troubled sleep

(I feel a bit silly posting this, and I'm sorry it's so long) Speaking as someone who has been around for a long while but descended into kind of a lurker, I'd like it very much if there were more big open things that anyone could join. Some of my fondest memories around, the ones that bring me back even years later, here have been things like the Fall Ball or, more slightly recently and more epically, Kiku and Dego's quill quest rp. I feel like...these allowed people to not just get more involved, but to form connections and relationships with other Pennites here on the site. Sometimes, It's difficult to know where to jump in, who to talk to, where to go or if you're even allowed to go there. It's difficult to see if there's really a place for you. And also--while I read most of the stories and poems that get posted here, I rarely comment since I usually have had no interaction with the person who posted. Especially if I'd like to offer some kind of suggestion or constructive criticism. OK, I realize that I do lurk a lot, so part of this is my fault. But honestly...I'd be more involved if I could find a way to do it. And while I know that this sounds a bit silly, I'm certain that I can't be the only one out there who could've left a comment, but didn't—or who could have clicked open a thread or story, but didn't—mostly because they have no attachment whatsoever to the poster. So yes, I think that the facebook group is a lovely idea as well as integrating youtube videos. Falling into the category of “more theatrical Pennites” I'm a little bit in love with the idea of having people read out their work and post the videos on youtube. However, I think it's also important to see some new text-based interaction/community building here on the Pen, either at the same time as the new social networking stuff, or soon. I know that thinking up interesting whole-community rp plots isn't exactly easy, we've got a lot of awesome, creative people here. I'm positive that if some of us got together and brainstormed, as in this thread, we could come up with great things. I also know that when it's just the people who are really active, it's difficult to get big ideas off the ground. However, I am convinced that if the program is well thought out, well advertised and leaves space for creativity, people will come out. Also, is there any way to mass-email or mass-PM all members? I still keep up with a few of people who used to be active years ago--I mean, I know that they're still alive and kicking about the internet, and I'm sure that they'd come back if someone reminded them. Even if it was just to log back in for a day—if we've got new and exciting things things up and running and being awesome, they'll see them and maybe stay. Wyvern, I've got a question for you—is the almost report a thing of the past? I know that there is some kind of news system in place somewhere...but the area labeled "news" is suspiciously empty. Maybe that could be revamped in some way? I think that the most important thing that can be done to stimulate activity is to show that there is a place without our community for everyone--both newcomers and those who've taken to lurking.

“Liquid or chunky?” Erin is our resident vomit expert. She had three cases of throw-up in her bathroom in the first week and a half alone. The night of the first football game had been a veritable flood of vomit in the 8th floor, high side bathroom. I, however, have been lucky. And despite a predilection for leaving their hair everywhere and clogging the drains, my girls have been decent about keeping the bathroom clean...ish. So when I was greeted tonight by an angry message on my dry erase board proclaiming, “Vomit!! Vomit! There is vomit in the shower. OMG,” I knew it was time to bring in the big guns. So I called Erin. “Liquid or chunky?” she repeats. She's standing her PJ's completely neutral, completely unfazed by the fact that I'm freaking out on her doorstep. “Umm, sort of both? It's like...I don't know if it's quite umm..it's still kind of...you know...” I make vague motions in the air with my hands. “Solid?” Erin offers mildly. “Yeah! It's still kind of solid. I don't know if it's quite digested enough to be vomit, or if someone just tossed some food in the shower to screw with me.” Erin nods. Sighs. Smiles. Slips into the matching pair of pink slippers placed next to the door and steps out into the hallway. “Well, lets go take a look.” We trot down her hall and around the bend, past the elevators and onto my side of the 8th floor. It's called 8 low, partially because it's on the lower side of the hill, but mostly because it has rooms 801-817, whilst Erin has 818-832. It took me almost a full semester to figure that out. We're an interesting floormate pair, Erin and I, as we're both very different. Even right now--she's dressed in a coordinated clouds-and-cows PJ ensemble with those cute slippers, and I'm rocking mismatched socks, old sweatpants and last year's RA t-shirt, a shapeless grey thing with, "Being a leader, being an RA" emblazoned on the back. Erin is the mother of our staff. Despite being as many as three years younger than some of us, she manages to keep all 18 of us in line with her quiet, organized way. I've never seen her flummoxed or upset. Her favorite phrase is “Oh, Goodness!” and she can adapt it to fit any situation. She says just this as we walk into my bathroom. “Oh, Goodness!” She draws back the middle curtain and looks down at the puddle of guck and hair and food blocking the drain. “Yep, that's vomit alright.” We sit there and silently stare at it for a moment. “Damn dining hall pasta salad, gets 'em every time.” I say after a moment, trying to lighten the mood by being silly, because that's what I do when I'm freaking out. “Something with tomatoes, definitely,” Erin replies, nodding down at the squishy red food blobs. We both step away from the shower stall at the same time and let the curtain swing closed by unspoken mutual agreement. “So, uh...what's the best way to go about cleaning this?” “Well,” Erin says, calmly as though she were telling me about the weather, “You need cleaning supplies, that means going to Smith--” “But I'm on call, I can't leave the building...” “It's ok, I'll get them for you. Let me go get my shoes. You call Smith and tell them I'm coming.” She turns and walks calmly out of the bathroom and back to her own room. I leave at a run, taking the 8 flights of stairs three at a time to get down to the front desk and its list of telephone numbers. Smith Hall is, for all intents and purposes, our sister hall. And not just any little sister, but the weird, freaky one who is always trying to one-up you, even though you're clearly way cooler. Salley hall is nearby, too, the voice of reason in our inter-hall squabbles, and between the three of us, we make up the Westside High-rises. Or, as I call them, the Westside Sisters. As it's after hours, their front desk phone is answered by a nightstaffer. For those unacquainted with these strange, but mostly gentle beasts, nightstaffers work the front desks from 11pm until 7am, bolding holding the line against floods, drunken students, power outages, and weirdos wandering in whilst the rest of us slumber away. They're usually nice once you get to know them, but can be a little abrasive to us day-time dwellers – at least at first. It's all about knowing how to handle them. “Smith Hall, what is it?” A tired, male voice asks when I dial Smith's number. “Hello, Smith Hall! This is Mae, RA on call in Kellum and I'm sending you a visitor!” He perks up immediately--Nightstaffers love it when you send them people to talk to. My friend Michael used to work Nightstaff and I used to sit up with him a lot—it gets awfully lonely sitting by yourself at the front desk, watching the hours tick by. Believe it or not, there's only so many times you can watch that one youtube video with the dancing cat before your brain starts to melt. “What's up next door?” the nightstaffer asks, excited for news, gossip, or anything to lend excitement to his night. “Some loser threw up in my shower, so I'm sending my floormate over to borrow your cleaning supplies. So be on the lookout for some Kellumites headed your way in the next few, ok?” “Alright, I'll keep a weather eye out. Thanks, Kellum.” “Anytime, have a good night, Smith Hall!” Ever efficient, Erin is there and back again in a just a few minutes. She comes bearing clorox clean-up, 409 lysol wipes, and a plethora of gloves. “Last time, I made my girls help me clean,” she says by way of explaining the twenty-odd plastic gloves she's now pressing into my hands. “I don't know...it's kind of late.” Erin looks at me with her unblinking, un-judging eyes. And nods. “Well, it's about midnight.” “I can handle it myself, I think.” Erin just nods again. “Okay. If you want help, let me know.” After a further thanks and few more pleasantries, Erin departs for her own domain, leaving me quite alone in my big, empty hallway clutching at the clorox. Stealing myself, I walk back down to the bathroom, boldly throw open the curtain and...stop. I stare down at the mass of vomit. I could very easily clean this up, leave an admonishing note on my girls' doors and leave it at that. But, a small voice at the back of my head protests: it's not *your* mess—you're their RA, not their mommy and certainly not their maid. I glance back at the door. Then down at the clock on my phone. 12:18am. Setting the clorox and the gloves back down on the floor, I take a few deep breaths, square my shoulders, and walk-with-a-purpose out the door and down the hall. Curling my hand into a fist, I knock loudly against the first door. No answer. I knock again. “What?” A voice calls from the depths of the room. “Hi, it's Mae—you're RA, can you open the door please?” The door is opened by an amazon, and I stifle a gulp. Most of my residents are at least 5 foot 7, with tall, bronzed bodies and very long, beautiful hair. Me? I claim 5'4”, but I'm really more of a 5'3” and kind of...soft. And very pale. And frizzy. “What?” the amazon—her name is Ruby, by the by—asks, an eyebrow raised at my sudden appearance at her door. Holding my hands in front of me so she can't see them shaking, I take in a long breath and begin to speak very quickly: “Throw on a t-shirt or something, we're having a bathroom cleaning adventure!--someone threw up in the middle stall and no one's going to come clean until monday, so it's on us! And I for one don't want to shower in vomit! I've got cleaning supplies, I've got gloves, so I need you to get out here, sweetheart, and help me get people out of their rooms. The more we've got, the quicker it'll be. Come on, bathroom cleaning adventure!!!!” Without saying anything else, I move on to the next door before she can properly protest, repeat my speech, then move to the next door and the next, pulling people out of bed and away from computer screens. Soon I've got a veritable army of pajama-ed freshmen girls, all of whom are ridiculously pissed. Marshaling my troupes, I send half of them down to the other side of the hallway to get the rest up and bring the other half into the bathroom with me. “OK! I brought gloves, here's some for you, and you and you,” I say, handing out the flimsy plastic gloves to my unwilling residents. “Here are some cleaning supplies, you take these, Bree and you take these, Zoe, now, umm—go!” The rest of the stragglers had shuffled in by this time, and all of them just stood there, clutching their gloves and staring at me. I'm hit with a sudden wave of Panic—what if they said no? I half expect them to be like, “no! Forget this, I do what I want, fool! I'm going back to sleep!” What if they didn't listen to me? What if— It was then that my girls shrugged into action. Much to my surprise, people began to venture into the showers whilst others stayed out on the main floor, handing in lysol wipes or spraying 409 in before them. “This is nothing!” shouts one of my residents—Rupa Chadha, a Kellum hall returner whose name I only remembered for the roster test because of its similarity to “Chupacabra”—as she went once more into the breach, “You should have seen it last year! Puke everywhere!! Puke on the walls! On the toilets! On the windows! On the--” “I just can't believe someone would do this...I mean, seriously? Why wouldn't you just, like, throw up in the toilet??” Bree -- a Louisianan who claims to be first cousin to Brittney Spears -- says, wrinkling her nose as she hands another Lysol wipe to her counterpart wiping down the shower. “I think I'm going to be sick!” Savannah, a tall blonde, says covering her mouth and turning away. “Or they could at least aim for the trash can,” spritely Zoe calls back to Bree from her place inside the shower. “Puke on the ceiling! Puke on the door! On the--” Rupa continues to shout to no one in particular. “I am going to find whoever did this and I am going to mess her up!” Cami says, standing in her shower stall, gloved hands on hips. “Yeah!” the rest of the girls chorus. It was then that I realized that their anger wasn't at me for waking them up, but rather for this unnamed person who ruined their bathroom. I take heart in that—but also advised them that violence is not the answer. In fifteen minutes, the bathroom was, well, if not sparkling clean, at least as clean as a community style bathroom gets in a freshman dorm. I scurry up on the lip between the shower and the floor, a six inch boost putting me about at eye level with most of my residents. “Thanks everybody for taking part in our bathroom cleaning adventure,” I say, much slower this time, “as nice as it's been to see everybody, I hope we never have to meet like this again,” this is greeted by a number of nods and a few cheers. After a few further parting words about how they should not let their hair clog the drain--this was part of the problem, too--and should not throw up in strange places, I let them go back to their lives. Some residents stayed behind to chat for a few minutes, but in the end, it's just me, standing alone in the bathroom. I look down at the shower, now clean, and smile. I'm not much of a “tough guy,” I never have been. I'm terrified of hurting peoples' feelings and have trouble asking people for things. It's one of the things that always scared me most about becoming an RA. I was hired midway through the year, and managed to skate by with minimal conflict with my residents, but this year is already shaping up to be a very trying one. But nonetheless...in this moment, I feel pretty cool that I actually was assertive, that I got people to do something. I'm not a very good tough guy, but I'm working on it.

