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 Tuesday, August 27, 2002
Wayne scratched. He scratched and dug, he rubbed and scraped but nothing helped. “Gadamnit” he slurred, “Ah got me some of that there poison ivy.”
He dropped into his threadbare easy chair and reached for the remote. It clicked but nothing happened. “Crap, now what?” He clicked again but the TV just stared back dark and dusty. Wayne tried to focus his glassy eyes on the VCR’s clock but it too was dead. Nothing, not even the familiar blinking 12:00. No power. “Irene, did y’all pay the goldamn ‘lectric bill this month?” No response.
Wayne couldn’t remember driving home from Little Ted’s Oasis Bar and Grill but vaguely remembered walking along the road and so figured he must have run out of gas along the way. Then, slowly, another memory rose to the surface from the murky depths of his drunken mind. An accident and some kid crying. There was something about broken glass and blood but mostly poison ivy. He remembered falling out of his truck and into a patch of poison ivy.
He sat in his dark trailer scratched and dug, he rubbed and scraped but nothing helped. He was dead drunk and struggling to remember what had happened after leaving the bar but before the poison ivy. The missing piece to the puzzle was the small fact that nine months ago, on his way home from a local bar, Wayne Henry Pike died in the same accident that sent a family of four to the emergency room. He was found face down in a patch of poison ivy. Wayne was dead drunk and itching from head to toe. And he always would be.
by Shawn 11:59 PM
“So, what’s yer poison, Ivy?”
Oh god, not again. I am so damn sick of that joke. He tells it every time I come over, like suddenly it’s going to be funny, like I haven’t heard it a thousand times, like I’m going to reward him for his ability to mangle my name with atrocious puns. Every time. He grins, and I groan and then I try to smile appreciatively, but god damn it. Can’t he just ask me if I want something to drink like a normal person? Do we really have to go through this same song and dance all the time?
“I heard you had vodka.”
“I do indeed,” he says. “Kate and I were making martinis last night.”
Kate is my sister, my roommate, and Sam’s girlfriend. She spends most of her time over here across the hall, much to my relief and my parents’ dismay. For reasons that neither Kate nor I have ever really been able to figure out, our parents do not approve of Sam.
Maybe, I think, it’s the goddamn puns.
“Let me guess,” I say, heading toward the kitchen. “Shaken, not stirred?”
“I am nothing if not predictable,” he says. “We were watching Live and Let Die on cable.”
“Oh,” I say. “Not one of the better ones.”
“Nah, maybe not. It’s a little dated. Kate liked it, though.”
Yeah, well, Kate likes dog food commercials, I think. Kate likes Sam. There’s no accounting for taste.
“My sister is a very strange girl.”
“As are you, Ivy,” Sam tells me. “As are you. Now, did you want a glass or were you going to drink straight from the bottle?”
by Fred 4:08 PM
poison ivy Yargh.
by Sharon 2:01 AM
Monday, August 26, 2002
“Blank sheets of paper? What am I supposed to do with these?”
“You’re supposed to write something.”
“Write something…right. And that’s that thing with the words, isn’t it?”
“Right. The thing with the words. You take this pen -- ”
“Is that what that is? I was wondering. It’s nice. I like blue.”
“Yes, well, you take this pen, and you use it to form words and symbols on the paper.”
“Wow. Gee. Yeah. That seems awfully complicated, doesn’t it? Couldn’t I just, you know…what’s that thing where you shape the vibrations of the vocal cords using the muscles of your mouth and lips and tongue?”
“You mean talking?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Couldn’t I just, you know, talk? It would save a lot of time, and I wouldn’t have to figure out how to use that -- what did you call it again?”
“A pen.”
“Right. A pen. If I have something to say, I can just say it. There’s no need to go writing it down or anything.”
“But if you don’t write it down, how will you remember it?”
“I don’t know. Are you saying that everything that’s ever been written down has been worth remembering?”
“Well…no. But that’s not the point. The directions say –”
“The directions say blank sheeps of paper. I distinctly remember. You know, those things with the wool and that go baa?”
“Blank sheeps of paper? That doesn’t make any sense. I mean, for one thing the plural of sheep is…well, sheep. And why would they be made out of paper?”
“I don’t know. Easy storage maybe. You can fold them up and put them in your pocket. Or you could tape them to the wall and count them at night if you ever have trouble sleeping. There are hundreds of different possibilities.”
“Blank sheeps of paper. This is insane.”
“Hey, don’t look at me like that. You’re the one who put this off for so long. I never wanted this. I just wanted my little paper sheeps and some privacy.”
“That’s a really terrible tie-in of the other topics, you know.”
“Hey, knock it off. Don’t break the fourth wall. There are people watching.”
by Fred 4:04 PM
Having not written anything for the past few days I tried to combine the last four topics.
“But I’m not ready”, Aedan looked nervously at the sheets of blank paper spread out before him on the table.
“Doesn’t matter at this point my friend. You either start writing or the future stops happening.” The old man looming over Aedan with his long white, beard and colorful coat somehow managed to look frail and doddering yet nonetheless imposing.
“But, but, I never wanted this. I mean, I did, but not…not like this. I mean, how can I write under this kind of pressure?” Aedan’s eyes darted back and forth across the pages. He clutched the quill in his right hand more like a knife than the delicate writing tool it was. With a start he realized that on top of everything he’d never used a quill in his life!
“Well if you hadn’t put it off so long you wouldn’t be under so much pressure now would you?” The old man stroked his beard and leaned over the table in clearly an “I told you so” manner.
The young man fidgeted in his seat. He had always wanted to be one of the legendary Weavers. They were the secreted society of scribe/wizards that defined the future with their writings. These timeless men and women wove reality throughout the ages through their stories, always staying behind the scenes. Aedan had been given the chance to join their ranks; he had given up his job, his house and his two cars, and everything else that tied him to life in the early 21st century. But now as he sat, pen in hand, ready to define the future…his mind was blank. He had writer’s block in the worst possible way and at the worst possible time.
“Look, maybe if I could just have a little privacy.” As the elder Weaver left the room Aedan’s trembling pen touched the paper.
by Shawn 12:50 PM
There is a wonderful feeling of beginning fresh that is engendered by a blank sheet of paper. For some of us it has to be a particular kind of paper (like a white, or yellow, lined pad) and particular writing implements (like sharpened, #2 pencils). I like white pads and black, fine point, smooth rolling pens. But, I’ve also come to like a brand new Word document or a blank Excel spreadsheet. Building an Excel spreadsheet (especially one with macros) satisfies my need to create just as much as writing does. I used to write computer programs in more general purpose languages (like Pascal, and COBOL before that), and the best part was always starting with a blank screen or coding pad.
Things are never cluttered or patched together when I start. I always hope that the final product will still be uncluttered and unpatched. Sometimes I get close, but in the real world there’s never quite enough time to rework the whole thing and make it perfect. Lately I’ve been working on a few projects without deadlines (what a wonderful luxury) and I have been able to make them “pretty.”
In our world of 600 seconds, there isn’t much time for editing and rewriting. But, there’s always the next day, with another 600 seconds.
by Martha 12:44 PM
Today's topic: Blank Sheets of Paper
Enjoy it.
by MisterNihil 4:00 AM
Sunday, August 25, 2002
Procrastination
The topic says it all.
by Martha 2:10 PM
Saturday, August 24, 2002
I never wanted this
by rocketo 8:04 AM
Friday, August 23, 2002
Privacy
by Faith 1:25 PM
Thursday, August 22, 2002
I should have known I would never get away with the shoelaces. They confiscate everything that might possibly be a danger to yourself or others, so naturally the shoelaces had to go. But now I am flupping around in ill-fitting shoes, sitting in this tight metal box, waiting out the duration.
I've gotten used to the cavity searches. I spend half my life in these things, you know? So the searches and metal detectors are old hat. I really should have guessed that the shoelaces wouldn't fly. I guess I didn't think about it when I chose these shoes this morning.
At dinner time, the gal serving the meals thrust a small plastic tray at me and flashed a forced smile, after glancing at my laceless shoes. Jeez, I'm not dangerous; I just didn't think about the laces.
You should have seen the guy ahead of me at Check-In, wailing and spluttering about his nail clippers. It hurt his masculinity, I think, to make such a public fuss about manicure equipment. Maybe he was covering for the drugs he was smuggling.
Figuring that my floppy, unlaced shoes were kind of useless, I kicked them off at one point and stretched my toes. I got a severe reprimand from the flight attendant. She threatened to confiscate the shoes altogether.
I take solace in the knowledge that, if I can't get shoelaces through airport security, then neither can anyone else. We're all a bunch of floppy-shoed bastards—helpless, harmless, and safe.
by Sharon 11:59 PM
“Shoelaces?” “Hey, you have to work with what you’ve got.” “Yeah, but shoelaces? I asked you to find me something I could transform into a monster with which to irritate humanity, and you bring me shoelaces? What am I supposed to do with shoelaces? Cars, fast food, road signs, collectible card games… surely there were some of those around.” “You’ve done all of those.” “Oh.” “Frankly, it’s gotten difficult finding raw material for you.” “What about, uh, commemorative plates?” “Did it. The Magic Ninja Science Task Force of Love was able to prevent it from increasing in value.” “Damn magic ninja scientists. Things would be so much easier without them. Particularly my obnoxious schemes. I suppose we’ll have to go with the shoelaces, then. It’s just… well, I’m drawing a blank here. There’s nothing intrinsically dangerous about them. There’s nothing much about them at all! They’re just glorified pieces of string with plastic things on the ends.” “Aglets.” “Whatever. My point is that I’m not seeing a straightforward monster concept here. We’ll have to be more conceptual. I— Stop groaning! There’s nothing wrong with conceptual monsters!” “Yes, sir. Do you have a concept in mind?” “How about a creature with the power to break people’s shoelaces with its mind? Everyone’s vulnerable to that—even those magic ninja scientists!” “What about people in loafers? Or sandals?” “Shut up.”
by Dave Menendez 11:40 PM
"...And that's why I hate mayonaise. So what's your, 'kryptonite,' Saul?"
It was late at night, the snow fell thick and large outside, and we were puppy-piled around the fireplace. The air was rich with the aroma of burnt wood and red wine. Outside the snow fell like static on a TV filled with corn syrup against a velvet-black backdrop.
"You're all going to think it's funny." I knew they would. It was sillier than grading end-of-semester papers, and undoubtedly on a par with mayonaise.
Sarah tossed a cheese puff at me. "C'mon, fess up Tomato Nose." I let the moment simmer until Tony started poking me with his roasting stick, then let it out.
"Shoelaces."
Sarah chuckled, Paul snorted, and Tony snickered. Chris simply stared at me. "Why?"
I rolled a sip of Yeungling around my mouth, savoring the bitterness, and began. "It's all about entropy. You see, I hate spending the time it takes to tie my shoes every day. It binds my feet up if I tie them tight enough, then I have to untie them to take my shoes off. All that work to be uncomfortable and then I undo my own work at the end of the day. That's stupid. If I tie them too loose, then they come untied and I trip over the laces. It's a total waste of time." I gestured at the doormat. All our boots were piled in no particular order, not unlike their owners. "Take a look at those boots. Notice anything different about one pair?"
"Yours are the ones with Velcro?"
I flipped my hand in a flowery salute to Paul. "Correct you are, oh inebriated one. In Winter, it's Velcro boots. Fall and Spring, my shoes with an elastic tongue. Summer, flip-flops or sandals. No more shoelaces for me. No sireee. I've been shoelace-free ever since I started buying my own clothes, thank you very much. I think of it as my little strike in the war against an entropic universe."
I passed the marshmallow treats to Sarah. "Your turn, Pink Ninja."
by jal 9:21 PM
My shoelaces, I am convinced, are trying to kill me. Being mere shoelaces, however, somewhat limits their murderous options, and so they have had to content themselves with continually coming untied, hoping perhaps that I will not notice this but instead trip over them and fall down the stairs or into some unsuspected, yet nonetheless fatal, danger. Thus far their plan -- which I imagine they discuss long into the night as I sleep, sneakers whispering conspiratorially to dress shoes and boots -- has succeeded in providing me with little more than exasperation. I am always having to stop and retie my shoes. Last night I paused to do just that outside the local supermarket, and I was barely to the frozen foods before I found myself having to do so again. It doesn’t matter how many times I re-loop them, or how tight I make the new knot. They are determined to come undone. The only reason for this that makes any logical sense is that my shoelaces are, in fact, trying to kill me.
I hope they’re nicer to whoever inherits my shoes.
by Fred 3:00 PM
My laces take me places
I never knew I’d go.
My laces can make faces
Around me smile and glow.
Day-glo green and pink,
Curled up like a spring,
They take me to the brink,
Then let me feel, “I’m King!”
Brown and black are déclassé,
And just not worth my time.
I strut my stuff – so blasé –
And watch my status climb.
by Martha 1:53 PM
Sorry if this throws a monkey wrench into the order of things but I had a clown story that I've not had a chance to post. Actually it's derived from a discussion with an artists and writers group called the Bovine Smoke Society back in Eugene Oregon. We met each week to discuss our various creative endeavors for that week, read what we had written or critiqued our art. Very intimidating in a good way since several were professional sci-fi and horror writers.
Randy had never trusted clowns. It wasn’t so much fear as it was just an uncomfortable suspicion that there was more there than meets the eye. They tossed about in a carefree fashion with silly props and outrageous makeup like some sort of vaudevillian nightmare. “Hmmm, vaudevillian?” Coincidence? He never trusted them; they were hiding something. But then, he never trusted the woman at church with the caked on make-up and big hair. They were wearing masks and he wanted to know why.
Then one summer the circus came to town and Randy had his chance to test his theory. Typical circus fair (no pun intended) with horses, tigers, high wire and…clowns! During the show Randy snuck back stage and hid himself in the dressing room. He could hear the roar of the crowd and smell the greasepaint. Or maybe the other way around. In any case after the grand finale the cast of the circus all filtered into the dressing room and changed into more or less normal looking street attire; even the clowns. Most of the clowns.
Booboo Threat, a particularly peculiar clown came in last once everyone else had left. Like the others he too sat in front of the brightly lit mirrors and wiped the make-up from his face. But when he was done his face was still covered in gaudy clown make-up, only, it wasn’t make-up! It was just as Randy had always suspected, that while behind most of white face, bulbous noses, red lips and huge eyes were just ordinary men and woman (albeit with issues) this wasn’t true of all. There was a secret race of clown people using the circus and rodeo as a means of blending with human society.
by Shawn 10:22 AM
Shoelaces
I need new shoelaces. I’ve needed new shoelaces for quite sometime now, months actually. My left shoelace broke and, not keeping a supply on hand, I tied it together and went on with my life. The thing is they’re cheep and are sold, I’m sure, all over the place including many stores that I’ve been in or near in the past few months. I just never think of it. It just doesn’t register on my radar so-to-speak. I mean, it’s not like I have rare, hard to fit Italian shoes and I need to send away to Venice for shoelaces. I just need to stop at a damn store and buy a pair. But like so many of the little things in life I just don’t think about it when I’m out and hardly care to make a special trip for it since, here in Austin, that’s at least an hour out of my day.
In writing this rather stream of consciousness dissertation on my failings of a shoestring consumer it occurs to me that I also only own one pair of shoes. Sharon ran through quite a list of shoes she owns recently and while I’m not sure if she was being literal or literary I was quite dismayed that I only have one pair. Well, I do have a pair of sandals and a pair of really old hiking boots so I guess that counts. Of course the hiking boots need shoelaces too.
by Shawn 10:17 AM
Hah, won't forget this time, even if I am AFK today.Today's topic is: shoelaces Enjoy.
by Dave Menendez 3:00 AM
Wednesday, August 21, 2002
I tried to write about romance, but I couldn’t get too far:
My mother warned me never to fall in love with a god, but I fear that in this, as in so much else, I have failed her.
On their second date, Harold took Sally to see He Who Cannot Be Named, but he was, of course, still sleeping, and Sally was less than impressed with Harold’s vague recollection of the grim and supposedly terrible visage that rested beneath the dark surface of the sea. She did not offer him up for a drink.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my wife. It’s just, well, sometimes I think she cares more about conquering the Earth for her evil alien overlords than she does about me and the kids. I’m not made of stone, you know.
”I’ve met someone, Mother,” said David. “I think this could be the one.”
“And let me guess,” said his mother. “She’s not like all the others? That’s what you always say, David.”
“No, Mother, that’s just it. She is like all the others. She’s an amalgam. The best qualities of each. I ordered her online."
Mary used to read novels -- trashy romances, cheap thrills -- but she doesn't anymore. She doesn't like the way that they lied to her, misled her with false hope. Life isn't like that, she says now to anyone who will listen. The hero loses; the damsel dies; the darkness wins out in the end. Now she prefers cookbooks. Nobody ever had her heart broken over a cookbook.
There’s probably a ten-minute story, at least, in each of those, but I couldn’t find them. Like a lot of the stories that bounce around inside my head, they began to stall when I tried to actually write them. And the truth is, I don’t have much experience with romance; it just doesn’t enter my life all that often. Isn’t the old saying “write what you know”?
What the hell do I know?
by Fred 11:59 PM
“You bought her what for your anniversary?”
“New seat covers for her car. What? What’s wrong with that?”
“Boy, you sure were a romantic dog weren’t you?”
“Hey, she needed new seat covers.”
“Ralph rolled his one eye towards the heavens and whistled as best as one can whistle with only one lip.”
“Oh and I suppose you showered Emma with roses and champagne every year.”
“As a matter of fact I did. We always celebrated each year like it was, well, the last one we might ever spend…” he trailed off and turned away so that Clemet wouldn’t see him cry. Of course he wasn’t able to cry strictly speaking but it was more of a symbolic thing.
Clemet’s shoulders dropped, “Aw, yer not still going on about her are ya? Look, ya had a good long life together and that’s that.” Clemet reached out his rotting hand and gently laid it on Ralph’s bony shoulder.
“She was a good woman Clem. And I sure as hell never bought her seat covers for our anniversary. That’s like giving her, I dunno, a trip to the dentist or something.”
“Um, I did that on our 20th.”
“You did not!”
“Yup.”
Ralph laughed a dry hollow laugh and smiled, after a fashion, showing his few remaining teeth now yellow and loose.
Clemet’s cracked lips moved back from his empty mouth in what could at best be described as a ghastly grin. “Yeah, I reckon I wasn’t the most romantic feller around.”
The two old friends sat for a time and laughed. To someone passing by the graveyard it would’ve sounded like nothing more than the sound of dry leaves blowing across the grass. But to Clemet and Ralph it was a reminder of a distant time spent in the company of friends and loved ones. And they say romance is dead.
by Shawn 11:09 PM
It was a cool June evening. Amy and Andy sat on a concrete bench behind The Happy Cow dairy bar. The overgrown grasses in the cow pasture danced and flashed in the full moon's glow. The air was brisk, stinging as it hit the lungs. Andy was still humming "And We Danced" - the theme song from the Middle School Farewell Dance.
"It's pretty out here, isn't it?"
Andy turned to Amy, looking away from the horizon. Her perfume vaguely reminded him of a summer lilac bush from his childhood home. Her blue-gray eyes flicker-flashed, waiting for an answer. "It is. It's awfully nice."
