All Write, Already!

And Lo, there was a Tuesday Topic.

2006-09-04T23:09:00.000-05:00

Water. Discuss.

Topics, Topics Everywhere, and... hmmm.

2006-08-28T01:25:00.000-05:00

You know what?

I got nothing.

Oh, I'm going to post, all right.

2006-08-18T11:16:00.000-05:00

This is going to be the best post you ever read. It's going to make your heart skip a beat. No, it's going to make your heart skip two beats. No, five! Twelve! It's going to make you cry. It's going to make you laugh. It's going to make you beg for more. This post will be the highest-grossing blockbuster post of the summer. It will be awesome, tubular and radical. It will be happy to validate your parking. This post will only have one glass of wine with dinner and never drink to excess. It will diligently work out every day of the week. This post will scratch the places you can't reach, if you ask it nicely. It will make your father love you more and make your mother approve of your spouse. It will pay off your student loan debt. This post will be rated FDA pregnancy category B and not be expected to be harmful to an unborn baby, but you should tell your doctor if you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant during the reading of this post. Though other broadcasters in your area will still need to conduct a test of the emergency broadcast system, this post will be exempt because of its awesomeness, so you will not have to hear the attention signal unless there is an actual emergency. When threatened, this post will expand in size, and exude a soporific substance that will allow it to escape from predators. This post will be able to recite pi to at least 400 places, from memory. It's going to become the next president of the United States. It will be a good source of fiber, calcium, and vitamin C. This post will read every book by every author, and compile a list of the ones you'd like, color coding them by genre. This post will raise the dead and turn them into foot soldiers in its unholy army, which it will mobilize against any enemy you choose. This post will stay crunchy in milk. This post will shoot lasers from its eyes that will reduce its targets to smoking ruins. This post will be made of the highest quality chocolates imported from Belgium. This post will use its political clout to

[This post has been truncated]

Ssss.ss.sssSomething for the topic.

2006-08-18T09:03:00.000-05:00

When not just any topic will satisfy, turn to... Hype.

Lake Keowee

2006-08-13T00:24:00.000-05:00

A fine vase built here
Of earth and stone and science
to hold fish and ghosts

Getting to be afternoon, so...

2006-08-10T13:38:00.000-05:00

Here's a little topic-love for your rear:

porcelain

The moment of beauty.

2006-08-09T10:01:00.000-05:00

Most people are completely wrong. (This should not surprise anyone, really.) I was wrong until this most recent epiphany. I, like many others, though that Beauty was a trait, an adjective, a quality inherent to an object.

I don't think I've ever been so utterly convinced of something that was totally wrong as I was of this.

Beauty isn't a quality, it's an event; A fleeting one, at that. Usually it lasts no more than a few seconds, and that's if it lasts an entire second. In my experience it's a flashpoint thing, especially when it happens in people.

It's the sunrise blossoming out over the lake while you crusie along at ten knots. It's the lurch away from gravity, with the ground falling away below you. It's the glint in her eyes as she looks back over a bare shoulder at you, a mischeif of one sort or another loosed from her lips. It's the light framing her face just-so. It's the moment lips touch.

We talk about Beauty like it's something a person can develop in themselves. Actually, that's just aesthetics, attractiveness, and such like that. Beauty, you see, isn't her figure - it's the instant you see it, from just the right angle, in just the right light, with just the right context. So much has to align perfectly to make it so - but it happens time and again. Interestingly, love catalyzes it very effectively.

It's said of us that when we are in love, we pay more attention to the object thereof. Certainly this seems to be true, in my experience. But the side effect is that when we pay more attention to something, we see more of the moments of beauty that happen to/by/around that something.

I have recently experienced several of these moments; Many, many more than I experienced in the past few years. I realize part of what has been missing in my life was the experience of this force of inspiration and change. I need more of it, and so I need more of the things that I love to be in my life.

The good thing about knowing what you want and/or need, is that it becomes much easier to reach for it...

Gravity and the Beauty of Being Human

2006-08-09T02:51:00.000-05:00

Visualize a sheet made of rubber, stretched tightly in all directions - flat, smooth, essentially featureless.

Now imagine a heavy sphere, like a marble, placed on the sheet. Imagine the smooth, uniform, gradual depression in the sheet, the gentle curve in the material.

Juggling this set of images, now add another: another marble, shooting across the surface of the sheet, leaving its own impression on the surface as it moves across. See in your mind this second sphere roll close to the first - just glancing off the very edge of the transformed sheet.

Replay this in your head, sending the second marble closer and closer to the first, until the second marble can no longer escape the impression of the first, instead finding a circular path about the first.

If in your head, you can conceptually extrapolate this image into three dimensions, you will have a vague picture of our current understanding of gravity; the marbles are massive bodies, like stars and planets, and the sheet is a two-dimensional slice of space-time. Gravity, as we understand it, is a distortion in space-time caused by these massive bodies.

A conceptual framework like this is not necessarily a practical or necessary framework for everyday use, though. Einstein's elegant space-time distortion is still taught years after students learn the Newtonian model, because while Newton's model has the fundamental failing that it says nothing about what gravity actually is, it does give a simple mathematical framework for calculating the effects two bodies will have on each other as they pass. The formula essentially says that the magnitude of the gravitational force between two objects is proportional to the mass of both objects, but inversely proportional to the square of the distance they are from each other.

The effect is a function of two quantities - the masses - and distance.

Both models of gravity tell us that two masses at a sufficient distance from each other will have essentially no effect on each other. They have very little way, even supposing a sudden dose of sentience, of determining that the other even exists. The events required to make these two bodies aware of each other are simple, straightforward, and yet desperately unlikely. The two masses must simply travel close enough to each other to move through the other's sphere of distortion, or sphere of influence.

For an orbit to exist, the two must travel close enough for one to become trapped in the circling path about the other.

For an orbit to be broken, some external force, strong enough to overcome the distortion, the mutual attraction, must push one object at an appropriate angle, such that it is not simply immediately recaught in a circular path about the first.

And if that should happen, freely moving through essentially empty space, the two semi-sentient objects should eventually move out of range such that they are essentially where they began - without knowing that the other truly exists; out of influence range, out of touch.

Think about that for a moment.

Every single day that we make a phone call, or jump on one of these magic internet boxes, or watch a television show from the other side of the world, we violate in a limited, human way one of the most elegant laws of the universe. When we write a letter, we confirm the continued existence of our mass with one a thousand time smaller than ours.

To be human is to have incredible power; the simple facts of our memory and indomitable will allow us to continuously confirm that which we have seen - that which has frightened us, that which inspires us, that which we reject, and most importantly, that which we love.

Distance does not equal absence.

(Cross-posted to my blog, Sperari. Also, credit is owed to Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe for a good deal of the visualization/metaphor for the physics bits.)

Topic for Wednesday, because where I am, it IS wednesday!

2006-08-08T23:56:00.000-05:00

Because it's what I feel like writing about, having had an epiphany on the matter...

Beauty.

Music in the blood.

2006-08-04T12:27:00.000-05:00

My addiction to music snuck up on me, as most addictions do. I didn't first start using music as a performance-enhancing agent until about the sixth grade, but once I did it once - I almost never looked back. In fact, it wasn't until the advent of real in-game music that I'd even consider playing video games without music. And it wasn't until the necessity of voice communication with other players that I'd actually largely abandon it.

There was an old game, available on the macintosh, back in the early 90s and late 80s called 'Spectre.' Actually, I didn't play Spectre, I played Spectre Supreme. Spectre Supreme had some serious badassness going on, especially in light of its competition in the first-person realm being largely games like Doom and Castle Wolfenstein. While not 3D, Spectre's graphics were uniquely spartan and simple, which let them have this sense of purity and let you focus on the action at hand. The gameplay was second to none. You drove a tank, you shot other tanks, sometimes you had a host of special weapons, but you never stopped using that basic gun. (Most of the backup weapons were kind of dumb, in my book. I only really ever used smart missiles, occasionally grenades, and once in a while the spreadshot when enemies got insanely numerous.

I was good at this game. I could make level 20ish without breaking a sweat, I could manage my ammo ilke a pro, and I knew how to exploit every maneuver I could to maximum efficacy. My friends would watch me play this game to learn how to play it better. Given my obsession with excellence, this pleased me.

Then I donned a pair of headphones, and started an audio CD in the CD-ROM drive (they were new at the time, and in fact you had to load the CD into this cassette and then put the cassette into the drive - it made the characteristic Mac sound when it ejected the cassette too). To my surprise it played automatically, despite the fact that I was running a program that had audio. The audio overlapped instead of fighting for playtime on the speaker and this too was new to me. (Multifinder was new to me as well since my previous computer experience was a Mac 512kE, with system 4.0 that couldn't run more than standard Finder.)

Anyway, I knew something was up when the first chords of "Train of Consequences" by Megadeth started up. I mean, that whole disc wasn't new to me, I was you're average 7th grade metal head geek (which meant I owned Megadeth's Euthanasia instead of just owning Metallica's black album) but this time the combination of Spectre's simplified graphics, frantic gameplay, and the pulse-thumping that was now taking over really got to me. By the time I was done with that session, an hour had gone by without so much as a 'whoopsie dasiy.' My ears ached from the poor fit of the headphones, and they were covered in sweat... my ears... sweaty... from exertion while being covered by the leather rims of the 'phones. This was utterly new. Beyond listening to music, this was immersion in it.

I made level 10 without getting hit. I made level 25 without running out of ammo or getting below half health even once. I didn't die the first time until level 29. I broke my personal best of level 32 with a life to spare. My new record was level 45. (To this day I don't know how many levels Spectre actually had. 45 was GNARLY.)

There was just something about the way the music got inside me. You'd think it was a distraction, all that noise, those lyrics to follow (which I actually didn't even really notice. Mustane might as well have been gargling at me with marbles in his mouth for all I would have cared)... it just didn't distract me. Every moment of the game became a single experience mashed together in a blur. I was on fire in ways I doubt I could express even if I tried. From then on, I didn't game without music onboard, not when timing and confidence mattered. Game soundtracks, as they became more complex and started using actual musicians and composers (all hail Nobuo Uematsu!) stopped me from needing my own additions, but even today I've been known to log onto a counterstrike server, turn off teamchat, and just go bonkers with music blaring. Sure, I lose the teamwork advantage, but an episode of being a one-man fragmachine sure feels good from time to time.

There is a bit of that purity that is lost in video games today, an ambiance that music provided when it drowned out the rest of the world... but I still feel the performance enhancing dose of music. I just feel it in the car now, on the stereo when I play music that has all the right melodies. It's dangerous, I'm sure. If my performance flags in video games, I lose a life, perhaps I have to start over. If it flags while behind the wheel of a car... there is no reset button. But I'll be damned if there aren't times I feel absolutely invincible if the right music happens along.

Someday I'd love to try it, just race along however I please with the music in my blood. Maybe I'm just a typical macho guy, craving a moment on the edge - but it is the sexiest, most satisfying feeling in the world to be in that moment; Perhaps to BE that moment.

All I need is a good stereo.

Crank it to 11

2006-07-27T01:44:00.000-05:00

Sorry I've been so bad about posting, guys - summer camp counseling ate me for a couple weeks. I missed posting my topic a few days ago, but I figure I can make up for it by giving those of us who are away from computers a break. Through Sunday night, the topic is:

stereo

If it's your turn to post a topic before the little four-day topic is up, post it anyway. This is just to assuage back-dating guilt and urges to skip sleep entirely when jet-lagged. Just write, already.

By any other name.

2006-07-23T18:55:00.000-05:00

There was something pure about the symbolism of the rose. While many considered the rose a token for courtship, or a symbol of beauty, grace, and elegance - best suited to delivery in a medium of flattery. Certainly the Order's contemporaries used symbols which were themselves layers upon layers of symbols intricately ordinated in such dizzying patterns and suggestions as to allow members to meditate upon the symbol itself - writing dissertations and expositions on the secrets they'd find therein - which was convenient as many of those same orders had little else to provide but a false sense of superiority.

The matriarchial structure of the Order, largely a matter of convenience and logistical sensibility as the Patriarch of the realm was otherwise busy handling other organizations, nonetheless further heaped up evidence to the outsider that the symbol of the rose was merely a cosmetic nicety - a small-minded choice made by a small minded girl. It was only the centuries of history between such outsiders and the woman who had established the order that allowed such an injustice to her actual ability as a stateswoman, as a mage, and as a leader.

The symbol itself certainly touched upon the raw elegance of the flower, it's robust beauty, and it's proportioned, almost poetic shape. (Certainly the idealized stereotype of a Rose Mage had these traits as well, which required most of the public to ignore that there were male members of the Order as well.) Without these the order could've been called the 'Order of the Red Flower,' which didn't quite so well roll off of the tongue. The symbol itself included several other distinct aspects of it's token specimen, however, that were often ignored. The bloom itself was most certainly the centrepiece, even if the bloom itself were not centrally located. The simplicity of the five-petal shape held a certain bit of arcane symbolism in it, though this was largely accidental - more the design's clean lines and spartan symmetry were meant to remind the initiate that the simplest construction is responsible for the boldest and most revered of designs. The internally idealized Rose was a person of plain language, straightforward manner, and simple expression of self.

The stem of the order's Rose, rather than twining and twisting as many rose-based symbols were wont to do, was only slightly curving in it's path from the bloom in the top left of the field, to the bottom right of the field where it presumeably continued. The original artist found a way, mysterious as the order itself, to cut the stem off at the edge of the field without suggesting that the stem actually ended - another important part of the symbol. Even the awesome power and majesty of the rose, was supported by the thorny, basic root from which it sprang. Humility was not a popular trait in magi of the time, nor of the current time for that matter. This characteristic was one of the most distinguishing parts of the Order itself.

The thorns, often emphasized by other rose symbols were not stressed in the Order's version, though they were certainly present. It didn't take long for anyone who'd heard stories of the awesome destructive power for which the Order was famous to figure out what a thorn would likely mean - what they didn't expect was the defensive message within the symbol. Sure, a Rose Mage of any repectable rank could incinerate a few dozen foes in the span of time it took a conventional soldier to recieve and process the order to charge, but there was always stories of magi with such power running out of moral drive to not use such power. The only reason such tales persisted so often, and were re-told time and again was because such persons did exist, on a daily basis. The short-range, passive nature of the thorn reminded initiates to keep their tempers reigned in close to their stems - injuring only those stupid enough to carelessly impale themselves.

The stem itself was leafless, but abundant folliage made up the background of the field itself, carefully textured here and there whenever the symbol was fully represented. The background itself did not appear on many of the simpler versions of the symbol such as were used to sign and seal letters and such - but on this banner at the back of the hall it was brilliantly brought to a subtle sort of life in dark lines and rich forest greens. This was also more reminder that the rose was but the most prominent part of the plant-whole, and that the distinguishing characteristic of the mage - his ability to bend reality pretty much whenever he felt like it - was only healthy so long as the rest of the person was also similarly healthy. A blighted leaf blighted the whole plant. This, of course, meant that the Order frowned upon the customary forms of discipline such as denial of self that were popular in the more traditional Torban orders - but they weren't exactly as lax as the Elven Guilds either. Rose Magi were expected to eat well, exercise often, and live in society as normal persons did - and those who failed to maintain their health were dismissed from their arcane studies until they were deemed balanced and healthy enough to resume. This created a longer delay in Rose Magi achieving rank, compared to the Collegium, Guilds, or other Orders but the focus, for the Rose, was the self and the art as a tool, rather than the art, and the self as a tool.

Not depicted, but equally important, was how pervasive roses really were. And in truth, the occupation had demonstrated - here in this room most of all - that this was true of the Order. Roses could be found in all kinds of climates, in all kinds of soils, and in all manner of colors and patterns - each adapted to its unique home. Even the destruction of the once-iconic Evardeen had not done away with the Order.

There would still be a hope to liberate the homeland after all.

letter soiree

2006-07-18T14:25:00.000-05:00

To get A and E
to gather together,
a picture is taken -
a token from O.
For food we are waiting
on H with the whiting
and A with the slaw
because O was too slow.

Envious N frowns
at devious D
as she steps in
the pee from his pet.
D's dog has its tail
cooling off in a pail
as it sings of a singe
that it won't soon forget.

A has just crashed
and U has been crushed
by the weight that S
weighs on T's scale,
which upset the still
that K balanced with skill,
which spilled hooch on the pooch
and burned off its tail.

Partying Y is now
parting for home,
and U puked in the sink
and it sunk.
L has since split
and now I could just spit
'cause I sipped from
the drink that U drunk.

M paid for a maid
for the fire, and I'll hire
a plumber before I get
much needed slumber.