I love this <3

break

Fear is my constant houseguest--an aquaintance from the old days who has overstayed his welcome. I try to usher him out, drop hints about moving on, but still he sits at my table, smiling as he stirs his tea; Confidence is just outside the door, waiting and beckoning for me to leave my dark, grey house and try some sunshine on for size. But I can´t. I can´t just leave my houseguest. That would be rude. (Yeah, I´m stuck in an internet cafe in Munich waiting for my train and thus can´t be held responsible for any posts in the next few hours)

((A year ago, I went to starbucks after trig class and had a series of bizarre things happen to me. I then trotted home with every intention of writing it up, but then it got a bit long and I had homework to do, so I stopped midway and filed the whole thing away in a word document. Which I found. Today. So I finished it.)) )-( Digging for my sunglasses is always a production. I have a very large bag. Bottomless pit is the most apt description. I've never been a huge designer handbag fan just because there isn't enough room in them for anything. Sunglasses are small, and somehow they always manage to sink to the bottom, coming to rest on a ledge just before the purse drops off into nothingness. So I'm standing outside of my trig class in the open air hallway of our Huge Classroom Building(aren't we creative here at florida state??), sifting through the contents of my purse and finding everything but my sunglasses. This includes, but is not limited to, a bottle of water, a luna bar, three notebooks, a calculator, my wallet, both sets of keys, and a letter from the Florida Legislature informing me that since my purse has grown so large, I'm going to have to start paying property taxes on it. However, after standing around like an idiot buried up to my arm in purse, I finally feel my fingers clasp around my little black plastic sunglasses. It was around this same time that the sky--previously filled with an overabundance of sunshine and blue skies--decided that it was cold and gathered some nice fluffy rain clouds around for warmth. Rain clouds, as you may know, are ridiculously social beings who insist on hugging and chatting upon meeting, but who can deal out some serious lightening if need be. Sometimes I think maybe rain clouds are from Georgia. And so, just as I'm pulling my sunglasses out of my purse, the rain clouds' first "omg!it's so good to see you again!" of thunder boomed across the sky, rendering my sunglasses obsolete. Sighing, I let them careen back down into the bottomless pit and brace myself for raindrops. And so we learn that down here in Florida, the weather can change at the drop of a pair of sunglasses. However, this is not my story; not really. Because not two seconds later I found myself--quite outside my own power--being drawn into starbucks. This was partially because I needed to position all electronic items (and I carry a lot) into more secure, waterproof sections of my bottomless pit, and partially because I haven't slept for more than an hour or two in several days. But mostly it was because someone had just walked by me with a starbucks cup and I am an American and therefore am ridiculously susceptible to suggestions to buy things. So I run across the red-brick-road (I think it has some official name, like the Multicutural-Alum-Who-Donated-A-Lot-Of-Money-Memorial-Pathway-Of-Awesomeness or something, but I like red-brick-road better) to starbucks just as the rain is really starting to pick up. Amazingly, there is no line. There is never a line at this starbucks. I am convinced that this is a magical starbucks, but that's another story. So I get in and stare at the menu. Really, I'm not in the mood for anything fancy. All I want is coffee. That's it. It occurs to me at this moment that I've never actually just ordered coffee at a starbucks before. Ever since that fateful day when I first stepped into a starbucks with my then-BFF Lisa Shean at the tender age of 14, I've always ordered some exotic weird blended…thingie. Today, however, I am in no mood for frills. Today, I just want some coffee. And I have no idea how to ask for it. And so I panic. Because that's kind of how I roll. I stand there in the doorway, mind blank, not sure what to do. It seems like there's a big, blinking neon sign that says, "coffee ordering novice! Point and laugh!" hanging above me. I'm not sure why this would bother me, or why it would be a big deal…but when you're in starbucks--especially a magical starbucks like this one--priorities change. You find yourself spending large quantities of money on exotic blended teas and cute little mugs with the starbucks logo on them. You buy big machines shiny with stainless steel that, while you're not sure what they do, certainly look magnificent on your kitchen counter and make a great deal of rather splendid noises. Until the thing explodes because you've let the pressure build up too much and you're left with a five-foot hole in your ceiling. The world outside and whether anything you're doing makes sense really have no bearing in starbucks. Like Vegas, what happens in Starbucks, stays in Starbucks. If starbucks had a slot machine and an Elvis marriage chapel, Vegas would be out of business faster than a shot of espresso enters the bloodstream. But eventually I pull myself together. Casually, I walk up to the counter, studying the menu. I figure that if I can just give myself enough time walking up to the counter, I can figure out what to say. However, it doesn't take that long to transverse the six feet to the counter, no matter how slowly you walk, and in mere seconds I'm standing next to the register, still looking blankly at the menu. "What can I get for you. Ma'am? Ma'am?" I transfer my blank stare from the menu above to the girl's face below and mumble something like, "um….yeah…" Starbucks-girl favors me with an expression that says, "look, sweetie, I've been here since 6, I haven't had a break, I haven't eaten since 5, please just order something so that you can get on with your life and I can get on with mine otherwise I might just have to kill you." "I want some coffee," I finally manage. "Coffee?" she replies, incredulous. "Yes. Coffee." I say, more firmly this time. She sighs in the back of her throat, a slightly strangled noise. "What size?" "Umm…" I glance at the coffee sizes next to me, "Venti." I usually never get anything above a tall, however, I've got a gift card, I might as well go all out. "What kind of coffee?" "Um…" "Mild? Bold? Decaf? Regular? Semi-Caf? Arabian bold? African semi-bold, partly-mild? Lithuanian surprise?" She continued listing coffee varieties, but I felt myself glazing. My brows climb up into frightened little V's as I try to follow all the types of coffee and I'm certain that I resemble a dear in the headlights. "Umm…pick one?" I said after a moment, no longer sure of what was going on. "Yes," starbucks-girl says, taking a deep breath and steadying her hand on the counter, "pick one. Which do you want?" "Whichever, I don't care. Ummm…bold?" "Pike Place Bold or Arabian Bold?" "Uhhh…The first one." "Hot or iced?" "Hot…?" "Room for cream?" I'm starting to feel vaguely like I'm being interrogated, but manage to choke out an emphatic "yes!" Quite inexplicably, the girl ordering coffee next to me says brightly, "Good choice!" I look over at her, unsure if she's talking to me or not. See, at FSU, strangers don't really talk to each other. Friends don't even really talk to each other. It's just one of our traditions and we're proud of it. So I was really quite surprised when this girl in a flouncy, blue paisley shirt spoke to me. "I cream and sugar the daylights out of my coffee," I mumble in her general direction--what else could I say? How does one respond to someone actually talking to them?? "Oh, me too, me too." Paisley shirt says, before wandering away to the condiment bar to do just that. Meanwhile, starbucks-girl has shoved a large cup of coffee for which I meekly thanked her. Now it's her turn to look confused--I doubt anyone had said that all day. People don't really say thank you at FSU, either. It's another time honored tradition. I keep forgetting--I guess I'll never be a true 'nole. So mulling on my failures as a Florida State Seminole, I'm over cream and sugaring the crap out of my coffee. This takes a really long time, especially when one has randomly selected the "bold venti" coffee and in that time someone else comes up from behind to stand with me and blue paisley-girl. You know how some people seem to carry a cloud of angry around with them? This chick stomps over with an entire hurricane's worth. The first thing she does is tip some of her coffee into the trash can. "I can't believe this," she says, flipping off the top off her coffee and glaring at it. "What the...? You call that room for cream?" She tips more of it into the trash. Paisley girl clucks disapprovingly at Angry Chick. "Well," Paisley says, "They forgot to put the vanilla flavoring in mine, but you don’t see me complaining, do you? Gosh, cut them some slack." With this she flounces off in a cloud of paisley ruffles, leaving me stranded with Angry Chick. "B****." Angry chick growls, reaching for the other bottle of half-and-half. I make some kind of, "Ach! Omg!" noise in response to her cursing at a complete stranger, to which Angry Chick replies: "Well, she's lucky I didn't say it to her face. I don't get it, why do people always have to get in everyone else's business? I hate it. This is why I never go out in public." I briefly toy with the idea of mentioning that it was Angry Chick who had put herself out there by talking in the first place, but eventually decide against it. I don't want to die today. Instead, I shrug, reach for a packet of sugar and say, "Well, I just don't ask questions." "Yeah, I guess. But, like, I've got, like, three exams tomorrow and I'm not prepared at all and I've been studying all week and I totally don't have time for some nobody to be all up in my face, judging me." Again, what does one say to this? We don't talk to each other at FSU, and now suddenly not one, but two people keep talking to me! "I have three exams tomorrow, too." I say, for lack of any better reply. "Yeah? Sucks doesn't it?" "Mmmhmm," I nod emphatically, "definitely." Angry then chick takes a long, long drag of her coffee, closes her eyes and--much to my astonishment--smiles. Her cloud of angry suddenly evaporates and her entire countenance seems to change--it's kind of like that scene at the end of Disney's beauty and the beast when the beast gets transformed back into a not-quite-ugly Frenchman: light shining out all over everything. But the smile remains, and when she opens her eyes again, they're shining, too. I, meanwhile, am stopped midway through dumping a pack of sugar into my coffee, mouth hanging wide open at the transformation. "Well," she says, popping the lid back onto her cup, "it was nice meeting you, have a super awesome day and good luck on your exams!!" I nod mutely and she skips--skips!--away. And that, mes p'tites, is my real story: how coffee, against all odds, can sooth the savage college student. (I told you it was a magic starbucks.)

