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B1ue

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  1. B1ue

    Not ready to age gracefully

    By B1ue,

    I knew intellectually this time would come, eventually. I always thought that I'd be mature about it, accepting my fate with some dignity and perhaps a bit a levity. Actually, that's a flat lie. I was depressed most of my teenage years, and never really thought I'd live to see drinking age, let alone twenty-three. It didn't really hit me that I was going to have a full-fledged adulthood until I was standing there in the sun with my BA in hand and wondered, "Well f**K. Now what?" So worrying about how I was going to accept the slippery decline from my physical peak just wasn't a high priority for me.
     
    Until this holiday weekend, when I found four grey hairs.
     
    For those that missed it above and to the side, I AM TWENTY-f**kING-THREE. I'm not ready for this shit! I wanted at least another five years before these kind of problems started entering my life. But no, not my body. In fact I should have known my hair would turn traitor. It knows it is my best, most distinctive physical feature, which is probably the single most Hispanic statement I will ever make*, but it is the truth. And like it has been doing every chance it has ever been given, it's warped little personality has spawned a new way to drive me batty.
     
    On the plus side, though, in about two years I'm not going to be carded anywhere near as often.
     
    There were other events this weekend, shadowed other by this one, including a flight up to visit my sister in Washington state. The flight there and back was fantastic, as both airport and plane was filled with college freshmen, but once on the ground up there I noticed a certain something lacking. Apparently, in Washington horn blasting, creative swearing, and colorful hand gestures while driving are defined as road rage and penalized. This idea is perplexing to me, since you can scarcely cross an intersection, let alone change lanes on the freeway, without one or all three of the above actions taking place. Speeding is considered four miles over the speed limit and fined $75 dollars per mile. If California, hell just Los Angeles county, adopted similar practices, the state would be in the black within a month.
     
    And none of us would have our licenses anymore.
     
    *In order to illustrate the seriousness of this problem, consider the following quote from Project Rungay. Switch it to masculine terms, and this is pretty much me. My hair is that good.
  2. B1ue

    A character

    By B1ue,

    I had a rather...bitchy rant posted here up until a few minutes ago, but I've decided to nuke it. It wasn't particularly healing or necessary.
     
    Instead, I'm going to introduce y'all to one of the characters floating about in my head. His name is Missouri Weeks. Mo for short. He's a bit of a loser, in that he sort of drifts through life in a happy daze most of the time. He is, in other words, what my mother calls a space cadet, only sometimes touching down on earth before his mind is off on another galactic adventure. He's the first character I've attempted to write with that quality, so he's both exhilarating and somewhat scary to me.
     
    For those that have read my anthology pieces, he's Khayyam's roommate for all of college.
     
    And as soon as I find the notebook I had written his story into, I'll post the first blurb I have on him.
  3. B1ue

    Falling off the Grid

    By B1ue,

    I am to visit my parents over the next couple of days, which are my "weekend" days this week. My mother in particular has been asking when I'm coming up for several weeks now, so I decided to just say, "the hell with it" and make the drive, which is about seven hours, one way. I know I don't visit them often enough, but it's a lot harder to break away from my obligations than it was a couple years ago. My job was through my college's housing department, so when I had no school, I had no work (and since I lived in the dorms for two years out of the three and half, I usually had no home either). That meant I had a solid week four times a year I could veg at my parent's place. Now though, with no break anywhere in sight, its more complicated, what with work and all.
     
    Plus, its a lot more traumatic. While I'm a fairly typical example of my generation's version of the Yuppie, my hometown has not quite made it out of the twentieth century as far as communication technology goes. So no email. My parents don't have broadband, because dial-up is the only game in town. My cell phone doesn't work, because apparently "All of California coverage" really means "All of California people see in movies." As my cell is the only number I have, and the only number people I'm not related to have for me, I'm getting no phone calls. Due to the number of trees surrounding my parent's house, radio reception is sketchy at best, and limited to two country stations. People have asked how I acquired my taste for country music. It was that or go crazy, and I didn't have too much of a margin to begin with.
     
    On the other hand, the water tastes a lot better, and I won't have to cook and do dishes, so its not a total loss. And they have satellite television, with 24 hour music video channels, so I can look forward to that as well. Most importantly, I'll be able to reclaim my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which my mother has had since July and told me I needed to reclaim in person if I wanted it back.
     
    She was apparently serious about that threat to find ways to force me to show up.
  4. B1ue
    I nearly always get carded. For everything. I got carded trying to buy crazy glue once. I can sometimes buy a Rated M video game once in a while, or go to a Rated R movie, but not often, and only if I take pains to make myself look as preppy as possible. It doesn't help that my ID only sort of looks like me. I've changed quite a bit in the last eight years when that photo was taken, but, sadly, I honestly look older in that picture than I do in real life. I live in dread of the day when some bartender decides to confiscate it, telling me to tell my older brother to claim the ID in person.
     
    Last weekend, I got together with my aunts and cousins for a champagne brunch. There were five of us in the 18-25 age bracket, and only two of us were of age to drink. Guess who got offered alcohol without getting carded first. Guess who had to show proof even to get a glass set. I could take the twenty-year-old not being carded, as not only does he not possess the babyface which both sides of my genetics favor, but he also looks like someone you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. I wouldn't card him either, without at least someone for backup and a knife my other hand. But the eighteen-year-old does have the baby face. Or, at least, he did. Seven years ago. But somehow he outgrew it by the perception of the general populace. We, his family, can still see it, and we are continually amazed that he doesn't get the same treatment that my two closest female cousins (who independantly of each other, and in completely different cities and times, worked in strip bars) and I regularly get.
     
    I sometimes look forward to my thirties, when there's a good chance I won't be carded everytime I want to buy wine. Then again, certain store policies may mean I'll not be safe even then. My mom was carded a couple years ago when we were at a target. When we all gave the poor cashier goggled looks, she explained that she had to card everyone that didn't look forty. As my mother had just hit fifty-five at the time, she damn near skipped back to the car. I, meanwhile, prayed this was not a sign of a coming trend.
  5. B1ue
    Short entry today.
     
    Three years ago, I was trying to write my second novella. The first had been demanding as hell, and I never did complete the follow-up. I have since written a second novella, however.
     
    Two years ago, I was trying to figure out why a boy from work had let a third boy, who we'd all assumed was gay and had found many reasons to talk to me in the few weeks since I'd been hired, believe we were a couple. This is a question that has yet to be answered to my satisfaction.
     
    One year ago, I put in my two weeks to my first after college job. The CEO, who I reported to directly, told me no. I wouldn't wind up leaving for a further five months.
     
    November isn't a traditionally good month for me. Here's hoping my plane doesn't crash in a few weeks.
     

     
    And this little image is something I came across at work. She looks like she's spinning either clockwise or counter clockwise, depending on whether you are right brained or left brained. Apparently if you have genius level IQ, she'll spin both ways for you. I'm not so sure how much stock I'd place in the last, knowing as I do that Visual intelligence doesn't show up well on an IQ test, but that's what the email I recieved with this image said.
  6. B1ue

    Autumn of my Mind

    By B1ue,

    Contrary to popular belief, California does have seasons. They are Tourist, Fire, Holiday, and Flood. I find myself strangely homesick, because I can smell ash in the air. Not that I can escape out of the city if I wanted to, all the places I would run to has a fire blocking access. I wonder how the people at my old job are coping. At my current job, hair is being pulled and feet are being stomped, and I got to gently tell customers that it sucks to be them that the fires cut off major shipping routes.
     
    I'm trying to think of a way to approach the next anthology, but I'm having trouble. I think my intention to do a more humorous version of Khayyam may not will out, due to the heavy tinge of regret the theme seems to lend itself towards. Now I don't in general regret, so that in and of itself is unfamiliar to me, but the idealized and simplified personalities that I use for my characters never regret. That's a flaw I have as a writer, I know, but you will never hear me state that I'm any kind of great novelist. Also, I have already pretty much summed up my feelings on "the Road Not Taken" right here1. Anything even close to that would only be a sloppier rehashing of that poem, of which I am quite proud. The opposite view, relief of a danger avoided rather than wist, might work, but I need to think about it.
     
