Duct Tape and Epoxy Glue

I thought about posting my narrative about Blue Thunder's adventure and following surgery today, but it turned out a little long for a blog post and is more of me making fun of myself than anything else. So I'll summarize.

Today, my dad and I superglued bits of my car together.

It's a bit called the pigtail that plugs into the alternator. It's not easy to get a new one without buying a new electrical harness and cutting it up, which isn't exactly a cheap way of going about things. So we opted for the next best thing, which was gluing the plug into the alternator.

And we didn't use super glue. After we duct taped the pigtail long enough to get home, we pulled out the epoxy glue. It's some super strong stuff that is a mix of epoxy resin and an unpronounceable chemical. Armed with toothpicks coated with the stuff, we shoved the pigtail into place and gave it a nice thick layer of five-minute epoxy.

Blue Thunder's holding up fine, now. ^_^

Hallowe'en...Late

Traditionally, my writing club has a Hallowe'en party (not Halloween; the hostess is very clear on that). It's always been a murder mystery, like a How to Host a Murder gig, but with a few differences. Difference one would be that this isn't only one murder: the murderer continues to kill people as they see fit throughout the night. Difference two is that the plot line is written by the hostess and a few others every year.

I helped this year.

Of course, since everyone's away at college now, we postponed it a month so we could get everybody. It took place Friday night.

It was very interesting to be on the planning side of things. I've been the murderer before, and I got killed about halfway through the party last year, but I've never had to worry much about the plot line beyond my desire to solve any mystery. This year I was a fortune-telling gypsy, which also gave me the ability to randomly give people direction if they were going too far in the wrong direction.

But it also required a great deal of improvisation on my part. To begin, we started the night's "entertainments" with me telling each character's fortune. I was not expecting that. I thought I would randomly grab people and spurt mystic nonesense, but then, there I was sitting at a round table with an audience of fourteen people. An hour before the party, I had spent five minutes reading up on palmistry on Wikipedia. I couldn't even remember which line was which, beyond the life line. So to supplement my lack, I added a twist. I had a red velvet bag of shiny polished rocks, and I had each person draw out a rock as I was going along. Thus did I invent a great deal of minerology that somehow had to do with the future. I also tried to spice up each fortune by changing how I behaved toward the people.

My success: at least people were laughing.

The second hitch I ran into that night was the fact that I was the first person to be killed off (that wasn't part of the original plan, but we had to do some last-minute adjusting). This normally wouldn't be a problem: ghosts are allowed to interact with everybody, and their motives and all extend beyond death, but they aren't allowed to discuss who exactly murdered them. The problem was my handicap. Ghosts at the party always have a handicap: blindfolding, not using one of their hands, speaking in a whisper, etc. However, since my character had, up to the point of my death, been quite cheeky and altogether too loud-mouthed (I was a gypsy with no respect for authority), I was given the handicap that I could only speak when asked a direct question, and only to answer that question.

Try keeping everyone on the right track when you can't talk unless they want you to.

In the end, my most effective method involved grabbing people's wrists and staring at their palms until they asked me what I wanted to say. Some people tried to get away, though, so I had to employ a rather firm grip. When I couldn't grab people, I had to gesture like a madwoman and caper about endlessly. I can't tell you how many times my facial expressions were misinterpreted because they lacked commentary.

But all in all, it was a very interesting experience, and luckily the plot worked out well enough. And me and my friend have so many ideas on how to make it even better next year!

Dreamweaver

Today I learned an itty-bitty bit about how to make a webpage using Adobe Dreamweaver (I have a handout entitled "How to weave the website of your dreams," but only because the Inscape advisor has a sense of humor). I learned the basics of inserting text, and I know how to fiddle my way through modifying tags for text, background, and other simple stuff like that. The biggest stumbling block I've found is that I don't speak abbreviation. I know how to fiddle with tags, provided I know what the darn tag is. When there are fifteen three-letter-or-less abbreviations starting with A, that isn't a good sign for the uninitiated.

But I'm sure I'll get better. Even if I'm not on the web staff this semester, next semester is completely web, so I'll have to learn fast.

I Lost My Mind on Page 4

Editing does funny, funny things to my thought process. And to my control of my mouth. And to the way I read things, especially to how I read them aloud. Most recently, I've been trying to catch up on the first chapters of the revision of two friends' science fiction novel. It's much better than it was before, but certin issues have carried over from the original. Namely, cliched descriptions of pain and awareness, and a tendency to avoid the word "said" as if it were...well, something very, very smelly.

But the newest development is the most inventive use of semi-colons I have ever seen in my life. It blows my mind. Sometimes, I can spend at least five minutes trying to understand why a semi-colon is present in a sentence. Only to give up with no more enlightenment than I started. I'm trying to figure out if it's my fault or not. During the first draft, I advocated comma rights and tried to get them to back off on the run-on sentences. One of my suggestions was the use of semi-colons. I don't know if this phenomenon is due to that or due to the fact that one of them caught semi-colon fever and infected the other with it as well. Worst part is, I don't even know how to address the problem, because I don't understand their logic in many of the uses.

0.0 I don't know.

Insurance

I recently received an email from USA Water Polo. I'm a member, of course, because it's required in order to compete in USA sanctioned games, which are the only ones that matter. It was telling me about a deal on renewing my membership, and it also listed the benefits I currently have. Among these benefits is insurance for injuries sustained while playing polo. One of the categories is distinctly disconcerting.

"Accidental death or dismemberment."

Death I can see--drowning is a possibility if you're an idiot. But...dismemberment? I'm not sure how safe I feel playing polo anymore if they expect cases of dismemberment.

Ring Nebula

Here are the fruits of my labors from last night. The pictures were taken with a CCD camera mounted on a 16" telescope, and I played with the images in, er, some program that can combine three or more images from the various filters on the telescope. The picture on the upper right corner is what the nebula actually looks like when you combine blue, red, and green visual light filters.

