Thursday, July 31, 2003

 

when blood howls:
a roar,
thunder,
pounding hollow in my ears,
crashing in and
closing in.
time constricts vision
constricts
to a pin-prick instant.
Here.
Now.
this.
everything before
and everything after,
blurred with bright white light,
obscured,
so that only
the singularity of this
remains.
knees rock and lock.
my ears are full
with insistent susurrations
that resolve into
"Yes."

by Sharon 4:27 PM

 

I don't know why I haven't been posting lately, but...

This changes everything.

by Fred 8:16 AM

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

 

Pins and needles. The waiting was almost more than I could stand. Sitting in the DPS (Department of Public Safety), waiting for the driving test results. The Simpsons was on. I had a book open on my lap. I couldn't think.

The permit test had been nerve-wracking enough, with all that studying and quizzing and memorizing of numbers. But now there was a huge chunk of metal and a great potential for destruction involved. I don't know how test administrators stay sane.

I had re-read the same infiltration into the Ministry of Magic three times. Bart and Lisa were griping about the animated educational throwback for nostalgic Gen Xers that had replaced "Itchy and Scratchy." ("We need another Viet Nam. Thin out their ranks a little.") I couldn't sit still. This driving test was such a big moment.

And then there was Jon--smiling! And... hiccupping, but that's Jon for you. He had passed. As of Tuesday, July 28, my husband has a drivers license. Hoorah!

by Sharon 11:59 PM

Tuesday, July 29, 2003

 

I was Mercy Lewis, a "fat, sly, merciless girl of 18." How nice, to have that written into the stage directions. How nice to also be fat and 18 at the time.

But anyway, The Crucible, with No Refund Theatre, the Atherton Hall players, and I was one of the bad guys. I don't really remember any of my lines anymore. But I remember what Goody Proctor said, recounting the execution of Giles.

The inquisitors asked Giles if he would confess to witchcraft. He would not. They lay great stones on him, and asked him again. And all he would say to them was, "More weight."

Everything is in flux. Change is imminent. And yet, possibly not, so I have to keep on as if nothing will change. I had potatoes for lunch, to dissuade myself from quitting.

And I sat down at my desk, set my jaw grimly, and thought, "More weight."

by Sharon 10:07 PM

 

Drowning in a field of red
Happiness created dread
fell apart on Wednesday
Buried again and again
And I cried for you
More Weight
Pressing businesses decay
Define and drop and melt away
Departed with a sigh and say
Repleat with juniper & Gin
And I cried for you
More Weight
Messy business rubbing clean
A sticky red serves to demean
A happiness always to repay
Fondle and wait to begin
And I cried for you
More Weight.

by MisterNihil 2:47 PM

 

more weight

by Sharon 12:05 PM

Monday, July 28, 2003

 

when Saturn returns

by Sharon 9:43 AM

Sunday, July 27, 2003

 

I'm stealing this one from a back issue of the Onion:

Reduce unwanted stress by not giving a f@ck

by MisterNihil 4:13 AM

Friday, July 25, 2003

 

I offer you a challenge, rather than a topic:

Gross me out.

G'wan, I dare ya. And then I'll retalliate.

by Sharon 12:14 PM

Thursday, July 24, 2003

 

