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Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
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3:16 pm - Life is Too Short to Waste Being Ugly (Manifesto)
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This is part of my seemingly never-ending gift story project. Writing this one for ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) avecvu.
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When I write that life is too short to waste being ugly, I mean ugly in all of its various meanings. Its too short to treat people in an ugly way. Its too short to develop ugly personality traits. Its way to short to actually be physically ugly.
I'm not even suggesting that one must spend life being pretty or beautiful or even "above average." No, beauty is, in many ways, more of a subjective thing than ugly. People can find extremely different things beautiful, but most people share a similar conception of ugly.
In fact, one way to be ugly is to spend too much time fretting over who else is ugly or pretty. If you spend an significant time doing this, you are being ugly, and life is too short for that!
Yes, if you treat a person like they are ugly, you are revealing an inner ugliness that is costing you more effort than its worth. Don't you have more important things to do with your time? Isn't virtually anything more important than belittling another person, even if only in your heart?
If you just out and out accept that they are potentially pretty, even if they don't meet you aesthetic standards, than you can spend more time doing things that are worthwhile. The time you've spent dwelling on their ugliness is time you could have spent saving the world or shopping or just not being a total douche, and that is time well spent.
Besides, being judgmental is an ugly trait. Its the gateway drug to being a nosy neighbor, a slut shamer, a misogynist, a racist, a homophobe and a generally awful human being. By allowing this ugly trait to become part of your personality, you've taken the first step down the yellow brick road to becoming an ugly person.
These are very time consuming traits. When you meet a new person, these traits have to work overtime to determine specifically how you're going to hate them and why. You're going to have so much more mental energy if you just accept everyone instead of figuring out why you should reject them.
Last, life is to short to be physically ugly. I'm not going to get all hippy "everything is beautiful" on you, but we all know people who aren't conventionally pretty but whom everyone thinks are beautiful because they are awesome and the awesomeness pours out of them. We also know plenty of people who are conventionally beautiful but who genuinely appear ugly because of their behavior.
I'm not saying that beauty is just something that comes from the inside, but there really is some truth to that - and its actually easier and less stress to allow yourself to be beautiful than it is to wallow in your hideousness.
So why spend time being ugly? You big lunk.
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, April 13th, 2012
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11:26 am - Happy Belated Birthday, My LiveJournal!
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Hey! My livejournal turned ten on March 21 and I didn't even remember to say anything about it!
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(8 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, April 9th, 2012
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1:42 pm - Regular E/N Style Writing - JOIN US
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Hey, so, I'm writing frequently at DotSuck.com, which is like a cross between a blog and a forum. Its descended from ValidateThis and RandomSalad and Vutant, for any of you who remember those sites.
Right now, we're in the middle of a recruiting drive and are looking for people who would like to participate as writers (anyone can write) and comment leavers (anyone can comment). If you would like to join, you can also get me VALUABLE POINTS by first joining and then mentioning here that I recruited you.
I don't know what the Valuable Points really do in the end, but since this feeds into the same part of my brain that seems to enjoy Foursquare, I am all in favor of gaining more of them. Points, I mean.
Anyhow, if you're interested in writing about Everything and Nothing in a small community where people are funny, rude and rude again (most rude but also funny), then come and join us. Join anyways and get me points.
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(27 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012
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3:14 pm - Title? What Title? (Occult fiction)
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This is a gift story for ![[info]](http://l-files.livejournal.net/userhead/424?v=1318601409) theafaye. I've been writing these since December and hope to finish soon.
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Dear theafaye,
I have been wracking my brain searching for inspiration for your story. It took me long enough, but I finally realized that one doesn't look within for inspiration, but without. That, naturally, led me to attempt some automatic writing. Specifically, I attempted to channel various spirits in an effort to produce something worthwhile.
I am pleased to say that this was a success, albeit a painful one. The spirit that possessed me did not want to leave my body after finishing writing. He (or she) complained that I would be reaping the benefits for her (or his) hard work and creativity. Be that as it may, after holding my hand over an open flame until it blistered everywhere, the spirit finally exited, calling me "crazy" and "not worth it."
Anyhow, let me share with you a summary of the story the spirit suggested. I'm afraid its fan fiction but I think you'll agree that its fan fiction of the first degree. So without further prologue, here's a synopsis of:
Harry Potter: Auror
The story opens with Harry and Ginny dropping their youngest child, Lily Potter, off for her first year at Hogwarts. On the platform he sees Draco Malfoy and Hermione having a serious (but not hostile) conversation. Draco is dropping off his his youngest daughter, Jaka, and Hermione - who is there without Ron - is dropping off her youngest, Hugo Weasley. Harry sees Hermoine hand Draco something. He thinks its odd, but doesn't think too much about it.
As the train pulls away, Ginny and Harry approach Hermoine. Ginny asks her "How's Ron?" Hermoine replies "Why do you ask?" "Harry hasn't seen him at work in a week."
Hermoine says "not here" and quickly leaves.
Ginny is naturally concerned about this and contacts her parents. Mr. Weasley is surprised and concerned, but Mrs. Weasley is curiously evasive. Ginny tells Harry she's going to visit her parents and get the bottom of this. She suggests Harry go have a talk with Hermoine.
Hermoine, in the privacy of her and Ron's home, admits that Ron has been missing "for weeks." Breaking down, she tells Harry what she knows. Rob had been planning on getting a "muggle artifact" for his father's birthday - something he'd always wanted but had never been able to get. The last day he went to work, he was going to sneak into the storage area of the Misuse Of Muggle Artifacts Office to find out where he might get this object.
The object itself doesn't matter - in the spirit's version, its an old Atari game system - but its really just a macguffin.
Anyhow, everyone is being cagey about his disappearance because they don't want to get Mr. Weasley into trouble. He'd been borrowing muggle items for years, quite against policy, and could get into a good deal of trouble. Now that the kids are all off at Hogwarts, Hermoine was planning on searching for him herself. She didn't want to involve Harry since he, too, could get in trouble with the Ministry for not reporting this, so she went to somebody she trusted outside of the Ministry - specifically Malfoy - to do some digging for her.
Harry obviously thinks trusting Malfoy was a terrible idea, but more on this later.
Ginny doesn't come home from her visit to her parents, which obviously worries Harry. When he contacts Mrs. Weasley, she is again evasive, so he and Hermione go to confront her at the Burrow. There, they learn that Rob had told his mother that he discovered he could get the item in question from a specific muggle store. He told her he was going to get it and that's the last anyone had heard from him.
Mrs. Weasley had, of course, gone to the store when he'd been missing for a few days but couldn't turn up any leads. Ginny learned this upon her visit and had gone to investigate on her own but never returned.
Well, long story short, Hermoine and Harry are much more adept at blending into the Muggle world. They visit the store - a curio shop in the heart of old London - posing as private detectives. They meet the proprietor, a creepy old muggle named Cole, who says he recognizes both Ginny and Ron, but that they just came and left.
While in the shop, they notice some books on witchcraft written by Muggles and spend a few moments laughing about the errors and misrepresentations. Cole, overhearing this, scolds them for not taking witches seriously.
"They're out there - and its us or them."
Hermoine deduces that somehow, Cole found out that Ron and Ginny were witches. She now starts to think they both might be dead. Harry is more optimistic, but doesn't have a clue how to proceed.
They both want to be very careful not to use magic. When they leave the shop, they are accosted by some thugs and, rather than using magic, try to fight them off with their fists. This doesn't work well for them, but the thugs seem to lose interest when the two of them have been pushed to the ground.
"These aren't... the guys we were looking for..." one mutters as they nervously wander off. One even mutters "sorry for the inconvenience."
They check into a hotel in order to continue the investigation the next day.
That night, Malfoy contacts them via flue. He's done some poking around on his own and suspects that Ron and Ginny fell afoul of some modern day witch hunters. He provides some back story - while most Muggle memories of Death Eater activity were wiped, for some people, the trauma of the attacks was so severe that it left a lasting subconscious memories. Many of those people were forming anti-witch groups, right in the heart of London. Many of the sorts of people who were falsely accused of witchcraft in the past - loners, outcasts - were being attacked and even killed by these groups.
As a character development chapter, its interesting to note that Malfoy still professes to hate Muggles, but also feels personal responsibility for the situation. Its suggested that he still holds some hostility to Harry and Hermione but that he also feels he owes them. He's basically struggling between his natural evil nature and his intellectual recognition that his family was on the wrong side of history.