    Edit: I accomplished something this past week, I finally beat Final Fantasy XII. This isn't a major accomplishment, but one nonetheless. As usual, it was the story that I played for, though the gameplay was a thousand leagues ahead of the previous incarnation. What I liked this time around was that they deliberately f--ked with everyone's expectations. There was the usual band of misfit heroes: the mercenary, the witch, the thief, the princess, the sidekick, the knight, etc., and I'll bet money that everyone who followed the games expected the story to fall into a certain pattern and to revolve around a tormented love between the princess and the main character. Except it didn't happen. In fact, the main character didn't get any action at all, which I cannot recall ever happening since the first game. Hell, in seven, eight, and ten the main characters got a couple beauties to choose from (in nine the main character was hit on by just about everyone, including a male villain and a six-year-old girl). I kept waiting for them to pair off, sure that, even though she was clearly still in love with her deceased spouse and he was more interested in a big brother than a girlfriend, they would get their minds untangled and knock boots. I waited until about two thirds of the way through, when I realized that it wasn't going to happen, and that the game was subtly mocking that expectation. Usually, that kind of behavior irritates me, but it only made me smile this time. It wasn't mean spirited after all, just a joke.
     
    1Whoa. 700 reads. Crazy.
  7. B1ue

    So Exhausting Frenzied Manic

    By B1ue,

    My coworkers have learned it is best that I am steered away from real coffee. They at first, as most people do, thought my habit of drinking decaf to be a bit silly at best and counter-productive at worst. There was a time when I would have agreed with them. Of course, that was before the worst parts of puberty had really set in for me, and my body chemistry worked quite a bit differently. At that point, coffee relaxed me.
     
    Now if I so much as smell caffeine I get wired like a five-year-old that just ate all of his Halloween candy in one go. I don't notice the effect so much anymore, but the guy I get along best with at work (who, strangely enough, is that homophobic guy I mentioned a couple entries back*) threatened to make me sit in a corner if I went near the coffee pot again.
     
    There is a point to this. I had a red-eye about an hour ago, which for those of you that don't know is a cup of coffee with a shot of espresso mixed in. And that coffee? I made it what my father calls "Mexican style," boiled instead of dripped. I did it for all of those that want to see me write another entry in the anthologies, which I still have only just started. I picked a decent topic, I think, after pondering the feedback Lucy, TheZot, and a few others have given me. But I only have a week to crank it out, so I'll need all the hours in the day I can finagle if I'm to get it done in time.
     
    So when I crash and start drooling over my keyboard, know I am suffering for my art and my audience.
     
    Oh, here's a line from the opening. Not the first line, mind, but nearly.
     
    "I was coming home because my brother Satar had, fulfilling our parent's every expectation of him, managed to knock up his date the senior prom and then asked me to be his best man."
     
    *For the curious, the situation has settled itself in precisely the fashion I thought it might. He brought up golf with me, a game I detest, and asked if I played at all. I told him that only one person has ever managed to get me to play, and I was sleeping with him at the time. He dropped the conversation immediately. Since then, the comments have decreased to a frequency and magnitude I will tolerate.
  8. B1ue

    And people think I'm nice

    By B1ue,

    It continually surprises me when people, when they first meet me, take my generally sunny disposition and smiling manner as an indication that I'm also nice. This is not true. I may have been nice at one point, and I act nice when I don't have anything better to do, but I'm not terribly good at it. But people ignore the odd moments by and large, until something happens that they can't ignore.
     
    Case in point: a few weeks ago, I went into a coffee shop. I'd just done my grocery shopping, and since I'd walked there I was carrying my bags on my arms. It was later afternoon, and I was getting both tired and cranky. The barista helping the line wasn't in any kind of hurry, but since there were few customers I could forgive that, especially since the patrons were playing along. I stepped up. He asked me, lisping cheerily, "And how are YOU doing today?" I gritted my teeth around my initial response, and fired out my order at guy. He put a hand on his hip (I kid you not) and admonished, "Well, that doesn't tell me how you're doing."
     
    I grinned. He was asking for it, and I saw no reason to refuse. "Well, if you must know, I am tired, these bags are heavy, and I'm rapidly getting pissed off. That answer you sufficiently?" I let that sink in a moment, satisfied by the "oh my" reactions of absolutely everyone in the store. When their shock was beginning to ease away, I continued. "So, do you think you could give me order now?"
     
    As it turned out, he wasn't able to complete my order. He disappeared almost instantly into the back, and his two coworkers took my money and made my drink with a bare minimum of communication, except for a couple glares when they thought I wasn't looking (why does no one remember even clear glass is reflective?). I left, once again with a light lilt to my voice and a smile on my face.
     
    Now, with after witnessing incidents like that, I'd think people would know to keep me at a distance. Some do, but most attribute it to stress or a bad day, never realizing that I am like that all the time.
  9. B1ue

    Good advice from a stripper

    By B1ue,

    One of my cousins used to work in a strip bar. Actually, two of my cousins on opposite sides of my family have, and a great-aunt was a whore, but I digress. The first cousin told me about how she had two coworkers, which we will call Lucy and Emily. Emily was a very pretty, attractive woman, and Lucy was, while lively, not anywhere near Emily in looks. Yet night after night, it was Lucy that had the bigger roll of tips to count. My cousin was extremely curious as to why this was, because she decided that if she ever did strip, she wanted to do it for the most money possible. So she asked Lucy, "Lucy, what's your secret?"
     
    Lucy laughed, jiggled her chest, and said, "These," she pointed to her smile, "this," and then she spun around, "and that."
     
    After laughing, my cousin asked Lucy again how she made her money. Lucy, more seriously, said, "I just go out there and get it."
     
    Immediately, my cousin understood. Emily, for all her good looks, was a bit shy. More people might want to worship her, but damn few felt the nerve to approach her. As Lucy put it, "These guys might think they want the good looking girls, but really they're afraid of them. That's why they're here. If they had the balls to go after Little Miss Emily, they'd do it for real, and not have to tip." Meanwhile Lucy went out there, raised hell, and made it clear she was having the time of her life and that every single man who put a twenty in her lingerie was a god. My cousin could see that people responded well to that.
     
    My cousin never did get up to that pole, but she did think the story was worth passing on, and I feel the same now.
  10. B1ue

    When Metaphors Attack!

    By B1ue,

    It is what we call earthquake weather here in Los Angeles. Well, not quite proper earthquake weather, the wind is not as still as a celebrity's last photograph, but as we did have a small shake down here this morning, it is hard to quibble. I've noticed that just about everyone who writes about Southern California uses the phrase "earthquake weather" at one point or another, so I thought it best to get it out of my system early so I wouldn't be bothered by it in my later years. I tend not to associate the movement of ground with August in any case. For now, for me, this is the time of year that fires wait in the darkened wings for that first trembling melody that begins their dance.
     
    I have a confession to make. When I wrote that last sentence, I got all the way to the end before I noticed I used "rights" instead of "writes." These are the accidents that sometimes make fine literature, timeless jokes, but more often acute embarrassment. Lucky for me, I noticed, as I have not the talent for literature or the temperament for jokes.
     
    I think I will try to make one last Khayyam story before retiring him from the anthologies. There is one last aspect of his personality that I want to explore, that I need to make sense of, before he goes off the the happy pasture where Memorio/Mimi, Faye Ryan, "Whiskey" Jack, Cody the clairvoyant, and all the rest of my main characters go when I'm through with them. (I suspect that the poet part of my personality--that I accidentally named Jeremy--takes them to a distant haven of my mind and shoots them.) Khayyam has a love of making hard decisions, and taking the high road to his own detriment. He gets fairly maudlin about it all, even if he winds up with what he really wanted anyways, and I think it is high time that I explore that aspect of my own psyche.
  11. B1ue
    In a day or two, depending on your location, I will have been a member of this site for two years. It seems strange, that it has been two years. On the one hand, since I have done so little here, it feels like it has been hardly any time at all. On the other, since I have checked this site near daily during a a time when my entire world has come apart and brought back together, so that I am now quite a different person than I was when i first joined, I can hardly believe it has only been two years. From that August to this has, for me, been a lifetime.
     
    While on the whole, most of the changes I have wrought in myself have been positive ones, but there is something that I cannot stand. I have found myself more or less back in the closet, at least at work. Mostly it is because I don't want to rock the boat, and quite frankly I haven't liked many of my coworkers, so why should I share more of my life with them? But still, it has been easier to just let people assume whatever about me, to nod and demur when people ask who I've been dating, and that makes me slightly ashamed of myself. Where's the little political animal I once was?
     
