...lord of destruction. He was very controlled, calm, he knew exactly where all the boundaries were. He could find the gates of heaven. Today's tabletop fellowship at Wibbly's consisted of me, the blue human, the ring-bearer, and the red elf Ruddy. We created mindread.dll, together. The ideas were revolutionary. Inspired by Destruction, written by Dream, tested by Destruction, watched over by the ring-bearer and the blue human. Destruction assigned mindread.dll to be tested some more by the dark human and the toothpick wielder. The dark human taught the toothpick wielder to fly and they found the export together. Mission accomplished. It was time for replication. The blue bearded dwarf would make sure it met with specifications. Candle would join us soon, and there would be much rejoicing. By students and teachers alike.



The dark human had looked directly into the eyes of Death and saw a cute little Goth girl. He had no fear. They went on a date, saw a basketball game, had a few Donuts. It was all cool. They learned to fly together as well, again and again. The Goth girl was satisfied.


We winked at them. Twinkling. We still wanted to see the vastness of the Milky Way. In person. Hand in hand. I waited for Candle to appear. I could see her and not see her at the same time. She cried tears of joy and wanted to run to me immediately, but she would wait a little longer, wait a little longer. Prole had joined Candle's tribe of her own free will, but the invitation to Teardrop's tribe was always open. Candle grinned knowingly. Such was the Game of Life after all.


twilight
 dawn
  twilight
   dawn
    out of control
     we steered the sun
      and followed the path of the serpent
       to wisdom
        on the back of the world turtle
         crawling on the web of life
          the spider is not peter parker

I have had a lengthy absence from E2 for the past few months.

It all started about 3 months ago when I was researching some ancestry, in the hope to find a quick and painless way into the UK to earn some bucks. It turns out that my grandmother was born there, and with any luck, this may mean I will be able to gain a working permit and start earning mega-pounds (a pound, when sent home, being worth around six million local dollars).

A day’s research got me a little closer to my goal (and a bit more besides as will soon be a lot clearer), I had the details of her place of birth, and how to apply for her birth and marriage certificates over the internet. During my research I popped into E2 for a bit of light-hearted catboxing, and distribution of surplus votes.

Unbeknownst to me, my every move was being scrutinised, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water (Uooo-laaaa!).

The next day I received a phone call from my Team Leader to pop up for a visit. I did so, and he plonked a 7-page document in front of me. It was a list of Internet sites - a very long list. I recognised some of them, a lot of them, well actually all of them. "What the..." says I. He told me that the security group at the organisation that I work for often report high usage to the manager of heavy internet users, and this was the list of sites I had visited in a 6-hour period (needless to say not a lot of work had been done that day).

I was told that I had had the second-highest internet usage that day. "Well, that’s a silver medal then" says I. I didn’t bother asking who was first, although in hindsight it would be very interesting to know now. Suffice to say, I came up with some feeble excuses, but he just said not to worry, just be aware that Big Brother is Watching.

Since that day I have been monitoring my Internet usage. Hence, my lack of noding of late. Yes, I pop in to see who is still about, how my nodes are faring, and that all is happy and bubbly in the world of Everythingites, but little else.

I’ll try to node a bit more now that things are quietening down a bit more for me here too. Hopefully before long I’ll be off to another job, where they don’t have my over-zealous surfing on record, and I can partake a little more.

Stay tuned...

My dear sir:

I trust this morning find you in good health and spirit. I myself am in plentiful spirit, due to the remarkable nature of our current meteorological situation. It is quite extraordinary, so much so as to have caused my esteemed supervisor to call in sick. Thus my day shall be a little brighter.

I awoke to find myself surrounded by a glittering array of snow, spread so thickly as to resemble a dense and rather wet cake. I thus determined that I should break my fast before venturing into this land, for who knew how treacherous such a journey as I planned to undertake might prove? I prepared a cup of fragrant tea, and ate of an english muffin thickly spread with raspberry jam.

During this while I was privileged to speak with my dear friend wheloc, who enjoyed a similiarly fragrant meal. He informed me that he felt ill, but was not sure as to from whence his illness arose. We together determined that he has a fever, a sore throat, and a set of slightly enlarged lymph nodes. He therefore may be stricken with that same terrible mononucleosis from which our household has recently suffered, although he is hopeful that it be merely Ryan's influenza. How quickly does illness steal upon us! However, he seemed in good spirit, and I was obliged to leave him for my morning's responsibilities. Truly this repast had strengthened me; I now was ready to plunge into that vast wilderness.