  In the dark of a newly set sun, he moved from house to house, counting children. Seven in one fat, happy home. Two in another. A third without any. Three in the next. He moved from window to window, counting children, tallying on a pad which he carried in his pocket. The streets were deserted. He didn't see a soul. Those walking in the street would not be counted. They all wanted to be counted.
  When he finished, he looked at the pad and counted the meticulous tic marks. One-hundred-seventeen. He did a quick mental calculation, and wrote a glowing number twelve in the air, in fire. He left it hanging there and walked to the next neighborhood, window to window, counting children. He finished there (a bored neighborhood, he thought, reaching two-hundred-twelve children.) He wrote a fiery twenty-one in the air, and walked at a leisurely stroll back to the first neighborhood.
  There, at the foot of the hanging twelve were a gaggle of dirty children. They looked up at him expectantly as he approached. He took a small box from his pocket and opened it. A glowing light shone on the children and they fell, one by one, to the ground. He counted as they fell, up to twelve. There was a thirteenth here, staring wide-eyed at him. He closed the box and put it in his pocket. The state wasn't an orphanage. Some communities would try this kind of thing, pawning off the unwanted on him. He glowered at the child, which ran sobbing back toward one of the buildings.
  He turned, leaving the child and its parents behind. He stalked back to the second neighborhood, where there were a small group of children standing under the fiery numbers. There were only six of them there, shivering in the evening chill. He took out his box and shone the light on them. The six of them became still and fell to the ground. He turned, the box still open, and walked to the first house. There were eight people in the building, three of them adults. The box killed the adults and took the children, totaling eleven, and he moved on to the next house. He only had to empty three more homes before he reached his limit.
  As he walked back out of the neighborhood, the occasional eye showed between curtains. People often became jumpy when the tithes got ugly. There would be a Meeting in this neighborhood in a week to discuss Community Spirit and Togetherness. It would result in a draft which would select the children before he came back in a year. It was only the third year of rolling tithes, but most areas had acclimated quickly. These were the first four houses he'd Scoured in a month or more.
  He moved on to the next neighborhood.

by MisterNihil 2:17 PM

 

I have powerful nightmares. I recycle them into my writing. Two days ago, I leapt from the bed and fired up my laptop because the dream was so vivid and needed to be recorded.

Today I woke from one of my favorite sorts of dreams, the kind that make me feel warm and safe and happy... and then disappointed when I realize I am alone. I dreamt I was with my friends from CTY. Humper and Adam and Nancy and Katie and Achmed and Floyd... the whole gang.

I don't remember the details of the dream, just that we were together and laughing. I dream about them every now and again. It's where I most want to be. Waking from them feels like the mornings when I can tell I've spent the night in Faerie--or the Dreaming, or Narnia, or wherever it is. I don't know the name of the place. I don't know what it looks like. I only know that it is where I most want to be, because it aches to not be there.

I miss those friends. Part of me is glad for the dream, because even a little time with them is wonderful, but mostly it just makes me miss them more.

We live on three coasts now, and probably a few different countries. Some of us make comfortable incomes; some of us are following dreams; some of us can't quite find a direction. A few of us are married, but most of us are not. (Some of us should probably marry others of us, but none of us has.) We're distant, we're busy, we're distracted.

But in the night, when we are able, we find each other, and hug and laugh and play Mao.

by Sharon 11:52 AM

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

 

Who are you again?

by Fred 4:31 AM

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

 

"It's Pretty Soldier Sailor Linguist!"

I knew this already, but writing a year of these essays has made it really apparent: Jed made college a lot more fun.

In our dorm, dry-erase boards were a significant form of communication and social commentary. Sure, people would leave each other notes, but they would also post manifestos and opinion polls and jokes. And the communication was certainly two-way.

With a reference to Sailor Moon, Jed would leave notes on my door addressed to "Pretty Soldier Sailor Something-or-Other." My favorite was Pretty Soldier Sailor Linguist. I started signing in on the PSSFS answer sheets under that moniker, or variants of it.

And it fits, because I can write that phrase in phonetic transcription. I can diagram it using X-bar Theory. I can converse comfortably about conversational implicatures and performative utterances and lexical accessing and all manner of stuff that has nothing to do with software development.

At heart, a part of me will always be Pretty Soldier Sailor Linguist.

by Sharon 3:17 PM

Monday, July 21, 2003

 

Faith is travelin'.

time shift

by Sharon 1:37 PM

Saturday, July 19, 2003

 

My dad had a bumpersticker that said

you, too, will be old soon

on the back of his truck.

by MisterNihil 4:18 AM

Friday, July 18, 2003

 

at the fair

by Sharon 12:09 PM

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

 

I'll see you in the future.

by Fred 4:32 AM

Monday, July 14, 2003

 

I remember sitting in a pizza parlor (though I can't remember the name of the pizza parlor), watching him flex his fingers.