    Well, he hasn't completely left me. One of my coworkers is homophobic. Blatantly homophobic. He's not an asshole in general, but he is extremely uncomfortable around people he perceives as gay, which may or may not include me, I'm not sure. This has created a situation I find irritating. Especially since he will make fun of our "gay" coworkers when they aren't in earshot. Today I told him mid joke, "That's enough," and thankfully he didn't push it. I do wonder if he is doing this in an attempt to push my buttons, and if I should retaliate with subtly irritation of my own. I know the best thing to do, the honest thing, would be to talk it out with him and explain that I do not feel such jokes are appropriate for the work place, and maybe why. But I don't think that's going to happen.
     
    As I tend to react explosively if something irritates me long enough, the conclusion to these events should prove interesting.
  12. B1ue

    Songs of my life

    By B1ue,

    I just across this on Kevin(afriendlyface)'s blog, and thought it intriguing enough to try it out for myself. Especially since, towards the end, I had an idea.
     
    IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
    So, here's how it works:
     
    1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
    2. Put it on shuffle
    3. Press play
    4. For every question, type the song that's playing
    5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
    6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...
     
     
     
    1. Opening Credits:
    "Somebody Told Me" - The Killers
    Odd choice for an opening, but okay.
     
     
    2. Waking Up:
    "Duck and Run" - Three Doors Down
    Might be strange, but since the entire song is about how the singer won't duck and run, I'll take it. Especially as...well, I'll get into that later
     
     
    3. First Day Of School:
    "Holding Out For a Hero" - Jennifer Saunders
    Perfect. Just Perfect.
     
     
    4. Falling In Love:
    "Groovejet (If this Ain't Love)" - DJ Spiller
    Ah. Another perfect one.
     
    5. Fight Song:
    "Life #9" - Martina McBride
    Nice. Threats. My kind of fight.
     
     
    6. Breaking Up:
    "Since You Been Gone" - Kelly Clarkson
    Even better.
     
     
    7. Life:
    "C'Mon 'N Ride It" - Quad City Djs
    -Shrug- Whatever.
     
     
    8. Mental Breakdown:
    "La Tortura" - Shakira

     
     
    9. Driving:
    "Sugar We're Going Down" - Fall Out Boy

     
     
    10. Flashback:
    "Rock This Country" - Shania Twain
    This one works. It is a series of images in various places. For the purpose I would put this to, it is highly appropriate.
     
     
    11. Getting Back Together:
    "Listen to Your Heart" - DHT
    I don't think I could have picked a better one if I looked through my music files for it.
     
     
    12. Losing Your Virginity:
    "Black Velvet" - Allanah Myles
    This song oozes sexuality, which is why I liked it to begin with. I love it for this.
     
    13. Wedding:
    "Something's Gotta Give" - Leann Rimes
    Not the worst choice (considering what I have to select from), but if I think too hard about it, it worries me.
     
     
    14. Birth Of A Child:
    "Bitch" - Meredith Brooks
    If I raise a child with this much sense of self, I will have done a good job, I think.
     
     
    15. Final Battle:
    "There is No Arizona" - Jamie O'Neal
    Good for what I want to do with it, albiet a bit depressing. Though as it is the final battle, that makes sense.
     
     
    16. Funeral Song:
    "I Know Where I've Been" - Queen Latifa, Hairspray Soundtrack
    Another good choice.
     
     
    17. End Credits:
    "Jenny From the Block" - Jennifer Lopez
    Perfect closing credits song. A Torna-Atras is exactly the way I'd want a story to go.
     
    Anyways, I had an idea during the course of this. What if, instead of my life, I make this the soundtrack to a character's life,a nd these songs as the chapter titles. Specifically, a Harry Potter knock off, except set in America. Seventeen chapters might be a bit much for me, but Lucy will be thrilled. I'll probably write the opening on my notebook tonight.
  13. B1ue
    Oh man is this thing spoilerific. Seriously, don't read more if you haven't read the book.
     
    I finished the seventh book yesterday. There were some things, some events in the plot that did not please me, but that was bound to happen, I suppose. The body count was impressive, and Rowling was bound to work her way someone I liked. That it was my two favorite characters in the entire series was, naturally, bad luck. Actually, I was surprised to see Colin Creevy in Hogwarts at all. I thought for sure him, his brother, and Justin Finch-Fletchy had already been killed or were in hiding. I guess he could have surfaced with the rest of Dumbledore's Army, and if so paid for his bravery. Actually, that makes a lot of sense now that I think about it. That said, Dobby's death makes me want to throw things, even if she did a better job of giving him a grand exit than she did for Colin.
     
    But for everything I didn't like, there was a dozen details that made me smile, even while tearing:Ginny's refusal to let Cho go off alone with Harry, Hermione's full-frontal snogging of Ron, McGonagol's powers of transfiguration in a duel (and the Colin in me went "Yes!"), Molly's duel with Bellatrix (outright cheers here), and, surprisingly, Mrs. Longbottom. Molly had always been a fascination of mine, because I knew she was more powerful than she acted, and that her greatest power would come when Ginny was threatened. In fact, the only attempt I ever made at HP fanfiction dealt on this topic. But I had never considered the story of Mrs. Longbottom, a woman so formidible that she raised not just her son Frank, hero among aurors, but Neville, who with Harry proved himself probably the bravest Gryffindor to don the Sorting Hat. The story of her battle with Death Eaters, her appearance and formidable support of her grandson, were impressive additions to the book. I suspect though that she didn't make it either, as she isn't mentioned again, and one would expect her to be one of the first to rush to her grandson's side in the final skirmish, and she wouldn't exactly have been quiet in the lull between the melees.
     
    I was also impressed by Rowling's deliberate tweaking of mythology. For those that didn't get it yet, Syltherin is Water, Gryffindor is Fire, Hufflepuff is Earth, and Ravenclaw is Air. I'm willing to believe that the scrambled symbols of air and fire (properly and respectively, a sword and a spear or wand) were due to happenstance, the virtues of the houses as she laid them out, and the more compelling story of the elder wand. But I think the cup and the pentacle were mixed up deliberately, when she realized what she'd done with the first two. On the other hand, the professors that lead these houses are exactly the ones that make sense: Air light charms, liquids potions, plants in the earth, and what can be more transfiguring than fire? I wonder if they let a Hufflepuff teach transfiguration to balance against Neville, for herbology must have been seen as the Hufflepuff post since the founding.
     
    Even odder (if more obscure), are the ghosts. Ghosts, in literature, are commonly representatives of an oracular tradition, usually one that is dying out. They are the ultimate stories that change after they have been finished, and are never perfect yet each time correct. Even the phrase ghost stories conjures, for most, oral storytelling. At least, that's what they are usually. Rowling does have some elements of the traditional view (it is so strong I don't think she had a choice): note that the ghost professor teaches history, and several times across almost every book secrets are held only by ghosts or the memories of the dead. But in the cases of the house ghosts, Rowling has done something a little different. To recap, the prized virtues of the Hogwarts houses are Bravery for Gryffindor, Ambition (and to a lesser extent dispassion) for Slytherin, Intelligence for Ravenclaw, and Loyalty for Hufflepuff. However, we learn in books 5 and now 7 that three of the ghosts who have been chosen to represent the traditions of their houses are ghosts at all because they failed to emulate their houses most prized virtue. Nearly Headless Nicholas, we learn in five, was afraid of death. The Gray Lady admits in seven that she acted like an idiot, and died for it. The Bloody Baron, it turns out, walks forever because he gave up his dispassion and slew his own greatest ambition. It makes you wonder who the Fat Friar betrayed, doesn't it?
  14. B1ue

    Breaking out in Song

    By B1ue,

    Singing is something I only do when there are no witnesses. I actually had a decent singing voice at one point, but puberty took care of that, and I never took any lessons to modulate the baritone I wound up with.
     
    However, every once in a while, my dream self will inexplicably break out into song. By the light of morning, the poetry isn't all that, but the fact that it ever comes that easilly is something I marvel at. I mention this because it happened a couple nights ago. It was a full two-thirds of a song in the dream, but I only managed to right down the opening couplet before I forgot the rest.
     
    "Admit I'm what's keeps you up in bed every night/one hand grasps at dreams and one prays for morning's light."
     
