1. Let's say your walls are thin and your neighbors can hear too much. What nickname are you afraid they've made up for you?
2. Did you ever have a hairstyle you'd really like to have again, but it's too dated/you're too old?
3. What's your favorite cheesy TV theme?
4. Myspace or Facebook?
5. Are you a morning person?
6. Where do you want to go on your next international vacation?


1. CPS-bait
2. I had a Drew Barrymore fringe bangs+short bob phase. I can't rock that shit anymore. This is not the 90s.
3. Toss between The Office and Beverly Hills 90210.
4. Multiply
5. Yes. I can't sleep past 7:30am
6. EUROPEAN BACKPACKING TRIP 2011!

Movie night was last night, because Hogfather was on. Xmas in July and all that. Lyd's friend (I'm bad with names. D: ) was also over, but those two kinda stayed on the computer while Nay and I watched the movies.
I can't find any good screencaps of Hex's "Anthill Inside" sticker. *wants to make an icon* >:

There's something nasty-looking on the back part of the driveway... I assume it's either cat puke or a dead animal of some kind, but you can't really tell anymore. It's not too smelly, just... icky. And covered in flies. :O

um. Family's at camp, blah blah. Not a lot going on~.

Ok, to be accomplished today (in no particular order):

- 15 minutes on bike
- shower
- laundry (wash/dry and fold)
- floors (kitchen, two bathrooms)
- lunch
- fandom_grammar feature rough draft mostly done, just needs a few more examples and a conclusion
- imaginarybeasts editing (x2)
- jd_ficathon pinch hit
- fandom_grammar claim post (not for posting)
- lj update
- some stuff from this list
- reply to assorted e-mails
- change light bulb
- dishes

Wish me luck!

Okay guys, so Emerson College is FUCKING AMAZING AND I WANT TO GO THERE.

seriously, a college dedicated to the arts?! I don't have to bother too much with stupid crap that I don't want to?! I CAN BE A MUSICAL THEATER MAJOR?! Y/MFY!

but I'm so nervous. What's going to happen to me after high school? AAAAAAAH!

Sakamoto Ryuichi's Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence makes me happy... and sad both at once.

If anyone would be so kind to send me the mp3 or whatever I'll be indefinitely grateful.

Yeah, that's all. I think there's a certain jaded feeling that I can't seem to express.

Ta.

Me

I am headed...somewhere in Japan.

Got upgraded two weeks ago. :)

Thank You Cheryl, Kimmi and everyone else who came to my rescue when I needed it most today and yesterday. I love you guys. I swear if it wasnt for you guys, i'd be in the loony bin by now. The cake was fuckin A! and the card was cute. Gloria, Nadia, Ivern thanks for listening, thanks for always pulling me out of whatever shitfest Im in. Huda, you're funny.

I've made a second blog. It's more a newsblog for family, but if anyone's interested it's http://which-way-iz-up.blogspot.com/

I put on blogger to keep it far, FAR away from my personal blog. Please do NOT mention anything about this blog on there if you should happen to visit. Thanks.

( Read more... )

Heh, dramatic resolution. Who woulda thunk it.

Eat that Neil Gaiman - my dreams ARE story shaped.

Name a series and I'll tell you the character(s) I would:

1. Bake cupcakes for:
2. Trust with the keys to my car:
3. Put thumbtacks on the chair therof:
4. Have a crush on:
5. Pack up and leave if they moved next door:
6. Vote for President:
7. Pick as my partner in a buddy movie:
8. Pair up:
9. Vote off the island and into the volcano:
10. Wheedle into fixing my MP3 player:

...and today is the last day at the NSC for now. Thank goodness, these long days in the sun have been killing me! >.<

I had a big day yesterday and finally got to sleep at about 2am.

The dream started with a conversation between the goddess Athena (imagined by Neil Stephenson as the goddess of technology) talking to her priest. She had to go back to Olympus on business; Juno was being pointlessly spiteful and Apollo was unemployed and in trouble again. She would be back, maybe in a century or two. Her priest would miss her. Without her around, things would tend to stagnate and a priest without power was a sorry, sickly pining thing indeed.

