Thursday, August 9, 2012

Flash Fic May


So...I forgot to post this. Oops. 60 hours to write a 2k word story using the words "Anonymity, Drift, and Radar, and of course the photo on the right of this text.

 
Last Night

December 21st, 2012
11:47 p.m.

When the wind howled outside, drowning out the Christmas music coming out of his hand-crank emergency radio, Elliot wrapped his dirty blanket more tightly around himself and stared out the window. Even by the light of his sputtering candles he could see that the snow that had been steadily falling all night had begun to creep up to the midpoint of his windows. If the windows he was looking out of hadn't belonged to the house's second story, this might not have seen so strange.

Elliot had been forced to abandon the ground floor months earlier, around the time when his house's southward drift had caught the public eye and a popular photo of his abode made the rounds on Facebook and Twitter, dispelling the soothing fog of anonymity that generally surrounded someone as mousey and boring as Elliot was. Now people passing by stared in, not only because a house slowly sinking into the earth was such an unusual sight, but because they were eager to see the man who stubbornly refused to abandon the property.

One blog he'd read, before the power and gas companies both dropped him as a customer on the grounds that leaving the power or gas on would be inviting fire, compared him to the Titanic's captain, a man who had gone down with his ship a full century earlier. Other people were not shy about speculating what reason Elliot might have to stay in his obviously doomed house, and those who did not suspect an undiagnosed mental illness tended towards pity: They thought of him as a victim of circumstance, as a man who literally had nowhere else to go.

Although Elliot preferred the pity to reticule, the way one might prefer moldy bread to moldy meat, he also felt an overwhelming reciprocal pity for both those who in their way supported him and his detractors too. None of them had any sense of the true reason he refused to leave his house no matter how low it sank into the ground, and tomorrow morning would find them all in a world of hurt and pain if indeed it found any of them at all.

Back before his life had begun to mostly consist of reading and trying to find new ways of jazzing up foods that came out of boxes cold, Elliot had been a scholar. No one peering in the windows and catching sight of a pale stubbled face or shoulders wrapped in a plaid blanket would believe that the body parts they could barely make out in the house's scant light belonged to a man who held a PhD In world history.

He had never been the life of a party, not even amongst his equally bookish peers, but Elliot had been respectable once, if not well-liked. His colleagues occasionally came to him with questions, and his students always gave end of the semester reviews that indicated that he was an apt if not exciting educator. His life had been normal if a little predictable and more than a little lonely.

All that had changed the December before when a website that tried to pass itself off as a news source rather than the entertainment gig it was ran an article about the end of the Mayan calendar. Reading it, Elliot had first laughingly dismissed it, but it got under his skin. Late that same night he'd found himself getting out of bed and pawing through his books, looking for references to the ancient civilization that had been wiped out of existence long before their calendar predicted they'd meet their end.

He'd stayed up all night, then, and at six had been so red-eyed that he'd barely been able to make out the numbers on his phone when he dialed to call in for what was at that moment an almost unheard of sick day. But other days soon followed as he became obsessed with studying the Mayans and became more convinced that the popular conceit that another calendar would have followed had they not been the victims of genocide was a candy coating dipped onto the truth by academics too scared to admit that a population of people they considered charmingly primitive had had the right idea.

Eventually Elliot's obsession had predictable results, and the university included his position amongst those that they axed in the name of cost saving methods. If he'd secured tenure they wouldn't have been able to be so easily rid of him, but he'd only been teaching for a handful of years, so the union claimed that their hands were tied. Not that he'd demanded an explanation or assistance: Elliot hadn't been bothered by his dismissal because he wanted the extra time to study, anyway.

As soon as he'd been released from his duties at the end of the spring semester, Elliot began to devote most of his waking hours to trying to figure out how the Mayans had made their prediction so many centuries earlier. By then he was no longer remotely skeptical about the veracity of their prediction. Instead he just wanted to know how they had figured out that the world was coming to an end in 2012.

Because the end of everything was a forgone conclusion as far as he was concerned, Elliot was not dismayed in late May when a mailman dropping of a new book he'd ordered pointed out that the house seemed to have shifted. He'd merely agreed with the man that it did seem to be a few inches shorter than it ought to be, and had taken his new book inside to peruse.

As the months passed, two things happened: Elliot found himself increasingly obsessive about what he considered his "work" and the house continued its downward drift, much like a quicksand victim panicking in the old black and white adventure films Elliot's father had been obsessed with before lung cancer carried him, and Elliot's mother too, away.

Elliot had always been rather shy, so he had faced a moral quandary when it had become clear to him that the world was coming to an end: was it his moral duty to inform others that some event (even in December he was still undecided as to what he thought it would be) would destroy the world? Being a harbinger of doom and dismay was hardly the sort of thing a man like him took on willingly, after all. A nagging sense of duty propelled him to at least try, so whenever some concerned soul came to talk to him about the sad state of his ever-sinking house, he earnestly explained that a house slowly being swallowed by the Earth's gapping maw was the least of his problems, and theirs too.

To say that people were not receptive of his warning would be a gigantic understatement and after a couple of worried people tried to suggest he get therapy, he decided that he better try to avoid being on the radar of the mental health network and keep the knowledge to himself. In the end warning people didn't seem to serve much of a purpose anyway. What could people do with the information? It wasn't as though we'd gotten around to colonizing mars, so there was no option but to stay and die.

In what felt like a tacit agreement, people decided they were quit of him too when he gave up on them. If he'd been more of a social being the cutting of all ties would have hurt more, but as it was it remained a manageable if dull and nagging ache. There was really nothing left for him to offer people, so he allowed them their illusions, let them plan for Christmas, for New Years, for next summer with just a sad knowing smile. It might have been a comfort to reach out to someone, but he couldn't. Not any more. Not knowing what he did.

Despite his acceptance of this self-imposed isolation, realizing that telling people about the coming danger would change nothing left Elliot in a permanent state of despair. Despite using a considerable amount of his savings, none of the books he devoured had a solid idea of what would end it all, so it wasn't like he could warn the government and encourage someone, anyone, to take action against whatever was going to kill them all. By Halloween he was swathed in a sense of nihilism that was so thorough Nietzsche would have been envious. The people who pitied him didn't realize that he could have left at any time but simply failed to see what the point of leaving would have been. He might have been more comfortable elsewhere, but no safer.

Truly, the only thing that kept him from climbing through a window and heading to a gun store was the perverse need to see it through to the end. He wanted to see that he was right. It was wrong and terrible to feel that way, but he couldn't help it any more than a James Bond villain could help being evil.

As the days slide towards the inevitable, Elliot found himself increasingly inert. He endured the lights going out, the water stopping when the house's movement ruptured and severed its connection to the well in the backyard. His brain learned to become indifferent to his belly's insistent cries and he lost fifty pounds that hadn't been extra weight on his fame. Nothing really mattered except bearing witness to the inevitable because he'd come to realize that that was his role. Maybe he ought to have taken fiddle lessons back when he still bothered interacting with others.

