Post-HullabalU calm
So, another burn this weekend, HullabalU, the Midwest Burners' end-of-season "afterburn". It was great, except for all the wet. As I was returning to my own tent at about 7 Saturday morning, the drizzling began. It escalated through most of the morning, up to a torrential downpour, and then tapered off through the early afternoon, stopping completely by about 3. Another shower later in the afternoon, and it was over. The sun even came out briefly, and many stars were visible later overnight.
There were a bunch of people who were just scared off by the forecast, and didn't show at all. Others camped nearby decided in the middle of the downpour to pack up and leave, which was really stupid. Especially since the "road" into the area we were camped in was nothing but mud, and getting out required driving up a distinct slope through it. They ended up getting other people to come pick them up, abandoning the car full of wet gear, and returning for the car yesterday afternoon.
Trish and I hid in the tent through most of the rain, and though others were out and about, it sounds like the general activity level was pretty low. However, once the rain slackened off, everyone emerged and started to party, and the late shower did nothing to disperse people.
Some people had heavy casualties in terms of soaking, and Trish and I got off lucky there. We had one small puddle in one corner of the tent. It just happened to be the corner with all my clothes in it. Which didn't really matter all that much, since I went out before it had stopped raining, and was going to get drenched anyway. For others, it meant some shuffled sleeping arrangements for Saturday night, and more fun was had. >:)
In other news, more microfiction. Some of you have seen this first one in another form. I figured this was as good a venue as any to get it out. Another similar one will be forth coming.
Nightmare
This is a combination of random obscure references (which I’m sure nobody but me will ever get all of) and the inane dribblings of a mind not merely twisted but actually sprained.
Welcome to your nightmare, make yourself at home. Will that be screaming or non-screaming? You know, we only aim to please. A good nightmare comes along so rarely; I’ll show you yours if you show me mine. You’d best enjoy it while it lasts, you’re burning time at the stake.
Your life is a war that can never be won, but don’t throw in the trowel quite yet. Just Teflon the Sword of Damocles to the ceiling with a protractile iambic pentameter. That ought to relieve your polyunsaturated boredom, and let you progress at a Canterbury pace toward a superposition with a worm screw and a Wankel rotary engine - what did you call me? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks.
You know, the kinetic energy of the music equals the potential energy of the lyrics. Isn’t that a nice tidy formula? Not that you’ll ever get anywhere with it, you’ll always die in mid-backstroke. You might get a little farther with the potential energy of dreams being equal to the kinetic energy of time, but you’ll still have to convert it to furlongs per fortnight.
Space is like time, which is actually the rate of spontaneous conversion of future to past. And time is like polyester with an acrylon blend. So is inverse time just turned inside out? I bet you don’t buy that by the yard.
Don the Gödel and walk the Planck to earn your slice of pi (since a mathematician is just a device for turning coffee into theorems, after all). Don’t mind the unconscious Argentinian, just assume he’s a sphere. With enemies like him, who needs friends?
Just take a hit of Crystal Mephistopheles (so what if he’s left-handed? He’s not bad, just misunderstood) and everything will become perfectly transparent. But at that point, you may need a diaphanous Paternoster to keep from catching an excommunicable disease.
Allusions within illusions, or is that the other way around? Doesn’t matter, you’re just deluding-illuding-alluding yourself anyway, though with a few more elutions you can elude the Aleutian as well.
Quoth the raven, pop goes the weevil.
Dammit, I think Mom put acid in my orange juice again.
This is the one that occurred to me en route to St. Louis for the juggling festival, that I tweaked up a bit.
To Fly with the Clouds
Never let the skepticism of others prevent you from following your dreams.
“That one looks like a train.”
“Yeah, I see it. And that one over there looks like a banana.”
“There’s a triceratops down by those trees.”
“Oooh, yeah. Clouds are so cool. What keeps clouds floating up there like that? What if gravity reversed itself? Would everyone just fly off into space?”
“Gravity doesn’t exist, Jamie, the Earth just sucks.”
“Come on, seriously.
“You talk about gravity reversing, and tell me to be serious?”
“You always talk down to me, just ‘cause you’re older.”
“Not just ‘cause I’m older, I also know more than you do.”