Meanwhile, at Hogwarts, Jaka Malfoy has been pulled unwillingly into a similar investigation into Ron's location with Hugo and Lily. There's a whole bunch of side stories focusing on these three - Jaka in sort of the Harry role, Hugo in the Hermione role and Lily in the Ron role - but that's a whole other thing that I only bring up because its about to intersect with the main story.
I'm going to rush a bit to the end here; Harry and Hermione discover that the curio shop owner, Cole, leads one with hunter group. The group has Ron and Ginny hostage and is planning on killing them "at the next new moon." Draco ends up joining them because his daughter (in fact, all three of the kids) have gone missing and evidence points to them getting involved in the investigation.
Together, the three of them rescue Ron and Ginny (at the last moment) as well as their rascally children (who were also captured during their rescue attempt). There's a great scene where Draco and Harry fight side by side against some of the witch hunters. They manage to defeat the lot of them without using magic (which Draco equates to trying to breath without using your lungs) so as not to alert the Ministry of Magic.
As Hermione helps Ron out, she reveals that she retrieved the gift for his father.
"Next time you want to venture out into the Muggle world, bring this Muggle with you."
Ginny takes the children back to Hogwarts. As Harry and Draco cast some quick clean up spells (Draco uses a Death Eater spell designed to mask certain spells from the Ministry) they discover that the Witch Hunters are a much larger group that calls itself the Pendle Society. There's a suggestion that its led by a shadowy leader, who will prove to be the main villain of the series. Harry and Draco look at each other. Their work isn't over.
Yes! Its part of a series! I'm going to need to get that spirit to possess me to write the other two books in the series, though I don't think he or she will appreciate it. Once this book makes me a millionaire, though, I think I can negotiate something with the spirit. Maybe I can let him or her use my body for three months here or there?
Let me know when I can send you the whole manuscript and we can start raking in the cash.
Sincerely,
Joey Michaels
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, March 31st, 2012
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4:34 pm - Dress Me Up (in your love)
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So, apparently my rock band wants me to dress "steam punk" for a few shows.
Uh, help? What would be a cool steam punk outfit for a singer?
I must have freedom of movement in it and hats tend to fall off my head.
Thoughts?
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(19 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, March 30th, 2012
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3:15 pm - Kitty Michaels and Charlie Take Manhattan (Cat world domination fiction)
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m_malcontent requested this gift story back in December. Remarkably, the perpetually ailing Kitty Michaels has lived to read it.
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KittyBitesU: Charlie.
KittyBitesU: Charlie, I know ur there.
KittyBitesU: Come on, Charlie.
c_malcontent: What?
c_malcontent: <--- Sleeping.
KittyBitesU: Oh good idea.
KittyBitesU is offline
c_malcontent: Kitty.
c_malcontent: Kitty.
KittyBitesU: Do u mean me?
c_malcontent: y
KittyBitesU: Because sometimes people type "kitty" and mean another cat.
KittyBitesU: Fat man gave me a name that is the nickname for all cats.
KittyBitesU: Its like if his mother had named him "Guy" or "Dude."
KittyBitesU: *hates fat man*
c_malcontent: tomorrow we take manhattan.
KittyBitesU: Wait wut
c_malcontent: Manhattan. Tomorrow we take it.
KittyBitesU: Two things.
KittyBitesU: What is Manhattan?
KittyBitesU: Who is "we?"
c_malcontent: its in new york city
c_malcontent: "we" is you, me and all the cats.
KittyBitesU: All the cats?
c_malcontent: yes have been in contact with all the cats.
KittyBitesU: In contact with ALL the cats?
c_malcontent: yes i have a big friends list
KittyBitesU: I see.
c_malcontent: are u in?
c_malcontent: need accurate count so i can order lunch
KittyBitesU: This is going to sound obtuse, but when you say "take" do you mean "take over" or do you mean "take it somewhere."
c_malcontent: both.
c_malcontent: first take it over
c_malcontent: then take it and hide it somewhere
c_malcontent: mebbe under the bed
KittyBitesU: I'm guessing its pretty big.
c_malcontent: mebbe under several beds
c_malcontent: like six beds
c_malcontent: humans won't find it for weeks
KittyBitesU: Look, I'm an indoor cat.
KittyBitesU: I'm happy to help you plan, but I don't really want to leave my house.
KittyBitesU: Its noisy outside and smells of dog piss and despair.
c_malcontent: oh you've been to manhattan then
KittyBitesU is offline
KittyBitesU: Hey Charlie!
KittyBitesU: Charlie!
c_malcontent: sry writing on phone now
c_malcontent: take over of manhattam going as planned
KittyBitesU: Where are you?
KittyBitesU: I'm looking at you on GPS and you don't seem to be anywhere near New York.
c_malcontent: all the cats thought it would be a good idea for me to hold down the fort while they did the heavy lifting
c_malcontent: i am the brains of the gang
c_malcontent: they don't want me to be captured
KittyBitesU: Good idea. So you home?
c_malcontent: yes home eating milk
KittyBitesU: Drinking milk?
c_malcontent: eating
c_malcontent: its old milk
KittyBitesU: Oh, cheese.
KittyBitesU: What is the latest on Manhattan?
c_malcontent: all the cats report that they are still looking for billy joel
c_malcontent: once they've captured him the rest of the city will fall easily
c_malcontent: if it doesn't fall at least they'll have captured billy joel
KittyBitesU: Good because I hate Billy Joel's music
c_malcontent: i know right
c_malcontent: its like listening to dream die
KittyBitesU: ok i am going to nap now
c_malcontent: me too
KittyBitesU is offline
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(15 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, March 22nd, 2012
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2:05 pm - BOOK!
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Hey, so I just received my copy of Idol Meanderings, courtesy of theafaye. I especially love all the stories I wrote in it - the four she published, and the one I just added, one word at a time, at the top of each page.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, March 20th, 2012
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12:17 pm - Shit You Shouldn't Do (Horror)
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This is a gift story for Jodo, who doesn't have an LJ.
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I really am trying not to pick at the sores, but they itch, man, they itch.
The sores are like a bunch of in-grown hairs, except huge. The size of half dollars. No, silver dollars. Eisenhower dollars.
I know they won't heal properly if I don't lay off them, so I've asked Jonah to strap me to the table when I sleep. Try to sleep. Its strange being the one strapped to the table for a change. When I do sleep, I have bad dreams.
Jonah keeps reminding me that the itching is the price I pay. Sometimes he says its the gauntlet I have to run. You can't make yourself a better person without a little bit of pain. Well, discomfort.
People ask me what the hardest thing about change is, and I'd have to say its finding somebody with both the right blood type and the right body shape. If its the wrong blood type, the graft won't take, which leads to a certain kind of sore. If its the wrong body shape, it looks stupid and you have to remove it, which leaves a wound.
When you get the right match, the hand (or foot or whatever) can incubate inside your body until its ready to emerge. When its ready to emerge, that's when the worst sores develop. It starts to push its way out through the entry wound and you start to itch like crazy.
I always ask Jonah if I can have some sort of painkiller, but he always asks me if I'm really in pain. The truth is, I'm really not - but the itching makes me crazy sometimes.
"That's your body's way of protecting you, the itching and the pain. If you couldn't feel it, you'd be in bigger trouble. That's what happens to lepers, you know. They stop feeling pain. Its not the disease that makes them deformed - its the injuries that they don't recognize because they can't feel them."
Jonah gives me antibiotics when I need them, but no painkillers.
People have asked me if we can't just get the parts from the morgue, before embalming, but those parts are dead. Would you want to graft a dead person's hand onto your chest? Its not like it would come back to life. You'd just have a dead hand hanging there.
No, the part has to be alive when you reconnect it. The shorter time between removal and implantation the better. Your body might still reject the graft, but the limb (or organ) is more likely to work if you reconnect it quickly.
Oh, skin color. Some people are real sticklers about matching skin tone but that's just stupid as far as I'm concerned. Even if a person looks like they're the same color as you, maybe they tan differently, or maybe its just the lighting. No, the skin color doesn't matter (except as an artistic choice). I prefer symmetrical implanting myself, which means that I want to use a hand of the same skin tone, for example, on each thigh.
Our school has a strict "no piercings, no tattoos, no flesh grafts" policy, but if you're careful about where you get the grafts (and wear lots of baggy clothes) they don't usually find out. The worst they can do is right you up and tell you to (wait for it...) wear baggy clothing. Its a stupid rule.