When we hiked at Pedernalis Falls, I was fascinated by the rocks. Here was something so stationary, so permanent, depicting the memory of dynamic water. A photograph of water would not capture the movement the way that these rocks, lovingly sculpted for centuries, did.

Greg's hand was like that.

His skin was yellow and pink--scar-colored--and intact, but it was a frozen fluid. This was skin that had flowed. He told us, that day, over pizza with yellow cheese gapping to reveal red sauce, how it happened. As a teenager, he'd held a job in a factory. A machine sealed plastic by pressing it between two hot, metal plates. Greg got in the way once.

I was probably 15, in that pizza parlor. I wish I could remember its name. They had a delicious white pizza.

by Sharon 11:59 PM

 

Repressed memory flooded Candace's mind. She didn't remember any of it, and after the very traumatic moment all she had was a new repressed memory, the picture of a fire in her mind's eye, and a single tear, running down the side of her nose. She was momentarily paralyzed then sat down hard on the stone steps where she had stood. She stared out at the shops along the boulevard until the tear ran into her right nostril and tickled the hairs inside, making her jump and sneeze. She remembered the fire again, but again only a flash. It was red; it was hot; it was clearly fire; she had seen small fires before, but this one seemed to be big.
She stood and turned right and left, looking up the street. She was aware that she had just repressed a memory, and that it was a memory of repressed memories, and the word "meta" came into her mind and left like a leaf blown in by the wind. She descended the stairs to street level and turned back to look again at the building. It was an old grocery store in which she had bought an apple, a box of crackers and a mini cheese wheel. She held the plastic bag in her hand. With a tiny jolt, she remembered about the apple and reached into the bag. It had a soft spot coming on one side; never a good sign with apples. She bit into the crisp side, determined to salvage what she could. She hated the soft spots on apples.
And Fire.
The voice hissed in the back of her mind. Candace had never hated fire before, any more than anybody else. It was hot and it could hurt you, but beyond that she had no problem with it. She bit again into the apple, chewing happily and trying to remember what she had remembered and forgotten again so infuriatingly just moments before.
She walked up the street to her apartment building, and started up the stairs to her room.

by MisterNihil 3:11 PM

 

No matter where you live (as long as it's in the US)(the continental US)(The 48 contiguous states, at least)(and Puerto Rico) it's after noon, so

Fire

when ready.

by MisterNihil 3:00 PM

Friday, July 11, 2003

 

The Pinky Jones had gone to the dogs. William hardly recognized the place. If it hadn't been for the hand-stenciled P and J on the sign above the bar (or the familiar sight of old Ernest "Radish-head" Smither drinking himself blind at the far end of it), he might have suspected he was lost and walked back outside.

"What'll ya have?" the bartender asked, looking up. He eyed William with a kind of bored suspicion. The name "Louis" was stitched in red across his lapel, while a hideous clot of metallic purple and brown polkadots that might have been a tie hung around his neck.

"Is Joe Tubbs around?" William asked. He took a seat. "I need to talk with him."

"Huh," said Louis. "That's gonna be tough. Tubbs's been dead for 'bout five years now. Talkin' to 'im ain't gonna do you much good."

"What?" asked William. "Dead? When'd that happen?"

The bartender sighed. "Like I said, 'bout five years ago. Got himself drowned in Lake Penelope. Him and that pretty wife of his."

Louis paused, wiped at a corner of the bar with his rag.

"'Course, all they ever found of her was her hat, washed up on shore."

"I didn't even know he was married," said William. "I've -- well, I've been away."

"Hardly married more'n a week," said Louis. "But still, legal and bindin'. Her kid's the one who got the bar after Tubbs was gone." He leaned in closer. "I think you can see we've seen better days."

"Yeah," said William. He frowned. "I haven't been here in a while, though, not since -- well, not since that night on the seventh when Ernie down there drank himself to the hospital with twenty-three beers. I was kind of hoping Joe'd be able to give me a job."