Hours wore on during the night of December 21st and Elliot found himself becoming annoyed about the snow. It reduced visibility and was piling too high in the windows to let him continue his vigil with a clear line of sight. Eventually he decided that he would need to go down to the basement and find a snow shovel even if the thought of going so far underground made him break out into a cold sweat.

The trek to the basement had been scary and difficult with a feeling of suffocation as he went down into the parts of the house already entombed, and he'd been overwhelmed with relief when held returned to what was still higher ground. His next move was to pull on a coat that seldom left his sight lately before opening a window and squirming through it.

Despite the coat cold gnawed as his bones and he found himself repeating a bit of doggerel about the world ending in ice or fire as he worked to clear the snow from in front of the windows. It took a long time before he was satisfied and pushed his aching body back through the window, dragging snow in with him. At least he wouldn't have to worry about a mess he thought, because the end would be coming any time now.

Out of habit his eyes sought out his clock. The face read 12:43 a.m. in its bright red font. His watch agreed that the battery-operated clock told the truth.

Elliot looked around his floundering house and began to sob in utter despair.


"How could you  know what I need when I'm the last thing on your mind?" - Trapt, Disconnected

Monday, August 6, 2012

July Music

Ace Reporter - Frankfurt
Ace Reporter - Twenty-Nine

Alberta Cross - Lay Down
Ashes Divide - Forever Can Be
Beth Orton - When You Wake
Bibio - Take Off Your Shirt
Black Box Recorder - These Are The Things
Blue Stahli - Look Around The Corner

Brenda Xu  - Losing the Moment
Charlotte Martin - Apology
Chevelle - Vitamin R
Fireflight - Core Of My Addiction
Folk Implosion - Burning Paper
Folk Implosion & Lou Barlow - Refused

Guards Of Metropolis - Fadeaway
Kelli Ali - Voyeur
Kerli - Walking on Air
Low vs. diamond - Killer B
Low vs. Diamond - Wasted

Lydia - December
Marmaduke Duke - Kid Gloves
Michael Mind Project Feat. Mandy Ventrice & Carlprit - Hook Her Up (Club Mix)
Music For Animals - Red Cells
Nickodemu - Vino People
Pontiak - Lions of Least
Skillet - Whispers In The Dark
Spoon - All The Pretty Girls Go To The City

Strip Mall Architecture - Daylight Machine
The Downtown Fiction - I Just Wanna Run
This Providence - Losing Control
Three Days Grace - Gone Forever
Trapt - Contagious
Trapt - Disconnected (Out Of Touch)
Zebrahead - Falling apart


As Usual:
Bold: I have other of their songs in my music collection
Italic: I was previously familiar with some of their songs but didn't like them
Neither: I've never heard this band before

"What I wouldn't do to come over and be with you. What I wouldn't do to be with you" - She Swings, She Sways - What I Wouldn't Do

Sunday, July 8, 2012

June Music

The All-American Rejects  ft. The Pierces- Another Heart Calls
The Beautiful View - The Horseman
The Big Pink - Give It Up
The Big Sleep - Ace
The Pretty Reckless - He Loves You
Turnbull A.Cs - We can drink without having
Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker - Anti-Venom
Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker - Hollow Point Sniper Hyperbole

WhoMadeWho - Below the Cherry Moon
Dar Williams - I Am The One Who Will Remember Everything
Doves - Far From Grace
Doves - There Goes the Fear

Human Don't Be Angry - HDBA Theme
Kid Dakota - Ten Thousand Lakes
The Academy Is... - LAX To O'Hare

As Usual:
Bold: I have other of their songs in my music collection
Italic: I was previously familiar with some of their songs but didn't like them
Neither: I've never heard this band before

"I wrote you a letter, but I threw it away, I knew I would, I would if I waited a day" - Folk Implosion, Burning Paper

Sunday, June 10, 2012

May Music

Alphastates - Kiss Me
Big John Bates - Rattle On
Billy Talent - Covered in cowardice
Blue Stahli - Accelerant
Boy & Bear -Feeding Line
Damone - Just What I Needed (The Cars cover)
Damone - What We Came Here For
Diplo - Must Be a Devil
Disappears - Replicate
Gotye - Thanks For Your Time
Grafton Primary - All Stars (Calling In Sick Remix)
Grafton Primary - Left Of Nowhere
Griffin House - Better Than Love
Hadwynn - Things I Already Know
In Memory -Girls & Boys
Kid Sister ft. Riff Raff - Hide & Seek (Styles Complete Remix)
Minus the Bear - Animal Backwards
Olivia Somerlyn - Not Your Girl (Acoustic Version)
Peggy Sue - Cut My Teeth
People In Planes - Beyond The Horizon
People in Planes - Instantly Gratified
Pretty Girls Make Graves - Blue Lights
Pretty Girls Make Graves - The Get A Way
Rachael Sage - Souvenir
Ramona Falls - Sqworm
Razorlight - In the Morning
Santigold & Spank Rock  - Car Song
Sea Wolf - White Water, White Bloom
Seabird - Stronger
Silver Swans - Secrets
Skillet -Monster
Smoke or Fire - Monsters Among Us
Sons and daughters - Split lips
Stella Katsoudas of Sister Soleil feat. Geno Lenardo - Killer & a Queen
Stereo Crowd - I Got It (feat. Ava, Patty Cakes, Sciryl)
Sugarcult - Dead Living
The Charlatans - A Day For Letting Go
The Mahones - Shake Hands With The Devil
The Naked Hearts - Call Me
The Naked Hearts - Like I Do
The Pack A.D. - Making Gestures
The Pierces - Lies
The Presets - This Boy's In Love
The Pretty Reckless - Fuck Yeah
Thirteen Senses - Do No Wrong
This Providence - That Girl's A Trick
Thursday - Magnets Caught in a Metal Heart
Turin Brakes  -  Last Chance
Twintapes - Nothing Else (feat. ortoPilot)
YACHT - Dystopia
You Me At Six - The Consequence

As Usual:
Bold: I have other of their songs in my music collection
Italic: I was previously familiar with some of their songs but didn't like them
Neither: I've never heard this band before

"We did bad things when we were young. You'd smile and torture me just for fun" - The Big Pink, Give It Up

Sunday, May 13, 2012

April Music

Adler - The One That You Hated
Air - Napalm Love
Alphastates - Addicted
Beck - Walls
Beck - Walls (Live)
Cities - Capitol
Civil Twlight - Fire Escape
Eve 6 - Victoria
Friska Viljor - Did You Really Think You Could Change
Fushia - Brunswick St
Kasabian - Re-Wired
Lettercamp - The Denial Twist
Margot & the Nuclear So and Sos - Shannon
Skillet - Monster
The Veronicas - Popular
There For Tomorrow - The Verge