    I do remember that I was singing this to someone that was trying to physically intimidate me, and that as I sang outed him I was also pushing him out of whatever building we were in. The sheer ridiculousness of the scene woke me before the third verse.
     
    I am not one for dream interpretation, but I am pretty sure this one means I need to write poetry more often, even bad poetry, because my subconcious will do it with or without me regardless.
     
    I think I'll stop here, and save why I don't write poems as often as I used to for another day, as it is fairly complicated.
     
    Later,
     
     
    Gabe
  15. B1ue

    A little about me

    By B1ue,

    I want to start by saying I never thought I'd create a blog. I held back for years, even though I genuinely liked reading the blogs of friends and strangers. But not me, I was determined not to indulge. I created what I call a notebook for my rough drafts, but that was as far as I was willing to go. It even made sense, since I often found myself away from my computer, but rarely long separated from the internet. My writing class homework was now a breeze to accomplish, where before actually took some scheduling.
     
    A year and some change later, I wound up with a myspace and a facebook entry, neither of which I dedicated any amount of effort or creativity. But the crack had been revealed. I tried to keep the inanity onto those spaces, but no, it eventually carried over onto my precious notebook. A line here, a paragraph there, pretty soon every entry was prefaced by something about me, my life, and the people I dealt with. The horror, HORROR, I felt when I realized I was writing more about me on certain entries than the actual piece I was working on, cannot be adequately described.
     
    So now, a full two years after the advent of my notebook, I've caved. This is my blog. To baptize it, here is a blog game my friends have been passing around like a sorostitute during pledge week.*
    Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
    People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
    At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
    Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.
    1. I am Mexican-American, though I have some difficulty convincing others of this fact if they aren't aware of my full name. I actually started going by my middle name for exactly this reason, but even I didn't guess how effective it would be. People have thought I was white, which is ridiculous.
    2. I realized I was gay in ninth grade. At the time, I had so many other things to be angsty about that it barely even registered until twelth.
    3. I am a Pisces, which apparently means I have only a so-so relationship with reality.
    4. While I don't really regret majoring in English in college, I kind of wish I had realized I like Geography a bit earlier in life. I'd have a much easier time finding a job in my chosen career if I'd picked that or Urban Planning.
    5. I tell people I don't want to be a teacher, that I wouldn't be good at it and that I'm terrible with kids anyways. Those are lies.
    6. I have 5 different colored necklaces that I wear to work each day (only one at a time though). I also have three neckties that I hardly ever wear.
    7. As a matter of habit, I see how long it takes me to break into my own apartment whenever I acquire a new one. My current one takes all of thirty seconds, maybe a couple minutes if I want to do it silently.
    8. I think that the songs "Run to You" by Bryan Addams, "You Outta Know" by Alanis Morrisette, and "Does He Love You?" by Reba McEntire make an interesting story cycle, even more so if you imagine the Alanis song is sung by a male.
     
    Instead of tagging others, I'll just say "participate if you feel like it."
     
    *Oh, yeah, this will sometimes be a graphic blog. Close your eyes if you are underage.
  16. B1ue
    Don't judge me. I just really like this show. Only part 1 of what feels like three parts, but may be only two. And I need to work on the main character's voice:
     
    “I realize that I’m probably the last you want to talk to right now,” Allison said to Stiles. She’d arrived to Stiles room unannounced, unwelcomed, and unrepentant, but since that described most of Stiles’s visitors, he was willing to let that go. Her continued existence was another matter.
     
    “You got that right,” he said, cutting her off. “Get the hell out of my house.”
     
    Her eyes flashed. Not literally, not like Scott’s might have, but the steel spines that let Argent men and women stand strong against the dark showed in her dark eyes and Stiles found himself wanting to flinch. “I realize that,” she continued as if he had said nothing, “but right now I need your help.” They stared, Stiles still furious, Allison’s cooled but still firm. Very slowly, Stiles nodded. It wasn’t in his makeup to not help someone. “Something has been bothering me about the night my aunt died. My dad caught up to us, outside the Hale House, right before she went to kill Scott. He stopped her, reminded her of the code, but she told him that she was only doing what she was told.”
     
    “She had orders? From who?”
     
    “That was my question too. That, and what those orders were. And who else got them.”
     
    “Good questions,” Stiles admitted. With a jerk of his head, he waved Allison into his desk chair as he sat on his bed. “Any ideas?”
     
    “My mother, my grandfather. I don’t know who would have been more likely. My father seems to follow the code strictly, but they were both less principled. Had their own agendas.” The pain of losing most of her family flashed across her face, but Stiles was unmoved. Mostly. The pain the Argents inflicted on his father, on Scott, on Scott’s mother, even on Derek, all that kept Stiles from feeling very sorry they were gone.
     
    But, still. Allison had been a friend. And they had been her world. So, only mostly unmoved.
     
    “Short of a Ouiji board, I don’t think we’re getting much information out of them.” Stiles said, and began to chew on his lip in thought. “No, let’s not try that. With our luck, it might work.”
     
    “Actually, I had something else in mind. My mother was too careful to have left records or notes, especially if she was running something behind my father’s back. But my grandfather, I don’t think he would have imagined any of us questioning him.”
     
    “Still a pretty crafty guy. And surprisingly good with modern technology. Just looking at him you’d think cars were new-fangled, but no.”
     
    “No, he was all for anything that would make it easier to spread mayhem and destruction. And crafty. That’s as good a word as any for him, I guess. So you think he would have covered himself too?”
     
    “Won’t hurt to check, but yeah, I think so. But your aunt…careful and your aunt don’t really belong in the same sentence, unless ‘aim’ is in there too.” Lip chewing apparently not enough, he’d moved on to biting the tip of his thumb.
     
    Allison nodded. “My mother took charge of putting all my aunt’s things into storage. She said I might want some of it someday, as the pain of her loss faded. I couldn’t imagine then I would ever sympathize enough with Kate to be able to mourn her, but now.”
     
    “Now you know better.”
     
    “Yes. I know them better, and that. And myself.” She shook her head, unbound black hair spilling forward as the self-pity faded. “So, my father would have the keys to their storage units, maybe even some of their personal papers.”
     
    “Did she have a laptop?” At her silent question, Stiles shrugged. “She moved around a lot, and apparently your father kept digital records. If she had a laptop, maybe there’s something important on there.”
     
    “What about Derek?” Stiles would later wonder how much he’d given away. Allison was one of the sharpest, observant people he’d ever met. And, annoyingly, as closed as he was open. If she came to any conclusions about why his body and expression tightened when she mentioned that name, she didn’t state them. “Well, he was sleeping with her. Kate mentioned it in passing once. If she had a moment of carelessness or two, one of them might have been with him, if he remembers. He’s about the only one still around who might.”
     
    “Except your father. He might know more than he’s told you, things he might not have even known for sure then that he’s reconsidered.”
     
    “Yes. And I can ask him. But you’ll need to ask Derek.”
     
    “Because he’d kill you?”
     
    “Because,” Allison said with a slow smile he hadn’t seen on her in some time, which reminded Stiles of the girl Scott had fallen so hard for, “out of everyone, Derek might actually tell you if you ask.”
     
    “Fine. I’ll ask.” No need to ask her what she meant. Why she smiled. Screw her. “Anything else you need from me?”
     
    “Help with her laptop, if I find one. Hacking isn’t exactly within my skillset.”
     
    “Not mine either.” This time Stiles smiled. “But I know who does know his way around computers. And who would be perfect to ask a favor of him. Assuming I can convince him to play ball.”
     
    “I’m sure you’ll give it your all,” Allison said. “I’ve never seen you do less.” She finally, finally stood up to leave. “I’ll call you in a couple days, letting you know where I’m at with all this.”
     
    “Fine.” He couldn’t bring himself to wish her luck, or even say goodbye properly.
     
    He hoped she never came back. At least, that’s what he told himself, even as he began planning exactly how he was to approach Derek.
     
     
     
    “What is that?” was Derek’s rather stunned reaction.
     
    Stiles had only thought he always felt just a little bit ridiculous. He knew better now; before he’d at least always felt like himself, as terrible and as awkward as that was, this was worse. A t-shirt from before the lacrosse practices had begun having an effect. Skinny blue jeans he’d purchased a couple months ago under the influence of his friends from the Jungle and that he’d worn exactly twice, neither time outside of his bedroom. A choker that used to belong to his mother, “borrowed” from her jewelry case that his father even now kept in their bedroom. Black cherry chapstick he’d bought just today at Lydia’s unexplained insistence that he couldn’t help but lick at constantly. He’d finally cracked and asked her advice on the best way to approach the terminally grumpy, figuring her experience with Jackson would stand him in good stead, and this was the result.
     