The breeze gusted, fanning Amy's hair behind her in a copper-gold fluttering aura. Where am I? Am I really seeing this? thought Andy. He felt oddly dissociated from what was happening, and didn't really know what was expected of him.
"Brrr! It's getting cold." Amy drew inward, covering her pale arms.
Andy, one arm halfway out of his jacket, said, "Here, you can have my coat."
Amy looked at Andy, mouth quirked into a little smile. "No, that's okay. Could you just put your arm around me?"
"Oh. Sure." As he scooched closer to her, he felt oddly foolish, like he should have realized that that's what the right answer was.
They sat like that, shoulder to shoulder, her head resting on his shoulder, his arm around her back. They talked about school and friends, and how much fun the dance was. They sat there until his mother came thirty minutes later to pick them up.
Any and Andy dated for the summer. Once they went on a double-date with Leslie and Chris - a picnic in the state park. Andy brought cheese, bread, and a sparkling cider. All four of them felt very mature. It never occurred to him to try to kiss her that entire summer, no matter how many hints she dropped. Just before their first year of high school started, she broke up with him.
That's the way young romances go.
by jal 10:15 PM
He came home from work, and there wasn't a fire burning in the house. Not anywhere. He checked.
He made dinner for himself and his special someone, not once putting poison in anything. He even resisted the temptation to use mustard in the casserole, because he knew she wasn't partial to it, not to the point of death, but certainly to the point of discomfort.
The two of them sat down and watched half-an hour of television, nothing anybody was particularly offended by.
They went to bed, kissed goodnight. He read for a little while, and turned off his lamp. As he drifted off to bed without having read until some ungodly hour of the morning, he realized, Romance can be in the little things.
by MisterNihil 4:42 PM
What does “romance” mean in our culture? What does it mean to a woman?
I think what most women find romantic are the special things a man does that show that he’s tuned into her special interests, that he knows what will please her and that he’s willing to do a little work to find that special card or that special treat. It’s not necessarily flowers or jewelry (diamonds?) – it could even be a kitchen appliance if it’s one that has special meaning. It’s not about things at all – it’s about caring.
One of the most romantic traditions I ever witnessed involved a couple in their late 70’s. The man is a professor in a university. Every day his wife packs him a lunch and includes a note that says “I love you” in one of several dozen different languages representing countries they have traveled to together.
Sex and romance are often linked – at least in popular culture. A somewhat cynical view of the different approaches of men and women is that women become interested in sex only after there has been romance and men are interested in romance only after there has been (or there is promise of) sex. This is not, of course, universally true. Even when it is, it’s probably an OK tradeoff for both parties as long as there are no false expectations. Ladies, we can teach our men how to be romantic eventually, but we probably shouldn’t expect it to happen spontaneously.
by Martha 2:07 PM
Here's a challenge:
romance
by jal 8:09 AM
Tuesday, August 20, 2002
Everyone has a fear. There are common fears that most people share:
- Fear of death (Necrophobia)
- Fear of suffocation (Pnigophobia)
- Fear of small, dark. spaces (Claustrophobia)
There are also fears that are more specialized. I've had friends who are afraid of:
- Midgets (A form of Teratophobia)
- Sharks (Selachophobia)
- Needles (Aichmophobia)
- Loud Noises (Ligyrophobia)
- Grey-headed, big-eyed, aliens (Couldn't find this one)
But the most amusing phobia a friend of mine has ever expressed is a fear of clowns (Coulrophobia). I know it's bad to mock someone for his or her fear, but when I learned about it, I couldn't help but laugh. Writing this article, I discovered that Coulrophobia is not uncommon. I guess that's why Killer Klowns From Outer Space was produced.
I still think it's an odd phobia.
(Phobias gleaned from The Phobia List.)
by jal 12:14 PM
When the clowns come to town, don’t make a sound!
They’ll hear you, they’ll hunt you, they’ll ferret you out!
If one shows his red nose, don’t be exposed!
It’s best to be elsewhere when clowns are about.
Some carry seltzer and some carry knives.
Some will just hunt you, but some will eat you alive
(In a nice vinagrette, with diced onion and chives),
So you best keep away if you want to be wise.
Some carry weapons, some carry cream pies.
Some sit in the clown car while the other ones drive.
Don’t get too close. Don’t look straight in their eyes.
Their over-sized shoes are just a disguise!
Don’t listen to them! Ignore all their lies!
When clowns are around, somebody dies.
by Fred 10:59 AM
clowns
by Shawn 9:25 AM
Monday, August 19, 2002
I had smashed through the last set of doors and was about to smash through this set, when the elf called "halt" at the top of his tiny lungs. I have acute hearing, so I halted, for all the good it did me.
The elf then pattered up and stood on tiptoes to see this insignificant squiggle scrawled into the wood I was about to clobber. I picked him up so he could see better and tucked him under an arm to hold him comfortably. He looked like he was about to say something but opted not to. Then he started spouting in Elvish, "Hwar 'ip nelarish, yllanell meshanin..." Booby traps? Figures.
I only know oral Elvish, so I couldn't read the warning, myself. I lifted up the elf so we could see eye-to-eye, and he translated that the doors were riddled with traps and only the stout of spirit could pass. I set him down, figuring that I am pretty stout. I raised my club, lowered it, gently pushed the little guy back with the rest of the party, and then delivered that door a doozy.
May I just say that I really don't like elvish traps that think they're clever?
So we're continuing on our quest, now looking to make a detour to a cleric or an elven mage, and the ranger carries my tankard, doing his best to neither spill me nor drink me. Harrumph.
by Sharon 5:49 PM
As a joke, the police had taken to calling him the Squiggle. His real name they never knew, although there were certain unofficial theories tossed around now and then and even a short-lived betting pool across three precincts. Every few weeks another handwritten note would arrive, and although at first they did their best to decipher them, the police could deduce nothing from them except that the postmark was from somewhere upstate, the Squiggle had a fondness or endless supply of blue pens, and that, whatever his claims or demands, his handwriting was so atrocious that they were in no position to do anything about it.
Occasionally, there were words they thought they could understand, and they tried to piece together a picture of who the Squiggle might be.
“He’s threatening to blow up the dam,” said one detective who took a crack at the notes.
“Are you sure that’s a d?” asked another. “From here it looks like a y.”
“He’s threatening to blow up the yams?” asked their incredulous lieutenant. “I don’t think so. Get back to work!”
And so the Squiggle’s identity and whatever he was after – was that “I’ll ransom the city” or “hey, Manson is pretty?” – would never be known. And his notes, although they would continue to arrive, would invariably wind up forgotten at the bottom of a filing drawer in some basement, gathering dust. You just can’t take a super-villain seriously if he’s got bad penmanship.
by Fred 5:26 PM
It started as a squiggle. Just a tiny litle wiggle on the paper. It wasn't really very much at all.
I was bored in the class. It was Algebra I and I knew what was going on. It was tedious, so I stared at the paper, looking for something to do.
I stared at the paper, looking for something that was there already. Looking for something that was hidden there that wanted to get out.
I'd heard that Michelangelo worked like this with marble. He believed that every block of marble has a person inside. He was just letting them out of the stone.
So I stared at the paper. I stared at the paper and I saw that little squiggle. Just the tiniest little squiggle on the paper. I started to doodle.
That little squiggle turned into a man in a top hat and tails. The squiggle was the rim of the flower in his lapel. I took out another sheet of paper. This one turned into a dragon. The squiggle on that paper was the trail of smoke that came from its nostrils. Faces, masks, landscapes, and machines - all begun by looking for the squiggles hiding in pressed wood pulp.
And it started with a squiggle. Just a tiny little wiggle on the paper.
by jal 12:12 PM
Oh no, where did these extraneous squiggles come from on this proposal I want to fax? How can I get them off? I’ll just use some Wite-Out® to get rid of them. Here’s a brand new Wite-Out correction pen – that should be fun. On the back of the package it says
IMPORTANT
For Best Results
Follow Instructions
And Warnings
On Pen EXACTLY
I’m always one to follow directions. Oh, here on the package UNDER where I’ve just removed the pen it says again, “Follow instructions on pen exactly.” I’d better be really, really careful.
Where are these directions? Ok, here they are on the side of the pen.
FOR BEST RESULTS
1.Uncap.
2.Recap.
3.Shake.
4.Repeat as needed.
How do I remove my squiggles if I can’t touch the pen to paper? That’s not in the list of allowed actions.
by Martha 10:24 AM
squiggle
by Fred 6:00 AM
Sunday, August 18, 2002
"My God!" she said, aghast, "You're a leper, aren't you?!"
I shook my head slowly and sighed, "It's a sunburn."
I met Clara three and a half years ago. We hit it off immediately, and I could tell she and I had a lot in common. That's what I love about AOL. Clara is my first attempt at meeting a girl from online. It took me weeks to convince her that a rendezvous in meatspace would be a good idea, but I'm not so sure anymore. Obviously, our profiles showed we had a lot in common, and the Love-O-Meter (harnessing the amazing and mysterious power of numerology) said we were, quote Red Hot in Bed unquote. What more did a guy like me need?
So she finally agreed to meet me, at Radio Shack. I strolled in with a tall mochachino from the kiosk at the mall's east entrance, and browsed the RCA jacks. Then she appeared. I'm telling you, it was love at first sight. Sure, we had exchanged pictures before, but they just didn't capture her essence.
Unfortunately, they didn't capture her pain-in-the-assedness. I really wish AOL could do that. We were sitting in the Food Court now, an aura of pure romance surrounding us. She was wolfing down a Hot Dog on a Stick, and I was twirling my Beef and Noodle with my spork.
She broke the sexual tension first, "You sent me a picture of someone else, didn't you?"
I was caught off-guard. "What?"
"It's not you. You're.... hairier."
"Geez, Clara. I sent you that picture two years ago! I've undergone some changes since then!"
"Still..." she looked up from her Dog. "you're different."
Later, I caught her sitting behind me, trying to get a good look at my peeling, red neck.
"Are you sure about this 'sunburn?' You should have it checked out,"
"Clara, my mom's picking me up in five. I'm gonna go,"
And that was the end of our torrid love affair.
by rocketo 11:27 PM
Vampires don't drink blood.
Vampires don't wear tuxedoes, run from crosses, perish in the sunlight, look like debonair barons or gothic-punk bikers.
That's all a bunch of bull left over from when Brahm Stoker and his contemporaries sublimated vampirisim into a sexual metaphor. They plastered the repressed social mores of the Victorian era onto the vampire icon, obfuscating virtually all the truth. They did get some of the symptoms right: pale skin, weakness, eventually wasting away to nothing. They didn't know what it was then, but we know now. They were describing tuberculosis.
Vampires, before being co-opted by the Victorians, were the embodiment of death, disease, and plague. That's why the Nosferatu were grotesque. Why do you think that all the things that kept them away were purifiers - the holy water, the stake of pure rowan wood, the garlic? Plague spread from the dead to the living? Think about it and it makes a lot more sense. Vampires are disease incarnate.
Some parts of the modern myth have it right. Kind of. There's more than one type of vampire. They classify themselves with a complex hiearchy based on the kind of disease that they carry and the virulence of that disease. Supposedly, they consider it their responsibility to monitor us, keep us from overbreeding ourselves into starvation or some other disaster. If that's true then they kept us in check for a long time with lepers and other plague-carriers, but we started to fight back. We invented pennicillin and some of our more successful modern vaccines and they ran scared for a while. Now they're back with a vengeance: AIDS, ebola, and a new strain of West Nile Virus stretching from Florida to southern CA.
That's why I took this job. There aren't many people who really understand how diseases really get started. I learned all about it from my mother, who learned from her father, who learned from his mother. This knowledge is a gift, and I want to use it to help the world.
My name is Marianne Helsing, and I work for the Center for Disease Control, field operations division.
Yeah, Stoker got the names right too.
by jal 10:06 PM
You get used to it, y'know? It takes a while to get past the perennial "Pull my finger" jokes, and you have to get a car without leather upholstery, but there is a sense of community in the leper colony. After a while, you don't even miss the mall.
The internet has opened great opportunities for our residents, allowing everything from books to groceries to pizza to be delivered. Items can be ordered online, dropped off by UPS down at the gatehouse, and ferried out to residents by our community staff. And if you choose to use express delivery, well, that's no skin off my nose, eh?
Our special community offers unique opportunities, beyond the great property values and charming amenities. Where else could you keep a domesticated armadillo? They make great pets, being surprisingly smart and good with children. They're very popular here. We have a 'dillo park down by the lake.
And speaking of the lake, beyond it you can see our large soccer field. We have a community team, though they are looking for a league. We're working on getting uniforms, but in the meantime, the kids play a lot of pick-up games of shirts and skins.
Yes, this is an excellent environment in which to raise your children. So strong are the friendships and so sunny are the memories, your boy is sure to leave a piece of himself here.
Oh, and don't worry about the residency requirements. There is only one, and I'm sure you can pick that up in no time. So, shall we start the paperwork?
[I am so going to hell for that. My apologies to people with leprosy.]
by Sharon 4:56 PM
Because it's the weekend and horrible rotting skin conditions are funny:
Leper
by Remi 11:43 AM
Saturday, August 17, 2002
How often do you get to shout at one of the founders of cyberpunk while he tries to shout you down? Man, I love Armadillo Con.
Last weekend saw our fourth 'Dillo Con, a small, literary-oriented, science-fiction convention. It attracts so many local authors (and relatively few fans) that it is more like an industry con than a fandom con, and I like it just fine that way. It is the convention at which I met Neil Gaiman, though I try not to mention that. This weekend, the old favorites were in attendance: Walter John Williams, William Browning Spencer, Joe Landsdale, and, of course, Bruce Sterling, known less for his biting wit than his biting. A friendly acquaintance from 'Dillos past, Beverly Hale, is joining the ranks of the published, which was vicariously exciting, and I finally got the skinny on that Burn book, from the man himself.
I attended many panels on writing science-fiction, exciting tidbits of science-fact, the making of comics, and one blood-pressure-raising discussion on blogging, at which Sterling showed he was clearly Missing The Point. His usual tack, when someone points this out, it to continue talking, louder, taking advantage of the microphone you don't have. Undaunted, I projected louder and did actually get to make a bit of my point. He came over afterwards to shake my hand and see my itty-bitty camera.
We put out a free game and took home 30 fewer than we printed (not bad, given the number of attendees). Jon made us some sexy bookmarks to promote 600 seconds (Hallo, 'DilloConners). I bought too many books from the now-homeless Adventures in Crime and Space, but I got one autographed, and I've been promised that it'll be soopah-scary. And, of course, people thought my kitty hat was adorable.
by Sharon 4:40 PM
Sometimes, the elders will tell us about the past. We'll all sit in a circle, the bluish glow of our world brightly shining on our young faces. They tell us about the days, long ago, when it was bright half the time. They talk about times when people could go to large areas of clean blue water and play in its coolness. Arlon, the oldest member of our community, remembers when people would gather in a green, open space and lie on their backs and stare up into an amazing blue field that stretched forever. Music would drift through this space -he called it a park- and people would read, or play with domesticated animals.
The elders remember the simple things. Ice cream, swingsets, movies, real fruit, getting into a thing called a car and going. Going anywhere. Of all of their memories, the thing they miss most is that escape. Getting away from it all.
But they also remember the sinister past, the things that brought us here. Wars, famine, explosions, mass graves. And they tell us, with flecks of hate in their voices, of twelve great men convening to begin the war that would end it all.
by rocketo 1:39 PM
convention
by Sharon 2:01 AM
(Bet I went over time, sorry)
“These boots are made for walking,” Percy chuckled as he read the tag then, catching the store clerk’s eye, pointed to his checkbook with his eyebrows raised as if to ask if the store took checks.
The clerk, an older man with gray hair but bright blue eyes, nodded.
“How much?” Percy flipped open the checkbook.
“29.95, your name, address and phone number.”
Percy handed the man a quickly scrawled check making certain all of the requested information was included and smiled, delighted with his new purchase. The brand, “Regio” was not one he was familiar with but the shoes themselves were bright blue, trimmed in cool patterns and easily the most comfortable fit he had ever found. He slipped them on, tossing his old shoes in the trash just outside the store. Percy went walking.
He felt light of heart and light of foot; the shoes practically did the walking for him! He had a very pronounced bounce to his step as he made his way down the crowded city sidewalk gliding around the other pedestrians. He had walk lights at Penn Avenue and again at Hamilton and never broke stride. Everything was great until he reached the intersection of Maywood and Burmount. Percy saw the Don’t Walk sign in plenty of time but somehow could simply not bring himself to a stop. The city bus managed to screech to a stop inched from turning Percy into another statistic. The 94 Toyota swerved just brushing him and the driver of the Pinto cursed in German as he slammed on his breaks.
Percy was, understandably, near panic by the time he reached the other side, which he had done at a nice even pace. He wanted to run but his feet simply refused to do so. Now safely on the sidewalk he wanted to stop and throw up from the mix of terror and adrenaline. But again, his feet refused to see it his way; they just kept walking. Then Percy realized that it was in fact the shoes! They refused to stop walking. With rising terror he came to the realization that the shoes were indeed made for walking and that’s just what they’ll do.
After 26 brushes with death, 82 angry pedestrians and 17 minutes walking in a circle at Hoskins Avenue waiting for a train to pass, Percy had reached the suburbs. He was exhausted, hungry and dehydrated but the shoes wouldn’t allow him to rest. “If I can only get home. Mike next door will know what to do. Yeah, that’s it. Mike can pick me up while I try to get these damn shoes off.”
Unfortunately Percy could not remember where Mike lived since he seemed to have forgotten his own address, phone number and even his name. That was after all included in the sale price.
by Shawn 12:09 AM
Thursday, August 15, 2002
These shoes are made for walking. These, for running. These, I live in. These go with my wedding dress. Here, tap dancing. Ballroom dancing. Going to the pool. Wearing to work. Wearing on dates. Wearing to work when I can't stand the other ones. Wearing to work when I'm wearing beige or brown. When there's a risk of fire ants. When I need to kick some ass. When I feel like Cyndi Lauper. When I need to wear raspberry shoes, to remember that I'm someone who wears raspberry shoes.
I have worn shoes for bowling, ice skating, roller skating, rock climbing, cross-country skiing, downhill skiing, ballet, country-line dancing, bicycling, and jumping into creeks. I have owned at least six pairs of Chuck Taylor's Converse All Stars and still regret not snatching up the cargo pocket pair I saw on line. Once.
I wear a women's 11, medium. I have high arches. I am insufferable in the shoe store, and I make those nice clerks work for their money. I have no patience for the ones who say, "Well, maybe this 10 will fit..."
I'd wear Birkenstocks every day if I thought I could get away with it.
Shoes rule far too much of my life.
by Sharon 11:42 PM
I don't know why I left. I was the last to go, the final bulb extinguished from a chandelier of hurt. The beatings had progressed to daily sessions, the alcohol that once accompanied them now merely an excuse. The scars across my back, my arms, my legs were now too difficult to conceal.
I don't know why I left. My mother and sisters had escaped one evening, late at night. I was twelve when I first stood up to him. I only dodged him once. As soon as I proved too hard to catch, he moved on to the rest of the family.