As Usual:
Bold: I have other of their songs in my music collection
Italic: I was previously familiar with some of their songs but didn't like them
Neither: I've never heard this band before


"But I'll be there to take care of you if ever you should decide you don't want to waste your life
In the middle of a lovesick lullaby."
- TV on Radio, Will Do

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

March Music

A Place To Bury Strangers - So Far Away
Anna Nalick - Bleed
Band Of Skulls - Sweet Sour

Big Black Delta - Capsize
Computer vs Banjo - Give up on Ghosts
GodLikeMouse - My Body
Hollywood Undead - Knife Called Lust
John Frusciante - Murderers
Longwave - Satellites
Massive Attack - Angel
Mommy and Daddy - Confection
People In Planes - Light For The Deadvine

Redlight - Get Out My Head
Shearwater - Breaking the Yearlings
The Cinematics - Nausea

The Dollyrots - Hysteria
The Presets - Are You the One [Van She Remix]
The Ropes - I Don't Like to Get Dirty
Toh Kay - We Will Fall Together
Wolf Parade - What Did My Lover Say

As Usual:
Bold: I have other of their songs in my music collection
Italic: I was previously familiar with some of their songs but didn't like them
Neither: I've never heard this band before


"What are you gonna do when those walls are falling down, falling down on you?" - Beck, Walls

Thursday, March 22, 2012

February Music

A Kiss Could Be Deadly - Midnight Romance
AWOLNATION - Not Your Fault
Brontide - Matador
Damion Soumi - Ghost
Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi - Two Against One
Danny Barnes - Safe With Me
Elizabeth & The Catapult - Hit the Wall
Ellie Lawson - Hour Of Need
FM - Ecstatic Dancer
Fujiya & Miyagi - Sixteen Shades of Black & Blue
Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit - Everywhere With Helicopter
Kevin Hearn - Tell Me Tell Me
Lauderdale - Stars Fell
Low Duo - No Happier
mr. Gnome - Cleveland Polka
Naked Hearts - Pillow Song
Razorlight - Wire To Wire
Renee Cologne - Know I Said
Slam - Lifetimes
The Big Pink - Future This
The Mast - Wild Poppies
The Oohlas - Cahuenga Shuffle
The Warped 45s - Grampa Carl
Thurston Moore - Circulation
Trombone Shorty - Hurricane Season
Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile - Quarter Chicken Dark

As Usual:
Bold: I have other of their songs in my music collection
Italic: I was previously familiar with some of their songs but didn't like them
Neither: I've never heard this band before


"I'm here to decorate your fear for a while." - Failure, Pitiful

Sunday, February 12, 2012

January Music

Some of these songs are among the few suggestions Pandora made to me that I liked. How come their targetted ads for meeting local singles can nail my age/eye color/hair color preferences for guys (30-39, brown, black) but their system that's supposed to be learning from your likes and dislikes only produces songs I'd like to hear 1/3rd of the time?

Anyway, this month's song recs:

A Day To Remember - All I Want
A Day to Remember - All Signs Point to Lauderdale
A Kiss Could Be Deadly - I Wrote You A Love Song
Abandoned Pools - Blood
Adema - Better Living Through Chemistry
Adema - Close Friends
Anya Marina - All The Same To Me
Bear Lake - You're Only Waiting
Brand New - Jesus
Breaking Benjamin - Crawl
Chevelle - I Get It
Colin Newman - Better Later Than Never
Enon - Ashish
Enon - Believo!
Gob - I've Been Up These Steps
Gotye - Heart's a Mess (Supermayer Remix)
Gyroscope - Some Of The Places I Know
Hot As Sun - Come Come
Hurt - Unkind
Hypnolove feat. Feist - Get to Know the Girl
Johnossi - Party With My Pain
Johnossi - Press Hold
Kate Nash - Nicest Thing
Laura Marling - Devil's Spoke
Mindless Self Indulgence - Straight To Video (n0nplus Mix) sorry, I can't find the nonplus mix :(
Molly's Yes - Promises
Motorcycle - As The Rush Comes (Gabriel & Dresden Remix)
MuteMath - Spotlight
People In Planes - Falling By The Wayside
Powderfinger - Waiting For The Sun
Ramona Falls – Going Once, Going Twice
Royal Bliss - Save Me
Scanners - A Girl Like You
Scanners - Sick Love
Shy Child - Noise Won't Stop
Silversun Pickups - Draining
Sixx-A.M - This Is Gonna Hurt
Social Code - Satisfied
Stereoside - So Long
The Action Design - Landmines
The Bravery - The Ocean
The Bravery - Tragedy Bound
The Killers - Move Away
Thirteen Senses - Into The Fire this song was used in 2 different shows so far this month...
Tim Nelson - Xylem
Trips And Falls - This Is All Going To End Badly
What Laura Says - Girl Not Gonna Leave

As Usual:
Bold: I have other of their songs in my music collection
Italic: I was previously familiar with some of their songs but didn't like them
Neither: I've never heard this band before

Next month, how about YoYo Ma? Really!


"I'm not enough for me now" - Charlotte Sometimes, Headache

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Flash Fic January

First flash fic contest of 2012!

60 hours to write a story of no more than 2000 words using the photo to the left and the words "Drag," "Corporate" and "Invert."

I looked at this beautiful photo and immediately, after deciding that Harry Potter fanfic was unlikely with this group, thought that there would definitely be time travel stories, and maybe some steampunk. Well, no steampunk so far, and there are fewer stories involving time travel than I'd guessed, but someone did make a Harry Potter reference :)

I'll let you decide the genre of my story. I think it's a hybrid of two, personally.


 House of Regret

It looks like a temporary mausoleum, I thought as I reached out to touch the dark weathered stones that were not interrupted by even a single window. I'd never been there before, but I knew it wasn't a temporary anything: this building had stood on the outskirts of our village for hundreds of years. No one remembered who had built it, but we all knew why.

Glancing back over my shoulder, I could just barely see the coffin I'd begged be dragged up here. It couldn't, wouldn't, work if the dead wasn't near. The dead. My brain tried to skitter away from the thought of Jesse being dead, but I knew he was there in that box, waiting for me to rescue him.
No one could understand why I was willing to enter the House of Regret... they didn't know my crushing guilt. If he hadn't snuck out after dark to see me, he wouldn't be dead.

There hadn't been a clear cause of death. Instead his body had been found inverted in the crotch of a tree, alabaster pale, and limp like the discarded dolls still littering the back of my closet. Of course, there were suspicions about what had killed him, and that's why I was standing in front of an iron ring, trying to will my fingers to grasp it and open the door.

The villagers wanted to burn his body as a precaution against the evils their overheated minds conjured up, but he'd told me twice over the past few years that he would rather be wormfood than given a cradle of ash. I couldn't let that happen, so I told people I'd come here and bring him back. Everyone said "Elizabeth don't" but how could I listen to them when Jesse had been so fearful of flames?