    “What? I think I look pretty good.” Stiles tried to sound like he meant it, little use as it was to lie to a werewolf.
     
    “Liar.” Derek still sounded stunned, but his eyes were getting at least a little less wide. His gaze was still taking in the total effect of Stiles’s look. “You do look good though. I’ve just never seen you try to look good like this before. What is the occasion, you going out with Danny again?”
     
    That was new. This was all new. Stiles dropping by to see Derek for no particular reason. Stiles going out with Danny, because Danny needed a wing man and Jackson, Isaac, and Scott couldn’t act laidback if you paid them. Derek grudgingly at first and then more naturally paying Stiles attention and compliments, in a way that raised a couple eyebrows in the pack. Stiles had not yet tried to make anything with this new status, but after talking with Allison, and then Lydia, here he was. And if they had been wrong, he had maybe twenty seconds to live.
     
    “Later, maybe. We talked about it.” Which was true, they decided not to, but they could change their minds. “Actually, I was wondering if I could ask you a couple questions. Personal ones, but important for some research I’m doing.”
     
    Derek looked confused, but not hostile. “I guess that might be alright. Why don’t you come inside with me? It’s getting too hot to work anyways.”
     
    Stiles admired the work Derek had put into restoring his family’s home. It wouldn’t, from what he remembers, look quite like it had before the fire. He’d eventually just knocked down and paved over one old section that would never be sound again, and added a deck along the northern wall. The paint, he promised, would be blue on grey instead of brown on white. Stiles could have told him it wouldn’t be enough, but maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe he just needed to be doing something constructive, and making his family’s home his own gave him something that just making what was left of their pack his own did not.
     
    He was doing most of the work, but not all of it. Scott, Isaac, Erica, and Boyd all turned up now and then to lend a hand. Chris Argent had spent all of a weekend helping to lay wiring down. Danny and Jackson had come by, but left quickly; neither being all that great with manual labor. Allison had not shown up at all, proving she was at least as smart as she was good looking. Stiles might be willing to cooperate once his curiosity was engaged, but Derek tended to blame her for not only her own actions, but her mother’s and aunt’s as well.
     
    Stiles considered acting like he’d come up with the questions on his own for that reason, but doing that would be too close to lying, and Allison wasn’t worth risking whatever this was building between him and Derek. Better to be honest, if blunt. “I’m here to talk about Kate, Derek.”
     
    Derek was never the most effusive, but his voice was even flatter than normal as he answered. “There is nothing to say about her. Ever.”
     
    “We were talking about her, and things aren’t adding up completely. What did she think she was doing?”
     
    “She thought she was murdering my family. And she succeeded.” Heat was creeping into his voice, but Derek was so controlled his expression did not flicker, though he did look away. “Are you asking if there was any clue, any sign she was thinking this when I was with her? No. Nothing I can pin down. I’ve spent years crawling back and forth in my memories, trying to find that one thing I missed, the lie I should have detected, but there isn’t one.” He covered his eyes with his large hand, and it took almost more strength than Stiles had to not try and take it into his own.
     
    Then he wondered why he was stopping himself, and did take it. Derek said the rest looking straight into his eyes. “She was the perfect product of her family. A born to betray, betray me and mine. She made no mistakes where I could detect them, except for missing Laura and I.”
     
    “I’m sorry, but I had to ask. What she did doesn’t match the ideals of Chris or even Victoria. So we wanted to know if there was something else, something organized, that we might have to watch for.”
     
    “Not that I know of. She may have just been crazy, like her father, but I’ve long since decided that Victoria and Chris were the exceptions, and most other hunters were like Kate.
     
    “Which is why I don’t trust Allison. She doesn’t have her father’s values. Which leaves Kate’s. I’m guessing she was what brought this up?”
     
    Stiles nodded. “She started to worry whose orders Kate was following.”
     
    “I’m sorry. I can’t help you. Now get out.”
     
    “What?”
     
    “I’m not stupid, Stiles. Neither is Allison, I take it, if she dressed you like that and had you ask me about her aunt. I don’t like playing other people, like you did to Danny, and I really don’t like it when someone does it to me. So get out. Don’t come back before I seek you out, or attracted to you or not, I will hurt you.”
     
    Stiles found himself in his jeep with no exact memory of how he got there. His mind was almost completely blank, except for the words “attracted,” chased by “Get out.”
     
    He wanted to hate Allison for that, for opening those doors in his emotions with the same action that closed them. But he was too self-honest for that. She might have put the question in his head, but his own curiosity asked it. Decided to test Derek.
     
    It was hard to see the road as he drove, with all those tears that refused to fall standing in his eyes.
     
     
     
    Three days later, Allison entered Stiles’s room without knocking. “Can’t a guy sleep?” he asked her, as she once again took a seat at his desk.
     
    Her eyebrow quirked up. “It’s barely 4 o’clock,” she observed.
     
    Stiles just grunted in response. He’d slept a lot, the last couple of days. Tried to, anyways. Allison patiently waited for him to sit up and talked to her. He noticed she moved less, like a true hunter. She was never like him, all energy and chatter, but the more he saw her the more it bothered him. Eventually he gave in, standing up to turn on the light.
     
    It was a measure of Allison’s new nature that she didn’t respond to his near-naked body. Getting dressed seemed like too much effort lately, especially if he was going to wind up right back in bed once his father left for the day. Showering had been too much effort, too. He couldn’t quite bring himself to care. “Derek didn’t know anything. He said, and I quote, that Kate was the perfect product of your family. For some reason, it didn’t sound like a compliment, coming from him.”
     
    She nodded, like that didn’t surprise her. “We’re trained in various techniques, I’m learning. Some of them involve going undercover.”
     
    “Do they include betraying your friends?” he couldn’t help but snap.
     
    “They include keeping your emotions so checked it’s hard to have real friends, as real friends have a tendency to become real dead when you are least ready for it. So, yes.”
     
    Stiles sighed. Things like that made it harder and easier to hate her. “So, he didn’t have anything. I don’t have anything. You can go any time.”
     
    “After I share this,” she said, pulling a tape recorder out of her pocket. It’d been a while since Stiles had seen anyone but his dad with one of those, but he was totally unsurprised Allison had one around.
     
    “Is it a confession?” he asked.
     
    “Of a sort. I talked to my dad. I figured it would help later if I could play it back, so I could really think about what he was telling me.”
     
    “That’s kind of awesome, and a little bit scary too.” And he was once again reminded how different from his guest he was when he couldn’t stop his next thought from crossing his face. “Did you record the last time we talked? Are you recording us now?”
     
    In answer, Allison pulled a second recorder from the pocket on her other side. She waved it at him a little, before putting it back away.
     
    He decided she was at least 80% evil now, minimum.
     
    “So, anyways. I wanted you to listen to it, if you could. You’re the closest person I know to being a cop. Maybe you’ll pick up on something I missed.”
     
    “Here I thought you never missed.”
     
    A laughing smile erupted before she could stop it. “Maybe,” she said as she set the recorder down to play.
  17. B1ue

    Citadelle de Papillon

    By B1ue,

    I was, originally, going to attempt to turn this into an anthology piece. As I tried to do so, the amount of setting and unpacking needed to make the story stand up falgged to me that I was, at beast, looking at a short novel. More probably a full length novel, if not a series of them. And my dream saw fit to only provide me with part 1. I always suspected I was a bit of a bastard. Parts in purple I added after being awake, to fill in some of the narrative blanks. Parts in black, including the footnotes, are as close as I can recall. One of the oddest things about this dream, actually many dreams I've had, is how deeply imbedded into the setting I get. It's like an entire world, with it's rules set up for me already, is just there for me to wander in. As you can see, there isn't much purple to the infodumps.
     
    Warning: Bits of this are pretty distasteful.
     