“Whatever. I still think it’d be really cool to float up there with the clouds, and look down on the world.”
“I’m not gonna argue that, it would be cool. But you’ve still got gravity to deal with. Once you get past that little problem, you let me know how you did it, OK?”
“OK, Jamie?”
“Jamie?”
Just barely not cliched, but I thought of it, so I figured I might as well.
Young Love
Typical teen angst, served on a bed of disapproving parents, garnished with a blend of insecurity and self-righteousness.
I love her.
They don’t understand. They’ll never understand. I know, they’re only doing what they think is best for me. That’s their job, they’re my parents. But that’s the problem, they’re my parents. They don’t get what it’s like to be me, to be in my situation.
I love her.
Tonight, she said, she’d introduce me to her other friends. Older friends. This is my big chance to meet people outside the stupid kids at school. And she says they’re really neat people, and I don’t have to be nervous, because they’re accepting, they’re not cliquish, and they trust her judgment. Which is more than I can say for my parents. Maybe when they see this new crowd I’ll be hanging out with, this older group, they’ll see I’m more mature than they thought. I’ll show them.
I love her.
There she is, beautiful as always. And there’s the rest of her group. Very goth, very pale. Yeah, that was her style, and it made sense that they were like that too, I just hadn’t thought about it. I started worrying again, thinking I wouldn’t fit in with them, but she just beamed at me and I melted again.
I love her.
She dragged me over to them by the hand. For a minute, they all looked at me, faces blank. I squirmed under their silent stares. Then one of them cracked a smile, stepping forward and sticking out a hand. I grinned back nervously, as each of them came up in turn, shaking my hand, smiling and welcoming me to the group. She waited behind me, bouncing happily, until I’d gone through everyone. She skipped around in front of me and wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me down.
I love her.
“I’m so happy,” she whispered in my ear, pulling back and kissing me full on the lips. She pulled me tight again, nuzzling and nibbling at my neck. See, Mom and Dad, they accepted me. I’m not that irresponsible little kid anymore. Even if she is leaving a hell of a hickey on my neck, that there’s no way I’ll be able to hide in the morning.
I love her.
This one was inspired by a Blackmore's Night song I discovered over the summer. The problem is that Lindsay and I haven't been able to come up with any decent title or epigraph for it.
EDIT: After some other outside suggestions, I've come up with the best title and epigraph so far, and failing a better one, I'm running with them. I've made a few more edits to the story also, some to incorporate the new title.
Green and Raw
To thine own self be true…
She turned away from the gathered crowd. He hadn’t humiliated her nearly so much as himself, as everyone present was his friend or family. She had no one in this world, except him. And now he had abandoned her. She’d been naïve, definitely. Perhaps even gullible. But no more. Her eyes were open now.
She left the building. It was built on someone else’s hallowed ground, but that meant nothing to her. She ran barefoot across the lawn, populated with markers enumerating the buried dead, and she scoffed again at the silly custom. But she was finished with this world, this… culture, and now that she’d been so rudely awakened would never have to witness such barbaric practices again.
She stripped away the silly white gown and shroud she’d been coerced into wearing. Another thing she would never again have to deal with. She had been willing to give up so much to be with him, only to be scorned. He’d asked her to join with him, in front of his family and community, and then had been unable (or unwilling, it hardly mattered, as she was alone now) to follow through with his commitment.
She approached the woods. With every step, her bare skin darkened, from the faint tan she had adopted to its natural deep brown. The iridescent green highlights in her dark brown hair began to glow as it blew in the nonexistent wind. She knew he’d felt inadequate, that he wasn’t good enough for her. He’d said many times that he wasn’t worthy of all the sacrifices she had to make to be with him, but she believed she’d convinced him. Apparently she hadn’t, and she’d been on the edge of making the ultimate sacrifice. Fortunately, she smirked, he’d been kind enough to show his true feelings before she’d taken that last fatal step.
She passed the treeline, her eyes beginning to glow green. Never again. She would return to her native realm, and have nothing more to do with these fickle, illogical, and short-lived creatures. With each step, her corporeal body became less and less substantial, and her spirit was restored to the forest whence it sprang.
Never again.