I said it in the real world, and I'll say it again on the internet: I love this story. Rumpelstiltskin was one of my favorites as a child and your retelling has only made me like it more. More specifically, I like the way you string your sentences together. I like how you the story moving without, hitting familiar plot points without falling into the trap of being either cliched or repetitive.

Kailea let out a long, colorful string of curses. She had been standing on a balcony, looking outside trying to figure out what heck was going on down there when suddenly and for no reason said balcony had been blown to bits, Kail herself only just avoiding being taken out with it. She spat a few more colorful words, struggled to her feet, then continued with: "Meteors, Meteors!" then sped down the hall back to her room. She continued to chatter to herself, as she always did when she was nervous. Vocalizing her thoughts made her feel better. "Knives, knives, where'd I put the knives?" she rifled through a drawer, chucking shirts and socks aside and pulled out a long, thin box. "Ha-ha-ha!" she slipped them into place, continuing to monologue: "Here I think to myself--I've finally found somewhere nice, somewhere peaceful where I can retire and most importantly where there aren't going to be people tryin' to kill me every three seconds and what happens? Trouble always finds a way." she made a sour face, "I even brushed my hair today---thought I'd look nice. Well, silly silly me!" She twisted her hair up in a single defiant motion, took a deep breath and tapped her toes as she surveyed the room. "Should I bring the katana? Never much liked the thing, but I supposed you've got to do what you've got to do…" she dug it up out of yet another box--this one tucked under the bed. Another blast shook the room, sending Kail tumbling backwards into the opened dresser drawers and the box skittering across the floor. She uttered a few more choice words before grabbing the weapon and skipping towards the door and down to the outside. "One of these days...I swear one of these days I'm going to find myself somewhere nice to settle down. Just you watch. Until then..." she sped off into fray without a backward glance.

happy belated birthday, mes cheres!! Hope you two had a great day

Thank you so much, Ozy, this really made my day :)

Dark Knight sounds so awesome!! I really want to go, but I don't want to go by myself and it's really not many of my friends around here's style... Mamma Mia, however, *is* more their style, so I went to go see it with some people tonight. I'll level with you--I am not an Abba fan. I was sort of an A*teens fan, but that's just because I watched TRL. And I was 10. And I liked a lot of weird music when I was 10. However, thanks to the A*teens, I know every word to every song and was able to do some hard-core singing during the movie. I made friends with the people next to us and the people in front of us and we all started clapping and singing and dancing in our seats and just generally having a fun time during all the major numbers. We all got really into some of the songs--I pretty much sang myself hoarse and it didn't matter that I couldn't carry a tune if I tried, because no one else could, either. Incidentally, many of the songs were shortened and the instruments changed to give it a more mainstream pop music feel which I liked, but could be a turn-off if you're a big Abba person. Also, Meryl Streep is pretty much amazing--I don't want to say she carried the movie, but without her it wouldn't have been the same. She is just an amazing actress, even in something as fluffy as Mamma Mia. I had some trouble wrapping my head around Pierce Brosnan singing and I'm choosing to pretend that Harry Bright was played by a guy who looked like, but wasn't really Colin Firth. It's just easier that way. My one real complaint was that there were about 50 million characters and very few of them *did* anything--Sophie's friends, for example. They made a big deal about them coming to the island...and then they basically disappeared until the big dance numbers where they'd show up(along with all the island's pretty girls and ridiculously buff guys--Sophie isn't friends with normal sized people, apparently), sing backup and then go back to hiding. Also, the scenery was breathtaking...it's supposed to be an island near Greece, though I'm not sure where it was actually filmed. Wherever it is, though, I'm going to have to go there one day. I'm not saying that it's a movie you should run out and see immediately...I think it's one of those you have to be in the right mood for, but I had a lot of fun. Being familiar with the music and being with lots of people helps. It doesn't take itself too seriously and is proud of being silly and hokey. It's a good, happy, fluffy, feel-good movie that made me smile