Nevertheless, she picked up her clothes, and packed her bags and left him with one of her weavings to remember her by. It's a geometric pattern of purple on a lighter lavender background. It looks like the floor plan of a castle inspired by Mandelbrot.

The priest went to work. He repaired typewriter keyboards. He walked into the office of one of his clients with a Burroughs Special Martinelli typewriter that he's just repaired and sets it down on the dimly lit desk. The boss is a wizardly looking old man in a lavender bath robe, speaking into the bakerlite handset of his telephone.

From our half of the conversation we get the impression that today is hiring day.

The priest of Athena makes himself scarce and sits down on the green vinyl chairs in the dimly lit, wood paneled hall outside. The PA comes back from her lunch break and hears the intercom buzzer. She waves the priest back into the office.

The boss is like "show me what you can do". The priest sits down at the type writer and hammers out a one page treatment for a movie. It's got lovers, and art-deco film noir offices, and nuclear reactors, and zombies, and death cultists and a monastery full of ex-vikings.

The boss likes it. he's hired on the spot.

He gets double his old salary and a corner office.

The PA, who looks suspiciously like Athena, leads him down into the basement where his "corner office" is. It is jammed into the corner of the basement between a wall of pipes and the main heating boiler. He is issued a Martinelli typewriter and a rain coat, due to the constant precipitation off rusty water from the pipes above.

The priest is unable to write. his paper gets soggy.

he wonders if there is any way to adjust the boiler to stop the water from falling, or to construct a roof out of the scrap in the basement.

He finds is way around the gloom of the basement until he discovers a hidden stairway that leads down. Down below he sees a large circular vaulting room with a strange square grid in the middle of it. Standing on top of the grid, is The Boss, in his lavender robe of such length that it pools in a circle around him.

A safety inspector is telling the boss that the facility must be shut down, it is unsafe. The boss says "nonsense" and invites him to go up to the observation deck where the Priest is hiding. The priest pulls out the weaving and looks at it. Yes, the weaving seems to be a map of the underground facility, The observation deck has two exits, the metal stairs leading up (which everyone is now looking at) and the stairs leading down to something marked "Reactor Core" where the Boss and the Inspector are standing.

the priest enters the observation deck itself, a cable car thingy suspended from wires in the ceiling, locks the door from the inside, and hides behind the chairs.


The Boss and the inspector reach the door and attempt to open it, but it is of course locked.

just then the PA announces that the core has overheated and is going into melt down. Control rods are all the way in, but the core is not shutting down.

The boss gives up on the door, and grabs a previously unseen flying fox line and zips off into the darkness.

There is a terrible shudder and the observation deck lurches away and slides down a set of wires towards a hole in the valuted ceiling of the room. The priest loses his balance and smashes a window by falling against it, losing the weaving of Athena and watching as it falls to the reactor core.

The inspector is left on the disintegrating catwalk, and is consumed as a pillar of superheated metal vapor passes through him.

The observation deck is ejected out of a cliff face and falls for a long time. through the windows the priest can see that the cliff is shaped like an inverted cone, and is sprouting from the middle of a large disk shaped mass of land which is ringed by ocean. Above, from the edge of the cliff falls a constant waterfall which falls in the ocean as a circular ring at some radius from the center of the world. It is this waterfall that the observation deck is falling towards.

He knows that beyond this curtain of water is the the end of the ocean, and another waterfall falling to who knows where.

He jumps clear of the observation deck as it passes through the waterfall and lands bleeding in the ocean. This attracts the diamond shaped dorsal fins of many sharks. they are friendly vegetarian kelp eating talking sharks who escort him and ultimately drag him to shore.

leaving him with his wounds bandaged with healing kelp and with kelp rations to eat, they swim out to sea again.

He wanders through the jungle heading for the cliff at the center of the world.

to be continued....

This post is specially dedicated to skroberts and everyone out there who loves Iron Man. :)

( Out and About )

This is transcription of some vocal journalling I did this evening while driving, onto a little microcassette recorder that I got for just such a purpose.