The litter a letter leaves
around on the ground...
Next week's party
should be a real number.

theme

2006-07-18T10:15:00.000-05:00

Today's theme is this phrase:

...in other words

Have fun.

hidden

2006-07-16T12:07:00.000-05:00

must muzzle
and hide it
or they'll smell it
tell it
compel revulsion
for my compulsion
to pluck
nibble
trace the line
define its definition
my position is unchanged
they've been tipped
the muzzle slipped

I love the letter z.

2006-07-16T02:36:00.000-05:00

Apropos of nothing and perhaps far less conceptual than some other recent topics, today's topic is:

muzzle

Gasping

2006-07-14T21:24:00.000-05:00

I stutter. Not all the time, and usually not noticeably, but when I'm upset or angry or even really tired, it starts. First my fricatives become extended, then my plosives start to repeat. Right now, as I type this, I've actually declared a self-imposed moratorium on my voice so that I can recover from my latest bout of sssss-t-t-t-t-tuttering.

It's like impotence, you know? You're there, trying to make something really simple happen, like shaping your mouth around the flow of air out your mouth, and the harder you're trying, the less you actually accomplish. Everything extends into a hiss, or a pop-pop-pop, and all of a sudden there's a spotlight on you. It's just air; it shouldn't be this big a deal. But it is. And now, thanks to the relative anonymity of the Internet, you know one more embarassing story about me.

Attention, Passengers

2006-07-14T20:47:00.000-05:00

Fundamentally.

Air is all around me. It's close enough to vacuum to be,
but not enough for me, not for me.

So they say -

Air is pressing at my figure. It's softer than things that are soft -
feathers, blankets, whispers, grazes, and it burns, it burns.

In, out. In, out:

Air is there underneath my mind. Below the conscious, below the
hollering yelling screaming that is all the time, all the time.

It will be there tomorrow, so -

Air is nothing, it is something. An argument, a cigarette, a sex toy,
another time, a curve, a curve, a curve.

Atmosphere

2006-07-14T06:23:00.000-05:00

I think it's back to my turn (Jess, what happened to the list under "Order" in the sidebar?).

Today's topic: Air.

rightshu asked me to post his topic...

2006-07-12T10:50:00.000-05:00

We've all been a little distracted. That's cool. If you're one of the members and it's not your turn to post a topic, but it's getting past mid-afternoon and there's no topic posted, please feel free to jump in and choose a topic in the interest of keeping things moving.

Today, rightshu will not be in a place where he can post a topic until after 7pm, so he asked me to post the following topic for him: weather. Have at it!

It's a Dysfunctional Blog

2006-07-07T19:05:00.000-05:00

In honor of the late, lamented Dysfunctional Family Circus and the late, lamented It's a Dysfunctional Life, I bring you captions of this photo. Most of them will fail. You will laugh at two of them.

The Psychic Newsprint slid slowly off the page and onto the toddler's pajamas. Its time had finally come.
"Miss Halverson! Bring me my lunch time martini, and a fresh diaper! The European markets are about to close and I can't find my binky!"
As little Timmy looked dejectedly at the classifieds, he realized that he was only qualified to mop the floors in a research lab. I knew I shouldn't have gotten my "degree" at DeVry, he thought.
My parents had an unorthodox method of potty-training me. They forced me to put down newspapers, took my diapers away, and blasted air-horns at me when I soiled the floor. To this day, I can't open the Wall Street Journal without feeling the urge to poop. -- Dolly, Memoirs
The warm glow of his skin illuminated the room, even though it was 3:30 in the morning, and he was reading the newspaper aloud while simultaneously translating the articles into Pashtu. "Thel," he said, "I told you we shouldn't adopt a kid from Chernobyl."

J'ai une idée!

2006-07-07T04:06:00.000-05:00

Let's do a picture-topic! Here it is:

John Wayne never tried it.

2006-07-06T20:34:00.000-05:00

In November of 1999, I used my Leatherman to open my own wrists. I'm not proud of it, and I'm not saying that this is even remotely a good way to resolve conflict, but I did it, and I learned from it.

One of the things I learned was unexpected. You see, my plan was to do an exploratory cut-down latitudinally, across the short axis of my arm, so that I could find the radial artery, then cutting it longitudinally to ensure that the damage couldn't be repaired.

So I drew a hot bath, sat down in the water, gritted my teeth, held the knife to my wrist, and tugged. The first cut was like fire, opening up the skin and exposing the subdermal fat layer. Well, I reasoned, the skin is where most of the pain receptors are. The rest of this shouldn't hurt much at all, now. This, as it turns out, was whistling in the graveyard.

The subcutaneous fat layer went fairly easily: yellow, shiny, a little greasy. It actually was a lot like the chicken fat you see at the knob of the thigh. It slid aside pretty well, and I had to cut through muscle beneath that. This was just as painful as it sounds. Muscle is much tougher to cut than skin or fat, and it hurts to cut through it, especially when your knife isn't as sharp as it could be, because the fibrous tissue runs from the blade.

Eventually, though, I was through everything else, and when I rinsed the blood from capillary and small venous bleeds away, I could see glistening white bone, and near it, the radial artery, twitching with a surprisingly pronounced motion. Then, and here's the really crazy thing, I repeated the whole process with my right wrist (this time with the blade in my left hand, which meant that the cuts weren't as clean).

After opening both wrists to the bone, I took the knife in my right hand, slid the point under my radial artery, and raised it up a little, almost flush with my skin. It was agonizing to do this, but I was fascinated by the pale-pinky look of the blood vessel. I realized that I didn't want that motion to stop, so I called 911 for help, and the rest of it was an ABC after-school special.

Still, with all the things I learned that day ("don't fucking try to kill yourself" topping the list), one thing that really stands out is the fact that I have a higher tolerance for pain than I initially thought. You see, my father always told me that I was a bit of a sissy, and couldn't take even a little bit of discomfort. Performing exploratory surgery on my own arms showed me that I could stand up to the pain if I wanted it badly enough; I've kept the scars as a testament to that.

Grit

2006-07-06T12:28:00.000-05:00

I know I love characters with it. They seem more real. The good guys have a little bad. The bad guys have a little good. Everybody has a little gray. Today's topic is: grit.

Earth is 98% Full. Please delete anyone you can.

2006-07-05T11:08:00.000-05:00

Earth is fucked.

Well and truly, proper fucked.

Forget the 'WTF Mate' nuclear war. We're not that stupid.

What we are, however, is unmotivated. We really don't think for the long term at all. The same psychology that has the overwhelming bulk of us growing older without a retirement savings has the whole of us consuming, polluting, and paving with reckless abandon without wondering how we're going to be able to keep doing this ten years from now.

It's not anything that can be fixed, either. See, even if you and I suddenly become the most ecologically conservative people in the world? That still leaves, at latest estimates, about six billion six hundred twenty thousand six hundred sixty seven ninety six other people who will fuck it up for us.

Even if a few hundred thousand of us... hell, even if thirty million of us (a very large city) suddenly grew a brain we'd still be fucked. Our futures ruined by the collective will of humanity.

So enjoy the ride. It goes up, it goes down, and while the end is a bit rough, it's not so bad right now, and right now is all people give a damn about.

Grounder

2006-07-05T09:27:00.000-05:00

Today's topic: Earth.

Independence Day

2006-07-04T23:47:00.000-05:00

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.

Back in high school, when I was living with my mother, I looked forward to my 18th birthday like it was some sort of perverse pivot point around which my life would do a perfect pirouette, turning me precisely 180 degrees away from how miserable I felt at the time, towards some undefined happiness.

My mother and I had a tenuous, uncomfortable relationship. She didn't know what to do with me - a straight-A kid whose biggest troubles were lack of friends and disdain for the lack of academic rigor in my school. My sister - a midling student with an alcohol tolerance most college binge-drinkers would kill for and a penchant for calling from the police station (though in fairness, usually because she accompanied friends who'd been picked up) - she was more mom's speed. Mom had been there. She knew how to handle those kinds of problems.

I couldn't respect her. On top of the not-knowing-what-to-do-with-me thing, she was addicted to a variety of substances, a couple in the legal range but most not even close. There were nights (and hell, days) I'd be afraid of her - either because she was acting threatening, or because her behavior on the cocktail of drugs and alcohol she self-prescribed caused her judgement to be potentially fatally lacking. I woke up in the middle of the night once to find a sinkful of vomit and both electric skillets plugged in and up, full blast; she could have burned down the house, no joke. One fourth of July, I didn't hear from her until four in the morning. She called, tearful because the police had caught her fighting in public with her boyfriend, and she was very high - if they decided to arrest her and drug test her, she'd be in deep shit. I drove the fifty miles to pick her up, and it was stiff-upper-lip time for me while she cried, either too high, too embarassed or too sorry for putting me through that to refuse my questions about her addictions.

I didn't respect her, and yet she was in a position of authority over me. That fact drove me completely insane. I remember, about a month before my 18th birthday, my mother said to me, "You're going to be 18 soon."

"I am," I told her, and rattled off the specific number of days until that would be the case.

She suddenly looked wounded. "You don't have to sound so happy about it," she said. The air was suddenly very heavy, and so was the subtext. What have I ever done to you? her eyes asked. And I know I just looked back at her as if to say, Are you stupid? You can't be surprised that I'm happy to be leaving.

I needed to be free of her, and if I'd had to write a formal declaration of my grievances, I could have at any time. And she knew it.

That summer, after I graduated from high school, I went to live with friends. I returned to live with her to get my affairs in order before college, then ran off less than a month later again to a school far, far away from her. Because of the way all of the college funding options work, though, I was technically still a dependent of hers.

Until four months later, when I got married.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GENERAL CONGRESS, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of the divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

But I wasn't really independent then, either. I got married a month before I turned 19 - almost to the day. Looking back on it, the beginning of my relationship with my husband was sort of a train wreck. This time, the problem was me. I hadn't had a great friend - someone I could really count on - since elementary school. I'd never had an in-person date. My ideas about sex all came from the one previous experience I'd had. I was co-dependent as hell, completely insecure, and so unsure of myself that I appeared to many people to have no personality at all - I was so scared that if my husband (or anyone else) saw anything real about me, they'd leave.

These things take time to work through. My husband helped me get through that, my biggest fear - that I could scare him off by showing him who I was, or at all, for that matter. He stayed. I grew. It was good.

But at the same time, I started doubting the choices that had lead me to him. I knew I'd been co-dependent. I knew I'd been desperate for someone - anyone! - to accept me. I also knew that the path that I was on was not the one I'd chosen for myself before I'd gotten married; college plans were on hold, my job was dead-end, I wasn't pursuing anything I really wanted.

"Sam," I told him, one day, "This is going to sound terrible, and I want you to know it doesn't mean I want to leave you, but... I sometimes wish I'd had some time before I met you to get a little bit of me figured out."

I think I remember him being hurt, on some level. In all honesty, at that point I was at something of an emotional low because I wasn't pursuing any of my long-term interests; I did think fleetingly that leaving him would be nice, for some alone time.

I was wrong.

Somewhere along the way, since I've been out on my own and started taking responsibility for pursuing my own goals, I've figured out a few things. The first is that you don't always have to cut and run. My mother and I get along well, today. She's made a lot of choices that I think were bad, and a lot that I think were particularly bad in the light of her responsibility to her children, but that's a long time past, now. She's just a woman, now - great personality, tough as nails, too many scars and just enough self-awareness to keep her out of trouble.

The second is that being independent does not mean being alone. I sometimes wonder how different a person I'd be today if I'd never met Sam, but the idea that I could be better without him is one that hasn't occured to me in years. He's only enriched my life.

Independence can be had, even when your life is intimately intertwined with that of others. All that is required is strength of conviction, willingness to speak, willingness to act, and most of all, willingness to recognize when not to compromise.

It's more often than you think.

Because I should post on my own topic.

2006-07-04T21:13:00.000-05:00

Would the real William Wallace please stand up.

"Most of the 34th's armor will be on top of us by tomorrow afternoon," Luis reported listlessly. "I'd say we can expect them to pour through the eastern approaches, tanks up front, and just ride right on up to the gates. I mean, it's not like we have anything that could do more than give the crews a headache - those Abrhams might as well be indestructible for all we've got to throw at them."

It was the truth, too; but that didn't make it any more palatable. The 34th had allowed at least three platoons of main battle tanks be spotted on their way here from their distant camp - a camp far enough out that it took considerable resources to reach them by jeep and by salvaged pickup truck, but close enough that their AH-64s could've simply incinerated this whole valley if they'd so chosen. Bill wrote the fact that they didn't off to the scarcity of missiles and 30 milimeter shells, rather than any actual courtesy being extended to him by the remenants of Uncle Sam's weekend warriors.

This was the new reality of the world, when the chaos began, it looked like the police and national guard would've been enough to keep order but it only took a couple of years for infastructure to simply begin to fall apart faster than the military could keep it together. A cartoon published in one of the last newspapers to go offline, showed then-dictator General Hardy desperately trying to keep a New York skyline (which was made entirely out of wobbly stacks of fine china) upright while they spilled right over the top of him. No caption had been needed.

The whole thing wound up being self-fulfilling. The artist was incarcerated for Contempt, then died mysteriously. The rioting which had up until that point been a commonplace, almost daily occurance, became both pandemic and constant. Even the mighty military of the USA couldn't keep all those people at bay and still maintain control - there was just too much angry meat to kill, and not enough willing bullets to do the killing. Desertion quickly swept through the nation's defenders as orders became too desperate, too extreme, and the continent was polarized into those who had big guns, and those who hadn't. For a while, those who hadn't just hid and ran, and those who had fought their own civil war - an ugly affair given that both sides knew each other so well. Many factions tried to care for the civillians cought in the crossfire, but ultimately the battle was won by the side most willing to do whatever it took to survive - including feeding off of the civillian's meager attempts at rebuilding. It wasn't long before the polite soldiers were long extinct in any sufficient quantity to matter.

For the next few years the forces that were left spent the time quietly consolidating their new territory. At best estimates, 25% of the old USA was back under control of roughly six faction, each of which claimed to be THE legitimate American government. Of course, not one of them included anyone who'd survived from the Congress, or the Executive. (The courts had been amoung the first casaulties.) Two members of Congress had gotten together and formed a seventh faction, in Philadelphia no less, which held the most obviously consistent claim to the title 'American Government Reborn' but with nothing more than a few thousand partisans with bolt-action rifles and IEDs, it lasted all of a week according to survivors.

The only saving grace of the whole situation was that each of the six 'generals' (it was doubtful any of them had actually been promoted to the rank save by their own doing) were so convinced of their own superiority and soveregnty that they wound up in a stalemate, constantly having to vie against each other. Else they'dve long ago consumed the ashes of the old republic and built their own M.I.C. vision for the new one.

"I need thirty volunteers, in squads of five, sub machine guns, IED satchels, field kits and bush trained. The rest should prep the fields to be burned and salted, and the evacuation of the noncoms."

"Thirty on Three thousand, Bill? Why even bother?"

"These bastards don't want our crops, we offered to trade it to them for weapons and medicine. They don't want this land, they wouldn't know how to use it anyway. They just want control, they want /us./ And so long as we remain free, we're an insult to them and their whole way of life. So long as their missiles and choppers and tanks can't keep us in chains, they live in fear of losing their grip on the world."

"So.... we should just run, why the thirty?"

"Because if we just run, eventually we'll trip and they'll pounce."

"But if we feed ourselves to them thirty at a time we politely save them from the indigestion of eating us all at once?"

"Hey! I'm the metaphor junkie here, you go back to being cynical and pratical. I just can't let them destroy everything we've built here without making it cost them. Our food for their boys, that's the trade they want? Fine. I'll take their blood."

"You realize you're just a little psycho right?"

"If I'm wrong? You've my permission to shoot me."

Do I even have to post?

2006-07-04T09:13:00.000-05:00

I mean, come on. You guys shouldn't need me to tell you what today's topic is.

All people travelling to England are encouraged to rub salt in a 200+ year old wound. When the customs agent asks you if you have anything to declare? Just puff up your chest and say "My Independence."

Borrowing

2006-07-03T23:57:00.000-05:00

You're borrowing his underwear
just to keep the scent of him around you during the day
He's borrowing alibis from air
Getting off early just for one more passion play

Every meeting finds another thing to share
And sharing a breath propels you somewhere, up, midair

If you think it can't happen, sugar, sit and listen for awhile
I'm here to teach you about a new way to love someone
More than something in common, something communal
All you have to do is borrow and run

(This is going to be a song, once I can sing. Fucking laryngitis.)

Borrowing life

2006-07-03T23:09:00.000-05:00

He doesn't ask. Nor does He command. He just... borrows... for a time.

I still remember the first time. It was about a month after His death. I don't remember the exact date, but you can look it up in the papers.