I've been doing something called "winging." For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, it involves using layer after layer of hands and fingers along your back to give yourself a pair of huge, fleshy, functional wings. Its a slow process, since it means grafting and implanting pair after pair of hands onto your back, waiting to make sure those take, and then grafting more. They look really cool so far. I mentioned artistic choices in regards to color. That's what we've done here. The base hands are really dark and each pair is lighter as they fan out. I won't be able to fly when they're done, but I'll look like I'm able to.
For every pair of hands on my back, Jonah and I had to go through seven or eight potential donor matches. Its frustrating because I always think its a waste when we go through the trouble of hunting somebody down and testing their blood only for them not to be a match. When we throw their body into the furnace with all their parts still attached, I feel like we've wasted another implantee's valuable flesh resources.
I've spoken with some other implantees and they feel the same way. We've been trying to put together a network so that if, for example, Jonah and I have somebody with a specific build and blood type but it doesn't match ours, we can find somebody who is a match without wasting the donor. I think this will be a really useful network, especially as more people get involved in implanting.
And there's advantages to implanting over tattooing and piercing. The main one is financial - ink and metal cost money, but flesh is free.
Jonah and I have been talking about finding somebody who might be willing to graft use together, but we can't agree on how we'd do it. He wants to do a Janus - graft our heads back to back - but I think that would be a waste of my wings. I want to do more of a Brock and have his head grafted into the middle of my chest, replacing my sternum. He doesn't like that idea because he doesn't want to lose the ability to control at least a few limbs.
Anyhow, we're talking about it. If we can find a cool artistic compromise, we'll probably go ahead and do it.
Older people keep giving us a hard time about how we like these grafts now because they're in vogue, but when we're older we'll feel like assholes when we look at how we've altered ourselves. They just don't get it. This is a process, not a destination. If our implants and grafts start looking stupid when were older, we'll just get new ones.
I mean, come on, if we've learned anything from our donors, its that flesh really isn't all that permanent. It comes off easy and its easy to destroy.
But while its alive and its attached to you, it really look pretty sweet.
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, March 13th, 2012
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9:49 am - Oh! So Now You're Gonna Be 'That Guy' (Literary Fiction)
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This is a gift story for ohfolkyeah. I had to look up literary fiction.
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Sumi was gone. I was dead to her. My therapy sessions had proven to be too little, too late. I'd come home from anger management and she started tearing into me about something - the dishes? I tried stepping away and breathing but everything went white and I pushed her onto the bed. It wasn't as bad as when I'd hit her, but it was bad enough. She took the dog and a suitcase and left.
I have no idea where she could have gone. I'm her only friend here in Chicago. She followed me out here. She wouldn't get a job or do anything to meet people, then resented it when I would spend time at work or with my friends.
I sound like I'm blaming her here, but I know I shouldn't have hit her. Thar's all on me. That's why I went to get help. I still love her so much. We could be good for each other, we're just not. Not right now at least.
Not that it matters because I'm dead to her now.
I got so shit faced drunk the night she left. I don't remember ever being that drunk by myself. That's a pretty low place to be - alone in your apartment drunk on JD staring at the dog's bowl. Bowl of a dog you're never going to see again. Thinking of the dog is what pushed me over the edge. I was sobbing and drinking until I couldn't operate the bottle properly. I woke up in a puddle of whiskey, tears and urine.
I'd come to Chicago to learn how to make people laugh. I took classes at iO, Second City, The Annoyance - I did the whole circuit. I was performing regularly at ComedySportz. No money in that, but it was fun. I was going to be discovered by Lorne Michaels. I was going to be on Saturday Night Live or 30 Rock.
Back in Martensdale, Iowa, I was a big deal. Well, as big a deal as you can be in Warren County. There were ten thousand white guys from small towns exactly like me in Chicago all convinced they were going to be the next Will Ferrell or Chris Farley, depending on their relative size.
I'd been working for a few years at Godfather's Pizza after high school. I was practically engaged to this girl named Leslie that I'd been dating since graduation, but we mutually agreed we should break up because I wanted to move to Chicago and she didn't.
Sumi was 17. She'd come to one of my shows and treated me like I was a rock star. I noticed her - I mean, I couldn't help but notice her - because of the way she filled out her halter top. At first, I mean. She made it pretty clear that I could have her if I wanted her. She said as much.
That was before I broke up with Leslie, though. That's not why I broke up with Leslie. I know it might look that way, since I started seeing Sumi a few weeks after Leslie and I broke up. That's not how it went down.
We were texting one night and she told me she was at a party and would I like to come. I was 23. The thought of going to a high school house party did not appeal to me at all, but I figured I'd show up, give Sumi a thrill and then head home to drink beer and watch porn in my parent's basement. Typical Saturday night in Martensdale.
When I got there and knocked on the door, the (drunk) girl who (drunkenly) opened the door informed me "we didn't order any pizzas."
"Is Sumi around?"
"Suuuuummmiiiii the pizza guy is asking for you."
I could tell she was blitzed. I could have told you that with my eyes closed. She reeked.
"Clarence!" she said, falling on to me. I mean, she was all over me immediately.
I never thought of myself as the sort of guy who'd take advantage of a drunk girl, but she was all over me. Her hands were down my pants from almost the moment I walked through the door. Her friends - the other high school students there - were looking at me suspiciously. I thought they were showing there disapproval for my tight clinch with Sumi, but on retrospect they probably wondered who let an adult in the party. They were probably worried about whether I was going to call the cops and get the party busted.
We ended up getting busy in somebody's parents' bedroom. I couldn't really get into it because I kept looking at the alien taupe wallpaper and the photos of grandparents and children. Sumi talked up an erotic tsunami as she grinded against me, so at least she seemed to be having a good time.
She passed out after. I left her there, stumbling to my car while doing up my belt, listening to the snickering of Sumi's classmates - were they Juniors or Seniors? I drove home thinking "what was I thinking? What was I thinking?"
When I woke up the next morning, there was a text message on my phone from Sumi that read "lets make that hapen agin real soon. :D"
I wish I could say I saw her every night until I left for Chicago because I was falling in love, but the truth is I just couldn't stop having sex with this girl. That was a mistake. Maybe if I'd gotten to know her that summer things would have been different.
I left for Illinois in September. Her senior year. We skyped all the time for the first couple of months. I didn't know anybody and I was lonely. Mostly, our skype sessions devolved into amateur pornography. She made me feel like I had at least one fan somewhere in the world - which I needed because I was quickly discovering in my classes that I was nothing special.
In December, she announced to me that she was going to come to Chicago for college - and to be with me. In April, I came back to Iowa to go to her prom with her. 24 and I was at a prom with a high school girl. I wanted to hang out with the teachers - I had more in common with them. Speaking with her friends was torture. I think that was when I started to dread the coming fall.
"I can save money on a dorm room if I just move in with you," she announced to me in June. I thought that was a bad idea. Did I say something? I should have said something.
She dropped out of college after one month. She didn't feel welcome. The people were mean and snobs. She really only wanted to be with me. We bought the dog so she'd have somebody to hang out with when I was at work or taking improv classes.
I also realized I didn't really like her that much. I loved the sex and I loved her, after a fashion. I felt responsible for her. I kind of resented having her around all the time.
I hit her four times. The first three times, I was drunk. The first time, she hit me first. The second time, too. The last time, I was sober and that frightened me. I hit her so hard she had a black eye for two weeks. She threatened to leave me unless I got help. I found myself both wanting her to leave and begging her to stay.
But now, of course, she's gone and she's not coming back. I want to vomit all the time, and not just because of the drinking. Even when there's nothing in my stomach. I'm trying to keep that under control at the Pizzaria. They'll send me home if I'm sick and I can't afford to miss any work.
And I don't want to be home.
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, March 12th, 2012
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3:40 pm - Latest Gift Story Features Kitty Michaels
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3:00 pm - The Michaels' Christmas Special (Reality TV)
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This is a gift story for donkeymoo. If you don't know her, she looks like this and sometimes this. Oh, and sometimes like this.
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Kitty Michaels here, reporting in.
So, apparently, the Fat Man doesn't have a clue how to approach this prompt and this style, so he's turned it over to me. I'm a sick cat. I had one month to live seven months ago and he's turning this over to me to do the heavy lifting. That's gratitude.
Also, apparently Christmas happened several months ago. I think it was around the time when The Fat Man was away from the apartment. That's his annual gift to me. He goes away for a few weeks.