Jolinar followed the crowds out if the room and towards the battle. Pausing in the hall, she opened the window, leaned out and reached out with her thoughts. Mind open as it was, she could hear the thoughts of those around her--the confusion was melting away, fear remained but also a sort of steadfast resoluteness that made Joliee's heart swell. This was their home, and they were going to protect it, no matter what. She could feel, rather than see, the necromancer in the distance, but the tendrils leading from him to his abominations were perfectly clear in her head. They were dark, and glowed with a sort of anti-light in her mind's eye. They were strong cables, but they were thin and her mind was quick. She was bending the cord, blocking out the necromancer's pull on the creature, she was so close-- And then the necromancer's mental jab hit her, throwing off her concentration, sending her sideways and causing her to crack her head on the windowsill and slide slowly to the floor, unconscious. She wasn't sure if it was minutes or hours before she started to feel anything at all. But it took her mere seconds to see that she was not in the waking world. She had never been stuck in a dream before, never been unconscious against her will. None of her training had prepared her for this. She tried all her usual tricks to wake herself up. Nothing. She fretted in the dream. What if she never woke up? What if she stayed here, alone forever? Where was here? She looked around and found that she was sitting in the same place where, presumably, her physical body lay unattended-- on the floor in a hallway, just below the window. It was deathly quiet, and the whole scene glowed with the unnatural light of a true-dream rather than the altered colors of her earlier future-dreams. "You know, if you'd never left Halen, none of this would have happened." Jolinar jumped, startled first by the voice and then by the sudden and inexplicable appearance of a man beside her. She turned to look in shock at the man next to her. He was as she had last seen him nearly six months ago--still needing a haircut, needing sleep, and still dressed in the same iron grey Halenite uniform with the moon sigil and a five-sided star on the left sleeve. The moon marked him as a Dreamer's Companion, the star as specifically the protector of Jolinar d'Etoile. "Matthew--" she whispered, but he continued on without acknowledging her. She noticed with a sinking heart that his image flickered from time to time, as though it were being created by someone far away who wasn't fully concentrating on maintaining the link. "What do you think you're going to accomplish here, hmm? What do you think you can do? You're no good with a weapon, your visions are being controlled…besides pray, what can you do?" She drew her knees up close, well, was this real or wasn't it? She looked again at her friend--it was a good reproduction. There was one way to tell: "Well…" she didn't quite know how to phrase her thoughts, "I never told you before, but I can be a telepath…I could--" "Joliee…you know better than anyone that some futures just can't be changed. They are going to die--all of them. This place will burn. The necromancer has to win. It's already been written. You had your chance to change the future, and you failed. All you can do now is run--come back to Halen. Stay out of this realm, there's nothing here for you." Jolinar looked at him closely, but didn't say anything, eyes wide. "Look," he continued, "you had this image in your head of how noble it would be to lay down your life, save your sister, run off into the sunset. Well, I hate to be the one to say it, but she's ditched you, left you alone in a foreign country in a Keep full of strangers. You were poised to become the greatest Dreamer in generations, and you traded it for you telepath sister and her hopeless Rebellion. You're a silly little girl, Joliee, it's time for you to face your mistakes, give up and move on. You don't owe anyone here anything." Jolinar just sat there for a moment, not saying a word. Her large eyes filled with tears and she didn't bother to wipe them away. Matthew--or whatever was pretending to be Matthew--continued to speak, talking in detail about the evils of her choice to stay here, of the inevitability of the necromancer's victory. She knew he wasn't real. He hadn't even blinked when she told him she was a telepath. Matt was one of the biggest telepath haters she knew, but the necromancer wouldn't know that if he just picked someone at random out of her head to hound her. "And I wanted so much for you to be real…" she whispered. And she did, with all her heart. Matthew had always been her comfort, her best friend. Once again, her greatest gift used against her. "What was that?" the thing that looked like Matthew asked. "I never told you why I left or who my sister was. I never told you anything about that…I said," she straightened, pulled herself to her feet and looked down at him, "that even an untrained telepath like me can recognize a mental projection. You're just another trick, 'Matthew'…well know this, necromancer, it will take more than memories to break me, now once and for all, get OUT!" she closed her eyes within the dream and concentrated on building up and thickening her mental blocks, pushing out everything that wasn't hers. She drove it all out--remnants of the necromancer's power, her doubt, her fears, all of it was pushed out into the flotsam and jetsam that make up the spaces between thoughts. When she opened her eyes again, she was alone in the hall. Taking a deep breath, she tried once again to wake herself up-- Struggling to open her eyes, Jolinar tried to make sense of the sounds that suddenly bombarded her. She pulled herself up to the window and took in the scene. It had started to rain during her sleep. It seemed she'd been out for hours. She could feel fatigue pulling at everyone, sapping energy, but not resolve. Jolinar's messy hair wasn't so out of place now--everyone had a sort of tousled look about them now. Wounded were still few, fatalities none--thank God!--but the fight was not going well. The zombies, monsters, eyes-without-faces, whatever they were, they were not slowing down. Not for one single instant. The Keep's own magic and the light pouring out from every window and every chink down into the massive hoard did keep some of the worse forms of shades at bay, but the zombies still kept coming. She watched for a moment, as a mass of what looked like kittens started attacking the head of a zombie with a vengeance. Then her attention was grabbed by a pack of animal-shifters, also tearing away at the oncoming hoard. She sunk back down beside the window. She was so tired. And sore. And bruised. She closed her eyes and leaned up against the wall, gathering her strength and her wits. Everyone else was doing their part. Now it was time for her to do her's. Standing up again, she leaned out the window, this time making sure she held the windowsill in a grip that even the toughest mental distraction couldn't break. The last thing she needed was a repeat of earlier. At random, she picked a monster out of the crowd. Using her thoughts as fingers, she curled them around the line connecting it to its master. Warily, she closed her eyes, plunging into the world of thoughts. Immediately, she jumped right back out. She had felt the necromancer immediately. What if he waited for her again, outside her mental blocks? If he managed to get inside her head again? What if he burned through her mind, leaving her dribbling on the floor or--worse still--trapped her in that weird, pseudo-dream state forever? She opened her eyes, blinked a couple of times. Stretched out in front of her was the impossible hoard of the necromancer; above and below her were her fellow Pennites, fighting with all their might through sword and magic; all around her was their love, their solidarity. Closing her eyes again, she gathered as many of the little cords connecting puppet to master as she could manage and then grabbed for more. Sweat beaded out on her forehead, she gripped the window ledge for support, and, with a greater force of will than she thought herself capable of, pulled at them until they snapped, ricocheting back to the necromancer. The impact sent her stumbling back into the hallway and she nearly ended up on the floor again. She wasn't sure what would happen, whether the zombies would stop, or just become even more violent…but losing all those minions could at least slow the necromancer down a bit, break his concentration. If nothing else, Jolinar noted with a weak smile, all that mental energy coming snapping back at him would break the concentration of even the strongest telepath.

I've just spent the past few weeks reading the brothers karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was pretty intense. I really really liked it, though! Also, at the insistance of my 13-year-old cousin--who claims that after the next book, Edward's totally leaving Bella to marry her--I read all three of the Twilight books. They were actually terribly entertaining and surprisingly well written, for the most part. I didn't expect much of them--vamp romance isn't really my thing-- but I was pleasantly surprised.

I *have* missed these, actually. I don't know if I've ever actually replied before, but they always get me thinking. 1. What are the things that you feel you MUST have in your life to be comfortable on a day to day basis. This is going to sound really terrible, but my cell phone. A lot of my close friends live in different parts of the country, so my phone is often my best connection to them. Even though they're not physically there with me, I know that all I have to do is dig around for my cheap red Samsung, punch some buttons, and I'll be able to hear their voice--even if it's just asking me to leave a message. I also like to have a car with at least some gas in it and a debit card linked to a bank account with at least some money in it. I have to have something on my left wrist. I have a purple rubber bracelet (think live strong) that I wear nearly every day. It's kind of hard to explain, but it's the bracelet someone had made for all of us after my friend Ashleigh died a few years ago--it has her name and the year she died on it. It sounds cheesy, but I wear it for a lot of reasons, to remember her and to remind myself just how precious life is. But even though it's rubber, it's kind of heavy and I'm used to the weight of it on my arm. If I forget to put it on, I feel weird all day, like I'm missing something. 2. If you are uncomfortable, but not from pain or loss, but more because you're outside your bubble or element, what do you do to overcome this and find comfort? This is a discomfort that would most likely be situational. (awkward, shy, overwhelmed, etc.) I'm kind of an example of a bad coping device, too. When I'm uncomfortable, I just pretend really really hard that I'm ok. It's weird, like slipping into a different personality. I try and distract people from my uneasiness by exaggerating myself--being louder, sillier, bouncier, more talkative even than usual. I throw up this huge persona of this silly, flippant persons so that people can't see the actual me standing behind it all who is angry, or uncomfortable, or not sure what to say. 3. How do you handle true, deep, devastating pain or loss? Soul Shattering pain. How do you find Solace? I flip open my phone and I call a friend. Well, not just *a* friend, but one of my 5 favorite people in the world. I depend on my friends for a lot--I learned a while ago that I can't really depend on my family. They fall to pieces more than I do. To them, I have to be the strong, together one who is clear headed no matter what. And so I have my other-family, those five people. I can't imagine life without them. They are all very different people, but no matter what I need--be it a plan to leave the country and start a new life in Canada, an objective opinion and a plan for getting over it, or the best hug in the world--at least one of them can help me. If at all possible, I'll also go and visit one of those friends. Most of them live very far away from me, so this involves a long, spur-of-the-moment car trip. But then, the car trips help me feel better, too. Before I had a car, I had a golf cart...I remember the day my mom told me that my dad was moving out I just walked away, grabbed my phone and hopped in the golf cart. I can't run away from myself while I'm in the car, I *have* to deal with whatever's going on. And also, driving across middle-of-nowhere, So'Georgia or south Florida, the sky seems to go on forever and the clouds are just *beautiful*. I'm of the opinion that God made the sky so that everyone who has had a bad, terrible day can be able to look up and see something beautiful. And surely, with something that amazing hanging over you, with such beauty in the world, things can't be all that bad, right?