The girl would have died if He hadn't borrowed. The man had already bloodied her lip and broken her wrist, and he wouldn't have stopped. But I was there, and so was He. And He borrowed me, and He made it right.

She had so little, and what she had was so wrong. And He returned more than she had before. Before, she had a life of fear; now, she has a life of hope. Before, she had her husband's addictions, and now she has his life insurance money, and a chance to start over.

Before, she had her husband's life. Now, she has a new life growing inside her. One that does not beat her, one that does not spend her life's blood on drugs. And one that is truly of her, not trying to make her its own.

I wouldn't have even seen them if He had not borrowed my eyes. Even if I had, I wouldn't have had the courage to act, if He had not borrowed my heart. And I never could have borrowed life, or returned life, had my life not first been borrowed.

But it has come to an end. They say I committed crimes. Crimes, they call them -- something they never were, even had they been mine to commit. Tomorrow I am to die, and He will not borrow again. I once wept at the thought, for there is so much still to borrow, and so much more to return. But tonight, He borrowed my heart one last time, and returned it full.

So although I know you must go, I'd like to ask one last favor.

I'd like to borrow something from you.

Randomness

2006-07-03T20:53:00.000-05:00

"So, I got this green napkin from Olive Garden shoved up in my cooter."

"You what?"

"I borrowed it."

Your Topic for the Day

2006-07-03T07:29:00.000-05:00

Ladies and Gents,

The magic 8-ball tells me that all signs point to...

Borrowing

Magic 8-ball also says that I'll get my backlog of posting done eventually. Sorry, guys.

Exorcism

2006-07-02T23:50:00.000-05:00

My stories, they need tellin', they does. If I don't tell them, they have a way of gettin' out on their own. It's not my fault - honest, it ain't... but it's true all the same. So, I tells the stories that needs tellin'. But my time on this here spinnin' rock is growing short, and so I gotta tell a story I ain't never told, in the hopes that I can free myself from this curse and go on to my reward. I done thought long 'n hard about this one, weighing them there pros and them cons, and it's all a wash anyways, so I might as well save my own soul, even if it means one of you folks gets stuck with my curse.

See, it was a story what done me in, way back when. I heard an old woman telling a story much like this one. I was young and full o' piss 'n vinegar, like we all was back then, and here was this old woman natterin' on about curses. I wasn't the type to barely pay her no mind at the time, but there was this feelin' like I should listen anyways, so I did.

Well, she told us about when she was a young'n, listenin' to an old woman telling a story, and how she was tranz-fixered her own self. Then she told of her life, travelling from town to town, telling stories what needed the tellin'. She said she'd go to a town and tell some stories and move on, eating what food they was kind enough to give her, and then move on to the next. Then she'd make a circuit back to the beginning. Sometimes when she'd visit a town she'd been in before, they'd tell her they was too poor to help her out again, and she'd move on by to the next town. Then come the next season, when she'd circuit on through agin, she'd find out about horrible befallin's in them towns.

Well, it wasn't 'til this happened a whole mess o' times over a whole mess o' years that she started gettin' a glimmerin' over what was transpirin'. See, the stories what she was gone tell, was the things what happened to the people! The town what was suppose ta hear the story of Jonathan and the Well had a sickness that came from poisoned well water! The town what was suppose ta hear about the Flame Girl burned to the ground! The town that would of been tole a horrifyin' tale about an ecscaped loony tick - well... there's some'll chalk that up to a bad crop o' rye, but when the people starts murderin' one each other in their very own beds until most everyone's dead, it leaves quite an impression, I tell you what. It was that there inceedent what made her start puttin' two an' two together.

So she realized that she'd done got the old woman's curse. These was the types of things the old woman had talked about all them years gone. She started realizin' that she ain't never wanted to be a storyteller before she'd heard the old woman talking, and after that it seemed the most natchurl thing in the world to want to tell stories. Then it seemed like the stories was simply achin' to be tole. She'd know just what story wanted to be tole each night... and on the nights when she didn't get to tell that story, something frightful would happen. So she wandered on and on, making sure to tell her stories every night, just to keep 'em from gettin' loose and reekin' havoc and whatnot. But she never tole her own story until the night I met her. Then, you know what she did? She up 'n died, she did! Right after tellin' her story. The ole bitch just keeled on over and croaked.

So, now it's your turn. I'm sorry I had to do this to you, but I'm powerful tired of this world 'n my curse. It's your turn now. Go on 'n make sure to tell the stories what wants the tellin', cause they'll find their way to be tole, with or without you... it's just a mite less painful if you does the tellin'.

And now, it's time for me to go.

Last-minute topic

2006-07-02T19:40:00.000-05:00

Since Eric has not posted a topic and the number of hours left in the day is dwindling, I'll go ahead and pick a topic. Today's theme is storytelling.

Simple Propositions

2006-07-01T23:58:00.000-05:00

"You're kidding, right?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I believe we could make a good bit of money on this deal."

She made a face. "Sure, but how many weeks of prep would it take? Not to mention the thing about the police not catching us afterward."

"Oh, surely you're overreacting," he protested. "It's a simple proposition, really."

"No," she replied positively. "A simple proposition would be 'let's go have sex.'"

A slow flush crept up his neck. "Oh, come now. You needn't be vulgar about it."

She sighed. And made a mental note: Yeah, okay. I'll need to be even less subtle next time.

Saturday's Topic

2006-07-01T00:25:00.000-05:00

Howzabout...

A Simple Proposition

Have at it.

Biloxi, MS: 11:47 AM, July 1, 2006

2006-06-30T22:39:00.000-05:00

Stepping out of an air-conditioned environment in Biloxi in July is like being thrown out a space ship's airlock: for a few seconds, you can't breathe at all. Then you die. Okay, so you don't actually die, but you want to. Besides, the Redneck Riviera is a halfway house for the afterlife -- so many decrepit geezers come down here to spend their Social Security checks at the casinos moored in the Gulf that where most restaurants would have coat racks, ours have walker storage. I'm pretty sure that the Grim Reaper gets a volume discount for all the work he does around here.

On that day, the air-conditioned environment I was leaving was my car. I'd navigated around all of the Mercury Marquis and Lincoln Town Cars (starter coffins, where all you can see sticking above the dash is blue hair and knuckles) doing 25 miles an hour on Highway 90 to get to the Olive Garden just outside Gulfport. Olive Gardens everywhere have a frightening sameness, as though they're all extruded from some creepy organic matrix, right down to the perky, blandly cute waitresses and the archly gay hosts.

I walked in the front door, and sure enough, Archly Gay Host #3C251/A was waiting at the podium, asking me how many were in my party. I told him I was meeting somebody and turned for the lounge area.

She was sitting so that she was half-facing the entrance, and I knew that Stacy was consciously showing the best side of her profile. When we were together, it was something that would have quietly irritated me, but now, two years later, it only made me smile wryly.

"You cut your hair," I told her as I sat down across from her. "Dyed it, too."

"I actually cut it almost completely off after we broke up," she said, and I think there was a hint of embarassment to her voice, "because I knew how much you liked my hair." It was true. Stacy had these wonderful blonde curls; I've never been a "gentlemen prefer blondes" type, but her hair was so gorgeous that even the honey-gold color had appealed to me.

It hurt, and it must have been written all over my face that it hurt, because she said, "I didn't ask you to meet me to be mean to you, Jay."

"Okay," I sighed, "why did you call me? It's been nearly two years, and I don't know if I want to open up old wounds." Before she could answer, the waitress came to our table and asked me if I wanted a drink. I ordered a Coke, because my days of drinking at noon were pretty much over after I graduated from Ole Miss. Stacy asked for a refill of her ginger ale, and I told the waitress that we'd need a little more time before deciding on any food orders. She departed, and Stacy fixed her emerald eyes on mine. She always had a captivating stare, and she was using it now to full effect.

"You know about my mother." I nodded; her mother had died during Katrina when her parents' house collapsed. Her father had survived, but spent several months in a back brace while his broken vertebrae healed. "When I saw your parents at Mom's funeral," -- her parents and mine had always been close -- "I thought about you for the first time in a long time, and I wondered if you still hate me."

"Stacy, I never hated you. I wanted to strangle you sometimes, but I never hated you."

"But you hated what I did to you."

"I hated what you did to yourself. That's why I left." Stacy was the quintessential party-girl, which was why we started dating. I was looking for fun and excitement, and I found it. Things had been a laugh a minute, right up to the moment where I found her in the sack with our friendly neighborhood coke dealer. Then things started to add up for me: her constant energy, the way she never seemed to have much disposable income even though she worked two jobs, the nosebleed she'd gotten when we were at Fort Walton Beach. I told her that I would help her get cleaned up, that I'd even pay for rehab if necessary, but she told me that she didn't need it because she was stronger than I was and that she had a handle on what she was doing.

I told her that she had to choose between having me in her life and having coke in her system, and she chose the drug. I walked away and didn't look back.

"You were right, Jay. About a lot of things, but mainly about the fact that I needed to get off the drugs." Tears were starting to well in her eyes, and she looked away as the waitress returned with our drinks. After the server bounced away, Stacy turned back to me and said, "It took an OD to convince me, and even then, the court had to send me into rehab. I've been clean for eight months now. I just wanted to tell you that you were right, and to try to make some amends. I don't know what else I can do except tell you how sorry I am for the way I treated you."

Tears were streaming quietly down her cheeks, and I took her hand across the table. If that wasn't enough, it was a good start.

Making up.

2006-06-30T20:41:00.000-05:00

I'm making up.

All my life I've been making up.

When I was little, I was making up imaginary friends in imaginary places doing imaginary things. When I was in school, I was making up stories about how cool my family or my life was. (Which was perhaps a bit of foreshadowing because my life was pretty okay at the time - though it got much, much worse.)

Then I failed out of college and spent the rest of my life, to date, making up for my shortcommings. Paying bills, mostly debt that was incurred when I couldn't make up for my own expenses. Sometimes making up reasons to justify the purchases that served to keep me sane. (Like a computer, so I could talk to people online.)

Then I was making up plans, making up for lost time, and making up lines on my resume to get a job.

Then I got to school, and was making up exams, more excuses, and somehow slapping together my AA.

Now I'm sailing up the windward side of this monster wave I'm on, trying to surf on the back of it, hoping to ride it out before I ride right off of it.

All for the sake of making up who I am, in the end.

Making Up For My Previous Absence

2006-06-30T01:01:00.000-05:00

Let's start out slow with some calisthenics:

Made-up make-up makeup made.

Pretended to take your exam late at clown college, and passed.

Set setting sitting set sitting set.

Place the hardening plaster models of Rodan's Thinker where they'll be ready to go.

Ready red Red read red read readily, red Redd read.

The well-prepared Communist Mr. Buttons had perused Mao's book enthusiastically, fellow Communist Mr. Foxx could tell by his manner.

Run run-down running runner run down rundown run.

Take old, melting batch of Carl Lewis action figures through the evaluation area.

The or and and and but, or the or or and but but, or the and or but but or, or the but or or but and, but the the.

Two or three conjunctions, but always the definite article.

Sincerely,

The Definite Article

Topical

2006-06-30T00:01:00.000-05:00

Today's topic is Make-up.

Transmutation

2006-06-29T23:29:00.000-05:00

My sophomore year, when I was fifteen, my best (school) friend was Paola. Paola was an exchange student from Mexico, and we were something like the odd couple; she was socially graceful, where I was socially non-existant. She was just shy of five feet tall, and I was just long of six.

On Halloween of that year - 1997, for those keeping track - I took Paola trick-or-treating. I may have been awkward, but that had its advantages - namely, that I didn't care who saw me trick-or-treating at the ripe age of fifteen. (Frankly, I still don't.) She wanted to go so badly - it was something that simply wasn't done in her part of Mexico, down the Baja California peninsula.

So I painted her face and gave her a cat-tail I'd made for a few years before. I took her, and we talked as we were walking. About seven or eight blocks from my house, a relatively affluent couple was giving out snooty chocolate - dark, with a smooth chocolate and walnut mousse on the inside. Paola determined that this was one worth opening right away, and a moment later, it was in her mouth, and then she was making this face.

"Mmm, orgasmo," she said.

I lifted my brows. "...orgasm?" I asked. I was used to Paola slipping off into Spanish, and around me, it usually meant she wanted to know how to say something in English (which I could usually puzzle out well enough).

She shook her head, correcting my awkward assumption. "This chocolate," she said. "It's an orgasm."

I shuffled on my feet, unsure of what to say. I finally settled on, "I wouldn't know." See, I was uncomfortable. Along with all of those other things on which I considered adults primary (and infallible) sources, my understanding at the time was that sex at our age was simply categorically wrong. I knew of examples of girls who'd had sex at our age or younger, and they weren't good girls. Surely Paola - my friend Paola - was?

I asked, after that long pause to think all of that. "You've had sex?"

She hesitated, but did answer. "Yes," she said. "With my boyfriend." Another pause. "I love him." Her hesitation seemed to be more about her picking up on my discomfort than any sense of impropriety or shame.

We walked for another block before I spoke up. "What does it feel like?" I asked. "Orgasm?"

She stopped walking, looking at the ground like the answer was somewhere there. Then she looked at me, and she punched me in the arm - not hard enough for it to hurt, just demonstrating. Then she did it again. And again. Maybe seven or eight times. "I don't know how to explain," she said, "except that if I kept hitting you like that, sometime it would stop feeling bad, and feel very good all suddenly."

We kept walking, but that was the end of that conversation. I didn't understand until much later, on a day in April of 1998, chasing down a replacement for my lost passport the day of my flight home from my own foreign exchange. I was scared out of my mind - stumbling around one of the largest cities in the world, working in a language of which I was not a native speaker, trying to reconcile the fact that I was both technically no longer allowed to be in my exchange country and would also not be allowed to take my flight home if I did not fix things. I succeeded. In the photo that was taken for my new passport, I look elated, glowing.

orgasm |'ôr,gazəm|
noun
a climax of sexual excitement, characterized by feelings of pleasure centered in the genitals and (in men) experienced as an accompaniment to ejaculation.

That's the Oxford American Dictionary definition. Here's mine.

orgasm |'ôr,gazəm|
noun
the often sudden transmutation of sensations or experiences which are generally understood to be negative or unpleasant into something euphoric, epiphanic.

Backstage Pass

2006-06-29T13:16:00.000-05:00

Ever wonder why the big moments in life always seem so much more memorable, so much more real than the others? I bet you can remember what the house smelled like on that Christmas when you got the bike you'd wanted all year. I bet you can remember the first morning you woke up beside your lover, husband, wife, or child down to the very last mote of sunlight dancing on the carpet.

You want to know why? Its my job. The world isn't built to take the kind of stresses those moments put on it. It wasn't meant for so many people having so many moments. So we have to stretch things a little. The reason you don't remember the unimportant stuff, the journey between two moments is because it never happened. There just isn't enough reality to sustain it for six billion souls.

Don't get me wrong, mind you. It isn't as though you would do much with the memory of those unreal times. Trust me, I know from experience...not that the word means quite what I suspect you've been brought up to understand it as. All you have left at the end of the day...at the end of life...is your experiences. Your Moments. Its all we know how to give you.

They are the only thing in all the universe that is real. Don't loose sight of it, okay? Now, I've got a job to do; that young woman sitting at the table over there is about to get a call from her father, who has been in a coma for the past three months.

I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Expenditure

2006-06-29T12:05:00.000-05:00

Hands, grasping at the mattress. Teeth clenched hard, eyelids slack and half-open. Your hair spilling against the pillow, pattern changing with every thrust.

You dig your nails into my shoulder blades, long furrows of red left in their wake. I'm bleeding all over the satin sheets we just bought and I don't care. My sweat runs into the cuts and stings, breaking my focus and helping me hold on just that moment longer while I build you up.

Warm pink flush blooming on your chest. Nipples tight, engorged, bouncing in rhythm with our motion. Legs wrapped around my hips, setting the pace. Your voice, a mantra urging me to fuck you.

I see the flush rising up your neck, to your face, and I hear your breath become erratic. I know you're close, but not how close, and already the feeling of my own orgasm is climbing my spine like molten gold. I hear my own voice from a distance, warning you that I'm about to come.

You clench, pubic muscles like a vise, my vice. And then --

And then --

Fireworks for you and free-fall for me. We dance together in zero-g while the stars burn brighter. So much power released, a god would die basking in its glory. Eyes wide, locked on each other and giggling like two virgins discovering the joy for the first time.

You're never boring.

For the record: this is not about any specific person. It is about you, the reader, if you are a woman. It is about you, the reader as a woman, if you are a man. That is all.