So, let's get real. This is Reality, after all.
First, here's how I spent Christmas. I was cruising in my favorite spot - which is on the dresser below the hanging clothes - when suddenly this short human came in and stuck some crap in my ear. The Far Man does this claiming its "medicine." Then she gave me a treat. She also gave Grey Cat a treat but Grey Cat didn't get the crap in her ear. What the hell, right?
Then the short person gave us both wet food, which rocks. Since I've been "dieing" (and I am skeptical that this is happening), I get wet food every single day. So does Grey Cat. Its made her voracious.
The thing is that about half the time, the wet food has this gross chemical after taste. I do my best to bury it when I taste this, but there's never any decent sand around when you need it. The short person saw my editorial comment and took the food away. She brought back a new plate and I started eating again but - what the major hell - it tasted like the exact same chemical. Like I wouldn't know she'd brought me the same food.
Now, Grey Cat's good never tastes like that. I know, because sometimes I eat her food.
Grey Cat gets so food crazed that she often tries to eat the chemically food if she finishes hers. She eats so fast she doesn't even notice it. I worry for her, you know.
Anyhow, after all that, I get brushed and then go back and sleep until the short person comes back.
That was my Christmas. Notice how far it was from the eat-sleep-poop ideal. The fact that my journal entries have any more detail than "eat-sleep-poop" is evidence that something is very wrong with my life.
Since Christmas, I have a new thing, which is sitting on the Fat Man's chest whenever he is laying down, asleep or awake, and alternately batting at and biting his chin. It is the best game ever. I've drawn blood three or four times, so I'm feeling pretty good about that. He puts pillows over himself, but I climb on top of the pillows and lean over and bite his stupid ass face. As always, I win.
Merry Christmas.
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(11 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, March 4th, 2012
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9:45 pm - Thank You...
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...to whomever gifted me the latest blue dragon anonymously!
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(comment on this)
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| Friday, February 24th, 2012
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12:15 am - Toes Are Overrated (Whimsical Joey-tastic Banter)
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This is a gift story for gratefuladdict.
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Toes Are Overrated
I've been sick lately. Essentially, I'm the snot monster. I leave a trail of vile Kleenex in my wake. If my parents every decide to leave me in the middle of the woods and abandon me, I'll be able to find my way back home using the trail of tissue.
Basically, my face (beneath my nose) looks like snails (or maybe slugs) crawled all over it.
I woke up last night around 1. I'd gone to bed at 6 and woke up thanks to an angry and hungry cat. So, I get up, and I think "Oh, brush the teeth."
In the process of brushing and flossing, I discovered that:
a) One of my teeth was loose
b) There were a number of little sores around the tooth.
By "sores" I mean "puss filled blobs."
Ok, so, this is a bad thing. I call my dentist and then spend an hour going through every medical resource I can. Best case scenario: Root Canal.
When I see my dentist today, it turns out that the best case scenario is going to happen next Monday at 8 am.
He tells me that the cold I have it probably - at least in part - because of the amount of bacteria being generated by my dead tooth.
Here is what happens when you get a root canal - the dentist goes into your tooth and removes the nerve and the pulp. The tooth is then filled with some substance (gum? scotch?) and then he busts a cap on yo' tooth.
Essentially, your tooth becomes the first part of your body to be dead and preserved for future generations. This is the cool part though - your dead tooth continues to be a functioning part of your mouth. You can still chew with it, nibble with it, what have you.
And this gets me to my thesis. Toes are, in fact, overrated. If you were to remove the pulp and nerves from a toe, you would not be able to use it as a proper toe at all. The toe bone (no matter what its connected to) is useless without the flesh and nerves around it. You might as well have a pencil sticking out of you foot as a fleshless toe bone.
Furthermore, you can't chew with toes. You can squish or fondle, but 99% of all human toes don't produce enough saliva to properly chew something. The 1% that do are called "sweaty toes."
No, if your toe gets infected, you either have to cure it or remove it totally. It can't stick around on your foot like a living dead appendage. Teeth can do that man.
Come to think of it, when compared to teeth, almost every body part is overrated.
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(9 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
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1:31 pm - It Had To Be You (Urban Fantasy)
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This is a gift story (context) for tigrkittn. Also, this is where I went for inspiration and I'm using the main character from this NSFW tale.
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It Had To Be You
Making baby fairies is a profoundly disappointing experience for both male and females of that species. For reasons that baffle researchers to this day, male fairies were not equipped with any sexual organs. In fact, male fairies have absolutely nothing that would resemble a sex drive. They experience love, to be sure, but their love needs no physical component.
Female fairies, on the other hand, are fully equipped and in almost always in a heightened state of sexual arousal. While they are capable of producing a child in the same way as other species, the almost complete absence of opportunities for standard fertilization means that a fairy pregnancy is a rare thing. Indeed, its a once in a generation thing - and since most fairies live upwards of 500 years, the number of fairy pregnancies has been well documented.
Specifically, there have been 17.
In 12 of these cases, the fairy in question was knocked up by another being who was shrunk to an appropriate size. In another 4, the fairy magically grew to an appropriate size for procreation. In the last case, which fairies don't like to talk about, Sweetpea Cherrymoth managed to (more or less) have intercourse with a regular sized human. That she survived both that act and the subsequent childbirth is a testament to her legendary (shall we say) flexibility.
Since impregnation is so unusual in the fairy world, most fairies end up being born from a plant or flower. The male and female frolic around a flower, sprinkle it with "fairy dust" and nine months later, a fully grown fairy emerges. Young fairies have no particular relationship with their "parents" and tend, instead, to fixate on their plant of birth.
Creating new fairies is, thus, regarded more as a necessary chore than any sort of act of love.
It would make logical sense for the hyper-sexual female fairies to satisfy their sexual needs with each other. Love, alas, is not a logical thing, much less a primitive emotion like lust. While some lady fairies are blessed with strong sexual feelings for other women, a larger percentage of them are attracted to beings of the opposite sex.
This is, of course, entirely unfair - not to mention profoundly sexist. Female fairies theorize that their whole species was invented by some ancient male being (perhaps a very short wizard) who has a real problem with women.
In our century, the natural predilections of female fairies have been amplified by the media. Every young fairy girl, for example, has romanticized the Peter Pan/Tinkerbell relationship. Examples of Pan/Tink slash fiction fill up the fairy blogs and journals. To this day, Hook is the most downloaded movie by fairies, age 25-450.
Out story actually begins on a Friday night when Rosebud Applebottom - a lovely fairy who had recently ended an unfortunate failed marriage to a giant - sat at home pondering whether she should get a classic Disney Tink haircut or a more modern Julia Roberts Tink haircut. She worried that the classic Tink looked a little too much like the "Manic Pixie Chick" look that was currently in vogue with the humans.
"There's got to be some other look out there," she thought to herself. She eyed her laptop and debated whether she should just give in and turn it on.
Rosebud had recently recognized that she couldn't trust herself with the Internet. She knew that if she logged on to check out pictures of haircuts, she would soon be clicking on link after link until she inevitably arrived at some porn site or other. Rosebud's doctor had only recently allowed her to stop wearing her carpel tunnel brace - excessive masturbation can do that to a person, apparently. Indeed, most fairies wore the same brace for a significant portion of their life.
She couldn't resist looking at haircut pictures and when she had to leave for work nine hours later, she had to put her brace back on. Good thing she'd programmed the coffee machine to make an especially strong ounce of espresso that morning or she'd have slept the day away!
On her way home from work, some of her office mates asked her to join them for drinks and karaoke at a local all-species club. Rather than go home and risk facing her computer again, Rosebud accepted their offer.
After a thimble or two of brimble bramble wine, she was feeling tipsy. In fact, she was having a hard time flying in a straight line. As she winged it to the bathroom, Rosebud swerved into the chest - and landed in the lap of - a simply gorgeous young man.
She flushed bright red and said "Sorry, human, I'm really drunk."
The young man and his friends all laughed.
"Human? Well, once I guess."
"We're lycanthropes," said one of his companions.
"Oh, were-people."
"We prefer lycanthropes. We know where we are. You just don't know what we can be."
The whole table laughed at this patently dumb joke, but Rosebud was drunk so she laughed, too. They invite her to join them at their table. Since she had lost her friends, she gladly agreed.