It is completely puzzling me that I am feeling drawn to go back to the place that, in some ways, pushed me away in the first place. In some ways. Now, I don't even begin to claim that the experience in Guatemala was the turning point in me turning away from God, because I was turning away from Him already when I went down there, that's part of why it was such a bad experience. But that I would be feeling drawn back there now is fascinating, and, to use Jamie's term, bewildering. Guatemala is a place I've been terrified of ever since...ever since I started coming back to Him. I've been terrified that He would call me back. Now I find myself wondering, without actually talking to Him, wondering if I could go back. Wondering if they have a bible in their language, if they have a bible in that Mayan dialect. And I have to realize that it's entirely possible that most of the people there are bilingual spanish/mayan anyway. But, I wonder if some of them are only Mayan speakers. I think some of them are, because we had to translate sometimes to Mayan, even from spanish. I find myself wanting to bridge that gap, and I know that would mean going back there, and I don't feel that nervous, or that afraid, that tredpidation that I used to feel with the idea of going back to Guatemala. Rather, I find myself actually intrigued, especially by the question of what they actually struggle with, in that society, in that culture. What makes them have trouble following God in a palce like that? Because everywhere has something. The Israelites struggled with idolatry repeatedly. Throughout human history, sexuality has been a major terror. Look at David, look at Samson, the list goes on. Idolatry and sexuality. Interesting that those are so often the two that tear people down. And that makes sense when you go back to the original creation. In the beginning it was God, man, and woman...and there were two relationships that defined and characterized almost everything in their lives. So it makes sense that those things being attacked...yeah.
I want to know what that culture struggles with to stay close to God. Because it's such an agricultural society, I can imagine that like the early Iraelites, the temptation was great to pray to idols or other Gods for fertility of the soil, and a high crop production. Provides hope of some kind. I can't see, in a culture like that, extramarital sexuality being a major problem, but then again, I don't really have a view of sex in their perspective. America is really very oversexed...but extramarital sexuality isn't a trademarked American sin.

As my scope has been increasing, and as my desire to do something big has been growing...my bouts with complacency have gotten far more fierce. And I'm wasting more time and backtracking more often. But every time that I even open my mind a little bit, that I turn my attention back even just a moment, just the slightest bit...I get pulled away, caught up in the current, and it's so strong. And I look at it after I've been swept away, and I wonder, how can I keep turning away, how can I keep getting lost? How can I keep turning away when this is so exciting and so...empowering almost? The joy, the peace, the feeling of being alive. It's like the POD song. "I feel so alive for the very first time, I can't deny you, I feel so alive"
Why is it that I can't deny Him when I'm looking at HIm, but the moment I turn my head, it seems like I...like I can't acknowledge Him?
Just like Jessie, I'm finding that the only way to stay close to Him is to constantly chase Him down. The only way to keep that relationship going is to make it a constant priority. Every day, every moment, breathe in, breathe out, think of HIm. Breathe in, breathe out, focus on Him...constantly.
And that's the war. That's...
what is it, when Lukavian lofts on his wings, and flies over the battlefield, and brings encouragement to people, brings revival to the battlefield...
"Brings revival to the battlefield"...what a phrase...
A man once asked a famous preacher what he must do to start a revival in his church. The preacher handed the man a piece of chalk and told him to draw a circle on the ground around him. "To start a revival in your church, you must first start a revival in that circle."
What is it that I will bring people? What more do I need to bring people than simply His peace?
That's not enough! I don't feel like that's enough because it's not enough for me! I get His peace and I get His joy in these moments and I get so...on FIRE for Him! I get so driven to be close to Him, and I just can't imagine doing anything else...and it's JUST NOT ENOUGH! Because I still end up turning away! I still end up trying other things, and I still end up getting distracted and discouraged, and tired. What is it I can bring to these people...what can I introduce into their lives, when just feeling His truth, when just feeling His life, when just feeling His love isn't enough to keep me close.
Isn't it?
Well no, it's not, because I end up turning away again.
Well of course I do, I'm human, I'm on this earth. I'll never maintain communication and intimacy with Him as long as I have a sinful nature, which is a part of this life.
SO WHAT'S THE POINT???