We've been through many possibilities, many directions, and are still coming up with crap for either title or epigraph. I'm not going to say what any of it was here, because I want your thoughts, any suggestions you might come up with, without our contamination. For that matter, none of these have been submitted yet, so I'm still open to suggestions for alternate titles and epigraphs for all of them.
There were a bunch of people who were just scared off by the forecast, and didn't show at all. Others camped nearby decided in the middle of the downpour to pack up and leave, which was really stupid. Especially since the "road" into the area we were camped in was nothing but mud, and getting out required driving up a distinct slope through it. They ended up getting other people to come pick them up, abandoning the car full of wet gear, and returning for the car yesterday afternoon.
Trish and I hid in the tent through most of the rain, and though others were out and about, it sounds like the general activity level was pretty low. However, once the rain slackened off, everyone emerged and started to party, and the late shower did nothing to disperse people.
Some people had heavy casualties in terms of soaking, and Trish and I got off lucky there. We had one small puddle in one corner of the tent. It just happened to be the corner with all my clothes in it. Which didn't really matter all that much, since I went out before it had stopped raining, and was going to get drenched anyway. For others, it meant some shuffled sleeping arrangements for Saturday night, and more fun was had. >:)
In other news, more microfiction. Some of you have seen this first one in another form. I figured this was as good a venue as any to get it out. Another similar one will be forth coming.
Nightmare
This is a combination of random obscure references (which I’m sure nobody but me will ever get all of) and the inane dribblings of a mind not merely twisted but actually sprained.
Welcome to your nightmare, make yourself at home. Will that be screaming or non-screaming? You know, we only aim to please. A good nightmare comes along so rarely; I’ll show you yours if you show me mine. You’d best enjoy it while it lasts, you’re burning time at the stake.
Your life is a war that can never be won, but don’t throw in the trowel quite yet. Just Teflon the Sword of Damocles to the ceiling with a protractile iambic pentameter. That ought to relieve your polyunsaturated boredom, and let you progress at a Canterbury pace toward a superposition with a worm screw and a Wankel rotary engine - what did you call me? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks.
You know, the kinetic energy of the music equals the potential energy of the lyrics. Isn’t that a nice tidy formula? Not that you’ll ever get anywhere with it, you’ll always die in mid-backstroke. You might get a little farther with the potential energy of dreams being equal to the kinetic energy of time, but you’ll still have to convert it to furlongs per fortnight.
Space is like time, which is actually the rate of spontaneous conversion of future to past. And time is like polyester with an acrylon blend. So is inverse time just turned inside out? I bet you don’t buy that by the yard.
Don the Gödel and walk the Planck to earn your slice of pi (since a mathematician is just a device for turning coffee into theorems, after all). Don’t mind the unconscious Argentinian, just assume he’s a sphere. With enemies like him, who needs friends?
Just take a hit of Crystal Mephistopheles (so what if he’s left-handed? He’s not bad, just misunderstood) and everything will become perfectly transparent. But at that point, you may need a diaphanous Paternoster to keep from catching an excommunicable disease.
Allusions within illusions, or is that the other way around? Doesn’t matter, you’re just deluding-illuding-alluding yourself anyway, though with a few more elutions you can elude the Aleutian as well.
Quoth the raven, pop goes the weevil.
Dammit, I think Mom put acid in my orange juice again.
This is the one that occurred to me en route to St. Louis for the juggling festival, that I tweaked up a bit.
To Fly with the Clouds
Never let the skepticism of others prevent you from following your dreams.
“That one looks like a train.”
“Yeah, I see it. And that one over there looks like a banana.”
“There’s a triceratops down by those trees.”
“Oooh, yeah. Clouds are so cool. What keeps clouds floating up there like that? What if gravity reversed itself? Would everyone just fly off into space?”
“Gravity doesn’t exist, Jamie, the Earth just sucks.”
“Come on, seriously.
“You talk about gravity reversing, and tell me to be serious?”
“You always talk down to me, just ‘cause you’re older.”
“Not just ‘cause I’m older, I also know more than you do.”
“Whatever. I still think it’d be really cool to float up there with the clouds, and look down on the world.”
“I’m not gonna argue that, it would be cool. But you’ve still got gravity to deal with. Once you get past that little problem, you let me know how you did it, OK?”
