I Suppose

With the closing of the night class for me I've freed up a shitload of time for myself and now I sit with idle hands again. Hopefully the Chaucer will take that from me but who knows?

I've uninstalled wow from my computer and canceled my accounts. I'm pretty sure I should have marked the occasion with some sort of fanfare or festival but, instead, I simply did the deeds and let them simmer in the pan while I forgot about them. I just wish I had friends down here who played the 360 so that maybe we could still talk. Ryan does every so often but it's one of those things that if you are not playing wow, you wont see a couple people anymore. Here is to videogames and the lesson of using them to, potentially, burn bridges.

Aside from that noise I'll try to write something specifically for the blog next time. I've been working on a theory for my story structure and I have no idea how to really make it work. On paper it sounds amazing, but in practice? Whatever.

Fucked

Well, it seems that my hope for being graduated this year is impossible now. The DAPR thing that tells me my credit and ability seems to change drastically all the time, this time its telling me that I'm 46 credits away from graduation, meaning that I'd have to take 23 credit hours a semester in order to achieve victory. Hard not to get a little down about that now I guess.Potentially I could take 14 credit hours this summer and have graduated by the start of next year, I was just sort of looking forward to being done on time with the other kids I guess.

Oh well, right?

*EDIT*

Seems that on top of all these things I've also got to drop my 407 class because I'm taking the prereq for it. while that makes sense now it really sucks. I know I can handle the course work, I'm just apparently not skilled enough to have fun with the big boys.

Must Be Morning

I'm not entirely certain I'm going to be able to keep this, the chaucer tales, two fiction classes, a 400 level research class and working at the pit, up for very long. Even by my standards I feel like I'm stretching it a little thin. Maybe I should just quit my job? Or maybe school? BOTH!@?

have been listening to the new staind cd and relishing it for the most part. songs like "the corner" and "the way I am" are a change from the other cd's that shows how staind is progressing, but those progressive songs are rather few. for the most part the cd seems to have a lot of similarly sounding songs as well as songs that either start like songs from past cd's or are so identical to them that it is hard to tell. even with that in mind, I've found the cd incredibly enjoyable to listen to and I've listened to it a lot since getting it.

the new slipknot came out yesterday, and although I'm not as impressed with it as I was when subliminal came out, I've only had one listen through which is not really enough to make a decision on it. I'm going to give it the once over a few more times tonight when I get back from my night class. cory has always had a way of winning me over with his music, as has the entire band, so I'm going to give them my best try.

Snippet

Kate shielded her eyes from the noon sun and pressed her nose to the big picture window at Maddy's. It was cool and refreshing against her face, breaking her skin out into goose bumps and taking some of the edge off of the oppressive summer heat in the city.

She admired the women inside the store, watching them talk with each other and laugh. They seemed so happy to be standing around folding clothes, making minimum wage and dealing with the snobbish types who came in to buy winter apparel at full price in summer. Kate wondered what it would be like to make all of her money standing around with other women, instead of on her back with other men. Thinking like that, however, would mean going back to school or simply getting away from Marcus and Karl. She cringed instinctively, wrinkling her nose against the glass and furrowing her eyebrows at the thought of having to leave the busy east coast for the slowly paced west.

Kate pictured herself gagging on all the farms and fields, choking on church and the ever present push to steer clear of damnation. She could stand to stay a trick for a little while longer, she thought, as long as it meant not going back to church this Sunday. Or any Sunday.

She waved goodbye to the women inside, who didn't notice, and started walking again to the little section of street where she kept a corner office.

Anew

So everything has sort of been upside down for me recently. I've not had any time for this place as some of my brothers pointed out and I make no apologies for it. You know why.

Things just have not been going well recently, not that I need to explain the what and wherefors. Keighdee and I have agreed to some sort of armistice, drawing lines down the week and creating days we do and don't. It is all my fault and so I take the blame for it, but at the same time I need this to sort out my own shit. I just hope she takes the time to do the same, something I believe she is doing but refuse to make myself responsible for.


I've been thinking about asking a travel agent about a trip to english shores this spring. I should have a couple thousand if I save properly and it would be nice to take a puddle jumper out there and see what is what. I'll just have to get over the plan ride I guess, and the probability of going it alone.

will put something down here for the enjoyment of all tomorrow. Now that all the business is done I think it is time I moved on to pleasure.

And Such

I managed to get my computer cleaned out finally. I still cannot change my background which, honestly, was the least of my concerns, but the .exe files that kept fucking with everything are deleted and taken care of.

I'm not sure I'm going to continue with this blog thing anymore. I don't see the point outside of a moment of free writing before I work on other things. I will do the Chaucer thing still whenever Chris gets it set up, but as for all of this I just don't see the point. That is by no means my final say in the matter, but its a heads up moment anyway.

To Make It Short

My computer is basically fucked. After downloading what I thought was an update for my computer everything sort of went to hell. My background was changed, my computer running programs that wouldn't shut down, and eventually blue screening as I ran anti virus scans. Luckily I managed to get my flash drive out and secure some of the things I've been working really hard on, but everything else is now garbage to be lost when I reformat. If I reformat. I may just throw the goddamn thing into my attic and buy a typewriter instead. I still have my laptop to make these little posts with, and the only thing I'd be losing is the ability to play games on the computer. Something I need not lament anyway. Another amazing start to my day I must say.

I suppose we'll have to see what goes with all of that. It would really suck if I have to revert to my laptop because that screws keighdee over a bit. She's been using it for the last couple months because her computer is a bigger ass stain than mine has become. Whatever. We'll figure this out.

*Edit*

Originally I'd refused to write any more posts until Aaron and the others had posted a bit, but then I realized that all of them have been busy with concerts/promotions/travel and the very real date that they are moving back to school on so I'm going to retract that assertion, grudgingly.

An Unused Bit

Sitting in the Daison Lounge of the newly renovated Sanatine Center for the Arts, I’ve come to realize that my life is really less of a walking autobiography and more of a historical fiction piece written by smooth talking Lit students. I picture the person who wrote the things I’ve done as a hunched young man with a face dashed by pimples and marred by the rejections of a hundred or more women. He leans, each day that he wakes up in time to do so, over an old style typewriter and logs the hours that make up my life like someone might pay him for them and then drinks himself back to lonely sleep. With gnarled hands he lashes at the keys, gently saying to himself that it will all be ok, that tomorrow is the brightest its ever been, that he might get laid at any time some time. He is the phantom writing my opera, the shadow in my life who, lonely member in hand, writes about my incredible sexual escapades as though it were film noir.

The woman in the red dress lurched beneath me and I reached for the gun beneath my pillow. There were three shots in the chamber, just like the woman in red.

I like this young man very much.

Sitting in the lounge, staring at the lime green walls where brass light fixtures had been lazily tacked up next to modern art finger paintings, I started to really believe that maybe all of this was a dream I lived. I wondered if tomorrow I would wake up in a mental institution from a thirty year coma famished and insatiable. Maybe Sanatine's Golden Son was little more than a garbage collector who got hit in the head by a stray recepticle and now hallucinates a grandiose lifestyle of women and invention. If it hadn't been for June's softness that morning, the real warmth of her sleeping flesh, I might not have simply laughed that thought away. I need a drink.

Superbly Villainous

I wonder if it is appropriate to be daunted prematurely by the class list and itemized section of books I’m supposed to buy before they have even been discussed. I received two emails from my professors this morning with those things and, much to my distress, the old competitive rage erupted within me and I felt threatened on all borders like a polish president in the thirties. I wanted to mobilize immediately to stave off these foreign entities, to erect huge seawalls and anti-tank batteries on hilltops. I fought hard against doing this, trying my damnedest to remember that this is not a pissing contest but rather, a chance to receive help in my craft as well as help others in theirs. The Air Force, however, remains on high alert until further notice.

I suppose these lamentations are unnecessary and misguided, but if I cannot put them here where can I put them? And don’t say straight up my ass you cheeky bastards.

