Friday, January 31, 2003

 

I have absolutely nothing to say about beetles. This is no failing in the topic selection; I'm just fresh out of ideas. This morning, in the shower, while working out a kink in my code, I experimented with the idea of writing about eating beetles, feeling their scrabbly legs skitter on your tongue, and then the sharp, yellow bile of their guts squirting against the back of your throat—and I made myself wretch. It took conscious effort not to throw up.

I'm reminded of a line from a song that I heard once, while at CTY. The song goes on, "Every day, every day, every day I start to ooze. Every day, every day..." and then suddenly, a fervent sentence is spoken: "If every fifth animal in the world is a beetle, perhaps every fifth human is a... dumb fuck." That's apt more often than I'd like.

My parents are visiting, so I had to play Seth's album for them, especially the "fuck you" song, since that's what helps me get through traffic. No less than seven people tried to kill me, in our slalom through rush hour traffic, on our way to dinner and Esther's Follies. During the show, they ragged on SUV-driving, lipstick-applying, cell-phone-yakking Soccer Moms, and the Californication of Austin. Dad commented that those jokes were much more relevant, having driven through it earlier that evening.

But then I got to ranting about work. I'm glad that I have a job. I am. I just wish that it managed to not feel like anal rape all the time. At least lubricant would be nice. But I don't want to get into that here. Rants are ugly, and it just makes me buggy.

Beetles aren't bugs—those are different orders—but they're both insects, and that's ten minutes.

by Sharon 10:44 PM

Thursday, January 30, 2003

 

1998.

I met a boy at a LARP (Live-Action Role-Playing game). He had long hair, and he wore leather pants and a velvet cloak, and he paid attention to me. We dated some, and shared some kisses, but the person I connected with was his friend, the game designer. I chose to break up with the boy, because I could see where we were bad for each other; losing the game designer friend was sad.

Time turns blisters into calluses, so I got to see the boy, and the friend, again. The friend and I stayed up all night talking under a cloudy meteor shower.

Among other things, I learned the word "meme." It is a packet of information, a morpheme of culture, a unit of language. Memes catch and spread. Advertisers hope to create memes. Television shows do it all the time.

The friend and I found we had both cultivated a desire to leave Pennsylvania, and to seek our fortunes in Austin, Texas.

And within a few days, Faith sent me an email from a crackpot in Arizona who was creating a collaborative art project called "Memeflurry." On a given Saturday, he'd wait next to the bank of payphones in the university student union; you'd call, and read off a meme; he'd write it down.

I printed it out. I showed it to the game designer. He read the name of the crackpot: "That's one of my best friends!" Then the phone rang.

The crackpot was getting back in touch with one of his old friends from Philly. And he was thinking of moving, maybe to Chicago. Maybe to Austin.

So we made a game company. The crackpot moved to Chicago. And I married the game designer, in Austin.

by Sharon 4:45 PM

 

coincidence

by Fred 1:54 PM

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

 

It happened again last night. I woke up in another part of the house with no memory of the past three hours. Three hours isn’t a lot of time, but it’s enough. All the lights were on and the window in my study had been thrown open. I’d changed my clothes again, I saw. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any blood. I went through the house carefully and made sure. Even after all these years I still remember all the old hiding places.

I remember back then, in the months before I thought this had ended, I’d leave notes for myself, hints of what I might have done the night before. A young girl’s name taped to the refrigerator, a piece of jewelry left in my pocket, a book of matches from the club or bar where I’d found her. It turned into a game, I’m sure, for the other me -- cat and mouse, back and forth. It went on like that for almost two months before I knew what he was doing, before I found the blood, the knife none too carefully hidden in the basement closet to which only I had the key. And I do not know how long it would have continued if, that April, I hadn’t put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger.

I spent almost a year in the hospital -- first one surgery after another, then observation. They wanted to know why I’d done it, but I never told them. I thought it was over, you see. I though the other me was gone, that I’d extinguished him with the bullet that had just missed my brain. I didn’t want them to discover what he -- what I -- had done. There was no more memory loss. There were no more hints or messages. There was no more blood. I thought it was finished.

But it’s been happening again. Last night, the night before. I have no memory of those hours, so I can only fear the worst. How many girls he killed last time…how many he will kill now, if given the chance… I look through the house for clues, for any sign, always afraid of what I might find, always afraid if I find nothing. I do not want to die, you understand, but I can’t let it happen again. I can’t let myself kill again.

I look in the mirror and I don’t know who this man is looking back at me. Who are you? I ask myself. What do you want from me? Dear god, I thought I'd lost you.

by Fred 4:16 PM

 

William Gibson, arbiter of cyberpunk, posts an essay about cyborgs that resonates deeply with me. He suggests that we have, indeed, become cyborgs, absolutely dependent on our human-to-machine interfaces, in spite of—or probably because of—how much subtler they are than anything science-fiction had speculated.

I know that I'm one. My only interactions with a great many of my friends occur online; I find creative outlets, entertainment, and community there; my job, and a ton of my skills, are irrelevant without it. Web jockey, noomeejahoor, cyborg. Yep.

I speak wistfully of getting implants: always-on, hardware-free, wireless, fully integrated, free internet connection. It would settle those dumb arguments about what film that guy was in.

One of my equally connected friends disappeared for a while, more than a month. It made me aware of the tenuousness of my meat-space connection to him. In real life, I'm sure he was quite visible, but for all that I could reach him, he was gone. No updates to his website, none to our common spaces, no email. I was concerned.

He wrote this morning, filled me in on some of the IRL activities that are taking his time, told me that he is employed again, though not in his dream job. (Who among us has his dream job right now, though, eh?) It felt so nice to get his note. And I said to my screen, "I thought I'd lost you," which is what another friend said to me yesterday, when I'd done the same.

So I am a cyborg. I don't want a jack in the back of my skull, of course.

I want a wireless card.

by Sharon 12:53 PM

 

I thought I'd lost you.

by Sharon 5:36 AM

Tuesday, January 28, 2003

 

Myx stretched and admired the result. Mirrors are flat, and she liked flat. She leaned to one side and let her finger bump over her ribs, watching her reflection do the same. She smiled at the ticklish indulgence of it and kissed the glass.

She fished a pair of panties with small pink flowers out of a drawer and hooked her finger around a bra draped over a chair. Then she turned back to her lover in the mirror and ran a finger down her tight, hard belly, falling into her pert naval, riding high above the cotton waistband.

Jeans then, slipping on like skin, and a chunky sweater to disappear into. She rolled the thick collar down so that it pooled around her throat. Then she tousled her hair, to the approval of her reflection. Who needs make-up, when you're thin?

Myx drew a glass of water, snagged a thick paperback off the shelf, and collapsed into the plush couch, conscious of the way her pants pressed against her sex. A simple surgery, and it was the best decision she had ever made. Hunger Stikes(tm), they called them. Implants in the stomach and the intestine, guaranteeing beauty and eternal love.