“OK, Jamie?”
“Jamie?”
Just barely not cliched, but I thought of it, so I figured I might as well.
Young Love
Typical teen angst, served on a bed of disapproving parents, garnished with a blend of insecurity and self-righteousness.
I love her.
They don’t understand. They’ll never understand. I know, they’re only doing what they think is best for me. That’s their job, they’re my parents. But that’s the problem, they’re my parents. They don’t get what it’s like to be me, to be in my situation.
I love her.
Tonight, she said, she’d introduce me to her other friends. Older friends. This is my big chance to meet people outside the stupid kids at school. And she says they’re really neat people, and I don’t have to be nervous, because they’re accepting, they’re not cliquish, and they trust her judgment. Which is more than I can say for my parents. Maybe when they see this new crowd I’ll be hanging out with, this older group, they’ll see I’m more mature than they thought. I’ll show them.
I love her.
There she is, beautiful as always. And there’s the rest of her group. Very goth, very pale. Yeah, that was her style, and it made sense that they were like that too, I just hadn’t thought about it. I started worrying again, thinking I wouldn’t fit in with them, but she just beamed at me and I melted again.
I love her.
She dragged me over to them by the hand. For a minute, they all looked at me, faces blank. I squirmed under their silent stares. Then one of them cracked a smile, stepping forward and sticking out a hand. I grinned back nervously, as each of them came up in turn, shaking my hand, smiling and welcoming me to the group. She waited behind me, bouncing happily, until I’d gone through everyone. She skipped around in front of me and wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me down.
I love her.
“I’m so happy,” she whispered in my ear, pulling back and kissing me full on the lips. She pulled me tight again, nuzzling and nibbling at my neck. See, Mom and Dad, they accepted me. I’m not that irresponsible little kid anymore. Even if she is leaving a hell of a hickey on my neck, that there’s no way I’ll be able to hide in the morning.
I love her.
This one was inspired by a Blackmore's Night song I discovered over the summer. The problem is that Lindsay and I haven't been able to come up with any decent title or epigraph for it.
EDIT: After some other outside suggestions, I've come up with the best title and epigraph so far, and failing a better one, I'm running with them. I've made a few more edits to the story also, some to incorporate the new title.
Green and Raw
To thine own self be true…
She turned away from the gathered crowd. He hadn’t humiliated her nearly so much as himself, as everyone present was his friend or family. She had no one in this world, except him. And now he had abandoned her. She’d been naïve, definitely. Perhaps even gullible. But no more. Her eyes were open now.
She left the building. It was built on someone else’s hallowed ground, but that meant nothing to her. She ran barefoot across the lawn, populated with markers enumerating the buried dead, and she scoffed again at the silly custom. But she was finished with this world, this… culture, and now that she’d been so rudely awakened would never have to witness such barbaric practices again.
She stripped away the silly white gown and shroud she’d been coerced into wearing. Another thing she would never again have to deal with. She had been willing to give up so much to be with him, only to be scorned. He’d asked her to join with him, in front of his family and community, and then had been unable (or unwilling, it hardly mattered, as she was alone now) to follow through with his commitment.
She approached the woods. With every step, her bare skin darkened, from the faint tan she had adopted to its natural deep brown. The iridescent green highlights in her dark brown hair began to glow as it blew in the nonexistent wind. She knew he’d felt inadequate, that he wasn’t good enough for her. He’d said many times that he wasn’t worthy of all the sacrifices she had to make to be with him, but she believed she’d convinced him. Apparently she hadn’t, and she’d been on the edge of making the ultimate sacrifice. Fortunately, she smirked, he’d been kind enough to show his true feelings before she’d taken that last fatal step.
She passed the treeline, her eyes beginning to glow green. Never again. She would return to her native realm, and have nothing more to do with these fickle, illogical, and short-lived creatures. With each step, her corporeal body became less and less substantial, and her spirit was restored to the forest whence it sprang.
Never again.
We've been through many possibilities, many directions, and are still coming up with crap for either title or epigraph. I'm not going to say what any of it was here, because I want your thoughts, any suggestions you might come up with, without our contamination. For that matter, none of these have been submitted yet, so I'm still open to suggestions for alternate titles and epigraphs for all of them.