People visited the House of Regret only once or twice a generation, and my mother swore that no one had since her grandparents were children. This was meant to be a seed of doubt, a worry that the magic wouldn't work any more, but I owed him. She couldn't understand that, none of them could, but I owed him.

Enough delay. I pulled the door open and it moved with a hideous groan. There were no lights of course. Never had been. None were needed. Once I stepped over the threshold, I pulled the door closed behind me and mourned the passing of daylight as it shrank down to a thin line, then disappeared.

I stood there waiting, shivering in the damp. It would have been pointless to worry about what sort of things might have been in there with me, those that skittered or crawled, because what I'd see when I could see again would be far far worse. Be brave, I counseled myself. Once I get through and reach the clock, I can turn it all back.

That was the point: face your fear and you gain the power to turn back time; not all the way, just a little, just enough. Or so the theory went. Everyone claimed to know someone who had tried it, and more someones who had failed. But they could never back their claims and give them a face, an actual body to ask questions of. It hardly seemed possible given that so many people knew I'd come here, but maybe Mom's insistence was true and no one had been there for ages.

"What do you regret the most?"

I whipped my head around, looking for the source, but that was ridiculous. There was nothing to see. And I knew, knew, that the voice hadn't come out of a throat.

Did I say it aloud, or did I just think it? I wondered, wishing that I'd asked someone that before walking up here. Maybe I didn't even have to think about it I decided as the room began to lose some of its dampness.

Several yards away a pinprick of light began to grow, and I wrapped my arms around myself. When the confusion of lights and images before me began to corporate into a familiar scene, I had to fight a keening that desperately wanted to be voiced. Somehow, when I thought about regrets in the days since Jesse had been found, this wasn't what had come to mind. But it should have.

Our schoolyard. The school had held only the fifteen of us because the hard years during our earliest childhoods had stolen many of our siblings from their cribs, if families had dared to have babies at all. Once there had been two teachers, teaching in separate classrooms, but now there was one and the other room was boarded to reduce heating costs.

While I watched, little Betsy came into view, trailing Jesse and Aaron. I'd been eight, Jesse ten, and Aaron was a great big boy of fifteen. Aaron had once been the oldest of four but was now an only child, which is why he tolerated the little kids' hero-worship. Older than him now, I realized that he missed his siblings, but hadn't then. Not that awful then.

We'd had pails in our hands, and had been charged with picking berries for snack time. The teacher trusted Aaron to keep an eye on us, and he took this duty fairly seriously. But then he had to pee.

"I've uh, gotta go," he'd told us, cheeks warm. "Stay here, okay? I'll be right back."

"Okay."

For a moment we'd watched in interest as he searched for a tree to duck behind, but we soon lost interest. Instead Jesse pointed at a tree. "Look at that."

"What about it?"  I'd asked, distracted by the thought that life would be easier if I could pee outside too.

"We should climb it."

"Aaron said to stay here," I reminded Jesse.

"And we wouldn't be going anywhere," he insisted. "The tree is right here."

This seemed logical enough, so I began to follow him as he climbed the low branches. "Not so fast," I complained, my dress slowing me down. Life would also be easier in trousers, I decided fiercely. Boys had all the luck.

Jesse ignored me, and I struggled to keep up. I was so focused on not being left behind that I was hardly aware that we'd climbed so high. But when a branch snagged my dress and unbalanced me, I was made aware of it.

The ground met me with a rattling thump and I screamed. Jesse was so startled that he almost fell out right after me, but managed not to somehow.

Aaron must have heard my yell because he came running, his trousers still halfway unbuttoned. He blamed Jesse, not me, but I protested saying that he hadn't forced me to climb the tree.

When they tried to get me to stand, I couldn't. So Aaron picked me up and carried me back, yelling at Jesse the whole way.

I expected there to be trouble when we reached the schoolyard, but not the way it happened. Our teacher looked at Aaron carrying me, and at his flapping trousers, and whispered to one of the big girls who took of running. I didn't know then, but she'd sent the girl for the sheriff.

When the sheriff came, he took Aaron aside and spoke sharply to him. From where I'd been set to wait for the doctor, all I could see was the sheriff's angry face, and Aaron shaking his head. Jesse had gotten close enough to hear and I grabbed his hand when he walked by me. "What's going on?"

Jesse's face turned red. Whispering, he said, "Teacher and him think that Aaron did... something... to you."

"Did something?" I repeated, uncertain.

"You know," Jesse mumbled.

I didn't, so I shrugged. "Tell him Aaron didn't."

"Can't."

"Why??"

"Aaron's in trouble, not us. We tell the sheriff what happened, we'll get into trouble too. This is better."

"No it's not," I insisted.

Jesse pinched me. "Yes, it is."

As much as I liked Aaron, I liked Jesse more, so I held my tongue and that might be why we'd grown up as thick as thieves and had become more once we were grown. Neither of us said anything. Even when the sheriff led Aaron away just after Doc Addams arrived to set my broken leg. Even when Aaron and his parents were driven from the village. Even when villagers set their empty house to fire so they daren't move back.

The last image before me was one of people bathed in firelight, shouting as they threw burning brands through that house's windows.

I moaned as the scene faded into nothing, leaving me in the chilled damp again. "Now what?" I asked the dark.

"Amends."

Amends? I didn't even know where to start. It had been nearly a decade since I'd last seen any member of Aaron's family. "I will," I promised aloud, though inside I doubted I would succeed. How could I?

My promise must have been sincere enough because once again the darkness was incomplete. Bracing myself, I looked, worried to see another memory given form, but that's not what I saw at all.

The new light was a cool green in an improbable clearing, and there was a single sapling planted there. From one of its spindly branches hung the prize: a small clock suspended from a chain. While beautiful in its own way, it hardly seemed any more special than any of the clocks bartered in neighboring villages.

I ran towards it, scared that the light would fade before I reached it, but it didn't. My fingers trembled as I reached for the clock, and I half expected for my hand to close upon nothing, but it was a chilly solid weight in my palm.

"Ring the bell once for each day," I whispered to myself, studying the small bell attached to it.

Four thin peals later, I let the clock go, watching it swing for a moment.

And then I felt a force at my back, pushing me out. I tried to dig in my heels, hoping I'd see a sign that it had worked before I was expelled, but resistance was futile. I was nearly flung out of the building, and found myself stumbling outside, trying hard not to fall.

To my amazement, it was night. Inside I'd lost all sense of time. Hours must have passed.

When I heard branches snap, I froze. The logical conclusion was that it was someone from the village had come to see what had become of me, but that didn't necessarily mean I'd see a friendly face. Over the years many people have muttered about how we should tear this place down because it was unnatural, and somehow I was sure that they visited it more often than people who held it in reverence.