    It starts with me, hungover, escaping through the Citadel back to my quarters1. This was not easilly accomplished. I lived in my mother's apartments in the heart of the military quarter, and the citadel itself was a giant flying aircraft. Giant, in fact, does not do it justice. Biblical might. A rather slowly moving one, but enough that my stomach felt every shudder and heave as I'd never felt it before. But my motehr was a pilot, the best, and I'd inherited her composure and strength. In the end, I was not nearly slick enough. My mother was sitting at the breakfast table, coffee in hand, calmly trading pleasantries with my literature professor2. He was wondering, he said, if I was quite prepared to take my oral exam. Right then. He was free, I only had his class that day, and as I'd been procrastinating scheduling the exam with him, well, he was not so important he couldn't take time out of his day to see me. Especially since he'd needed to consult with my family's archives anyways. I begged off, wanting nothing in the world so much as a shower, and made an appointment with him that afternoon. As he'd reminded me, the course was nearly over, and it was far better to take the exam earlier than later.
     
    I did not get in trouble. In fact my mother was faintly pleased. She'd worried about me, was glad I was getting into the young life. One of my duties as an adult was to father two children. The citadel did not get immigrants, but our population was nearly half a million. Inbreeding wasn't quite a worry, especially not with the support of world class genetic testig and cleaning, but maintaining population stability was important. Emigrants were considered traitors, their families under the same scrutiny and scron as the families of murderers, at least by the council who ruled the citadel. Emigrants that took their children were doubly damned, as they were seen to be stealing from the citadel's future. So were those who, for whatever reason, wasted the precious consuables that we lived on, or refused to do their part by siring two children. On top of all of that, mental instability was a serious problem, severe enough that most were driven mad by the time they hit fifty. It was strenous enough that citizenship depended on one's parenthood, though it was not necessary to raise the children yourself, or even have both children with the same person. This whole thing made me farily uneasy, because I knew my interests did not lie with, well, laying with women, but I figured I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.
     
    The test he wanted me to take was quite important, to myself, to the professor, and to my mother. It wasn't so much that he was unimportant, merely that I was that important. The best prospective archivist in his class, indeed in some time. As good as my father, many said, though never my mother. Since my father and sister had both been reclaimed within the last couple years3, there was quite a bit of suspicion on my mother and I. My taking my place as an archivist, and then on to forming a family and household, would allievete much of the pressure on us both. We knew, for instance, that my mother's career in the air guard had been stalled some years despite her being the single best pilot the citadel had ever seen, and a very capable teacher and administrator besides. Her advancing from Colonel to general rank was almost a given, becoming air marshall was not out of the question, and quite soon, but only if this cloud could be dispelled from our house.
     
    The exam did not test actual knowledge. That could be picked up at any time, and as archivist it would be my lifelong challenge to absorb and classify as much as possible. It tested that, the classification and absorbtion. And my ability to know what to look at beyond what I'd been assigned, and how much to admit knowing, even after a full hour of relentless drilling by a man who knew his work and . I passed, of course. I was my father's son.
     
    We had a celebration. Madeline Glace and her son Pierre were not given to parties, either attending or giving, but we made an exception. Passing the exam meant my future as an archivist was assured. I was quite jubilant, and wondered why my mother was not. Oh, she played the part well enough4, but I knew her better than anyone. The deaths of Nicolette and Stephen, my sister and father, had drawn us together. And, well, the food was a clue. Tacos. I hated tacos. Despised the taste, the seasoning, the consistency. Which my mother full well knew. I dared not spurn the food, of course. Throwing back up food once eaten, throwing food away, that was what got Nicolette reclaimed, six months previous. Waste was treason, as far as the council was concerned. But, there was a trick to it. Eating wihtout eating. Serving a partial plate of broken pieces made the food seem eaten. The rest I gave to one of my friends, who'd already passed her exam the year before. Soon after, my mother came beside me, materilizing out of air, apparently. "Come with me, Pierre," she ordered in her Colonel voice. I followed her into the kitchen, noting more than one eye upon us.
     
    "What I have to show you is the secret of the citadel. One every adult must learn, does learn the day they become an adult. Now it is your turn." She drew me into the cabinent, a coolroom that kept food inside perfectly preserved indefinetely. And then, once in there, she pushed aside a second door, one I never knew existed. She pushed it aside, then drew back.
     
    Revealing the partially canabalized body of Nicolette.
     
    Her hand over my mouth kept me from screaming. "I'm sorry," she whispered, over and over. "There was no good way to tell you this." I wasn't really listening, only the knowledge that I had not eaten any food that night kept my from puking my guts out. That and the strong stomach I'd inherited, of course. We eventually slid to the ground, me crying in my mother's arms, as she told me the rest.
     
    Four generations before, the world had warred. And the world itself had lost. There was simply not enough life to suport the surviving human race, not really, though backbrekaing efforts started right away would evenutally change that. The citadel, nalled Citadelle de Papillon by it's European builders, was key to that effort. It was no less than a massive teraforming device, and the scientests within it worked tirelessly to take back the world from the death that gripped it. But, fast and hard as they worked, they were not fast enough.
     
    It was not many, of course. Certainly not most. Just a few, here and there, but they were everywhere, people that turned on each other rather than die themselves. And while not many, there were enough that they banded together, and another war was fought. The Eaters, as they were called, swiftly lost. But the Pure could not bring themselves to put an entire new race, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, to death. Even after it became clear that an odd disease gripped the Eaters, robbing anyone above middle age of their mental health. So instead, the citadel that was slowly becoming less needed became their prison.
     
    Much of this was surpressed. My father, an archivist, had delved deep into records to piece it all together. Along with the secret that as far as the City, which the new capital of the Pures came to be called, the war had not been called off. We knew we constantly fought against the city, in small skirmishes, but not why. Between my parents, and their access, they'd figure it out. Unfortunately, my father had been caught, and reclaimed. We'd nearly been reclaimed as well, but my mother was extremely good at her job, and was considered too valuable to throw away. But we'd been watched like hawks, and they were eager to kill us given the slightest excuse like my sister had handed them. What was common knowledge, among the adults, was that the madness of the eaters still held their descendants in thrall, and only three things had been proven to hold the madness at bay. The first were the archivist exercises like I'd been tested on, everyone was taught them, though only the best could master them. Both my parents were such masters. The second was the eating. The third was, strangely, forcing the same madness on the next generation.
     
    But not everyone accepted that fate. The people that tried to emmigrate were almost always parents trying to gain a better life for their children, one where they were not forced to learn how to carve and serve their own families to the elders of the city. Tried being the operative word; my mother was quite certain the City had killed any citadel child they'd gotten their hands on, testing for the madness and killing anyone associated with a person that had it just to be sure. She suspected, in fact, that the citadel was betraying their escapees to the City themselves. But my mother had a plan, and now I was ready for my part in it.
     
    It was a simple plan. First, she made sure I did not, in fact, posses the madness, by presenting the human food in such a way that I was sure to refuse it. Only adults ate other humans, it was our rite of passage, the real one. There weren't enough people to go around, after all, and anyways only a bit every so often was enough to keep the madness at bay. The older you were, the more you needed, but new adults didn't need much of any at all. The citadel needed to be convinced I had it though; that was necessary part of citizenship. They'd not test, they were content after the party that I had eaten form my sister's corpse, and would soon have it. Or, if not then, soon enough, at another party, now that I was an adult and could be invited to the real ones. Where other family's slowly fed the bodies of their reclaimed to elders or anyone who needed a fix. My mother admitted that she had it, of course, but to have a chance I couldn't. Which brought us to the third aspect: I would escape. She would not.
     
    Originally, she'd planned to get both my sister and I out. But Nicolette proved too delicate to wait. The full secrets of the citadel hit her too hard, and her revulsion towards food sprang form paranoia that anything she ate could be a human. My mother had almost abandoned the plan then, but it bcame clear that I needed to escape, even more than Nicolette had. Homosexuality was, to put it mildly, forbidden on the citadel. Too much cultural pressure to breed, to replinish the population. Just the whisper of it would get me reclaimed for sure. But in the City, the still partially incomplete efforts to teraform the land had forced an opposite cultural pressure. They saw themselves as severely overpopulated; homosexuality was not just approved, having such a relationship was considered a cultural service. Getting me out to that was a priority above mere survival or distaste. I asked, quietly, how she knew. I'd kept myself hidden, I'd thought. She shrugged, and told me my father was homosexual, so she sort of expected it of one of us.
     