Also, as a P.S., I have not a fucking clue where this came from. As with all the things I’ve posted, it was written in one sitting while I drank coffee and listened to Sinch. Disclaimer over.



The seismic way in which my father walked through the house reminded me of a shelling in pictures of World War II. His feet arched over fallen toys, foot stools and wildly thrown legs, over discarded clothes and plastic soldiers whose bodies were broken in the hellish sandbox wars of the Back Yard, only to come crashing down in a land of toy trucks where the people would rather stay glued to their fake plastic seats than run for the safety of Batman’s cave nearby. Foolish.

Only the plush toys, much larger than their metal or plastic counterparts, survived such onslaughts mostly unscathed, something I blame on their incredible resilience. Only a truly superhuman entity could be crushed under fifty times their own weight and snap back into their original shape, their guts still intact, their eyes still light and genuinely alive in glossy black perma-wonder. Little do they know that I’m plotting to test their ability to regenerate, sharpening my scissors just a little each day to snip at the plushy fabric flesh.

“There can be only one,” I whisper to them amidst the scrape-scrape of the scissors against the stone, “I may not have been born with your immense survivability, but I know where you are weak. Tell me your secrets and I will leave some of your fibrous white blood behind to nourish what is left.”

I Thought I Had Nothing To Write About Today

The wide Olivetti typewriter clicked smoothly as James' fingers depressed the black keys. At first it was only a chore, but it had quickly become a devil's plod through eighteen hundred pages of research material on snuff films and cocaine nightmares. He'd greased his eyes with horrid pictures and graphic depictions written by what he could only assume were real monsters existing among us. He figured that the ones who collected this tribute for human immorality must be slouched individuals with shaggy locks and over sized, tusk-like, incisors. James did his best not to picture that slathering gape and what it must have consumed in order to write that which he was forced to review for the magazine, the way it must have split open in two thick bloody petals to laugh while it all went down, and decided it was best to just keep his head below deck and well into writing. Three hours into the march across hell a phone call shook him mid sentence about being shaft deep into a postmortem geriatric.

"Thank God," He said into the receiver, "I mean hello?"

"Donny?" said a woman's voice on the other side. An anchor was thrown overboard in James' chest and landed squarely in his stomach.

"No you have a wrong number," he managed, trying hard not to sound weak.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Thanks though,"

James leapt, "But maybe I could help you find him?"

There was a bit of a pause on the other end and James was suddenly aware that he was clutching the end of his desk hard enough to whiten his knuckles. He really didn't want to have to go back to work, and talking to a stranger, to anyone, was better than reading another hundred pages on penile skull insertion.

"Um, I think I'll be ok for now, thank you though."

"That's cool but we have two Dons here in the office you know, is that who you were looking for or maybe just Don is a nick name? Don Schafer or Don Williams, maybe? I could go look for them really quick," James said, making another pass. He knew he was the only one in the office, it was Sunday, but her voice was a light at night and he was running for it.

"Oh, um, neither of those but thanks for the help, I'm sure I'll find him, ok thanks, take care now, ok?"

The phone clicked off before James could have another go and he dropped the receiver onto the cradle, trying hard to keep his eyes away from the photos he'd been studying before the call. There were little pinups of rotting sheep, sepia tones of knife wielding men in black executioners masks, spreadeagled women leering out from the glossy paper drenched in fetish fishnets with latex cocks strapped to their foreheads. Looking at them earlier he'd been suspicious that somehow he'd turn fifty and they would come back to him in vivid detail. He'd be in the middle of pleasuring his wife when suddenly everything he was would go limp, an ulcer would form in his bowel and he would start the convulsions he'd somehow avoided when he was twenty. From then on, he decided, staring down at a particularly gruesome depiction of a man enjoying a cow drawn in red, black and peach crayon, he would cry every time he saw himself naked and would only get hard if he was wearing something one hundred percent wool.

He shakily found his fingers over the wide Olivetti and started again, trying hard to picture the food this article would buy instead of the trips to a counselor that he was steadily buying stock in.

Snippet Part Two

The party was elegant. A gathering of some note with men in hats and tails, women in long flowing gowns like they had plucked the fabric from the ocean or the windy trees. Black waiters in white tuxedos busied themselves with fluted glasses filled with an amber liquid and gathered dishes from silk draped tables where conversation was being made. It reminded me of the get-togethers my father used to hold in our house before he died. Maybe it was his memory that caused me to want to shoot the prissy thing that I'd brought on my arm in front of them all. Or maybe it was just that I thought shooting might get me to the cash bar faster. Drop a few suits and maybe I wouldn't even have to pay my tab at the end of the night.

I realized a moment later that I'd left my gun back in the hotel and would probably need that to do any shooting. Penny, the slim little thing I'd rented to come with me to this affair, seemed anxious to mingle with the higher socialites and I couldn't bring myself to tell her I wanted to go get something I'd forgotten back in the room. We found a table near the bar where two rich lushes were talking politics with a fat diamond drenched woman in a blue gown. Cinderella let herself go, it seemed.

Another Bottle Brings Another Day

Another thursday has come and gone mates, although I write this from amongst the goings on of that night, and I hope it was pleasant for all of you. Although I made it an early night, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I am happy to have been able to introduce a new drink to your repetoir. It is seldom I get to introduce new things to old salts, and it pleased me greatly.


When I was a boy, not more than fifteen, my brothers told me that if I continued to drink I was going to die. They said that if I didn't stop now the Lord God was going to take one of his famous ass kickings from out of his huge bag of ass kickings and hand one down to me. That my liver would give out and I would see the devil himself at the bottom of a bourbon glass before he took me to the place where souls are forgotten. I suppose the fact that I've outlived them all sort of put the cork in their asses didn't it?
Maybe I can make fun of them when I finally escape this walking corpse and die. If that was possible.

In all honesty I've outlived everyone I know. My wife and children, their children and the children that came after them. I've watched great-great grandchildren grow old in my front yard just to die of cancer in the hospital sixty years later. Every one of them calls me uncle, calls me cousin, never knowing that I'm really just a relic. Cousins and Uncles have a purpose, they can be capable of giving a shit about you. A relic just sits there and molds. A relic just acts as a reminder that there was a time before you existed and now no longer does. Its history. I'm history. Jesus.

I suppose I can't be bitter about living as long as I have. I've known a lot of men who have gone kicking and screaming to the gates of God. Men who have spit up blood on their wives while they are consumed from the inside out by age or plague or whatever the fuck kills people these days. I've seen men begging to be spared, sputtering at the hospital bed or the side of the road that it isn't their time. It couldn't possibly be them that has to go right now. But it always is their time, never mine. Maybe some day I'll go sputtering into hell, but I'd have to find something that can stop me first.

Cthulu Cthomes

Atop some floating wreckage,
A sailor came ashore.
He bought himself a tankard
And a burly surly whore.

In one gulp he downed the lager
And did likewise to the lass.
Told the waitress not to bother
And shot fire from his ass.

We watched as with one wooden leg,
He hopped upon the bar,
And beer flew from his ragged beard
As he yarred a mighty yar.

All you little bastards, said he,
with voice made thick with drink,
Are little shabby tarts and
land-loving cunts I think.

But if you'd like to change,
And clean the sand from out your slit,
I can give your life a purpose,
And a soul to go with it.

Just sign upon the dotted line,
Make sure your mark is neat and clear,
Kiss your wife and child back at home,
And leave your will and test right here.

This thursday we be leaving,
To drink on foreign shores.
To pluck the finest foreign skirts
From the finest foreign whores.

And if ye have the stomache
To see the voyage till its through,
Bounty can be yours,
From captain Cthulu.

Snippet For Posterity

"Do you believe in Angels?" Marly asked, her impish little face looking up at me with eyes that rose like twin brown moons over the peaks of her cheeks.