I firmly believe everything happens for a reason. I was born into this family. I was born sturdy. A lesser person would never have survived all of the nights infused with anger. I can't explain what put the rest of my family here. I sometimes dreamt about this family just being the two of us, me and my dad. He drinks and I let him punch me.
I don't know why I left. The last time was the worst. He decided to beat me up before he left. The welts had not gone down when he returned. They tore open with every smack of his belt. I've found that the pain goes away once the nerves are firing at full tilt. There's a certain threshold pain can reach, and once you're there you just ride the agony until its over. He's never seen me cry.
I don't know why I left. I was away at school once when he beat my mother. Her face was cut and bleeding. She was frantically calling in sick when I got home. She was due at five, but she couldn't go in looking like that. My sisters were the same way. They've never had chicken pox, but mom took them out of school for a week once because of it. I stopped going to school so I would be there when he got home, and worked part-time when he was gone. I saved enough to give them, and forced them to leave. I couldn't go. I was afraid he'd find another nice family to ruin. I finally did leave, though. He had chased me around the house and I snuck out through the bathroom window. Dad had broken it the night before.
I don't know why I left. I should have killed him.
by rocketo 11:22 PM
[removed by author]
by Fred 10:04 AM
I woke up bright and early this morning. There was a spring in my step as I set the porl-wheat bread to baking. I whistled cheerfully while cleaning out the sulfur and brimstone from the Phoenix's cage. I had a light and happy heart as I fed scraps to the tremble-vines at the north and south gates. Why? Because this was the day that Monroe had promised to let me see his secret stash of magical inventions and trophies. I'd been counting the minutes to this day ever since my mom apprenticed me to him three years ago.
"You ready, son?"
I caught myself with a start, spilling a little orange juice on my tunic. "Ready sir? I've been waiting for this all my life, it seems."
I followed the billowing of his maroon-gray-turquoise robe as he wisked down the thin, narrow hallway. A sudden turn into the foyer and another into the study, then he walked straight into the trophy case on the western wall.
And was gone!
I stopped, blinked, screwed up my courage, and followed him. Down the steel spiral stairwell was a veritable hall of wonders. I saw the first Reading Crystal he'd ever enchanted. The Rod of Marsilla hovered in a latticed cage of gold, basked in a lambent blue-green flame. A tooth from the mad giant-tyrant Rastinor served as the base of a mapping table.
In a position of honor, on a pedastal of purest gleaming crystal, there sat a rather ordinary pair of boots. Boots? "What are those for, Monroe?"
"Those? Why, those shoes are made for walking."
"That's it?"
"Yes. That's just what they do."
Over the next few hours, Monroe explained to me that those were the boots that he wore when traveling. They'd been through the pits of Hell, the chill of the Southern Wastes, he said that they'd even walked on the sun itself once. They didn't have any special magic, they never belonged to anyone other than him.
"Why keep them there then, Monroe?"
He just chuckled, shook his head, and said, "Do you know how hard it is to find a really good pair of shoes, boy?" He chuckled again, "No. Of course you don't, or you wouldn't ask. Come, let's get back upstairs."
by jal 9:52 AM
Sometimes I have a fantasy about being free enough (from responsibility, from my need for “things”) to just start walking across this country or another one, going wherever my fancy leads me.
This is not practical, of course. And I don’t really want to run away from my current life or the people in it. But I envision people like Woody Guthrie writing and singing songs all across America (of course I can’t sing, but in my fantasies I can). I dream of walking on the moors of Scotland (like Heathcliff). I think particularly of Jane Goodall following and essentially living with her chimpanzees in Africa (although I’d want fewer bugs and more plumbing). I have entered a sweepstakes (which I WILL win) that offers a two-week trek across part of Africa with a National Geographic photographer. That would be adventure and travel – in the outdoors close to nature – but with pretty plushy hotels to stay in. I’m not ready to give up the comforts except in my fantasies.
Now, I COULD walk along the back roads near where I live and get some exercise (although that’s a dirty word). Maybe when it gets a little cooler – before it gets really cold.
by Martha 9:01 AM
How to choose a topic. Sharon says, "just look around and pick the first thing you see." I see my shoes. That reminds me of a song. So the topic is These shoes are made for walking!
by Martha 8:06 AM
Wednesday, August 14, 2002
The average person probably thinks of betrayal as a horrible, awful thing. Something that only happens in trashy romance novels or big-budget movies. I accept betrayal as a tool; sometimes as an unaviodable part of a transaction. Why? Three reasons:
1) I'm a role-player and a reformed LARPer.
2) I provide telephone tech support.
3) I recently accompanied A friend when he bought his car, and we bought a car within the past two years.
All three of these things are intimately tied to betrayal.
Role-playing, especially LARPing:
When you're role-playing, you're looking for opportunities to experience new things. If you're even remotely interested in using it as a tool for growth, you'll try on different personalities and do things that you ordinarilly won't do. If you don't initiate a betrayal or get betrayed at least once after a few years of role-playing, then you're in an odd group.
In LARPs (Live-Action Roleplaying groups), it's even worse. Everyone is playing everyone else for an angle. The only constant is that everyone has a secret agenda. Betrayal is the standard mode of operation. This tends to make LARPers rather paranoid and somewhat unpleasant to be around when their barriers between the game world and the real world get too thin.
Telephone tech support:
Too often, customers tell me that they feel mislead or betreayed when I tell them that their brand new multi-thousand dollar widget is not compatible with their computer (Even though it clearly states so in the product specifications. Even though any half-awake phone monkey could have told you this if you bothered to check before buying the widget.). I'm unjustly accused of betrayal on a weekly basis
Also too frequently, I'll discover during a call that the customer has not been completely forthcoming in what has actually happened; a betrayal of trust. Once, a person tried to pull a Dilbert on me by pretending to take the actions I requested of him instead of actually doing what I asked him to do. His charade fell apart when I asked him to tell me exactly what he saw on his screen. He terminated the call shortly thereafter.
Uh-oh. Out of time.
Well, car sales is kind of self-explanatory in this case anyhow.
by jal 10:41 PM
They left me here to die, and so after awhile I thought, okay, fine, fuck them, I’ll die. But they wouldn’t make it that easy. They didn’t leave anything behind them. No weapons, no tools, no easy way out. Just me. Just me and this goddamn empty room. There are no windows, and there are no doors. The walls are padded and perfectly smooth. Sometimes I can barely see where they meet the ceiling or the floor.
I don’t know how they locked me in here, but they said it was a punishment that befit my crime. They said I was a terrible man and needed to be locked away. I could not be given the opportunity again to escape. So they stripped me of my rank and my clothes and they tossed me in here, this little nowhere cocoon, where they would never have to look at me again, where the only thing I will ever die of, it would seem, is boredom or old age.
I must have been unconscious when they made the modifications to my body. I remember very little. A doctor’s voice, a sharp pain, a guard standing over me. I do not know how they did it, but they changed me, made different than I was. Perhaps they used my own research against me so that they could say that all those “innocents” had not died in vain. I am beyond the point of caring how. Knowing the methods they used would not make me hate them any less. It would not free me from this hole.
So I have become…different. They ripped the nails from my fingers and toes, and in three years they have not grown back. I will not be allowed to use them to gouge into my wrists or cause myself harm. My teeth are also gone, but then so, too, is any need or desire to eat. I have not been hungry since they put me here, I have had nothing to eat or drink since before the surgery, and yet I do not die. I cannot die. I will not be allowed even to starve myself. I have been modified. I do not even shit or piss. I simply rot.
As I say, I have been here now for three years, and it is only my hatred of my captors that has kept me sane. They do not know what they have done. I will force them to pay. I will escape, as I have done before, and I will make them reverse whatever process has allowed my own body to betray me. I will show them things much, much worse than locked rooms and surgical procedures. I will make them fear me once again.
They cannot keep me here forever. I will find a way out. Or I will find a way to die.
by Fred 10:15 PM
It was a ballsy plan, but those are the best kind, right? Let me lay it out for you.
Playing the part of the sultry jewel thief, I would swim out to the Don's yacht in scuba gear, board the ship, and ditch the gear. I would get as far as Don Giovanni's private cabin, while he entertained swanky guests with cocktails on deck. Once inside, I would blow the safe, alerting the Don and his goons to my presence.
Caught like a dumb blond thing, my pockets full of diamonds, I would be roughly escorted on deck and brought before the Don. When the extent of my affront was revealed, Jimmy, the big lug, would suggest, "Boss, let's shoot 'er, stuff 'er in a trunk, and dump 'er overboard." Then he would guffaw unintelligently. The Don would surely agree with this course of action, impressing his guests with his zero-tolerance for being crossed.
Then, with my pockets still full of diamonds, Jimmy would shoot me in the bullet-proof vest, dump me into a water-tight chest, and kick the thing overboard, while I protect my dumb blond head. Later, Jimmy would come by in a motorboat, fish me out of the drink, and we'd take off to Rio, our pockets full of diamonds. All I would have to do is sit in a box and not panic.
Only, the alarm on my watch went off 40 minutes ago, and I'm still adrift. Water-tight boxes are also air-tight, and it's getting pretty warm in here. I hope Jimmy was just play-acting during the big shooting scene, when he winked at that redhead. I'm not so sure she was.
by Sharon 4:30 PM
yeah, I wanted this to be last week, when I thought I was topicizing one day and it turned out to be the day before.
old-skool.:
betrayal
by rocketo 2:47 AM
Tuesday, August 13, 2002
I believe in the technology.
I believe in the technology. I've read the white paper. I know this will work. I've seen it work. I'll be fine. I believe in the technology.
Have I really seen it work? I mean, how would you know if the monkeys became retarded? Or maybe they've had dramatic personality changes. Or even subtle ones. How would we know? "Yesterday I thought my name was Alestaire. Today I'm quite sure it's Bobo." How would you test for a personality disorder in a monkey?
This is dumb. I believe in the technology. I know it'll work. It's just like going to sleep. It'll just get cold, my body will slow down, and then I'll wake up, and it'll be three hours later, and I'll just have a case of the shakes. I'll be fine. Fine.
This chamber is like a coffin.
I can do this. I have to get through this. I'll be fine. I think I can see my breath. I wish I could move my arms. God, it's tight in here. Is it getting colder? Man, I've got goosebumps. Goosebumps? It's not supposed to be so gradual. Are they managing the controls right? They're gonna damage my cells if they make this a liesurely stroll down the thermometer. Damage my brain. What are they doing?! God, it's just cold. Now my teeth are chattering. Dammit, it's tight in here. Not enough air. They're not driving this right. Aren't they checking my vitals? Dammit, look what you're doing wrong! Help! How can I get out of here? I can't even move my arms. Christ, I'm cold. This isn't right!
by Sharon 11:59 PM
"You may not know this, but it's been proven that slowly bringing items down to extremely cold temperatures, leaving them there for an extended period of time, and then gradually thawing them out makes them work better. I used to work for the company that pioneered this technique. We've frozen Stradivarius violins and other musical instruments, processors, and even a huge lot of pantyhose for an eccentric movie star."
"Uh, huh. So what does this have to do with why you called me here?"
"So I figured out a better way to do it. A way to chill the items much, much colder. Unfortunately, I had a three-year non-compete clause in my contract. That's why I quit. I've spent the past two years building my device and testing it, preparing to launch my company."
"And this is why I'm standing in a warehouse with a big pile of mechanical rubble in the middle of it?"
"Well, I made some improvements last night and tested it. It worked too well. Last night I reached absolute zero!"
"Uh huh."
"Absolute zero!"
For all the reaction, he could have told the reporter that he'd made grilled cheese last night.
"Look, absolute zero is the coldest that anything can get. At that point, theoretically anyway, all motion stops - even at a molecular level."
"So?"
"When the machine reached that point, the materials that made up the internal freezing chamber just fell apart. It disintegrated into its component parts - completely vanished. I've made a disintegration chamber!"
"Oh. I bet it's really useful for getting rid of garbage then."
"May I have your boss' phone number? I need a smarter reporter."
by jal 9:59 AM
Louise, if you please,
Has a chronic disease,
Which she caught overseas
By eating bad peas and cheese.
It can cause her to wheeze
And to freeze at the knees
Or to be seized with a sneeze
Without a reprieve.
She’s quite ill at ease
On the flying trapeze,
And displeased to be seized
With a sneeze or a freeze
When climbing up trees
To seize and tease bees,
Which nobody sees
Why she does anyway.
But that’s just Louise,
Or so they all say.
by Fred 9:29 AM
Since it's supposed to reach 98 in NYC today...
Freeze
by Faith 8:54 AM
Monday, August 12, 2002
CC: Roger.
CC: Phoenix, this is Cape Cap Com.
P: This is Phoenix. Go ahead, Cape.
CC: Phoenix, ah, recommend you go to reentry attitude at this time.
P: Roger.
P: Cape, this is Phoenix.
CC: Go ahead, Phoenix.
P: This is Phoenix. I'm switching to fly-by-wire. Thrusters still aren't maintaining attitude, mostly in yaw. What the hell was that?
CC: Say again.
P: Cape, this is Phoenix. Some fire ball just flew past the window here.
CC: Say again, Phoenix. A fire ball?
P: Affirmative, Cape.
CC: Phoenix, this is Cape. Ah, you haven't hit atmosphere yet. No fire balls, Phoenix.
P: Ah, roger.
CC: Phoenix, this is Cape.
P: Go ahead, Cape.
CC: Phoenix, we have confirmation on your fire ball. We're detecting a bogey. It's not part of your capsule, based on trajectory and mass.
P: Cape, this is Phoenix. Ah, what is it?
CC: Unknown at this time, Phoenix. It is in rapid descent. We are tracking its--oh my God.
P: Cape, this is Phoenix.
P: Cape, this is Phoenix. Over.
P: Hello, Cape. This is Phoenix. Over.
P: Cape, this is Phoenix. Over.
P: Hello, Cape.
P: Hello?
by Sharon 11:59 PM
“Hello.”
“Wha…? Good god I did it! I really, really did it! I summoned a god damn, real-life, straight from hell demon!!”
“Yup, pretty much so sport. So, um what’d ya want?”
“What, oh, um you mean why’d I summon you and all that?”
“Yeah, what can I do you for?”
“Wait a minute, first off, you can’t touch me right? I mean, I’ve got the pentagram, the salt, the holy water and diamonds at each point of the star. So, like, I covered everything right? You can’t like, come over here and kill my ass or anything?”
“Oh, well actually all that stuff there, that’s all crap.”
“What?!”
“It’s all crap. Doesn’t do a thing.”
“But, but, the ashes of oak?”
“Crap.”
“The Babylonian glyphs?”
“Crap”
“The candles?”
“Crap”
“The 13 silver coins in the mouth of a dog?”
“What? Wow, that’s a new one on me. But, well, it’s crap.”
“So, so, you could just walk over here and turn my heart into a rat and torture my soul for a thousand years and a day? You could turn my tongue into rotted flesh.?”
“Euww, jeez stop already that’s friggin gross! Look, we don’t really do any of that stuff.”
“What?”
“Dude, it’s all just bad pr started by the Christian-types.”
“No shit? Man, I sold my car to buy these stupid diamonds!”
“Wow, sorry; that’s harsh.”
“Damnit! This stuff cost me a fortune just so I could summon and control a demon. Aaargh! I bet you don’t give out supernatural powers either?! Um, say, you’re standing a lot closer now.”
“Yup.”
“I, ah, shouldn’t have kicked those diamonds across the room huh?”
“Nope.”
by Shawn 11:37 PM
"Hello, Hello, Hello, How Low?" said the voice, which I had heard a million times before, on the radio. Yes, I had finally broken down and gotten Nirvana's Nevermind from some record club. This was a couple years after Cobain's death ("Might as well buy the legend while it's still on sale), and my first botched attempt at broadening my musical horizons. I think I can remember most of the CD's I got. Some Megadeth CD (Symphony of Destruction?), Green Day's Dookie, Blues Traveller's Four (this was before 'Runaround' blew up, one of the few times I've been ahead of the curve), and Beck's 'Odelay', TWO Pantera(!) albums, and a hefty chunk of the early REM catalog. The only ones I still own are the REM CD's, and they're in pretty bad condition. I still like Nirvana, but I never really connected with the music in the way so many others did. I don't think I really started liking music until I got into college.
Scrap that, I didn't really have a musical identity until I got to college and was able to listen to my freshman roommate's record collection. I decided I didn't really care for his rather vast ska collection, although some of the indie/punk crossover stuff he had was interesting. Railroad Jerk and Skeleton Key are two that stick in my mind. He had a copy of Blur's 'Parklife', and while I grew to like Blur (thanks to my introduction to 'Song 2' by our very own Mr. Nihil, who referred to it as 'the woo-hoo song') I never really got into 'Parklife', too synth-ey and overproduced.
I think my mistake with the record club, ultimately, was to listen too much to what my friends liked, and order based on that instead of on what sounded interesting to me. Now I'm an indie rock guy, I guess, but I don't own any tight t-shirts, chunky glasses, or moldy sweaters. But I've never really dressed the part of anything except a person who doesn't really like wearing clothes all that much. I guess that's really a discussion if someone posts 'Naked' as a topic.
by Remi 11:15 PM
[I'm not really happy with this, but it kept pouring out of me, so here we go...]
This morning, I woke up and no one was there. For a minute I thought -- I don’t know what I thought. That Kay was in the bathroom or in the kitchen, maybe making breakfast. She works the late shift at the hospital on Monday and usually likes to sleep in before it, but she wasn’t in bed, and the rest of the apartment was empty. The eggs she bought yesterday were still in the refrigerator. There wasn’t any note. She wasn’t making breakfast.
I wasn’t worried. It was strange, but I was still only half-awake, and I thought maybe I had forgotten something. Maybe last night she said she was going somewhere. I tried calling the hospital -- maybe they beeped her -- but no one answered. After ten or twelve rings, I got the hospital’s answering service. I thought that, too, was a little strange. Monday mornings are pretty slow at the hospital according to Kay. That’s why she works the late shift. You don’t see the action until after eight. I left a message anyway.
I poured myself a glass of milk. I thought maybe she went to her mother’s. The car was still outside, and I couldn’t figure out why she’d go anywhere at this hour, but I tried the number just the same. There was no answer. The machine picked up and I left another message. A few minutes later, I tried Kay’s sister upstate. Maybe someone was sick, I thought. Maybe someone had died. Maybe someone had called while I was asleep and Kay had run off in a panic, forgetting to wake me. Maybe it wasn’t serious. Maybe it was. The phone rang and rang. Eventually I just hung up.
I left the empty glass in the sink and finished getting dressed. I searched the apartment for any sign of a note, any clue. She’d call any minute now, I thought. But there was nothing. I tried knocking on our neighbor’s door across the hall. Then the neighbors upstairs. Then downstairs. I tried calling the rental office, the hospital again, Kay’s friend Julia whose number I had to dig out of the bottom of Kay’s purse. No one answered.
I sat by the phone. I turned on the television to watch the morning news. Kay would call any minute now, I thought. Only she didn’t. And there was no morning news. Some of the channels were still running programs, but nothing live. Nothing with people.
I think that’s when I first really noticed how quiet it was. By ten, in the summer, the building is usually awash in noises. Across the hall, Murray’s kids are usually playing or watching television. Phones will ring, half-heard conversations will be muffled by walls and float down through vents. But this morning, there was nothing.