    It wasn't immedietely that she did this. Too soon would arouse suspicion. But, soon enough, after I was a full archivist and soon to be pressured into taking a household for myself, we took ourselves to her airship bay. She was still only a Colonel, but her next rank needed only to be confirned, so no one stopped us. They would have, had I not been an adult, which was why the delay was necessary, but any adult was allowed into the hangar, if accompanied. They didn't even mind when she loaded us up into her stingship, idling for this very visit.
     
    Our flying out of the hangar did cause a bit of a stir, but nothing a few missles didn't take care of. Madeleine Glace was not considered the greatest pilot ever for nothing.
     
    It was a long, grueling dogfight of a flight. I was her co-pilot, the simulators she'd long forced on my sister and I coming to my aid. We were missing our third and fourth pilot positions. but the stingship could be flown by one, if needed, though not as well. But again, she was very good. And I was my mother's son. We were shot down well within the City's cordon. Outlasting the pilot police my mother had trained herself, the City's own stingships, and the anti-aircraft defenses of the City itself, though it was the last that finally brought us down. My mother was knocked unconcious, and I was simply not good enough to control our crash well. But I did good enough, managing not to kill us, or even injure myself. But my mother was dying.
     
    With her final moments, she told me to escape. I said it was useless; they'd know there had been more than one pilot, and they'd not stop looking for me. She smiled, and said that was why she'd loaded my father's still mostly preserved corpse into the cargo. As soon as I was away, she'd fire the stingship, making it impossible to tell who was what, only that there were two DNA traces in the ship. It'd be enough, she thought. So I escaped into the City, the exploding stingship lighting my way.
     
    1Actually, the dream did not start there, but this was the first bit I carried into my waking memory. And, internal cues tell me this was the beginning anyways.
    2This is, damnably, what so convinces me there was more to this dream than what i recall. I don't know what exactly he taught, or what he tested me on, but I strongly suspect he'd already been introduced to this persona.
    3 Killed. Even in the dream, I knew my sister had been killed. I'm less certain I knew my father had been killed, he did not get invented until sometime later.
    4 As an aside, this is the first scene my mother actually appear in, though her approval and touch was apparent in my earlier thoughts.
  18. B1ue
    I decided to trash can the previous entry I had up here. No, not the one where I insulted Emu's manners and he insulted my maturity in the comments, but the one I had up after that. Most of it is just literary analysis run amock, and no one deserves that, espeically if you haven't had coffee yet. So I'll summarize the cogent points that I tried to get across (and don't require prior reading).
     
    **Stories, including webcomics, can affect my mind and disposition in ways that television and movies rarely do. Perhaps because of the massive amount of editing and that no fewer than four minds (and usually quite a lot more) interpret any line utttered before a proper studio's camera, but those medium just do not often leave me scratching my head for weeks or months later that a written book can. Usually it's either a character making a choice that I cannot empathize with, or because the authro/artist made certain choices with the narrative that left a hole I demanded filling.
     
    **"Boy Meets Boy" by K. Sandra Fuhr was the latest story to leave me squirming. It's a great read, for the msot part, and I gave up most of my sleep over the last few days to read not only all four years of that comic's archive, but the entirety of it's sequal, which ran for five years, and the sequal to that, which ahs been posted for almost a year now. Yes, I read a solid decade of one artists work. Her characters were that interesting. As was her choice of plots. I also found interesting that while, like a tv show, her characters didn't really change or grow much during any particular story, they changed markedly during the course of the comic as a whole.
     
    **What killed me inside about Boy Meets Boy is that of the six I consider to be main characters, five get exactly what they want or need in life. And the last gets stuck holding the check. It's implied he might get a happy ending too, in fact the very last comic shows the first step in that, I did not feel it was enough. The previous version of this entry was a lengthy analysis of why I did not like this, but I'll spare you all that. I've slept more since I posted it, and am once again sane.
     
    **After my analysis, which was partly just my way of thinking through what, exactly, bothered me, I wrote a short story attempting to cure myself of that itch. Said story shall hopefully be included in the upcoming Summer anthology. It is not an original interpretation of the theme, but it I think it's appropriate to the comic, the anthology, and the themes I like best.
     
    Ten years of Sandra Delete (Ms Fuhr's online handle) has been only part of my two week long reading binge. I recieved about 5 books at once, including two I had shipped from Britain because I preferred their covers to the American ones. I know what you're thinking, but that was actually sanity talking. The original plan called for me to go to London and pick up copies in person later this month. I had my passport renewed in anticipation and everything. When the third book in the trilogy releases next year, nothing will stop me.
     
    I bought yet another new book today, so I'll wander off to read it. Later.
     
     
    Gabriel
  19. B1ue

    Lotus Takes Position

    By B1ue,

    Yet another image I can't quite get out of my head. For once, the names were very specific.
     
     
     
    Her cry was barely louder than a whisper. I'm surprised I heard over the thundering of my own heart. "Hold!" her guard ordered, and we did, taking the moment to regain our breath as Sergeant Danath knelt at her side. "Dame Lotus?" he asked, curtosey dripping despite the circumstance. Never mind that the woman was my grandmother, mages of any rank or class were not people to idly piss off.
     
    "Twisted my ankle. Haven't run in decades; it was almost inevitable." She grimaced as she stood, trying not to put her full weight on it. "Surprised I kept up as well as I did."
     
    Dame Lotus had lived almost all of her life since marrying my grandfather inside our ancestral castle. One the mercenaries under pay of the theives guild had invaded, to teach a lesson to me in particular and the rest of the nobility in general. My guards exchanged glances with each other, and both Lotus and I could read those glances without being told. There was no way we could outpace our pursuers with a limping old mage along. But what else could we do?
     
    "Go. All of you. Leave me here." She ordered.
     
    "But--," I started to sputter, but Sergeant Danath grabbed my arm and waved the rest of my guard forward. She pulled herself erect, turning away from us already. There was a slight bend in the corridor here, built there for just such a circustance as a fighting retreat out of the castle. Her hands began to glow her magic even as I watched. "But she's my grandmother!" I protested.
     
    "And right now, she's your court mage. And it's her choice."
     
    "Listen to your guard, boy. I can only buy your so much time. I'm only an old woman, after all." She smiled, as did we all. Dame Lotus got her knighthood by merit, as one of the fiercest battlemages our kingdom possesed. Forty years of peace hadn't dulled her edge by much.
     
    I stopped struggling against my guardians, much to their relief. "God's fire, Grandmother," I said before beginning to run again.
     
    "Goddess Grace, boy. And if you want revenge for me, outlive the bastards!"
     
    The slowing fading screams of the dying followed us on our escape. No one commented on my tears when they finally stopped.
  20. B1ue

    The Prophecies

    By B1ue,

    Bought Lady Antebellum's "Need you Now." I realize I'm starting to develop a drunk dial playlist, and I don't quite know what to make of that. They aren't even all country songs.
     
    Didn't have a chance to grab more of the dream down yesterday, and now I only really remember this one bit.
     
    There were once three witches, one good, one bad, and the enigmatic Madame Grey. It was never to be known what Madame Grey desired in her heart of hearts, or even if she had such a thing at all, but both the good witch and the bad witch woke one morning wanting desperately for a child.
     
    And so the bad witch was sad, for she knew she was a wicked one. Nothing she ever had she could keep, not home, nor pet, certainly not a lover. Everything would have to be abandoned the next time good triumphed and she had to build her power anew. A child, one of her own, was out of the question. But oh, how she wanted. So she journeyed west, across the snow capped mountains that were cold daggers to the sky bleeding storms and terror, to home of Madame Grey. Madame sat down with her, drank tea with her, looked her deep in the eyes and said, "You will have a child, one day. But I tell you, you will not have a child until Good gives one back." No more was said, and Madame Grey quickly closed her door on the witch, her sister, who journeyed home filled with hope.
     
    The good witch was also sad when she felt the first longings, for she knew that she was good. Tirelessly, she worked against the forces of evil, and not her jewels, her looks, nor her life she could spare herself against that fight, certainly not enough for a child. She journeyed east across the burning desert, a memory of her last war against the goblins, to the home of Madame Grey. She too took tea with the Madame, who spoke to her, "Cry no more, my sister, you will have a child. But you must make one yourself." No more was said, and the door of Madame Grey was closed upon her sister the good witch, who journeyed home mind churning with plans.
  21. B1ue
    ...same as the old boss.
     