"Not really," I told her, trying to sound even, "the ones I've met really weren't worth believing in."

A Flash Feed

So I made it back from my vacation safe and sound with nothing truly worthwhile to drag on about. I'll just say that it was a good time and a slow time, which was exactly what I needed.

As soon as I am home, however, it seems that I am required of. Any moment now Keighdee should be here to pick me up and whisk me away to northern indiana where we will do our marriage counseling thing. Honestly it sounds like an event only a troubled couple would attend but it is a requirement that our pastor has, something of a couple's right of passage I'm assuming. There is a hope that I will have to fight thirty or more men in an earthen pit in order to prove my loyalty over lust. I will use a broad axe for the occasion, and it will be glorious.

My apologies to Chris for not making it to the fights tonight as I have to leave town again sooner than I wanted to. When shall we meet then, brothers? And to what purpose?

Lilypads

Of all the greatness writ by men,
And of the way and sway of pen.
Of all the parchment left to dust,
And of all the musty left to must,
A tale was wrought by one so bold
To speak of one forever old.

By firelight in homely hearth,
Wrapped in a shawl was aged Garth.
A sailor who fell in love with land,
When the mighty ocean claimed his hand.

He stared into the dancing flame
And recalled with ever gripping shame,
How as a captain he was bent,
And for it to an island sent.

As he watched his ship set stern and sail
Through curses thrown like bitter hail,
Marooned Garth laid his soul to bare,
And vowed to die with one last prayer.

“I give my land and all my gold,
Give all my heart and wealth untold,
To him that ever is so bold,
To deliver me from lonesome cold.

“And to those that came and took my best,
With unclean hearts locked in their chest,
May something rise in the horrid deep,
To claim your children and your sleep.”

No sooner had the words been spoke,
When the calmly rolling ocean broke.
A beast almost twelve galleons high,
With mug in hand reached to the sky.

From the sun flowed forth a jet of gold,
To fill his glass with spirits bold.
With a hundred-hundred mouths he drank,
And tossed the stein ‘pon distant bank.

Its saucer eyes were polished night,
And to every man who saw his sight,
Let loose their bowels in epic shite.
And pleaded for their gruesome plight.

As waves lashed high against the shore,
Garth stood alone and begged for more.
“Let loose it all, I’ve prayed thee well,
They wanted Heaven, give them Hell!”

Bartime Blues

"I’ve never been much of a social person," I told the bartender and his greasy brown hair fell from behind his ear as he nodded his false understanding. We’d been talking for twenty minutes, just long enough for me to feel like I’d spilled my most intimate secrets to a total stranger and for Cherry Pie to play three times on the juke box. I groaned at the infant brained women with too many quarters in their pockets as they stuffed more silver circles into the metal slot and squealed with delight as Warrant had another go.

“You’d know a lot about circles and slots, eh ladies?” I said, more loudly than I probably should have but only the aged man next to me caught the joke.

He looked like the rest of the men and women at the bar: used up. The regulars of Donny’s always had the same lines drawn on their faces, the same shadow that clung to their brow from a lifetime of grimacing at thier wives or just the world in general. The man who laughed looked like he had fallen ass first into a bottle of gin and smelled as though he drank it to the dregs. He jauntily clasped me on the shoulder, ruffling the suit he no doubt wore to work that day and said something to the effect of “awful cunts”, grinning at me with too white teeth. I didn't catch it all and didn't care to ask for a repeat, I just laughed because he laughed and turned back to the bar where two dollars in quarters were waiting for me.

There was a college boy ordering a pitcher for his friends at the booth in the corner and I tapped him on the shoulder. I leaned in close to try and be heard over the music and tried to seem as platonic as possible. The last thing I wanted was another conversation with a stranger.

"Do you mind putting something else on the juke?" I asked him and he said he'd do it gladly. I don't remember being that nice at his age.

At Donny's the juke box was also a game of sorts. If you paid a quarter you got to choose two songs to play from their considerable list, but if you paid a dollar you had the chance to override the song that was currently playing and supplement your own. I left it to the kid's discretion for what he played so long as it came from the last five years and had nothing to do with pie. He said he'd try and took my money to the box.

What ensued, I promise you, was not what I had envisioned.

Guess Which Line I'm Most Ashamed Of

I think we need to have another meeting of writers. Not really to discuss anything that we are working on together but to share the stories we are writing on our own. Sort of a reading session where we can talk about our own work and eachother's at the same time. It could be a weekly sort of thing to help improve everyone's writing habits and skills. No better thing to motivate someone than to make them accountable for their shit eh? Let me know what you guys think.

As for why the title is such I suppose it is because I started writing this flash fiction post like an hour ago without titling it first as I usually do. After reading the thing over I realized that not only is it a romance story, it is also borderline pornographic in some of its descriptions. I felt like apologizing to Jesus after I wrote it so I just saved it to a word doc and saved it for a rainy day. Maybe I can tone down some things and play up others enough to turn it from romance into interesting. We'll see.

I'll have a story posted tomorrow for you guys to read. I might even post it tonight when I get off of work. Things have been so slow at the track that I end up writing there as well which is nice to some degree and the suck in others.

Also, as a P.P.S I will be at Cthulu Cthursday but I won't be able to partake in any of the usual festivities. I've got to drive to NC the day after and I'm usually a wreck on Fridays.

Lines Are Down

No word about Ben, we assume the best.


I've picked up playing wow again just because Season 4 of the arena is dropping. This doesn't mean I've stopped playing EVE, but it does mean that I'm retarded.

I'm actually going to reserve teh rest of this space until later tonight when I've had about 9 gin and tonics in me. Until then.

Lucky Charms And Such

I woke this morning to two hours of sleep and a strong desire for water. Aside from that, Cthulu was well honored and another solid week comes to a close.

I apologize for not writing a poem to commemorate the occasion of "Thursday" but I have to admit that I just wasn't feeling up to it. It may have been the gin or, more likely, the general malaise that has been slowly gripping me recently. I've been writing outlines of shit instead of writing it, and that may become a problem.

As it is the end of the week I suppose I should tie up some loose ends. Instead I sit amongst the strings and wonder just one thing: What the fuck happened to Ben last night?

The Parlance Of Our Times

I finally made it back to Fort Wayne for an extended period of time, and just at the ready for another Thursday to be upon us. How lucky.

I've been doing a lot of writing recently in the hopes of improving enough to make a living off of this shit. I'm more than fairly confident in my ability to suck at this sport, but I practice anyway. Not to mention that the Ball State career center had some interesting books on careers that involve a creative writing major. I will give you a taste of what it said when I looked at novelist.

NOVELIST: Higher than Author and Freelancer.
Salary: $0 to Millions of Dollars.

TIP FOR BREAKING IN TO THE FIELD: Write a manuscript that everyone raves about and sell it to the publisher.

I don't know why I didn't think about this sort of thing sooner. I mean, most of my business plans for becoming a full time writer looked something like: Write+Edit+Pray+Hope+HOLYFUCKINGSELLTOPUBLISHER+FAIL+FAIL+FAIL+FAIL+FAIL= Profit. Their take on the situation, however, made me feel thousands of times better: Write=Profit. I'm going to have to spend more time their to boost my ego some.

In other news Aaron has once again given glance to his project, something you can find in the links to the right. Leave him a comment or five so that he keeps writing on a regular basis. The new post is a bit on the lengthy side but he has been witholding it for some time so it makes sense.

Keep lively, brothers. Tomorrow approaches and with it, if you are good to your hearts, another shitty poem about a tentacled monster may follow.

Frontiering The Shit Out Of You

So I've picked up a new game recently called EVE Online and while it isn't technically new at three years old, it is new to me. At this juncture I'm finding it to be one of the most satisfying MMO's I've played in a long time because of what it allows me to do, namely piracy. Unlike wow all of your skills are learned in real time which means that before you go to bed or to lunch or to work or to whatever it is you go to you can start training a skill, log out and then come back (depending on the time required to learn the skill) with an upgraded or new ability. So much better than grinding hours and hours on worthless mobs and it allows me to get on, start training something and then log and do something else with my life.