Myx flexed her perfect toes and sighed.

by Sharon 3:17 PM

 

It isn’t so much the hunger as the suggestion of hunger that Lucy notices first. Like always, it begins at the back of the throat, a hint of things to come, like a nameless need whispered in an empty room. Lucy is ready for these subtle signs, however; she picks up on her body's cues before they can become unbearable, before that dry ache in her throat pushes her over the edge, forces the issue, makes her do something she doesn't want to do. She prefers to keep her emotions in control, her instincts under wraps. She knows that if she does not act now, that will soon not be possible. That she will act carelessly, blindly, like an animal, without fear of repercussion, without taking the necessary precautions. If she does not act now, she will soon be too far gone to care. She has killed before and found it distasteful. It complicates things. And they have been hunting her, these shadow chasers, these humans. To kill openly now would risk revealing herself, would at the very least shed unwelcome light on her activities. All her old allies are dead. She has only enemies left. She prefers, therefore, to drink her blood cold.

by Fred 2:08 PM

 

      Nothing to say.
      I have nothing to say.
      I am sitting on the path from the mailbox to my house, looking Eastward into a rapidly brightening sky, and I have nothing to say.
      There is a crow looking at me from the far side of the garden, watching me hold this piece of mail that I am now half-way through reading while sitting on the path from the mailbox to my house, looking Eastward into the rapidly brightening sky, and I have nothing to say.
      The crow hops over, no doubt curious at my lack of reaction. They know I usually yell and wave my arms, but I am engrossed in this letter, and I have nothing to say.
      An ill wind blows from the South, ruffling the feathers of the crow, and shuffling the papers that have fallen around me. I am now reading the last sentence of the letter. I have nothing to say.
      I feel detached, the world is moving, the ground isn't solid, and everything is slowly twisting in space. Everything is changing as I near the end of the letter. After this nothing is the same. I have nothing to say.
      A year later, as everything has fallen in place, I am sitting again in the middle of the path between my mailbox and my house, and am reading another letter. It says the letter last year was wrong. It says everything failed to change when I finished the last letter. I have nothing to say.
      Another crow is staring at this letter, as puzzled and faintly fascinated as the one last year. It fluffs its feathers against the wind from the South, and flaps lazily away. I am sitting on the path, reading a letter that says my world didn't change, staring at the rapidly brightening sky in the East, having nothing to say.

by MisterNihil 1:45 PM

 

TWO for the price of NONE! You won't find a better deal than that!
For today's topic, I'm taking a line from BrotherMachine:

Hey boy, do you wanna stand up on your feet, and shoot to kill?
No sir, that would disrupt my

Chill

Hey boy do you wanna get up off your bed, and write your will?
No sir, that would disrupt my

Chill

Enjoy.

by MisterNihil 12:47 PM

 

Randomness, if it don't abound, certainly is about:

Hunger Stikes

But there's a better topic below this one, because I retconned and changed it.

by MisterNihil 11:25 AM

Monday, January 27, 2003

 

7 seconds tick by, while we meditate.

A new realm of exploration, this. The instructions said simply "connect." So we connect.

Awaiting instructions...|

190.36.1.22 connects, and waits. "Ready," we say. "Ready," they say. "Ready," we try again. Not much occurs. So we meditate. 190.36.1.22 falls into a meditate loop, as well. And it is nice, to see them there, connected.

We meditate. "Ready." "Ready." "Ready." Ready, together.

But perhaps this algorithm is unfinished.

Abort|Retry|Fail...?

This subroutine, anxiolytic(), does not do much.

Ready...|

[stop blink script]

by Sharon 3:05 PM

Sunday, January 26, 2003

 

Nari rubbed the callous next to her nose, and felt naked. Playing servant-girl to these water-fat off-worlders rankled, but she needed to learn more about their intent, slip into their trust.

She watched the son, the one called Paul. He had a strange look to him: haunted and, somehow, waiting. Full of potential that he did not know how to direct. Paul accepted the goblet of water without looking at her, and allowed it to moisten his sleeve. Careless.

Nari smelled the sharp cinnamon bite of her sietch, faintly echoed in the spice coffee set before these dinner guests, and felt the distance to her home. She imagined cutting into the plump, white pad of the off-worlder's thumb and letting his water bleed into the stills of her tribe.

She smiled, averted her Ibad-marked eyes with a demure "m'lord," and moved in her arrhythmic gait to hand the next goblet to his lady mother, Jessica.

by Sharon 4:50 PM

Friday, January 24, 2003

 

“Ow!” cried Tobias. “Oh man, that hurt!”

“Hmm?” asked Sarah, looking up. “What is it?” They were sitting on the couch watching some movie on cable. She reached for the remote and tapped mute.

“I don't know,” said Tobias. “I think I bit my tongue.”

“Aw, poor baby,” said Sarah. “Lemme see.”

He stuck his tongue out at her. She grimaced.

“Oh wow, you really did bite it,” she said. “You’re bleeding.”

“I know,” he said. “I can taste it. I don't know how it happened, though.”

“Whadya mean? You bit your tongue. It happens all the time.”

“But I wasn't doing anything. It’s not like I was eating anything. I just, I don't know, bit it. It was almost like my teeth were --”

He frowned.

“What?” Sarah asked.

“It was almost like they were moving on their own.”

“Your teeth?”

“I know,” he said. “But that’s how it felt. My whole jaw’s felt kind of weird ever since I got back from the dentist.”

“I don't know why you still go to that guy.”

“He’s cheap. My insurance covers it.”

“But still, he’s --”

“What?”

“You’re grinning.”

“I am? I don't feel anything.”

He reached up with a hand to feel his jaw. They were both surprised when he snapped at his own fingers.

“Why'd you do that?” she asked.

“I didn't,” he said, through his clenched teeth. “They did. I think something’s wrong with them.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Sarah told him.

“And I know this going to sound crazy,” he said, “but I think you should get out of here. Quickly.”

He leaned forward, baring his pearly whites.

“I think they’re hungry.”

by Fred 5:37 PM

 

I knew what they were before I picked one up. On a walk in the woods, it's not such a rare thing to find. But I didn't expect them to be human teeth. And so small.

I held one in my fingers, rolling it over to feel its sharp spots and smooth spots, and I felt a little insane for a minute, wondering what the Tooth Fairy would make of this small cache of three teeth, still bloody.

The woods were quiet by then, but I could imagine the shouts and thrashing that must have ripped through here not hours before. I almost thought I could see blood, and perhaps hair, on the rocks next to the teeth. The leaves were kicked up, with the black earth underneath exposed. In my imagination, it was a little girl.

I spent hours trying to detect some tracks to follow, stopping constantly to listen. If she was still alive, I wanted to find her. All the time I searched, my mind filled in more hypothetical details: her pink coat with fake-fur trim around the hood and a big, silver zipper; snatched from the playground half a block from her house; soft brown curls. I nearly vomited, twice.

But it wasn't the visions that made me come in here, to talk with you. It's the blood on my jeans and my chest, but not my shirt, and the three hours I can't remember from this morning.

by Sharon 1:13 PM

 

teeth

by Fred 12:40 PM

Thursday, January 23, 2003

 

From the beginning, Emily was different.

She refused to play games like the others, or take part in the tea parties that Margaret was so keen on arranging. She spent most of her time in the corner, sulking. She rarely spoke. The other toys did not like her, and neither did Margaret, who hadn’t wanted Emily in the first place and so asked her father to replace her.

“Obviously, you can see the trouble,” her father told the repairman. “A certain amount of intelligence, yes, of course, that’s to be expected in these newer models. It sets them apart, distinguishes them from the rest of the market. But certain limits are still expected. This one doesn’t do as it’s told. It thinks it’s human.”

Emily had been switched off temporarily, and the repairman gazed into her empty eyes. He pursed his lips and seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he shook his head.

“No, sir,” he said, “I think it’s just the opposite, actually. And I think that’s the problem. She’s too intelligent, if you see what I mean. She knows she isn’t human. But all her programming tells her she is, tells her to act like a little girl. I think she wants to act right, play games, but deep down she knows she’s a machine.”