Upon the course of my morning's exercise, I observed the myriad number of natural wonders in their course. How fine it was to take into my lungs the fresh, clean air so often absent from our dingy cities! How crisp and dainty the crust of ice spread over the slush of our deplored gutters! Truly, Nature sees fit to cleanse those wretched human things which she deems a smudge upon her palette. But to those natural things which are a part of her--trees, shrubberies, and the like--her action seems a balm. How exquisite it was to view the various branches encased in ice! How this ice did capture them at their finest, and weight them down, so that I might examine them closely!

The flag itself received some of this treatment; to my eye, it seemed to be covered in the very same icy sheen, though it kept to its own lofty height. However, at this height, it did not keep still, but instead flew at the mercy of the high gale. It rasped against itself as a carpenter may rasp a lathe against his wood, then belled out in the wind with an audible snap. I observed as well that these violent actions had not gone without corporal effect: it had, in fact, begun to shred itself, and whipped its ragged edges out in frantic fashion. How strange, thought I, that such an object--a symbol of the pride and glory of our nation--might choose to fret itself to pieces. Ah well, how little I know of politics; I soon turned from it and entered instead my place of business.

And here I sit. I trust I shall have the honour of visiting you later in the day: we might undertake to plan a simple feast upon which to sup. This, I feel, could be a quiet yet fruitful activity, rich with its rewards for those who choose to take it.

I remain, esteemed sir,
your most sincere and respectful colleague,
etc., etc.

<SING>Happy birthday to meEEeEeE</SING>...

So it's my birthday today. Actually it's February 1, but I was born at about 5 AM local time, that being 22:00 UTC, on January 31st, 21 years ago. Damn I'm old.

I'm not saying anything to anyone, I'm hoping everyone is going to forget it tomorrow, so I can go on and use well-earned "boohoo you forgot my birthday!" cards on them. Ah, the twisted freak that I am.

best'friend'kiss'what'then?

And so her lips divided once,
And nervous,
Broke the air
To meet my own.

Entranced,
I held my breath,
And split the silence
With a sigh
Of seven years in waiting,
Letting go
Of an entire youth
Spent with a wondering thought-
A 'what if' voice,
That softly whispered doubts
Of magic
Broken by that kiss-

That voice is silenced.

What a life.

This is what I saw out the window of my car on the way home.

At first I thought it was smoke: residue from an open air fire. A large black ball in the sky, moving across the horizon. As I got closer I could see it changing in shape, moving from a circle to scattered lines, then coming back together again as it looped out and over power lines. It was a flock of birds, hundreds of them. Pulling together and stretching apart as they moved up and down & across and back. It reminded me of those plastic globes you can buy that can shrink to the size of a grapefruit, or stretch out bigger than a basketball. Expand and contract- close and far.

As I got closer I could see the flock regrouping. It moved together as it swooped down, pulled apart, then compressed itself as they reversed direction and flew away again.

Imagine if birds flew in a swarm.
Then add twilight.

I was having a pretty good day, I did well at work and dropped by Future Shop and purchased the fancy new Twin Peaks DVD set. After chatting with my friend at Starbuck's I went and caught the bus. Then when I transfered onto the Main bus my day took a stranger turn.

So I get on and sit down across from some cute but older guy and attempt to amuse myself by (not) making eye contact. I'm listening to my discman so I just kind of hear it at first, then it gets louder. It's this weird moaning sound, like a child who just got injured. I look around and see this lady walking down the aisle, freaking out people by stumbling and moaning. She's making mad hand gestures, obviously angry about something. I figure that she's deaf, it just kinda sounded like what I've heard of angry deaf people before and her gesturing looked like sign language. She sits down beside me for a second but moves and sits at the 2nd to last group of seats. She just keeps moaning and it seemed that she was angry at this one native Indian guy. I recall seeing them on the bus before, signing to each other. I think. It was strange because she was carrying crutches and stumbling, as if she needed them but refused to use them. At the start of this little scene, before I figured out what was going on, the guy I was checking out like smiled. That got to me. It was just so fucking cruel.