AS far as the piracy thing goes what really sold me was the ability to engage in fleet wars and, the best part, ultimatums. One of the pirate strategies that I found online suggested that I create a long range fighter, use it to attack expensive but weaker vessels until their health is down to 10% and then open a communication channel with that player. So long as they accept I can demand that they pay me 50% of their ship and cargo's value lest I unload my twin missile pods and my twin rail cannons on their crippled vessel. Oh, and I can also board them. Fucking cool.

Aside from these things my other great joy is that the game is centered around money instead of experience. If you have the money to buy an "end game" vessel then you can do so regardless of experience points. You only need a few required skills that take a couple days to learn in order to secure one of the big rigs and (I'm almost 100% on this) you could have a ship completely trained in a month or two. Much shorter grind I think.

I'll leave this here then. I've got to get back to preping my Merlin class frigate for bounty hunting.

Cthulu Comes

Each week it comes to good boys and girls,
who are locked away safe in their bedclothes and curls.

From the deepest of parts of the blackened abyss
To fill cups full of beer and pots full of piss.

With one sallow eye it peeks from the murk, and
harkens to all with its heartrending smirk.

"Come to the dance," it says, "And pray tell what I say,
Today is the day where I have my way.
Let the beer flow like wine and the liquor stay sweet,
let the women dance and the men find their seat,
and to all let them come and witness my feat,
For Cthulu Cthursday, My Thursday!, we meet.

Coffee Is The Price Of Greatness

Steven idly licked the tip of his pen and set it on the page. Although he wasn't necessarily certain why he'd licked it, the oily metal taste that lingered on his tongue invigorated him to begin his life's work. The door to his room was closed, the window open and his music was on playing an old Sinatra number that he couldn't remember the name of. A warm spring breeze brought in the morning moisture to settle on his curtains and comforter. He wrote:

Lighthouse
Chapter One:

Merciless

Jenny is an ungrateful slut who enjoys the pleasures of other men. I abhor the fact that she exists, and I will see to it that she no longer ever does.

Steven sipped from a black coffee mug with

World Writers Association

stamped in gold letters on the rim and gave a satisfied sigh.

"I think that is enough for today," He said, dropping his pen onto the notepad with a plop, "greatness cannot be forced."

Rantings

James tucked the revolver back into his pocket and smiled, "You're more lucky than you think, Vince. Luckier than your brother was anyway."

"You were always a cunt James, I just never had the chance to tell you properly," Vincent said and leaned against the brick pharmacy wall.

"Maybe you should have used more bullets to articulate your point," He replied, his voice hardly more than a whisper.

James looked up the street at the pouring rain and listened to it hiss as it hit the hot street lamp glass. The night was always a fascination for him, especially when the sky was trying to drown the ground below. No matter where he was in Sanatine he could always smell the ocean on the breeze.

"You always take so much for granted," He said and tossed Vincent a little package of dirty cloth wrapped in a bright blue ribbon. Vincent made no move to catch it, merely watching the circular object hit the wall next to his head and then roll around on the concrete at his feet. James laughed.

"Open that at your leisure, brother, and don't forget to call our father next week. It's his birthday," He said and made his way back up the street to disappear into the rain.
Vincent watched him the whole way before stooping to pick up the dirty gift wrapped item.
"I'll use the whole clip next time, brother," Vincent said and left in the opposite direction.

Get It On

I have been having a terrible time trying to stay focused on any one thing in particular. It seems like every time I start to write I'm either interrupted and have to try again later or just cannot find the words. I think I've started four projects and some two or three over again. I'm not happy about that and I'm starting to see a trend. You cannot sell what you did not write, mates, and I need to have something to sell.

I am not sure why I'm so sold on trying to publish as soon as possible. I suppose it is because I feel it might legitimize my abilities in a familial atmosphere that believes if the degree doesn't get you a nine to five you are doing it wrong. I get embarrassed every time there is some sort of holiday get together and I have to sit with my engineer or teacher or business owning cousins who all work for steady pay and are showing some sort of promising future. The conversation always seems to turn to me and why I probably am wasting my life with words. I think that is enough of the cock loving emo bullshit for one day.

Another Thursday

In the morning when I wake up I can still taste the smoke in my mouth, the sweet leaves that were burned by the Droogs as another Cthulu Cthursday came and went. I take a deep breath and try hard to remember the bottles that passed through my hand. They seemed to be as legion as our troupe hopes to become and if my memory serves, I drank each of them to the dregs.

I idly pass my hand over the white carpet of the floor I slept on and find a bottle of water close by which I drink greedily. I may not believe in him, I tell myself, but I think Old Tentacles may just believe in me.

More Discontent

I am now flat fucking broke and, having been spied by my mother's moral compass, was forced by means of guilt and shame to throw out a perfectly good bottle of gin. Will the atrocities ever end?


Work is underway, at least, and I am grateful for it. Keighdee purchased some reading material to get me back to work and it is helping tremendously. Getting The Words Right and How Not To Write A Novel are slowly teaching me to have more dexterity in my fingers and to draw my ideas more fluidly. I'm hoping that they are the final push I need to make this a reality. Heres to possibility.

In Like A Lamb

The reading went well, I suppose. I figure that the people who were there did not heckle me afterward so that must have been a good sign.

I really have very little to report. the summer has began and already I wish it would end or start for real or something. I am without keighdee, without hours at the track and without liquor. I basically sailed to an island and burned the ship when I hit sand. My brothers are nearby, one of the few perks, and I'm sure we will figure something out. Maybe I just need to spend less time at home and more time out finding a fucking hobby.

I've been drowning in GTA4 the last week or so. I picked it up at launch on a whim and decided that it might be the most entertaining game I have played since COD4. It is also still shiny and new, so we will see what happens when the veneer is dulled. At this moment I am satisfied just to shoot hookers from a distance and collect the cash they drop like a suburban pirate. I'm not sure how muhc longer I can stalk from building to building with my desert eagle, but I'm thinking I can do it for at least another month.

Writing has been nonexistent since my return to the city. There is no space for me to think, no place for me to delve into anything in a serious manner. I basically live in the zoo and the elephants are eating the pages. I hope it changes but I'm slowly recognizing this summer as a huge problem for anything creatively productive.

I Am A Mother-Orphaned Teen Girl

I honestly feel like Cinderella but only if her work had a three drink minimum, and if she still had a mother.

The reading I'm part of is tomorrow, a venture called The Fifth Annual Ricki Lake Reading. The "headliner" as it were has been writing a book about a man who has been stalking Miss Lake for a long time and some shit goes down. The reason I'm like the Disney princess over here is because I have a ball to attend and I feel like I've got nothing to wear...or read.

Certainly I have a few stories I've finished this past semester, but they all taste like vile shit smeared across my eyes when I read them again. My red pen flies across each page marking some paragraphs as "unnecessary" and others as "unforgivable". I'm going to either read Gears which Aaron has seen or Redeemer which I've not really fleshed out. Either way I'll hopefully get through the day tomorrow without drinking so much that keighdee has to read for me or loathing so much that keighdee also has to read. If I'm drinking AND loathing then christ help everyone, at that point I'll probably just get up there with no copy and wing it.

Excerpt

This is a five line collage we had to make from the random journal writings we had. It amused me.

Her eyes looked into his for a moment and then it was over.
"I'm a man of squares, miss," he said with a smile.
She didn't take it well, bludgeoning him with a cast iron skillet.
"I'm not a harlot," she replied.
I am Redeemer.

I can't wait to see what I'm supposed to use this collage for, but I hope it involves domineering, which I picture as engineered domination. Built by popular demand, "Bridget Huxley, a domineering woman in red leather pasties." God dammit it is beautiful.