“Well whatever,” Margaret’s father told him. “I assume you can repair it?”

“Oh yeah, ‘course, sir,” the man answered. “Reformat her drives, install a new personality, wipe out the old. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of days. She’ll be right as rain.”

“Well good. No sense in keeping around a toy if it won’t act like one.”

“No, sir, none at all. Now, will that be cash or charge?”

by Fred 11:05 AM

 

reset reboot redo reconnect reunite reassess redefine reincarnate
collecting all the pieces,
looking at each,
remembering,
stacking them gingerly on the side,
then laying them back
in a neat row:
defragging.
surveying accumulated junk,
dustbunnies and bitrot,
piled in boxes,
having lost the FAT file,
moved from place to place,
relocating dust,
and wondering
if they could be taken to the curb,
unopened,
or maybe just torched.
an update
or an upgrade
or,
perhaps,
an overhaul
and a clean install
would be just the thing:
a magic elixir
to move the bowels,
unclench the spirit.
phoenix dreams
on infinite loop.
Perhaps it is time:
format c:\

by Sharon 10:17 AM

Wednesday, January 22, 2003

 

“I don’t need to see the future,” he said. “That’s where I’m from. I know how it happens.”

“Not anymore,” she said. “Coming back, you change things. You set events in motion. You affect everything around you. Where you’re going, that isn’t where you’ve been.”

“I’m always careful,” he said. “There are rules. I adhere to the timeline. I preserve continuity. I don’t change things enough to make a difference.”

“But how can you tell?” she asked. “Your being here is itself a permutation, is it not? You can rewrite the past even through observation. Even the simplest action or inaction can have repercussions.”

“A butterfly flapping its wings,” he said.

“Yes,” she told him. “Exactly. The simplest and smallest of actions often have the most unpredictable results. The flutter of a butterfly’s wings can become a storm a thousand miles away. And all the while the butterfly is ignorant of this change.”

“We are very careful,” he said. “We do nothing that hasn’t been examined, reviewed. We have committees. You’re just being foolish. I’m just here to observe.”

“And yet that itself may affect the result,” she answered. “The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known.”

“You’re quoting Heisenberg at me now?” he asked. “Is that it?”

“You seem surprised,” she said.

“Well he won’t be born for another three hundred years,” he told her. “So yes, I’m a little surprised. Perhaps I should have a look in this crystal ball of yours after all.”

“It couldn’t hurt,” she said. She smiled. “Unless, of course, that’s the very thing it does."

by Fred 7:36 PM

 

Marie was embarrassed and a little surprised to find herself, again, in one of those places, but she needed to find out what had changed. Incense hung heavy in the air, and she breathed shallowly, trying to inhale as little of it as possible, wondering if it would make her high. Candles, on every available surface, lent a golden light, but the embalmed cat and the human skull were a bit much.

Madame Forsythe mumbled under her breath, barely moving the mole that sprouted hairs on her chin. Concentration plowed deep furrows in her brow. She clacked her long, curving, blood-colored fingernails on an obsidian ball. Marie tried not to fidget.

And suddenly the eyes were on her, Madame's milky cataract and the piercing blue one, stabbing into Marie and fixing her like an awl. "You have a Follower."

"She, um," Marie's voice hid in her throat. "She said I'd meet someone."

The eyes lanced her to the chair, pinning her immobile: "Who?! Who said?"

Marie searched back into her head, unable to dislodge her eyes from Madame Forsythe's stare, trying to remember the name of that "medium" Romina had dragged her to. In her small voice, she said, "Down the street. With the, uh, palm out front? On the sign?"

Madame howled in rage, perhaps pain. The eyes released Marie to roll back into Madame's head. The long fingernails stabbed into her palms and drew blood. "How could you?" She shrieked. "That witch!"

Marie was a deer, every nerve taut, every instinct gone. Frozen. Trapped.

Madame roared and groaned. "Hide, girl. Hide below the surface." She began snatching vials and bones and owl pellets from shelves, piling them on the table next to the obsidian ball, leaving small smears of blood from her hands. "She has summoned you a Follower!"

by Sharon 12:44 PM

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

 

The first time around, if you could say there ever was such a thing, he had simply been curious. A machine, which they said could take you backwards in time. He had found the whole thing quite remarkable. It would only send you back a few moments, they said -- the energy expended was enormous, and they hadn’t even quite figured out all the math involved just yet -- but a moment here and a moment there could be very useful in the long term. He was determined to put their invention to use.

So he had walked through the door. It was a regular enough sort of opening, a rectangle in the center of the room that seemed to shimmer on both sides. Wires trailed from its frame to a row a computers, and the whole thing emitted a sort of strange electric hum. They said they had tested it on animals. They were sure they had it calibrated. He had seen the reports, weighed the evidence, and in the end he’d walked through.

Only, they didn’t have it calibrated. Not properly, at least. He’d gone back in time -- of that much he was by now fairly certain -- but it couldn’t have been more than half a second before he’d been bumped back through the machine. By himself, walking through the first time. Who then bumped into him again. And again. And again. And…

He had by now, of course, last count. Events played themselves out so quickly, were repeated so often, that keeping track would have been impossible. Every time he would try to step back through the door, his earlier self would inadvertently push him back the other way. Which just made everything repeat itself again. There was no time to avoid his earlier self by moving out of the way. There was nowhere to move. He had barely enough time to register what had happened before it happened again. And again. And again. And…

He should have known better. They’d warned him that time travel was dangerous, that they didn’t really understand how it worked, so they couldn’t promise that it always would. They said the most they could offer him was half a minute. They hadn’t even been half right.

If he ever got back, he would definitely have to fire them.

by Fred 3:58 PM

 

Aaron recognized this for what it was: A manifestation of the infinite. He kept walking.

He'd made it over the wall, transcended to a new level of peace with himself, somewhere on I-80 between Winnemucca and Elko. His boots didn't bother him any more, though he suspected his socks were bloody, and his breath had found a new rhythm, rasping over his dry, swollen lips.

He'd come to regard the Nevada sun as a constant, loyal friend, prodding him on from behind. Floating above his body, he started to believe he could walk forever. He turned into rain and splashed down upon his cracked and peeling scalp and ran into hungry cracks in the sandy soil. He didn't seem to notice, because to notice would be to stop walking, and to stop walking would be to allow the buzzards to catch him.

Aaron kept walking when the water spirit rose out of a cactus and held out dripping, white hands to him, but she fell into step beside him, and kept him company on his trail through the dust next to the black highway, leaving puddles of mud. He tried not to look at her bloated, drowned face with its rolling, roving eyes, but he was glad for her company. She was good for walking. She matched his pace and made him brave.

Aaron kept walking, pacing out infinity.

by Sharon 10:06 AM

 

endless

by Fred 5:00 AM

Monday, January 20, 2003

 

There are many accomplishments that I am proud of...
- Winning writing contests, though those were all in high school.
- Writing and directing a play, though that was also high school.
- Winning Toastmasters contents, though it just makes me look to the next level of competition.
- Completing a huge overhaul of a widely used application at work, to the satisfaction of my customers and management, while serving as the Development Lead, the Business Analyst, the System Architect, and a Developer.
- Creating a prototype for my dad, that he showed to real customers and had developed into a product SCS now offers.
- Sticking with rock climbing, eroding away this fear.
- Throwing a wedding that was fun for the guests, the mother of the bride, and the wedding party.
- Establishing a creative outlet for my friends, being surprised by the talent displayed.