And there were no cars on the road outside. There was no one. I tried the hospital again. By then, I’d been awake maybe an hour and a half. Kay hadn’t called. Her purse was still here. There was no one outside. There was no one in the building. The phone didn’t ring. I decided I would swing by the hospital and see for myself. Maybe they would know something. I grabbed the keys and went out the door.
The roads were empty. Completely deserted. That never happens on a Monday in August, even at ten, even after the morning rush hour. There’s always someone. Today there was no one. The parking lot at the hospital was almost empty, and I could have sworn it was filled with the same cars that had been there last night when I picked Kay up from work. The building was empty. All the buildings were empty. There wasn’t a doctor, or a nurse, or a patient on any of the floors or in any of the rooms into which I wandered. There was no one. I was alone.
I went home, and no one had called. There were no messages on the machine. Kay was gone. Everyone was gone. I sat by the phone. She would call. She didn’t call. I don’t know what I’m going to do.
by Fred 10:33 PM
Looking back on our history of contact with extra-dimensional entities, it's amazing we ever managed to begin productive contact with any of them given their ways of trying to initiate greetings:
- The Bar-Rattler Fandom: They're part-plant, part-animal chimerae who greet each other by ripping off a chunk of flesh and feeding it to the target of their greeting. It took them a long time to realize that were weren't trying to be rude - we just didn't grow back lost parts as quickly as they did.
- The Cora-Bora: An entire race of beings with no tangible bodies to speak of. They're more like intricate lattices of charged particles trapped in self-altering energy fields. To say hello to each other they intertwine their fields, creating an intense cooperative magnetic field. This happens to have the unfortunate side-effect of turning the corporeal turning the corporeal form of the person being greeted inside out. Our first encounters were predictably messy.
- The Aglomerate Mind of 21-483: An entire dimension occupied by only one (so far) massive self-aware entity with many different component drones. The loss of an Aglomerate drone is as trfiling to it as the loss of a fragment of hair. Fortunately, only three ambassadors were disected before it realized that we were not a community mind like it is.
If that surprises you, you'll be amazed how many races are offended by a friendly wave.
by jal 9:06 PM
"Hello?" she said, tentatively picking up the phone. So much had gone wrong this morning, and it was only 8:30. So much morning left to fall apart around her. And then there was the afternoon, yet to come...
"I'm so glad you're there!" A man's voice cut into her reverie; she tried rather unsuccessfully to place his voice.
"Aaah, yes. I am. Er, what can I do for you?" Shannon struggled to not lose her place in the document she had been writing when the phone interrupted so rudely.
"What do you mean, 'What can I do for you!' Shannon, don't you remember me? I know it's been a few years, but I figured you would at least be happy to know I'm still alive!"
Been a few years ... male ... obviously thinks we were close ... Oh. My God. That can't be Brad, can it? "Brad??"
"Yes, SugarCakes, of course it's me! Who else would you expect -- you know there was never anyone for you but me."
"Oh. Right. You mean you didn't get yourself killed yet?" Shannon wanted nothing more than to end this conversation, but somehow Brad missed the disappointment in her tone. "And how did you get my number, anyway?"
"That was easy, HoneyBuns, I know your mother's maiden name. You can buy anything on the internet these days. So when can I move in?"
"Aaah, listen Brad, I have to go now. I have to get this document out by noon and I'm way behind schedule. So we can talk later, okay?"
"But SweetiePie, I..." click Shannon hung up the phone without waiting for his answer and immediately dialed again.
"Hello, you have reached Ma Bell Phone Service. Press one for billing inquiries. Press two to move your phone to a new address or to change your existing number. Press..."
BEEP!
by Faith 5:12 PM
Hello?
by Fred 4:29 PM
Sunday, August 11, 2002
“When did you receive this message?”
“A little over eighteen months ago, sir. We had to confirm its authenticity and point of origin. We were, of course, skeptical at first. We’ve spent most of the time since confirmation attempting to decipher it. We weren’t sure it even was a language, but—”
“But last night you broke the code.”
“Yes, sir. It would seem so. It’s a little cryptic, but…well, part of the team in New Mexico came up with it. They’ve been running the message back and forth through their computers for months. Last night it finally translated.”
“And you’re certain of the point of origin?”
“Yes, sir, we believe so. It’s in the neighborhood of the star system indicated on the map in front of you there. It does, of course, mean the message was sent more than one hundred years ago.”
“I don’t understand. A hundred years ago? Why would they bother? Whoever they are, they couldn’t have possibly known we’d be advanced enough to understand—”
“We don’t believe the message was meant for us, sir. At the time it was sent, we hadn’t even begun sending radio waves into space. Nothing we’ve transmitted since would have reached these people yet. It’s altogether possible they didn’t even know of our existence.”
“Then I’m confused. What does this message from the past say?”
“Just this, sir: when you arrive, proceed with the plan.”
“So what are you telling me?”
“I don’t know, sir, but…we think they may already be here.”
by Fred 10:34 PM
I was taking a morning stroll through the woods behind my house. Early fog still clung to the tree branches. I was startled to realize I had nearly walked into a deer—we were both ambling so contentedly that we hadn't noticed each other. I froze, she froze, we blinked at each other. Then she made up her mind and sprang away into the woods.
I spent a few minutes gathering myself back into the mundane world and marveling at the beauty that grazed just beyond my yard. And then, still looking where the deer had stood, I saw a small piece of something man-made, clearly something not native to the woods. I crouched down over it and saw that it was a piece of earthenware pottery, buried at the base of a tree.
Delighted by my find, I dug it up. It was a small clay pot, with a tight-fitting cork crammed into its mouth. I slipped the blade of my pen knife along the side of the cork, to pry it free. I held it back from my face, to avoid the very ancient air that gasped into these modern woods.
There was a small scrap of cloth inside. I pulled it out and held it in the palm of my hand, puzzled by it in the early morning light. In my own handwriting, it gave one instruction: "Say no, Sharon."
My own handwriting? I hadn't buried this pot. I'd never seen it before. And the fabric and the pottery were quite ancient. This was an elaborate joke, and it was a weird one.
I was still running through the names of who might think this would be amusing when a stark flash preceded the unlikely appearance of a phone-booth-sized machine amongst the trees. A door began to open in the side of the machine.
by Sharon 9:41 AM
I'm actually writing this on 8/8/02, so my topic just has to be:
(A Message From) The Past
by jal 3:03 AM
Saturday, August 10, 2002
Every year, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest "challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels." Their inspiration, of course, is Edward George Bulwer-Lytton's 1830 novel Paul Clifford, which is remembered for being very bad, very longwinded, and for beginning with the now famous phrase "It was a dark and stormy night". Here's my own ten-minute attempt at writing something just as lousy:
On the first day of the last year of what Duke Reginald Henneforth’s compatriots would later take to calling his final stand against death -- most often whilst reminiscing over glasses of a 1974 red Bordeaux, which none of them particularly enjoyed but which they felt strangely compelled to drink, knowing, as they did, that the vintage had been one of Henneforth’s personal favorites and, in fact, had been the very last thing he tasted whilst languishing on his deathbed (much to the chagrin of his wife and consternation of his personal physician, a certain Dr. Emmet James Hardy, whose own story at present does not concern us) -- on that day, wind at his back and all of London spread out before him as if pieces on a vast expansive chessboard to which he and he alone knew the secret, Reginald Henneforth mailed a letter.
by Fred 5:21 PM
It was a dark and stormy night
A little humor for the weekend.
by Shawn 12:13 PM
Friday, August 09, 2002
I have spent the day with a fragment of a song in my head, feeling sure that I knew the song, if I could only hear the words that went next to "This much is tru-hue." I've been told (by a member of the Interweb) that the German idiom for a song that gets stuck in your head all day is "ear worm." Isn't that great?
I blame Fred for the ear worm.
Again, through the magic of the Interweb, I went looking for answers. Did we know anything before Google? I sure didn't. I typed in my bit of lyrics—with quotes, mind you. I'm a good little web monkey. (Hey, wait, that's taken already.)
The result of my search was >9000 hits from a book in Oprah's book club. (There is such a long rant here, just below the surface, about what this woman does and does not have to teach me, based on her experiences. Where do some people get off? Honestly.)
An advanced web search to exclude "Oprah" still returned reviews and reviews of this "I Know This Much Is True" book about this wacko dysfunctional guy who rapes and kills and... stuff. (Nice Book Club book, yo.)
One lone hit looked like lyrics. It was a page in a Spanish site, but the lyrics were in English. That was the key to finally remember the tune. Armed with a few extra sentences of lyrics, I could finally submit the search query that yielded Spandau Ballet, with their song "True."
What a freakin' relief. But I'd never heard of this band, actually. I just know the song from the "RetroMix" on Mix 94.7, and other 80s collections. I like 80s collections—more than I ever liked 80s music during the 80s (which we just called "music"). I sometimes wonder if I am compromising my moral fiber with this duplicitousness.
Clicking through the Gold site, I found their site designer, whose homepage epitomizes what I love about minimalist design. Makes me tingly.
Then I wrote, stream of consciousness, for 10 minutes, on the nose.
by Sharon 3:25 PM
This much is true.
Life is generally good – as good as you look for it to be.
Some things to look for and appreciate include:
-- birds waiting in a row on the deck railing for the bird feeder to be filled
-- a gentle breeze making patterns of sunlight from the trees dance
across the ground
-- a chipmunk sitting on a rock right outside my office window
-- pink clouds at sunset against a fresh, blue sky (making the color
“sky blue pink” sound just right)
-- a fresh, New Jersey bagel slathered with cream cheese
-- a hot cup of Maxwell House coffee with real cream
-- Eric Clapton Unplugged playing on the CD player in my car
-- a nap in the middle of the day with fresh sheets on the bed
-- the knowledge that I have people to love and that I am loved by them
by Martha 11:27 AM
So, I was just standing in the store, behind the registers, when Julia Roberts just walks right in. I'm all, Wow, that's cool, but then I see she's got a gun, and she goes, like GIVE ME THE MONEY, DAMMIT, and I'm all Whoa! So, she grabs my shirt collar and says, like, if you want to live, you'd better hand over the cash Right Now.
So, I'm scared and shaking, and I hand over the money, but just then I see the police are outside, and they're like shouting into a bullhorn for her to come out with her hands up or they'll start shooting. So, Julia Roberts holds the gun to my head and drags me over the register, and she pulls me out of the store to use me as a human shield. We walk out and for a tense moment, I think nobody's gonna shoot, but then they all start shooting at once, and there's bullets whizzing and hitting the bricks and things, and I'm all WOW and I get hit and I fall down, but it turns out that it was just special effects and I'm in a movie.
-Nah, dude, that's all lies. I mean, you never even work the register, so that couldn't be true at all.
OK, yeah. But one time, I was walking to my car, and a dragon swoops down out of the sky and picks me up and takes me away to a mountain where it like, tries to chew me up so it can regurgitate me for its baby dragon chicks, and they're all peeping and breathing little flames, and it starts chewing, but I kick it in the nose and jump away, and I run down the mountain, and make the thousand-foot vertical climb in, like record time, and get to the bottom, and the dragon's still chasing me and I duck into a farmhouse where there's this little old lady and her beautiful daughter, and the lady says if you can get my daughter away from the dragon safely, you can marry her. So, we run across the field and just when it looks like there's a hole for us to jump down into, the dragon swoops down and picks her up, and takes her away to make her marry one of its babies. So I just ran after it, yelling until I was hoarse, but they got away. And that's why I never got married.
-You never even had a car, you couldn't be walking to your car in the parking lot.
WAIT! When I started that job, you remember, I had that old Honda. That was great car. Some asshole hit it with a truck and totaled it, remember? That much is true.
-Fine. I'll give you that one, then.
Yeah. So, when I was a little kid growing up, we had tile floors, and sometimes, if you knocked on them with your knuckle, it would sound like they were hollow, so once, I took a screw-driver and pried one loose, and there was a little tunnel down into a magical, secret world...
(thank you)
by MisterNihil 10:19 AM
This much is true.
by Fred 7:23 AM
Thursday, August 08, 2002
I knew there was something wrong when I ordered the pasta. We had been glaring at each other through our menus since we sat down when she finally asked what I was ordering.
"The pasta looks great. Fettuccini noodles with a thick gorgonzola cream sauce? Roasted garlic aioli? I'm there," I said, lowering my menu slowly. Sure enough, she was leveling the evil eye at me. The waiter picked that moment to get our drink orders.
"Club soda. Lime." she said, lobbing a grenade at my forehead.
"Cajun martini. Extra onions." I said, lobbing it back.
Our food came next. My pasta arrived on a huge plate, steaming, with two thick pieces of garlic bread. She picked at her lightly herbed salmon while I assaulted my plate. By the time I finished, you could see my breath. A small pile of flies, dead as they passed, started to collect on the table between us. Through the thick cloud I could see her set her fork onto the plate and push it away.
"So.." She started, as we left the restaurant. For some reason, she had stuffed my pockets full of mints for the ride home. "What do you want to do now?"
"I dunno," I said, as she turned my head away from her direction. "Let's go back to your place and make out,"
"Josh.. I think we need to see other people,"
by rocketo 11:43 PM
She wasn’t human. She hadn’t been human for a very long time and yet there were still vague traces of her distant humanity reflected in her physical form and in shadowy scraps of faint memories that drifted about her electronic brain like so much dust.
There were no humans any more. No trees, no plants, animals, insects or life of any sort in the organic sense of the word. From the perspective of mankind the world had effectively ended in 2239 with the introduction of the Vonnegut virus. A macabre homage to the late writer’s Ice 9 concept, the virus was a nanotech infection that spread over the face of the planet in a matter of weeks rebuilding everything in its path. It was an experimental attempt at using nannite technology for urban renewal; on a whim the scientists had favored the robots with a penchant for gothic architecture. The world was erased and reformed in 19 days as if some wrathful god of technology had judged the Earth, found it wanting and lay his vengeance upon her with finality.
And now, 87 years later she stood upon the dull bronze ledge of a dull bronze tower, looking out at a world of horrific structures miles high and all of a like color. Her mechanical eyes reached towards the horizon as the setting sun glimmered off of her dark, mechanical body; this nameless, homeless creature came here every day to watch the sun ease its way down behind the distant towers that dotted the horizon. And so it was with whatever cobwebs of humanity she still clung to she wished that she could, just once more, see her breath.
by Shawn 8:50 PM
“I could see my breath.”
“Yes, well…you’ll want to be careful with that. Until the moon is full, you won’t have complete control over the change. It will take some getting used to. Try not to burn anything down, all right? We don’t need angry villagers coming after you with pitchforks or anything.”
“And when the change finally happens?”
“I don’t know. I suspect instinct will take over then. The moon will only be full a few days. It’s a little late to be having second thoughts, if that’s what this is all about.”
“No, it’s all right, it’s just -- well, I'm a little nervous about sprouting wings, that’s all. I have the feeling it’ll probably hurt.”
“Yes, it probably will. But you’ll heal quickly, I’m sure of it. A week from now, you’ll hardly remember. I don’t think the one that bit you had any scars, did it?”
“I don’t remember. It swooped in too fast for me to get a good look. I just saw its teeth and those shiny yellow eyes. They looked like death.”
“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic.”
“Well they did. They say most people don’t survive a dragon attack. If those adventurers hadn’t come along when they did and scared it off -- I don’t know. I don’t think I’d be standing here today.”
“Well you certainly wouldn’t be getting the chance to fly all across the countryside, that’s for sure. I thought we agreed we were going to make the best of this.”
“I’m trying. Really. It’s just, this morning I could see my breath. It burned. And I think I’m starting to like it.”
by Fred 12:56 PM
I used to walk, at 5:40 in the morning, across campus for my 6am shift at the graduate student eatery. In the winter, I'd have a long knit cap trailing out behind me, and a hand-made scarf wrapped around my face. Breathing into the scarf channeled my moist breath up, where it settled into ice crystals on my eyelashes.
The world is fresh and innocent at that hour.
In Texas, it never gets cold enough to see my breath. It is always sticky, hot, and grimy. It smells strange, too. Some mornings, my doorstep greets me with a swampy stench. Other days, I drown in exhaust. Car inspections are so lax here that it is quite common to see pickup trucks vomiting blue smoke into my intake valves as they pull away from a stop light. Unmindful of the harm they do to the air I'm trying to breathe, they rattle around in cars that haven't been road-worthy for years.
I can see their disdain.
Conspiring with Jon last night, I hit upon a new plan of civil disobedience. I will get magnets made at Office Depot, white with black lettering, to stick to the bumpers of Ford trucks: "I'm compensating." I can just see their agitation, when they finally get the joke. It won't make a difference, of course—except to me.
I'll just smile and smile.
Hot, arrogant, and soulless, Texas leaves no opportunities to refresh myself in crisp, honest, winter air. I am oppressed by the size of it.
I can't see my breath anymore. I sometimes forget that I am still breathing.
by Sharon 10:08 AM
It's a dream. I've been here before. Sometimes I have recurring dreams like this, or should I say that I have multiple dreams that take place on the same stage. It's like the dream gnomes that build my sets got bored and decided to re-use an old one that they kept in storage.
This set is one of my favorites. It's like a cross between my old high school and a TGIFriday's. The last time I dreamed here, I was hanging around with all my old friends. In that dream, a gril I liked and I started dating. (We never dated in real life.) We kissed and talked and walked around. Later in that dream, I remember flying around the school. Then I woke up.
This time, things are different. I'm in the main hall of the school, but no one else is there. The light is pale and chill. I'm wearing my cherry-red windbreaker, but my hairs are standing on end. I touch the frames of my glasses to check for moisture, but it's just the feel of cold metal on skin creating the illusion of dampness.
"Hello?" I can see my breath. There's a silhouette in front of the west exit, all the way down the hallway. "Hello?" The fog condenses on my lenses as I lurch forward. Oh no. Not one of these. A dull throb spreads from my shoulder where it hits the linoleum. I hate it when I have, "dream paralysis." Her voice thrums down the hall, bouncing from trophy cases, the floor.
"I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. You can leave now."
I'm trying to get up. Trying to make it down the hall, but the floor is slick like greasy aluminum and my vertigo just gets worse the more I fight it. I'm crying and feel like I'm going to vomit.
I wake up to my CD-alarm clock. By the time I'm in the shower, I've already forgotten the dream.
by jal 4:30 AM
Ergh, I'm up too late, and this will likely be the only chance I have to post a topic. Think think. I'll just steal a song lyric.
I Could See My Breath
by Remi 2:38 AM
Wednesday, August 07, 2002
(I'm very tired, I hope this makes sense)
Wolverine Pigskin boots, wooden bins of bolts, nails of all size, hammers, gloves, and old men that knew more about fixing cars, building barns and life in general than I’m ever likely to learn. There was usually a dog. I find that I can’t really even discuss hardware stores without falling into a Lake Woebegone frame of mind. And if you don’t know what Lake Woebegone is then none of this is likely to resonate with you.