Question

Background: after my date on Friday, I was going to invite the guy inside my apartment while we ate our ice cream until I saw (through the window) that my roommate was having a movie night. Before completely deciding to stay outside, I asked if he was cold (he's from Georgia, and he was in shorts, and it was a bit nippy if you're not crazy like me, so it was a valid question). He repeatedly told me he was not, and we sat out on the stairs to talk and eat ice cream.

Skip to twenty or so minutes later.

Is it bad that, when I saw his jaw muscle shivering, I laughed inside? In addition to not repeating my offer of going indoors? Heck, if he's too proud to admit that his comfort level is several degrees higher than mine, I think I almost have a right to be gleeful at his discomfort, but a little voice inside (curse you, Avolin) tells me I should have been kinder.

Fact

Random fact for the day:

In the Roman Empire, it was a mark of keen eyesigt when one could discern both stars in the binary system that makes up the middle "star" in the Big Dippers handle.

Just in case anybody needed a trivia fix. In other news, I had thought about posting my Ruling Council's opinions on a certain recent event (i.e. last night), but alas, Maylene's comments are again unprintable, and Ayliel is so uneasy with the whole thing that I don't want to embarrass her further. But Suhayda has a sort of benevolent apathy going on, Avolin is just being his usual sweet little self, and Cal won't shut up about how boring softball is. Oh, and Brennan hasn't stirred a whit.

Ironic Response

Today I found out that my submission to the university literary journal was rejected. More than that, it was rejected without a discussion. And I am absolutely elated.

Of course, this response requires a bit of delving into. The reason I gave the girl next to me was that I had written the essay in one night and sent it...and regretted the sending two minutes later. Admittedly, that is part of the reason: I was in no way proud of this submission, except in the vein that it is the first essay I've written that fits into the genre of essay that is published in the lit journal.

The heart of the matter is a bit deeper. I have never, in all my life, submitted something I was truly proud of to any sort of publishing establishment. Call it a chronic fear of failure, but I've never wanted to take a risk on anything I cared about being rejected. However, even with this reining in of the quality of work I send, I have never truly been rejected. (To be fully truthful: two of my submissions to my high school lit mag this last year were rejected, but I submitted seven or eight pieces, so the rejections don't really count.) Outside of the high school scene, I have had several poems published (and I am not a poet), one essay, I've been invited to publish one other essay (I declined, because it was a pathetic, writhing thing), I've written last-minute essays with no soul that got me thousands of dollars in scholarship money, etc., etc.

I could take this as a vast complement, the idea that work I don't consider up to snuff is being accepted for publication. Yet I have never really felt that way. The concept that lurks in me after an acceptance letter is one of being cheated. I should have to try. Life should not be easy. Even something I love as much as writing should not, I reason, come so easily to someone who is so obviously not a genius. Robbing me of motivation to grow, to excel through hard work, is a crime I cannot forgive.

In essence, my experience in writing has been the opposite of my experience in swimming. In the pool, I gave everything I had, plus more, every single day for four years--more, even. Yet my results were meager: I qualified for state every year, but only barely; I was captain because there were only two senior girls; I was rewarded with some of the closest friends I've ever had (the latter is the greatest reward ever, but it didn't come because of my efforts in the pool). With writing, my half-hearted attempts have been accepted with open arms, even praised.

How wonderous it is to be so soundly rejected. Thank you, Inscape, for validating my firmly held belief that I am mediocre, that I have loads of work to do.

This is such a liberating feeling!

Angel Food Cake

So I pretty much ate most of a big angel food cake (like, my roommate ate one slice) all by myself. My roommate said she needed to get rid of it, so I slowly started munching, one piece at a time, every time I stood next to it in the kitchen. It took me several days, but today, the angel food cake disappeared. My roommate thinks it's hysterical and she gave me a hug for it. Silly, if you ask me. She also thinks the juxtaposition of my Vanilla Wafers, ramen, peanut butter, and apple cinnamon oatmeal is pretty funny.

And I've decided that I should be banned from playing Cranium. I have waaaay too much fun.

Raving

Raving for research, that is.

Something is definitely wrong with my brain. Today in my writing class, we were going over the syllabus (she procrastinated writing it until this morning) and talking about the end-of-semester research paper (assigned to be at least ten pages, and less than twenty pages). When she said we could write about anything we liked, I was practically ecstatic (still on something of a little high right now...). You mean, I thought, I get to research in-depth about whatever I want? Holy cow, what an opportunity!

Only now, I'm trying to decide if my first thought is really a good one.

I want to research the representations of, symbols of, reactions to, relationship with, etc., death in various cultures, especially in the myths, legends, and folktales thereof. But that's too big, so I want to zero in on old Celtic traditions. Arawn, Bran's head, the Bean Nighe, the Banshee, ravens, hounds that bay like geese, and so forth. It would be awesome.

But people might think I'm a little crazy for picking such a morose topic. It gives me too much delight to be a healthy fascination.

I could, on the other hand, discuss a set of legends from a certain subdivision of Celtic lore--Manx, Scottish, Irish, Briton, Cornish, Welsh--and how they reflect social dynamics of historic society.

On a completely unrelated note, I could research old sailing ships in hopes of getting around to writing out that idea about the lonely, vindictive embodiment of the waters of the world, Lady Undine, and her fascination with Former-captain Lund. Since he practically lives out at sea, I'd need to know more than a thing or two about the ship he'd be sailing on.

Or I could write about Malayan bladed weapons, or focus on the use and structure of the European longsword.

I could theorize about why the constellation Orion often crops up to be a warrior/hunter type fellow in various cultures. I mean, he doesn't even look all the human. Yeah, he's got the belt to draw attention to himself, and his armpit's pretty bright, but you can take those stars and make them into something other than a guy about to bop a bull on the head.

Heck, I could write about the history of swimming.

