarkovsky's statement about how we can never fully understand or appreciate the art of a foreign nation.
>writing
A collection of short stories, or maybe if they are all interrelated it's more appropriate to call it a novel, about the Pacific Coast Highway and the people who drive and live on it, and the weird shit and conspiracies around that road.
A short body horror screenplay to practice a couple weak points I have identified in my writing: unnatural or uninteresting dialogue and writing about techical topics outside my personal expertise in a way that obfuscstes the author's shallow knowledge; it's a sort of Lovecraft-meets-Cronenberg-meets-Primer thing.
>weekend
I'm in Iraq for work right now and this country is a real shithole and the combination of rain and a lack of adequate drainage is becoming a problem.
>Christmas
I don't go home until the end of next month and I've left a new wife at home. I don't like leaving her in an unfamiliar city through the coldest and darkest part of the winter. I'm in for a pretty uncomfy Christmas and for my own sake I don't really give a shit but I would like to be with her.

>reading

Hunger

>writing

Story about a misanthrope who asks to be cured of it by a jinn and becomes prone to extroversion but it eventually works to his demise as he is unable to enjoy solitude at all and is overwhelmed by his necessity to be social.

> how was your weekend

good, saw my gf, smoked some wed

>looking forward to christmas

yes and no, have to use all my christmas money to get my stupid phone fixed but my gf is buying me a DS so thats nice

- Just got done Moby-Dick. It was a great sweet spot inbetween comfy, unorthodox and scope broadening.

- Not much since ı've been trying to go through my backlog. I'm thinking of giving up on it so ı can start writing the Big Novel since MD has been pretty inspiring.

- Pretty bad. Mostly felt very pressured

- Yup. I haven't eaten out in a couple months. I'mma prepare sushi for new year's too.

spoiler alert: things were never good

I like to think things were always good. :)

>drinking sierra mist or 7up when sprite exists