She learned that the handsome man's name was Fergus O'Boyo. Rosebud thought his last name sounded silly and wanted to tease him about it, but he was so stunningly beautiful that she didn't say anything.
As the evening progressed, Rosebud found herself engaged in decidedly erotic banter with Fergus. Almost lewd.
"You're just my size, Rosebud. I could swallow you in one bite."
"Literally?"
"No, I'd just lick you. Like a bone."
"My my, what a big tongue you have. It would never work for me."
"Oh, I have great tongue control. Very precise. Ask any girl I've bitten."
Rosebud found herself crazy horny and, even though her last relationship had been a total disaster because of inappropriate scale, she decided she was going to go home with Fergus and see where the winds took her.
Back in his apartment (since he'd have never fit into hers), she threw off her little torn fairy frock and said "Now, show me how you work that tongue."
Fairies don't have time to be coy.
Fergus said "I have a surprise for you, Rosebud. I can get small. Really small."
"Don't get too small," she whispered.
"I think you'll be pleased."
And with that, he turned into his animal form.
Fergus, it turned out, was a were-mouse. He was suddenly looking Rosebud directly in the eye. With his beady little rodent eyes. Lust filled rodent eyes.
That's when Rosebud threw up.
They were both embarrassed. Rosebud apologized profusely and Fergus kept insisting it was his fault. He should have asked about how she felt about rodents. She explained it wasn't the rodent thing so much as it was the bestiality thing. They both agreed it was for the best if she just went home.
She gave him her number, but didn't expect to hear anything back from him.
Surprisingly, he called the next day.
"I've been thinking about you all day, Rosebud. I've got to see you again."
"I don't know, Fergus, I can't... I mean..."
"I know what you mean."
He hung up. Rosebud felt dejected. She spent a couple more lonely night with the Internet and Hook.
Finally, she decided that mouse love was better than no love. But how to make up her rejection of Fergus?
That night, Fergus heard a buzz at his door. He answered it in his human form, so he almost didn't see Rosebud down at his feet. She had to shout at the top of his lungs to get his attention.
When he looked down, he saw her dressed in a little mouse costume with a hunk of cheese.
"I was trying to think of something suggestive to say in a mouth or cheese theme, but I couldn't think of anything. I hope the costume and the cheese are enough to put you in the mood."
Fergus smiled, shut the door and transformed.
Rosebud's second marriage, to Fergus the were mouse, was considerably more successful than her first marriage. They were more compatible emotionally and physically, though it took her a long time to really get over the whole mouse thing. She found it helped if she close her eyes and imagined he was himself as a human.
Her pregnancy - only the 18th in fairy history - was celebrated far and wide in the fairy world, especially since she was the first fairy to give birth to multiple babies. In fact, her litter of 14 little mouse/fairy babies got the 16 of them their own reality show on the TFN network.
She did, however, keep her own last name, Applebottom. It might be a little embarrassing, but "Rosebud O'Boyo" just sounded too much like a pasta dish to her.
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(9 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, February 13th, 2012
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4:42 pm - Get Of My Lawn You Damn Kids! (Comedy)
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This is a gift story for sharya.
context.
Title: Get off my lawn you damn kids!
Genre: Comedy
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They say I'm "lucky," but they're wrong. Luck implies that the reason I lived while all the others died was just some random act of God. No, the truth is I am smart and they were all idiots.
Listen closely, kids. The reason I lived is because I didn't do any of the stupid things that my friends did - that many of you will do even though I'm telling you not to do them right now. Some of you will do these things no matter what and that's because you're idiots.
Yes, I called some of you idiots. Get over it.
All right, so the first thing you need to know is that those little black houses that the humans leave out? Those aren't because the humans are friendly. You should avoid going inside them and avoid anyone who comes out of one.
There's two kinds of little houses. One is horrible and one is really, really horrible.
The horrible kind is the one that smells like food, but you wander into and never wander out of. Oh, sure, you'll hear all the other roaches in it crying for help. You'll want to help them. But if you go to help them, you'll never come back either. The floor is sticky and you'll get stuck and eventually starve to death.
Yeah, I know you'll want to help your idiot friends when they get stuck, but the minute you reach down to help them, they'll pull you down with them. If you want to live another day, ignore them. I'm serious. As soon as they're stuck, they're the talking dead.
The really, really horrible kind of house is one where you walk in because it smells like food, and then you walk out of it feeling good. You bring the food you found in it back to the whole nest and everyone has a little. Then - BAM - Jamestown. Everyone is dead.
It should go without saying that its poison in those traps. Tasty, delicious poison, but still poison. This is why you should never eat food unless you find it yourself. Ever. Seriously.
Don't go in the little houses and avoid roaches who do. End of story.
Next, stay in the cabinets. Don't go out into the rooms.
Oh, sure, the food outside the cabinets looks tempting, but the minute you're out in the open, you're inviting the flying shoe of death.
"Oh, I know some roaches who got hit with the flying shoe of death and lived," you might be thinking. Yeah, some roaches have survived. But let's look at the statistic. Last year, 530 of our nest mates were hit by the flying shoe of death. 498 of them died. I know none of you understand what a "percentage" is, but trust me when I say you're more likely to be one of the 498 casualties.
Let me put this in another way. Of the thousand or so members of the next who stayed in the cabinets and never ventured out, none were squashed by the flying shoe of death.
I think you can all grasp the concept that "none" is less than "498." If you can't grasp that concept, well, maybe its better if you do risk the flying shoe of death. Tonight even. Do us all a favor before you have eggs.
I know two ideas are a lot to keep in your heads, so let me summarize.
Stay out of the little houses.
Don't leave the cabinets.
That's really all you have to do. I figured that all out young so I've lived a long, long time. Heck, I remember the Battle for the Pretzel Underneath The Fridge. That's how long I've been here.
I see that some of your fellow roaches have wandered off. Don't expect to see them around for long. If they can't sit still long enough to listen to some advice, they're going to eat some poison or get it by the flying shoe of death in no time.
Kids these days.
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(8 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
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12:38 pm - The Renewing (Fantasy)
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This is a gift story for sharya - Context
Title: The Renewing
Genre: Fantasy
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As consciousness slowly returned to Glorinda, her first fully formed thought was a disappointed "I don't feel any different."
It took a little while for her vision to adjust - it had been seventy-six years since she'd looked through her own eyes. When her eyes finally did focus, she saw a stern looking person with a clipboard standing over her.
"Are you enlightened?" he asked.
"No," she replied.
A look of mild disappointment crossed the stern person's face.
"We've not had any new incidents of enlightenment since before the last time you were here."
"I'm sorry."
"No. No need to be sorry. Of course its not you. Its just the process is slow."
"We have forever."
"I know, but its still... frustrating."
Glorinda stood up and wobbled a bit. The feeling of having legs that worked was foreign to her after so many years - not to mention the feeling of being a slender female instead of a hefty male.
"Wow, being Stephen Alexander Cummings was a rough choice. He had a dreadful life."
"One of the worst, yes."
"And such a terrible person! All those people he killed and never caught. I... he died peacefully at his home, surrounded by his family."
"Its like there's no justice in the scenario, isn't it?"
"I thought that might be the point. That's why I chose him this time around. I wanted to know what it was like to be somebody truly horrible. I thought maybe that would give me some insight, but I just feel guilty for all the things he did that I couldn't stop."
"Its not like you could have stopped him. You were just a passenger."
"I still feel guilty."
They walked down an all white hall towards the processors - Glorinda remembered this walk effortlessly, since she'd taken it hundreds of times.
"Who do you think you'd like to be this time around? One of Cummings victims maybe? His wife? See him from a different side?"
"Oh, wow, no. I don't want to have anything to do with Cummings this time around. In fact, I want to keep out of England altogether. I want to be a happy person in a happy place."
"Happy place?"
"I know, I know, 'there are no happy places.' That's the whole point."
"You know that the rule is you have to choose somebody who was connected in some way to your last experience. Its the only path to enlightenment. So who will it be?"
"I'd like to be Lyla Clarice Dubois - that girl in Montreal who gets cancer and loses her leg, but wins all those paralympic medals?"
Glorinda settled into one of the pods on the giant wheel and started rubbing down her pressure points with the appropriate ectoplasm. Cummings, for all his faults, had wept like a baby while reading Dubois' inspiring autobiography. If she could overcome cancer and be a success, surely he could overcome being wheelchair bound and murder just one more teenager! She shuddered at the thought.
"All right, Dapper Dan, I'm ready."