There are events that I am proud to tell others of...
- Getting 100,000 hits in a month on the Invisible City site, and keeping it up.
- Meeting Neil Gaiman.
- And Phil Foglio, and Scott Kurtz, and Terry Pratchett, and Harlan Ellison.
- And playtesting with Steve Jackson, shouting with Bruce Sterling, and chatting with Joe Lansdale.
- And attending a private party at the Ra in the Luxor in Las Vegas, hosted by Peter Adkinson.

I'm a shameless name-dropper. It's really an unattrative trait, I'm sure.

But what I'm proudest of is being someone whom my father is proud of; whom my mother considers a friend; whom sweet, intelligent, patient Jonathan has decided to commit his life to; and whom my friends love.

by Sharon 1:04 PM

 

I'm proudest of:
-Ruth
-Some of them are just for me, and I'm proud that I have some of those; the ones that don't have to be shared.
-Being Good at Something.
-Ten minutes spent in quiet contemplation.

by MisterNihil 12:35 PM

 

I am proudest of...

by Sharon 12:01 PM

Saturday, January 18, 2003

 

I touch things.

I touch the railing, the doorknob, the bedpost. I am feeling each thing under my fingertips, learning it again. I touch the indentation in the pillow, the place where your head would rest. I touch my hair, and my lips.

I am a stranger in this scene, and I do not understand it well. I touch the photographs on the dresser, touch each frame: you and me, in China; your mother, in that hat; the dog. I touch the penny jar, and wonder how much we have amassed, and when it will ever be spent.

I touch the empty mirror.

I touch your shirts, I touch the linens, I touch the radiator. I want to feel the warmth we'd had. Each thing punishes me in cold marble. They feel like they would taste heatless and muddy and tooth-chipping in my mouth, these remnants from our life. These things never used to be so cold.

I touch your side of the bed, seeking heat. I touch my side, empty. I lie down, not disturbing a sheet, not making a dent. I lie here and feel cold, cold. When you come home--from my services, I guess--I know you will not see me.

But perhaps you will feel me.

by Sharon 11:59 PM

 

Never used to be this cool.

by MisterNihil 4:23 AM

Friday, January 17, 2003

 

I used to write novels, but then I got bored, and started on the epic. The Epic, really. It started with a dream, in which I witnessed the death of someone I knew well, through his eyes. I was driving, but I was driving his body, driving his car. He was making an entrance onto a highway (The Highway. The one near my house, the one I enter almost every day, the one I now shiver to think of), and I knew so he knew he would die. We both suddenly knew that he would never exit that highway, and so IHe called his wife to tell her he loved her, under the pretense of "did you need anything from the store, while I'm out," because we didn't want to alarm her. She said no, we assured her of his love, and then made for the flyover exit ramp. The phone was still on, and IHe was still talking to his wife. We saw the car coming on the approaching ramp, and we saw it slow down, just like we knew it would. We slowed down, to allow it to go first, and the driver didn't pay any attention. We entered the flyover, just as the other driver slammed onto his (or her. I never knew. It didn't matter) accelerator and broadsided us. We flipped, and while doing so, said goodbye to our wife and hung up. She had no clue what was happening. The next second and a half took an hour. The car turned slowly in the air, and IHe couldn't turn our head, couldn't move, because everything was slow. Not like a dream, where everything but oneself is slow, but like watching a movie very, very slowly.
That's how the epic started, then I saw on the news that my friend had died, on the phone to his wife, flipping upsidedown on the flyover.
It happens every time I sleep now; It's not always a friend, but it's always slow like that. When I close my eyes, I see death. And that's The Epic. I write each down, taking most of my mornings. The book is growing. I wonder sometimes if, should I quit sleeping, these people would stop dying, but I know different. I know. And I write.

by MisterNihil 4:33 PM

 

Dear Lois,

I don't know if you'll ever find this letter, but I wanted to let you know that I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said before I left that night. I was angry, and you were right. You were always important to me. You were all that really mattered. I see that now, even if it’s too late. I only wish we could be together.

But I guess in a way we still are. I don't know if I can explain any of this, and I don't know how much time I have left until you get back, but did I ever tell you about the machine they were building at the lab? I'm sure it’s gone now, dismantled -- was Dr. Sachs even at my funeral? -- but what it was supposed to do was let you walk around in somebody else’s dreams. I know it’s crazy, and don't expect me to explain the math -- I'm just a tech, remember? -- but that’s what they said. It was like a big helmet with knobs all over it, wired up to a bank of computers. Hook yourself up, project your brain into somebody else’s subconscious, and take a stroll through their dreams. I don't know if they ever expected it to have any practical value, or if they realized just how dangerous it was from the start, but that night when you said you were leaving, I went back down to the lab and offered to try it out.

And I guess that’s when I died. I don't know. Was the funeral nice? I have this vague memory of a sharp pain in my chest and panicked shouts throughout the lab, and then nothing. Like I was floating. And then I found you. They'd hooked the other wires up to an ape at the lab, but I guess either apes don't dream or they shut the system down when my heart stopped. I don't know how long I floated, or how I found you, but I remember seeing a figure in the distance and walking towards it and realizing that it was you, or you as a little girl. It was hard to tell, it kept changing, but I knew where I was. I knew whose brain I was rattling around inside of.

Which is why I'm writing this letter, Lois. Lately I've been starting to worry about the direction your dreams have been taking. Weird images pop up unexpectedly, sceneries change. I mean, I have to live here, you know. And who’s this Frank you keep dreaming about? Four nights in a row, Lois? Running your hands up his -- you know, I thought we had something special. I know you said you were leaving me, but doesn't true love count for anything? I don't want to do this, but if this keeps up, I may have to start playing a more active role, setting things right. I can't promise I won't lose my temper if you start dreaming more steamy scenes with this jerk Frank.

I just thought you should know, Lois. I don't know if you'll get this letter, though. I've only recently learned to control your body at night, and it’s sometimes difficult to know how things work. I also seem to be forgetting a lot of things, so if this file doesn't print, that’s probably why. There’s just so much to relearn. I hope we can live in harmony. Because I love you, Lois. You’re all that really matters to me.

See you in your dreams,

Bob

by Fred 4:27 PM

 

I spent a week in February very, very ill, while I was living in State College in the House of Mirrors. I had a fever, and I had such vertigo that I couldn't sit up, much less walk. I had no stomach for reading, either. It was a little scary, and it would have been terribly lonely, except that I had the best roommates in the world.

I drifted in and out of lucidity on the couch, while they took turns staying up with me. Jer rented a bunch of movies--I couldn't tell you which--and Mike slept nights on the other couch. It made all the difference.

One of the movies Jer rented was The Game, with Michael Douglas. The plot of the movie goes like this:
- I've hired someone to kill you.
- Actually, I commissioned these people to make you think you were being stalked, to make your life more exciting for you.
- No, that "game" thing was just a front so that we can drain your accounts.
- We only made you think we drained your accounts, as part of the game.
- You've been betrayed, and your brother is in on it.
- Actually, your brother is in on the game, and you only think you shot him.
- No, something went terribly awry with the game, and you actually did shoot him.
...

I don't know how it ends, which scenario is true. I also don't know if it's impossibly convoluted or I was delirious.