Moonlight filtered out most colors, but the person I saw was familiar enough. The night bleached him pale, but his dark curls and dancing eyes were the same.

"Jesse?" I squeaked.

"Have you seen Aaron?" he asked.

"Aaron?" Maybe this place had brought Aaron so I could apologize. We both could, now.

"He came to see me a few days ago," Jesse continued. "We talked about the past. He wants to see you too."

"Oh. I need to speak to him, and I will," I promised. "Jesse, I thought you were dead!" Such a stupid comment. It had worked. I'd brought him back.

"Oh, Elizabeth," he murmured, gathering me in his cool arms just before twin dots of fire burned my neck. "I am."
 The End


"You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness, like resignation to the end, always the end" - Gotye, Someone That I Used to Know

Sunday, January 1, 2012

December Music

Happy New Years! More mainstream stuff than usual this month, but I wanted to check out some alternative stations before the end of the year too and found new stuff by old favorites...

3 Doors Down - Be Somebody
8 KOunt - The Very Thing
30 Seconds To Mars - Night Of The Hunter
A Little Nothing - The Start
Absofacto - Feathers (Don't Change on Me)
Aitan - Nothing Without You
Alkaline Trio - We Can Never Break Up
aNi T - Fly With You
ANR - Big Problem
Arctic Monkeys - Evil Twin
Ariana Sloan - No Apologies
Austra - Shoot The Water
Awolnation - Sail
Bastille - Flaws
Blue Stahli - ULTRAnumb
Bodies of Water - Like A Stranger
Brady - Brady-Breakin
Charlotte Sometimes - Headache
Chop Suzy - Waiting to Inhale
Cultfever - Knewyouwell
Death Cab For Cutie - Underneath The Sycamore
Echovalve - Dirty Little Secret
Editors - Blood
El Ten Eleven - My Only Swerving
Elbow - Neat Little Rows
Foo Fighters - Rope
Good with Grenades - Bruises and Bitemarks
Gotye - Easy Way Out
Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know
Great Northern - Summertime
Gross Magic - Sweetest Touch
Grouplove - Itchin' On A Photograph
Hard-Fi - Fire In The House
Hard-Fi - Stop
Hockey - Too Fake
Jane's Addiction - Irrestible Force only took 12 years for me to find a 2nd song I like by them...
Jimmy Eat World - My Best Theory
Jon Fratelli - Don't Make Me Close My Eyes
Kelsey and the Chaos - Wrapped Around Your Finger
La Catrin - Reverse Citizens
Ladyhawk - I Don't Always Know What You're Saying
Lesley Roy - I'm Gone, I'm Going
Lisa Hannigan - Sea Song
Little Dragon - Ritual Union (Maya Jane Coles Remix)
Little Hurricane - Give Em Hell
Living Daylytes - Launch
L'Spaerow - Front Step City
Madam Adam - Sex Ain't Love
Man The Mighty - Over You
Mesh - Razorwire (Modified Mix)
Minus the Bear - Secret Country
Mogwai - Waltz for Aidan
My Darkest Days - Every Lie
Nerves Junior - As Bright As Your Night Light
Of Monsters and Men - Little Talks
Poor Spirits - Too Easy
Pop Evil - Hero
Q and Not U - Passwords
Queens of the Stone Age - How to Handle a Rope (A Lesson in the Lariat)
Rachael Yamagata - Starlight
Red Ink - What My Friends Say
Rocket Empire - Cruising The Galaxy
Salim Nourallah - Don't Mind Me
Sara Noxx feat 18 Summers - Superior Love (Dark Territory Remix)
Screaming Bikini - Dancing Alone
Shona Foster - Love And War
Snow Patrol - Fallen Empires
Songs Ohia - 45 Degrees (Easts Heart Divided)
Switchfoot - Dark Horses
The Boxer Rebellion - The Runner
The Duke Spirit - Don't Wait
The Duke Spirit - Surrender
The Joy Formidable - Whirring
The Silent Game - Halfway
The Swallows - Darkly Bright
The Wooden Birds - Believe In Love
Utham - So Mote It Be
Will And The People - Salamander

As Usual:
Bold = I have other of their songs in my music collection
Italic = I've heard other of their songs but didn't like them
Neither = I've never heard this band before


"But I'll be there to take care of you if ever you should decide you don't want to waste your life in the middle of a lovesick lullaby" - TV on Radio, Will Do 

Sunday, December 11, 2011

November Music

Lots of covers this month, but more that are not.

Autumn's Grey Solace - The Unshakable Demon
Blue King Brown - Moment Of Truth
Cults - Abducted
Curves - If Ever note: not the shoegaze band Curve
Finch - Ink
The Gossip - Are U That Somebody (Aaliyah cover)
John Legend - Rolling In The Deep (Adele cover)
Juliet - Avalon (Thin White Duke Radio Edit)
Kakkmaddafakka - Restless
Mark Ronson & The Business Intl feat. Boy George and Miike Snow - Somebody to Love Me
Metronomy - The Bay
Monarchy Feat. Britt Love - You Don't Want To Dance With Me
New Young Pony Club - Dress (PJ Harvey cover)
Peter Bjorn & John - Second Chance
Philip Selway - Beyond Reason
Say Hi - November Was White, December Was Grey gotta say I like them a lot better post-name change
Sunshine - Today (Is Not The Day)
Tegan & Sara - Northshore does this song make anyone else want to get up and run and/or dance around?
The 66 - Shoot to Kill
The Heavy - Short Change Hero AKA "that song in the Haven Season 1 and Batman:Gothem City commericals"
The Linings - The Way To Do This
The National - Think You Can Wait
The Pierces - You'll Be Mine if you don't like this, we can't be friends
The Pigeon Detectives - She Wants Me
The Rapture - Miss You
The Raveonettes - Forget That You're Young
The Sounds - Something To Die For
Tiger Waves - Funeral March
Tokyo Police Club - Since U Been Gone
Tricky - Kingston Logic
Tricky - Time To Dance
TV On The Radio - Will Do
Villa Nah - Running On
Washed Out - Far Away
We Are The Grand - Save Me
Wiretree - The Shore
Yacht - Tripped and Fell In Love
Yeasayer - Crazy (Seal cover)

As Usual:
Bold = I have other of their songs in my music collection
Italic = I've heard other of their songs but didn't like them
Neither = I've never heard this band before

"Don't pretend that you're better than this" - Blue Stahli, Ultranumb

Friday, December 2, 2011

Found Poem: End Game

I've been looking for something tonight, pages of a story I misplaced, and found some old poems  instead. It's been a while since I've written a poem, but I actually published a few way back when. Not this one, though, written all the way back in 2000. And you know, I still like it. I found an old essay too, maybe I'll post it later.


End Game

Suddenly you notice how much
She's pulled away.
Friendly, but barely affectionate
Somewhat quiet
Somehow distant.