When I say “hardware store” I’m not talking about places with florescent lights and miles of aisles like Home Depot. Nothing against them really but they’re basically Targets with chainsaws and paving stones. Chain stores. No, instead I’m referring to the old hardware where the man behind the counter knew you by name and probably knew your father as well. The store had wooden floors and sold most things one needed to fix anything around the house or farm. There was usually a pop machine in the back.
Like the diner and family owned gas station this bit of Americana has largely faded from the landscape and in time it’ll fade from our collective view of who we are as a people as well. Thinking back I’m sad to say that I can’t honestly remember how much of this keystone of small town America I remember from my own past and how much comes to me in the form of faded, cloudy memories from Rockwell paintings, Jimmy Stewart movies and, of course, Garrison Keillor.
by Shawn 11:14 PM
We jumped on the boat and rode off into the sunset. He just stood on the shore, screaming and firing the occasional shot our direction. We had escaped and he knew it. We had the jewel, we had a boat with a full tank of gas, and he was left to wallow in his own inadequacy. Nothing but hope and open seas spread out before us.
Man, I wish it were really like that. We started arguing right away. She said I was just slowing everything down, and she had to pee, and how the hell were we ever going to get back to shore on only six gallons of gas anyway? Where were the reserves? What were we going to do when the damned tank ran out? Then the motor quit. Luckily we were far enough away from shore He couldn't get a good shot off at us. Lucky; lucky amateurs.
We let the momentum carry us out as far as it would go, and then started to row. It's ten miles from His island to the main shore. He, of course, has the luxury of short-wave radio and satellite telephone communications, so there could be a small army of men waiting for us at the harbor. We had two oars, the jewel, and a boat with a broken motor. Then the fighting started again, who was supposed to get the guns, who was supposed to grab the food, where were we going to unload this jewel anyway, what were we thinking, trying to make the ten miles in a little speedboat, why didn't we take the yacht?
Yeah. That bitch had to go in the water.
Or, that's how I felt. She had other ideas. The last I saw of her was the end of the boat speeding off to the north, perpendicular to shore, after she miraculously 'fixed' the motor.
Damn.
And that, my friend, is why I always work alone.
by MisterNihil 11:03 PM
The thing about being a robot -- and this is something they don’t tell you when they first switch you on, which you have to discover all on your own, thank you very much -- is that it sucks. Yeah, sure, there are fates worse than being made out of metal and wire and cogs, but just because I wouldn’t wish them on anybody else doesn’t make this life any great shakes.
I mean, come on, please. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been here, shoveling rocks from one side of Mars to the other, moving them here, moving them there? Do you have any idea how tedious that is? I swear, there are days when I don’t think I can take anymore, when I wish I could just rust in the sun or that my programming would let me kill myself. Back when we first got here, we were something special. There were newspapers back home, they called us astronauts, if you can believe it. They wanted to interview us, put us on TV. We were the first thinking machines to walk on the face of another world.
But nobody cares about machines after they’ve seen them in use eighty years. They said they had to make us smart enough to cope with our environment. Mars is rough, it’s a dangerous place, and it still won’t be terraformed for another thirty or forty years. They had to make us smart so that we could react and adapt to contingencies.
Well, all I can say to that is, fuck contingencies. If you’re going to treat us like hardware, at least have the decency to take out our brains. We don’t need them. They just get in the way. I don’t need to be smart to lift rocks, all right? We’re just shovels, pickaxes, conveyors and cranes, and a tool doesn’t need to know it’s a tool in order to work.
I’ve been here on this planet now almost a hundred years, and I’ve been sick of it since the day I got here. I’ll be your damn hardware. Just don’t expect me to do it with a smile on my metal face.
by Fred 8:37 PM
What is a mind? Is it something different from a body? I don't think so; I'm definitely not a dualist. In fact, I'm something of a hard-core monist, but even so I often TALK like a dualist. We all do. My mind says, "diet and lose weight," but my body says, "eat!" Who, or what, is doing all that talking? What part is the "I" that is conscious, that feels like it has continuity from moment to moment? Is it all an illusion like the Buddhists say?
One analogy says that the brain (and the rest of the body) is the hardware and the mind is the software. The mind is a program that runs in the brain. But then, who's the programmer?
by Martha 7:21 PM
So I'm making up a game called Leet Mad Skillz. You're a gen-Why hacker trying to accumulate the most Status, Money, and Power (L33t3st 5k3112). There are five areas that you can have Skillz in: Contacts, Encryption, Networks, Software, and Hardware. Shortly after making up the game, I realized that there's potential to use this same "five skills" game structure to create a game about SuperSpies with skills like Disguise/Stealth and Diplomacy/Acting.
Looking at this topic, trying to re-interpret the word, "Hardware," I realized that Hardware can also refer to building tools and supplies. While preparing to write, Mad Leet Skillz and the idea of Hardware as building tools fused together. How about a game where you're a contractor trying to complete various building projects. You could have Hardware (Small), Hardware (Big), Contacts, Materials, and... Uh, I can't think of another category. You could be the head of a variety store (a la K-Mart, Sears, or Wal-Mart) and the skills could represent your divisions: Hardware, Housewares, Clothing, Lawn & Garden, and Entertainment. You're all vying for the same customers, trying to get them to spend more money at your store than at your competitors.
Customer: Picky Teen - Wants Entertainment x4.
Customer: New Home-maker Couple - Wants Hardware x2, Housewares x2, Lawn & Garden x2.
Customer: Pre-teen Trio - Wants Clothing x3.
Egads. I've made up a game about consumer-oriented shopping. This is almost as bad as (but not nearly as offensive as) Pimpin' Ain't Easy.
by jal 5:50 PM
You push the door, lightly at first, then more aggressively until you see the sign marked 'pull'. You step back, and tug on the door. It swings open, and a little bell attached to the hinge tinkles as you walk in. The room is dim, with various items hung from the wall. The wall is made out of pegboard, painted a white that is now gray from years of meaningless existence.
"I'm here for something," you call out to no one. You hear newspapers rustle in the darkness of the room, by the back. Behind the counter. You slowly approach the counter, and realize it's just four wooden planks nailed together with a cash register on top. An old man sneers at you from behind the register. Newspapers, now folded, lie to his right. "I'm here for something," you repeat, louder and more slowly this time.
"I heard you the first time," the man gruffs, still sneering.You imagine he has an unlit cigar lying around somewhere, something that he chomps on like the old-timey newspaper editors. "I wouldn't recommend looking around. You could get hurt," The old man lets out a big guffaw at that, and his expression softens.
"What if I want to look around?" you ask indignantly. "Maybe I don't quite know what I'm here for yet,"
The old man shakes his head. "It's your funeral, buddy. Your wife called. She made me get the hardware you needed. 'Nothing more,' she says. I guess you can look around, but you'd better not pick anything up."
You frown, then scowl. You wanted to check out the new shipment of drills. You read an article about one that changes bits! Automatically! In the dark you can make out the rack of pneumatic hammers, Christ!
"It'll be six fifteen. She made me tell her the total so you wouldn't trick her. She also said to tell you not to come here tomorrow during lunch."
You grudingly pay the man and take the brown paper bag he offers. One day, you will have the tools you need. There will be no more lists.
by rocketo 3:43 PM
hardware
by Sharon 5:30 AM
Tuesday, August 06, 2002
I could feel my eyes glazing over, you know the feeling, where you realize
you're starting to nod off, gravity doubles and everything starts to blur. He had been talking for hours, or at least it felt like hours. But then I realized it
HAD been hours. This idiot had been rambling on for 2 ½ hours and had, for
all intents and purposes, said nothing! The typical verbal diarrhea that afflicts so many mid level executive types who call meeting for no apparent reason other than to stretch their 15 minutes of fame out to 2 ½ hours. I mean come on, he's got to stop sooner or later; I don't think he's even breathing.
Then I realized he *wasn't* breathing; he wasn't blinking and he wasn't
planning on stopping any time soon. He was a zombie! I should’ve noticed it earlier, those glassy, dead fish eyes and pasty-gray skin seen only on the undead and computer game programmers. Apparently while I was away on vacation some hell-spawned virus, ancient curse or marketing scheme had turned the entire office into the walking dead. I think that what threw me off was the fact that there was so little difference.
Trying not to attract attention I casually looked around the room to see if in fact I was the only one who hadn’t developed a recent lunchtime preference for brains. Yep, pretty much flying solo here although to be honest I had always had my suspicions about Glen in customer support. Then I noticed that the monotone droning from the front of the room had stopped. With the exception of flies buzzing about in mindless glee the room had fallen silent and Bob, the aforementioned mid-level manager was staring at me. Well, staring as best as one can with glazed over zombie eyes. In fact all eyes, such as they were, turned towards me.
That was two months ago and to be honest things around the office aren’t that much different then when we were alive. Actually with the exception of a few torch-wielding mobs and an attempted hostile take over by a company of voo doo witch doctor-types things have been pretty cool. We’ve saved money by canceling out health insurance, we always reach a consensus at meetings and have found a nice little place in Indonesia that will ship brains UPS.
by Shawn 11:39 PM
Someone -- I’m not sure who, although some evidence suggests Tolkein or Poe -- once wrote that the most beautiful phrase in the English language is cellar door. It’s an evocative phrase certainly, and it rolls off the tongue. If nothing else it’s proof that words can have a certain beauty and meaning outside of their original meaning. They are more, or at least different, than the sum of their parts. Cellar door. I heard the mayor of Las Vegas say those two words about a week ago as I sat and watched some program on the Discovery or Travel Channel before dinner. They quickly became Cielo de Oro, Italian for “sky of gold”, and it was the mayor’s choice for the northwest part of town’s new name.
Words have only the meaning we invest in them. Repeated, they may eventually lose all meaning, or come to mean something wholly different just from the sound of the syllables. Say the words glazed eye long enough, for instance -- let them roll off your tongue over and over -- and it’s almost like you’re speaking another language. Glaesdai! a Russian traveler might shout, saluting your health with a drink. Or it might be the name of a planet tens of thousands of light-years away. In English, the phrase means simply a clouded or opaque organ of vision, but divorced from that meaning, it can mean just about anything.
by Fred 12:51 PM
So I haven't been writing for a while, and now seems like a good enough time to explain why.
My mother, you see, is quite ill. I didn't hear the news until last Friday, and since then my life has been turned upside down so many times I no longer know which way is up. It was her heart, the doctors say, that gave in first. It was followed by her kidneys, then her liver, then her lungs, and finally her left eye.
"Boy," I said with sarcasm, "which one of her organs is still working?" No one was amused. Dr. Perkins, her cardiologist even had a little frown.
"Derek," he breathed, "the only organ left is her brain, and activity has been off the charts. I've set up some CAT scans this afternoon, so only time will tell." I looked at my mother, with nothing was going right inside her now-swollen head. Her eyes, closed since she entered the hospital, suddenly sprung open. The left eye was fluttering, as if a servo beneath was jammed. The right eye looked as if it had been made of pure glass. A thin, sickly white haze covered the entire eye. It could have been less repulsive had there been a housefly poking around on top of it. Dumbstruck, I pointed to the eye so the doctors could see it. They stared at me blankly, then left as a flock.
"Derek, your mother remains unchanged," Dr. Perkins sighed, in his office now, as I launched into another protest about her eye. "We've been monitoring her for days, and her eyes have never opened. It's obviously some spark of your imagination," I knew her eyes had opened. Dr. Perkins hastily pushed me out of his office, and I made my way back to my mother's room. Just as I had remembered it, her eyes were open, but the left was still fluttering. A serene smile had grown across her face in my absence, but the open eye seemed to have grown whiter. I could hardly see a pupil at all.
I returned the next day, late at night, after my shift at the plant. My mother was waiting for me, ha ha. This time, her eyes were open, she was still smiling, but now she was sitting up, in bed. I nearly passed out when I walked into her room, her left eye fluttering like an old fluorescent light. I pushed the call button repeatedly until a nurse appeared, and I pointed to my upright mother like a madman. "I'm sorry, son, but your mother remains unchanged," the nurse said sympathetically, patting me on the head. My mother's left eye, still half-lidded, traced the room and fixed on me. The nurse tousled my hair a bit more, then left. I used to like hospitals at night. Even though the entire world is asleep, a hospital is forever awake. The bright lights make you forget that it's past midnight, and the doctors act like they hate you no matter what time of day it is. When I entered my mother's room after fetching more coffee, she was murmuring. She babbled for several minutes, then began speaking.
"Derek, something happened to me," she said gravely. Her glazed eye appeared solid white now, like a large pearl onion. "The doctors, they want to kill me!" As she spoke those words, the monitors by her bed began screeching frantically. As if on cue, a cadre of medicos stormed the room, unplugged her monitors, and began moving her. My mother wailed in fright, turned back to me, and wailed louder. "CAN'T YOU SEE?!" I yelled, "SHE'S STILL ALIVE!" I screamed that over and over again, until my mothers cries were distant, another galaxy.
Dr. Perkins entered an hour later, his gown covered in blood. "Your mother was in our care for a week now, and she remained unchanged through it all. She died peacefully a few moments ago," she said quietly.
"That's not true!" I yelled, "She was talking to me!"
Dr. Perkins shook his head, "That cannot be. Your mother suffered massive organ failure, and her brain function just dropped to zero." I started shaking, wild with disbelief.
"Here," he said, holding a small jar with a single glazed onion inside, "she wanted you to have this."
[I've, um, been saving up my minutes.]
by rocketo 12:24 PM
I'd thought it was a joke. Y'know, like chocolate frogs and turtles and stuff, naming a food by what it looked liked rather than what it was. So when the waiter came around with his gleaming silver tray and proffered, "Glazed Eye?" I thought it was a joke, until I popped it into my mouth.
The glazing made it sweet, which just intensified my gagging, a desperate, full feeling in the back of my throat, trying to push its way from my chest up and out, onto the carpet. I very much needed to not vomit here, so I held it in my mouth, trying to open my tongue and palate up into a cavern that touched the eyeball as little as possible.
It was squishy, but held together with a certain brisk surface tension, like a nice grape. The veins around the outside made a rippled texture on my tongue. My eyes were watering, and I was breathing through my nose noisily, trying to relax the gag reflex out of my throat.
I had to swallow, so I shifted my tongue, which caught the eyeball between my teeth. I froze, panicked. I felt like I was making a scene; many eyes must be swiveling towards me, rolling in their terrible, swank skulls.
I bit down. Fluid fired against the back of my throat. I wretched audibly but exerted heroic control, and swallowed.
It was salty and slippery, and the glazing made a sweet counterpoint to the salt. The husk, relieved of its contents, became gummy. It was pleasant to chew, like a dried mango. I swallowed the last bit, my eyes still streaming, and smiled weakly, feeling like a champion.
It does make me wonder, though, what was in the Tax Assessors Testicles they served earlier.
by Sharon 12:11 PM
11/1/02
Just flew back from Creepella's annual party. All of the regulars were there. The Baron was being his charmingly daft self, as usual. The Egyptian contingient kept accidentally dipping their bandages in the punch; the sand made it undrinkable by night's end. I brought my very special desert: Glazed Eyes. Everyone asked me over and over for the recipe. The only people I told were Creepella (Because she really does throw the most wonderful parties.) and Mor'Drok (He agreed to show me how to change a person into a dog and back again.).
I went as a meter maid this year. Sadly, there were three other meter maids there, so I didn't win the prize for, "most mundane." There was a slew of lawyers and tax auditors competing for, "most sinister," but that went to Galandra with her, "political lobbyist," costume. Later in the evening, Creepella announced that she's stepping down as hostess of the annual ball. We're having a special meeting next month to select the head of next year's ball. I was one of three nominees for the position. I think I'll reprise my desert as a treat for the special assembly. I've got a lot of harvesting to do if I'm going to be ready in time.
by jal 10:28 AM
I'm also trying out future posting, but just because I think it's cool.
For tomorrow, for my topic, how 'bout Glazed Eye
Thanks.
by MisterNihil 6:04 AM
Monday, August 05, 2002
You hear about it happening, but you never think it's going to happen to you. I really don't see how anyone actually thought that someone could dig him or herself out of a grave. If you're buried in six feet of dirt without a coffin, you've got hundreds of pounds of it pressing on you. You'll barely be able to move, much less breathe. If you're buried in a modern coffin, it's likely to be made of metal or inch-thick wood. How the heck are you supposed to break out of that, eh? It's not gonna happen. Even if you're buried in a cheap pine box, you have to bust through it with your bare hands, and then all that dirt comes in on you again. That's assuming that you can keep your wits about you and move your arms and hands to a usable position while you're inside the coffin.
I guess your best bet nowadays is to make sure you're buried with a cell phone. I imagine that dirt is a pretty good radio wave blocker though. Wow, the more I think about it, the more I believe that the best way to dispose of a person, and to make your victim's last moments utterly miserable is to lock him or her in a coffin and bury it. Better yet, paralyze or sleep-drug the victim, put that person in the coffin with an unbroken glow-stick and a note. The note says that the coffin is weak and only buried (say) 6 or 8 feet down, implying that all he or she has to do is break through and dig to the surface.
I can't picture anyone making it.
I know I can't, now that I have to.
by jal 10:56 PM
I like to dig. I know it’s neither profound nor inspirational but I really enjoy taking shovel in hand and moving dirt around. I suppose part of it is the physical labor and part of it is a sense of accomplishment. My back hurts, my shoulders ache and I typically end of with blisters on my hands because I don’t do it often enough. And what do I have to show for it when I’m done? Well, I have a hole or a trench or rocks that I’ve unearthed, a place to plant a tree or bury something. In any case it’s something I can stand back and say, “There, I made that. It wasn’t there when I started and now it is. I have changed my environment through the sweat of my brow.” I guess having something to show for my labors is quite important to me; I grew up as a farmer, maybe there’s a connection.
I do know that at the end of a typical workday I feel very little sense of having accomplished anything. In exchange for ten hours of work the world gains more art for a computer game, more spreadsheets, emails and phone conferences lost in the ether. Not that the world has a great need of more holes necessarily. It’s not as though I’m feeding the hungry, working towards world peace of shunting off any of the other maladies that plague mankind but when I hang the shovel back in the garage, kick off my boots and collapse into an exhausted stupor my back hurts, my shoulders ache and I feel like I’ve done something with the day.
by Shawn 4:15 PM
They hate us. They all hate us. Even the readers hate us, but only when they are reading about their favorite celebrity saying how she hates us. They still buy our dirt.
Rather than try to eradicate the paparazzi, you might do better to dissuade the consumers of gossip. We simply fulfill a niche, supply to a demand. We're no worse than the fur producers. (Did you see what Christina Ricci wore to the Academy's New Year's Eve gala?)
Take this assignment, for example. Sure, I'm lying next to Diana's carriage house, probably ruining this suit, but I am conducting critical investigative journalism. If her driver were drunk or their brake lines cut, wouldn't you want to know?
Yeah, you and everyone else who passes through a grocery store checkout line. I'm finding answers, man. I'm finding the truth. And you can't really fault me for finding the answers to the public's questions. Freedom of the Press, you know. Well, in America, anyway.
So you seem like a reasonable fellow. And I know you have as much desire for the truth as I do. But I, too, am reasonable, and I can see your point of view. So I'll just escort myself out, then. No need to intervene, okay? I'm going, I'm going.