Todays Topic

2006-06-29T08:47:00.000-05:00

Ok folks, I apologize for my apathy of late in regards to posting here. I've been a bit lazy. I intend to do better. In the meantime, the theme of the day is pinnacle, peak, orgasm, climax...

Advertising

2006-06-28T23:42:00.000-05:00

There's a minivan out in the parking lot, advertising the family that belongs to it with little white stick figure decals. Contained within: one mom, curly hair, propensity to wear skirts. One dad, hair unkempt, polo shirts. Two daughters - one in karate, one in the girl scouts. An infant son, old enough for a healthy head of (mom's?) curls, but not yet old enough to be cutting teeth. Dad's name is Jack, mom's is Lydia, karate daughter is Steph, girl scout is Chrissy, curls is Nathan.

Advertised.

Jack works in the bank building off of 17th, downtown; I don't think he actually works at the bank proper, because he rarely wears a tie. Lydia has a part-time thing, cutting hair in the mall. The girls go to school, and she drops Nathan with an old woman I can only guess is his grandmother.

There's something I want from them.

It's dark out, now - the leasing company hasn't bothered to fix the parking lot lights in some time, so the little light that filters my way does so through mini-blinds and sliding glass. There's a piece of steel in my pocket, folded carefully around a razor blade - a scraper. The decals are like braille under my fingers. I slide the blade along the lower edge of the names, stopping as I come to Chrissy. A smooth upward press, and she's mine - this little idol.

Maybe they won't even notice, I think.

I ask myself now and again why exactly I'm so fixated on this family, their sunshine perfection. And the answer is this: they advertised.

There's a mirror in my bathroom, advertising the girl who belongs to me with a little stick figue decal.

Someday.

Lackland and Medina

2006-06-28T15:51:00.000-05:00

Basic military training does not afford much time for introspection. It's only now, in retrospect, that I can see just exactly how many layers of meaning were piled one atop the other during my six weeks at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas.

The first step -- depersonalization -- is overt, and doesn't take a genius to understand: young men from all sorts of disparate backgrounds are brought in, their clothes are taken away, and they're shaved bald. You are no longer an individual; hell, to the Training Instructor, you're not even a person. You're a thin streak of shit and you'll probably quit, run home to your mother, and amount to nothing in life. After that moment of relative clarity, things become much hazier.

The TIs reduce you to the same rhythms by which early humanity lived: rise before dawn, perform demanding labor all day, and fall asleep as the sun sets. It's good training for the ability to fall asleep anywhere at any time.

When you're making your bed to dustcover specifications, you're not making your bed. You're calibrating the guidance system on a Sidewinder missile, or adjusting the tension of a control cable in an F-16's wing. You're not making sure that the secondary blanket, the dustcover, folds under at exactly 12 inches from the head of the bed; you're directing incoming airstrikes on positions less than a kilometer from your own. The really smart thing that the designers of BMT did is to make sure that you can't do any of your tasks alone. In order to make a dustcover bed, you have to have a second person providing tension on the sheets, or holding the end of the mattress. Making a bed becomes an object lesson in attention to detail and teamwork.

Teamwork doesn't work out like it does in the movies, though. The streetwise black kid from Harlem who lives by the book doesn't have a revelation that he and the redneck from the sticks who does things his way are really alike after all, and they tell each other that they can be their respective wingmen. Well, it almost never works that way. One night, I was working dorm guard (doing firewatch activities and monitoring the doors to the barracks) with Vic Fontanez, who actually was a streetwise black kid from Puerto Rico. He and I had developed a fast friendship, which I think got started because he saw a picture of my younger sister and wanted to make sure he got an introduction when my family came down to Texas. At any rate, we were shining our boots because there's nothing else to do at 3:30 AM when you're standing guard duty, and we were talking about our lives, about what we thought getting out of Basic would feel like, when Vic said to me, "You know, we all boys, and that's cool. But you're my nigga, Bragg." I told him I didn't think I'd been anyone's nigga before, and he informed me that it conferred on me the right to call him my nigga, "but you say that word to any other brother without permission and they'll fuck your shit up, man." We laughed and when Basic ended, we parted ways: he went to Security Forces (the MPs) and I went into communications.

I looked Vic up through some old military contacts about 18 months ago, and found out he'd been in a convoy near Halabjah when an IED took out his Humvee. We never said goodbye, because you don't say goodbye in the military. When there's a very good chance that you'll probably end up being stationed together again, you say "see you later." Well, goodbye, Vic. You're still my nigga.

The Concert Hall

2006-06-28T14:55:00.000-05:00

It could basically be assumed that the aggregate genious that went into the design was lost on the observers. Even the best engineers had yet to be able to solve the problem of longitudnal navigation, and had not yet mustered up enough knowledge of natural philosophy to answer the question 'why does sound become more intense when you stand below the center of a dome?'

This dome would simply blow their little minds. It was probably just as well the architect, navigator, mathematician who designed it was dead - he was something of an arrogant little twit and would probably cause them to hemmorage out the ears with his prattle and self-important bragging.

The actors sat in the private balcony that was reserved, by design, for the architect himself. The captain sat in seat 9, his partner, the doctor, sat in seat 10. They had inkwells and reams of blank paper in anticipation of the symphony's second piece for the night. It had been an impossibly long two years gathering first the nine fragments of the first page, and then the other seventeen pages of Hauser's sixth, final, and supposedly unfinished symphony. Their shock when it had been discovered, completed, and nearly entirely stolen by an unscrupulous man who knew far more about it's actual contents than they was nothing compared to their amazement at how well the 'iso-dome' worked during the first piece.

The dome was, in fact, not a true dome, but rather a dome-shaped collection of dishes, each aligned to a particular seat in the balcony levels. Every listener in these seats enjoyed a different concert, all arranged around the same theme. Every one of Hauser's pieces had been designed to be played in the original hall, without the isolative property of the dishes above, the music sounded like a jumble of background noise, but with each designated instrument isolated, the real weight of Hauser's work was revealed.

At last, the lamps were dimmed, candles lit behind and below the musicians so they could see their stands as they played. Their instructions called for them to rise and fall as they played various pieces, but it wasn't until the bodyguard recognized her own birth sign, 'The Archer' that the Captain knew what was going on.

"Where did you see him?" He asked. As she pointed he muttered under his breath, deriding himself for not seeing it sooner. "There, fourth quadrant, eleventh hour. It's a bloody star chart. Master at arms, write EXACTLY as I tell you. We'll have to catch the first bit of it again at tomorrow night's encore. Damn."

"There's a code in the music too," The Doctor noted with his usual, detached tone. "It's pretty complex. What instruments am I hearing?"

"Third viola, first flute, and... I think all four of the kettles," The stowaway was straining to make out and time the notes to the sundry instruments below.

"Good enough, Captain, I'll need to see the score when we're done here."

"In due time, Doctor - I'm a bit busy at the moment. The Lady, I think. She's inverted? No wait... that's the fox. The Fox, second quadrant, straddling the third/fourth hours." There was an excitement growing in the Captain's voice now, one that none had heard in the year since The Priestess departed for her monastery.

-----------

"Okay, so it's a star chart. Big deal, there's plenty of those around." The Stowaway was pacing back and forth, obviously yearning to be picking pockets at the dockside or causing some other manner of mischeif.

"But Hauser's Method," the Doctor pointed out, perhaps trying to not come off as haughtily as he tended to when addressing the youth, "can turn this into a precise position, if we only knew when we'd need to be looking." He tapped the thick text on navigation principles, Hauser's final work before going into music.

"We have a time," the Fop stated with his usual smirk. He snuffed out the cigarette (how he could afford those things with no reliable source of income always flustered the captain a little) and pointed to the margin of the musical score's first page. "Right here, where monsieur Hauser suggested the best night of the year, and best time of that night to hear his music? Who better to listen to than the man who wrote the thing in the first place, non?"

"I'm finding myself compelled to agree with him," the captain muttered. "Damn it."

"If I'm right, mon capitan, I expect it will be well worth it. Whatever Le Duke is willing to kill to keep to himself, has got to be worth something to such a resourceful fellow as yourself!"

"How about it Doctor, think you can find this night sky at... five in the morning?"

"Five in the morning, eh?" The Doctor mused, flipping open the book and paging a little. "It's northwest... WELL northwest. And we've got three months to get there."

"Quartermaster!" The Captain called, waiting until the fellow was poking his head in the door, with an 'aye sir?' "Provision the ship for a year, extra powder and shot for the guns, and plenty of parts and supplies for repairs. We sail in two days time, with the tide."

"Good as done, skipper."

"Doctor I want this thing plotted on a real map by mid-day. Hauser went to a lot of trouble to keep this a puzzle. That bastard has had me running from one end of the world to the other to sort all this out, I don't care to have it remain a puzzle any longer. I just hope all this music and building and getting shot at was worth it."

What's Your Sign?

2006-06-28T13:52:00.000-05:00

There are some things in our lives that we can't confront in any sort of direct way. For these, it's useful to use a metaphor - some sort of symbolic relationship between the indirect and the real. It's not just for stories, either. Computer scientists use symbols - ones and zeros - which become code, objects which have methods that represent things and actions in the real world. Religiosos wear crosses and stars of David and khanda to show their faith. I wear a wedding ring. You write your name with funny sticks and circles, and somewhere in all of that, it means you. Let's talk about symbols, baby.

The Dangerous Lives of Caffeine Dreams

2006-06-27T23:59:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how to make these things official, so you'll just have to take it on faith that I'm doing my best with what I can remember from movies.

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT of M. PETER BENJAMIN GRAY

It should be noted that I wish to be buried in my family's plot at my mother's house at 5117 Highway 37 North near Springfield, Massachusetts. The condo should go to my neice, Jenny Ann Fuller; my car, a 2000 Toyota Corolla, should go to her mother, Barbara Leigh Fuller. The remainder of my assets...

...except I don't have anyone, not anyone real, to give the rest of it to. And to tell you the truth, I don't really have anyone. I haven't spoken with Jen or Barb in years.

...assets, amounting to approximately $123,000 in various stocks, bonds and funds, should be donated to the Red Cross...

...seeing as I never paid enough attention, and now I'm writing my goddamn will and I can't think of a single charity other than the Red Cross. I can see my headstone now:

PETER GRAY
1971-2006
HE WAS AN UNTHOUGHTFUL MAN

I need more coffee; my eyes are starting to slip shut.

I'm back. Now to the testament part, though I think I started it.

I haven't slept in a week. I saw a something outside my window last Thursday, and I haven't wanted to, since. See, this building is in a good neighborhood. The street lamps all work, the police come around often enough. You never hear about ladies having to use those cans of mace they carry in their purses, or men having to give up their wallets to some punks.

But last Thursday, I looked down out of my window, and there were children dancing. And they didn't look like children much, at all - they were painted and caked with filth and - I can't describe, I don't want to imagine what it was, because it could have been anything, blood or -

They were dancing there in the dark around a barrel fire. I know I was awake, I'd had too much coffee, I was wired, not tired. And there they were, and there was a shout that shook my window, and one of them stopped. The one that stopped - he, she, it - held something up in one hand, something pale and red and it moved like thick cloth as he waved it around. They cheered, and then they started breaking windows, and I ran back from the window because I didn't have to be near it to hear the screaming.

I can still hear it, and I haven't fallen asleep because sometimes there's a lull just long enough that it makes me think it's over, but then I hear it again. I've heard the cheap thudding of feet up the stairs, like a herd of animals moving for me. I'll stay awake, because I know they're coming for me.

...save the timeshare off of St. Martin for when Jenny gets married; she can have it for her honeymoon.

One more night; another cup.

Migraine caffeine

2006-06-27T23:42:00.000-05:00

a migraine headache
pound and throb: downright sucky
give me Excedrin

The coffee dance

2006-06-27T18:23:00.000-05:00

I wasn't a coffee drinker until I saw her.

I was more of a coffee dabbler. I loved coffee ice cream, and coffee soda, and I have a collection of those flavored international coffees for celebrating the moments of our lives (Jean-Luc!), and I would occasionally go to the Starbucks at Barnes and Noble and get a raspberry frappucino with lots of whipped cream.

The day that I walked into Caribou Coffee, I had intended to get something cloyingly sweet and creamy. I stood in line, studied the menu above the counter, chose the desserty concoction that most suited my mood, and dropped my eyes downward... and saw her. I was entranced.

She was not especially pretty in body or face. She was really very nondescript and plain looking. She wore the same uniform polo and apron over plain black slacks that the other baristas wore. The only thing about her that was different was her grace. Her hands would move from one task to the next in one smooth movement made of perfect arcs. She had this economy of movement, and yet every motion seemed to be suited to art instead of function. It was spiritual to watch her.

I was so caught up in her dance that I was taken by surprise when it was my turn to order. I was suddenly ashamed of my choice of the dessert coffee that I had originally chosen. I needed my first order to say something about my character, and I wanted to make a strong impression. I stammered an order for a double espresso with none of my usual embellishments, and was relieved when she resumed her performance so she couldn't see the color rising to my face. I was again dumbstruck, until suddenly she was at rest before me again, and I realized that I had again missed my cue. I was supposed to hand her money. I was mortified that I had caused her to pause her dance not once, but twice! I handed her some bill or another and mumbled at her to keep the change, and I retreated, my face boiling hot. I found the table farthest from the register, and resumed watching her. She went on as if I had not just ruined her performance, the consummate professional, like Shakespeare's actors reciting brilliant verse while the audience farts and belches.

I woke to find that I had been watching her for a full hour. My double espresso had become cold, bitter sludge. I knocked it back like a dose of NyQuil, and it was the most glorious tasting thing I had ever consumed. From her hands, this ambrosia... I almost cried as I drank it.

The months passed as I honed my daily visits to a ritual of worship. I learned what the peak times were, so that I could be there when it was busiest. Busy times allowed me to observe her controlled frenzy for longer, as I waited in line. I managed to never again flub my cues, though my execution of the dance would of course forever be overshadowed by her performance, as was only right.

But oh, I fell into the classic pitfall. I forgot that I am merely mortal, and began to covet the coffee goddess. If only I had been content to worship her in our silent dance!

"I was wondering if you might like to join me for a cup of coffee some time," I asked.

"Oh, no thanks..." she replied. "I never touch the stuff."

Blog Noir II: Crossing Washington

2006-06-27T17:54:00.000-05:00

After Mrs. Schmidt left my office, I decided it might be a good idea to get my head clear. A steady diet of Wild Turkey and Lucky Strikes may keep me relaxed, but it does leave the thought processes a little bit muddled. I figured that if Wally Dinkman's coffee couldn't cut through the cobwebs, I was pretty much done for anyway, so I locked up my office, walked down the back stairs, and cut across the alley towards Washington Street.

Maybe it was dumb of me to go wandering through dark alleys in the middle of the night, or maybe I just have really terrible luck, because I watched two shadows detach themselves from a wall and start moving towards me. Hulking, menacing shadows. I was so busy watching those guys, I didn't even see the guy who kidney-punched me.

A good kidney punch will send even the toughest bruiser to his knees and have him pissing blood like a fountain. This was an excellent punch. I was kissing pavement before you could say "internal bleeding", and that's when the real fun started. These guys were good at what they did, and what they did was kick the shit out of me. Mostly they landed them on my back and legs, but one stomp caught my right hand and made me realize I wouldn't be signing any paperwork for a couple days. And just like that, it was over. One of the goons leaned down and whispered in my ear, "Tommy Fishbone sends his love. Pay up, gumshoe." On his breath I smelled the sweet tang of cloves, and I made a note of it. The sound of footsteps echoed away and I was all alone in a puddle of blood, spit, and whatever pleasant fluids had been making the alley their home before I crashed the party.

I hauled myself up out of the filth of the pavement and wiped my face on the inside of my suit jacket. As I crossed Washington, I nearly lost my balance and slid across the hood of a Hudson Commodore. Two guys in suits gave me a hard look for bleeding on their car, and I staggered into Wally's All-Nite Diner.

"Looks like you seen better days, Les," Wally greeted me as the bell jangled on the door.

"Yeah," I said, "but you've seen me worse." Wally was like that: always willing to help a guy down on his luck, and more than once when work had been scarce, I found myself sweeping up the place with Wally at 4:00 AM. He never called it a handout or charity; he always said things like, "You done such a great thing by helpin' me out, here. Lemme make ya a sandwich or somethin'." I did what I could to steer custom his way, and I always made sure to eat here when I had money, too.

"Ain't that the truth." Wally laughed his rumbling belly laugh, the wheeze of a chronic smoker gurgling underneath it. Good thing I'm not a chronic smoker, I thought as I fished out a Lucky and lit it. "I need a cup of your special stuff, Wally." I bellied up to the counter and let my legs drop from under me, coming to rest on a swivel stool.