As preparations began for the rescue party, Jolinar forced herself to stay silent. Part of her wanted to go with the rescue group--go find Degorram, defeat the necromancer, vanquish evil, the whole bit. However, Dreamers are taught, above all things, to be practical. It is not their place to desire glory or power. One of her old teachers used to joke that it was up to Dreamers to anticipate the stupid choices to be made by the glorious and powerful, to stop them where they could, and see to cleaning up after them when they couldn't. Being unable to help in that manner, Jo did what any sensible Dreamer would do in the situation: she found a comfortable chair and went to sleep. This time prophecy wasn't just handed to her--she had to actually look for it. She was a little disappointed. The vision earlier had been so clear, so insistent. She had been hoping her luck would hold. Flashes of the future or past or present were not uncommon, but hardly ever all three at once as clearly as she had experienced earlier. Jolinar had tried many times to explain the dream world to non-Dreamers. She had never been able to find the words, it was too abstract. Suffice it to say that searching for prophecy was a tedious business--you had to pick away at the layers, sort through the possible futures until you found flashes of your own timeline. It was like a sort of dance, with fine precision that came from a lifetime of training. She saw the Keep being attacked, being overrun, being defended…Delicate steps in a minuet that-- And then all of a sudden her vision was wrenched from her control. It was as though someone had grabbed her mind and was twisting it, squeezing it. She screamed inside the dream. Back in her chair, her physical body suddenly spasmed, the dream-scream reflected as a high pitched whimper. "No--Who--What--what is--No!" she felt as she had that morning, only instead of visions being poured into her, she felt them being sucked out. Faster and faster and faster--she couldn't stop it, she could barely resist it. And it hurt. Like having a deep telepathic scan by someone who didn't care if they fried the mind or not. She screamed again, so loud this time that it carried through to her physical body, which was now shaking uncontrollably in its chair And then she saw him. The Necromancer. The one who had brought pain to the lives of the people who had been so kind to her. It was him, pulling from her mind. He had poured those visions in earlier. It all fit together. She saw his mind: she had been used--a back up plan to drive Kikuyu out of the Keep with visions of Degorram should her friends force her to stay in safety. Jolinar gasped as the power let her mind go, dropping it without care. Physically, her body slid to the floor, crumpled and sad like a rag doll. She struggled, in the dream, to find Degorram, to find the necromancer using Kikuyu's strong feelings from earlier as a guide. She felt so weak, and all she saw at first were the thousands of shadows and glittering eyes surrounding the Keep, but at last she found them both--in a box, in a clearing, surrounded by a thin guard of soldiers. The scene had the fuzzy-outlined look of the near-Future, but the true-colors of the Present. It occurred to Jolinar that her vision could be lagging behind the Present by mere seconds. Then a slow smile spread across his face and he looked down at Degorram. "How precious," he said softly. "It seems they've sent a rescue party." Jolinar cursed herself. That was information he'd stolen from her. But a door, once opened, may be stepped through in either direction. Perhaps, if she was merely a Dreamer, she would be unable to step through…but as much as she hated it, she was also a telepath. And telepaths don't need doors. She tried to wedge her thoughts into his mind, make him feel doubt, make him feel all of the love and loyalty and devotion that was chasing after Degorram even now. She tried to be strong, she tried to be fierce. But all she did was make it worse. This is no longer a game, he thought, narrowing his eyes at the shadow of the forest. It is time to stop playing with my food and simply kill it. He again glanced down at Degorram. and Jolinar saw his stare reflected in the shifter's eyes--something had changed. Back in the Pen keep, people had crowded around her, trying to shake her awake. Jolinar felt herself being pulled from sleep. He's going to kill her now…I've angered him even more and he's going to kill Degorram and it's all my fault… "Where is Kikuyu!!" Jolinar's eyes flicked open and she struggled to her feet, then fell, eyes widening with terror. "Is she still here?!" she tried again in vain to stand, tripping over the hem of her dress and ending up painfully on the floor. "The rescue party just left," a well meaning Pennite said, squatting down next to her, "Kikuyu's went with them." "What about wyvern? Anyone?" "Wyvern's with her, too, she's not alone. She'll be ok…"the speaker paused, frowned slightly at Jolinar's blanching face. "Can we get you something? You look terrible…" And, indeed, Jolinar did look terrible. Her face had lost all its color, her eyes widened beyond what seemed anatomically possible, deep pools of guilt and shock and rage and sadness. She drew her knees up to her chest, still sitting on the floor and trying to gather her strength. She closed her eyes, fighting back tears. I've given him Kiyuku. And Wyvern. And who knows who else. I've sent them to die with my stupid, stupid vision. We'll all be overrun. They're already almost here. All will be darkness all will be-- she stopped her thoughts, then, forced herself not to think along those lines. She was ashamed at being so used. Her greatest gift, used against her. And here she was, stuck at the Keep, unable to warn anyone. And then she remembered something--the necromancer was connected to his minions via thoughts, emotions. If she could disrupt that…what would the creatures do? They wouldn't have any reason to attack anymore…you wouldn't be able to reach them a voice in her head said you're not a real telepath, you'd never be able to do much good. Jolinar suppressed a shiver as she realized just how powerful a telepath would be needed to maintain as many creatures as she had seen. And yet...she had been able to find the gathering earlier from three floors away. Surely that meant that Jolinar had sometelepathic power after all... "...and if we can stop them, then at least they'll have a place to fall back to if they can't find her." Jolinar mused aloud. She opened her eyes. She had quite a crowd around her now--all those who had not joined the rescue party. She looked to the doors--more people were still arriving, hearing the news either through Wyvern's messages or by word of mouth. With Kikuyu and the others gone, people were just milling about--you didn't have to be a telepath to grasp the tension in the room. Some people had even seen the approaching storm of necromancer's minions and had fled from the windows. Indeed, she noticed that the curtains had been drawn. Out of sight, out of mind, perhaps? Jolinar thought about just fading back into the crowd. It was not for a Dreamer to desire power or glory…And yet…they would be overrun soon. Something had to happen…she knocked her knuckles to her palm, brows knitting together as she surveyed the room. She was a telepath, she did have some power. Dreaming had failed her, now it was time to try her other talents. She might not be able to block the necromancer's connection to all his creatures, but she could at least block some. She sighed, shook out her hair and did her best to tie it neatly back into a sort of half bun. Then she stood up on her chair. "Excuse me…excuse me…" she said, standing on top of her chair, waving her arms to get the room's attention. In moments it was granted--everyone turned to her, hungry for news. Their faces, so full of fear and confusion called out to her, pulled at her heart the same way Kikuyu's had. In a way, we're all the same. We're all threatening to lose something important to us, she her sister and us our home. "Hello…" she said, not really knowing how to start, "I've had another vision. I saw them--the creatures will soon be upon us--" the room exploded as everyone tried to speak at once, but Jolinar raised her hands to quiet them, "but the rescue party is nearly to Degorram and the Necromancer, too. We just have to hold off the attack until they get back. We can fight the creatures, I know we can. It's all about distraction. As long as the necromancer's forces are distracted here, the guard on the necromancer himself will be minimal--Kikuyu and our other friends will be able to get in, get Degorram, and…dispatch with the necromancer. Once he's gone, his creatures will have no one to control them and they'll de-animate," she was growing increasingly excited, her voice got faster and faster, "What we need now is to get organized…we need to set up a perimeter of light, facing outward, " she paused for a moment, replaying the part of her dream where she had skimmed past their attackers, "they're shadows, they move best in darkness, they're going to try to sneak in wherever they can. Light may not deter them, but at least it'll let us see what we're up against so we can get a clear shot." Not to mention that a direct line of sight would help her to get into their heads and block the necromancer's direction. However, she chose to leave that part out--people were not always trusting of telepaths, and she needed everyone to work with her. "Everyone who can fight, find a way of arming yourselves..." Jolinar wondered briefly how exactly one killed a reanimated-corpse-shadow-zombie-vampire-thing, but pushed that question aside to be dealt with later. "As for the rest…well…we'll figure it out." she paused for a moment, once again surveyed the room. "Well, let's get to it--they'll be upon us soon and we've got to buy the rescue party some time..." she paused, trying not to get too carried away, "that is, unless anyone else has any other ideas?"

This is wonderful I'm sorry that I can't offer anything constructive or whatever because I'm not really a poetry person...all I can say is that I love this so much. I love the way it's phrased...how do you get words to work for you like that?