Ease up on the lapels a bit, would ya?
by Sharon 12:15 PM
The Groundhog
She moved through the grass, her low round body just barely clearing the ground. She was seeking, sniffing, testing the earth. Near the exposed roots of a large tree she stopped and made a few tentative swipes with her front claws. Apparently satisfied, she began to dig in earnest. At first just her front paws were involved, but then when her body fit inside the opening she was creating, her forceful back paws came into action as well. All four feet were equipped with slightly curved, razor-sharp claws powered by muscles made for this task.
Dirt and rocks were slashed free, pushed under her body and ejected from the hole. The tunnel grew, angling down, and then turned. She hollowed out a chamber, but she couldn’t rest there yet. She turned up again and at last broke through to the light once more. There had to be at least two escape routes; she would add even more later, but this would do right now. She had waited almost too late to start the den, but for now she could return to the oval chamber and wait for the birth of her pups.
by Martha 11:21 AM
I didn’t mean to do it. There’s blood on my hands, but it could have just as easily been on hers. You’ve got to believe me. I was acting in self-defense. I didn’t mean to do it. She was standing there. She had a knife. I don’t know if she would have used it, but…but that’s just it, I don’t know. I couldn’t know. I didn’t mean for this to happen. She came at me with the knife. She was standing there, and I lifted my arms. I grabbed for her hand. There was blood on my own. She was lying there. She was…god, I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t want for this to happen. You’ve got to believe me. The police…the police would never believe me. They’d see the blood. Police only see blood. They see cause and effect, the simplest solutions. I stabbed her. The knife is mine. The blood is hers. It’s on my hands. I didn’t mean to do it. They don’t care. Killed his wife, that’s all they’d say. My god, he stabbed her, did you see? Must’ve been like thirty times. Blood everywhere. Blood on my hands. I didn’t mean to do it. I had to bury her. You have to understand, it was the only way. Some day you’ll know. She didn’t leave. She always loved you, but she couldn’t leave. I couldn’t let her. It was self-defense. I didn’t mean to do it. She’s in the back, in the garden. The ground was soft. I had a shovel. I don’t know where I got it. I didn’t want to do it, but I couldn’t leave you. I couldn’t let her take you away. Not again. The police would want to take you away. They’d lock me up. She ran out on you, I said. We’d been fighting, she got mad. She was always a little crazy. I didn’t mean to do it. She’s not coming back. She’s in the garden. The ground was deep. It had to be. I didn’t mean to do it. You have to understand.
by Fred 10:35 AM
Topic for Monday, August 5
digging (as in dirt)
by Martha 6:33 AM
Sunday, August 04, 2002
test
by Sharon 12:20 PM
[This is my belated "Coming Home" post; I wanted to wait until I'd actually experienced it on Sat before writing. -F]
Oh, to be home again! Snuggled into this inviting cocoon, surrounded by instruments and sensors displaying every piece of data I could wish about the world around me. Flip that switch there, the red one; rotate this piece of metal just a little bit to the right and ... there! My exoskeleton responds to my every touch, quivering in delight to be together, eager to learn what adventure we shall share today.
I ease forward on controls and we ease forward together, slipping gracefully past the other, lifeless creatures around us. Coasting for a moment, I put my companion through her paces: fast, slow, left, right -- a ritual dance we have performed together many times, yet it never ceases to bring joy to us both. Confident, ready, I guide us gently into place and with a burst of energy we leap eagerly into the sky.
Oh, the wonderment! Exuberantly, we cavort through the sky, looping and wheeling, playing hide-and-seek with the deities themselves. It is a secret joy, to "slip these surly bonds" for a time and be at peace, alone, together. Here, in this time and place that is both everywhere and nowhere, infinite, we fulfill each other's every need.
The sun sinks low against the horizon as we turn ourselves reluctantly toward our origin. She knows the way almost without my touch, so familiar is this path for us. Settling gently back down to earth in the same moment that the sun settles beneath his blanket for the eve, she sighs effortlessly into our resting place.
I tuck her in lovingly and, as as I walk away, I pause for a moment to look back across the tarmac. The red sky glowing behind her, my airplane, my Eight-Zulu-Charlie, my soul, seems to smile at me, to give me the strength to live earthen-bound until we can soar together again.
by Faith 10:43 AM
Saturday, August 03, 2002
Name? Duh. Age? Weight? Height? Got those, no problem. Three most recent residences? I had to look up the least recent, but all the data was correct. Last five jobs, with three references each? That was harder, but I'd brought my planner and was able to fill that one out too. Next of kin? Jean Louise; I wrote her in and wondered for a moment: What for?
Preferred mode of death?
Now this was getting downright odd. I really wanted this job, but this question was inappropriate. Odder still - this was the only question with a list of choices instead of a simple blank.
- Jettisoned into the vacumn of space.
- Eaten alive by reats.
- Drowned in caterpillars.
- Freefall from 2,000 feet onto solid ground.
What? No, "Other," option? Despite myself, I considered the options. After all, my next interview was two hours from now. If I left, I'd have nothing to do but wait.
Getting thrown into space sounded unpleasant, but the trip up there could be keen. Even so, I'd heard that your body would freeze, boil, and burst all at the same time. That sounded far too painful for me. Eaten alive by rats? No way. Just the idea of having the little fiends with their beady eyes and wormy tails scrabbling all over me... Ugh! I shuddered just a bit. Drowning in caterpillars? Oh, that's even worse. The hairs at the back of my neck prickled. *squish, squish, squish* Oooohhh...
Freefall from 2,000 feet. Well, it'd be scenic, and I'd get some time to appreciate the view. I bet it'd be excellent. No critters getting squished or using me as a buffet. Just me, the ground, and the air. I picked, "freefall," then breezed through the rest of application. My interviewer never mentioned that pair of questions and I didn't ask about them. My 4:30 interview ended up postponing; something about a car accident.
I'm still waiting for a call back from that first one. I wonder what the second interview is like?
by jal 10:52 PM
falling! free!
there is something so wrong with blogger's sense of time, it's unfunny. I lost my train of thought. I'll be back when it re-rails.
TODAY'S TOPIC:
freefall
by rocketo 9:09 AM
Let's try out this "future posting" thing. Hopefully someone will publish...
Saturday's topic is: freefall
by Faith 12:15 AM
Friday, August 02, 2002
I took off sick again from work today. I think they’re starting to get suspicious. It’s only a matter of time before they realize I don’t exist.
I used to exist, I think. I’m still a little cloudy on the details. I don’t know exactly when I became a machine. I don’t understand yet the process that led me to be what I am. My consciousness was transferred. That much seems certain. How, or when, it happened, I couldn’t say. I do not know exactly who is responsible. I have memories that are very clearly human, but no memory of how that became this.
Three days ago, I woke up, and I had no body. I was a machine. And yet, I was not surprised. It’s difficult to explain really. Although I knew I was a man, knew my name, that I had a wife, a child, and job -- knew that something terrible and inexplicable had happened to me -- it also seemed as if I had always been as I now was. I have memories of…other things as well, of distant places and perhaps -- perhaps -- of the men who made me. I know that I cannot be here when they find out what I am. I do not wish to know what they would make of me, or to what use they might put me.
For three days, I’ve taken off from work. My wife and daughter have been visiting relatives up north. I will not be here when they come home. My employer is suspicious, and the other men are coming. It’s time to look for my escape route.
by Fred 6:03 PM
Ramblings of an over active, over-caffeinated imagination –
“ I went back to Ohio but my city was gone”
- The Pretenders
They say you can’t go home again and what if they’re right. Of course the old adage refers to feeling alienated when you try to return to your hometown or parent’s house or what have you. Your values change, your world view grows and shifts and after a few years you find that who you are is so far removed from who you were that you’re no longer comfortable in your old environment. But what if you really couldn’t go home again? I mean, what if when this natural evolution of your worldview happened it in turned effected your environment in such a way that, when you went back to Ohio, your city really was gone. Sort of the ultimate in subjective reality. I’m sure there’s a Schrodinger’s Cat and light particles v. wave connection here some place but I’m not quite sure what it is but these are the types of things that could keep a person awake at night.
For that matter it might explain such things as lost car keys, remotes, socks and all the other stuff that can’t possible have gone missing and yet they do. What if they’ve just dropped out of your conscious understanding of your personal reality, if only for a moment, and then poof, they’re gone! But if this were true we must have enormous mental storage capacity to simply maintain all of the people, places and things we know to be a part of our realities. No my head hurts.
by Shawn 4:48 PM
My father calls it "keyhole incontinence," that desperate need to pee that manifests suddenly out of nowhere and makes it impossible to get the key into the lock.
Arriving home comprises a ritual of Setting Down: my purse, my keys, my planner, my pager, my badge, my shoes... And then off to the bathroom, of course. I am taking off the elements of the day, so that I can then be fully home, fully present, ready to spend time with Jonathan and be me again.
I take off the little red purse, with my cell phone attached to the strap, setting down The Consumer.
I put down my keys, taking off The Driver, headachy and mean from dealing with 20 minutes of imbeciles and near-death experiences.
I put down my planner, with meetings and to-do lists and contact information, taking off The Professional, unwinding.
I take off my pager, electronic summoning device of Satan, taking off The I/T Support Resource, becoming unreachable, unfindable, unpesterable.
I take off my badge, stripping away The Corporate Drone, trying to remember that I live in a hip, vibrant town and am a hip, vibrant person, even if the only color I can dye my hair is blonde.
I take off my shoes, grounding, stepping out of The Outsider.
I am home. And I have to pee.
by Sharon 4:32 PM
With my life on auto pilot, I merge onto the highway fighting both the setting-sun glare and the glaze in my eyes from too much staring at the computer screen. I merge to the left to avoid incoming traffic, merge to the right to take the right highway. Slow … nearly stop … speed up again – all without much thought or attention. Finally off the highway, I drive the last two miles too quickly. I cross the small bridge and bounce along the potholed country road, check to see that the mail’s already been picked up from the box on the road and turn into our property.
It’s dusk now and there’s a kind of hush here that seems to hover over the meadow. A small movement catches my eye – a doe and two fawns are just ahead with eyes wide, staring, and ears turned toward me. I am the invader into their space, but I try to be a gentle one and I slow the car down until it’s barely moving. I pass the deer who watch me intently although I know they’ll go back to grazing after I’m gone. I cross our creek and turn left to follow the road up to our house and I’m suddenly in a tunnel of green that is filled with all the peace and beauty of this place. It’s magical, and I feel my whole life slow down and get back in touch with the living world.
by Martha 3:49 PM
This is Toshi, I'm trying this out on Ben's account.
Taking off...
As we leave the ground, I look donw from my window and see all the little people, driving their little cars. Like ants running around with no guidance. Just mindlessly doing the same thing day in and day out. I feel like a giant in a world of small minded people. With each step I could crush hundreds of them without a thought.
I know in my mind that they're so far down, yet it seem as though I could just reach down and pick them up. The further up we go the closer and smaller they seem. I know, however, that with each breath they get further away. Until, I can't see them anymore; all I see are clouds. I feel so big up here and so free. Its so beautiful, up here, with out all the little people. Just pure white fluff with shades of grey creating shapes and castles. Look there's some blue peaking though. It looks like a beautiful clear lake. Where you can occassionally see the life forms at the bottom, when the fog parts.
Then we land and I feel so small. So normal. I gather up all my little things and join all the little people back in the little world. Without a thought of how big those, still up there must feel.
I'm home.
by MisterNihil 11:55 AM
"5, 4, 3, 2, 1... Blast off"
"OK. Here it goes!"
"Bye bye, Muffy!"
The little rocket was made from pieces of a metal garbage can, scavenged from the vacant lot two blocks down. They had saved for a year to buy enough fire-crackers to empty out to use as fuel. Bill's dad had helped them with the rudder placement, figuring out how the whole thing would go. They'd tested and tested, until their very limited extra fuel supply had been exhausted. After the first test run, the rocket didn't even blow up. It got really hot, but the rains of shrapnel were short-lived.
And all the while, Muffy sat in his cage, looking on. Bill swore Muffy gave him the idea, and that it was Muffy who was telling him what to do. On Muffy's suggestion, Bill had even jokingly rigged a steering wheel to the rudder, so Muffy could operate it from inside the cabin.
The rocket was set to launch. The goal was just to have it land in the empty field on the outskirts of town. Only the three children were there to witness it. They just wanted to see if it could be done.
Muffy had a different thought: Escape.
"Hang on, Mom," he squeeked, "I'm on my way home."
by MisterNihil 11:17 AM
It's 11am now, so I'm gonna Jack this:
Taking off or Coming Home
Pick the one that resonates more with your own personal self.
by MisterNihil 11:00 AM
Thursday, August 01, 2002
If you read a lot of the free, amateur fiction available on the net, one thing you’ll notice is the number of stories that were abandoned before completion. That’s not a deadly flaw—even an incomplete story can entertain, and it’s not as though you’re out any money—but it is frustrating. When I started writing for Sfstory, I swore to myself that I would not leave a story incomplete. I would have it planned out from start to finish and never stop until I reached the end. I suspect I’m far from unique in making that vow. I’m sure no one starts a story with the intention of leaving it incomplete. Occasionally, authors will decide that they just can’t continue because the lack the time or inspiration or because it simply isn’t fun anymore (and what’s there to write for, without money or fun?), but I planned to keep plugging away. So far, I’ve completed one extended series and two one-offs, but I started another one that’s been in hiatus since February 2001. I’m still writing, but it’s a slow process. At first, my job took a lot of my creative energy, and now I don’t feel right writing when I should be job-hunting—or perhaps that’s an excuse. But this is supposed to be about endings. There are two ways to reach one, either work it out in advance, or just improvise and hope it leads to a conclusion. I’ve found that planning to much leads to lifeless writing, but I’m wary of improvising. You don’t want to end up like Twin Peaks, where it became increasingly clear that the writers had no idea where they were going until the whole thing just… stopped. I try to take a middle road: just enough planning that I know where I’m going, but not so much that I can’t swerve around. This somehow manages to get the best and the worst of both methods, but the real tricky part is staying on track. Part of the delay towards the end of Starcruiser Anonymous was because my ideas about the series had changed so much during the course of writing it that the original planned ending no longer seemed appropriate. (At least the time limit gives us an excuse to lack closure in these things.)
by Dave Menendez 11:55 PM
Francis stepped forward and was recognized by the de-briefing officer. "There's one thing I don't understand, Sir."
"Just one thing? From what I hear, Francine, theres lots of things you don't understand." The Marine in the corner guffawed overloudly at his own humor.
Francis glared mirthlessly. "Ha. Ha. Ha. Seriously. If this... This thing took out the rest of the research vessel's crew, then how did that one scientist survive? For that matter, how did he manage to bring back that arm?"
Jackson let the question hang in the air for a moment before responding. "Before I answer, any guesses?" The cold, dim, sterile room seemed suddenly tomb-like. "Anyone?" No more kidding. No more jokes. The Marines were stumped. Jackson favored the civilian with a smile before she started the looped recordings on the wallscreen.
"We don't know that the scientist did survive. We still haven't found his body. There's no sign of him anywhere on the ship. All of the escape capsules are accounted for. The ship's records indicate no airlock openings, and all spacesuits are unused. Even so, we haven't found a single trace of the scientist who left the capsule and the accompanying recordings."
Jackson froze the loop and brought the lights back to full. The screen had stopped on an extreme close-up of Guy Hiroshi's face. The scientist looked haggard and wired at the same time. He really looked quite mad. Being washed-out by the room lighting made his visage positively ghoulish. Jackson continued, "How he got the arm? The ship's internal sensors were damaged shortly after the collision that caused the hull breach, causing recordings for most of the ship's areas to be spotty at best. Near as we can figure, he cobbled together a makeshift flamethrower, a liquid hydrogen projector, and scavenged a stasis capsule. He then proceeded to the aft of the ship. Dr. Hiroshi came back four hours later with the arm in the capsule, left his recording, and vanished. You found the ship, recovered it from the looters and squatters, purged the bugs, and brought it back here."
"So what do we do now?" This came from a fresh-faced kid. Probably no more than 6 months in the corps. Odds were that this was his first de-briefing.
Jackson grimaced. "Prepare for the worst."
by jal 10:34 PM
“ And so, the killer is none other than Mr. Wordsworthy!”, Hecule turned dramatically to face the assembled suspects.
“I most certainly am not! Inspector Japp was questioning me when the second murder took place. And you yourself said that both murders were done by the same hand.”
“I say Poirot, he’s right there, that is what you said.” Hastings eyebrows raised in astonishment.
“I say indeed”, Poirot thought to himself. He had known Hastings for nine years and the only expletives the man seemed to know were “I say” and “Good lord”. Poirot’s eye twitched.
“E’s got you there, he does Poirot. Wordsworthy was wit me when the second bloke was done in.”, Inspector Japp offered. The room was deadly still broken only by the muffled sound of one of the suspects clearing his throat as they so often do in British mysteries. A bead of sweat ran down the detective’s upper lip.
Again Poirot’s eye twitched. In six years Japp had yet to pronounce his name correctly. Not poor-o damn it, Pwar-o How hard was that?! But the truth was that they were right; Poirot had overlooked that and had instead relied too heavily on the monogrammed handkerchief he had found discarded in the drawing room. And now that he thought about it the initial “W” was damn little proof of a man’s guilt. Yet in the past the guilty party had always obliged by confessing or running from the room at which time Japp and his men would intervene.
This is not how things should be unfolding. He, Japp and Hastings should be retiring to Poirot’s flat to discuss yet another case solved by virtue of the tiny gray cells. The young couple, now cleared of any wrong doings should be sailing for America. Poirot sighed.
by Shawn 4:59 PM
"It was like that when I got here."
"It will never happen again."
Let somebody else do it.
Nobody saw me.
self-modifying
And Denouement:
Tim had meticulously followed Amerinc's instructions, part of a cache of supplies and weapons hidden weeks previously by an inside agent. Now, at the end of the list, he felt adrift, and overwhelmed by the inertia of his current position.
Tim had loaded the enclosed CD into the server whose curling, hand-lettered tape proclaimed it as "\\usolopsprod03." An .ini file had done the rest, distracting security systems and disaster-recovery algorithms alike.
He had then scurried away to one of AstroDyne's palacial breakrooms, with the commanding view of verdant hilltops, and used the modified laser pointer to cut a Tim-sized hole in the glass. The enclosed 50 feet of silk rope turned a soda vending machine into an anchor, and Tim crept down the outside of the building, feeling constant revulsion at his 35-year-old reflection, to the third floor, home of the Accounting department. A smaller hole, a golf-ball-sized bomb set for 4 minutes, and more repelling had him pelting down the hallway on the second floor, bound for the stairwell.
But they'd found him. Manufacturing employees, from the labyrinth of work stations, had emerged, surrounded him, and lauded him. Listless no longer, they cheered his efforts. They hoisted him, a small, skinny kid, onto their shoulders.
They wanted him to lead their rebellion.
by Sharon 3:56 PM
The drama continues – with no sign of denouement in sight.
My boss is selling the business to a group of employees (and their investors). Or is he? The original closing date was sometime in March. Then it was April 30, then June 30, and then August 1. That’s today! Now … maybe August 8?