Finally the near silence makes you anxious
Until you convince yourself
That it's all part of an elaborate game
To draw your attention:
That old thing about
Absence making the heart grow fonder;
A way to make you worry
About losing her presence in your life;
Something to get you thinking about
What she really means to you;
Or just to drive you crazy.

Strangely, she never thought
About what you might think
Of her plans to revise
Her perceptions of you
Until a spiteful remark
Made her wonder
What you would get
If you got your way.
-srw


"How do I get you to feel what I feel for you? I will hold on to you like a fool till my hands go blue. But you don’t want to dance with me. You don’t want to dance with me" - Monarchy, You Don't Want To Dance With Me

Friday, November 11, 2011

October Music

1,2,3 - Scared But Not That Scared
Ace Reporter - Untouched and Arrived
Agent Ribbons - I'm Alright
Alexz Johnson - Look At Those Eyes [The Demolition Crew Remix]
Android Lust - Fell The Empty Mask
Apocalyptica feat. Doug Robb - Not Strong Enough
Armistice - Neon Love
Ayo - I'm Gonna Dance
Azfault - A Little More
Azfault - Goodbye
Back Ted N-Ted - Hookie
Bear Hands - Bad Blood
Beast, Please Be Still - Mastodon March, Smilodon Smile
Birds of Avalon - Your Downtime Is Up
Brand New - Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't
Brand New - Sink
Broken Bells - The Ghost Inside
Burden Brothers - Beautiful Night this band's lead singer was the singer for The Toadies
Cage The Elephant - Aberdeen
Cake - Easy To Crash
COLDDRIVEN - Don't  You Know
Crash Kings - You Got Me
Darius Rucker - I Hope They Get to Me in Time well, I do own one Hootie song...
E.S. Posthumus - Nara
Eisley - Smarter
Elliott Smith - Twilight Elliott Smith. sigh.
Eric McFadden Trio - Bury Our Sins
Fujiya & Miyagi - Ventriloquizzing
G. Love - 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover (Paul Simon cover)
G-Spot - Buried
Infadels - Steady As She Goes (The Raconteurs cover)
John Butler Trio - To Look Like You
Kilians - The Lights Went Off
Kyla La Grange - Vampire Smile I had a halloween theme planned, but I ended up hating most of the thematically appropriate songs...
Metronomy - She Wants
My American Heart - Tired & Uninspired
Soft Moon - Breathe The Fire
Taproot - You're Not Home Tonight
The Boxcar Lilies - The Ghost Tree
The Classic Crime - The Drink In My Hand
The Kamikaze Hearts - No One Called You a Failure
The Love Me Nots - Trouble
The Pale Pacific - Tied To A Million Things
The Rosebuds - Woods
The Veils - The Wishbone

As Usual:
Bold = I have other of their songs in my music collection
Italic = I've heard other of their songs but didn't like them
Neither = I've never heard this band before

Click the "Monthly Music Roundup" tag for 2 years worth of monthly recs.



"This is the last time I will follow you. This is the last time I will follow you at all." - The Cat Empire, Waiting

Thursday, October 13, 2011

This article is why

As someone who is pro-life, I've been snottily asked a few times what I think about gay parents adopting children, and I usually surprise the asker by telling them I'm in favor of it (hell, I voted against a 2010 gubernatorial candidate in the primaries just because he wanted to make a law against gay adoption here in NH. Fortunately he lost). I understand that many pro-life folks are religiously motivated, but I'm not really a religiously motivated about much of anything kind of girl. First and foremost, I want there to be fewer unwanted pregnancies to begin with. And then, if people give their babies up instead of abort them, they need homes. I can't see what about someone's sexuality would rule them out as a good parent, so I don't care the genders of the would-be parents. You (generic you) maybe being uncomfortable explaining to your kids why Meg and Jack have two mommies or two daddies is an absurd reason to make it harder for a child to find a home, so... just no.

Really, articles like this one are why I'm a fan of laws that allow gay folks, both as couples or as single parents, adopt. How could you not be in favor of children finding loving homes like this one?


"They call kids like us vicious and carved out of stone but for what we've become, we just feel more alone. Always weigh what I've lost against what I left. Progress report: I am missing you to death" - Fall Out Boy, I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy And...

Monday, October 10, 2011

September Music

Beulah - Your Mother Loves You Son
City & Colour - Fragile Bird
Class Actress - Keep You
Damhnait Doyle - Darkness Round The Sun
David Bazan - Wolves At The Door
Daybehavior - It's A Game
Dead Snares - City Sparks
Dirty Projectors - Stillness Is The Move
Eric Anders - Looking Forward to Your Fall
Glasser - Mirrorage
Holana - Dolphins
Intruder - Teeth In Your Heart
Jakalope - Pretty Life love love love this video
jj - Let Them
Jon Fratelli - Rhythm Doesn't Make You A Dancer
Kidney Thieves - Before I'm Dead (Acoustic)
Kye Kye - Knowing This the band's name reminds me of my favorite lemur, the Aye Aye. Doesn't everyone have a favorite lemur?
L.P. - Wasted
Love You Moon - Why Pop Stars Sell Silicone
Mason Proper - Point A to Point B
Matt Pond PA - Love To Get Used
Mister Heavenly - Bronx Sniper
Mona - Listen To Your Love
Mottorama - Far Better (Superpose Remix)
Niki & The Dove - The Fox
Ruby Jean and the Thoughtful Bees - Danse Danse Resolution
Santogold feat. Karen O - Go
Say Hi - Devils if only this band would tell me who to say hi to...
She Wants Chaos - Digital
Soulstice - Color
System Of A Down - Lonely Day
team9 vs. Stereogum - Disturbed Youth
The Barlights - Sometimes
The Grates - Like You Could Have It All
The Grates - Welcome To The Middle
The Gutter Twins - Circle the Fringes I still <3 Greg Dulli
The Loyal Divide - Labrador
The Soldier Thread - Fool
The Streets - Let's Push Things Forward
The Strokes - Machu Picchu
The Subways - It's A Party
The Wealthy West - Love Is Not Enough
The Wombats - Our Perfect Disease
The Wooden Birds - Two Matchsticks
Those Dancing Days - Fuckarias
Toby Mac - Made To Love
Trances Arc - Don't Like Leaving
Trophy Wife - Microlite (Acoustic)
Tuó - Walk With Me
William Fitzsimmons - The Tide Pulls From The Moon


As usual:
Bold = I have other songs by them in my mp3/cd collection
Italic = I'd heard but didn't like other songs by them
Neither = never heard of them before


"I don't want to let you go, but it hurts my hands to hold the rope" - Brand New, Sink

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Flash Fic October


This story came to me almost all at once. I hope it makes sense to readers too! As usual the stories must be no more than 2000 words, and they have a photo and three words to "inspire" the stories, which must be written within sixty hours. (I have, oh, 57 to spare, so I have time to revise if necessary.  