Wally had apparently done his service in the Navy, and got out as a CPO. The deckswabbers always had the finest coffee out there, and Wally's special blend was just like he used to brew it aboard ship -- extra strong, a handful of kosher salt in the grounds. It kind of made me wish I hadn't gone Army, but only kind of.

The cup landed in my grateful hands and I sucked it down, letting it scald the hell out of my tongue and throat. "Another, please." He filled the cup and I decided to take my time with this one, to let the caffeine from the first cup get to work on fighting the rotgut in my veins.

Three more cups and a cheeseburger later ("Lookatcha, Les, yer wasting away here. You gotta eat somethin'."), I dropped two dollars on the counter. Wally looked down at the bills, back up at me, and said, "Bill's only 70 cents, Les, you know that."

"Yeah, Wally, but I also know that I'm not the only one who's swept these floors. Let's say it's my way of making sure you can keep letting folks do that." Wally shot me a gap-toothed grin and dropped the cash in the till. I was feeling almost human again, so I made my goodbyes, promised to stop in again when I wasn't bruised and tattered, and stepped out onto Washington to catch a streetcar home.

As I turned right to head south, I noticed that the guys in the Commodore were still sitting there. As I put some distance between us, they started the engine and I saw them hit the headlights. Damn, I thought, some days just can't get any better, can they?

The car slid up along side me and the passenger window rolled down. I knew where this game was going, and I decided to stop. I looked in the window and straight down the barrels of two six guns, like it was 1847 instead of 1947 and we were still in the Old West. "Get in."

I sighed. Two guys with the drop on me and a busted-up shooting hand told me trying to shoot my way out was out of the question, and the burning throb of bruises on the backs of my thighs told me that making this pair chase me down would only ensure that they brought another beating with them. "Looks like I'm out of options," I said, and got in the back seat. We drove off into the foggy night.

Topic-y Goodness

2006-06-27T07:47:00.000-05:00

Today's topic is:

Coffee or at least Caffeine

Sunday Shoes

2006-06-26T23:56:00.000-05:00

I never thought of trees as wood. Wood was this base stuff, lumber,
so many rotten planks with rusty nails stuck deep in knots,
smacking into baseballs in the heat.

Trees were alive, and not in that biological way -
with souls, or maybe gods.

That's why I climbed up, that heavy Sunday afternoon,
white church shoes still strapped to my feet -
soles slippery, like souls, and belonging there in the heat
so much more than within clean walls of colored glass.

Slipped,
fell,
took communion with handfuls of leaves in my hands.

Crowning

2006-06-26T22:36:00.000-05:00

Maggie was munching on an apple and letting the air stream through her hair. She reached her arm out to trace the outlines of a cloud.

Then a new scent touched her nostrils. She frowned, sniffed. Then she rose to a crouch and peered through the leaves.

There was smoke in the distance. A huge, roiling cloud of it.

She tossed the half-eaten apple aside and began climbing back down as quickly as she could. Before she was on the ground, she caught another whiff of the smoke. It was spreading fast, too fast.

There was a stream a quarter-mile away, and she set off at a run. By the time she got there, the fire was audible, a distant freight train approaching fast. She glanced back over her shoulder, and stumbled to a halt, her face going pale.

It was visible now. The fire had crowned, climbing the trees so it, too, could feel the wind and reach the sky.

Five to Fifteen Miles per Hour

2006-06-26T20:57:00.000-05:00

I grew up on Oahu. Every day, our forecast was the same: The high tomorrow's going to be 83 degrees, the low 75. Tomorrow afternoon there's a 20% chance of mauka showers; winds will be out of the northwest at five to fifteen miles per hour. We lived on Hickam Air Force Base, at 7101B Laniuma Loop, and even I -- cynic though I may be -- look back on the years I spent there with a warm haze of nostalgia.

In the early 1980s, you let your kids go outside and play until the street lights came on. Hell, in the summertime it wasn't uncommon for me to call my parents at 10:30 or 11:00 PM to tell them that I'd be sleeping over at Palani Estaniqui's or Jonathan Segura's house. You didn't have to worry about kids being snatched and tossed in the back of some psycho's rape van. Maybe on a military base like Hickam, you still don't have to worry about it today. I hope that's true.

We had a banyan tree in our backyard. It was easily 45+ feet tall, and had vines traveling all over the place. It had to come down when the vines grew into the sewer pipes coming out of our house and made raw sewage spew crazily from our downstairs bathroom, but it was some sort of national landmark or something because apparently King Kamehameha had pissed on it. It took base Civil Engineering hours to get the okay to cut the damn thing down, and when they did some guy from the Environmental Protection Agency was there, and they brought in a Kahuna (it's not just a word surfers use; it actually means "priest") and had these rituals and for an eight-year-old, this was just the coolest experience ever (never mind the stench coming from the house).

I can't remember having the palm tree in our back yard before they cut the banyan down. I know intellectually that it must have been there, but its existence was so overshadowed by the giant, gloomy, hulking vastness of the banyan that it might as well have never existed until that day. After the death of the Banyan of Doom, my friend Palani and I discovered the palm tree, and we would climb up there every so often to steal a couple coconuts, and have Palani's dad hack them open with his machete, then he'd drill two holes so we could drink the sweet coconut milk and let it run down our chins and necks.

The world has never seemed so full of promise and wonder as it did when I was gripping the rough trunk of that palm tree with my bare feet. I was higher than Everest there, ten feet off the ground, and my best friend was hanging there with me.

Scared of trees

2006-06-26T16:35:00.001-05:00

Ok, so I am not really scared of trees... but I'm not a tree-climber. My psyche thinks that I am scared of falling from a height, and I am, but that's not the whole story.

The truth is that the one time that I climbed a tree, I was stuck there for 3 hours. I was about 7 or 8, and I got up into the tree about 8 feet off the ground. Then I noticed this disgusting bug. Now, I don't know if the bug looked like this, or if over the years my mind has made the image additionally gruesome, but this bug was fucking scary. It was huge and gelatinous looking, and you could see through parts of it. Oh god - just thinking about it makes me ill.

So I noticed this thing adhered to the tree. Dear lord, I had climbed right past it! My hands had been inches away from it. I looked for a way to get down without going near it and couldn't find a way. I looked for a way to jump out of the tree, but that scared me, too. I was stuck.

I called until I was hoarse, and finally my mom's friend Virginia came and got me. I cried and shook and had a revisitation of the recurring jelly bug nightmare that plagued my childhood.

So, that's just a glimpse into why trees and I aren't on the best of terms.

And today's topic...

2006-06-26T07:38:00.000-05:00

I suck at witty banter, so without further ado, today's topic is tree-climbing.

Some More Exposition

2006-06-25T22:52:00.000-05:00

The dreamscape is full of those who would control you and those who try to stop them. Sure, there are others who are just out for a good time, but they truly are in the minority. It's really surprising, when you get right down to it, just how many dream-masters (as these people call themselves) end up picking one of the two sides: The Guild or The Council.

The sides have existed since before anybody can remember. When men and women first started to have their first dreams, the first dream-masters emerged. It wasn't mere moments afterward that one of them discovered that he could control the sleepers, and another stepped in to try and stop him. The battle has continued to this day.

The Guild is not vying for world domination, that would be too cliche. To be honest, nobody knows what they want. The Guild does what The Guild does. The secret guild masters are always vying for power within, and the operatives are always sowing confusion without. The Guild is always one step ahead on figuring out new ways to abuse the powers given to them.

The Council has one purpose: prevent The Guild from causing any real trouble. It's a full-time job. In fact, the Council has arranged for many of its operatives to be employed to do just that. They sleep and dream for a living. It is, however, a very taxing job. The only thing that keep most Council members going is that they know that they are the last line of defense for the rest of us. They believe their power is a gift, and that it is their responsibility to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

What keeps me going: a list

2006-06-25T22:16:00.000-05:00

In no particular order:

Hugs
Cat kisses
Water
Carbohydrates
Gasoline
Radiator fluid (this one is important)
A challenge well met
Inertia
Chocolate and caramel
Autumn
Night sky
Humor
Music
Sense of accomplishment
Watching others grow
A good story
Intimacy
Carnation Instant Breakfast
A steady paycheck
Love
Whimsy
Cuteness
Long walks at night
Aesthetics
Inspired lunacy
Toys
Sheer bloodymindedness

what keeps me going

2006-06-25T18:08:00.000-05:00

diet cherry coke
from one, pushing to the next
three hours of sleep

Capture

2006-06-25T18:02:00.000-05:00

Nietzche theorized that all living beings (but in particular those which are self-aware) proceed naturally towards the accumulation of power to the ends of forcing their desired outcome/environment upon all other living beings. He described this as the principle upon which moral theories are designed, and in particular used it to justify his own, subjective moral code. Boil it all down, however, and it's still just a contest to see who has the bigger gun.

Which would not be me. The thought barely penetrated through the pain lancing up from his arm. The shoulder was dislocated at best, the rotator cuff torn at worst. It had not been his best bailout ever, but under hurricane conditions, with zero cover, and nothing but barren, windswept rock to land on, he figured he should be pretty grateful to the engineers at General Motors. His Marauder was a hopeless wreck, the expensively upgraded electronics had sweetly informed him of exactly how fucked his ride was just prior to the explosive bolts becomming the last thing he heard before his whole world became wind, hail, rain, and rock.

The memories, up until thirty seconds before his graceless impact with the ground, had filtered back to him as he drifted upwards, back to consciousness. He hadn't landed in the water, which was probably a good thing what with the hurricane on. He also handn't landed in the secondary blast radius of his own 'mech, which was also a plus. All in all, he gave his emergency egress a B-. He'd make a note of that in his logs if he managed to survive.

The air was warm, at least. And the battlefield was surprisingly high-visibility to the naked eye. He could see the downed wreckage of his Maurader, well enough to guess that it was the Jade Falcon Gladiator that downed him that was inspecting what was left. With any luck they'd expect he failed to eject, presumeably having disabled his autoeject prior to a battle in such brutally dangerous meterological conditions. Autoejects had a habit of being far more cautious than most battlemech pilots - punching them out under 'serious' conditions where most pilots would prefer not to eject unless under 'holy-shit-we're-all-going-to-die' conditions. Most pilots turned them off if they thought they might make a situation worse - for example by ejecting you into a hurricane when it wasn't absolutely necessary. The downside, of course, was that ammunition explosions, unleashed reactor plasma, and incomming fire all moved faster than a pilot's hand could get to the manual eject lever. (Really the thing was purely a cosmetic feature on today's battlefields anyway.) He'd always made it a unit policy that pilots kept their autoejects active. That policy had just saved his life, and even if it cost a few extra thousand in repairs and inconviences, the preservation of those under his command and employ was far more important. The meat was always worth more than the metal.

Which was precisely why the Falcons wanted his meat. Apparently the notion that a pilot remaining in that downed 'mech wouldn't leave behind enough to fill a coffee can, let alone a coffin, didn't faze them very much.

Which left out the 'wait for the storm to blow over and S&R to find me' plan. The sharp pop, flood of agony that made his vision swim, and the sudden need to vomit from the pain all told of good things - the shoulder was just dislocated and would now be okay... once he could figure out which way was up again. That was another few seconds of investigation. Turning off his pilot's recovery beacon took another few seconds. By the time he was crawling his way from the downed command seat, dragging the emergency field kit with him, the clanners had surmised he'd punched out okay.

On the other hand, they should've known better than to stand still on a battlefield. Even over the storm's constant winds, he could hear the ripple-stutter of rockets peppering the area. The Gladiator would be a huge target, and now had what would most likely be third fire lance to worry over. Which just left those little bastards in the power armor - where little included people thrice his own size, and four times his size in those suits.

Still, it was a little better than facing off against one of the largest 'mechs the clans ever put out.
He wasn't going to loiter like a polite little clanner, wating to be scooped up and 'bonded' or whatever verb they liked to use. His unit was beaten, routing by now in all likelyhood, and his command might never recover - but sometimes it wasn't about the guy with the bigger gun getting his way. Sometimes the little guy could get his way too.

Sometimes it wasn't about what you force upon others, but what you didn't let them force upon you.

Casanova Complex

2006-06-25T11:23:00.000-05:00

I've got it down to a science now, having done this so many times. Floorboards and stairs are more likely to creak in the middle, so you stick close to the edge and rock forward to test your next step before you give it all your weight. You only shop for cars with manual transmissions because you can't silent-start an automatic.

Streetlights are making small puddles of yellow rationality on the edges of the street as I cruise down Sepulveda, headed for the freeway. The movers have already packed up my apartment, and all my stuff is en route to Seattle. It's been a while since I've done the West Coast tour, so I'm looking forward to the drive up the Pacific Coast Highway.

At 3:00 A.M., the freeway is considerably easier to travel than it is during the day, so leaving Los Angeles is a fairly simple maneuver. Sure enough, just as I pass out of the city into Glendale on the 5, my conscience starts to beat the shit out of me, and I start crying. Strangely enough, I even enjoy this part of the experience.

While my conscience works me over, I think about Sarah and her daughter. Sarah's beautiful and I knew as soon as she spilled her coffee all over me at Starbucks that she would be my next love. I do love them, you know. Every single one. I still love Rachael, the first woman to whom I did this. Don't think that I'm a monster.

Sarah and I dated for three months, one week, and three days before she said "I love you". There were times that I thought it might never come. Being a single mother, she was extremely guarded both for her own heart and her daughter Grace's. When she told me she loved me, I smiled, allowed some tears to shine in my eyes, and told her, "I've been hoping for this; I love you too." After that night, I was with Sarah for another three months, one week, and three days until this night. I don't know why it has to balance around that point for me, but the words "I love you" are the fulcrum for these moments.

The secret to seduction is that you have to mix some truth in with some lies, so that the whole thing sounds plausible. For example, I told Sarah that I had grown up in a wealthy family, and that I had been estranged from my parents, but that, being their only child, I still received their money when they died in a car accident. That was true. I also told her that I felt guilt about being their beneficiary when I had not talked to them in five years. That was a lie. But it fit so perfectly with the rest that she believed. It's important for them to believe.

At 2:00 this morning, I woke up. I don't need an alarm clock to awaken exactly when I want, which definitely makes this easier. I left behind most of the clothes I had in Sarah's house, grabbed my watch, wallet, and keys (keys are difficult -- you have to wrap your hand around all the keys at once to keep them from jingling), and slipped down to my car. All I left in way of explanation is the same note I leave on every pillow when I do this. It says only, "I hope you don't hate me."

That's my last lie to them all, because part of me needs their hate from this betrayal. I don't take any money, I would never physically hurt them, but I only seem to be able to be happy with my life when I'm crushing some woman's hopes and dreams. Knowing that I have a plan, that I'm in control on this, is the only thing that gets me through my life.

I just drove past Santa Clarita. The next big stop is Bakersfield, so I'll need to think about filling up and eating there. After that, it's 900 miles to Seattle, and I hear the girls there are heartbreaking. We'll see whose heart gets broken.

Ray of Light.

2006-06-25T09:06:00.000-05:00

Stranglingly commonplace poverty.
War du jour.
99.9% of the population is stupid to the point of darwinism, and is dragging the rest of you down with it.

The list could go on.

What keeps you going?

Flying Under Which Flag

2006-06-24T23:59:00.000-05:00

Sandra was the most lovely thing that ever existed. She'd just turned seventeen when we met, and my eighteenth was coming up. She was fresh in that way girls have at that age, where they look like they roll out of bed with their hair washed and combed for them by something magic in their satin pillowcase. She always had a satin pillowcase in my head, even after I saw her bedroom and it was just cotton, just some awful floral thing. Teenage girls don't buy their own sheets, and I knew that on some level, but even the tiny flowers on her sheets seemed to belong to her, and they weren't that awful because of that.

We went on our first date in the winter, and I found out that she was the indecisive sort that kisses on the first date but so very chastely that you wonder if you've been kissed at all. She liked watching her breath make clouds when she thought I wasn't looking, and when she found out I was looking, I had to get careful and just listen for the little extra puffs of air. We got to the point where she couldn't catch me smiling because I knew how long it took her to look, to check if I'd caught her.

You get the point. She was adorable, and I adored her. I spent all of my money (from mowing lawns in the summers, raking in the fall, scooping sidewalks and driveways on dark winter mornings) taking her out and showing her a good time and watching her having it, and if my record collection suffered for it, I never really missed it, or not that I noticed.

I was in love. I think your life starts the first time you're in love, and I've measured everything from her.

I was. Was.

The story of my life.

The problem with being in love is that there are always going to be other men. There's always someone cooler than you, and if I'm smiling it's because it's bitter medicine and it makes it slide down my throat a little easier. I'd been with Sandra for a year (plus or minus a few days - I used to count, but call forgetting the "spoonful of sugar") - and along comes another guy. Two inches taller, rougher around the edges, a smoker. He broke all of the rules, because my flag was flying on her clear from ten miles off, and any man with a sense of decency would respect that. Like that, she was gone.