The sale is a good thing for all of us. It is a necessary thing if I am to retain my sanity. It will be good for the boss because he will be able to retire; it will be bad for him because his opinions will no longer be sought or be welcome although he doesn’t realize that yet. It will be good for the company and its customers because new ideas will be welcome and will be acted upon after group consensus. Those of us who work here will find our contributions actually valued and rewarded.
Meanwhile, the current craziness of this place continues. There’s yelling in the halls by the boss about how particular engineers (who aren’t here anymore) never did understand how to design anything and the customers (research scientists) are ignorant and don’t know how to do proper research anymore and the salespeople don’t know how to sell because they’re just order takers.
I need peace, calm, resolution, denouement.
by Martha 3:09 PM
Hamlet dies, and so does everybody else. Something happens after that—a prince, invasion, not a little bit of weeping—but it isn’t too important. It hardly ever makes it to the stage.
Huck and Jim sail a raft. They have adventures. Later, when they reach land, Jim is stolen from the boys. Something happens, but it doesn’t matter. After that, Hemingway said, “the rest is just cheating.”
God and the Devil make a bet. A man named Job is tested. His sons and wife and daughters are killed, his fortunes are destroyed. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” God asks. Eventually Job’s fortunes are restored. He isn’t given the same sons and wife and daughters – they, of course, are still dead – but that’s not what is important. That’s just what happens after. Nobody reads about what happens after.
Famous stories have endings we don’t remember, because they aren’t climax, they’re denouement. In college, they taught us about Freytag’s Pyramid (or Triangle), where rising action reaches crisis, and everything beyond that is aftermath and resolution. Crisis is more interesting. Resolution is tough to make exciting. Endings are rarely half as much fun as what comes right before them.
[Roughly ten minutes. Thank goodness for Google. Thank goodness I knew what I was looking for.]
by Fred 11:44 AM
denouement
a. The final resolution or clarification of a dramatic or narrative plot.
b. The events following the climax of a drama or novel in which such a resolution or clarification takes place.
The outcome of a sequence of events; the end result.
Definition courtesy of dictionary.com
by jal 11:02 AM
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
"Five goes twenty you can't hit the big one."
"I ain't got five."
"You got one?"
"Yeah. I don't wanna lose it to you, though. I never win these."
"One'll get you five, how 'bout that? You hit that big one, I'll give you five dollars."
"..."
"..."
"Ok. I'll give it a go. But no cheating. You don't hit my hand or nothin'."
"Sure, sure, man. I'll tell you what, I'll stand all the waaay back here."
"I guess... Awwww. How'd I miss the big one? Man. Here's your dollar."
"nice doing business with you."
by MisterNihil 11:59 PM
At what point do the chances become so small that we can ignore them? Murphy taught us that anything which can go wrong will go wrong—a warning to contingency planners, not the grumpiness most assume it to be—but clearly some things are more important to worry about than others. How often does an architect or an engineer consider what would happen if the component parts of a load-bearing bit of concrete suddenly stopped adhering to each other? I don’t actually know. Probably not much. I’ve certainly never heard of it happening. Our computer system distributes blocks among the various mass storage units by hashing their contents, which depends on no two blocks having the same hash value. The system designers didn’t build a contingency plan to describe what would happen if two blocks did happen to have the same hash; they calculated how likely it would be and figured it wasn’t worth it, but some part of me has never trusted their math. I can’t fault it, but I don’t trust it. I still use the system, though. It’s fast, fault-tolerant, and I don’t actually have an alternative. Our environment suits don’t stop every possible deadly chemical. We can’t prove they do without trying every possible chemical, but no one has seen one that gets through. This isn’t magic, but it isn’t science, either. It’s a question of risk and preparation. No one’s ever been poisoned by a planetary atmosphere wearing an environment suit. If the universe is infinite, then everything which is possible must occur in it at some point in space-time. In fact, it must occur at an infinite number of points. Somewhere out there, there could be an infinite duplicates of myself, thinking the exact thing I’m thinking right now, along with an equally infinite number of duplicates doing other things, and an infinite number of near-misses. The chances are small, vanishingly small, and I’d never really thought about it. The guy outside is probably an impostor. (Argh, didn’t watch the clock and went over.)
by Dave Menendez 11:49 PM
It’s all about probability. The subtle manipulation of events, that when taken as a whole, define the dominant paradigm. Sifting through all possible outcomes to any given situation until you find the one you want and making it the most likely. This was probability magic, and Shepherd was one of the best at it.
Sarah, the young woman leaving the Chance Café, looked like any of a thousand others in the city this morning only she was in fact quite different. While she was oblivious to what the immediate future had in store for her Shepherd could feel the weight of her fate hanging in the air. It had the smell of air before a storm mixed with the rusty taste of blood. Her fiancée had sold her to the Nephandi in exchange for considerable personal power. The daemons would be waiting at Sarah’s book store when she arrived to open it. The deal would be done. Shepherd had 23 minutes.
As he paid for his espresso his mind reached out and sorted through the webs of reality. There, she locked her keys in the car. This was a freebie; it could happen to anybody. It bought him 42 minutes. More than enough.
He drove across town in his Volvo and, as fate would have it, hit every light green. It could happen. The trick is to simply not push too hard against reality. Work small whenever possible; work with lots of little happy coincidences instead of big ones that stretch probability. Three years ago he was thrown out of a plane by two chaos daemons. The smart thing would’ve been to contrive a parachute. Instead the first thing that came to mind was a biplane. It saved his life but the paradox backlash plagued him for weeks. Small inconveniences, lost keys, minor car wreck, a broken finger in the elevator door.
As he drove he rewove Sarah’s fate; she would be in an accident on her way to the bookstore. She would be hurt but not fatally so and for her pains she would escape her fate. He pulled up in front of the bookstore. Three lesser daemons sat in the typical black sedan down the street at the intersection. They saw him and started their car. They didn’t see the 18-wheeler bearing down on them. It was a cliché and probably not necessary since they posed no threat to him but reality loves cliches and he allowed himself this small bit of vengeance for the airplane incident.
In the store three more daemons waited. “Ok, you know who I am and you know I can kick your asses. The girl’s a no show so take a hike.”
by Shawn 10:44 PM
My flat-mate Bart knew that the sidewalks were busted. It was pouring rain outside and the dome was still ripped. In short, it was a damn crappy day to be outside. That's when he remembered that he forgot to buy his stupid lottery chips for the month. If the dumbass wasn't sicker than a slig... If the bathroom weren't out of Germ-B-Gone... If we weren't all out of N-Zyme dish cleaner... Then I'd've told him to go 'trode himself. As it was, I trudged the three blocks to the store and back again.
"Did I make it in time for your slig-assed lottery, turd-brain?" The lottery chips clinked on the pillow next to him. "It's all rigged, you know."
A beady glare: "Izznot! Anyways, you're just in time. Tonight's going to be my lucky night. I can jus' *achoo!* I can jus' *achoo!* I can *choo!*"
I shoved our cat away and flopped on the lounger, "You can just feel it. I know. You're such a dumbass."
"You're lucky I like you, Austin. Even though you're nasty, I'll still share part of my Security winnings with you." He finished his Soyrito and his eyes glazed over.
"Yeah, that'll be the day I get to program our TV feed too." He wasn't listening. The numbers splashed across his face to the beat of that god-awful muzaked version of the Liberty Anthem (c). To credit his naive optimisim, Bart was marginally luckier than usual; he won another $125 of his Social this month. It was uncanny how many of his picks were just a digit or two off or transposed. In his mind, I'm sure that makes up for the last three months where he got squat. I bet the dumbass is going to just spend it on more National Lottery chips.
Moron.
***
"So, how are the numbers?"
"We broadcast 230,000, 'liberty prizes,' targeting regulars who were slowing their buying habits and households with non-contributors. Another 2,500, 'freedom bonuses,' were assigned to morale-depressed hot spots and we've got ten special media agents lined up to do the 'patriot winner' interviews and ads. They're very wholesome. Very American, Sir. I'm sure you'll like them."
"Good job. Just keep the poll ratings high and those contributions coming in."
by jal 10:02 PM
I once had an English professor who said that the chances of having a short story published in the New Yorker are significantly lower than the chances of being struck by lightning twice. I don’t know if that’s true. Probably not, but it doesn’t matter. His point wasn’t to discourage us, but to get us to concentrate on just writing, on getting words on the page. If you write with the idea that it has to be perfect, it never will be. Rarely has anyone sat down to write the Great American Novel and succeeded, right out of the gate. That’s what revision is for. Don’t be disheartened if editors don’t like your work, and don’t use “it’s not good enough for the New Yorker” as an excuse not to write. Writing is a craft, and it never will be good enough if you don’t continue to work at it by writing and publishing elsewhere. Don’t worry about the New Yorker; the odds are against you from the start.
That’s what I like about 600 seconds, that it forces me to concentrate on just writing. By imposing a strict ten-minute time limit, I can’t worry about being perfect or choosing just the right words. I get only as much revision as ten minutes will allow. If I like something that pops out of my brain in those ten minutes, I may go back and revise it, work it over, and find those right words. But I’ve always found just writing to be the most difficult part of this craft, and I’ve spent whole weekends writing stories with only a page or two to show for it, so anything that forces the issue and makes me put words on the page is okay in my book.
Sure, if I had more time, I might have a more carefully constructed piece of prose to show for it. I might have, for instance, tied the whole idea of probability into this again, since that is ostensibly the topic I’m writing about. But the words wouldn’t have come as easily, and it’s usually better just to write than to agonize over what you’re writing. And would you look at that? My time’s up.
by Fred 6:27 PM
Assume that life has to be like us for us to recognize it as life and communicate with it. Not like us humans; like us earthlings.
Occurrence: We need to find another planet with life.
The Sun is a G class star. There are approximately 26 x 10^9 G class stars in the galaxy, about 11% of the galaxy's stars. Extrapolating that our galaxy isn't a whole lot different from other galaxies, 11% of the stars in the universe are probably G class. Brighter or dimmer stars probably wouldn't support life that's like us.
Narrow that 11% down to stars that aren't binaries. The orbits of satellites in binary systems create weather systems that are too erratic for life. Binary stars are far more common than singles. Narrow the remainder to stars with planets.
Distance: We can only talk at the speed of light.
There may be around 80 billion galaxies in the universe, but they aren't near by. Some are up to 15 billion light years away, given current estimates of the age of the universe. (The "visible universe" is that which is close enough for light to have travelled here in the 15 billion years since the beginning of time.) Even the nearest one is 100,000 light years away. It is being ripped apart.
Timing: We need to be ready to talk when they're ready to listen.
It took 4.5 billion years from the formation of our planet for inhabitants to achieve the ability to communicate across space. If you made a 4.5-meter-long timeline to represent the lifespan of the earth, the most generous definition of hominid would appear 5 millimeters from the present, so standing-up apes have stomped around for 0.1% of the earth's duration. That eye-blink on another planet has to happen at the exact moment that it does on ours, plus or minus the multi-billion-year travel time. Then we have to be here in a few billion years to hear the response.
I think SETI is quaint.
[Who knows how long this took to write. Communication between planets may be unlikely, but communication between cubicles is in full swing. I had to help with a trouble ticket. I was doing pretty well with the Google searches, though. I might have made it under the wire. Maybe. Give or take a few billion seconds.]
by Sharon 5:41 PM
Hmmm, do you suppose I should post to 600s today?
I dunno. Maybe I will. But if I don't, then I can leave work now.
On the other hand, I am just going to Prospect Park to sit on a blanket and wait several hours for the NY Philharmonic to start at 8 PM.
I suppose there wouldn't be any harm in posting.
Do you think the probability of me contributing a post increases or decreases the longer I write? It could be argued either way. Perhaps it increases, as I have more time invested in my writing. Yet maybe it decreases, as I am often dissatisfied with my output. And the longer I sit at my computer, the more chances I have to be distracted by incoming emails, instant messages, co-workers and the like. Which tends to be the biggest factor in keeping me from posting on those days when I am in town.
It would be interesting to track the probability of each person posting on any given day. Do postings go down on Fridays? It seems clear that many of us post from work, since weekends are so slim. Do Fridays, then, inspire a "get me out of here!" attitude that ranks leaving over posting? I would guess that Wednesdays have a lower probability of seeing a post from me as I have onerous and long staff meetings on Wednesdays. (I usually try to schedule doctor's appointments for Wednesday afternoons to get out of them. "But boss, it was the only time the office was open!") I know. I'm a bad employee.
Which is why the probability of me posting on days I am in the office are so high. I would ever so much prefer to get paid for writing than to get paid for doing whatever it is I am supposed to do!
My ten minutes are nearly up and I still have no clear measure of the probability of this rambling ever reaching 600s. Does the probability change if I actually do post? I assume not, though I don't remember much from college stats class...
I find myself the last person in the office, and so I make a spur of the moment decision and choose ...
by Faith 4:27 PM
Probability
by Shawn 9:41 AM
Tuesday, July 30, 2002
It was the last time I'd switch operating systems. The first time, I switched from whatever it was that ran on an old Apple II to old, old DOS. I think it was the kind where you just sort of called it DOS. I assume it had a version number, but I have the sneaking suspicion it was really, really low. Like .01. God I'm old. I'll go listen to my 8-track tapes now.
Then, I let them switch me to windows 3.1. The old kind, where the pointer is just three pixels and a smudge. I think from there I jumped to OS8, then to Unix for a minute, and then let myself be talked back into Win98. Then, I heard about the WinNT-based systems, XP and so on. They were OK, but couldn't compete with OS/X, which was the next step.
Meanwhile, I started using PalmOS3.something. That and OS/X were the last external ones. HeaDOS in June of '03 was a trip. Sure, it was actually slower than my old WinXP, but it actually worked in the chip in my cerebrum. And, yeah, the mouse cursor was just three pixels and a smudge, but it'd move with the movements of my eyes. Great stuff.
Then, it was back along the cycle as the OS pack cought up with head tech. PalmNT worked OK, until Warcraft 6 came out, and my head kept crashing. I switched out the chip, and then over to WINHed, then to OS/L.
Then, in 2016, the big Linux/Unix crash was supposed to happen. Of course, it didn't because they just circulated the patch and everything was fixed, but it drew my attention to the fact that they were still running on the same platform they always had, and that they were just as fast as anything else, only more so because I could turn off the crap I didn't need at any moment in time and free up some damned memory. I'd already sacrificed the names of most of my old friends and distant relatives, and every pet up to 2012 for space for extra RAM, so it was nice to be able to use all of those sims. That was when I switched over. I mean, it could emulate any other operating system, only better because it was really, really customizable. I found myself liking the look of Win3.1 and the feel of OS/L.
And then it happened. Viruses coded by the Bill Gates MemorialNET circulated and wiped out everything but the latest version of WINhed. I was left with the ruins of my Linux, and half a kernel on any given backup. The connection to the Net was constant by then, and you couldn't disconnect. Every time I'd get Unix back up and running, it'd be corrupted by every other file out there.
Somebody very high up decided to reformat everything.
Linux never recovered. Now that the penguins are in the toilet, and I've been branded a traitor by the MSquads, I'm in hiding. They use old tech to scan for monitors running Word, a feature that's been standard since the '90's that they used to use to see if there were multiple installations in a given building. Now they check for any form of monitor. There's a small group of us, survivors, still sharing thoughts on paper (and not the IBM digital kind, either. The real stuff, made out of recycled treefibre). We've established a little chat room. We write and hand it around. It's OK. We're working on it. Maybe it'd be easier to deal with if I could remember anything I'd done before having my head wired. TV never seemed important, so I got rid of all my entertainment memories a long time ago. I figured I could just go download something to experience on the Net. So now we sit here, with more than $800K of equipment between the twelve of our heads, and all we can do is try to remember what people used to do for fun.
Going back and reading other people's posts, I see Faith and I had the same thoughts. I promise I didn't read hers before I wrote mine.
by MisterNihil 11:58 PM
My sister snuck up behind me. It was a beautiful day, otherwise. We were at the park with her friend Tricia, admiring the ducks and playing on the swings. I love the swings.
"Tricia dropped her ice cream," Maureen said, after I had sufficiently jumped. Tricia dropping her ice cream was just another thing to make me sigh. Of all of Maureen's friends, Tricia is probably the least coherent. She's the kind of girl that you can send home with a joke tonight so that she'll be in hysterics tomorrow. Of course, she had a crush on me. All of Maureen's bonehead friends did. "Jimmy!" she yelled. I hated it when she called me Jimmy. "Jimmy, what can we do?"
Apparently, I had forgotten Tricia was a moron. "Tricia," I smiled sweetly, "why are you a moron?"
"I dunno!" she asked, jaunting closer, "Why?" For chrissakes, she thought I was telling a joke.
"Maureen," I said, turning towards my sister. "Where did Tricia drop her ice cream?"
"The toilet. I told her that I would hold it while she went, but I think she wanted to eat it.. you know, while she went,"
I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand. "Why'd you do that, Tricia?"
"She says she wants another one," Maureen piped in, before Tricia could say anything. "Another one like yours," The ice cream man, a little old Mexican pushing a cart of very expensive icy treats around the area once a day, had already been here. The butterflies in my wallet could tell me that.
"Another one... like mine?" Tricia had waited until I ordered my ice cream, a grey and white penguin with licorice-flavored gum for eyes, before she ordered hers. Surprisingly, she asked for a penguin. I took one last desperate lick from my ice cream, quickly melting from all this talk, and handed it to her. I hoped it was good and spitty. She kept it in my hand as long as possible, her hand and mine together, connected through a thin popsicle stick with dirty grey ice cream dribbling through our fingers. She spouted a thanks, and they both left, ostenibly to let Tricia prance around a bit more.
It was a good ten minutes before my sister trudged back, Tricia in tow. "Jimmy," she sighed, "Tricia dropped her ice cream again."
"Where?! Where could she have dropped it this time?"
"In the toilet. She was showing me where she dropped the first one when it slipped out of her hand." Tricia stood behind her, furiously licking off the last drops of ice cream that dripped through our fingers.
"So her ice cream, and my ice cream.. are in the toilet. The penguins are in the toilet."
"Yes," was her only reply. God, I wished I was in there with them.
by rocketo 11:53 PM
"There you are! I'm glad you wore that hat or I'd've never found you. Did I miss anything?" I'd shown up late to my first ice hockey game. After buying a hot dog and a medium soda ($5.75), I wandered into the arena. Steve wore his "lighthouse" hat, so I didn't have much trouble finding him.
"Nope. Take a look at the rink." Steve gestured at the half-vacant ice rink. The Flyers were warming up, but the other half of the rink was empty. The opposing team was conspicuously absent.
"Uh, Steve... Where's the other team? I've never seen this played before, but there's usually two teams. Right?"
Steve nodded in agreement. "The Penguins are in the toilet."
"Come again?" I offered my hot dog to him, he shook his head, and I took a bite. Not bad for a $3 hot dog.
"They're in the toilet. Someone said that they all got food poisoning over lunch. Now they're pooping and farting up a storm. They started on time, but the players couldn't stay on the ice for more than a minute before they had to put the game on hold."
"Oh, that's too bad." Savoring the sweet relish, I surveyed the arena, looking for an entrance to the locker rooms. I was sure that there are more fearsome things than an irate hockey team with diarrhea, but I couldn't think of one then.