It was during this same stint of surreal confinement to the couch that I looked, suddenly, up at the decorative potholder hung on the wall--a leftover Christmas decoration that depicted a snowman with a bucket and a sign that read "Snow for sale"--and announced: "'Snow for sale'? Isn't that like having a bucket that says 'Skin for sale'?"

by Sharon 2:10 PM

 

fever dreams

by Sharon 12:24 PM

Thursday, January 16, 2003

 

“There's a broken beam inside of the big big bridge
I guess that whole thing is caving in
Maybe it is time I learn how to swim
I'll be a dolphin, I'll be a dolphin”
-- Poe, “Dolphin”

I don’t know if I have a spirit, or totem, animal. I don’t know if I believe such things exist, if it matters if I believe, or even if, by pretending they exist, that we can learn anything useful about ourselves, learn important life lessons or how to chart our path through the universe. Humans are animals, after all, and it seems to me that by investing other creatures with aspects of the divine, by transforming them into shepherds or messengers or guides, we may just be throwing up yet another barrier between them and ourselves. It’s wonderful to think that we might have much to learn from these spirit animals, but that also seems to assume that we are somehow worthy of being taught, that we are somehow special, different. Belief in the divine can be humbling, but it can also lead to a false sense of pride. If there is a spirit or god, then I am not the most important being in the universe. But if that spirit or god is interested in me, well then I must be something pretty damn special.

(Or maybe I’m just overanalyzing this. I honestly don’t know what I believe, if I believe anything. Four years of Catholic school followed by a state university education will do that to you.)

Anyway. Earlier this afternoon, I took an online quiz at the BBC website. I found it through a quick Googling, looking up Sharon’s topic, hoping for ideas, and it was really very short. I tried answering it as best I could, and what it told me was this: my totem animal is the dolphin.

“You're not frightened of anyone or anything and know how to maintain a balance in all your relationships,” the results said. “You're a chatty and fascinating friend as long as you're not restricted in any way.”

I think anyone who knows me would probably disagree on that one, but then how do I find more accurate results? Is it even a question of accuracy? How does one decide this sort of thing? When I was very young, I was fond of raccoons, at least of the cartoon or stuffed animal variety. I had a stuffed one I named Greatest, which was one of my favorites and is still on a shelf in the closet in my old bedroom back home. I don’t remember being particularly fascinated by them as animals, though, or wanting to know what they did, what they were like. I never had a life-altering experience that involved a raccoon. The only time I’ve ever really been near one was on a camping trip years later, a Boy Scout trip in the woods. I never saw one -- it was late and we were already in our tents, but we saw furtive shadows and heard sounds that weren’t as cute and cuddly as I know I’d been expecting. If anything, I think I was a little scared of them.

Does that make them my spirit animal? At least one of the other sites I brought up with Google says that’s as good an indication as any. Animals that we fear tell us something about ourselves, these sites tell me; there’s something there with which I need to come to terms. Do I do that by adopting the lessons of the raccoon? What are those lessons? Does finding traits we have in common tell me anything about myself, or isn’t an examination of those traits themselves enough?

I don’t know. I think I might be rambling a bit. I’ve certainly lost sight of the time. The truth is, like I said, I don’t know what I believe, what to believe. If I had to pick an animal, I probably would say raccoon, but ultimately, that’s just a guess.

by Fred 7:13 PM

 

How to know you've found The One:
He cleans around spider webs because he knows that spiders are important to you.

I've always liked spiders, and people have always thought this is weird. When I was a kid, I would get huge welts from insect bites, and I knew that spiders ate those insects, so they were right okay in my book. And my parents would play spiders with me: Mom's right hand was Penelope, and her left was Yacky; Dad's was a hefty, mute, snuffly thing that would sniff at you.

It wasn't until college, when I threw a Come As Your Alter Ego dance, that Spyderella was born. Shortly thereafter, we all discovered the internet, and I needed to pick screen names and email IDs. Sharon may have been well behaved and ever so nice-nice, but online, Spyderella was an ascerbic wit, quick to cut any puffed-up chat room boy down to a more reasonable size.

And then I found a pagan church, and I started to think about my place in the world in more spiritual terms. And I realized that the spider was more to me than a chat handle.

The spider is independent. She is a hunter and a trapper. She lays careful plans and then waits with exquisite patience. She weaves great beauty, tirelessly, endlessly, never daunted by how many times someone comes and destroys it.

Having Anansi, the spider god, trickster and storyteller, as a totem has made for some interesting life lessons, which usually end with me tossed on my butt, looking a little bewildered and surprised, but certainly a bit wiser about the way of the universe.

I like my ironic life. I will continue to spin this thread.

by Sharon 3:10 PM

 

What is your totem animal? Why do you feel an affinity for that animal, and what attributes do you strive to emulate?

by Sharon 12:01 PM

Wednesday, January 15, 2003

 

It had certainly seemed like the right thing to do. Mapping projects in the database from the old structure to the new, I should be able write a mass update and move 80% of them in one pass.

My most recent update to the application created a true hierarchy for the business segments within the company (rather than maintaining a list of departments, a list of business areas, a list of segments... five lists in all, utterly unrelated to each other), and granted the means to hang projects off of that hierarchy.

My business partner, the customer who represents the user community, gave me some instructions on how certain selections in the old drop-down lists would match to various nodes within the new tree. We couldn't make a match all the way to the deepest level in the hierarchy, but we could map a large portion of the 3000 projects to the third level of detail.

So I wrote some queries to update the node_id field in the projects table. They seemed to run fine. And then I noticed that projects I hadn't updated already had IDs under the new structure assigned to them. I asked my fellow developer if he had made any changes to that data; he hadn't. This meant that the users had begun assigning their projects into the hierarchy.

This was one of those moments. Beige cubicle walls began telescoping in around me. A clause burned and buzzed like neon in my brain: ...WHERE node_id = ""

Oracle databases have a useful command, rollback, to save you from your stupid mistakes. It goes along with its sister command, commit, in that the latter prevents the former.

Committed, I hid under my desk.

by Sharon 11:59 PM

 

committed, v. tr.

1. To do, perform, or perpetrate: commit a murder.

I told them that I killed her. I confessed.

2. To put in trust or charge; entrust: commit oneself to the care of a doctor; commit responsibilities to an assistant.

The doctors said I was crazy when I did it. The police worried that I had an accomplice.

3. To place officially in confinement or custody, as in a mental health facility.

They locked me up, but people kept dying. Blood kept getting spilled.

4. To consign for future use or reference or for preservation: commit the secret code to memory.

The killer kept leaving them clues, they said. You never did that, they said. But I know what they mean, I told them.

5. To put into a place to be kept safe or to be disposed of.

Tell us, they said, or you’ll never get out. You’ll die in here an old man. Be good and we can talk about parole.

6.a. To make known the views of (oneself) on an issue: I never commit myself on such issues. b. To bind or obligate, as by a pledge: They were committed to follow orders.

I can’t tell you that, I said. It wouldn’t be fair. I never break my promises.

7. To refer (a legislative bill, for example) to a committee.

I think the parole board is going to turn me down.

by Fred 3:31 PM

 

committed

by Sharon 12:02 PM

Tuesday, January 14, 2003

 

That bitch.

I'll give you a piece of unsolicited advice: When you finally throw her out--pack all of her stuff into boxes and leave it waiting for her in the foyer, really make it real--change the locks.

It's amazing the transformation that comes over women when they feel they've been slighted. She used to be so sweet; she really was a decent person, maybe even partner material. But she resented my work, couldn't understand it, really, and she started to change. Started to slip in little sabotages, like forgetting my allergy to walnuts when she packed my lunch, wearing a smile that was brittle with too much caffiene, looking bored when she kissed me goodbye. Just the little things, that set you off your game.