Homecoming

I will be home for the summer mates, cats and all. I'll be taking classes at IPFW and once again working at the track with Chris. You are forewarned.

I'm not really sure how the living arrangements will go but if they are not working I have a cheap room at Chris' bachelor pad that will serve well. I'm terribly excited to be out of Muncie for a few months and in the company of my brothers for more than a night of debauchery. I can smell delicious summer nights to come. Not to mention that having the job at the track will allow me the ability to purchase Keighdee's rings finally. Ring the bells, brothers, I am coming home.

Progress Made

These last few days have been a weird collection of accidental drunken me, sleep, cleaning and work. School is winding down and I just want the whole goddamn thing to go away. I doubt it will.

The summer is just over the next hill but it will be short lived for me and I'm not too sure what to do. I have two cats and a lease that is coming up in May which I either have to renew for the summer and pay out the ass for or do I don't know what with. I have no where to go with the cats so I'm pretty much fucked. Chris had some good suggestions for me and I'd like to take them up but I just cannot find a haven for the littluns so I guess I'm muncie bound. What a fucking trip.

Aside from that things are going swimmingly I guess. I don't have any job prospects outside of maybe working for the grocery store this summer. Hopefully things turn up, who knows.

This was a ramble and I'll leave it at that, my brothers.

Minor Setbacks

Of course I'd expected them, but not in such massive detail. I sense hours of work ahead and much despair as the beginning draws near.

I have been playing an unnecessary amount of COD4 and I think I'm finally getting my money back out of that Xbox thing. Each RPG that hits its mark and every silenced AK-47 round that meets its destiny is one more step towards a nice cushy office and some much needed paper to push around. I will tell you that my high score on the day was something like seventy-two kills, three air strikes, two helicopter assaults and thirteen deaths in one game. At the end of it my fingers hurt, I might have been sweating and I had broken my headset. It was a good day.

On a less violent note the endeavor comes along with the setbacks aforementioned. Apparently with the way she wants to wander the entirety of chapter three must be removed and replaced by something entitled Gallivanting. You have resumed your role, brothers, play it well.

I think I'll end this here and play a few games before class. I've been writing since seven this morning and having to throw out almost all of what I've written has drawn my ire for the pen. I will have it adjusted by the day's end, or maybe I will be drunk and it will be me that is adjusted. We will see after my meeting about grad school which one is the necessary choice. Until then.

Hammer Time, As I Live And Breathe

I had always wondered what became of the man in the "hammer pants" whose music my brother and I used to sit outside in the summer and listen to on the radio. We actually won a pair of cd's by being able to list some of MC Hammer's music and the order it was played in throughout the day. The reason I bring this to your attention is because he has his own blog here that he has been keeping since 2006 and it is an interestingly personal collection of his thoughts and ideas. I knew that he was an artist and entertainer, but I did not know to what extent his political interest and desire for debate went to. Peruse at your discretion, I found it interesting.

Aside from that I hit new revelations about chapter three and have put it mostly down on the page. Thanks to Theory for reviewing the piece I sent you, the critique was as good as I could have hoped for. I will admit that when I read the comments I was embarassed and angry and everything that comes with seeing the shortcomings of your work displayed. It was a "woods full of trees" moment for me and it hit the gooey center of my personal pride harder than I liked. Criticism is something I have never done well with, something that has spiked me internally many times over, but I have forced myself to take the truth with all the power that it demands and I am thankful that my brothers are unwilling to give me anything but that. I will no doubt send you the short story I'm starting to work on soon, if for nothing else then to see what I have missed and make it the best possible piece it could be.

I have not posted any flash fiction in a while, at least nothing continuing the story of the western madness. I may do that again if for nothing else then to take a break from the minds of my other characters. I've started thinking like them and I fear that schizophrenia will ensue.

Look alive, oh my brothers, there is summer on the horizon and festivities fly with in with the warmth. Until then.

Appearances

Apparently nobody liked my idea so I'm going it alone. I win the prize and victory is good.

I have not posted recently because I'm busy doing other business like writing papers about nothing or worrying about the wedding. Its pretty far off still which is good because I'm a poor poor man.

For some reason editing other works is actually an enjoyable experience for me. I like to be able to see where other writers are at and throw some love at them in the form of black-ink slander. I'm pretty sure one of my comments in the margin of a story about cattle was "fuck-tard*". I hope they understood the footnote attached to it as it took me a while to format "Cheese-wasted" and "Whorefooted Mousepatrol" in the proper fonts. That font was wingdings.

Also, another fun side story. I watched some people thieve wood from the back lot of a rental place last night. Twenty minutes of snapping wood off of a pallet and stuffing it onto carts and into bags. I'm not sure what the wood was for but there is a forty-foot horse parked in downtown muncie right now that stinks of beer and sweat. Thank god the war is over though, brothers.

Challenges

So while perusing the internet I thought of something that might get those of us looking for more to actually go and look for more. There are many fine literary magazines looking for submissions at the moment and I, personally, am getting the itch to receive my first rejection letter.

The challenge is to find a respected/reviewed magazine, figure out what it is looking for in the next submission period and submit a piece. Prizes will be given for an accepted piece and for an epically rejected piece. Any takers?

Frustrations

School is a shithead or am I just bipolar?

So I woke this morning as I have every other morning for the last month to a cat's ass in my face and his paws going to town on my blankets. It seems no matter what I do Jack will not leave me alone while I'm trying to sleep and no amount of spraying with water seems to jog him from it. I will start the bleach regimen tomorrow and see if that doesn't fix him.

The endeavor goes poorly at the moment. I've written a few good chapters and now I can't seem to force myself to go back to them. I need to go back to them but I would rather not and that is a problem.

I'll reserve this space for further revisions as the day progresses although I have only been awake for an hour of it and there is not much promise.

Look lively, brothers.

Medea Is A Happy Bitch

She really is. I just spent two hours typing up a script with her little happiness mishaps in it. So far it tastes like dogshit but I'm sure the actors can figure that out. They have to.


On a better note I finished the roughness for chapter three as well. I need to spend a week or so with each chapter picking them apart for story and character elements before I can move on, but I think that having 3-4 chapters in the "please look at me" portion of my mind is a good thing. I'm hoping that this will be my first publication and that when I lose its flavor around chapter XX I can find the way to rekindle it. I know you're uninterested in it so I won't bore you with specifics.

Write, my brothers, and do it whenver you find it possible. Time before a class? bust out the pen. Waiting for her/him to prepare themelves for your giant member? uncap that madness onto the page. As badly as I want to read my own finished work I would rather be holding yours. We are in a unique position, our little group here. We have aspiring writers hanging out with aspiring editors and publishing house owners. If you ever needed an excuse to do better every day, this is it.

Look lively, oh my brothers, and see opportunity kicking in your balls (or vaginas) as you wake every morning.

Piss In Your Hat, Mate

I've been reading a lot of other people's work recently because of peer review sessions and just a general desire to be a part of the community. I will not lie, it has not been an easy thing to read other works because I find that although I hate my own writing I seem to hate other people's work more. Gary Soto excused.

I've also finished the next chapter of the endeavor which means that I should actually be "finish-finished" with it after about five more revise sessions. Thank you for the inspiration and the title help brothers, I think you will enjoy your part in all of this.

Theory, what did you think? Chris, was it a good birthday? Josh, tu habla espanol or is that just chicken on your chin? Keighders, do not despair for I am up for it, all the time. That is not a boast but bone hard scientific fact.

With that I leave you again, oh my brothers, to the wonderment of time, space and the infinite destructive power of sparkle motion. If you see the motion coming at you I suggest you brag about it.

My Apologies

Sorry for my absences this week, brothers. I have been on the road for a few days checking out what Kentucky and Tennessee have to offer. There will be more to tell later but I think for now I'm just going to clean my apartment instead.

I'll reserve the space.