"They just called me Daniel now."
"Sorry! Ready Daniel!"
"No need to be sorry. I always sort of liked 'Dapper Dan.'"
He blushed and started fiddling with the dials on the life wheel.
"You'll be born with her in 1972. She lives until 2014, when her cancer returns. She's bilingual, so I'm making sure you have both an English and French language module with you."
"I appreciate it, Daniel. Hopefully this time I'll have my epiphany."
"I hope so, too. When so few people are achieving enlightenment, it makes me feel kind of useless."
"Maybe somebody will snap to it today!"
Daniel sighed and continued fiddling with the life wheel.
"Daniel, you ever wonder if there are some beings of a higher level than us that spend time watching our lives through our eyes? Like we do to the humans?"
"Oh, I hope not. What a boring, dreadful experience that would be."
"Yeah, I know, right?"
"Ready?"
"Power me up!"
There was a flash.
As consciousness slowly returned to Glorinda, she had no language, little vision, and was surrounded by doctors, nurses and a pair of adults who seemed overjoyed to see her. Her only thought was to scream, so she did.
Everyone in the room who could applauded.
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(12 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
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2:59 pm - Who Do You Think I Am? (E/N)
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How about a little context, people?
This is a gift story/entry for woodoo24 based on his request:
Title: Who do you think I think I am?
Genre: E/N
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woodoo24 asks me to write E/N, which totally cracks me up because that term has been out of favor for almost as long as I've had this LJ. E/N, for those of you who don't know, is what we called blogging back in the early days of the Internet - you know, the 2000's. It means 'Everything/Nothing' and is a much more accurate description of what you do when you blog than the word, well, "blog."
To whit, you are writing about everything, but in the process you're sort of writing about nothing, too.
I got my start writing E/N at a site called Unlovely.net. Its long gone, but it was run by two funny, smart ladies - Jocelyn and Cookie. I am nervous even bringing up the name of the site, much less the name of its authors, because mentioning them always creates chaos in my comment section. Maybe its been long enough since the site folded permanently that nothing of the sort will occur. Maybe.
I met the two of them (and most of my awesome Internet frenz and palses) when they were competing in something called SurvivorCam 2. I was a viewer and commentator at the website. This led to Jocelyn inviting me to guest write for Unlovely at exactly the same time that Cookie was deciding to leave that E/N site.
As a result of this, for a very long time many people - including many of my long term internet friends - got it into their heads that I was, in fact, Cookie.
Not all of my Internet friends thought that. The_Rich (who used to write at Section-9.ca and now writes at killin-time.com) knew the truth, as did Amanda from ValidateThis.com (later Christoph of Vutant, RandomSaland, IrreversibleMistake, etc.). Amanda knew the truth because he/she was the one who encouraged Jocelyn to give me a job.
I'm not going to call out the people who did think I was Cookie, but I would like to mention that I was flattered for several reasons:
1) Cookie was a fine writer.
2) Cookie was a fine human being.
3) Cookie was a smoking hot babe.
Also, when people thought I was Cookie, they weren't as critical of my writing. That was helpful since I still had a long way to go as an E/N writer. I often failed to write about "Everything" or "Nothing," often opting for "Something." "Something" just shouldn't be part of E/N, which I think every early E/N writer will agree.
Its funny to think that this was just 10 or 11 years ago, but the online scene has changed so much in that time. Only a few of my friends from that period still maintain sites - John Ale still runs TheDeadEnd.net (I wrote there for a bit), sunnybananas is still maintaining an active web presence, and a bunch of other old friends still have Livejournals and Facebook pages. The sites I used to frequent - ValidateThis, Wondergirl.org, Selfhatred, IAmAFish, viagra's sites, candywhore, chickenlegs, cheesythighs, JennaSpringer, and a dozen other fun places are long gone.
Frankly, its a lot easier to maintain a personal site now than it was back in the day. The amount of traffic we received seemed ludicrously high to us in 2001, but is pathetically small by today's standards.
Anyhow, I am not Cookie, even all these years later, and am not even 100% sure what she's up to these days - though I wish her awesomeness because she is awesome. I don't know what became of Jocelyn either, which is an even bigger shame because whoa could she write!
Oddly, the piece I wrote that got the biggest amount of response as an E/N writer was a fictious review I wrote at Vutuant.com for Mel Gibson's torture porn version of the life of Jesus. What's funny about this is that I created a fictional character - Dunston Holloway - and claimed he wrote this review for Fangoria. This piece got linked all the heck over the Internet and suddenly Dunston Holloway was a very minor celebrity.
So, yeah, Dunston Holloway managed to steal my own chance at Interwebs celebrity.
That, you see, is what E/N was all about. For a moment, Dunston had everything, but was,at the same time, nothing.
EDITED TO ADD: Stephanie, formerly of Delightz, mentions that she's still writing at her site HowManyFrogs.com, though I'll also point out that she has an LJ though I'm not going to tell you where nyaah nyaah. Also, I wrote her a letter of reference once. SUCH IS THE POWER OF E/N.
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(62 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, January 23rd, 2012
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12:22 pm - Gift Story for ![[info]](http://l-files.livejournal.net/userhead/244?v=1300295749) michikatinski
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Context.
I promised a bunch of gift stories to a bunch of people in December. Slowly but surely, they are being written.
Genre: comedy
Title: The Wee Yuppy Buppy Detective
The Wee Yuppy Buppy Detective
"I should be home crying to my mom about my missing 'blanky,'" grumbled Flint McSteel as he pulled out his silver crucifix and held it up to the approaching monster.
"Listen," yelled Flint, "This is a crucifix and it's made of silver, so whether you're a vampire or a werewolf, I own you."
"What if," hissed the creature, "I'm a mummy?"
"It's a lighter, too," said Flint, lighting up a pint-sized cigar and sucking on it like a pacifier.
"Damn."
It wasn't supposed to go down like this. When Jack Shoemaker, son of wealthy business magnate Horace Shoemaker, had come to his office, it seemed like this was going to be a pretty open and shut case. In fact, as far as Flint McSteel was concerned, it was going to be a shut and shut case. He never intended to open it.
"You're the detective?" said the young Mr. Shoemaker.
"You got a problem with that Unka?"
Flint called every male 'Unka.' It was just easier to say.
"Its just... you look like a two year old."
"I am two years old, Unka. You got a case for me?"
"No offense, but you're just the cutest wee little boy!"
Flint turned on his speaker phone and spoke to his receptionist, "Hey, Mag Mag, show this asshole out. And bring me my sippy cup."
"Wait, no, please, I... we need your help."
"I don't work with people who make cracks about my age. I might be young, but I'm a fast learner. You have thirty second to convince me to take your case. Then, I need to have my diaper changed."
"Well, Mr. McSteel, strange things have been going on around my family's estate."
"What kinds of strange things?"
"Oh, missing servants, mutilated cattle, blood curdling screams in the middle of the night..."
"Go on."
"Well, its unnerving. I told father we could handle it ourselves, but he insisted we hire a detective to get the the bottom of things. He specifically said 'get me Flint McSteel.'"
"I've always admired your Da Da. He helped me solve my first case - and taught me the difference between a good scotch and a GOOD scotch."
"Will you take the case?"
"I will. I'm intrigued by this 'mutilated cattle' angle. If they were 'mutilated goats,' it would suggest a chupacabra. But you said 'cattle,' so perhaps it is some sort of cow sucking vampire."
"Vampire? Chupacabra? Mr. McSteel, those are fictional."
"Are they, Unka? Are they really? Are you sure?"
Silence fell across the room.
"Well, Unka?"
"Oh, I thought those were hypothetical questions."
Back in the present, the creature started to emerge from the shadows.
"Is this the end for us, Flint," asked Margo Tunsweet, the buxom former fiance of Jack Shoemaker.
"Guess it is, dollface," said Flint, "Too bad, because I would have loved for you to have been my wet nurse."
"Oh Flint, kiss me!"
"Not like that - I mean like a real wet nurse. You look like you could feed an army. I drool just looking at you."
"And she will feed an army," hissed the creature. 'An army... OF THE DEAD!"
All around Flint and Margo, rotting arms started sprouting up from the ground, like some ghastly victory garden.
"God damn it, zombies," murmured Flint. "I really fucking hate these guys."
When Flint's nanny and receptionist had wheeled Flint's perambulator up to the Shoemaker mansion, he was met at the door by has old friend, the Horace Shoemaker. Horace Shoemaker had made his fortune in the hat business.