Anyway, the words are "Album", "Bizarre" and "Perspiring" and as usual too any form of the words are acceptable. The photo is apparently of some sort of wishing icon in Europe, and that's what ALL of the stories so far are about, so voting will probably be fiece considering how pointed the photo part of the prompt is.  Ready?

The Judas Tree
 
"We can't," he said, voice throaty and strangled.
 

Ignoring his protest, she stroked his thigh, making him groan. Clarissa knew that was too close to the full moon to be trying to seduce Chase this way, but a naughty little part of her wondered. What would it would feel like if his bones began to lengthen and he started to sprout fur, to change while insi-

I snapped the book shut with a sigh. The premise had seemed so promising when I read the summary in the bookstore, and I'd thought it'd be just the thing to lift me out of my sour mood. I mean, how could werewolf themed erotica not yank you out of reality? But then, the werewolf just had to be named Chase.

Of course the book was a failure, Chase was my problem in the first place. God damn Chase.

I'd had a crush on him since the 8th grade, and he finally noticed me in 11th. We went to homecoming together, and it felt like all my dreams were coming true. The feeling didn't last, though, because two weeks later, just days after I'd printed out pictures of Homecoming for my photo album, he was caught with Alison McCreary at Ben Long's party.

 

If he'd only kissed her I might have forgiven him. But they weren't kissing. Even that literary whore Clarissa would have blushed if she'd seen what I'd walked in on.

Chase tried to apologize later, but I didn't want to hear it. I mean, really, what could you say to excuse yourself from accidentally forgetting you were dating someone and screwing another girl at a party? He was now dating her, of course.

After letting myself stew over it for a week or so, I tried to find distractions from it all. In so many different ways, really. None of them worked, though, because I'd almost get to a happy place and then the memory of seeing Alison under him at the party would surface and blot everything else out. Reading urban fantasy porn as escapism was attempt number 67. Number one had been sending that page of my album through Dad's paper shredder.

Maybe it was because it was Halloween, but after the werewolf story, I knew what I had to do. If I couldn't be happy with Chase, Alison damn well wasn't going to be either. Going back inside, full of the pleasant fire of determination, I gathered up my supplies and jumped on my bike.

I knew exactly where I was headed, and I should have done it a week ago, just like Kenna and Hunter told me to. Back when they made the suggestion I thought I was a bigger person than that, but it turned out that I wasn't above revenge after all. A visit to the Judas tree was the answer to my problem.

~*~*~*~

 
 

From a distance the first thing you noticed about the Judas tree was the stump next to the trunk. Part of the tree, actually. Once the tree had been a set of Siamese twins, but one of the trunks had gotten diseased, so someone had hacked the sick half away to save the rest over a hundred years ago. The stump was no mere humble reminder of a tree's better days, though. It had a sinister look to it now, and the coins sticking out of it resembled nothing so much as the raised scales of some prehistoric beached sea creature. It was only as you walk towards it that you noticed that the scales were in fact metal, coins. Malicious offerings.

 
 

There were always thirty coins. From what I had been told, and in fact could see on the tree itself, more than thirty people had availed themselves of the Judas tree's dark breakup magic, but if someone took the time to count the coins, there were always thirty. People said that as time went on some of the coins worked themselves deeper into the stump, which was probably true. But how that meant only thirty were visible at a time, I couldn't tell you.

 
 

The stump was an ugly thing, when you came right down to it. The living part of the tree on the other hand, was much more lovely. In bloom it had rich pink flowers, but now in October it was bare. People didn't come to the tree to admire the flowers, though. No, it was the bark that was of interest: it held the name of dozens of lovers. Many of the names were crudely carved, but some of the names had a scrolling ornate look to them, as if they had been placed there with a great deal of care. Some of the pairs of names were surrounded by hearts that were quite ironic.

 
 

The irony, of course, was that every pair names on the tree represented a couple who did not stay together, which was the tree's spiteful gift to the lovelorn. In my high school, people like to tease couples and tell them that they would they did something to piss the teaser off. A lot of people acted like the threat was hollow, but deep down, I think most people did truly fear that they might come upon the tree and see their name there.

 
 

And it wasn't just students, some of the names had been carved by vindictive ex wives, ex-husbands, ex-somethings, stalkers, and shy adults still too cowardly to ever do more than long for the object of their affections to suddenly become available.


As the legend went, you had to do two things: the first was, with malice in your heart, carve the names of soon to be doomed lovers into the bark. The second was to pound a coin into the stump beside the tree as an offering.


When I slipped the coin out of my pocket, it shone in the autumn light, more silvery than it had looked when I'd scooped it off my dresser. No one told me which order you did things, so I took my hammer out and pounded it into the stump. I could almost swear that another coin sank from view while I worked, but it might have been the sun in my eyes playing tricks.


That done, I picked up the knife my brother had given me before he left for college, and examined the tree. I found a bare spot just barely within reach, and began to carve the C first. By the time I was done I was perspiring, and my back and arms ached from having spent that much time reaching up. Chase and Alison's names were neither the neatest or messiest there, and I left with a bitter lightness in my step, satisfied that I'd done the only thing I could to get revenge.

~*~*~*~

The next morning seemed like any other, at least until I got to school. The hallways hummed with whispers, and I felt happy when I finally heard someone say "Alison." I looked forward to someone blurting out the details of their break up.

But it wasn't to be.

Instead, as I slid into my seat during first period, I noticed that Mrs. Creek looked like she was barely holding back tears. As soon as the last person sat, she sighed and addressed us. "I'm afraid that there was an accident last night. Chase Holt and Alison McCreary were in a car wreck-"

She didn't get any farther than that before someone else who hadn't known about the accident already asked her if they were okay. She shook her head slowly. "They think Chase will be okay, just a few broken bones, but Alison is in Intensive Care. Things...they don't look good."

I sat in class, and wondered if how terrible a person I was showed on my skin. It was all my fault, all because I'd decided that they needed to break up too. Had I been too full of malice when I carved the names? Was the coin supposed to have come afterwards and I'd somehow bizarrely intensified the spell by doing things in the wrong order? That hardly seemed possible. I couldn't be the only one to give the coin first, and no one had ever been hurt, physically anyway, before.

By the end of the day my guilt was threatening to swallow me whole: after lunch Alison's brother had been pulled out of class to go to the hospital "just in case."

We all knew in case of what.

**

I felt more than half-crazy with remorse by the time I got home. But I had a plan. I was going to fix everything. My parents didn't even know I'd gotten home before I'd darted into the basement for my bag, and left again.

The tree seemed to glower at me in the distance as I pedaled up to it. Had anyone else ever come to take back their misdeed? I thought not, but I had to try. Chase and Alison didn't deserve what I'd done. No one deserved that.

"I'm, um, I've changed my mind," I muttered, not really feeling strange to be talking to a tree.