Again the bartender sighed. "Tough to manage when you're sleepin' with the fishes," he said. "And the kid, she don't hire nobody. 'Tween you an' me, she ain't even paid the property taxes on this place the past couple'a years."

"It's changed a lot, that's for sure," said William.

"Yeah," said Louis. "I dunno. She used to have this judge, a real cracker, in her pocket. But he up and died last April. I guess the new guy doesn't take kindly to bribes. Only matter'a time before they shut us down."

"Oh. Damn. I was really banking on Joe still being here. I really could use the money."

"Wish I could help ya, kid," Louis said. "But one thing the Pinky Jones ain't doin', is hirin'."

by Fred 4:11 PM

 

She is sitting on a park bench. She is expecting an answer. She is wearing a pink hat with cherries on top. She is pretending to read a book, but hasn't turned a page in twenty six minutes. The book is written in French. She only speaks Chinese, but the average person walking past on the street could not know this. She is expecting an answer.

He is walking past a tree again, looking up at the branches. He knows she expects an answer, and he knows what is in his pocket. From where he is, he can see her sitting on a park bench, over the pond in the middle of the park. She hasn't seen him, he believes, or if she has, she has fooled him. He sighs, shrugs and begins the long trek around the pond to where she sits.

She is waiting by the pond, expecting an answer. She is looking only at one word in the book, et, which is a conjunction. She knows this. It is the one word in French she knows, and is a useful one. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots him walking around the pond. She doesn't flinch or look up, but sits, staring at the one word of French she knows in a book full of strange words and stranger symbols. He walks past, and a piece of paper flutters out of his hand to the ground. A long moment later, she stands, stretches, and walks over to it. She picks it up nonchalontly (a word she does not know), and walks over toward the garbage can. She crumples the paper and palms it, pretending it throw it away. She walks some hundred feet before carefully uncrumpling it, and reading what she hopes will be her answer. Luckily for her, the paper is written in Chinese. On it is written:
1. Where did Pinky Jones Go?
2. Why did Her Hat wash up on the shore of Lake Penelope?
3. Was the Marriage Legal and Binding?
4. How ugly was that necktie?
She shutters.

by MisterNihil 11:51 AM

 

Topics like magic:

A List of Questions Instead

Please write a story that answers some or all of the following questions.
1. Where did Pinky Jones go?
2. Why Did Her Hat wash up on the shore of Lake Penelope?
3. How Many Beers did Ernest "Radish-head" Smither drink on the night of the seventh?
4. Was the Marriage Legal and Binding?
5. If she'd had a cracker in her pocket, how would things have been different?
6. Was it Murder, Suicide, or Tax Evasion?
7. How ugly was that necktie?
8. Who died, and how? Was there a crime committed?
9. How can Joe Tubbs sleep at night?

by MisterNihil 4:37 AM

Wednesday, July 09, 2003

 

"What'll ya have?"

"Can of air please."

"We got Mountain Mist, Ocean Breeze, or California Smog."

"California Smog? What's that?"

"Our number one best seller. Like standing on the freeway in Los Angeles in the middle of rush hour one hundred and eighty years ago. Relive those glorious, exhaust fume-filled days of yesteryear."

"Gee, how much?"

"Ninety-eight Ameri-credits even."

"That's pretty steep."

"What can I say? It's good smog. You won't find air like this in any industrialized nation on the planet, guaranteed."

"Or my money back?"

"I never said that."

"Well, I've never actually smelled smog before..."

"Few have. The clear-air regulations of 2175 made it all but impossible. Betcha ain't never seen a real live carcinogen neither."

"A carcino--what?"

"Carcinogen. An agent or substance what causes cancer. They were all the rage a hundred years ago."

"Gee, do you -- do you have any?"

"What kinda antiques dealer would I be if I didn't? Lookit here."

"It's just a little white stick."