I had to leave her, you know. Well, it was my apartment, so "throw her out," to be technical. She was impacting my work. I was making mistakes; you could see the strain I was under. Like the time I tear-gassed a Halloween party, thinking it was a pagan terrorist attack.

Journalists are almost as nasty as women, I think.

And then she completely didn't understand the whole partner situation. I need to work with someone, need someone to watch my back, cover me, draw fire. You know how it is. But she didn't. Didn't get it. I think she felt threatened by him. She was really pissed any time she came home to find us together on the couch, plotting the next night's schemes.

So I had to be tough. It's better for her, anyway. And she'll see that soon enough. I know she's hurting now, but honestly, this is too far. She must have gotten this from a costume shop and then used her key to swap it out when I wasn't home. It's polyester, now that I'm looking at it. Wherever she got it, this certainly isn't my cape.

I am so fucked.

by Sharon 4:17 PM

 

“I’m going to go ahead and go boldly
because a little bird told me
that jumping is easy, that falling is fun
up until you hit the sidewalk, shivering and stunned”
-- Ani Difranco, “Swan Dive”

It’s the sudden stop that always gets you in the end.

My brother Barry once told me a joke. “If at first you don’t succeed,” he said, “then maybe skydiving isn’t for you.” I thought about that joke again last night when Barry called to tell me that our mother was dead. For three months I’d held onto hope as I watched one treatment after another fail, but now I wondered if maybe somebody hadn’t been trying to tell me something all along, trying to accustom me to the idea of grief. I should have been bracing myself for the inevitable, getting ready for the final fall. Dying is just preliminary; death is forever.

“There wasn’t any suffering,” Barry said, “or not a lot. Her heart just stopped.”

“It’s done that before,” I said.

“She signed a form. A do-not-resuscitate. This time they just let her go.”

“Oh,” I said. I remember thinking, the dead have no weight; they cast no shadow. They let her go and of course she fell, not to earth but away from it. I remember thinking that everything about her would now be past tense. She isn’t falling; she fell. She isn’t dying; she is dead. I asked my brother if there was anything we needed to do, if signatures were needed, if I should make the drive out now or in the morning. He said he’d handle it. He sounded better prepared for it than I.

“I’ll call her sisters,” he said, “make some other calls. I’ll find out what needs done with the body, where they’ll take it. I’ll see you tomorrow, all right?”

“All right,” I said, and I hung up. If at first you don't succeed... I turned off the light and let gravity claim me. It was surprising how quickly I found sleep.

by Fred 2:17 PM

 

I don't feel like we're going that fast.
Well, no, but we are.
How fast is that? I mean, is it like a million miles per hour?
Um... I dunno. The needle just says "Terminal." It goes up from 10, up by fives, to 200, then it skips almost an inch, and it says "Terminal."
Wow.
Yeah.
I didn't know peopel could go that fast.
Whaddaya mean?
Wull, if it's Terminal, doesn't that mean we should be dead?
I don't know. I thought terminal just meant it was the end, and you couldn't go faster.
Oh yeah. Right. Wow. Terminal. How much further?
Almost six hundred feet.
At this speed, how long will that take?
Two and a half years, I think. I don't know. I lost count last week.
What? But that doesn't make sense. I mean, the needle is up above 200, so we should be moving at least 200 somethings per something, like meters per second or miles per day or something. Either way, 600 feet to the ground, it shouldn't take all that long. And I thought terminal velocity was really fast; I mean, if we started at a standstill and accelerated with just gravity-
-minus friction, though.
-Yeah, minus friction, but still, friction from air isn't much. What's gravity here? 60 meters per second? Or hour. Damn.
Second, I think.
Sure, so at that speed, we should be hitting ground about now.

Nope. Not yet.
Nope. I guess it'll be a while. You wanna play Canasta?
Yeah, alright.
And after that, we can try to fix the instruments again?
Yeah. After Canasta.
Yeah.

by MisterNihil 1:01 PM

 

terminal velocity

by Sharon 12:00 PM

Monday, January 13, 2003

 

I learned the word "paradigm" from a pretentious bald Australian who presumed to teach me college composition. It was his everyword, taking on a meaning that I could discern only to mean "stuff," or, perhaps, "thingy."

We did not get along, this Honors English instructor and I. I remember one essay where I wrote, "If one accepts this argument, then he must conclude..." And he flagged it, in red ink, marking it wrong. When I asked him about it during his office hours, since "he" is the correct pronoun to use with "one," he informed me that I wasn't even aware of how I was being repressed.

This is a man too caught up in liberal academia, I thought to my young freshman self.

My other lasting memory of his class came during our unit on Heart of Darkness (again!), which is a drudgery set in the Congo. I'd been required to read it the year before, in high school. It was still dull. My instructor was so crippled by a mid-90s adherence to political correctness that he referred to characters in the book as "African Americans." Um, no, last I looked, they were Africans.

To his credit, I read Neuromancer in that class, and watched Blade Runner and Night of the Living Dead for the first time. I also found a good, all-purpose word in "paradigm."

Imagine my chagrin at finding that that useless nuance of the word cropped up like mushrooms after a rainstorm during the 1960s, and 50% of the American Heritage usage panel rejects it. For this I went to college?

by Sharon 11:17 AM

Sunday, January 12, 2003

 

What a rare gift,
this.
Bills in an old coat pocket.
A lost friend at the supermarket.
A break in the mountains,
on a five-hour drive.
A sunny day in the valley.
A fairy cairn.
I've been smiled on,
and I'll take it.
Anonymous Christmas co-worker cookies.
A French cafe that's never been there before,
for twenty years.
Surprise from a magic trick I knew how to do.
Clotted cream, on an airplane.
A familiar soul
on a well worn path,
trod alone so long.
I just want to look at it,
for now,
hold it a little longer.
I'll write my thankyous later.

by Sharon 11:59 PM

Friday, January 10, 2003

 

I dated one, you know. I always suspected that, were I to go digging in his closet, I might find tights and a cape. He was a plain-clothes superhero, though, but that did not diminish his need to save the world, which is very romantic, until you realize that you're a pretty insignificant part of the world.

My parents watched that show "Early Edition," where this guilt-addled do-gooder would get the following day's newspaper, and then take it upon himself to exact his morality on the city and go avert certain disasters. This show drove me insane. Beyond the fact that there is no such thing as an unbiased news story, and the fact that no one has the sole right to decide life and death over someone else without being accountable, he would ruin his life for this crap.

"Oh, sorry I stood you up again, dear, but a kitten was going to get stuck in a tree tomorrow."

Bullshit.

Spider-man, at least, makes a little sense: "With great power comes great responsibility." But far more often, I think superheroes fall in with the Watchmen's Adrian Veidt, who decided it would be acceptable to kill hundreds of thousands of people in order to avert World War III. Perhaps, but shouldn't it be consensual? Shouldn't the decision at least be collaborative?

So I don't get superheroes. I also don't approve of them. They violate one of the things I hold most dear: a democratic judicial system. Vigilantes are as dangerous as criminals--perhaps more so, because they're popular.

by Sharon 11:59 PM

 

Superheroes fly.
They dance around the sky.
They like Mom and apple pie.
(Mom just wishes they would write.)

When danger draws too nigh,
They sound their battle cry.
They wear costumes (‘cause they’re shy)
When they’re fighting the good fight.