Sandra, Beth, Rose, Kirsten, Hannah, Jamie, Delia, Gentry, Sara - my ships, sunk in very, very cold water, me still standing on the deck. I'm not a good man. I've tried it myself. I can't fly under a pirate flag, though. I can't buy her a drink when I know she belongs to someone else. Someone's got to be the good guy, after all.

Even if it is lonely.

(Erica sez: I totally cheated - but seriously, I've hardly been at the computer for two days. Here's this one... next one, coming right up.)

Some Exposition

2006-06-24T22:36:00.000-05:00

[Author's Note: I thought it was time to expose my secret setting. So this post and the next will be comprised of exposition.]

Lucid dreaming is when a man realizes he is dreaming, and is thus able to control his dream. Imagine a world in which men and women cannot only control their own dreams, but reach out and affect the dreams of others. Imagine a realm created by the dreams of millions of sleeping people that a few men and women can step into and control.

This is that world. Hundreds of people can and do venture out beyond the safe waters of their own minds and into the high seas of the dreamscape. Each of these dream-masters has the power to enter the minds of the sleepers of the world. The power stretches beyond just their dreams. A dream-master can step out of a sleeper's dreams and into his mind. She can access his memories, and with sufficient skill, control his body.

Naturally, there are those who try to use this power for good, and those who don't. There are those who believe that the powers make others their responsibility, and there are those who believe that the powers make others theirs. They have warred for as long as men have dreamed for control of the minds of the masses. Most people never even know that they themselves are the battleground for some of the most gruesome crusades in history.

Countersuit

2006-06-24T19:26:00.000-05:00

New York, NY (Reuters) — In a press conference at St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Archangel Gabriel announced yesterday that the Lord God has filed suit against Hezekiah Wellington I for injunctive relief and unspecified damages.

"This move was primarily made in an effort to block Wellington I's lawsuit against Wellington III and DuLac," Gabriel said in a prepared statement.

Wellington I caused great public outcry two weeks ago when he sued his grandson, Hezekiah Wellington III, for genetic copyright infringement.

"It's a damn dishonor to our family name and to the Holy Catholic Church," Wellington I announced after filing his suit, in reference to his grandson and his girlfriend, Tiffany DuLac, giving birth out of wedlock. "I can't sue them for that, but I can sue them for copying my genetic code without my express permission."

Wellington I maintains that he owns sole copyright over his own genes. "My father, William Preston Wellington IV, last of my family line except for myself, passed away five years ago," he stated when originally filing his lawsuit. "At the time of his death, my family's genetic copyright has reverted in full to me."

In numerous statements before the media since his original filing, Wellington I has referred to his grandson's unwed childbirth as "genetic piracy".

In yesterday's announcement, Gabriel stated that Wellington I's legal theory is not only invalid, but damaging to God's reputation.

"In Genesis 1:28, God said unto Adam and Eve, 'Be fruitful and multiply,'" Gabriel said. "That decree has carried on through the ages. Under current copyright law, all procreation must therefore be considered a 'work for hire', meaning that God owns the copyright on all human genetic material. To claim otherwise is blasphemy against our Lord, hence the decision to seek punitive damages."

Wellington I could not be reached for comment.

Unsafe Water

2006-06-24T14:55:00.000-05:00

We were three days outside of Hong Kong when the pirates hit. We'd been kind of expecting it, since we ship raw MP3s (they don't spoil as quickly as AACs, and they're normally pretty docile if you keep them well-fed), so we took precautions: we added an extra four days to our journey by staying outside the normal shipping lanes, we made sure that everyone knew that our MP3s were primarily species slowmusica folkrockus, which don't fetch much on the secret MP3 black market. Hell, we even hired a decoy ship full of hiphoppeli eminemi to precede us by a few days so that the pirates would have something to steal.

None of this worked, though. We saw sails on the horizon and tried to kedge-haul a few extra knots out of the wind, but our deep draft was no match for their shallow little clippers. Before we knew it, we had grapnels on the taffrails, and skinny, acne-ridden pirates leaping somewhat gawkily onto the deck. My crew had all dealt with these pirates before, so we held pistols and cutlasses at the ready, waiting to see if we'd get through this with nothing more than an empty hold or if they decided to slit throats.

A creaking sound and a sudden list to the ship told me their captain had come aboard. I turned to face him, and realized that he was new. Pushing 400 pounds like their previous captain, this one had a neckbeard that spoke of real authority.

"Be you the master of this vessel?" He looked me in the eye and waddled imposingly towards me.

"I am."

"Ha! I totally pwn3d j00, n00b!" I'm not sure how I heard the numbers in his voice, but I did. While he gloated and attempted to dance, my hand started to slip to the hilt of my blade, but the click of a flintlock next to my head made me stay my hand. I knew that more trouble was coming, but I had no idea how bad it would be.

The pirate captain, wheezing and red-faced from his failed try at capering, stepped closer to me and I could smell Doritos and sweat. "Tell me, lad, are you familiar with the term...'prison gay'?"

--------------------------------

Three hours later they sailed on, but I knew I would never view MP3 piracy the same way.

Remember, kids: stealing music hurts honest sailors trying to ship MP3s!
Don't steal music! Unless it's really good or you don't have the money or you just don't want to pay for it.

The Captain marauds

2006-06-24T14:36:00.000-05:00

A crimson wave rolls in.
The townfolk freeze in place,
instincts bred of generations of suffering.
Womenfolk steel themselves in resignation.
Menfolk slump their shoulders and shrink.
Young girls gaze longingly at the horizon,
waiting to sight the first sail;
they know not the horrors that await.
The anchors are dropped.
Captain Bloodsnatch has arrived.

A topic, lads! A topic!

2006-06-24T01:27:00.000-05:00

Okay, lads and lasses. Here's your topic, ye scurvy dogs: Piracy.

Dearthmaking

2006-06-23T23:59:00.000-05:00

I take things.

I don't just mean that I compulsively steal things, like kleptomaniacs... or that I take things I need, like, um... Jean Valjean or whatever... I mean, I take things in order to make them be not there for you.

Ok, so it's slightly sociopathic. There are much worse things I could be doing. I could be selling drugs to kids, or killing homeless people, or driving drunk... but instead, I make your life inconvenient. Heh. I get a little thrill right now just thinking about it.

So, next time you're at the supermarket shopping for Totino's frozen party pizzas, if every variety exists except for the canadian bacon ones that you want, you know who to blame. Next time you go to the cabinet to get a bar of soap for your shower only to find nothing but the empty wrapper for the 8-pack of family-sized Ivory bars, curse my name as you lather your body up with shampoo instead. And the next time you're running late because you can't find your car keys, make sure to check your fuel gauge when you finally break down and use your spare set, because I may just have siphoned out all but enough gas to get you out to the highway.

Hmmm. I think tomorrow morning I'll go head to the library and check out all the copies of that expensive text book you were hoping to find. G'night!

Guilty Pleasures (A Fairly Comprehensive List)

2006-06-23T23:57:00.000-05:00

I'm not feeling very hip and author-y right now, so I will simply regale you with a list of the pleasures I indulge in somewhat guiltily:

The Hardee's Monster Burger. Dear gods, did ~75,000 calories ever taste this good? There's something about biting into one of these things that hits that little spot in the hindbrain that never evolved from a stalking predator and tickles it until it sprays mayonnaise all over the back of your throat. I may have taken that a little too far, but it's true. Also, 4 out of 5 doctors recommend this burger to patients with atherosclerosis!
Pornography. I'll gleefully admit that I download pornosmut from the Intertron, but I sometimes feel ashamed to admit that at one time I had 37 GB of lovingly indexed non-professional pornography straight from alt.binaries.nospam.amateur.female and alt.binaries.fetish.mexican.amputees.on.motorcycles.eating.ice.cream.yum.yum.yum.
Farting. This is more than a little embarassing, but there is a solemn pride to be had in the ability to change the pressure in your office and make your co-workers flee for the door, faces twisted in agony and bile rising in their throats. Use your power wisely, Superman.
Q-Tipping. I'm only ashamed about this because I love it so. fucking. much. Some people will be reading this and nodding their heads, saying, "Damn right! That's a hell of a good feeling when you have clean ear canals!" The rest of you (okay, probably everybody on this planet but me) are saying, "You total retard."
(Very) Mild Voyeurism. My upstairs neighbor occasionally takes matters into her own hands during the day. If I happen to be working from home and she does so, I'll go sit in the bedroom and listen. I don't have to be "firing off some knuckle children" at the same time; it's enough to know that I'm doing something taboo.
Sleeping scandalously late. Lately my time has been consumed with new relationships, but I still have this drive inside me to take my Saturday and just blow it off the map with sleep. It's like I've taken some Hibernol, and I just want to wake up on Sunday. There have even been some days where I stayed in bed entirely, moving only to pay for the pizza I ordered and to eliminate such pizza as I have eaten. I am the laziest sumbitch you'll ever meet.
Unmentionable behavior. The people who know about the behavior I'm not mentioning will know what I mean here. One person, who knows about this behavior but has not behaved in this way yet, should certainly look forward to it.

These are my guilty pleasures. There are others, but I can't think of them right now. If this list doesn't scare my wife right the hell away from me, I'll be the first to be surprised. After she's surprised that she isn't running, anyway.

Nihilism, Lust, and Other Party Games (a triolet)

2006-06-23T23:50:00.000-05:00

Close your eyes and push away.
That which is dear is now discarded;
the best ain't bad enough today -
close your eyes and push away.
Rejected sums have come to stay
with cherished products left unguarded.
Close your eyes and push away.
That which is dear is now discarded.

Daddy

2006-06-23T23:04:00.000-05:00

Lily giggled. She was in a room filled with stuffed animals. From wall to wall there was nothing but bears, giraffes, bunnies, dolphins, more bears, and a myriad of other creatures. All she could think about was playing with them. She couldn't help but bounce and play for hours.

Amidst the piles of stuffed critters she managed to find a dozen pairs. She lined them up neatly two by two and re-enacted Noah's story. Her step-dad was a minister, and he always read her stories from the Bible when he put her to bed. Noah and the Ark was one of her favorites because of all the animals. Lily loved animals. When she grew up, she wanted to be an animal doctor--a vet-er-rin-air-ean.

Lily always loved it when Jimmy came over to play.

* * *

Arlin was a good man. Nobody would deny that. He had been a reverend for fifteen years, and had touched the lives of thousands. Every Sunday morning he'd get up in front of his congregation at Our Savior Jesus Baptist Church, and he would deliver a sermon. They were always good. They were always filled with conviction. Every member of his flock brought their problems to him. He was a marriage counselor and he was a youth guidance counselor. He coached the church softball team and the church volleyball team. He spent so many hours at the church, not even God could doubt that he was a good man.

When he met Stacey, he thought she was nice. But it was really her daughter, Lilian that he fell in love with. Her adorable little face. Her rosy cheeks. Her silky hair. She was such a sweet little toddler. Who could resist? He wanted to help Stacey raise her. He wanted to be her father.

* * *

James didn't have to do this, but he took such great pleasure in seeing the will of good men crumble. The other Guilders wouldn't even flinch if they knew. They all did the same.

It was all to easy, really. He just had to tuck her away in her own little place while he got behind the wheel and drove. The look on his face had been priceless the first time. James didn't realize it would be so easy. It only fed his desire to do it more.

At first he did it only on Saturdays, but he quickly made it a nightly ritual. He was surprised he could keep it up this long. It had been nearly a year. Nobody seemed to be the wiser. He couldn't have picked a better pair.

Misery, like booze, only without the removal of inhibition.

2006-06-23T17:34:00.000-05:00

Seriously here. I'm talking strictly about the various and sundry forms of physiological misery and for now I'll just restrict myself to the viral and microbial kinds.

In fact, I'll pretty much just stick to our dear old friend, influenza.

Influenza comes in as many a varied flavours as gin, vodka, and beer - put together. Sometimes it's just a fever, cough, and sore throat. Hell, sometimes it's just a tickle in the back of your throat. (Like mine.) I guess this is like the sake of flu season - so smooth you barely even realize you're carrying it.

Until Tuesday when it's actually painful, then it's more like the whiskey parts...

And, of course, by Tuesday night you're looking at a cocktail of the sore throat, and the rattling, semi-productive cough, and by that point you're nice and warm from the fever.

Wednesday, just like with booze, you wake up feeling like shit on a stick, slightly toasted on one side, nice and soggy on the other. So you call in sick to work, which is fine because the laryngitis makes you sound like Barry White, and sure enough as with booze, people want you to sing.

"Oooh I, I can't get enough of this flu, baby."

So you spend Wednesday with a red nose, poor judgement, suck at poker, and thanks to the god-awful smell you're giving off from being ill and not having bathed in a day or so now, no one wants to be around you who isn't similarly impaired. Tylenol? Yeah, keep wishing.

Thursday, no better really, because as much as you tried to leave that influenza bottle on the table, it called and you answered. Now your nose is acting up, as you promised yourself you weren't going to drink any of that sore-throat stuff anymore, but hey - a little sinus pressure never hurt anyone right?

The key word there was 'a little.' The amount of sinus pressure (which I guess is like Tequilla) you drank would kill a horse, so now your head is pounding and the thought of even calling work - let alone answering the phone when they call you - is just not gonna happen.

So Friday morning, when you absolutely have to be at work (because one of your favorite co-workers is going away, forever) you still feel like crap, but do your best to clean up for everyone. You've got a new lavender tie, and nice, crisp white shirt, and you think you look fine. Except that you sound like Barry White's little brother, and sniffle like a coke fiend. Real hit with the ladies. Everyone who sees you knows you've been into the flu and they react like you'll get it on them.

The tab comes out to about the same too, a couple of days of missed work seems to be roughly equal to what a true boozer can blow at a bar in that same timeframe.

So the next time you want to get nice and trashed? Just go get coughed on. The lines are shorter, and there's no waking up anywhere but your own bed. Unless you're a champ, and wind up in the hospital.

Guilty as Charged

2006-06-23T14:07:00.000-05:00

Whenever I'm feeling a little blue, I tend to detach from the world. I tend to withdraw into myself. It is during this time that I really seem to get out the guilty pleasures list and start ticking items off.

To Do:
Drive to Wal-mart and buy lots of junk food
Read a pulp fiction paperback
flip on the TV and watch some reality drivel

After I've finished my gluttony I tend to need a big nap. Long naps during the day are also a guilty pleasure of mine. Ahh, it feels good to get this off my chest. :-D

Motivation

2006-06-23T02:08:00.000-05:00

We are driven by our wants, and motivated to do things we would not necessarily otherwise do... and sometimes we are not exactly proud of our motivations, either... so give in to temptation - you know you want to - share your Guilty Pleasures wth the rest of us.

The White

2006-06-22T23:29:00.000-05:00

The house settled around Jon as he he sat, nearly motionless, in his over-stuffed chair. The lights were dimmed and ceiling fan was on medium. It was quiet like a normal home should be: creaking, clanking, the occasional clicking. Buildings were living organisms too, in a way, Jon thought. It's only natural for them to make some noise.

He stared carefully at a point on the wall opposite him. There was nothing particularly special about that point, but he had selected it for this evening. He looked at the spot without blinking and without once glancing away. His breaths became further apart and more evenly spaced. His muscles relaxed but his eyes did not waver. In his mind's eye he saw a door, he mentally reached out to it and swung it open. He let his mind step through the door and immerse itself.

The door closed behind him and melded seamlessly with the wall. The room was nondescript. The walls, ceiling, and floor were quintessentially white, a soft light radiating from them. There was no furniture. Jon looked to one wall, and he knew exactly which wall it was. Images began appear on it.

He saw the floor of the Senate. He saw a Member of Parliament being indiscreet with his secretary's daughter. He saw a beggar on the streets of Denver emptying his cup into a street-vendor's hand. He saw a million other images scroll by, but then he brought back the first.

He watched as a number of Senators each in turn came up to speak. They each began their speeches with the same drivel as always. But then each of them launched into a laundry list of wrongs that some bill would be perpetrating upon their constituents. Senator after senator went. It seemed that none of them wanted this bill to pass, and yet they all had this urgency in their voices. It sounded as if they all thought they were in the minority. They all sounded as if they thought that they were going to lose and the bill would pass.

Jon thought it was peculiar, but he had never quite understood politicians. He waved at the wall and the images disappeared. A door swung open and he stepped out into the world beyond his little white room. It was time he got to work.

L'wa

2006-06-22T20:47:00.000-05:00

There's a passage from the bible my mother used to read to me, ages ago in a place that seems to have nothing in common with here and now. It's Ecclesiastes 3:1-8:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven.