    I'm going back to the job that laid me off earlier this year. Apparently, they weren't lying when they said I'd be called back if they developed an opening. I know, I'm shocked too. I just wish I had managed to find something else steady and solid, so I could have enjoyed not retreating back there, but the money is too much to shrug off. Besides, the company that currently employs me will likely fold us within the year. So, yeah. Being a grownup sucks. I'm also somewhat suspicious of the timing. The week they called me to make the offer was the first week in which I did not collect unemployment. I may be overly suspicious, but that's an interesting coincidence.
     
    Last entry, I mentioned my new eagerness for the comic series Runaways by Marvel. I also mentioned that I keep mentally pairing off the two males on the team, despite pretty solid evidence that both are straight. That it was only the proliferation of Nifty stories featuring a dumb jock and a younger, nerdier guy that made me think of it at all?
     
    Yeah, well, I've read farther, and now I"m not so sure about that.
     
    There's this one scene where the jock, Chase, wakes the nerdier guy, Victor, from a nightmare. Victor jumps up, and is naked. Chase screams at the gratuitous male nudity, but all of five seconds later has completely calmed down and is having a heart to heart with Victor. Which makes my suspicious mind go, "Hmm." In this same story arc, the two are shown to be bonding quite well over their shared admiration for another teammate, Chase's girlfriend, and over their shared love of all things mechanical. My point is, if the writers had intended for them to pair off somewhere down the road, they laid the ground work for it pretty well.
     
    In other news, when I make my trip to the environs of Yosemite in a few weeks, I will be loaded down with as many preteen books as I can stand to be parted from. After years of work, my family has finally converted my niece to being a book nerd like the rest of us. We also claimed another niece, who's a bit younger and was always a bit of an inside girl, so the victory isn't as sweet. In encouraging this, I'm loaning out my collection. I may get a third of it back someday, but hey, they need the books more.
     
    Besides, its an opportunity to rebuy Tamora Pierce's "Protector of the Small" series. My current copies are getting a bit raggedy.
  22. B1ue

    Ooooh

    By B1ue,

    I don't believe I've ever updated twice in one day, but I need to get this crap down before I forget it.
     
    In the process of commenting to Viv's blog, I remembered a conversation an old coworker and I had regarding religion. He told me about this guy named Matthew Alper who wrote a book called The "God" Part of the Brain. The premise of the book is that spirituality is a biological imperitive, a behavior that is as hard-wired into our genes as a cat marking its territory. And as I always do when I replay old conversations, I think of responses that I wish I had said at the time.
     
    In this case, my response might have been, "You make spirituality sound like a psychological condition, a neurological imbalance. One that can be corrected. That's a very interesting position to take, don't you think?"
     
    At that point, the right side of my brain took a look at the crap my left side was coming up with, and went Pop! Ding! Whir.
     
    What if someone tried that? Tried to cure humanity of religion?
     
    Flashes of The Giver danced with Brave New World and this Russian novel from the early 1900's whose name I cannot recall at this time. It started with an accident. Some chemical company in Texas got too friendly with a hurricane, and subtly altered the water supply in Oklahoma. It took some time, but eventually it was noticed that virtually everyone in the affected area no longer believed in God. Neurochemists and psychologists study the event, and, after much testing, divine what happened and more importantly, how to replicate it. Time passes, then there is a vaccine available. A Freedom from Religion amendment passes, which makes the vaccine available at no cost to any who desire it. It quickly becomes a requirement of citizenship. People who persist in their beliefs become shunned, a threat to the stability of society. The FBI maintains a list of such individuals, labeling them possible subversives.
     
    Then the vaccine is weaponized. And pointed at Israel. Then the rest of the Middle East. Then India, who points something back.
     
    Oops. No more USA.
     
    Not that we all go up in smoke, but a rather prominent delta city becomes ever burning bright, and the country disintegrates from there. It'd already been on the way to do so, once local political meetings took up the social function churches once provided, and that fracturing of national identity breaks us from a two party system to a multiple party system based partly on geography. The blast that eliminated most of the centripetal politicians and any clear line of succession merely completed the shattering, not caused it.
     
    I'm not sure if this is a novel, a collection of short stories, or just one with the events I just outlined in the distant background. I'm going to have to think about it more.
  23. B1ue

    They do that?

    By B1ue,

    Something in the way of a public service message, since I'm probably not the only person about with a couple hundred books in their possession.
     
    I was pawing through the back section, looking for one of my old textbooks when the corner of my mind noted that sun rays were making light spots on one of my books. This thought engaged the rest of my brain, since it was 2 am and in any case it would be all but impossible for sunlight to ever reach that particular book, due to the angles of the windows. I glared at the book for a full three seconds before I was willing to admit the evidence of my eyes.
     
    One of my books had a lively crop of mold growing on it.
     
    I don't know if it was the glue, the binding, the ink used to color the cover, whatever, something was growing a bumper crop. A rather hasty scan of the rest of my collection hasn't turned up a second blighted manuscript, but be wary of this threat.
     
    I'll probably also have to rethink my long term plan of keeping my library and bedroom the same room. Meh. I'm sure someone would have put their foot down on that in any case.
  24. B1ue

    The Tale of Monkey King

    By B1ue,

    This is what happens when I don't get enough sleep. Totally not edited, btw.
     
    Tell me a story, Khay.
    I don't want to.
    Aw, come on. Please?
    I said I don't want to. If you want a story so bad, why don't you tell one?
    You owe me one.
    How come I always owe you a story? Something must be wrong with your record keeping.
    Nah. Seems to come out right every time to me.
    I saw your grade in Algebra. That's not reassuring.
    Come on. You know you're going to. Might as well give in now before I take your pants and make you.
    Alright! Fine. A short one.
    Sounds good. No promises on the pants though.
    I wouldn't have believed one if you made it, little brother.
     
    The monkey king had a secret. While that's not really that strange among kings, since he was a monkey king, there wasn't much normal about it. He didn't have a secret past. He didn't have a secret weakness. He didn't have a secret mistress, power, sword, or lingeage that could be traced to the gods sitting in judgment over the jungle's rain or mountain's clouds. He didn't even have a secret fondness for unusal flavors of ice cream. In fact, being a monkey, he didn't have much fondness for ice cream at all, having not encountered it.
     
    What he did have was a secret dream. Locked away in the darkest, deepest part of his heart, the monkey king longed to be not a monkey or king but an ordinary, human boy.
     
    The monkey king never told anyone his dream. Not his parents, or brother, or the dozens of friends that traveled with him through the jungles that was his kingdom. That wasn't as easy as it sounds, because monkeys, being monkeys, love to talk. About everything. Anything that pops into their mind is spoken out loud for all to share and laugh about. That was what being a monkey was about, particularly for these monkeys. Secrets were unknown among the monkeys in his kingdom.
     
    No, it wasn't easy for the monkey king to have a secret. But he wasn't king of the monkeys for nothing.
     
    What was his name?
    Who?
    The monkey king. He has to have a name, doesn
  25. B1ue

    Heading into my bunker

    By B1ue,

    I've been lame and not updating this thing, I know. I have been writing a little, but its mostly military science fiction (also what I've been reading), so I can't see that going over too well over here. The characters aren't Gay, in any case.
     
    Actually, last week I wrote a story for the sole and express purpose of using the phrase, "Tracking just nailed the ID. Coming up...ah, crap! It's the Shittin' Kitten."
     
    Last Tuesday more or less blew. I'd still rather Ms. Clinton had been the one to be elected, and it was tough the first couple days to not gun it when a black man or woman crossed in front of my car, due to the way they voted over Prop 8. Also, I had to reassure a few family members that I was not, in fact, arrested Friday night. I did watch it all go down, since one of the rallies passed underneath my window.
     
    In other news, do not expect me to surface for some time. Wrath of the Lich King comes out Thursday, and in an extreme onset of dorkiness I will not be leaving my apartment except to buy food and go to work until at least Thanksgiving, when work will begin to dominate my schedule. I work in the freight business, and everyone in that business will be owned wholly by either Fedex, USPS or UPS from Black Friday until Christmas. Just remember, if that package from Amazon got to your second cousin Eunice's by the big day, it was because someone like me work extra hours to make it happen. More likely, several someones.
     
    I'm looking forward to after that, when I will make a fool out of myself in front of witnesses, because by then I will not care.
     
    Until next year,
     
     
    Gabe
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