And So It Begins

I turned in my short story a few weeks ago and got the twenty or so papers of feedback from it today. I was happy and, supposedly with a few brush stroke changes, I could get it published. Here is to the little flashes of light in the darkness, mates.

My apologies for not having written in some time, it is not that I hate posting here but that I have been so distracted by this week. I guess since it is the week before spring break every professor of mine decided they were instantly behind and needed to settle accounts. That and I received a two-hundred dollar power bill...what the cock?

I'm going to spend the rest of the night at work sifting through another chapter of the endeavor. Mayhap it turns into something, mayhap it don't. I'm going to fuck you so hard on your birthday, brother, that you will be pissing back into the cup and remixing drinks with it. You've been warned.

And Just Like Gum

everything loses its flavor eventually. I'm more than fairly certain I'm losing my mind as well as the taste for what I would consider my usual fare. Where does a man who wants everything he doesn't have go to get said items? pretty sure straight to hell
Michigan where the convenience stores are plenty.

I no longer have a love for WoW, she is more of the girlfriend I can't get rid of. I turned to her many years ago to give me a place to run to, now I want to run away.I think there was a song about that once. The real question is what would I do with my time if I didn't fill it with games? I've spent my whole life with them to just let them lose their hold on me now. All good things pass in time,they say, but I'd rather this not pass.

I've started working again on the endeavor and its a painful one. I've lost the flavor for it too right now but I'm forcing myself to at least jot things down. Even if jotting means writing about a hooker whose being run out of town by a moral police state. I hate myself already.

Other than that things are pretty neat. Saw a few of the lads this weekend which was nice and chris is doing some sort of old growing soon. Also I have tickets to HURT this month and that kicks more ass than you do.

Enough of the for now. Time to hang up my coat and maybe take up a new habit of sorts. Is resurrecting the snuff period a new habit or just simply a way to pass the time? Let me know, my brothers.

Fair Is Fair

What do you want from me keighders?

Mayans, how could you?

This month is drawing to a close it seems and St.Patty's day is fast approaching, despite what the church says. I will be painting my beard green...I will also be growing a beard...starting now.


That leaves us only a few more years before the real doomsday on 12-21-2012 or 12-23-2012. It seems people can't decide if the Mayan calendar runs out on the easily catchy assortment of ones and twos or the sort of choppy 23rd. They also cannot seem to come up with what it means to end. Did the Mayans mean that the cycle ends and begins again or did they mean pack up your soul its quitting time?

My thought is the former as most calendars work in a circular way it seems. The 365 days my grandparents had are the same that I inherited etc. It also doesn't make sense that we put so much emphasis on their calendar as being the prediction of it all. Certainly they were an astrologically and astronomically gifted people, capable of predicting eclipses and such to a high degree of accuracy, but we can do that as well. Maybe the Mayans should be worrying about when our calendar stops

It will be an interesting day, however, as several different astronomy related things happen. The Earth completes a wobble which is cool, the sun hits solar maximum so we will probably see the aurora in Indiana again and the sun lines up with the center of the galaxy which might give us the chance to see a clearer picture of it.

Ready the bomb shelter, I'm bringing the sloppy joes.

Cthulu

Did you know he is on the '08 ballot? Bring your blood and seaweed.


The morning started right with coffee and an empty stomach. Really I have no idea how I lived without the morning brew....probably I lived without the afternoon shakes.


I really just need to get through this semester as best I can at this point. My grades are atrocious and I don't see them improving because I cannot seem to force myself through them every day. My brit lit class has a wonderfully smart professor who cannot put together an interesting lecture despite her brilliance. The only glimmer I have is my CW Fic One class, yet at just two classes a week it hardly makes up for the other three days of other BS. I've stopped going to psychology entirely because I've figured out that the entire class is online, attendance is non-important and I take tests in a computer lab. Theatre is not too bad, the proff is a great man but somehow everything is due in 2009 and tests that I've scored 100% on are showing up as failed or zeros.

This is an early post, my brothers, and the day is still long. I'll put something else up later no doubt. Leave me your love, or at the least the bloody excuse for what we did together last night.

I have that sandpaper, baby, so spread yo cheeks.

Honesty

I don't think I'm ever going to escape mates, and that is the worst of all.

I'm trapped in some sort of holding pattern, bad weather that won't let me land and an uncomfortable seat on the plane. Seems like everywhere I'd like to be is never where I am.

I've begun chapter two. What will happen is a mystery to me although I'm excited to see how it unfolds. I only wish I had some confidence in my ability to finish this endeavor of mine. Maybe I need a ritual like the author from Misery. The protag not King. I don't smoke or stay in cheap hotels, however, so I'm pretty much fucked. I do drink though, and in the event of an emergency I can get pretty drunk in a hurry. Is this a tangent? I don't do math.

Keighdee is reviewing chapter one's third revision rough draft. Should be interesting. Maybe I can make some 3d shit on the page with a little constructive insight. My cdubb proff thinks I have phenominal description, too bad the bible also has said description and we know how many people actually read that.


I suppose I'll go pour some gin and think on this matter for a while. The best way to tend an open wound is to clean it with strong medicine before the suture.

Bring me a needle and thread, oh my brothers, and see that the iron is hot for the closing.

If You Give A Mouse A Confection...

...He's going to want to anally plug you.


I finished the third revision of my steam punk endeavor. Keighdee has yet to read it, however, so I'm afraid but hopeful.

I've been playing Call of Duty 4 recently with Ryan and I have to say that it is a tasty piece of business. I will not sing too much of its praises because no song could match what playing it does to a man, but I will say this: I have a shotgun with a laser sight painted with jungle camo ready for opposing faces.I have recieved 150 experience for jumping out of a window and only breaking my legs instead of dieing. I once accidentally tossed a grenade under a nearby car and via chain reaction earned 15 experience for a triple frag.

Need you more convincing? With most games it seems that once you finish the single player experience you are basically relegated to dealing with the multiplayer experience instead of enjoying it. After your fourth game of Halo you start to wonder just what the fucking point is of shooting the same people over and over again. This is where super-goddamn-awesome COD4 comes in. With such a short single player experience I was worried that I was going to fall into that Halo holding pattern, but not so.


The character creation was something that really caught my attention. I've never heard of a shooter that allowed you to build your own character for PvP and upgrade it steadily like an RPG. I was worried that I would be at a huge disadvantage, starting a new character without any of the weapons or upgrades that the other players would have. Luckily I found that my bullets were just as effective at mangling brains as theirs, even if mine were not as powerful or accurate. My first foray into the field may not have netted me the top spot on my team, but I could hold my own well enough.

Every kill, achievement and challenge completed in the field of battle earns experience that gives me new ranks, new weapons and new perks to upgrade my character with. Killing the same people over and over again doesn't become a factor because they never stay the same character. They may have been wielding a grenade launching assault rifle when you killed them last, but now they hold a light machine gun capable of shooting through walls and bearing a 300 tound canister. It keeps it lively.

I suppose I'll leave you with this morsel from my night of player killing.

After killing three people in a row I was given the ability to see all the players on the map for a short time. With this I managed five kills in a row which unlocked the ability to call in an airstrike anywhere on the map. The airstrike I'd called in felled two more men and this is what became of it....

I found myself literally out of my seat, one first pumping in maniac fashion into the air as I watched a helicopter I summoned with my seven kill streak fly in and begin raining missiles and bullets down on the map. Its guns thundered and rained the earth with metal tearing snipers apart in the fields and burning hardened warriors from their places of power. There were great cries of anguish and misery as point after point was racked up in my favor, the experience rolling over me in waves.

As though controlled by a person, the helicopter dodged small arms fire and RPGs shot from the opposing force's stronghold, returning fire upon their base and razing it in impressive fashion. When it finally left to refuel and rearm, I'd gained a new rank for my profile and the respect of the men who witnessed the spectacle. Certainly those men were really boys....boys screaming obscenties like "Your mother is whorefooted!" and "Bitchcunts and bloodspoons!" but they knew who I was then.