((OOC: Sorry it's so long...it's just 'cause it's my intro post. I get long winded. I actually trimmed about a page off, believe it or not, and I can probably cut more if you want me to.)) Jolinar ran down a flight of stairs, up a corridor, then down another, shaking sleep out of her eyes. She must have looked a sight--running down the hall, blinking in the light, trying not to trip over her own hem. Normally she liked her dresses--long, cream colored things that reached to the floor, sleeves to the wrist, with a soft, dark tunic-style shirt over it. It reminded her of the dress-and-smock she'd worn during her twelve years at the Dreamer's Chapterhouse; she felt at home in its yards and yards of fabric. However, it was not the greatest outfit for running, and it hadn't helped that, until a few minutes ago, she had been deeply asleep. She hadn't been looking for anything, she'd actually been looking forward to a refreshing, dreamless sleep. And then suddenly, there they were: visions pouring into her mind faster than she could process them: death. life. tea. shape-shifter. ninjas. a despondent winter. the end. the Past. And then, without pausing for breath, she was hurtled into the Now--the Keep. running towards darkness. a name: Degorram, another: Kikuyu. rain. anger. sadness. a gathering, one she needed to be at. Then onwards: possibilities. questions. paradoxes. the Future. And the rain poured down in the background. She had forced herself awake, then, gasping for breath. Barely thinking, she had jumped off the couch she'd dozed off on and run out the door, barely remembering to grab a pair of shoes on her way out. It hadn't taken her long to get lost. She felt the pressure of her vision--she needed to be at that gathering. It played again and again in her head: the Past, the Now, the Future--it made her feel light headed and dizzy. She stumbled. Steadying herself against a wall, she paused to get her bearings. She was lost. She needed to be at a gathering of people. But how to find it? She had only been at the Pen Keep a few weeks and she didn't know the rooms well. Where were they? The vision replayed itself: a mash of images and feelings. A gathering, she thoughtI need a gathering. Full of people. Anxious people…probably broadcasting thoughts and emotions without even thinking about it. She groaned. She didn't like where her own thoughts were taking her, but it had to be done. Propping herself against the wall, she closed her eyes. She had always hated her eyes. They were a child's eyes, large and warm and loving and entirely unable to hide her true emotions. They were also blue, not the green of a proper Dreamer, nor the dark-almost-black-purple of a true telepath. It was a color not often seen in Halen, one that spoke of the marriage of Dreaming and telepathy. Really, she could feel just emotion--thoughts usually took direct contact. Such moments frightened her, though. Now, letting herself fall into the world of thoughts, she let her skirts slip from her grasp as she reached out, the way she did in dreams, trying to extend her abilities as far as possible. She strained and strained, but couldn't do it. Her brow wrinkled in frustration, but she forced it smooth again. What did her sister used to tell her? "Take a deep breath, Jo, and just leap…" All at once she found them. A large collection of vague feelings, all of them nervous. That had to be it. They were two floors below her and to the left. Both pleased and frightened at her abilities--and with her earlier visions still burning in her memory--Jolinar gathered up her skirts again and sprinted down the hall. Jolinar entered just in time to hear Kikuyu describe what blackness awaited them. It matched her vision perfectly. Murmuring apologies and excuse me's, Jolinar pushed her way to the front. A brief spasm of fear flicked through her, slowing her progress a little. This had potential to be very embarrassing. It was always strange to talk to people you'd Dreamed about, especially ones you don't really know. She tried desperately to think of something to open with. When she reached the principle speakers it was unexpectedly her years of etiquette training that rushed in. Without thinking, she dropped a small, informal curtsy and said, simultaneously, in her most polite tones: "I'm sorry, you don’t know me, miss, but I saw it all. Just like you said. And the other girl, the shifter," she paused for a moment, closed her eyes up tight, recalling the dream, making motions in front of her with her hands as though she was sliding images into place, "your sister," her large eyes softened, "she's running…but we could still catch up. Otherwise…well…otherwise it'll be just like last time. We'll all be gone to darkness. Eyes without faces, faces without eyes," she paused then, and noticed that she was drawing a lot of bizarre looks. Instinctively, her hand flew to her rather messy hair--what had been a tight braid down her back was now a mass of brown tangles. Well, they'd all seen it, there was nothing she could do about it now…then it dawned on her that it was her words, not her looks that brought the confused stares. "I'm a Dreamer," she said, as if that should explain everything. Judging by the general reaction, it didn't. She tucked some flyaway hair behind her ear, then knocked her knuckles against the palm of her other hand, searching for the right words. "I See things when I sleep, the future, the past…I saw all of this," she waved a hand to include the room and its occupants "I think…I think we're in the middle of a time paradox, the making of a possible-Future into a Now, at a crossroads," she paused, fretted, knocked her knuckles again, "in one possible-Future, we stay here until that darkness comes and swallows us up. In another possible-Future, we find Degorram and we do something, I'm not saying that it'll stop it, I couldn't See that far ahead, there's too many conditions. But there's a chance we can change things. I did See her, Degorram. We can catch up to her. And if we get close enough--" she paused, fretted again. Kikuyu was--entirely unintentionally, Jolinar was certain--broadcasting her emotions so loudly that they were distracting. It pulled at her heart, to see how angry and pained this stranger was. Turning to Kikuyu, her eyes large and comforting, liquid blue, she said: "Look, I don’t know you, and I know this is weird coming from me, but you've got to trust me," she said, in a kindly voice, resisting the urge to reach out and grab this stranger's hand or shoulder. "You can be strong, I've Seen it. Just push through the doubt. If we get close enough, you'll be able to feel her again, yes? How close do you have to be?"

One day in 11th grade math class, my then new-friend Paul looked at me and said, "Mary, I'd really like to go see radiohead with you. Next time they're here, we're going." So on May 8th, nearly four years later, I went to see Radiohead at the Lakewood Amphitheater in Atlanta, GA. This was my first time both seeing radiohead and going to Lakewood--formerly High Fi Buys Amphitheater. It was interesting. The opening act was a band called the Liars and whom I had never heard of. Paul's sister's boyfriend was really excited about them, though, and claimed that they were going to alienate nearly everyone in the audience. I'm still not entirely sure what he was talking about--I guess he though everyone would be slightly miffed by their music, but come on...we were going to see *radiohead*, it's not like we're strangers to inexplicable electronic/techno-ish stuff. At any rate, hardly anyone was really paying attention to the poor Liars because they started playing at 7:30, a full half hour before the show was even supposed to start. So nearly everyone with a real seat was still up and about, buying over-priced beers and pursuing the carbon neutral merchandise. Those of us who were too poor for real seats and had to stake out claims on the grass, however, did have to sit through the Liars, though I think my friend Paul and I were the only ones paying attention. Paul described them as kind of a bridge between new radiohead and old radiohead--that is to say, they definitely made use of electronic sounds and that kind of thing, but they actually *sang* and used a little bit of guitar. I wasn't a huge fan, but about two seconds after I turned to Paul and declared that I didn't like the band, they played two pretty good songs. However, from what I heard of the Liars, they seem to be pretty hit or miss when it came to song quality. The frontman was amusing, though, and would talk to us all in between songs about how great it was to be there, and what a bloody great night it was, and how we were all here to see radiohead and that was just bloody awesome, etc, etc, etc. The liars finished up rather quickly--they only played for about half an hour and then disappeared. So 8:00--when the show was technically supposed to start--and nothing much was going on. So we sat. And we waited. And we got rained on. And my poor friend Paul--who is rather asthmatic--almost died multiple times because, again, we were back in the cheap seats on the grass and surrounded by smokers. So now it's 8:40. "They're going to start at 8:45, I bet," Paul says to me. It's 8:45. Nothing. 9:00, they finally get most of the things set up for radiohead--I'll talk about that in a minute--and they start testing the screen behind the stage. Of course everyone stands up, all excited as the screen flashes green and red at us...but it's all for nothing and we have to wait another 15 minutes. Meanwhile, we're getting rained on. Just another beautiful day in the atl! Luckily in staking out our claim on the grass, we'd constructed a sitting space out of ponchos, so at least we didn't have to sit on the wet grass. And anyway, it never rained *that* hard for any extended period of time, and the wind and the cold were nice--otherwise we would have probably choked on all the smoke and been really warm from the crush of people all around. Seriously, the crowd just kept going...especially once the band finally made it out. After much waiting eventually we did get our radiohead!! I was kind of upset that they never turned on the large screens on the wall on either side of the stage--I was pretty far back, and while I could technically *see* Thom Yorke, I couldn't very well and it would've been nice if those screens had been on. Like I said, there was one behind the stage, but it was even further away. The lighting was pretty nifty. They had these huge...well, they looked like tubes hanging from the ceiling, and they would flash different colors and patterns along with the song. Along with the background screen, it created a very nice visual for each song. I've got an example for and that I found on youtube. I would have recorded my own, but ever since I got thrown out of the National Archives in Washington, DC on a school trip in 6th grade for trying to take a picture of the Declaration of Independence I've been a little skittish about bringing camera's into camera-free zones. Plus, I was in the cheap seats. I'm going to be completely honest here and say that I really don't like much of Radiohead's new stuff. It was fun in the concert atmosphere just because everyone's all excited and it's live and it's great. But, really, the CD In rainbows has one, maybe two songs I actually like, but other than that, I find each song to be rather repetitive. That said, I *adore* their older stuff--especially things from OK Computer and The Bends. However, as I learned, the band doesn't agree with me and played primarily In Rainbows stuff. One couple help up a sign telling Thom Yorke that it was their 10th anniversary and he should play some old song--I'm assuming they were asking for Creep--but Thom just scowled(at least, I imagine he scowled, I was too far back to judge facial expessions) and told them to take their sign down and keep it down and no, they weren't going to play that song. Well. The point is, however, that the concert was almost exclusively In Rainbows. However, there were some older songs, usually from Kid A or Amnesiac with two--The gloaming and There, There--from hail to the thief. I was especially pleased with There, There, I love that song and it was awesome live. There were some moments when I was a bit bored except for the pretty flashy lights. And I wasn't alone. So, we're all standing around staring at each other then eventually being like, "ok, this is fun...whatever...so, drunk people next to me, how are you? How's life? Hey, is that pot? I don't think that's legal...." And then suddenly we hear the intro to one of their older songs, Just! Everyone looks up all at once, excitedly shout the song title, and then everything went crazy!! And we're all dancing and singing and being insane and having fun!!! And it's great!! . . .and then when the song is over Thom Yorke goes back to moaning his way through more In Rainbows. And what I also found interesting was that while we're all going nuts and having the most fun with all the old songs(ok, so all three of them) that got played, the band--especially Thom Yorke--are super sedate. They looked bored. I suppose it's because they've played the older stuff about a million times, but it was still interesting to see the crowd enjoying themselves so much while the band looked like they about ready to die. Oh well, I enjoyed it! Other songs they played included House of Cards, Everything in its Right place, Where you end and I begin, Idioteque, Lucky(my friend Paul's favorite!), Bangers and Mash, Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, How to Disappear Completely, and other fun songs like that. In a perfect world, they would have played High and Dry(the first radiohead song I ever heard, it remains my favorite) or Thinking About You or Bulletproof(I wish I was), but you cant have everything. They came back out for two encores, as they've been doing at all their shows here on the east coast, at least. My favorite bit was when they played Paranoid Android at the very end! The band's merchandise was all very "go green." For example, I bought a t-shirt made with 100% organic cotton and recycled water bottles. I'm not going to tell you how many hour's pay went into paying for it, I still can't admit it even to myself. They also handed out little pamphlets to raise awareness of human trafficking. The point of all of this rambling is that it was ridiculously fun. I'll always enjoy radiohead's older stuff more, and I wish they'd let their older--and better!--albums figure more heavily into their set lists, but such is life. When we were driving home, Paul and I played all our favorites that we know they'll never play, blasting them as high as my horrible car speakers will go and singing along. It was great, and if I had the time and the money, I'd fly over to the west coast and watch them again and again!