She also mentioned the option of turning in the first chapter of a novel--even though she's not supposed to allow that sort of thing--if we worked out what sort of research we were going to do in advance, and displayed it in the writing. Some people, upon first hearing that first chapters were allowed, seemed somewhat jaded at the thought. But she glared everyone down and asked if they knew how much research actually goes into a novel. When she said that, I let my head fall against my desk. Too dang much, in my opinion. And even when you think you checked enough facts, something you learn in astronomy class pops out at you and shouts, "Hey, idiot! New moon, even though you can't see it, isn't up at night! Dipsmack."

So yes, I have quite a few options floating around in my head. For Son of Sferesh, I could even just research medieval travel, city layout, and social structure and stick it into the first chapter.

Problem is, now that I've thought of so many, I have to pick one. Yikes. Any opinions are welcome, of course.

(In favor of the Celtic idea, no matter how ultimately useless the research would prove to be for me, I have a book full of Celtic stories that has, in the back, a list of recommended reading. I'm not sure where I would start with most of the rest of them.)

Editing Staff

I'm officially a member of the staff of the university's literary magazine, and I don't have to do poetry. I'm actually on staff to help with the creative nonfiction that comes through. Huzzah!

Duck Fluff

"You're a swimmer, aren't you?"

My professor caught me by surprise. I'd slipped into the lead on our field trip to the Writing Center--they had free food, so I'd already been there--and she'd pulled me up short with the question. I fumbled for a moment, trying to decide how she knew. I didn't smell like chlorine: I'd been out of a pool for weeks. My hair wasn't wet: my alarm hadn't gone off that morning in time to take a shower. The dead-giveaway shoulders were disguised: my backpack made it impossible to know that they were any wider than the rest of me.

"Yeah, I am. How'd you know?"

"That streak of hair on the back of your neck is bleached blond by the chlorine."

I laughed aloud. I'd been picked out as a swimmer many times, but never by the gathering of too-short hairs on the nape of my neck. "Duck fluff" was always a subject of mild amusement for my teammates and me, but I had never been branded on account of the extra light streak at my nape.

First Final

Sounds kinda contradictory, don't it? Yes, this should probably be in the Starving Student blog, but I just don't feel like a starving student yet, honestly. I haven't even done my first grocery trip. Anyhow...

I took my first final yesterday. 'Twas the culmination of my six-day course on Dante's Inferno, and it wasn't half bad. Two hours, and my responses filled two lined sheets of paper front and back. I felt pretty good about it.

In other news, shortly after the final, there was an end-of-Late-Summer-Honors dance...with non-LSH roommates, and basically anyone else who found out about it invited as well. I got there late, but enjoyed myself immensely. And everyone seems to have this wild notion that I know how to dance. Highly amusing, really. My roommates, who were also in attendance, voiced jealous impulses. I told them to make fools of themselves and it would get better, but they didn't take my advice.

I met a guy who's really good at leading, though. He is also under the impression that I know how to dance, so he asked me to do some swing and later on some waltz. Surprisingly enough, we did not look like complete idiots, which is a fine compliment to him. I tend to instinctively rebel against any sort of leading, but he had me doing some simple lift-dip things during the swing and I managed the waltz fairly well on top of that.

Oh, and finding all the cultrual nuances that separate British from American makes me laugh. My British roommate can entertain me for quite some time discussing kitchen rolls.

Thalius

This is my daemon. He spent a lot of time as a tiger, but I'm pretty happy that he settled as a lynx. It says that means that I'm competitive, responsible, modest, solitary, and proud. I think it's interesting that modesty and pride are both on the list.

Divine Genius

Okay, so perhaps divine is pushing it, but it's sorta a play on words...yeah.

Dante Alighieri blows me away. That's really all there is to be said. It is impossible to read too much into him: he meant everything! And just when you think he slipped up, just when you think he made a mistake--haha, joke's on you, simpleton. Nope, instead he was poking fun at someone, or paying homage in some sly, obscure way. And now, some quotes from my class on Inferno. Probably not as funny out of context, but whatever.

Dr. Sowell: "Always use a Latin phrase when an English one would suffice."

Kyle (he's so funny): "Couldn't it just be coincidence?"
Dr. Sowell: "Ah, dear, innocent Kyle. OF COURSE NOT!"

Dr. Sowell: "WOULD YOU EVER MAKE YOURSELF A FIGURA CHRISTI?"
Josh: "No."
Dr. Sowell: "Are you sure?"
Josh: "Yes."
Dr. Sowell: "Never?"
Josh: "No."
Dr. Sowell: "Never ever?"
Josh: "Never ever."
Dr. Sowell: "Never, never, ever?"
Josh: "N--"
Me: "Shut up already! He's going to prove you wrong!"

Dr. Sowell: "For years people thought that Dante had simply made a mistake, and forgotten that Virgil said Beatrice would tell him what the future held. Bah! Those were the same people who said he couldn't find a better rhyme than ome and ume. Idiots."

Book List

I managed to endure one of the ordeals I described last night: I picked my books. They are as follows:

Leather Bounds
Mark Twain: Selected Works
Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Works
The Works of Washington Irving
The Complete, Fully Illustrated Works of Lewis Carroll
Medieval Epics and Sagas (containing things like Beowulf, The Son of My Cid, The Song of Roland, etc.)

Mythology and Folktales
The Once and Future King, T.H. White
Celtic Myths and Legends, Peter Berresford Ellis
Best-Loved Folktales of the World, Joanna Cole

Drama
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostrand

Writing Aids
Robert's Rules of Writing, Robert Masello
The Plot Thickens, Noah Lukeman
Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, Lynne Truss

Mental Health
Lord of the Rings (combined volume), J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lays of Beleriand, J.R.R. Tolkien
Going Postal, Terry Pratchett (I wanted to put Thief of Time in as well, but no room)
The Dark is Rising / Greenwitch / The Grey King / Silver on the Tree, Susan Cooper (I couldn't fit Over Sea, Under Stone in the box)
The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara

There are so many I had to leave out. I didn't even fit The Divine Comedy in. I might be able to sneak a few more slim volumes into the writing materials box (the binders fill it from top to bottom, but not from side to side).