Respect.

Reverb

Also known as changing a verb in order to make sense at all. John raises his hand in class and says:

"I'd like to fall from your sweet touch,"

once thoroughly beaten by the schoolmaster, a great man with a pale complexion and flowing black beard, he relents with a face of twisted sorrow.

"Please no more! I wish to reverb if I could!"

the schoolmaster would then nod and, having placed a thick brown boot onto a nearby cask, he would listen intently for the reverb.

"I'd like to," he begins slowly, "run...? from your sweet touch?" and the beating would begin again.



I write this as I sit in my brit lit class discussing the role of victorian women in society. somehow writing something about this misuse of reverb is funny and makes the time pass by quicker. Victorian women were split three ways: those that were rich and couldn't care less, those who were poor and were fucked for life and those who were rich and wanted to make a difference.

Unfortunately we've been talking about gender roles since as long as I can recall. Every religion class I've had in the last twenty or so years dealt with how to treat people as you treat yourself. luckily I'm a very bruised and battered person, otherwise the stories I force keighdee to come up with wouldnt work.

"Honestly," she says, "I put the car in neutral while Eric was home and then tried my best to fix the break problem on the back wheels....at the same time,"

and that is how she got acidentally run over three times.

Love you keighders, that is still a good joke.

Droplets

"I believe what he said was that we live but to die," he said, popping open his cigarette case with a light click and removing a slender white roll of paper. He paused to tap the smoke on the back of the case before his lighter flashed it into life.

"Morbid," James replied.

"Life is morbid, mate" he replied.

A short woman carrying a tray almost as large as she was stopped at their table and waved the smoke out of her face idly with one hand.

"Gentlemen," She said.

"Madam," they said back.

"What'll it be tonight?"

She set the tray down on their table and pulled out a small pad of paper and a blue pen.

"I'll have the Romana," James said smiling.

"I'll have gin and water," said the other man.

"Nothing to eat, hun?" the waitress asked.

"Maybe you," He said smiling. She blushed and gathered the tray in her arms.

"Might be hard, sir," her cheeks grew red and warm, "I'm not on the list of specials,"

"I'll call the manager and see what can be done,"

She nodded briefly to him, trying to hide a smile that was spreading across her face, before heading back into the kitchen.

"You play a dangerous game, Niel," James whispered, "She may have taken that to heart,"

"She won't know until she is bone dry, my friend," He leaned back in his chair making it creak and groan, "If only food were this easy to catch when I was still alive,"

Niel laughed but James remained uneasy, tearing little pieces from a napkin left on the table by the waitress. It would have to be soon, James thought, or never.

James felt in his pocket for the thick piece of wood he'd spent the day filing to a point. It pricked his finger, bringing out a bright red droplet. Niel sat up a little straighter in his seat and sniffed the air, his eyes tightening into slits.

"So it comes to this then," Niel said to James.

The stake came out of his pocket, brandished point down and ready. Niel flew from his chair which slid across the floor and crashed against the wall.

"Come then, little one. To think I would have made you a brother,"

Niel's fingers curled into claws and James' teeth lengthened to sharp daggers. The crowd began to scream.

Absentminded

I made it home for a grand total of five hours this weekend. I apologize my brothers and will catch up to you on the next train.


Until then consider this: I ain't no goddamn sonofabitch. Discuss.

Steak 'n BJ Day...

...Is apparently one month away, prepare your self accordingly.

Today, however, is V-Day, as in Valentines Day, not Vagina Day which was yesterday. Who is making up these holidays? Next thing you know we'll be drinking because its March.

If you'll excuse me, I have a woman to disappoint....with secks.

I Visit Steelforth, Again

May God smite you, Charles.


I have begun a work that I am particularly proud of. Its opening has been penned and I'm hoping that the transfer from ink to a .doc will allow me to understand what happens next. It would be nice to have created a world for characters to live in rather than to be forgotten about.

I've also decided to drop my poetry class in exchange for a creative non-fiction semester. Poetry is something that seems to be beyond me in the scope and detail it contains. I applaud those who can write it well, they are heroes in an age that seems to read less and less of their greatness.

Seeing all of you writing has inspired me to push through and write more often than I have been. Although I sit in a Fic I class with only one other CW major who's inspirations are under question, I come home to a tastey brew and a circle of my own. I am thankfull for this in a way that ugly men are thankful for that one pretty girl that fucked them in high school.

I will be home this weekend as will my brothers, biological and half-breed. Hopefully I will have something to show them for feedback and reassurance. Because you're just the woman who's everything good in my life, oh my brothers.

What Is Done

I'm a nearly beaten by school, mates. Every time I consider the next day I add class into the equation and wish I could run away. More often than not I find myself skipping it and then feeling like the libertine, like I've sniffed my own shroud. What future is there for a man whose degree entails being creative for a living? I suppose the world needs us as much as we want them to need us and I will write just so that she will never run out of things to read. But does that mean I have to stay?

More later, oh my brothers. I'll reserve this space again.

A Mad Tea Party

The reverberation from the shot shook nearby windows and caused a mule to kick over his trough. The boy stopped short and fell to a knee, kicking up dust where the bullet had struck the dirt.

"You could have hit me," he said.

"Maybe I should have,"

Another shot rang off the buildings in the dusty alley but Jack's gun didn't smoke.

"You gentlemen are under arrest,"

A tan and tall man with a finely pressed white shirt soaked through with sweat was pointing a long black shotgun at Jack's middle.

"Holster it," He said and stepped cautiously towards the aging gunslinger.

Jack's gun stayed as fixed as his eyes to the boy.

"Did you miss me?" The sweaty sheriff yelled, "I told you to do something, son,"

The sun at noon was like a torch lit to cause displeasure. It hung over head like a task master whipping the subjects below and prodding them on toward death. Jack turned to the sheriff and his mouth creased into the skin rivers of a frown.

"You don't understand, sheriff," Jack said

"I understand plenty now holster it or see sweet Jesus,"

Jack sighed, glancing back at the boy who waited expectantly for what he knew would come.

"We all have to die somehow," Jack said and the boy lunged.

Of Is The New Oz

Jack tossed the match into the dirt with a little trail of smoke following it.

"Ten minutes, boy," He said.

He blew a thin ribbon of smoke from his nose and smiled, the cigar glowing amber and rose as he sucked in a new breath.

"You won't do it,"

Jack pointed over the boys shoulder to a tall, sallow-faced man in black. The man was eyeing the boy and measuring him from a distance.

"Seems the undertaker isn't so convinced. Eight minutes now,"

"I ain't leavin',"

A fat man with a long beard came out from the cool shade of Sallie's Rounderhouse and shielded his eyes against the bright heat of near-noon.

"Gentlemen we have laws here. If you've got a dispute you can take it to the county judge and I'm sure he'll be glad to handle this,"

"Won't be necessary, Mister Jones. This young man isn't going to stay. Four minutes now, son,"

The clock ticked, Mister Jones stepped back into the shade of Sallie's overhang and the boy took a quick step towards Jack. Jack pulled the pistol from his smooth leather belt, his thumb working on its own and his finger running smoothly across the trigger.

"Time," He said.

You, Sir, Are An Asshole

My apologies for not having written in some time. School and life have been leading me astray from what is really important, the three people who read my blog. Do not get me wrong, I am in love with you, but I cannot be trusted to show up on time.

I write this from my work station because I've been accidentally scheduled to work every weekend for the next month. Although this means that I will be making more money it does not mean that I will be a happier person. On the contrary I'd like to burn down....everything? Glad you suggested it.

I'm on my own for the weekend as well. Keighdee went home to get a toaster and some kitchen supplies from her parents. Apparently they were appalled by what I have in my kitchen and wanted to give me a hand. I'm hoping that there is a coffee grinder or something in it, otherwise I'm sending it all back.