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

I always liked it best. It was so much like poetry, and it was stupidly comforting for most of my life. Life got you down? Don't worry - it's just a time to weep; there's a time to laugh coming, right around the corner. But beyond reassuring, there's also an element of admonition in there. There's a perfect time for everything, sure - but there's also the converse, those times which are singularly unsuited for a purpose.

There's a time to air your grievances, and there's a time to shut your fucking mouth. Let me give you a few illustrative examples: alone with your confrontee in a boat in the warm water off of the Italian coast? The wrong time. In marriage counseling? Much better. When you're trying to apologize? Nuh-uh. When you're trying to figure out what's wrong with the budget? Sure. When you want to break up with your girlfriend because she's not interesting enough, while she's vacationing in New Orleans?

Shut your fucking mouth, you stupid piece of shit.

The thing is, I didn't think anything of it. I'd been reflecting on our relationship (which is to say, I'd been munching foreign rug), and I felt like the spark was gone (which is to s - ooh, shiny!). And the fact that she was probably hip-deep in some sort of voodoo bullshit didn't even occur to me, even if she did have the whole emo-I'm-a-witch-look-at-me thing going on. It stopped mattering the moment I noticed my leg was broken, my nose was bleeding, there were stabbing pains in my chest -

There is a time for everything,
this is your moment to fucking scream, you asshole.

Her voice was mocking me, and everything slipped sideways, and there I am way down there. There's another voice, now, behind hers, and it's dusty and full of things that crawl.

"Not Loa," it whispers. "L'wa." And it laughs, and things are very very black.

I wish I'd learned.

Blog Noir

2006-06-22T17:03:00.000-05:00

There are two things I have in my desk drawer: one's a .45, and I keep it loaded. The other's a bottle, and it keeps me loaded. When I heard the knock on my office door, I opened the desk and started to reach for one. Couldn't tell you which one, exactly, but either would do just fine. It was dark in the hallway outside my office, so all I could see through the frosted glass was the backside of the letters that spelled out "Lester Cage Investigative Services" on the window. I figured that this would be one of Tommy Fishbone's goons come to work me over for the vig I didn't have, so the gun might keep them busy for a bit. On the other hand, the bottle would give me a little anesthetic for the beating I'd be receiving tonight.

"'S open," I said as my hand landed on the checkered grip of my Colt. Ah, well. If nothing else, I could keep myself amused when the mook saw the heater, and that's almost as good as not getting my face rearranged.

The doorknob twisted, and I set my gun hand on the desk, barrel angled up to point at the heart of my nocturnal visitor. After the door opened wide enough for me to see, I realized that either Tommy Fishbone had a very different concept of the words "work me over," or my luck was even worse than I thought. The dame who stepped across my threshold looked like real trouble: not the kind where you get a broken finger, the kind where you get a broken heart. A broken heart ripped out of your chest and thrown on the floor, which is where it will be when she does the Mexican hat dance on it. She was wearing maroon, which isn't the color I usually associate with femmes fatale, but on her it worked like a charm.

She raised an eyebrow on a forehead the color of alabaster and looked at my iron. "Is that how you greet every potential client?"

"I only break out the heater for special occasions, sweetheart. Most folks just get harsh language." Great. Her voice was like church bells in winter: clear, crisp, and chilly. I put the .45 back in the drawer and decided to leave the bottle in there to keep it company. For the moment, anyway. "Have a seat."

"A gentleman would stand when a lady enters the room, you know."

I grunted. "Lady, I ain't a gentleman." She folded herself neatly into the chair and I turned down the Truetone, where Ed Murrow was telling the world about Truman's request for aid for Greece and Turkey. I'd met some Greek partisans during the war, and figured that about half of the money Truman was asking for would end up going for ouzo and cigarettes. "What seems to be your problem?"

She reached into her handbag and pulled out a silver cigarette case, extracted a cigarette from it, and waited, looking at me. When I made no move, she frowned a little and lit her smoke with a Dunhill lighter. Players cigarette, I judged from the smoke. Expensive imported cigarettes, expensive lighter. Maybe things were looking up after all. I grabbed a Lucky from the pack on the desk and lit a match.

"My name is Elizabeth Schmidt, and I've come about my husband," she said, and looked down at her lap. "We've been married less than a year, but there have been three times in the past month where Gunther hasn't come home all night."

"So you think he's got himself a little something on the side?"

"I don't think he's fucking someone else, if that's what you're insinuating." Her eyes flashed a warning that this line of questioning might be a bad idea. "That's what I thought at first, and when I confronted him, he told me to make a list of my grievances and he would look at it! In case you hadn't noticed, my husband's name is Gunther Schmidt. He's German, but he told me that he was a university professor and escaped to Switzerland in '38. I believed him, until last week. I was searching his dresser, trying to find proof that he's been unfaithful, when I found this." She reached into her bag and tossed something from it onto the desk. The skull-and-bones motif was unmistakable. Germans didn't get pins like this when the dentist didn't find any cavities. You had to be Waffen-SS to earn this kind of a reward. "And this." She set a photograph in front of me -- a group of smiling Teutonic men in feldgrau, standing in front of some kind of scientific equipment. The handwritten note on the back said "Haigerloch, 17. Mai 1942".

"Lady, this is a job for the police. Maybe the Army, or the FBI. Not a private eye, anyway. The authorities will want your husband under arrest, and that's pretty far beyond what I can do."

"That's just it! I went to the police the day I found this...this evidence, and the next day, two men who said they were from the FBI came to my house and told me to forget what I had seen, that it was a misunderstanding and that my husband was not and had never been a Nazi." The way she took a drag from her cigarette told me exactly what she thought of the agents. I decided to stall for time while I debated taking this kind of a hot potato.

"First, why me? Who told you that I could help with something this big? And second, what do you want me to do if I find out you're right, and he was a Nazi?"

"My maiden name is Anderson, Mr. Cage. My brother's name is Martin Anderson." Just like that, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Marty and I had been Jedburghs together in the OSS, and one night just outside of Biche, Marty had saved my life when I took a bullet in the leg and the communist partisans we were supposed to be leading in the fight against the Krauts decided to turn tail and run. Hell of a way to collect on a debt, though. I nodded at her to continue. "As for what I'd like you to do, well, let's just say that I don't want you to read him a list of grievances."

"Whoa, Mrs. Schmidt. I'm a dick, not a leg-breaker. Everything I do is strictly above-board," I lied. What she doesn't know, I figured, can't hurt me.

"Which is why you pull a pistol on guests."

"Occupational hazard." I stubbed out the remains of my smoke and looked her straight in the eyes. "I'll take your case, Mrs. Schmidt, but on one condition: if I can prove your claim right, you'll get your brother to help me in taking care of the situation." I mentally congratulated myself on that turn of phrase; plenty of wiggle room in it.

"Thank you, Mr. Cage. You won't regret this." She stood abruptly and held out her hand. I eased myself out of my chair and took it. She smiled warmly at me. Maybe more than warm. More than friendly, at least. I knew that she was wrong, and that I probably would regret this, but the way her smile touched nerves I'd forgotten I had told me that I might enjoy regretting it, after all.

The suggestion box is full

2006-06-22T16:12:00.000-05:00

A random sampling of suggestions found in the employee feedback box at a company in California:

"The towels in the locker room should really be kept in a warmer."

"The carpeting hasn't been replaced in over three years."

"The supply cabinet needs more Pilot Precise pens. All that's left are BIC round stic pens, which are unacceptable."

"There are only 2 types of sushi available in the cafeteria. When are we going to get some variety?"

"Free soft drinks are a good start, but without slices of lime, what's the point?"

"I'd like a gluten-free option on bagel day."

"Pet day care!"

Misgivings

2006-06-22T07:01:00.000-05:00

One should always choose a proper time to air their Grievances. That is all.

Long pants

2006-06-21T22:37:00.000-05:00

"I left my pants in the dryer," Madeleine thought to herself as she stole down the narrow passage. "I can't believe I spent thirty minutes before I gave up. Why didn't I look in the dryer?" She always did that. She always left her clothes in the dryer or her food in the crock pot. That's why she didn't have good things, at least nothing material.

Crystal Lake

2006-06-21T22:08:00.000-05:00

John had his best moments here at the lake. It was a beautifully hot summer day and he'd stripped out of his clothes and left them lying on the bank beside the Oak tree. He relaxed and closed his eyes as he swam slowly around the water on his back. Putting all thoughts of work far from his mind he concentrated on his languid kicks. The warm water was especially soothing on his overworked arms and legs. Throwing sacks of concrete around a dirt yard was tiring and sweaty work. He started for the tree where his clothes lay and thought he caught a glimpse of someone moving. He had, someone had stolen his damn pants!

Unfortunate Occurrences

2006-06-21T19:50:00.000-05:00

The cold, unforgiving light of morning pushed insistently between my eyelids and forced me awake. Things had gone decidely non-linear, I realized. Once again, I found myself chained to a radiator on the wall of some nondescript room. My pants were gone, no doubt already being cut to shreds by the bastard who stole them, and none of this even came close to the real cause for my concern. Around me, dozens of teddy bears, each of them staring at me with its blank plastic eyes, each with a single square of Scotch tape affixed to its nose.

Damn you, Kevin Baba, I thought. You win this time.

Paranoia

2006-06-21T19:15:00.000-05:00

Dear Diary,

They're at it again. The little bastards are at it again. Dr. Belker keeps telling me that they don't exist, but they do... and this time I am going to get the proof!

I found their entry point. It's a hole in the baseboard behind the fridge. At first when I found it, I was going to spackle that mother up, but then I realized that this was my chance to show them all. If I can catch one of those little fuckers and put it in a jar, I can slam that jar down on Dr. Belker's desk and make him eat his words. Then I'll march on over to the legal aid office and file a suit against that quack. I'll sue him for malpractice. Then, when I win that one, I'll finally have something to point to in my own defense, and I can sue the plant for wrongful termination, and then I'll sue that jackass parole officer for defamation of character, and I'll sue the state for wrongful prosecution, and I'll sue my ex-husband for putting batteries up my ass while I was sleeping, too.

But, first things first. I am writing all of this down so I can start keeping track of events for later reference. These are the items that have been stolen:

one pair of reading glasses
one pair of pinking shears
seven unmatched socks
one pair of capri pants
one strawberry-banana yogurt
ten legal-size envelopes
a button from my yellow shirt

About the yogurt - it was returned. It was stolen, and left out of the refrigerator, and then returned about a day later. I didn't notice that it had been stolen until I tasted the first spoonful. Then I knew what had happened.

About the capris - the theft of my pants was thwarted by the fact that, even folded, they are too unwieldy for the little bastards to handle. How they thought they were going to get those pants through that little hole in the wall is anyone's guess, anyway. In any event, I must have startled them, or they must have given up when they realized they couldn't take them, because I found the pants lying on the floor near the kitchen. I know for a fact that I put them on top of the dresser that is at least three feet away from the place on the floor where I found them, and the pants didn't just grow feet and walk over there.

About the envelopes - When I bought the box, there were 30 envelopes. I have only written twelve letters to the New York Times this month, and now there are only eight envelopes left. Ten of the envelopes were stolen.

The one thing that I can't figure out is what they want with the items collected. I don't for a moment believe that there is not a plan. They're not doing it just to confuse me. To believe that would be crazy and paranoid, and I am neither of those things.

My plan is to go down into my fallout shelter and construct a trap to catch one of those wall-dwelling creatures while I listen to Art Bell. Then I'll set it up tonight. If all goes well, I'll begin my crusade to clear my good name by 9:00 AM tomorrow!

************************

Day three of the second phase. Commanding officer Grelp reporting.

Items collected: the lens, the jagged blade, and the disc. Remaining to be collected: the coil, the dowel, and the anvil. Tactics for diversion of suspicion have been employed.

At this time, I would like to bring up some misgivings that I have. The host subject has been exhibiting far more astuteness than the test data suggested she would. The host's tendency toward suspension of disbelief is far lower than that of the test subjects.The possibility exists that the force has been detected at some point, though the host subject has not indicated awareness. I realize that a gut feeling is not sufficient reason to postpone the mission, but I would be remiss if I did not bring my concerns to your attention.

Should you decide to postpone the mission, my proposed remedy for the probable detection is to eliminate the host. My suggested strategy for the removal of the host is quite simple. There is a poorly ventilated room in the sublevel of this structure in which the host frequently spends time. Small modifications can be made to make the room entirely airtight, and death by suffocation should ensue within a brief time. Studies have shown that death by suffocation is one of the more pleasant means of expiration for one of the host's species, as a moment of euphoria is experienced, and humans spend quite a large measure of time throughout their lives seeking euphoria.

I await your orders. My force is prepared to either proceed with the planned mission, or to employ my proposed strategy as soon as we hear from you.

Grelp out.

Stolen Pants

2006-06-21T18:40:00.000-05:00

Every day is a lazy afternoon,
sun high in the sky, grass smell fresh on our skin,
belly up to the sun. Hit pause on the id-signals,
drives, biological needs, et cetera, and revel in
the sybaritic splendor of warmth, breeze,
fingers in our hair, the noise of birds in a tree,
three houses down.

If there were a way
I'd take every idle breath
of cocker spaniels.

Apropos of nothing... or is it?

2006-06-21T10:31:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, I'm totally late. I was seriously going to post last night. Fortunately, I waited until inspiration struck.

The category for today will be pants. Bonus points may be awarded for work that also fits into the subcategory pants > stolen.

Senate Bill Number 42314

2006-06-20T23:09:00.000-05:00

Senator Thrush had spent thousands of dollars on the ceiling of his bedroom. All around the perimeter of the oval--he had aspirations--was a mural painted by a famous Frenchman. Inside the mural was gold-plated molding with intricate designs imported from Italy. Hanging from the center of the ceiling was a stunning crystal chandelier that sparkled with the light of a thousand stars, and cost more than the rest of the room put together. Just the ceiling of his bedroom alone typically served as a reminder of his obscene wealth, but this morning it filled him with terror.

He stared at the ceiling, unable to even move his eyes. He had awoken from a terrible nightmare that ended in complete and utter darkness. At first he was relieved to see his ceiling, but then the realization that he could not move began to spread across his body. He yelled, but there was only silence in his room. He panicked, but there was no physical response.

Amidst his mental pleas, his body started to move. It turned his covers aside and got out of bed. His feet slipped into the slippers on the floor and then he stood up. The Senator's body, now with a will of its own, went about the Senator's morning routine as if it had done it for so many years it didn't need him to tell it what to do.

* * *

Today was a big day on the Hill. Senate Bill Number 42314 was coming to a vote in committee after a month of hearings and research. The senators had heard testimony from expert witnesses and government officials. They had seen pie charts and trend graphs. They had been admonished and begged. If this bill made it to the floor, but it seemed that through all of the hearings the committee might actually can it.

Senator Thrush walked into the room and quietly took his seat. One by one the other senators filed in and took theirs in turn. Thrush picked up his gavel and struck the table.

"I hereby call this meeting of the Senate Judiciary committee to order," he said, smoothly. "We are here to briefly review Senate Bill Number 42314 and cast our votes. Senator Fletcher, would you please review the bill for us once more."

The discussion was brief, and the voting swift. The entire meeting was a specimen of government efficiency that was typically uncommon. Thrush waited until all of the others had left, and then stood himself and walked out the door. He smiled.

* * *

The room was completely dark. It was, in fact, completely devoid of light. It was also devoid of sound. This is where James came to gather his thoughts after a hard day's work. This is where he came to review what he had accomplished. In this dark, silent place, James smiled. Today was good.

A Letter Found in the Attic After Grandad Passed

2006-06-20T21:53:00.000-05:00

Dear Gracie,

If you're reading this, I'm already sorry. I'm writing this on a clear day in October of 1955 - we're still picking up the pieces after your father passed, but I think it will get better. We've been married four and a half years three days ago. You were having a "dry spell" until a few weeks back. It bothered me more than I let on, but less than you suspected. I may be male, but that's not all I am.

I should be the happiest man alive, Grace, I should. I can't complain about a single concrete thing in my life, and in point of fact, there are things that should have me swinging from the stars, including you. Nothing makes me feel that way, though. That's the first apology: that I can't give you the effusion of joy a woman like you should inspire.

I've been feeling very lonely lately. I know that my behavior isn't helping - being shut up in the house most nights doesn't fix the problem, and I should start a poker night or ask one of the guys if they want to go down a deer one of these weekends, before it gets too late. I can't, though, and that's the thing. I've got nothing left, baby. I'm thirty-one, and I already feel like an old used-up rag. I'm tired for no good reason. My get-up-and-go packed its bags sometime a couple years back, and I haven't seen it since.