Moving Out

I'm moving out on the 23rd.

It's only three or four days sooner than I was planning on, but it straddles a weekend. I had plans for that final weekend. Now it looks like this weekend is my final weekend. Yikes!

Preparations are under way, but this is gonna be tough. My bookcase is killing me. My mum mentioned something about packing up all the books I don't take with me. It's sacreligious, I tell you. Books die in boxes! And it's not like I can take them all with me. I have nearly two hundred books in my room (stuffed in various bookcases, crates, and other nooks and crannies), and there's no way I'll have room for all of them in my apartment. I'm limiting myself to only as many books as I can fit in this wooden box I have, but it's not enough. Thus far, I can only fit all my leather bound books, my world folktales book, my Celtic folktales book, the Dark is Rising sequence, the Lord of the Rings, The Killer Angels, a couple Terry Pratchetts, Watership Down, and a couple other odds and ends. I still have a little room left, but not much. What do I leave behind?

Same with my notebooks. I have nearly an entire shelf of old notebooks, some of which are full and some of which are hardly used. There's no way I can take them all, but how can I part with these pieces of my soul? I don't keep a journal, but I have my notebooks. They're like a comfort object, more so even than my knives.

Which brings me to another point: large knives are prohibited in my housing area. Do you realize how much that hurts me? My machete, my bowie, my kukri, and probably the biggest two of my throwing knives all fit that description, and probably a good number of my flip knives as well. I guess my sword, sissy though it is, also falls under the list of prohibited items. All I'm left with are my mini flip knives. My one consolation is my wooden katana. There are no rules prohibiting big sticks carved in the likeness of bladed weapons.

I'm having a hard time with this.

Accidental Rejection

Today, there was a little exchange at work between me and a guy we'll call Char. I was getting off my opening lifeguarding shift and rushing off to teach swim lessons at the other facility.

Char: Are you done after swim lessons?

Me: Huh? [I am so intelligent.]

Char: Are you double shifted, or are you done working after swim lessons?

Me, to myself: Oh no, Char, I'm not taking some afternoon shift. I'm not gonna double-shift myself voluntarily. Sorry, I can't, I have a water polo game.

Char: Do you want to come sailing with me?

Me (on automatic): Sorry, I can't, I have a water polo game.

Me (to myself): Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! The game isn't important, you'll probably forfeit anyway, and it's sailing. Not boating, sailing. Whenever Char talks about it, it sounds like tons of fun. Idiot!

Me (out loud): It sounds like sweet awesome fun though! *sees the clock* Crap! I have to hurry over to the outdoor pool.

Oh, and what a surprise, my team forfeited. My only consolation is that the weather probably made sailing a no-go anyway. Lame-sauce. Stupid autopilot.

My Villain

Cedric N'gaz is so much better this time around. The revision is definitely going to improve due to his increased character development. Along with his increased screen [?] time.

In other news that is also related to my revision, I have gotten to the disastrous point I referred to in the first version as "Chapter 4". Now it's at the end of chapter six, but that's okay. This version is so much better.

Now Hiring: Must Have People Skills

Lifeguards are supposed to be able to be polite, even when perturbed. Yeah, missing that quality. This was my Fourth of July at work. Yes, I wrote about it in third person, but I'm not using the ocelot. Yes, I was being an idiot. Warning: it's kinda long.

She walked into the lifeguard break room, drained already. Her family, wanting to take advantage of dad’s day off, had spent five hours out on the lake. It wasn’t as though it hadn’t been fun—quite the opposite, really—but five hours on the lake is five hours in the sun. The July sun. Now, why the sun, the source of all energy, found the need to drain hers was beyond grasping, but that was how things went. Now she looked forward to a further five hours in the sun. Except this bout also involved people.

Not that she had anything against most people on an individual basis. But in groups, on hot days, when she had a baby migraine, that was when people became stupid. Of course, that could be her perception. Or maybe it was just another one of those things: inexplicable, but true.

She looked through the break-room window and nearly wept. She could barely see the water for the people in it. What, had everyone decided to spend the Fourth of July outside, then come to realize it was at least 100° outside and opt for swimming? Some part of her, the part that existed in the courtroom of her mind as a defense attorney for humanity, huffed that it did make sense. But the rest of her, the prosecutor and the biased jury, didn’t listen.

Why couldn’t they all just suppose that everyone else would have the same idea, and avoid the pool for the sake of avoiding the crowd? Crowds, she had found, were the worst of it. In small groups, patrons could be managed with a firm, authoritative hand. Heck, sometimes they even learned from each other. The lifeguard told him not to do that, so I shouldn’t either. But in crowds…ugh. You got the worst of the worst, and you got it all at once. The defense attorney sighed that you probably got the best of the best while you’re at it, but who notices things like that?

What she did notice, when she went out on deck and took her place on her small plastic chair, was all the annoying people. The couples that didn’t realize they were at a public pool. The teenage boys who thought rules were for other people, and the things certainly weren’t there to keep you from causing harm to others or yourself. The hundreds of small, aquatically challenged children who managed to get away from their parents with a speed jet pilots would envy. The idiots who couldn’t grasp the concept that lap lanes were for lap swimming. The boys and girls who didn’t go to the end of the diving board before trying to do a front flip.

Peter, a high-spirited, goofy co-worker, appeared at the base of her chair. Time to rotate.

“Hey you, how’s it going?”

“I’m alive.”

That, she decided, was the best she could say.


Break time. The air conditioning caressed her sunburned skin, and she rummaged around in the cupboard for her cup. She could feel dehydration setting in. Water needed to be in her mouth within the next minute. Why couldn’t she find the blasted thing? It wasn’t like it looked like the rest of the cups. Yes, it was a cheap red plastic affair, but it was covered in permanent marker designs. She hated it when her cup looked like everybody else’s. Similarities made it hard to find.

“Where is my cup?” she wondered aloud.