I apologize again for the shortness, I'm needed at my desk. I'll reserve this space for a better post that has more to do with iron prostitutes and less with the reality of my sex life.

Until then, stay frosty oh my brothers.

Eggs and Ham

Working through "The Droogs" is like working through birthing a child. The idea was planted and the anti-child is growing within me. It is only a matter of time until the damned break free and spill their brood from my gaping wound. I hope no one read that.

Honestly I'm excited about it, even if it likes to kick my bladder and make me pee a little all the time. Working on it means remembering some of the amazing times that the three and then four of us have had together. The women that have come and gone, the booze that warmed us and the banter that charmed steak and shake employees into trading strong drink for hot food. All of it comes together on the page and lifts the curtain that time throws on memory. The more I write the more I remember how quickly we became friends and how close we came to losing eachother to time and circumstance.

On another note, I write this from my philosophy class and I wish that I cared. Philosophy has led to some of the greatest questions we can never answer and others that science has used to make life better. I respect that. I would respect it more if the classes that involved this subject were less about what the professor thought about life and feelings and more about a class discussion. Maybe then I wouldnt feel obligated to decide that, although it is morally wrong to ignore someone who is trying their best to help you with the subject, it is also wrong to ignore one's own desires in the attempt to make someone else feel better. That shit is for altruists and, as I have learned for the last four weeks, altruists suck.

Ash Wednesday in two days, best pull on your praying boots and smear burnt plants on your face for Jesus. He knows that you showed your tits for beads on Tuesday, oh my brothers, so best beware.

I Am nNot MYself

I woke up this morning already feeling like shit, running on four hours of sleep and desperately in need of coffee. Luckily I had no thermos with which to hold the coffee as I made the hour long trip back home and so I went dry. Six hours later I'm on my way back to muncie, new prescriptions from the allergist in one hand and feeling like I might pass out at any moment. All I wanted was to come home to her.
Luckily for me again she was already at work when I made it back.

I've been trying to get something put down on paper for one of the ten or twelve book ideas I've had. It seems like each time I start I am assaulted by voices I'm all to familiar with. This is not uncommon when trying to creatively do anything, but any more it seems that I give up instead of plodding on.

I've written 45 pages about penguins who go to war. WTF?

Being a creative writer means looking ahead to a bright future of wondering just when the hell you are going to do anything about your life. My friends are business majors, teaching majors, english majors studying literature, web designers and film students. When they look ahead it is to internships and grad school, salaries and nice places. I see bus passes and super sweet food stamps. This is not the reality of it, not really, but being into art means that you can never quite place your finger on what it is you are going to live like in ten years. You could have hit it big and be eating on a regular basis or you could be sitting at home with your thumb wedged tightly into your ass for warmth. Either of these scenarios are acceptable behavior for anyone under the 'art' umbrella.

I suppose the question I've been pissing around instead of on is this: What is it going to take for me to start writing in a way that secures a future?

I leave that for you to consider, mostly because I don't know the answer and I'm hoping you do. Please? Seriously.

Don't leave me hanging here, oh my brothers.

Wedding Bells Sound Better...

...When Mixed With Tanq and Tonic

Keighdee came home bearing gifts this evening. In her sack of delights were a bottle of gin, a bottle of tonic water and some rum that tasted like suntan lotion. Along with these glorious wonders was a magazine devoted to helping newly engaged people think out and plan their wedding.

I'm no stranger to this topic, if anything I was completely an instigating half of its genesis. We'd been in the mall, passed a jewelry store and I thought we should go in. That was about eight months or so ago. Now we aren't just looking. I suppose that means this is for real real and not for play play. Damn you Chris.

This sort of thing doesn't scare me in the way I think it should. I mean that I don't wake up at night screaming for a simpler time or vomiting massive quantities of my manhood onto pleated pants. Instead, I sweat to the thought of having no career and no defined future while simultaneously wondering if I ever will have either. How can I support someone else without those things to support myself?

It doesn't help that my brothers, both biological and half-blood, are lukewarm on the idea. I do not blame them though, "in a world of men raised by women maybe the last thing we need is another woman." Thank you for the Christmas gift, Josh.

At least I am excited about the ordeal. I get to bring together a collection of atheists, gay men and general miscreants into a church where I will ask them to witness blessed union. Will they swear upon the book on my behalf? Will that book be Moby Dick? You're goddamn right it will be. We are hunting whales, mates, and there be dragons in this ocean that would piss in your hat just as soon as spit in your tea.

Happy hunting, oh my brothers.

Christ, have you seen this guy?

This has been an adventurous weekend. After traveling between home and pseudo-home at least four times I managed to clean my apartment from top to bottom (with the help of the lady) and buy over a hundred dollars in groceries. Such a sum for food has thus far been unheard of in the hollow of my bank account but I'm ringing the bell in there now I suppose and the echo is coming back as "coupons".

I'm writing this just after my philo 100 test, something I'm still not confident I passed considering the questions involved opinions and there are supposedly right and wrong opinions. When you ask a question like, "Do you enjoy macaroni?" you can say either yes or no. In philosophy if you say either yes or no then you are wrong, metaphysically wrong. That means that not only did you fail the question on this plane, but in some other universe of thought you double failed. Fucked from the word go mate, enjoy the taste.

Beyond that this week is shaping up to be just like the rest. There is school, and liquor and writing. Writing also includes playing video games for ten or more hours a night.

I have been working on my sixty-one blood elf mage a lot lately. I think I'm doing it to avoid the fifty line poem and short story I'm suposed to be composing.

I'm on some sort of quest to be a tailor and an enchanter on him, which is pretty enjoyable. Basically I kill things, steal their money and maybe their sword, then make hats and belts from the clothes they were wearing. After that I turn the clothes I made from their clothes into dust and use that dust to make the clothes I already wear super awesome. This sort of leads me to my next point: what the fuck?

With videogames people hardly think of it as a real place or time, which is good because that shit is about as fake as it gets, but it is interesting to consider the possibilities. In WoW I have slaughtered entire generations of pigmen as they tended their gardens or walked around their houses. I have killed elves and humans without mercy, hitting them with fiery rocks or freezing them and cutting them in half with ice. I have killed an incredible number of animals labled "rare" which makes me think that it may have been a federal thing and only taken their livers or hearts. I have poached gazelle, zebra, wolves, piglets and hyena. Honestly the list of atrocities continues for a long while since I've been playing for such a huge amount of time. I wonder if I will ever be forgiven for burning a village of space creatures and stealing their tribal relics for profit.

I suppose I can end on that note. More tomorrow I imagine since tonight is going to be full of murder and burnings.

Until then, oh my brothers.

The Initial Hurrah

And so it begins, Theory.

I have caved in to your oppressive demands and have undertaken a blog of my own. I have done it not for the reasons you would think no matter what those reasons are. Tattoos? Fuck you, that is not why. Women? Certainly not. You can keep guessing as to why and I will continue to tell you that the answer is simply that this, in the first month of the two-thousand and eighth year of our lord, is the day of reckoning. I have tossed my gauntlet into the dust at your feet and pissed wildly into the sun.

I have never kept up with a blog before because eventually one has to wonder about the point. Is this a public journal of my exploits? A record of my life left for a digital archeologist to sift out of the rusted wreckage of porn sites when the interwebs finally becomes a smoking heap? Who knows. Honestly I imagine this is going to turn into an account of the ridiculous nature of my life. There will be posts on WoW, on drinking, on writing and my lust for published works. There will be rants that I will allow you in on and make love to you with. There will be music made when my words rub your eyes like a reed pulled across taught strings. I will try not to worry you too much and I will attempt to entertain as best as I am able. There will be cussing, pirates, sods and scalliwags, british fops fucking mops and other such items of obscene nature. I hope as you play the voyeur you enjoy it all and feel no guilt for reading. With that, I suppose, the disclaimer and opening is finished.

So begins scene one, act one: Oh My Brothers.