"You set one end of this stick on fire, the other end in your mouth, and through a simple and prolonged process of inhalation you're dead of lung cancer in thirty or forty years, you mark my words."

"Golly. I don't know anybody who gets lung cancer anymore."

"It's a great conversation starter."

"How much?"

"Two fifty-seven, but I'll throw in this easily ignitable piece of scratchable wood which the primitive tribes of this area once called 'a match'."

"I'll take it!"

by Fred 11:59 PM

 

They said it was the air conditioning, making people sick, so they'd quit..
They said there wasn't nothing to worry about and there wasn't nothing wrong with nothing but the air conditioning.
They said, don't panic, don't worry, don't think about it. They'd get a new unit.
I knew better, though. I see them at night. I'm the only one, now, but I know. They transferred me off the night shift, but I saw 'em before I left, creepin' in the ducts. It isn't the old a/c. Not just the old a/c.
It's the squiddies.
The unit they brought in was off a ship off the South Pacific that had been lost. When it showed up, two years later, the Chinese a/c units on it were already obsolete, so they sold 'em at cost to the highest bidder. They hooked them things up to the building, and everything was pretty fine, for a while.
Then I started seein' em. Them squiddies, peeking out of the ducts. I could hear them, if I was real quiet and it was late at night. Nobody else knew, and when I made assistant manager and up the day shift, I didn't see them any more. They only comes out at night, so they only eats the maintenance folks. They started moving people back to the night shift now, and I know it won't be long.
They keep taking about attrition rates an' employee loyalty, but I know: It's them squiddies.
I seen them eat Redfield my last night on the graveyard. That's how I know. Me and him was walkin in the tunnels under the building, looking for rats and they just spewed out a vent and all over him. It was like he melted and there was just puddle of them clear, blue squiddies. Then one of them jumped up and turned its one big eye at me, and it just looked at me, not moving. Then they all jumped out of that puddle of redfield, and turned to look at me. I turned and ran, but not before I heard 'em start drinking him up, like slu-u-urp, slu-urp and I almost hadda stop to vomit. I held it in and ran, though.
If they put me back on that night shift, I'll quit, but I'll be the only one. They said Redfield deserted, but I know: he's in them squids, gliding through the air shafts, lookin for another easy meal.

by MisterNihil 3:39 PM

Tuesday, July 08, 2003

 

I wake up. I'm late for my wedding. It's half-past-two already. I'll never get my hair ready in time. I pull on jeans and a shirt, figuring I'll tie my shoes once I'm there. They can't start without me, right?

There's construction everywhere. Traffic is crawling, there are orange cones blocking every route, there are stupid men with flags in my way. I am getting later and later. And now I am lost. I don't remember where the wedding is, it's somewhere in Nazareth, and I'm trapped in gridlock on I 35. Which exit is it? I don't know. I could just get onto the frontage road and drive through traffic lights until I find it, but they don't have frontage roads in Pennsylvania. My face is too greasy for wedding photos.

I wake up. Thank god, that was a dream. But I am late for work! I have an install today, people are waiting on me, and it's two hours later in Brazil. I'm letting Amy down. I pull on a t-shirt and can't find my jeans, so I hope no one will notice.

There's contruction everywhere. Traffic is terrible. My project is getting later and later, we're going to miss our install window and have to wait until after moratorium, and I'm trapped in gridlock on I 35. My cell phone battery is dead, I can't call in. Why am I even on this stupid highway?

I wake up. Stupid work dreams. I don't work anymore, I'm on maternity leave. But I'm going to miss my plane. I'm going to have the baby next week, and I haven't told Mom yet, and I have to catch this flight up to Pennsylvania. I pull on a dress. My jeans won't fit. My shoes don't fit either, but I struggle with them. I nearly fall down the stairs.

There's contruction everywhere. Traffic is beastly. I'm going to miss my flight, my contractions are starting, and I am trapped in gridlock on 183. Jonathan took the bus, he'll be there already, wondering where I am. I can't drive! I'm going into labor!