“Ahaha,” said Paul. She turned to the boy on the beaten old couch. He was far taller than her, and had the grin of an imp on his lips. “I put it up there,” he pointed to some vague spot, “and Tim threw it away.”

“Gosh dangit, you idiot!” She snatched the first weapon at hand—her shoe—and hurled it Paul’s way. Surprisingly, considering her typical accuracy, it hit him square in the chest. “Why’d you go and do that?” Like he needed a reason. Paul was just mean spirited like that. He hardly treated anybody better than the ground he walked on.

Paul didn’t answer, but instead popped to his feet and gently placed her shoe on top of one of the suspended light fixtures.

“Get it down!” she shouted. Yes, she was making a scene. Yes, there were other people around. And yes, it was her own fault that Paul had a chance at her shoe in the first place. But that wasn’t the point. The point was, Paul was going to have to pay some sort of toll for being so utterly imbecilic.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Whatever, she didn’t have the patience even to argue her point. She jerked a guarding tube off the ground and climbed onto the couch. With a klutz’s care, she eventually knocked her shoe down. Of course, before she could get off the back of the couch, Paul had picked it up and was running to a different light fixture. One far from the couches.

She swung the tube at his back, getting one of the best smacking noises she’s ever heard from a tube. But that didn’t stop him from depositing her shoe high above the ground.

“Paul!” He collapsed back on the couch. She reached for his sunglasses, but he held them at an arm’s length.

“Pull his hair,” someone said. She glared at the newbie guard. Was his name Matt? What did it matter? He was a new guard, and not a particularly good one either.

“No,” she said. There were some lows that she would never reach, regardless of the blood rushing through her already pounding brain. Instead she whirled back around and threw her knuckles right beneath Paul’s ribs. “Get it down already.”

“All right, all right,” he said, pretending he was giving in to be nice. But she had felt it, that inexplicably satisfying feeling when a punch hits its mark. He threw her shoe on the floor and she returned to the cupboard. She selected an unmarked—though probably not unused—cup and wrote her name on it. If she wasn’t so thirsty, Paul would have had to answer for the cup. She kept telling herself that, trying to drown out the part of her that was hurt that she’d broken her promise.

No one was harder on her when she broke promises than she was. And she’d punched somebody. Again. Yes, it was Paul. But it was still a punch.

The cool water quenched her thirst, but it didn’t calm her temper.


Everyone was finally out of the pool and outside the gates. That is, aside from the lifeguards. They were all scrubbing the deck and mucking out the locker rooms.

She snapped the foamer onto the hose. She didn’t see why it was so hard to attach the darn thing. Anyone could do it. Except, of course, Briana. Trust her to fail to see the obvious.

“There, Briana. Now give me back my squeegee.”

With her squeegee, she resumed guiding the—ahem—disinfected, yet still quite nauseating water toward the drain. She heard a clicking sound, and she instantly looked toward the hose.

Paul—not the same Paul who had messed with her shoe, but still a Paul—stood with the foamer in his hands and started for the exit.

“No you don’t!” she bellowed. Unlike many girls her age, she actually knew how to bellow. It helped that she could sing tenor. “Put that right back on the hose!” She was brandishing her soiled squeegee, and Paul backed away with his hands up.

“I thought you were done with it.”

“I said, put it back!” Who did he think he was? Hadn’t he been nearby when, last summer, she had devised the Thou Shalt Nots of lifeguarding? Number one: Thou shalt not rotate late. But it was closely followed by: Thou shalt not steal thy neighbor’s [insert cleaning equipment here].

Paul scurried back to the hose and put the foamer down with exaggerated care.

“Hook it up!”

He did. Then she stepped away from the door and let him pass. Stupid Paul. She knew she shouldn’t think that—Paul was nice enough, even if he didn’t always think things through—but she thought it anyway. Stupid Paul.


Finally, the locker rooms were clean. Well, as clean as they were going to get without a hands-and-knees, corrosive-chemical, all-out cleaning. And she wasn’t volunteering for anything like that.She hung her squeegee in the maintenance closet and started for the door. At the threshold, however, she found her nose inches away from a dripping, putrid squeegee. Not funny. The fact that she had pulled a similar stunt only half an hour ago on Paul didn’t even cross her mind.

“Peter!” she snapped at the red-haired boy at the other end of the squeegee. He wasn’t trying to be mean, she knew quite well. On the contrary, he was trying to perk her spirits, cheer her up. He’d been trying all day, and he was having adverse effects on her already volatile disposition. “Get that thing out of my face!” Most people would have been slightly hoarse after the consistently high volume she was using, but her voice pealed.

Peter quickly twirled the squeegee out of her way and she stomped into the open.

“Somebody’s having a bad day.”

She spun around, saw Newbie Matt’s face, and stood on her toes. Matt wasn’t much taller than she was. She held her arms slightly away from her body, flexed every muscle she had, and lurched toward him. “You know what?”

Matt cringed. “I’m not gonna mess with you.” He cowered away.

That’s right, she thought. That’s right. Don’t mess. She really shouldn’t intimidate new guards like that, but somebody had to do it. Otherwise they got ideas. A voice under her anger said that shouting at everybody handed people ideas, but it was ignored.

“You know,” Briana said from behind her, “you’d make a good character for a book.”

She was certainly put-out at that point. “No, I wouldn’t. I’d be homicidal, and the rest of the cast wouldn’t exist for long. In books, you can get away with killing people!” She didn’t mean that like it sounded, but she didn’t feel like adding a clause about at least getting away from your conscience.

She felt dozens of eyes on her face, but didn’t meet any of them. Instead she started on her way to her car.

One thing was for certain: she hadn’t made any friends today.

Porah

My subconscious does not have my saniy's best interests at heart. Of course, I've never been of the opinion that my subconscious has a heart at all, and I don't think it even has its own interests anywhere handy. I think it just chucks things at me to see how I'll react, like some sadistic scientist. It gets irritating every now and again.