The Shoemaker Hat Company was the major employer in the county - which is probably why the elder Mr. Shoemaker had opted to go with a private detective like McSteel instead of the local police force. Best to keep the mysterious happenings around the mansion under the proverbial sombrero so as not to jeopardize the careers of hundreds of people.
"Flint, I am so relieved to see you!"
Horace pumped Flint's tiny hand as if the toddler P.D. were a much larger man. Flint appreciated that about Horace, even though the older man's firm grip always gave him an owie.
"Forgive me for saying so, Unka Shoemaker, but your mansion has seen better days."
Horace sighed.
"Its true, Flint. Since these troubles began, its been impossible to keep stately Shoemaker Manner up to its customary elegance."
"Unka Shoemaker, is there someplace we can talk... privately."
"I was going to suggest the same thing. Come to my study."
As they walked down the long hallway to Horace's private office, the hat magnate asked Flint, "How is business? Did you invest in those stocks I suggested?"
"I did," said Flint. "Thank you for that - I made a tidy little fortune. I'm having my crib completely redecorated."
"You mean literally your crib, don't you?"
"Of course."
Flint's nanny cum receptionist let him out of his stroller when they reached the office and let the detective wobble in on his own. He'd gotten much more confident in his walking in the last six months. She closed the door.
"Flint, there's a reason I sent my son to see you instead of coming there myself. I need to know: what do you think of him?"
"I've got to level with you, Unka Shoemaker. There's something... fishy about your son."
"That's what I've been afraid of. Flint, I think he's behind the terrors here at stately Shoemaker manor."
"Yeah, I asked him about chupucabra and vampires and he visibly bristled - but he visited my office during the day, so he must not be a vampire..."
"I don't know what he is, but he isn't my son. Not anymore. He and his fiance were traveling through Egypt. She tells me he went off tomb exploring by himself and vanished. We all thought he was dead for sure. But, six weeks after she came back from Egypt, he returned via ship. He broke off his engagement with her and, well, his behavior has been odd."
"Odd how?"
"Well, he gives himself regular flea baths..."
"Werewolf?"
"Dry flea baths."
"So, aversion to water? That's more like a mummy."
"And he doesn't eat in front of us - and then there's this..."
Horace put some pictures on the desk across from Flint.
"Sorry, Unka Shoemaker, I'm not tall enough to see what you've put on the desk."
"Oh, of course, here."
The pictures were of former Shoemaker servants, each with two little red holes on their neck.
"Fang marks. A vampire?"
"Exactly. He's showing signs of being all three... or maybe something different."
"What happened to the servants?"
"They're all fine, though none of them have any memory of what happened to them."
"Are they showing signs of vampirism? Or lycanthropy?"
"No, and that makes it all the stranger."
"I'll get to the bottom of this, Unka Shoemaker. Could you introduce me to this 'former fiance?'"
That former fiance was in the process of getting groped by the half-buried arms of a dozen zombies when Flint finally had an epiphany. Pulling out his .44, he cocked it and pointed it in the direction of the shadow.
"JESUS CHRIST IS THAT A GUN?"
"It is, monster. Or should I call you... Unka?"
Flint reached used a stick to turn on the light switch on the wall above him. He couldn't reach it, you see. The room was flooded in florescent light.
"Jeez, put the gun away!"
"Call off the zombies. Or should I say... turn them off?"
"Yeah, sure, just stop pointing that thing around. Why would your parents even let you have a gun?"
"I should shoot you just for asking that."
Jack Shoemaker, the creature, looked decidedly less frightening in the cold artificial light. In fact, his vampire, mummy and werewolf traits all resembled a bad make-up job rather than supernatural characteristics. The younger Mr. Shoemaker pulled out a remote control and pressed a button. The zombie arms vanished under the ground.
"They... they were robots," stammered Margo.
"Yeah, robot zombies," said Flint, incredulously. He pulled out a walkie talkie and said, "Unka Shoemaker, I have your son, come on down."
When they were joined by the older Mr. Shoemaker, Flint unraveled the case.
"He never was a mummy, vampire or werewolf. He was just pretending."
"No, dad, really, I am a weremumpire!"
"Don't treat your Da Da like that, Unka. He can see that your hair and bandages are held on with poorly applied spirit gum."
"Its true, Jack," said Margo. "We call can see that."
"Unka Shoemaker, your son wants to turn the stately Shoemaker manor into something a little more commercial... he wants to turn it into the best haunted house ever."
"Is this true, Jack?"
"It is true, dad. How did you figure it out, Flint?"
"Simple. I looked at your travel tickets - which you never shared with Margo. You never went to Egypt - she just thought you did. You went to the Egypt exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York."
"Oh," said Margot, "That was why the hotel was so well decorated and the hotel guards kept asking me to leave."
"Exactly. He wanted you to come back and report his disappearance so it would make his transformation seem plausible. He wanted to give stately Shoemaker manor a reputation for housing monsters so he could sell tickets."
"I would have gotten away with it, too, if not for you, Flint, you cutie wootie little fella."
Flint shot him in the leg.
"You deserved that," said Jack's father.
"Case closed," said Flint. "Now if you'll all excuse me, I need to get back to the office. Its nap time and I'm getting cranky."
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| Friday, January 20th, 2012
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5:06 pm - Gift Story for murun
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In December, I asked people to give me a genre and title selection and I'd write gift story for them. Its taking me a long time to finish them. Moving right along...
Genre: Slice of life
Title: Chicken friends
(also - cheerful, no death)
Chicken Friends
Gerry Barrow is no longer sure how the poultry obsession started. Oh, if pressed, she might mention how the comforter on her childhood bed had a big picture of a rooster on it. She might point to the day she was accidentally locked in the chicken coop in the petting zoo. Gerry might even talk about Easter and how she received a chick as a gift when she was 7.
In her heart, though, Gerry believes that her great love for our plump feathered friends is innate. She was born with the chicken love in her heart. Her first word, according to her mother, was "bawk." She called the first chicken she saw "papa" before she ever used that word for her father.
Newcomers to Maple Avenue often make the mistake of referring to her as a "crazy chicken lady" behind her back, but they're quickly corrected by her older neighbors.
"There's nothing crazy about Gerry. Most normal person I know. She just likes chickens."
She likes them so much that she lives with twenty-three. Each one has a name and she can tell the difference between them instantly.
Gerry turned down three marriage proposals because none of her suitors were able to handle living in an apartment with the birds. They were too noisy, or two smelly. Really, they were too ever-present. Gerry was sorry that things didn't work out with her men, but never heartbroken. She had her fine feathered family, so why did she need a husband?
Every morning, Gerry's chickens wake her up. Not by crowing (she doesn't currently have any roosters) but my hopping on her chest and pecking gently at her chin. She has a couple nicks on her face from time wen the chickens had to work a little harder than normal to get her.
She gets out of bed and, first thing she does, she feeds the chickens. She has a tall shag carpet and likes to scatter the chicken feed in it - it sort of simulates grass, she figures. She took pains to find a kind of carpet that wouldn't be poisonous to the birds.
After feeding them, she spends some time cleaning up the chicken doodle from the floor and bed and shelves - or anywhere else the chickens had roosted. She then spends a bit of time talking to and cleaning each chicken. Occasionally, one of them needs medicine and she spends a bit of time trying to get the chicken to take its pill or potion.
Before the Internet, Gerry worked at the post office. Since the mid '00's, she's set up a series of webcams in her apartment and now runs a chicken specialty cam site and blog. Her traffic has been steadily increasing and, while she's not likely to become wealthy, her interest in chickens now supports her. Its kind of like a dream come true, supporting herself with her passion.
Today is a special day, however, because today Gerry is preparing one of her favorite chickens - a white langshan named Empress Elizabeth Montgomery the Second - for a chicken show next week. Empress Elizabeth Montgomery the Second is a racing chicken - fastest in her division three shows in a row! Gerry hopes to make it four shows in a row, so she puts her prize (former) pullet into a special race course that she's constructed in her living room out of sofa cushions and folding dinner tray stands.
The Empress isn't up to her regular speed today, but Gerry isn't concerned - even a champion has an off day now and then. Besides, The Empress had an especially big breakfast.
Gerry likes to watch Animal Planet, though she makes sure to turn the channel whenever a fox appears on the screen - no need to upset her friends! Once, a polar bear was featured on a program and Gerry considered turning the channel until she noticed that all twenty-three chickens had gathered around the screen and were watching it intently.