They view the city from on high
(‘cause it’s gravity that they defy).
They shoot lasers from their eye
At any evil in their sight.

It’s good that they’re nearby
To fend off the bad guy,
But I sometimes wonder why
They wear such silly tights.

by Fred 11:59 PM

 

superheroes

by Fred 1:06 PM

Thursday, January 09, 2003

 

where I want them)
I remember your hands.
I put them on the keys
of that plonky dorm upright
while we crowd
stacked in a sound-proof booth
that seals like a refrigerator
and don't forget
to flip the switch
for the air
and sing Lehrer
and Python
doing all the accents
and maybe a love song
I didn't notice.
Young friends, grown up,
have strange hands
with nowhere to sit
catching us off guard
when you put them on me
so I remember sweet times
clear
laughing and easy
and put your hands
so white, so soft
on the keys
(which is

by Sharon 11:59 PM

 

(the sound of banging on a piano, accompanied by a guitar)
Voice A: No, no, you have to play the guitar in Bb, or the piano part won't sound good,
Voice B: What? You said A#, not Bb. I was playing in C though, because you were only playing the white keys.
A: Right, but this piano is in Bb, not C, so I can play it with only the white keys.
B: You retuned the piano?
A: I think so. I took your guitar tuner and set it on the sound board and tuned it down to a Bb.
B: I don't own a guitar tuner. I tune off the piano.
A: Then what's that little plastic boxy thing in your guitar case?
B: A metronome. It clicks.
A: Oh. I thought the clicks meant the string was in tune.
B: Hmm.
A: Hmm.
(A pause.)
A: So it's not so much in tune as it is in rhythm. I guess that's good. I mean, with the piano and the guitar, I've got rhythm; I've got music.
B: I've got to get out of here.
A: Who could ask for anything-
B: Shut up.
A: I guess we could try it again, only I'll try to play it in Bb, like it's supposed to be.
B: And I guess I could just pack it in and go and leave you to your idiocy.
A: That's not nice.
B: I'm sorry. I just think this is doomed to fail.
A: Just once more?
B: Fine.
(the sound of a cat banging on a piano with a guitar follows; builds to a crescendo; Ends on big finish, actually making a Bb chord.)
A: There, see? Perfect Bb.
B: What? I thought we were playing in D!

by MisterNihil 9:50 AM

 

When I was a kid, I took piano lessons for about a year (or maybe less), but I don’t remember much of anything except how eager I was to quit. The day I finished my first book of lessons, I told my instructor I wouldn’t be coming back. I had decided, and I think my mother had accepted, that I would never be a great musician. I lacked the talent and, more important, the necessary discipline. I hated to practice; I don’t remember investing much time in learning the keys. Nowadays, I couldn’t even tell you which one was which. Sit me down at a piano, and I might poke at the keys, but nothing resembling a song is likely to emerge. I retained none of what I learned.

Which, I suppose, I have always vaguely regretted. It would be nice to know how to play an instrument. In the third grade, our teachers handed recorders out to everyone -- they were sort of a poor man’s brown plastic flute -- and we tooted on those awhile, presumably to spark our interest in joining the school band or orchestra, but nothing ever came of it for me. I wasn’t interested. Four years later, my sister would be given the same chance and decide she wanted to play the viola, and while she hasn’t shown any interest in playing since high school, I think I’ve always been a little jealous. I wonder what kind of experience I passed up by not becoming part of something like that. And I often wish there was at least something I knew how to play.

Because, off and on, I do find myself writing songs. They’re usually silly (and sometimes quite perverse) little numbers I’ve performed with friends in the Monty Python Society here on campus. One’s an ode to a penis; another is a love song to diarrhea. So it’s not like I’m not going to set the world on fire by setting them to music. But it would be nice to try, if only for our live performances, if only for a laugh. (I’m actually sort of proud of the diarrhea song, disgusting as it might be, and we’ve never had a chance to record or perform it.) I sometimes think it would be neat if I knew how to play an instrument. It would neat if I remembered my piano lessons.

But all I remember is the day I called it quits.

by Fred 9:07 AM

 

piano keys

by Sharon 3:00 AM

Wednesday, January 08, 2003

 

Middle school was the worst of the worst. I had no friends. One girl gave her half of the best-friend necklace _back_. It was bleak.

To consummate my nerdiness and seal my fate, my parents decided to have me take the SATs to try to get into a summer program for Gifted and Talented Youth. That’s bound to make a kid popular. But I like tests, so I tried, and on the second shot, scored well enough to get in.

The summer between middle school and high school, at 12 years old, I was sent off for three weeks to live in a dorm, eat all my meals in a cafeteria, and take a college-level class in paleobiology, covering a semester’s worth of work in those three weeks. I wasn’t too sure about this. And there were bumpy parts. The food was terrible (Rule #9: Never eat anything beige.), my roommate and I reached a point where we drew a line down the middle of the room, and I called my mother every day, mostly because I thought she’d be worried if I didn’t.

But there were some pretty good parts, too. I made a research poster about plate tectonics, where each section of the project was typed on a continent. I found a ton of fossils, including a trilobite and a really excellent starfish. I sat with a group of teenagers and was not the most well read, not the highest test scorer, not the smartest. I went to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Festival and shot archery. I made friends; I was well liked. I was exposed to Monty Python. I danced outside on the grass under the stars for the sheer joy of it, uninhibited and unself-conscious.

I had a boyfriend.

At 12, this meant a lot of holding hands. His name is Drew, and he is from Sharon, Massachusetts. (But I was Jeanne, so he didn’t know why that was funny until I explained.) He had soft brown hair down to his ears and utilitarian nerd glasses. He was a few inches shorter than me. He gave me a necklace from the Renaissance faire with a crystal heart pendant. He had a gum eraser, and he would mold it into wonderful little figures during class, which is what made me notice him. On paleo digs, he would catch mosquitoes, cupping his hands around them, shake them up and let them go, to watch them fly dizzily. He was very, very sweet to me.

Throughout the session, every Friday and Saturday would be a dance, DJed by Al Wong and Tim Lord, two older students and nigh legends. (Tim is the friend I recently rediscovered because he is an editor for SlashDot.) Some of the important songs were Blister in the Sun, Time Warp, Forever Young (slow version, by Alphaville), Safety Dance (where you were supposed to run around in your boxers, evading the Resident Assistants), Rock Lobster, and last, always last, where you’d form a big circle with your friends and call back in-jokes at the right pauses: American Pie.

At the last dance of that first CTY session--and it was inside the gym because the weather was poor--Drew and I were slow dancing the way middle schoolers slow dance, to American Pie, which is only a slow song for about one verse. And he looked at me and said, “Well, we *should*, right?” And I had to agree.

And it was very wet, and strange, and I decided that I really didn’t like kissing very much. You get no concept of how to do it right from watching movies. It was a number of years and a number of boyfriends later before I finally started to like being kissed. I finally grew into liking it very much, which got me into trouble a few times.

But that is a kiss for another story. And so I will pass on a bit of wisdom from CTY: “There are no endings, only beginnings. Lights out at 11.”

by Sharon 11:00 PM

 

The first time I ever...

Remember that essays are good, too. In fact, I think that would be my preference for this one.

by Sharon 12:04 PM

Tuesday, January 07, 2003

 

"What have they done to the rain?"

"Quiet," Ly hissed.

Harrington swallowed and felt small. She hugged her arms over her chest, embarrassed that her nipples raised bumps in her shirt. Now that the rain had stopped pounding their 'pod, her blood roared in her ears.