Thanks, both of you...your comments mean a lot to me :)

Samarria needn't have asked where the meeting was being held. The diminutive telepath could literally feel the emotions flowing out of the room--embarrassment, sadness, resoluteness, hope? She pauses just shy of the doorway, considering her options. She didn't have to go in there, and frankly she didn't want to. She was fine. She wasn't a lurker…well, not a serious one in any case…it was just that she'd been lurking so long she wasn't sure if she could do anything else. She looks rather silly standing there, brooding in the hallway, face pale, clothes slightly wrinkled, long dark hair a singular mess--and a little plate of cookies in one hand, a jug with milk and plus a few paper cups in the another. She had only brought them because, initially, she thought that there had to be free food of some kind. I mean, come on, how do you get a large group of people--especially lurkers!!--to come out to a meeting without free food. But then, she had thought earlier that morning, what if there wasn't any food? And she was skipping out on dinner just to be hungry and miserable in a room full of other hungry, miserable lurkers? Hmm. The only solution seemed to be to come with food. So she had worked very hard all afternoon and into the evening trying to replicate these divinely wonderful chocolate cookies she'd once had as a child in Halen. When, finally, covered in flour and dough, she had sampled the fruits of her labors, she found them to be quite good. Ok, so they were a little hard. And some of them were slightly burnt on the bottom. But dipped in milk they were more than passable! And she'd added more than enough chocolate chips to the batter by way of compensation for any other faults. Anyways, they were lurkers, how picky could they possibly be? Still in the hallway, she takes a deep breath. She closes her eyes, counts to three, then double checks the mental blocks keeping everyone else's stray thoughts at bay, filling in mental holes with imaginary brick and mortar. It is a slightly bizarre little ritual, but a necessary one. It was embarrassing enough just to pick up on strong emotions, to catch other peoples' thoughts, now that was just mortifying. Hoping to avoid notice, she slips in during the movie. However, once the lights were back on, it is just a few short testimonials before there's a lag in the meeting and she feels, instinctively, that it's her turn. Standing up, she turns away for a moment, depositing her cookies and milk on a chair behind her. As she walks to the front, Sam fingers a pair of sunglasses sitting in her jacket pocket, then let them go. It's unlikely anyone would think anything bizarre about violet eyes, even ones as bright as her own. They got all kinds here at the Pen. Maybe that's why she liked it here so much. "Uh, hi," she says, offering a small wave to everyone, and making a sincere effort to not sound like an angry, prickly loser, "my name is Samarria and...I guess, no, I know that I'm probably one of the worst lurkers out there. So...hi. Would you like a cookie?"