She sits in the seat beside some guy and keeps moaning, less loudly. The native guy is farther up in the bus. More people get off the bus, freaked out by her. There's this kind of attitude that settles over people on the bus, like she doesn't exist. I'm not innocent, I sit there in discman land, staring out the window across from me like I always do. People are all purposely turned away from her, ignoring her. The guy who was sitting next to her moved to beside me. It's surreal, it's like "if I can't see her she doesn't exist". People think she's just some crazy person I guess. She starts making hand writing gestures to the girl across from me, and she writes her a note. The girl offers the note to me but I don't take it, because the lady did not offer it to me. Now I wish I had taken it. I really wish I knew what was going on. So they write back and forth a little bit. The native guy moves back and says "did she tell you what she did?" or maybe it was "did she tell you what she did to me?", I'm not sure. The lady moaned a bit louder at him then, I think. He moved back up the bus. After a little bit longer the lady makes a sort of hopeless gesture to the girl, and the girl says 'i'm sorry' and gets off at her stop. The girl seemed somewhat amused though, like it wasn't a serious matter. Maybe she just didn't know how to react.

The bus ride continues on and we approach 41st. The native guy moves and sits right near me, and the moaning gets louder again. She is obviuosly really pissed off at him. She's signing like crazy and he's signing back. She's this writhing little thing, I think she was probably an addict. Skinny and sketched out and hollow deep eyes and stringy hair. I was trying to figure out what the native guy was. Maybe he was her dealer? I figured either her dealer or her friend or her pimp.

The lady signs madly at the guy and smashes a crutch on the ground, right near my feet. I'm trapped between them, they're diagonally facing each other. It gets worse and worse as we get closer to 41st. Some older lady in the front section says something like "settle down". I think to myself "what the fuck?" Is it not totally obvious that she's deaf? And anyways, does she think that saying that is going to help at all? It's like she's saying "get out of here, you don't belong in my little universe". I'm reminded of the book I'm reading, White Noise. People with their own little modern lives where nothing bad or weird could possibly happen. Again, not that I'm innocent of any of this. Sitting there with my headphones on, new dvd's in my bag.

She gets super angry and stumbles to the front of the bus, and gets off at 41st. She seems to be signalling to the native guy to not get off at the same stop, but he does after her anyways. As we drive off I see a bus driver standing there talking to both of them, asking her what the problem is. Fuck! Can he not tell that she's deaf?? I felt really fucking awful, like I should have gotten off there and tried to help or explain to the bus driver. As my friend just pointed out on the phone there wasn't much I could have done, but it just felt so cruel to stay on and go back to my life. She was so angry at him. I have this scenario in my head of the native guy being her pusher or pimp or something and he's going to hurt her. I don't know. I feel bad now. I don't know what the fuck happened and I feel so sorry for that lady.

Its time to go school today... Oh wait its a snow day. As a substitute teacher that means I don't get paid even if I was scheduled to. So after sleeping in for awhile, I went out to try and dig out my car from the snow that fell. It was amazing... When I got home from my second job at Iserv, the snow was just starting and now when I woke up there was just under 2 feet of snow. It took about an hour for me to shovel my driveway.

So my second job, calls me in early so I ventured in, driving through the "freshly plowed" roads. It had looked like one time the plows had been through, but now after more snow and ice, there were just the tracks where car tires had driven the snow out and now there was dry pavement. Oh well... you know how many people have computer problems when they are stuck inside?

In its last day of serving the best of Russian cuisine and music from the cabaret scene, the Firebird Café presented a low-key but exciting evening with the illustrious Quinn Lemley. Accompanied with her are director James Sampliner, drummer Peter Retzlaff, and bassist Dave d'Ambrosia presenting an intense seance of glamour and sensual fury.

Quinn is one of the scene's best-kept secrets. She did shows in the Algonquin Hotel, the Metronome in downtown Manhattan, and has recorded four albums. However, you really have to dig right in and find out more about the hard-working artists in the cabarets of New York before you can find Ms. Lemley. Either that or you can watch "Broadway Beat" on public access television (web site: http://www.broadwaybeat.com), find out that she is a hot redhead in the vein of Rita Hayworth, and you'll want to hear her sing.

Throughout the evening, Quinn has shown us her the charm in pieces - for starters she has enthusiasm, yearning, and choreography for her body as well as her natural red hair. Channeling Julie London, Lemley and Retzlaff gave a rendition of Cole Porter's "In The Still of the Night" that is everything but - the uptempo Latin-American approach resembled my heartbeats. A lot of songs were sung with the mindset of a temptress (especially "I Wanna be Evil" and "You Go To My Head"), but Bob McDowell's "Destination: Sunrise" and Thelonius Monk's "'Round Midnight" drove us back to reality of yearning and heartbreak.

And right when Quinn has all of her act together, one song can't contain everything. "Why Don't You Do Right?" (a tribute to the late Peggy Lee) and the classic "Put the Blame on Mame" from the Rita Hayworth film Gilda were only enough to hold the physicality and the bass-riding voice together without overloading the senses.

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