I wake up. It's Saturday. Toastmasters can kiss my ass.

by Sharon 5:23 PM

 

What it is, he thought to himself, is enough to make you think twice about love.
First, you have to just have that fleeting thought, but then you have to listen to that voice in the back of your mind and the one coming from her mouth and stop and really reconsider what it means. Love. It's forever, right? I mean, that's the presumption. It's powerful, right? It can move mountains and make men stop drinking beer. It's what makes the world go 'round.
But those are all first thoughts. They're all what you thinkbefore you think.
If love were forever, you'd never get new shoes. If love were that powerful, most men would be dead the first time a woman was mad at them (so, like, before age 6 for most of us, he chuckled). If It made the world go 'round, then... what? He ran out of steam.
And he stood, blank, and he thought again.
Love is:
He pictured two fat, cherubic, naked people hugging and looking holier-than-thou, saying something insipid and infuriating like "Love is Gazing at Him Through Two Black Eyes," or "Love is Three Beers and a Tequila Chaser." He hated those comics. When he was a kid, he'd rip them out of the paper every Sunday and burn them in the back yard. He'd laugh gleefuly as they flared and blackened.
He turned back to her and said, "Yeah, I'll go get milk."
"Thanks, Hon," she said, not looking up from her book.

by MisterNihil 3:54 PM

Monday, July 07, 2003

 

...more than that, I'm tired. I mean, the need to eat... b-b-b... it'll always be there, but since I started on coffee and pudding, I don't miss it too much."
"Thank you, Billy. That was very brave. Would anybody else like to share? I see we have a visitor. Sir, would you like to share?"
"Um... yeah... My name is Robert-"
"Hi Robert!" intones the ensemble."
"-yeah. Thanks. Um... and I eat brains."
"Now Robert, we all used to eat brains, but remember: every day you don't eat brains is a day you aren't a brain-eater."
"Um, yeah. So, my name is Robert, and I'm a member of the walking dead. I've been dead for about two years now, and I only just heard of the group. I used to eat brains all the time, y'know? I'd just eat brains all weekend until I thought I'd pop, but now I'm ready to try to go straight. I never liked it, I just couldn't help myself. I didn't know I had a choice.
"See, my dad was a zombie, too, and I thought, like, because he was and I'd grown up seeing that, that it was OK. I didn't even think, hey! I could, like, not eat brains. I've been trying since I found you guys, but I broke down in the lobby and at a little bit of a bellboy's brain. But you know what? I didn't like it. I'm ready for this."
"Thank you Robert. That was very brave."

I was gonna do a post about being alive and awake, seeind how it's Monday and all, but there hadda be a zombies post, yeah? Funny thing, both posts were gonna start with that line.

by MisterNihil 9:21 AM

 

Seeing how it's Monday and all...

back from the dead

by Fred 5:00 AM

Thursday, July 03, 2003

 

When the aliens came back and explained everything it all made perfect sense.
We didn't really spontaneously evolve from monkeys. They implanted a bio-chip in monkey brains. Those monkeys produced monkeys with better brains, which evolved, slowly, into us. It's what happened to them, they said. It's the real circle of life. One race evolves, develops space travel and finds a lesser species to help along.
It would have been uncharitable for us to push them away. They were so kind as to help us when we were just monkeys. They just needed a place to stay for a while. No trouble, really. We set them up in model homes in the Hamptons. They were immediate, if momentary, celebrities. Everybody wanted to be seen with them. Until the strange deaths started.
Of course, we couldn't blame them. It was just what they ate. The Olsen twins went first, brutally murdered and dismembered in their Malibu home. Then, most of the cast of Friends. After the show ended, I think many of the die-hard fans were glad to see the cast stopped from making any future movies that would pollute the memory of the show. When they started eating senators and supermodels, we started to protest. Of course, then it was too late. One of them had managed to get elected president, and the rest were in congress. They were passing laws.
Soon, it wasn't illegal for them to eat people. In two generations, though, it became trendy to be eaten by the aliens. People formed long lines to try for a chance to end their existance at the fangs of the still-president alien.
I stood in line for almost three days. When I got there, I asked if they would like to eat me. They turned me away. I noticed, sitting there and crying, that they only ate popular people. I stood in line for another three days and befriended one of these beautiful people, hoping to sneak in on her looks. When I got to the door, they took her and turned me away.
I asked why. They said that, when the world was young, they programmed into our heads a need to pamper ourselves, an aversion to work and wildness. They want people who are popular, because they programmed us to respect what they regard as tastiness. They compared it to creating a cow that wants to be veal, or a goose that can't help but stuff itself until its liver explodes.
They said I wasn't tender enough.
I left, feeling worse than ever.
They did say, though, that if I wanted to fit in, I should go to Australia. They don't eat Australians.
Yet.