If it had been a fairytale, the stump would have immediately spit out the coin, and the broken bark smoothed over. But it wasn't, so nothing happened.

"I'm calling it off, okay?" I asked, looking down at the stump. I thought I saw my coin, and tried to pull it out. It didn't budge.

This wasn't supposed to be happening. I poked at the coin with the tip of the knife, and barely felt it as the sharp edges of another one bit into my skin.

"I'm sorry!" I wailed, tears streaming down my face. "I didn't mean it!"

Looking at the tree, leaning over the remains of its twin, I think I finally understood what made people so sure that its curse would work: it was forever separated from its other half, and looked so unhappy. Why wouldn't it inflict that on others?

I shook my head, strangely convinced that the tree was merely trying to distract me from my task. Determined anew, my fingers scrabble against the stump, and I couldn't pry the coin back out. If it was even the right coin. The coin wasn't going to come out, I was pretty sure of it. So I turned to the tree's trunk instead.

Frenzied, I attacked the bark where I’d so happily carved the day before, using my knife to score over Chase and Alison's names again and again. Eventually the knife slipped and gashed my thumb under where that other coin had already cut it. I ignored the pain until the slipperiness of my blood made it too hard to hold the knife any longer. The bark was a smeared mess of lines and a red wetness I didn't want to think about. Maybe it was a good thing, though, a blood offering to show I was serious instead of a mere quarter.

When the knife fell from my aching fingers, I was startled to see that the cuts on my thumb and palm looked almost the same as the C I'd carved the day before. That had to mean something.

By the time I got home, my sweater was red to the elbow, and my mother screamed. I didn't whimper or cry out once on the way to the e.r., though, because I was gone on a feeling of serenity. I'd erased my mistake, and everything would be okay.

~*~*~*~

Three Days Later

It took seventeen stitches to close my wound, and all I could think about was how white the bandage looked on my hand as I stood in the cemetery during Alison's funeral. It should have been dirty, dirty to match the new darkness in my heavy heart.



The End


"Got my hands full, so full of trouble. There's something evil when it's double" - Starflyer59, Something Evil

Friday, October 7, 2011

Fall TV Pilot Report Card

Note: this post will be updated as more shows premiere.

I guess that alphabetical order makes as much sense as any...

American Horror Story: B
This is one of the three shows I was most looking forward to, despite not being much of a Dylan McDermott fan. The pilot had some interesting moments, but so far it also is a bit disjointed. Hopefully the next few weeks will knock out some of the rough edges.

Hart of Dixie: B
You know what the CW has been missing? A replacement for Everwood. This show might just be it. It's kind of cute, and it's always nice to see another The O.C. alum on TV.

Pam Am: incomplete
I bailed after fifteen minutes. I'd heard that this was one of the shows this fall hoping to cash in on the popularity of Mad Men, but you know, I'm not a fan of Mad Men either. January Jones is one of those women, along with ones like Eva Green and Anna Silk, that I find beautiful in a wistful "why can't I look like that?" way, but that's not enough. As for Pam Am, like with Mad Men, maybe I'm just too young to find it very relatable, considering I didn't live though any part of the 60s myself.

Person of Interest: D
If someone had told me that it was going to appeal to the same sort of people who like the Jason Borne movies, I could have been spared the hour I wasted on this one. How can something with action in it be so boring?

Revenge: A
I'll be honest. I will watch anything with Emily VanCamp and/or Nick Wechsler in it. Anything. So, it's happy fortune that not only are they both in this show together, it's a pretty entertaining show to boot. We probably all have revenge fantasies, and it's interesting to see how one might play out if you had both the resources and the ruthlessness required to pull it off.

Ringer: C-
Yeah...no. I watched the first two episodes, and stopped caring after that. Sure, I own every season of BTVS on DVD, but I was always a Spike fan at heart more than a Buffy one. If this show is really supposed to be noir, it's a pretty clumsy one. I'd much rather watch Brick several more times than try to invest myself in Ringer.

The Secret Circle: B-
I'm still trying to decide how much I like this show. I'll stick with it for now, but I can see myself eventually growing to love or loathe it with equal odds.

Terra Nova: B
It's not as fun as Jurassic Park or Primeval, but I do like dinosaurs, so I'll probably continue to watch until it's prematurely canceled. For a show based millions of years in the past, though, they've been very sparing when it comes to showing us the dinos. And I find it slightly disconcerting to hear a man being called by his last name, which happens to be my first name, so I'm thinking that the whole unisex thing didn't work out as well as 70s-era parents who gave their boys my name hoped...


So there you have it, for now. Once Upon a Time and Grimm, the other two shows I've most looked forward to, don't begin until the end of the month, so check back later. FTR, Grimm is the most anticipated - I've been suggesting a supernatural-themed version of Law and Order for years, and TV won't get any closer to that than this.


"Feel me, completer, down to my core. Open my heart and let it bleed onto yours. Feeding on fever down all fours. show you what all that howl is for." - TV on the Radio, Wolf Like Me

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

So far a good week

This week has been pretty good so far. Vynce got married (see last post) on Sunday, and from there:

Sarah Palin has announced that she will not be running for president. Happy days! I'd like for there to be a strong female candidate for president as much as any other not particularly feminist female voter would, but Palin and Bachmann are not candidates I can get behind. They're exuberant, I'll hand them that, but neither comes off as particularly bright. Why must the only potential female candidates spring from the cheerleader contingency of the Republican party? I'd so much rather someone like Rice run. Hell, I'd sooner vote for senator Snowe, even, despite her overly liberal voting record. Anyway, the thought of Palin running made a little part of my soul curl up and die because I could not vote in an election between her and Obama. I just couldn't be part of deciding between the frying pan and the fire, and it'd be the first presidential election I'd sit out since being old enough to vote. Now I don't have to worry about that any more!

And on Saturday, after being awake for 23 hours, I decided to write a cover letter and apply for a part time job that I was interested in. I don't know the hours, but it does pay nearly twice as much as my real job, so it wouldn't need to be many to be good. hyped up on caffeine and lack of sleep (I get more hyper the less I sleep. Thanks, ADHD!) I decided to try some of the "power words and phrases" in the two books I've read this summer about writing resumes and cover letters. Reading it over after I woke up, I couldn't decide if what I'd written was completely obnoxious, or brilliant. Since I was contacted today for an interview next Wednesday, I guess brilliant has it. Wish me luck!

What could make this week even better?
* my favorite TV show getting a 2 or 3 season renewal
* having the publisher's clearing house prize patrol show up
* meeting a tall, dark and available guy (and age-appropriate!) with a high tolerance for sarcasm and a propensity for redheads
* finally finding the missing pieces to novel #1 so the first draft can be completed before Christmas

Hey, you never know....


"Did you want all that you bought? It feels good to destroy. Push it down, let it up. Still empty, it's not enough. Like you could have it all if you had 24..." - The Grates, Like You Could Have It All