Thus we have Porah, the Tamer of the Drums. Just when my creative juices seemed to be completely occupied, I have to find time and energy for this. I mean, I have a collaborative short story going on (collaborations, I've found, are honestly more draining than solitary endeavors; you have to have a clue about where you're going with a train of thought, because somebody else has to understand and expand on it), I have a revision that is mired in about the same place as the original was (which is bad, because I get wordy when I'm mired, and wordiness is what the revision is trying to fix), I have a sequel that needs a thickening plot (no one likes a watery plot, in my experience), and then I get saddled with some seventeen-year-old kid who thinks he can tame the spirits of his ancestors. Ha! I say. Ha!

It's not like I was trying. There I was, minding my own business, enjoying a presentation on the various cultures of Polynesia. No harm in that, right? I was just watching. But that's not what my subconscious was doing. Oh no, it had to work while I was at it. Next thing I know, some BYU-H student started beating Tongan drums with tasseled sticks and my subconscious brought out the inspiration catapult. "He looks like he's trying to tame them, like they are wild creatures," it said. I gritted my teeth and pointedly continued watching. I would not reach for something to write on. I would not. "Maybe he believes them to be inhabited by spirits of the departed," it crooned. I didn't even glance toward my mother's handy bag full of writing implements and pieces of scratch paper. Lastly, as if I didn't know what it was hinting at, it named a main character. Loudly. "PORAH!" it screamed. That was it, then. Concepts can be forgotten, they can slip away--even willed away--as easily as wriggly fish, but characters are forever. They can change, they can evolve, they can even run around plotless (the equivalent of stark nekkidness, in my opinion), but they are never forgotten.

And thus I am here, writing about a drum made from a sea turtle's shell. Soon I'll be writing about a very strange funeral, and then I'll be describing things in terms of touch, taste, smell, and sound, because Porah will be blind.

It's no wonder the Housing Department of the High Council of Krys has trouble. People move in without any plans for their future. Porah settled in when all he had was a wooden drum and a pair of loose, baggy pants. Stupid vagrant characters. Hobos, the lot of them!

Game 5

Not a strong showing, truth be told. But we did make it to the championship, and I scored again. Here's a newspaper article.

http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660220293,00.html

We had two girls on the honorable mention all state team, two on second team all state, and I was first team all state. Our second-place status means we play in the Champions Challenge tournament this week (not that we'll get very far, but it will be fun). I stole the big trophy and I have in on my mantle. It's going to stay there until we have our end-of-season banquet.

Game 4

I can only write interestingly about a game once, and I'm writing a little scene/story/snippet thing for this game. So you get the brief version.

We were playing the same team we played in game 2, only this time they were ticked off (beating someone is never easier the second time). It was majorly intense. It came down to the last few seconds. And me, pathetically enough.

That's right, I scored the winning goal! With four seconds left, no less. Afterwards, I got dunked a lot. For those of you who don't know, I'm a defensive player, and I've never really had a sweet awesome shot. Mainly, I just hit the bars of the goal or throw lob-like shots when I'm trying to rocket them off. It was soooooo cool to win like that. I've always wanted to, but I never thought it would happen.

Game 3

Let's not talk about game 3. I'd rather forget it as soon as possible. Let's just say that right now, I feel like maiming anyone who even slightly annoys me. Or thinks about annoying me. Or looks at me without permission.

Game 2

Water polo state championship report:

8-5, for us! This was a team we haven't beat before, and we weren't predicted to win. I skidded onto the deck two minutes before game time, and the greyhound didn't get there until after the first quarter was over.

A few highlights: In the very first play, our substitute set player (the greyhound is our usual) scored a backhanded shot. Sweeeeet.

By the time the greyhound got there, it was 4-1, us.

Nobody I was guarding scored. I even did an a la goalie block on one of them.

By third quarter, the other team had girls on the deck gasping for breath: we were just fine.

Our team only had one ejection called on us.

We drew several ejections, two of which were on the same person (a leading scorer) so they sent her to play goalie.

More or less, we kicked butt.

Game 1

Water polo state tournament report:

We totally wasted in our first game. 12-0, and we were doing so well that my coach took me out for the first half of the third quarter and the majority of the fourth. We didn't play our best, so hopefully we're saving that for tomorrow. I did draw one beautiful ejection: I swam for about five seconds carrying an opposing player on my back. Mwahaha.

Also, we must win every game. We cannot lose, because we've decided we're winning a state championship, but to do that from the loser's bracket, we'd have to either do it without two of our players or make them skip prom (one is going with a guy she really likes, and the other is going to her first and last dance).

Nightmare

Last night I didn't sleep well. Today is the game against last year's state champions. I know my team can beat them, I just don't know if we can pull together and show everyone else that. So I stayed up, nervous and nauseous, until I fell asleep sometime after 1 AM.

Of course, sleep was no solace. Hereafter follows my nightmare.

I was playing my position quite well against my opponent. She was completely useless. (That part wasn't the bad part; that's more like a fantasy section.) Then, during a quarter break, I saw the other coach telling the girl I was guarding to "take me out," like in some cheesy sports movie. During the next play, the girl swung around and punched me in the eye.

My dream-self stayed cool. I couldn't get kicked out, not at such a crucial point in the game. I recalled the bobcat, and her attack during a similar incident. I didn't want to let my team down like that. So I didn't hit the girl back, despite how much I sincerely wanted to.

Shortly after that point, I was removed from the game. I was bleeding excessively, and it was suspected that I needed stitches. The referee had not seen the girl slug me, so she was home free. But I was not allowed to play at all, even though I had kept my temper under control. The lifeguards would not let me put on butterfly bandages and get back in the pool: they made me leave.

So not only did I not get to play, but the other girl didn't get caught and I didn't get to hit the girl back. THAT is the second worst nightmare I've ever had, and the first involved watching aliens cut my mom into 1-inch cubes. Not so happy.