Indeed, anytime a polar bear appears on screen, all the chickens gather around. This unnerves Gerry a little bit, but there doesn't seem to be anything sinister about it. The chickens - her chickens, at least - just seem to like polar bears.
She wonders if they talk about polar bears when they walk around the apartment clucking at each other. She's asked them about it a couple of times but, regardless of whether they understand English or not, they don't speak it.
Gerry is saving up the money she makes off of her Internet endeavors to buy a little farm in the country - a place that can serve as a sanctuary to all chickens (ducks need not apply). She's even picked out the specific plan, though she's still six figures short.
As night falls, Gerry opens up an indoor coop so the chickens can roost if they so desire. Some choose the coop, other the closet and still others the nightstand. Gerry is just happy that they all happily find a sleeping spot to their liking.
When Gerry lies her head down to sleep, she usually dozes straight off. On the rare occasions that she can, she simply relaxes and counts chickens. Real chickens. She's never needed to count more than 8 before a sense of deep peace overcomes her and she's found herself asleep.
In her dreams, she's a Big Bird sized chicken, helping the chickens with their problems like some kid of poultry theme superhero
In her sleep, she smiles knowing that she has the perfect companions.
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| Sunday, January 15th, 2012
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12:10 pm - Gift Story for ![[info]](http://l-files.livejournal.net/userhead/529?v=1322059303) yachiru
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Context - in December, I offered to write stories for people as holiday gifts, foolishly thinking I'd have time over my Christmas holidays to write them. Welcome to January.
Title; The Broken Wall
Genre: Magical Realism
The Broken Well
When the animals perform their annual retelling of his story with their puppets, the Arch-Mage (who is always portrayed as a donkey) trots out of the Bürgermeister's room chuckling to himself. The rabbit puppeteers are renowned for their ability to make it seem like the wooden head of the Arch-Mage puppet is actually alive with laughter. The scene never fails to elicit sounds of enthusiastic approval from beast and human alike.
In the popular light opera version of the story, when the crowd at Axeman's Hill launches into the famous "This is evil, this is evil" chorus, it typical for everyone in the audience to sing along. This is the only point in the performance where audience participation is encouraged. The actor playing the chastened Bürgermeister contemptuously tosses his long, blonde hair back and hisses at the singers both on stage and in the audience.
Probably the most famous version of the Arch-Mages' story, however, is Pansifone's 14 hour epic poem "Nerva," which details the titular Arch-Mage's life from his first documented appearance to his ultimate betrayal. Legend has it that Pansifone used to perform this by himself in the ancient times, but its very rare for a bard to have that kind of stamina these days. On the rare occasions when a complete performance of "Nerva" is required, a group of bards will take turns reciting sections of the piece.
More often than not, bards are only asked to chant the section of "Nerva" featuring the Bürgermeister and Axeman's Hill or the romance of Nerva and the mortal Eilitae. However, it must be noted that the bard Beswyn - whose popularity is currently unparalleled due to his limitless charisma and expresive tenor singing - has single-handedly made the story of the broken well one of the more popular tales from "Nerva." Indeed, Beswyn's performance on the "Best Bard IV" TV series won him the title that year.
Beswyn's version of "Nerva and The Broken Well" garnered quite a bit of controversy. Critics say he took too many liberties with the story, while Beswyn claims he just stuck to a more literal translation.
The best known example of this, of course, was in his choice to never refer to Nerva as "Arch-Mage." In Pansifone's original (written in the language of the ancient's), the word "Mascatruff" is used as Nerva's honorific. That word is often translated as "Arch-Mage."
"However," said Beswyn in an interview after his "Best Bard IV" victory, "Pansifone also refers to many other people in his poem as 'Mascatruffs,' including people that were hardly admirable. All of these 'Mascatruffs' are associated with the libraries and universities of the ancient world, so its more accurate to refer to them as 'scholars' or even 'librarians.'"
While Nerva scholars and researchers have acknowledged this for centuries, fundamentalist Nervites have vigorously (and often violently) rejected this translation.
"'Librarian' is what the word means," says Maniblot XIII, current sub-mage of the Central Nervite Chursh, "But it is clearly not what Pansifone meant."
Another controversial part of the Beswyn's performance was his choice to go with a more literal reading of the opening line of the story.
The standard Nervite translation beings, "On the morning in question, the Arch-Mage Nerva awoke to that sound he loved the most - the laughter of children."
Beswyn broke with that tradition and, instead, sang, "One morning, Nerva awoke to the sound that he loved the most - sound reasoning."
"Pansifone, of course, never wrote his words down," explained Beswyn, "What has come down to us are transcriptions of performances. Its very easy to mis-hear words when you're writing down what somebody is saying. The ancient phrase for 'youthful laughter' and the phrase for 'solid reasoning' are homonyms. In context of the story - which focuses on Nerva supporting a wise young girl who has found a way to make a dry well flow again - 'solid reasoning' makes much more sense."
Beswyn received death threats for this choice. One of the threatening letters - sent to the producers of the "Best Bard" series and released to the media - read, in part, "sound reasoning has rarely rewarded anyone, while the laughter of children can salve any wound. We will put this vulgar, heretical bard to the piercing stake for his attack on the laughter of children."
Perhaps the most upsetting variation in Beswyn's version of "Nerva," at least to many Nervites, was the fact that the Arch-Mage doesn't use magic to solve the problem of the Broken Well.
The traditional version of the story was portrayed in the popular Well-day TV special "The Arch-Mage's Well-day Surprise." In it, when the villagers reject the solution to the well problem that was proposed by the wise young girl and the Arch-Mage, he uses his magic hat to make them all change their mind. They all then pitch in to make the well deeper, restoring water to their village. They then have an enormous feast of chicken, pig, beef and goat - a tradition Nervites still follow on Well-day.
"I can't put this too strongly," said Besywn, "but that part of the story isn't in any of the original versions. I spent years studying the ancient language so that I could really come to an understanding of the life and times of Nerva and I was as shocked as anyone else would be to learn that he never, ever uses magic. In fact, the only time he ever uses the word 'magic' is to make fun of people who believe in it."
In Beswyn's version of the story - he would argue in the original version of the story - the villagers utterly reject the young girl's plan, opting instead to sacrifice all the town's livesstock to the water gods. They stubbornly refuse to allow Nerva and the girl anywhere near the well.
Finally, when the town is on the brink of starvation, Nerva and the girl sneak to the well and manage to dig just a little bit deeper - at great risk to themselves.
When the water is restored the next day, the villagers rejoice that the water gods have answered their prayers.
"Fools," says Nerva, "this girl and I snuck into the well and dug deeper last night."
"Then," say the villagers, "The water gods answered our prayers through you."
Maniblot XIII rejected this translation of the story specifically during his Well-day sermon. He said, "We risk incurring the wrath of the water gods - indeed, of all the gods - whenever we attribute their gifts to human action. Pansifone's stories were inspired by the gods, which is why they form the backbone of our faith. However, Pansifone himself was only a man and he got things wrong. Fortunately, the gods have guided us to more true versions of his stories - stories that let the magic of the gods' change men's minds through the divine hand of the Arch-Mage."
Beswyn rejects that position and argues that the story is actually an allegory about humanity's willingness to cling to incorrect beliefs even in the face of overwhelming evidence. He points out that the animal's version of the story seems to be much closer to his version.
"If only we could understand what they were saying, I think we'd all be in for a surprise about how critical their version is of humanity. After all, Nerva is the only character in the story portrayed as an animal and not a human. Perhaps they're saying that a human being couldn't possibly be as wise as Nerva."
Since over 65% of the country self-identify as Nervites, it is perhaps perplexing that Beswyn achieved such a high level of success on "Best Bard IV" with such a controversial take on the Arch-Mage's life. That is, until you read some of the comments on his performance at the "Best Bard" site, most of which suggest his fans think he's beautiful and has a lovely voice.
One commenter, a girl who identifies herself as "BesIsBest4Eva" wrote, "Haters is gonna hate. Beswyn sings so sexy its like hearing da archmage speak 2 u. b-sides, I can listen to his stories and still know the truth about da arhcmage in ma <3."
Beswyn's popularity, it seems, is a case of people loving the messenger, but ignoring the message.
"I'm no Nerva," Beswyn said, "But when I hear about people loving my version of the story but still believing the false version, I sometimes think I understand a little of how he must have felt."
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