by MisterNihil 5:34 PM

 

That seems to be going over like a Bag of Hammers in Scared-of-Hammersville, so how 'bout this topic:

Tender

Enjoy. The other's still also the topic, but I'm all about options.

by MisterNihil 1:03 PM

 

In light of recent posts:
So, Shawn: You say it's your birthday?

It's my birthday, too.

(dananananana-na-na!)

by MisterNihil 3:19 AM

Wednesday, July 02, 2003

 

We are sitting in the livingroom of his house, he and I. There is incense burning in every corner and on every surface. The air is pleasantly thick, and I am drowsy. I think he has ingested something which makes him talk, but I tuned him out ten minutes ago. I refocus to pay a little more attention. I'm rewarded with this:
"I have this idea, man. I mean, like, there's two meanings of squash, right, only like, not just the fruit or vegetable or whatever it is, the plant, right, but also, like, putting something heavy on something soft and pressing, right, is squashing, but, like, so is a kind of indoor raquetball sport, right, like squash, right, they have courts for it and Carnegie Mellon were the national champs, right, like, recently. You know what other sport I never got into, man, is curling, right, only it's like horseshoes only with blocks of granite and on ice, right, like, and you sort of bowl the granite over the ice, right, and these girls sweep away the ice so its smoothe. Yeah, like Bocce, only not on sand. You know what they call bocce in France? Le Big Mac HAA-HAHAuhukHAA-HAHA So, right, and I was thinking..."
And I tune out again. He's nice, I guess, but he babbles. So I lean back my head until I'm looking straight up at the light fixture in the middle of the room, which has been off since I came here, and every time I've been here for almost five years, and I sigh. The air is thick and I am tired. I doze happily and quietly.

by MisterNihil 4:33 PM

Tuesday, July 01, 2003

 

I burn my candle at both ends.
It will not last the night.
But oh, my enemies, and ah, my friends,
It gives a lovely light.
--Edna St. Vincent Millay

You don't want to hear about my job again. I don't want to hear about my job again. And anyway, I'm not giving. There is some taking going on, but it isn't consensual.

No, let me talk, instead, about Fire.

Fire has been the focus for this year. I have a red-yellow-orange bracelet--embroidery floss, in the style I learned when I was very young, from my father's friend's daughter, during a sleepover with The Older Girls--around my wrist, reminding me. I'm trying to eat spicier foods.

But it's not about food.

It's about going All In. Holding nothing back. Sincerity. Truth. Honesty with myself and, by extension, with others. Choosing to do a thing, and once choosing, giving myself up to it utterly. I am a Writer. I am a Wife. I am a Rock Climber. I am Fire.

Each Monday, my friend Frank pokes my wrist and asks, "How is Fire working out for you?" Hmph, weekly reminders on our self-improvement projects, we could do without. Well, okay, my New-Age Office Assistant is keeping me more focused than I'd like to admit. Some weeks I grunt noncommitally. Other weeks, with flames behind my irises, I tell him it is going well.

Right now, Cyndi Lauper is telling me not to be afraid to let them show; my true colors are beautiful. Cyndi knows about Fire.

And I've got code to deploy.

by Sharon 6:35 PM