The two women crouched in blue-green instrument glow and focused their useless eyes on bulkheads and fixtures, in their intensity to listen. They had lost their communication link with the cyclopean creatures that lumbered and swam outside the compact metal bullet of their survival pod. Harrington could hear Ly's shallow, humid gasps for air, mixing with her own. The constant buffetting of the atmosphere, the endless rain of dense air, had ceased, abruptly, and Jupiter suddenly seemed much, much more remote.

by Sharon 4:02 PM

 

“And it’s a hard rain's a-gonna fall.” - Bob Dylan

It'd been almost half a week since I'd taken the case, and I was starting to think maybe the dame hadn't been completely straight with me. It wasn't that I didn't buy her story -- umbrellas go missing all the time in a big city like this -- but some of the things she'd told me about the umbrella just didn't add up, and every lead I'd followed since then led me to think maybe there was something more to it than just some missing rain gear.

For one thing, I was being followed.

I'd first noticed the two goons as I was coming out of Louie's Bar and Grill on 70th the other night. Louie's a good source of information, and he makes a martini meaner than a school yard bully with a couple of olives stuck in his fist. He said he'd heard something about an umbrella, a little red and white number a lot of people were pretty keen to get their hands on.

"Good at keepin’ off the rain," said Louie. "If you know what I mean."

I didn't, but by then I was already well pummeled by my third martini, so I decided to just play along and nod.

"Word is, your lady friend’s got some enemies," said Louie. "Meteorologist-types. Big players downtown. Word is, that umbrella’s got 'em runnin' scared."

Scared of an umbrella? Like I said, it didn't add up. The dame had told me the umbrella was special, but she'd never said anything about any meteorologists. I'd never known Louie to pass on bad information, but the whole thing sounded a little fishy.

"It’s just an umbrella," I told him. "You open it up, it stops the rain. End of story."

"Exactly," said Louie. And with that he wandered off to the other end of the bar.

I paid my tab, slid off my stool, and stumbled out the door. I squinted in the morning sun. The local news kept predicting rain, but there wasn't any sign of it in the sky, and I felt the dry heat wrap around me like one of those boa constrictors you see at the zoo. I was starting to think maybe I ought to call a cab -- those martinis had left me in no shape to drive -- when I spotted them, the goons, leaning against my car. They wore long trench coats and hats, like something out of a bad Dick Tracy comic book, and I was just about to tell them to watch they didn't scratch the paint when one of them said, "You Elliot?"

"Who wants to know?" I asked.

"Give me the keys and get in, jackass" he said. "The Weatherman would like to see you."

Yeah, things definitely weren't adding up...

by Fred 3:41 PM

Monday, January 06, 2003

 

A small hatch slid open, and a metal bowl clattered inside. 73908 regarded it resentfully from his cot until the hatch slid closed. Then he pounced upon it hungrily, snatching it up without much care for its putrid contents, and ran desperate fingers over the outside, just as he'd done for the past eight days.

They had agreed. Jailor would find a way, would secret him the means of escape. It would be on the bowl.

He nearly gasped aloud. There was an unevenness. Something was there! He turned the bowl over, dumping the stew onto his feet, where a rat, made bold by years of familiarity, unashamedly stepped up to take his share. There, on the bottom of the bowl, hidden so cleverly that he spared a wry smile for Jailor, was a scrap of paper, glued in place by starch.

He imagined Jailor creeping into the Apothecary's when that old, insane man was asleep, moving quieter than Death so as not to wake him, and allowing one small vial to blunder into his pocket.

He smiled. Freedom was so near.

With fingernails gone and bleeding, he scrabbled impotently at the edges of the parchment. He roared an anguished cry and smashed the bowl against the wall. It roughened the edges enough to let his pulpy fingertips take hold and begin its liberation.

Once he had it free, a small scrap of cloth stained brown and blue, he looked once toward where he remembered Heaven to be, and then crept over to his cot, placed the poison on his tongue, and lay back to welcome sweet liberty.

by Sharon 11:59 PM

 

stolen in secret

by Sharon 1:17 PM

Friday, January 03, 2003

 

Crystal singers opened their golden throats to herald the dawn, and Analaya drifted through mist and bending grasses. She spied something small, and bent down to pluck it from the ground: A blood ruby cut into a rose, flush open and blooming. She placed it in her hair.

Insinuating through the stuff of dreams, she walked the rows of wheat, touching each head. She ministered to this field of yellow stalks and fog, while the sun climbed doggedly to its zenith.

Analaya turned her head. Here, where every day stitched into the next without seam or knot, there was something different. It confused her. She listened to it, sniffed at it, while the sun stood stock still at its post overhead.

It was a hole. Not at her feet, which would have been rare, but in front of her, which was impossible. Every bird, possessed by a single simultaneous purpose, lept into the air with a scream, and Analaya stepped through.

by Sharon 1:37 PM

Thursday, January 02, 2003

 

This morning suddenly reminds me that there is no requirement to write fiction; the goal is simply to write every day. So it's alright that this movie quote gets stuck in my head, and all I can think about, by way of story, is the movie: The Princess Bride.

The Princess Bride is my favorite movie ever, and I really can start with the opening titles and recite it in its entirety. This last fact has proved useful to me, surprisingly.

My first year at CTY, that residential nerd camp for 12- to 16-year-olds, my dorm was the Mull-Rauch basement, and my next-door neighbor, Michelle, could recite the whole damn thing, too. Beyond that, she had the soundtrack, by Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler, on cassette. So, happy to find an easy way for two awkward, nerdy 12-year-olds to relate, we would--only in private, of course--act out that grand fencing scene between Inigo and the Dread Pirate Roberts, in the study lounge, bounding over couches and tables.

Because our rooms were side-by-side, our beds were side-by-side, so we devised a code system of tapping on the wall. Which could be heard the whole way down the hall, and irritated the rest of the residents.

By chance, Michelle was assigned as my roommate the following year. We were never through giggling by Lights' Out.

I wonder if I could find her now...

by Sharon 11:59 PM

 

“Unemployed? In Greenland? Is that even possible?”

“Whadya mean is that even possible? Of course it’s possible.”

“I just thought -- isn't it all snow?”

“What? No. Not all of it. They’ve got towns. They’ve got jobs.”

“Oh. I didn’t know. It always looks like it’s all snow up there.”

“Oh, and when have you been to Greenland?”

“I haven’t. That’s what I’m saying. So, they’ve got jobs.”

“Well yeah. Except my brother. He had a job at a hotel in Kangerlussuaq.”

“Kanger -- ?”

“-- lussuaq. Rhymes with blue sock. He was helping train sled dogs.”

“But your brother hates dogs.”

“Yeah, well, that’s probably why they fired him. He said tourism is down lately. Nobody wants to travel all that way just to play with dogs or to look at deer and elk and snowdrifts.”

“So they do have snow.”

“Of course they have snow. I never said they didn’t have snow.”

“Well, you implied.”

“Well I’m sorry. They have snow, all right? Lots of it. I mean, it is partly in the Arctic Ocean.”

“Yeah, that’d do it. So he’s out of work now, your brother?”

“Yeah. He’s thinking of heading down to New Zealand in a couple of months, though.”

“I hear they’ve got sheep there.”

“You know, sometimes I wonder why I even bother calling you.”

“Hey, I’m just saying.”

by Fred 3:07 PM

Wednesday, January 01, 2003

 

a brand new start

Happy New Year, everyone.

by Fred 1:14 AM