Emotionally Invigorated

Excersize and competition are honestly the answer to every problem. Yes, those may involve violence, so I guess I am advocating the occasional violent act to de-stress and relax. Or get hyped up, either way. Currently, I know I am going to be out of my mind with stress tomorrow, the next day, and probably the next, but right now, at this very moment, I don't care (as seen by the fact that I'm writing a blog post instead of writing lessons plans for the practice swim lessons).

Today I went to water polo for the first time in a week (you have no idea how much that is killing me--I'm used to daily practices, not once-a-week practices). We basically scrimaged the whole time, guys on girls. All in all, the results were favorable, and I made a few conquests and a few realizations.

- Conquest #1 - I blocked/inhibited the majority of Paul's shots. Since he was first-team all-state last year, that's pretty shnazzy. I mean, so was I, but I'm a girl. Girls should not beat guys in positions where it is mainly brute stength with a bit of positioning involved.
- Conquest #2 - Jake, the senior goalie-man, tried to dunk me today (I won't go into detail as to why). He came up with a sort of lacksadaisical look on his face, like dunking me would be no problem and a funny thing to do. Ha! I'll show you, Mr. Goalie-Man! I managed to keep my head up during the initial shove, then I locked with his arm and wrestled him around until he was under the water. The was done, of course, in view of everybody. Mr. Goalie-Man got schooled by a girl. In a wrestling match. Take that. I spit in his face when he came up for air, and he sulked back to his goal in relative silence. Mwaha.
- Conquest #3 - I manhandled Ryan, one of the guys who subs in for Paul's position. And he's no pushover either. I got him to do some really stupid things, like sit in the way of people driving in to the goal (because I was holding him there). Afterwards, coach would tell him to fix the problem, but I would inevitably have to tell Ryan what the coach had been saying (Coach doesn't yell very loudly). I repeated the advice with the most innocent of tones, of course. Ryan knew the information the coach was imparting; he just couldn't follow through. He often glared at me when I told him what the coach was saying.
- Conquest #4 - I was the second-to-last girl left when we played Five Alive, a shooting drill. I got several good shots off, despite my spazzy aim.

- Realization #1 - If you only let a person get half a bodylength ahead of you, you can keep up. You stroke slightly on their back, and put your forearm against their hips. Not only to you slow them down, but they actually drag you. Hence, I could keep pace with Paul, who is a very fast male sprinter.
- Realization #2 - Knowing what to do has no usefulness if you can't follow through.
- Realization #3 - In the middle of a play, there is no inside voice for me. If the game is moving and going, everything I say is at the top of my lungs. It doesn't matter what I'm saying, who I'm saying it to, or how close they are to me. For example, in the middle of a play, Ryan picked up the ball, even though it was the girls' (blue's) ball. He was four feet away, but I shouted (with a hint of a snarl/growl), "RYAN, DROP THE BALL! IT'S NOT YOUR BALL! BLUE BALL, BLUE BALL, BLUE BALL! DROPITDROPITDROPITDROPIT!" Top of my voice, sounding very angry. In my head, I had a hint of sarcasm running through the words, but that thought did not make it to my voice. So, if I'm ever playing a game with you, and I start screaming, I promise I'm not mad. The adrenaline, intensity, and muscle tension make me sound that way.

Astounding, how this makes me feel so much better.

Building Backwards

This is kind of longer, and might not completely make sense to anyone but me . . .

Today I was talking with the wood duck, and he mentioned that physics—string theory and all its ilk—is easier to understand than social agendas. Now, in my mind, physics is about as impenetrable as it gets, so I had to defend the nuances of sociality, despite how tangled they can become.

“All you really need to know is what everybody wants,” I said, “and everything else follows after. If you can burrow down to a person’s motives, everything they do makes sense. Nothing to it.” Even less to it when I realized what I was really saying.

One of the first things a writer has to do with a character is determine what the character wants, what drives that person. After that, plot becomes simply a matter of obtaining what that character wants, plus a few obstacles thrown in the way. Any complicated situations that arise can be reduced to a question of conflicting desires. So, in essence, understanding people and social dynamics is just a matter of constructing characters in reverse. Instead of building a person from nothing, you are given a fully developed cast. You watch a few situations, you see how people react, you talk to them a little, and you start to dig down to what it is that they want, be it on a grand scale or not.

My thoughts kept moving along while my mouth logick-ed the wood duck into complacence, and I was allowed another insight as to why I am so unenthused about going to college. I have been with the same cast of characters for years. A good portion of the characters in my life have been around me as far back as my memory reaches. Slowly, the cast has grown, and changed composition, but always I had a base to work with. I had characters that helped me explore the minds, motives, and emotions of others. Every scene change left me with roughly the same people, and a change of scene doesn’t throw me off all that much when the people are the same.

I’m quite good at understanding the current cast that touches on my life. It isn’t difficult for me to accept and comprehend what is going on, why, and how I should deal with it—if I should deal with it at all. It is a rare enough thing that I know every detail of what is going on with my acquaintances: I’m not in tune with the local gossip (not that I’m upset about that; people skew things too much). But because I know people, when I hear about snatches of situations, when I latch onto fragments of gossip, I can generally puzzle out the details myself. I don’t need to know what’s going on, because I understand the people that are involved.

That is why I don’t like the idea of college.

More than anything else, I fear a change in my cast. Right now, even if everything isn’t perfect, it at least makes sense. When I move on to college, I will only be taking a small part of my former cast with me. With the current state of affairs, I will have hardly any of my time-tested characters to help me understand things. And when I don’t understand things…well, suffice to say that I don’t do well when I’m confused.

The second I get to college, I’m going to have to do some NaNoWriMo-pace character exploration, or I’m in big trouble.

Benefit of the Doubt

I've been thinking over the past few days, and I've come to a realization:

Very few people believe in the benefit of the doubt.

Not to sound high and mighty, but I seem to always be the one shoving in comments that make people look at things from another person's point of view. I think this is strange, because I've never thought of myself as the most understanding or forgiving person (most times, if I forgive you, it's 'cause I have to look at you on a daily basis). I still don't think I am. I think there are just things that have happened to me that force me to give people the benefit of the doubt, whether they deserve it or not, or whether their circumstances are anything similar to mine or not.