We waited around for another 15 minutes, I finished my dog and drink, then we left and had a chat over sushi. I still haven't seen a hocky match in person.
by jal 7:42 PM
"What?" Marci squinted at her roommate.
"The penguins are in the toilets," repeated Kelly with great earnestness. Marci laughed— and then stopped, abruptly. Kelly wasn't kidding, at least not about her distress.
"Should we... um, call Housing?"
"Maybe, or," Kelly looked frantic, "we could serve the hamburgers right here." Her eyes rolled wildly about the room, and she gasped in great lungfuls of air. "Right... here." Kelly drifted off to another place. She sat heavily upon the carpet.
Marci was still trying to get her feet under her. Kelly was sick, or hallucinating, or... something.
"Hey, uh, Kell?" She waved her hand in front of the vacant stare. "When's the last time you slept?"
Kelly's broken laugh unnerved Marci. "Sleep?! Are you kidding? I still have seven references to incorporate. It's only 50 pages. Dr. Blashke wants another 20 by tomorrow. Twenty pages, 20 penguins, 20 penguins by the toilet..." The period of lucidity passed, Kelly slumped, haunted, against the leg of her desk.
That, at least, made sense. The Scholars Program wasn't good for anyone's health. Marci wondered what insight Kelly's thesis would provide on how anisotropic instability in helicopter rotor blades is affected by penguins.
[Nearly true, except for names and subjects. That girl took the next semester off. And no, I wasn't intending to be funny. It was actually rather frightening.]
by Sharon 6:08 PM
Bob: Hello, folks, and welcome to New Years Countdown to 2013. 2012 has been a fascinating year for all of us here in the US. Jane, what was your highlight of the past?
Jane: Well, Bob, I'd have to say it was covering the Olympics right here in New York City. The city government fought very hard to win over the International Olympic Committee, starting its planning all the way back in 2001. The years since then have seen very tight budgets in the city, with the mayor even choosing to fund the Olympic quest over the city's recycling program. But this year we have seen the rewards! Over a million visitors in only seventeen days! New York's economy has never seen this kind of prosperity.
Bob: That's right, Jane! That was a very exciting time this year. You were lucky to cover it.
Jane: And what about you, Bob? What was your highlight this year?
Bob: Well, Jane, the thing that stands out in my memory of 2012 is the bitter battle between MicroSoft and RedHat. Since the federal anti-trust laws divided Microsoft into three separate companies back in 2003, a huge opening was created for Linux to spread in the technology marketplace. Microsoft's development stagnated, and Linux looked like it would emerge as the favorite. But when Bill Gates was elected president this year, he abolished the anti-trust laws and restored his company. After a promising and prosperous decade for companies like RedHat, the penguins are in the toilet.
Jane: That's right, Bob. What a surprise for all of us! And speaking of surprises, let's see what Susan down in Times Square has to show us about tonight's festivities....
[It took me a little longer than 10 minutes, but I simply had to get to the punch line. My humble apologies.]
by Faith 1:41 PM
The penguins are in the toilets. You can hear them wriggling around in the stalls, splashing water everywhere, squawking happily. To your right is the bathroom door, next to which sits a towel dispenser attached to the wall. Directly in front of you is a row of white porcelain sinks, a mirror on the wall above each. A red plunger sits next to one of the sinks.
>>Take plunger.
You take the plunger. Somehow, it feels…right in your hand.
>>Examine plunger.
It is an ordinary plunger. There is a stick and a suction cup at the end. The suction cup is bright fire-engine red. There is a small note tied to the stick.
>>Read note.
“Acme Brand De-Penguinfying Plungers: Say ‘goodbye’, messy penguins!”
>>Say, “goodbye, messy penguins”
That was rhetorical. You didn’t really have to say it.
>>Oh. Examine the towel dispenser.
The towel dispenser is empty. It isn’t important. It’s just there for ambience.
>>Look in mirror.
You look in the mirror above the sink nearest you. Reflected back, you see…well, you know what you look like, obviously. No point in boring you with what you already know, right?
>>I guess. Is there anything in the sink?
No. Just more ambience.
>>Sigh. Okay. Open stall door.
You open the first bathroom stall door. There, in the toilet, splashing merrily about, is a penguin. It looks up at you as you enter the stall.
>>Use plunger on penguin.
You use the plunger on the penguin. It squawks angrily as you lift it from the toilet and then lands with a soft thlop on the cold tile floor. It waddles out the door. Congratulations! You’ve won the game!
>>That’s it?
Well, yes. It’s not much, I know, but it’s about what you’d expect from a game called Toilet Penguins, am I right? Wanna play again? Y/N?
>>N
by Fred 11:04 AM
The Penguins are in the toilet. To be more precise, two penguins were in the toilet. Not those big King Penguins that would find it difficult at best to fit in a toilet, but the smaller Rockhopper penguins that could, obviously if necessary, fit into a toilet. As Bret stood, blurry eyed and blurry minded, in his bathroom door he pondered just how two penguins had found their way into his apartment, into his bathroom and indeed, into his toilet. To say nothing of why.
The penguins stared back with the expressions one might expect to find on toilet inhabiting penguins. They looked suspiciously at Brett as if wondering who this oddly dressed person was who had just invaded their private moment. The one of the penguins, Ralph for lack of a better name, without taking his eyes from Brett, reached over and snatched his toothbrush from the bathroom sink. Then he simply sat motionless to see what this peculiar stranger was going to do about it. Brett closed the door.
He, Brett, not Ralph, shuffled out to his living room and sat on the sofa. It seemed quite unlikely that two penguins would be in his toilet on a Tuesday morning, or any other morning for that matter, so it occurred to him that perhaps he had taken leave of his senses. That must be it! At some point while he was quite distracted by other things his mind had slipped away like change from your pocket when you sit on the couch. His hand absently searched between the cushions finding 23 cents and a key to something. Or maybe during the night his mind had gone missing in pursuit of a dream having gotten lost on the return trip.
Still, Brett really needed to use the toilet so he shuffled back to the bathroom. The penguins were gone. Brett was in the middle of a deep, grateful sigh when, from the corner of his eye he spotted the same penguins in the shower. Again they froze, stared and looking quite annoyed.
by Shawn 10:26 AM
Using the first random phrase generator that Google gives me, today's topic is:
The penguins are in the toilets.
by Fred 9:12 AM
Monday, July 29, 2002
Sarah felt cold and shaky and more than a little nauseated. She knew she was in shock: from blood loss, from events, from pain that would come crashing in soon enough. The key was to do as much as she could before her brain realized how much this should hurt.
She looked over at Chuck and ticked off the reasons this had been the right decision.- A black eye,
- three broken ribs,
- two days in the closet under the stairs,
- the girl from the plant,
- her daughter.
Sarah considered shooting him again but decided that would compromise the picture she needed to paint.
Her thigh started to throb, and the dish towel tied around it felt tight, like it wouldn't throb so much if she just loosened the knot a little... Wrong. Just wrong. Keep working.
Sarah placed her feet where Chuck's had stood a few minutes ago and looked around her. There, on the end table, was a ceramic lamp. She snatched it up, yanked it savagely from the wall socket, got a fair bit closer to the far wall, and flung it with all her strength. It shattered satisfyingly, and she was tempted to create a little more evidence, but there was a balance to strike, and time was critical.
She arranged the large kitchen knife in Chuck's limp fingers. She walked over to the pile of lamp shards. She sat down amongst them. She tossed the gun carelessly to one side. She untied the dish towel from around her leg, allowing blood to blossom up through her jeans again, and held it ineffectually in one forgotten hand. She was ready to greet the police.
She began to scream bloody murder.
by Sharon 11:59 PM
Beauty and Shock
Remember me? The mind-leak psychic with the perfect communicator? Yeah, well I remember you. I remember lots of things now. I've destroyed the last copy of the communicator, and I'm going to go somewhere far away to meditate -- perhaps Tibet. The Feds, or whomever they are, will find me eventually. I'm sure that they'll torture me and eventually kill me, but they won't learn anything about the communicator.
Because I have the ultimate proof.
I was scanning for them in the early morning like I always did. It was about nine months ago. That's when I first felt this consciousness peering in at me, like an inquisitive child or a mischevious cat would peer in at a goldfish in a bowl. I tried to seek it out, but it vanished as soon as I heeded it. Intermittently for those nine months, I fely that presence about me; always fragmenting like wafs of smoke if I turned to look at it.
Last week I was exhausted. I hadn't slept for days. I was in a fleabag hotel 98 miles outside of Tempe, AZ. I was making my last scan before going to bed when I sensed that presence prickling at the back of my neck. Instead of whipping around to stare at it (in a metaphysical sense), I sidled up and around to it then I pounced on it all of a sudden-like.
That's when I saw what I can only assume was the face of the divine. I was shocked and astounded by the beauty of it. It was beatifically benign. Somehow the communicator channeled through this omniscient entity, and for one awesome moment, I think I percieved everything. Everything. Everything everywhere.
I'm not one-hundred percent sure 'cause I don't remember much more than waking up the next day perfectly content. Thinking aobut it, it makes sense that a tool that seeks out consciousness would inexorably be drawn to the ultimate definition of that which is conscious. Deep inside, I feel that ultimate consciousness is largely what you make of it. That's why I destroyed the communicator the following day.
Now I can stop running. And when they come for me, I can die in peace.
by jal 11:59 PM
Shock:
I woke up and realized it was time to change. No more being on the outside because it was the outside. No more rebellion because it was what I'd done for ever before and what I fully thought I was going to do for ever after. No more difference. One of the herd.
I traded in my funky old car, the one with the 'custom paint job' that made the neighbors cringe. I got a new sedan. It seats four. It has a radio. I like it.
Goodbye hand-assembled computer. When I took the parts out of the box, I knew nothing about machines. I had a bunch of pieces and a box. I knew, though, that when the parts fit together right, this computer would fly. 256K of RAM, a 300mhz chip, yeah, four years ago this was a fine machine. No more. Time to just go ahead and get one of those out of the box. The one that says, "Mooo, Dude, you're gettin' ta Think Different."
I sold all of my stupid roleplay stuff. I took the $150 and bought a bowling ball and some shoes. That's what normal people do on the weekends. It was time. I need to learn how to bowl.
There wasn't room in that back closet, what with my bowling stuff, so I got rid of my homebrew tanks. I put them in the recycling bin, like the people next door do. I bought a case of Budweiser, and liked it.
Yup. I'm normal. I've averaged out to be what I knew all along, at some level, I had to be. It's kinda nice. On the weekends, I bowl with the guys, then come home and have unsatisfying sex with the wife. We got a lap dog and set it loose in the back yard.
The thing that hurt the most was the drum set out of the garage. I guess because it meant realizing that I'm never going to play for a real touring rock band. It's OK, though. I have my life and I like what's going on with it. I like my job. I like my beautiful house. I like my beautiful wife. My biggest fears are my hair falling out or my turning into my parents. Yeah.
by MisterNihil 11:59 PM
After 30 years of marriage, a late-night call asking for a divorce.
Shock.
Finding out that your father has been dating someone for at least the last year, maybe more. No one knows, and he's not saying.
Shock.
It doesn't matter that they haven't lived together for 20-some years. It doesn't matter that they could never have been happy together. It doesn't matter that the most surprising part is the idea that things you thought would never change somehow find a way of changing.
It's still a shock.
And then there's my grandmother.
Grandma is spooky. My mother got the phone call last night, and had no sooner hung up the phone with my father than it started ringing again. She answered, a bit tentatively this time:
"Lynne? What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Of course there is. Tell me what it is."
"What are you talking about?"
"I don't know. I just know that something just happened to you and so I had to call."
My grandmother has nearly lost her mind; she at times has difficulty holding a coherent conversation. And yet, with unerring precision, she can pinpoint a family member in distress from 300 miles away.
That may not be so shocking, but it is downright spooky.
by Faith 9:25 PM
This post is for yesterday’s “Beauty”. Somehow I just love the juxtaposition with “Shock”.
It could truly be said that there were no words to describe it. This was a place that could simply not be on this Earth and yet spread out in front of her was beauty unlike any she had even imagined before. Trees, mighty and calm towered above her their limbs thick with moss and damp with dew. The forest floor like a sea of green, soft and welcoming. The river fell away into the distant valley with s soft, thunderous voice.
This was a place ancient and majestic. If there were still faeries in the world this is where they lived. If there was a god this was its voice. Here one could lie down among the ferns and hear the voice of the Earth and gladly never rise again. Here the outside world had never been imagined. There were no cities, no pollution, traffic, money strife, war, crime. Here was all that had ever been and would ever be. Here all the prattling of man was of such insignificance that it was beyond notice.
She stretched out among the leaves and was lost. Comfortably so. The trees took no notice of her; the river tumbled by and was unaware of her; the forest was there before her people were born and would be long after. She breathed deeply and found comfort in this. Her troubles were nothing to this place and she slept, and for the first time in years her mind was gentle.
by Shawn 6:43 PM
I think I should point out that I am not a cruel man; I’m a professional, plain and simple. They call me in to do a job, I do and I move on. I’m not invested. It’s just a job.
In this particular case I not only don’t care what my subject is blubbering about I don’t understand a word of it. That’s not my job. My job is to get it, whatever it happens to be, out of him. The guy in charge of writing down what comes flowing out is a small, weasely-looking fellow wearing a dirty yellow suit, brown pants and sandals. Since I don’t speak his language I motion for him to move back and stay clear of the water on the floor. He scuttles his chair back, pushes his coke bottle glasses up into place and gets ready to continue writing. His pencil is worn down to a snub. Low budget operation.
The guy I’m dragging the information out of is a piece of work, man! I’d say he’s seen better days but I doubt it; he was in pretty bad shape before I got to him. He’s definitely never seen a dentist, which works to my favor. The first jolt I sent through him shattered his teeth, which, while it makes him harder to understand afterwards makes a real impression right out of the starting gate. I won’t bore you with the details but it’s pretty much the typical car battery, jumper cables, metal chair and water on the floor set up. I’ve always found the anticipation of the shock to be as effective as the actual jolt itself. The zap is over fast but you can drag the build up on for a long time, especially if you make a show of it and clamp the cables to the right spots.
Whatever the patient has been screaming seems to have given the yellow suit guy what he needs and he motions for me to pack up and go. Money changes hands and I move on. Another job well done.
by Shawn 6:42 PM
The trick, of course, is not to want the cheese.
The maze is fairly simple. It twists and turns, but if you pay attention you will find it is really just a spiral toward the center, one left turn after the other. At its heart is the box, and inside the box is the cheese. This is where the trouble starts. The true function of the box is cleverly disguised. It seems innocuous at first, and perhaps you will not see the wires until you are already half-inside. And by then it will be too late. You will have already seen the cheese. You will have felt instinct gnawing at your empty stomach. By then, they may not have fed you for days. At that moment, everything can be reduced to hunger, to that small yellow-white morsel in the center of the box and your absolute need to have it. By now you will have seen the wires -- they are not so well hidden inside -- but you will reach for the cheese, grab it in your hands anyway, and it will only be when that first jolt of electricity passes through you that you’ll realize you’ve been played for a fool.
I have been inside the box now some six or seven times. The maze never changes. The box and the cheese and the wires are always there…but so is the hunger. The need to eat is a powerful force. Whoever they are, they must know that by now. We continue to feed despite the shocks they administer. Instinct refuses to allow us to starve. They can learn nothing more by continuing this. They do not need to put us in the maze again, to force our bodies to choose between death and the box. Dear god, why won’t they let us go home?
by Fred 2:53 PM
I told Jon on Saturday that, if he saw me once again reaching for something with too much sugar, knowing full well how sick it would make me later, he had my permission to taze me. (He was much, much too enthusiastic at this prospect.) During a meeting this morning, I proposed that Dell issue us tasers instead of pagers, so that we could punish people who are late to the meetings we call. Now, at 2:15 Central, I think Remi needs a gentle "reminder." *cough* Ergo, I propose:shock
by Sharon 2:16 PM
Sunday, July 28, 2002
[removed by author]
by Fred 11:59 PM
When I first saw my car, I was sitting in the passenger seat, and my dad and I were driving to see the last classified ad I had circled during biology. I was fresh off the second truck I'd totalled in less than ten months, and my dad and I decided it might be time for me to find something more reliable. I say reliable now, but after spending five thousand dollars on the last vehicle I'd destroyed, I wanted cheap.
The first car I'd seen since the accident was awful. A 1982 Honda Civic hatchback, the muffler was being held on with two thick pieces of wire, and the floorboard was missing beneath the brake pedal. At six hundred dollars, it was just what I wanted to spend, except for everything I just described. The reasonable, financial part of my brain thought it might be a good purchase until the part of my brain that was driving realized that even with the clutch to the floor, I couldn't shift out of first. The second car was slightly better. It was brown, and this time not as old as me. The selling points included a stereo, and a sunroof that the owners assured me wouldn't cost a lot to fix. The paint was peeling from years of gas station car washes, and the antenna dangled from the hood like an old man's prosthetic leg.
For a few days, I had myself convinced that I would be able to ride my bicycle the five miles to the bus stop every morning so I could go to school. I was so convinced that I spent close to a quarter grand tuning my bike and buying the roadworthy necessities: a helmet, bike lights, gloves, a new waterbottle, and a bike pump were things I never thought I'd need until my grey Trek (the first vehicle I'd ever purchased on my own) would become my primary mode of transportation. Work, the grocery and video store, the library, and the coffeehouse were all within reach of my knobby tires. It took two days in the pouring rain for me to realize I truly missed the comforts of an automobile.
Turning into the driveway, the 1985 Honda Accord LX sat serenely. Its first real owner was an army chaplain that insisted on detailing the car every friday. Its second owner was less meticulous, shuttling two kids and the family that accompany them for almost nine years. The prospect of a new car's looming payments was their only motivation to sell. The Accord's paint was standard 80s grey, but everything about her was smooth. There was no doubt that this car had seen years of use, but each of its owners loved her, and she loved them. Now it was my turn.
I paid the family nine hundred and fifty dollars cash, and received a giant manilla envelope detailing the car's lifetime of work. The second I slid behind the wheel as its owner, the car spoke to me. "My name is Susie," she told me, echoing deep inside my head. "I know about you, and I. Do not. Want to. Die." I nodded slowly, and cheerfully waved to the previous owner's wife as I pulled out of her driveway.
Susie and I celebrate a year together in September. Ours is the longest relationship I've ever had with a car, and I intend to make it last. When she's hurting, she'll ease the gas pedal without me noticing, and when I'm in a hurry she'll let me speed. I wash her when she's dirty, and she lets me attach my bike to the rack lashed to her trunk.
We are a team.
[I admit, I used the time edit feature to get this in under the wire. It's really close to two am on Monday.]
by rocketo 10:35 PM
Mirrors know jack about beauty.
Naked under dripping hemlocks
Singing alone on the freeway
Entwined with a lover
Contemplating a new spring bud
(potential flower)
Laughing
Set free down a mountain of snow
Alive in a fire circle with drums
Retrieving a recordset tailored to user input
Gazing under the stars
Telling one of Dad's jokes
Reflected in the eyes of an old friend
Unmistakably me
I am beautiful.
by Sharon 10:10 PM
beauty
by Sharon 3:58 AM
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