If I told you this, I have an idea of what you'd say. You'd be standing there by the sink in that pink gingham dress of yours that I like so well - the one with the buttons and the belt-thing (the sash, I think you said) - and you'd be cutting onions. You'd turn around and go to scratch your cheek, and stop to wipe your hands on the towel instead. "If you don't like working at the shop, you can look for other work, sweetie," you'd say. "You know I'll support you, even if it means a pay cut. I just want you to be happy." I can hear it in my head just now, if I listen.

And bless you, Gracie, but you'd be missing the point. Because maybe you'd be right and it's all about the job, but that doesn't matter. A man should never feel like this. Not once.

To tell you the truth, I've wanted to stop for a long while now. You know I'm too chickenshit scared to want to die, but the abstract idea of just freezing in place and not having to put one breath in front of the other is so appealing it scares me, the big, strong bear of a man that made you fall in love.

This is the part that's hard, so keep reading, Gracie, because this is important. Four years, six months and three days ago, I made you a promise. I'm going to do my very best to keep it, because it's the only thing that's right. If I've got anything keeping me going, it's that I can't hurt you. And if I can't do that one thing, my apologies aren't worth a damn thing, and don't you dare let them bury me. Make sure they burn me. It'll be better than I deserve.

You've been my best reason to keep going, Grace. If I failed, it was me. Remembr that.

All my love,
David

Firefighter

2006-06-20T17:09:00.000-05:00

"...kzrkt...der 12 move inch-and-a-half lines in to cov...krrrsshhh...all companies worki..."

"...spatch this is Engine 4, 10-97 east side of the complex."

"Copy Engine 4, be advised incident command post on north si..."

The handset for Tom's radio was broken. He could hear snatches of communications through it, but he couldn't transmit. For all the good it was doing him, it might as well have been on Mars. So far, nobody had even reported him missing.

Tom was part of the direct attack company on a six-story structure fire. He'd always volunteered to go direct attack, to "put the wet stuff on the hot stuff." The adrenaline rush was like nothing in any other sphere of his life, and he enjoyed the camaraderie he felt with the other members of his company. The guys who worked ladder companies, who spent their lives directing deck gun spray onto exterior windows, they might as well have been dead to Tom.

Tom started trying to get into FDNY straight out of high school. He'd moved from Hartford and found himself what had to be the tiniest apartment with its own bathroom in the entire five boroughs. He failed his first attempt at the competitive examination by two points, but it was because his examination cohort had been packed with guys just as eager as he was to be New York's Bravest, and there were only so many slots for applicants.

Then one sunny Tuesday morning, 343 firefighters gave their lives in lower Manhattan and all of a sudden FDNY was calling his phone, leaving three messages in a single day while he was working at Jekyll & Hyde serving tourists spooky-themed hamburgers. They'd all but begged him to show up for his physical (and Tom had a sneaking suspicion that even if he'd had a second head, they'd have taken him).

Three years had passed since then, and this morning he'd been studying for his lieutenant's exam when Ladder 10/Engine 10 had sounded their fifth alarm for additional manpower. Tom hit the pole -- he'd never get tired of that child-like glee when he slid down the brass -- and started pulling on his turnout gear: feet into his heavy rubber boots, bunker pants up and suspenders over the shoulders, Nomex hood down over his neck and tucked into the coat that he pulled on over his dark blue FDNY uniform T-shirt. SCBA on his back, mask hanging on a clip on his chest, and his helmet last. Then it was onto the rear deck of his house's pumper and out the door, his coat flapping around him as the pumper sped down the canyons of the city.

He and his partner Guilleremo ("call me 'Willie'") had been working to douse the second-floor apartment that was the source of the fire. Probably a meth lab, something in there had been an accelerant in big quantities, fueling the tongues of flame lapping their way up the building. The secret in fighting enclosed fires is that it is water vapor, not water itself, that extinguishes the fire. The steam displaces oxygen in the air and suffocates the flames. Tom had always been good at math, and he figured he and Willie had the oxygen reduced to 20% or so when they felt the floor give under them.

Before they knew it, they had fallen through the first floor and all the way into the basement, where Tom had landed on his back. Tom figured both his lower legs were broken, and even if they weren't, the piece of joist jutting up through his left thigh left him pretty well impaled to the floor. Willie was about six feet from Tom, but he wasn't moving, and he wasn't blinking; his eyes were fixed and his chest still. Tom realized that he had some time to work before total structural failure. Maybe seven minutes, maybe ten. Call it seven. Seven minutes to get up the stairs and out to his own company, another company, anybody.

Well, the stairs were thirty feet away, and he could still see them off to his left. Smoke had only just started to bank down into the basement yet, so he had a clear shot to his way out. Time to get moving. But first, he'd have to get himself unstuck from the floor.

He looked down at his leg, and realized that the only way to break free would be to lift his leg off of the spike of wood impaling it. If his femoral artery was severed, that wood might be the only thing keeping him from bleeding out. On the other hand, while he might bleed to death, he damn sure would be crushed in a few minutes when everything above him came down. So.

He gritted his teeth and hauled his torso upright to get a better view. With his lower legs out of commission, he wouldn't be able to use leverage from below to push his leg off; he'd have to pull it. Tom set his hands on either side of the wound and gripped hard. Then he fell backwards, using his momentum to rip the meat of his thigh off of the jagged post. He screamed, a high, keening wail of pain, and unconsciousness swallowed him.

When he came to, his eyes shot open. His watch was broken, so there was no way to tell how long he'd been out. The up side was that he wasn't dead, which meant that his femoral artery was still intact. Time to start heading for the exit, which was noticeably more obscured by smoke now.

Tom rolled himself onto his stomach and screamed again -- not as loudly -- as the shattered shin bones sent fresh waves of pain through him. The pain brought nausea with it, but he couldn't throw up. He needed to keep his mask on, because the air around him was superheated, and oxygen-poor. He threw an arm out in front of himself and pulled. A foot, maybe a foot and a half. Just twenty more of those and he was home free to get up the stairs. He'd pulled himself forward three more times before he remembered his Halligan, hanging from his harness.

"Fuck," he whispered to himself as he struggled to free the metal bar. The spike on the end would dig into the floor and give him traction. He might be able to get five feet at a go out of this, and it would help him pull himself up the stairs, too. Maybe he'd be able to get up to the entryway and find help.

Ten feet to the stairs. Swing the Halligan, pull body forward, swing again. The bottom stair bumped against his helmet as he completed the easy part of his journey. Now for the stairs. Every thump against his legs would be agony, every inch upward an Everest. No choice but to try.

As he swung the point of his Halligan's pick into the steps above him, he heard it -- a creaking, splintering sound. The building was going to give, and soon. Got to move.

Halfway up to the 90-degree turn in the staircase, Tom heard something else that made him stop. The bell. Every SCBA compressed air bottle has a bell that sounds when there is two minutes' worth of air left in the cylinder. Tom swung the Halligan again. Two minute warning, he thought, and scowled. The pick slipped from the edge of the steps, and Tom went tumbling backwards, landing at the bottom of the staircase.

Tears began to stream freely, and he knew that it was useless. He leaned back on his bottle, breathed as deeply as he could, and thought about the things he'd loved in life: his last day of school, the first time he'd kissed a girl, getting his slot in Engine 61, pulling a little boy out from under the kid's bed and passing him out the window of his burning house to a waiting ladder crew. It was better than most people get, he mused as he heard the bell stop ringing.

Except for his parents and the men of his house, few people cared about the death of Firefighter Thomas Clayton. After all, he didn't die in the Towers' collapse. He just died doing his job.

Surviving a CGD

2006-06-20T14:49:00.000-05:00

How to survive a CGD (Charles Grodin Day):

Try to remember to carry a screwdriver, so that when the doorknob comes off in your hand, you can use it to fiddle with the mechanism inside the door and open it. Do not attempt to repair the doorknob assembly, as stripping of the screws is the certain result.

Keep your cell phone and/or pager in your pocket rather than clipped to your belt, to prevent droppage into a toilet or woodchipper.

When your toast burns, be certain that you are well grounded when you try to retrieve the charred bread. The sparks that fly out of the toaster at you are not likely to hurt you, but the electric current will.

Don't wear nice clothing, because even if the car coming down the street in your direction fails to splash the dirty puddle water all over you, the large friendly dog from next door will knock you down, probably into that same dirty puddle. Do however wear long sleeves and pants, because if there is no dirty puddle nearby, the dog will knock you into a patch of poison ivy or a rosebush.

Keep band-aids and calamine lotion handy. The reasons for this should be apparent.

Learn to recognize a CGD as quickly as possible. Damage can be kept to a minimum if, upon recognition of a CGD, you cancel all appointments and go back to bed. Do not under any circumstances attempt to resolve any problems that crop up during the CGD! Any attempt to repair a CGD situation during the CGD will result in a series of events that will be embarrassing, painful, and at least mildly amusing to others.

The Other Side

2006-06-20T08:07:00.000-05:00

Stepping onto the slickened stone in the riverbed, Jake held out his arms and bobbled a bit to maintain his balance. Slowly he made his way across the rapidly running waters of the stream, a step at a time. As he neared the far edge he saw a tree branch hovering over the surface that looked strong enough to hold his weight. He decided to reach out to it and use it to help him make it the final distance. He reached the branch and stretched out to grab it as the wind gusted. The branch bent down and whacked him on the head knocking him into the cold stream.

He was carried away by the current and drug under the surface of the rapidly moving waters. He kicked out and tried to find something to grab onto or push off of so he could get back to the surface and grab that much needed breath. He felt the solid barrier smash into his back and hold him in place, the water pushing him against it. Jake felt out and found a piece of wire near his right hand. He tugged on it and was able to pull his body around the barrier. After what seemed like 20 minutes he was released from the turgid waters and steered into a calm, warm backwater.

He tried to stand up and found his legs too weak to support him. He was able to reach the bottom with his arms and crawl and claw his way to the side. Sitting up in the reeds at its edge he sucked in huge lungfuls of air and just lay there, panting and exhausted.

Classic!

2006-06-20T00:01:00.000-05:00

What is it that separates some novel from a classic, other than some arbitrary list on some literature teacher's desk? The classics are all fraught with struggles of epic proportions. Even the modern classics bring 18th and 19th century struggles into the modern age of cell-phones and pagers.

Therefore, by my very tenuous logic, all of today's posts will be instant classics, as today's topic is:

Struggle

Beginnings

2006-06-19T20:53:00.000-05:00

The room was dark, or more accurately, it was devoid of light. Most dark spaces have just a smidgen of light with which to see, but this had none. It was also silent. Not a single sound, not even that of the room's single occupant.

James created this place to clear his mind. Any sights or sounds would distract him from his preparations, so he saw to it that this little recess of his mind had none. He came here every night to recall his memories of the past, review his plans for the future, and prepare for what he must do in the present.

* * *

Madeleine looked into the mirror as she brushed her teeth. Thirty seconds before the brush would beep to let her know that she should switch sides. She moved the vibrating brush back and forth to make sure that her teeth got a vigorous cleaning. Beep. She flipped sides and repeated. She wondered how many other people were doing exactly the same thing at this exact moment. Beep. How many people were getting ready to go to bed, and go to work. Beep. Every night was different. Beep. She rinsed the brush and put it back in the charger.

The Scent of Jasmine

2006-06-19T20:00:00.000-05:00

Jacob felt lonely as he picked up his wallet to verify for a fourth time that he had no funds. He wanted to be able to go out and spend some quality time with with his favorite waitress, Jasmine. She always treated him nice and he always overtipped, which he would not be able to do this time since he had no money. He had thought briefly about just going in to have a glass of water, but quickly discarded the idea as ridiculous. As he thumbed through all the hidden compartents of his wallet a tattered piece of cardboard fluttered to the carpet. He picked it up and saw that it was his library card and that it was outdated. He found a recent bill and went down to the library to renew it and see if Katherine was there. At least that was an activity he could do that didn't cost anything.

This is your life

2006-06-19T18:55:00.000-05:00

There's a bag of blood in my chest. There's one in yours, too. This squishy sack of tough fibrous tissue bounces up and down like a weight on the end of a string once or twice a second. Every second. Every day. All your life. When that bag decides to stop jumping around in your chest, it's finito, sayonara, piss off, mate, and you better have your life insurance paid up.

Except, sometimes, you get really lucky, and there's a guy nearby who can electrocute the hell out of you -- burn sizzling smoking discs into your skin, make you shit yourself -- but that electrocution convinces the ol' ticker that maybe it's got a few more jumps in it after all. Then you end up in a hospital, where men in white coats use words like "myocardial infarct" and "congestive heart failure" and "terminal prognosis". And they put your name on a list, where you get to wait for somebody who is even more unlucky than you are to get really, really unlucky.

Then that day arrives, and some kid barely old enough to shave ends up breaking his neck in a motorcycle accident, and that bag of blood in his chest is in pretty damn good condition. So you get the call, and if you're not already in the hospital, they bring you in and shave your chest (if you're a guy) and they put you under and when you wake up, you're pissing into a bag hanging off the side of your bed. There are more tubes jammed in your body than Ted Kennedy has liver spots, and you feel different. The psychologist they assign to talk to you after you've got the heart of a dead teenager tells you it's all in your head, that your memories and your personality are still your own, but you can't help feeling younger.

After all, it's the first day of the rest of somebody else's life.

new haiku

2006-06-19T10:39:00.000-05:00

in a renewal
mistakes lurk, repeatable
let's resume instead

[Erica: it can be thematically linked.]

A Very Long Winter

2006-06-19T02:15:00.000-05:00

I've washed my hands fifteen times already today. I keep thinking that today is the day I'll go outside; out the window, it looks pretty, lush and green and the sky looks like it did in that photograph Ms. Jillian showed me where she used her pair of polaroid glasses over her camera lens, bright cerulean at the top and near white at the bottom.

I haven't quite gotten up the courage, yet. I can't tell the temperature from a peek, and I haven't got the guts to go touch the pane. (It's dirty.) If it's cold it's not worth catching now, is it? My Emery, he caught his death out on a spring day like this one, just less than a year ago, and he never listened once to what I told him about the dirt on the sill, how the pill-bugs like to roll up in it. Who knows what filth a pill-bug gets involved in. Who really knows?

Just one moment.

* * *

I apologize for that. It was my daughter, Beverly, calling to see what's what. I tell her what usually is, and she titters - she's got a nervous laugh, my daughter. I think she might have one of those "type A personalities" they talked about on the television, back when I watched it. It'll be the death of her. I ask her how she is whenever she calls, and she always says, "Fine, Ma - a little stressed, but fine." And it'll be the death of her, mark my words.

She wanted to know if I'd come for a picnic down at Elm park. "It'll do you good to get some fresh air, Ma," she tells me, like I don't know my business. Fool girl.

Still, it would be nice to take in a bit of sun. Bother all - perhaps I'll take a bit of a nap instead.

* * *

I couldn't sleep. I believe this "type A" business Bev's got is contagious, as I'm fidgety as all get-out, and I lay there and my leg cramped like I was still a growing girl. I sat up and watched in the mirror for a second, and then I went to call Bev from the drawing room but the phone rang just before I was going to pick it up, which startled me. It was Beverly, of course. It's funny how things happen like that.

She told me she's sent a package, but I'll have to sign for it at the door. Girl doesn't know about the boys that operate these delivery joints these days. She was as like as not to get me robbed, and I told her so.

"It's Tiffany glass, Ma," Bev told me.

I was quiet for a moment. "Your father used to get me Tiffany glass for occasions," I said. My lips got all papery - they feel that way just a bit now, too.

"I know, Ma."

I hung up the receiver slow, and I went to sit on the davenport in the drawing room there, and I put my elbows on my knees like I was a girl younger than Bev again. I sat there for just near an hour, waiting on that delivery man and the box, the box with the Tiffany glass just like Emery used to get me. And then I thought what a fool notion it was, to sit about, waiting all day for a delivery man, and I got up, and just then there was the bell.

I looked through the peephole, just to be safe, and I kept the chain on when he slipped the clipboard through. But that tiny crack of outside got let in, and even after the delivery man saluted (saluted!) and walked off, leaving the box of lovely Tiffany glass sitting there on my stoop, I left the door open with the chain on still. And there was just this bit of breeze, and a little spot of warm on the back of my hand where the light leaked through the big oak out front.

It's been a long time since there was a day this nice, you know. I took the chain off and brought in the box with my Tiffany glass, and set it out of the path where I wouldn't trip, and then I stood there in my doorway for a whole minute, or maybe even more.

I think I'm going to go call Bev now. I think a picnic might be a bit overdue.

[Erica asks: Does the word have to be in the piece, or can it just be thematically linked to the word?]