That's fine, that's great, I learned my lesson the hard way (which sucked, by the way). But why can't other people just give others a little leeway? Why do they make the assumption that because someone isn't perfect, they aren't trying their hardest? Why do they decide that just because someone has screwed up time and time again, they are worth detesting with every fiber of their soul? What gives any of us the right to hate our spirit brothers and sisters because they aren't as perfect as we'd like them to be? What if everyone hated me because I tend to be tactless and say things I don't necessarily mean? What if everyone despised me because I tend to correct a lot of the things they say, whether I'm serious about it or not? Some people can forgive me those trespasses, but they can't forgive someone being flamoyant by nature, or passive by nature. Why?

I don't know, maybe this all boils down to a "why can't we be friends?" issue, but it's been bothering me recently.

Listen to the Whistle

Today at water polo, my face more or less got bashed in. My upper jaw and nearly my entire nose are still tingly, and I got hit almost two hours ago. Now, I wouldn't have a problem with this if it was my fault, or if it had happened in the regular course of the game.

HOWEVER, it was not my fault, nor was it part of the game. The person who hit me was doing a full-force back-handed shot. Thus, she could not see where she was shooting. Admitedly, I was in the way, but here's the catch. I know how not to get hurt while blocking a backhand. I've been taught how, and self-preservation has nearly perfected my methods. I was in the way because our coach had blown the whistle: the play was over. So I stopped in mid-motion and stayed in the way. My teammate decided to take the shot anyway.

Because what she did was in ignorance of the position she is playing, I didn't get particularly mad at her. She could tell she hurt me, because I kept my hand over the injured area for a few minutes and it was a few more before I really got back in the game. I explained gently that when the play is over, it's over, but I'm not sure she got the picture. I tried not to let her see just how badly she'd hurt me, because she felt pretty bad anyway and she would have felt awful. But a couple of teammates noticed that I kept fingering my teeth and my nose whenever her back was turned.

I just hope it doesn't hurt tomorrow.

Anecdotes

So about halfway through swim practice today I realized something very amusing.

I held hands with the Homecoming King.

The thought made me laugh really, really hard. Of course, it was all a part of the Valentine's Day swim practice, where we pair up somewhat according to relative speed and have to remain in physical contact with a member of the opposite sex practically the entire time. For the first set, we were required to hold hands, and then after that we could do whatever was most efficient (which, we found, involves swimming with one person holding onto one of the other person's ankles). It could have been awkward, and I could think of a dozen girls who would have killed to be in my place, but I just thought the science of swimming with two people was really fun. And it was way funny when I put it in the words above.

I ended the day by having the leopard seal jump in the pool on top of my head. Apparently he didn't see me. One hundred thirty-five pounds landed directly on my head. Oddly enough, five minutes later, I felt fine. It's now that I have a headache, after doing explications for a goodly long while.

1984 is kinda hard to do them on, just so you know.

Cam vs Mak

It's been interesting to pound out two relatively in-depth characters in the space of a week. It went from one character with little more than a snippet of action and a poorly veiled name to describe him to two characters complete with full names that suit them, backstories, temperaments, abilities, reactions to people, and, ultimately, a plot big enough for the both of them (it helps that neither is very large of stature).

Cam has become something of a little friend that needs assistance. He doesn't see the world clearly, and doesn't understand all that he could be. He's a sad sight to see, when you understand what you're looking at. The really sad part is that nobody does.

Mak is good with kids, and that's all that really matters about him. Though, he's the first truly shortsighted character I think I've come up with. He lives supremely in the present.

Though I can't claim them as only mine (I have more of a claim on Mak than Cam, even though I care about him less), I at least had a strong hand in their creation. I've never worked this fast before, and it's been really amazing to watch them come to life even before the penning of their story begins.

It's also been interesting to watch the theme of the story evolve into something more than an attempt at fairy-tale reversal. I can look at it, and the little twists that my co-author and I have tossed in "for fun," and see that it could mean something deeper than an anti-hero if we write it the right way. The question is, can we do it?

This is why I write. I can only assume it's a bit like raising children, only different.

Taper Shark

It started with the tongue. It always does. The tongue is always the first thing to go. The tip of the tongue in the most susceptible, and that area shows the earliest signs. Before long, the entire muscle has fallen to the influence of the transformation, and things start to happen unbidden.

The first thing to die was my smile. My rebellious tongue took over the function, and weaseled out from between my lips whenever a hint of a smile came to my face. I don’t know what people thought of me when I was always sticking out my tongue, but that became the least of my worries.

My lips fell next, and with both them and my tongue out of commission, my language skills noticeably dropped. Instead of words, I began to make inarticulate sounds that babbled from my mouth like an inane brook. And when the sounds failed, spitting followed. There is actually quite a lot one can say with only water and the nerve to spit it at people. Even spitting it at nobody can make quite a statement—it’s all in the tone and delivery. Still, I was worried that I had resorted to such primitive tactics so early. The vibrating energy wriggled under my skin, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I wouldn’t be able to hold it in.

The most frightening of the transformations began with my teeth. Before I knew what I was thinking, I was gnawing on the lump of hair that stuck out from the back of my friend’s head. A bun, I believe it is called. When covered with latex, the structure makes an excellent chew toy—the texture is marvelous. Slowly, the compulsions became stronger, and I nearly bit my friend’s leg. But I stopped myself before I actually closed my teeth on the flesh of her shank; I only touched her skin before letting her pull away.

I suppose this is something like how a werewolf feels. He knows the transformation is coming, he knows what it means. Yet there is nothing he can do to stop it, nothing to do but to watch, and wait for the deep insanity to take hold of his consciousness.

At least this doesn’t happen every month. It’s only once a year, even if it is for a few weeks at a time.

_____________________________

Taper is driving me extra-insane this year. Next week is going to be craaaaaazy.