"My desire is not to save people from hell after they die, but to save them from the hell in this life as well."
Whenever I'm away from Him, I'm depressed, I'm blank, I'm empty and hollow, and nothing can fill me. I'm bottomless. I may not be WHOLE, or full, when I'm close to Him, because I can't be on earth. But He helps me feel whole, and He fills me more than anything else does.
HE FILLS ME more than ANYTHING ELSE. And I am insane that I keep turning away from that.

=================================NEW TOPIC===========================
What if the Followers wasn't a chapter of Eryndor? What if the Followers wasn't Jackson, MI's little piece of Dagorhir? What if the Followers was nationwide?
What if I brought The Followers of the Way, the concept of a Christian aspect and a Christian ministry based out of and around Dagorhir, and using Dag as its primary way of drawing people in and introducing them to a new message of Christ...what if I brought that to the whole country?
What if it started in SA so that it could spread through the youth pastors trained there, across the entire country?
I see events held by the Followers, a new kind of Youth Retreat. I see youth pastors introducing Dag to their kids, and the kids sharing it with their friends as something that isn't just another ploy, isn't just a fun time to hang out followed by a cheesy churchy message...but if they saw it the same way I did; as a way to relate the battles we hear about in the Bible and the words "fighting for Christ" and such as an actual battle, and to relate training, honor, truth, valor, strength...all these things to the spiritual in a clear and exciting way?
What if Lukavian brought that to the churches as well? Not just messages of the state of the front lines across the country...what if I also served to bring revival to the youth through the Followers, by introducing it to the youth pastors the same day that I brought my other message to the churches...training the yp's in how Dag is faught so they can teach their kids, making lessons or even entire ministries based on that?
I see the Followers then invading Dagorhir as a whole...invading Ragnarok itself, not just in one small camp, but in droves, where their numbers matched the numbers of those who can't hear His voice there. Where Ragnarok became as much ministry as it is fun. I see the basic image of the Followers expanding to cover the country, revolutionizing youth ministry and bringing revival to our age group, and the generations to follow, who then go on to provide a strong generational basis in churches...when as things are going, that age group will simply be absent, even if they are there in person.
For now, a chapter of Eryndor gives us the support we need...I hope...to grow and develop and even just exist when so many of its foundational members have gone on to whatever follows.

================================
My little confession is that the second section I did almost all from memory, feeding on the images and ideas still fresh in my mind. But that's fine. The exact words never mattered as much as the vision.

I had a conversation with Jamie today about Parkour, school, practicality, and a bunch of other interesting stuff. I told her how I had been working out nightly when I first started driving, but when I realized that there wasn't really a practical purpose to it (since my fiendish metabolism keeps me thin even on a trucker's diet), I stopped. It wasn't practical, so I discontinued it. Wanting to learn languages, and this randomly recurring desire to take online classes and get a Bachelor's degree in...something (literature, maybe?) are other examples. Training, be it for parkour, rock climbing, or even Dag, isn't practical because I don't see when I'd really use it, since I'm driving so much.
She argued that since I had a desire to do it, that was practicality enough. ANd she helped me realize that this argument between desire and practicality (Sound familiar, Jessie?) is very much the war between "growing up" and "being young"...so much as our society defines it anyway.
I came away from the conversation feeling like the healthiest thing I could do, from a couple standpoints, is start training again. Start working on leg strength as well as the ab and upper body work I'd been doing (leg lifts on the steps of my truck are easy and effective, I remember them from my brother researching ways to improve vertical jump back when he was really into basketball). As for stamina and endurance training...well, haven't really figured out an efficient way to do that other than going for runs every night, which is less...
...heh...less practical than the other exercises. There's that word again. Blargh.

That's pretty much all for now, I guess. It's been a rough past couple days, and I want to go crash. When my laundry is done.

Would it be considered irony if Chris Hansen did an interview for Barely Legal magazine?

this was something I wrote in the first week, supposedly a first-person adaptation of story 57 except halfway through it totally died and ended without my intending to end it, which would have made me angry and foot-stampy, only I was too exhausted by then to care (oh deadlines). so yes.

I still hold a certain penchant for the... original. The people who read this first don't like the original v. much, but I s'pose each to their own.

( unedited - beware )