((A/N: This is kinda sorta a sequel my original Procrastinator Extrordinaire Story, which can be found here. I guess it's not imperative that you read it first, it's still a silly little story with or without the first part, but the character will perhaps make a bit more sense if you read the first bit.)) -------------------)( “Did you write you paper?” Ryan Eason had been stumbling down the crowded hallways of his high school, pushing his way through the sea of people and trying to get to class on time. He had been up all night finishing his research paper, and it spoke to his distraction that he completely failed to notice the two black clad Agents of Procrastination—a blonde boy and girl, twins by the look of it-- lounging against a pair of lockers until they were immediately upon him. “What?” he mumbled, “Did you write your paper?” the two Agents repeated, again in unison. “You know, it's really creepy when you guys do that…I mean…uh, yeah…I just finished ten minutes ago.” Ryan said, blinking. “Hmm, the paper’s still warm.” The female agent said taking Ryan’s research paper and tucking into her purse. Ryan blanched. “We’ll be keeping this.” “But—“ Ryan began, but was cut off by a hand gesture by the first agent. “This is your big test, Eason. The Brass have been taking a special interest in you--” “--they think you might be ready for the big time,” The second agent finished “We have been called in to give you," the two said in unison, pausing only to exchange heavy glances, "The Test.” “the…the..The Test?? The Test?” Ryan managed to choke out. He could barely believe it. The Test was the most difficult challenge a Procrastinator could be faced with; to pass, a person had to call on not only his procrastination skills, but his skill, ingenuity, wit, and acting ability. Contrary to popular belief, proper procrastination is 50% acting. It’s one thing to be able to do the paper at the last minute; it’s another thing to be able to get your teacher to accept it. “Yes,” the first agent said, putting a friendly hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “The Test. Congratulations.” “You will have until the end of the day--” The second agent said. “—to complete this task.” “You know the rules, so abide by them.” “Remember: you can stop any time—“ “—But forfeiting this test will force us to revoke your membership in the Procrastinators and your name will go down in the Record of Over-Achievers.” “However, if you pass The Test, you will be granted a spot on the Procrastination Hall of Lords and be presented with an Order of Procrastination, Platinum Class—“ “Plus, just think what Char will say when she finds out.” The female agent said slyly. “How do you know about that?!” Ryan said, coloring. “You’d be surprised at what little we don’t know, Eason.” The other agent said, his voice perfectly serious. At that moment, the two black-clad agents took a step back. "Don't worry, you'll do great--" the girl began, but A Look from her counterpart silenced her. “Good luck,” The two Agents said in unison before turning and disappearing down the crowded hall. “Thanks…” Ryan said, waving weakly. Ryan spent the first half of the day mentally preparing. It was a tough job, and he spent most of biology class thinking about how to approach this task. While the rest of his class poked at disemboweled frogs, he was going over the rules of The Test. According to those rules, he had exactly 28 minutes, or one lunch period, to convince the teacher in question to allow him to turn in his paper late. It didn’t specify how late, however. The unwritten rule was to get at an extension of at least 24 hours. Ryan knew he was good, but not that good. He might, however, be able to squeeze a few extra hours out of his English teacher—an aging, bespectacled woman named Mrs. Clemons. She was famous for her jet-black stare that could paralyze a kid from across the room. It would be a tough job, but he could pull it off. He had to pull it off! For once, the morning flew by: one minute he was in biology class, then blink, he was in French, blink again, and he was in history. One final blink and he following the crowds out towards the cafeteria. He paused at the stairwell that would take him up to the English hallway, then turned back towards the crowd. He scanned the mob of people until he found a certain Cyrus B. Shehatery. Tall, skinny, and dressed in a large, black t-shirt featuring the spiky haired hero from his favorite anime, Cryus stood out like a rose among thorns in the mass of well-dressed-abercrombie-and-fitch suburbanites. Ryan had known Cyrus since pre-school and had helped him talk his way out of more detentions than should be entirely legal. In short, they had history. More importantly, though, Ryan had dirt. Ryan and Ryan alone knew that Cyrus--despite his video gaming, anime watching, class failing image--secretly played the viola. "Hey Cyrus," Ryan said, launching himself into the crowd and falling into step with his friend. "You know Mrs. Clemons?" "The English teacher?" Cyrus grinned, "Sure. Failed me twice. What're you gonna do to her, Eason?" "Umm…yeah, ok. I need you to get as many kids as you can as fast as you can into her room, ok?" "Alright, but you know I don't work for free…the price of manga's going through the roof, you know…" Ryan gave him A Look, then, pretending to walk away said, "Well, you know, Erin Milani's doing video production this month…I've got a whole video of you and your viola worked up for it, I could stick an ad on the end saying you do paid gigs if you want. Maybe if everyone knew about your superior talents you'd have a chance at picking up some extra cash." "Fine, fine," Cyrus said, suitably goaded, "how many kids you looking at?" "Many as you as can get me--the whole cafeteria if you can. Just get them up there." "Sure, I'll get 'em. And I suppose I should make sure that a certain Char Talisse is there?" Cyrus replied, grinning as he stepped backwards, disappearing into the crowd heading into the cafeteria. Ryan shook his head, then turned and bounded up the stairs towards the English hall. Above him, the bell rang, calling for the beginning of lunch. His 28 minutes had started. Forty-eight seconds later, Ryan stood panting in the doorway of his English class. "I can only guess by your sudden and unexpected appearance, Mr. Eason, that you forgot to do your paper." Mrs. Clemons asked. She was sitting at her desk, glaring her signature glare. "Forgot! Forgot? I'm shocked that you would even suggest such a thing, Mrs. Clemons! I…uh…had some things come up. You'd never believe some of the things I've been through these past few days!" “Try me.” Mrs. Clemons said, glaring at him over her small black spectacles. “Well,I…uh…" he looked out into the hallway, trying to avoid that piercing gaze. Dealing with Mrs. Clemons was like dealing with Medusa--make eye contact and you're dead. He just had to kill enough time until people started arriving. Once he had an audience, he'd be fine. Mrs. Clemons hated busting people in front of audiences. Glancing out the door, he saw a pair of black clad twins walk by on their way to lunch--no doubt the Agents checking up on him. It was then that inspiration hit. "Well, did I ever mention how I have a twin? I—“ “Now, Mr. Eason, if you’re going to try to tell me that your evil twin with a mustache and a goatee forced you not to write your research paper I don’t want to--” “Mrs. Clemons,” he began. Darn. So she had seen that episode of Star Trek. Funny, he wouldn't have pegged her as a Trekkie. But no matter, Ryan Eason was a kid of many talents. “If you’d allow me to continue, you would realize the seriousness and gravity of my plight and of the..uhh arcane nature of my predicament.” He said, finally making use of all those SAT words he’d had to memorize at the last minute for all those years. “The truth is, I do have a twin. His name is Chris and he lives in on a farm in the Midwest and he does not, in fact, have a goatee. Though he did talk about growing one…but I think we talked him out of it. It'd look awful, we photoshopped one on a picture of him, but it just looked like he had a guinea pig stuck on his face and--" "You 're twin, hmm?" "Oh yeah! We're close, Chris and me…really close..uh…but it's all happened kind of fast, because I didn't know he needed help until--" "Three minutes ago?" Mrs. Clemons offered. "No, no…three days ago. See, my life has always been..strange. Full of…uhh…" He was panicking. He couldn't panic. No. He could do this. He would do this. He just needed more inspiration. He glanced around the room. On the wall behind Mrs. Clemons there was a poster with a rainbow and a hot air balloon on it with "believe in your dreams!" written below the picture. It was all he needed. "Full of rainbows. And Cherubs. Using the knowledge that you have so graciously imparted unto me and the others in my class, I have realized that symbolism is not confined to the English class or even to literature. Umm...so when I woke up three days ago to find a magnificent rainbow hovering over our fair city, I knew that something was going to happen. So it was of little surprise to me when, two hours later, I got a call that a hot-air balloon had just landed at the local airport and was refusing to answer any questions from the rather surprised airport staff until its pilot had spoken to me. So I rode my bike over to the airport as fast as I could. I knew it had to be a message from Chris--he won a hot-air balloon in a raffle up at the Cook County Fair in Lake Woebegone, Minnesota--that's where he lives where he lives, out on the edge of the prairie. I guess maybe it's just 'cause it's Minnesota and there's not much out there, but they have some of the greatest raffle prizes at their county fairs. Once when I was there visiting Chris and--" "I thought you said that you didn't know he existed until three days ago, Mr. Eason?" "Uh…" he'd be caught. There was no way out of this one, unless… "Well, I wasn't supposed to know he existed until three days ago. It's a very complex legal matter with my…my parents' divorce. All very secret. I really shouldn't be telling you all this, actually…" He laughed nervously and--carefully avoiding the eyes-- studied her face, trying to see how she was taking his story. Unfortunately, trying to judge a reaction without getting pulled into her unrelenting stare was impossible, so he looked away again. He had another moment of panic when he saw that the hallway was still empty. Where was Cyrus and his crowds? He hoped it wasn't taco day down in the cafeteria--tacos were Cyrus' superior weakness, if they were serving those, he'd go through the lunch line a dozen times before remembering his promise. "Please continue, Mr. Eason." Mrs. Clemons said after a moment. Ryan inhaled sharply, then turned back to his teacher, plastering on a bright smile. "Sorry, got a little distracted there, ma'am. Ok, so care of the hot-air ballooner was a message from my brother imploring me to help him smuggle his girlfriend out of Kenya. He couldn't get her a green card or a visa or whatever, and it's illegal to get married at 16--even in Minnesota. Of course, he had to stay here in the States to help his step-dad out on the farm, but he was going crazy without her. Not sleeping, not eating, the whole bit. So he was begging me to help him. Well, I knew I had to write this paper for your class, but when your brother asks for your help, you just can't say no, now can you, Mrs. Clemons? I mean, he's my own twin and everything." "No, I suppose not." "So, with $20 in my pocket and a bag of funyuns stuffed in a paper sack, I made plans to leave the country. Of course, the plan was for me to meet Chris on the Kenyan border. However, I couldn't afford to fly, so instead I hit one of my friends whose parents work for Delta for a buddypass…only, after 8 hours of sitting at the airport the only place I could get a flight to was Asia. I ended up lost in Indonesia because I don't speak…" what language did they speak in Indonesia? Chinese? Asian? Indonesian? "uhh…I don't speak Latin." He paused as a crowd of kids came in the doorway, fresh from lunch and still munching on tacos-- his audience was beginning to arrive at last! One kid in particular caught his eye as she paused in the doorway, peeling a very fragrant orange over the trash can. "So there I was, lost. I wandered into a hotel bar to try and get directions from someone who spoke English. Only, there was a drag show going on…" he had no idea where that came from, but it was too late to take it back now, "and I ended up running into this really weird guy in a skirt who told me that the answer to all of my problems lay in this orange! He provided me said orange and walked away, but it was moldy so I threw it at a bad female Elvis impersonator performing in the restaurant. Eventually I managed to get on a plane heading out of there, but after falling asleep on the plane I woke up on a tropical beach!" "Oh. My. God!" one girl cried, "it is just like that show--Lost! I love that show!" Many of the kids around her chattered in agreement. There were about fifteen in the room so far and he could feel Mrs. Clemon's will breaking as public opinion swung over to his side--even her famous glare couldn't contend with all these people. "Yes, well that's exactly what I thought, too, because then there was this…this polar bear next to me, and he was eating all of my Funyuns! So I said, "Hey! Get away from my Funyuns!" but then the polar bear said, and you'll have to forgive me as I know this is a little crude, " tu madre es un gaton con cuadros!"' "Your mother is a cat with squares??" a kid in the growing audience asked. "Why would a polar bear say that?" Ryan was about to answer, but his eyes caught the clock--12:25, only ten more minutes-- and he this protest, continuing on faster than before. "Well he said it and then galloped away on the back of a…" he looked over at Mrs. Lovett's desk, looking for something, anything to help. Piled haphazardly on top of a book entitled "Children are the Future" (A Puffin books original) was a 365 kittens calendar. "a puffin. He galloped away on the back of a puffin. I was started to despair, but then noticed that there was a message written in the sand next to me," "Wha'd it say?" one of the kids asked. They were all getting into the story now. "It said 'Kittens are our future, you can't deny that.' With this cryptic message in mind, I grabbed the nearest puffins began selling them to unsuspecting tourists to finance my way to Kenya. However, as irony would have it, the only connecting flight stopped off in flew all the way to Scotland--the patron animal of Scotland is the puffin--where I was rather soggy and cold until I boarded a ship headed towards Kenya. From there it was smooth sailing--Chris and I smuggled Miriam out under cover of darkness. You've never seen two people more in love--it…uh…it warmed my heart to see them together. They took the hot air balloon and dropped me off on their way back to Minnesota, so I didn't get back in until about 6 this morning. I tried to work on the paper during the balloon ride, but balloons are very bumpy and it was all I could do to stay inside the basket. I had to be at the bus stop by 6:30, so there was absolutely no way that I could have possibly done the paper." There was a pause after he finished his speech. Ryan could feel the sweat dripping down his neck. Battles were won or lost in pauses such as this. Mrs. Clemons pulled off her glasses and polished them with a cloth from her desk. “Are you pulling my leg, Mr. Eason?” she said after a while. “What? No! I’m not touching your leg!” Ryan said, throwing his hands up in alarm. “uh…ma’am,” he added as an afterthought. The silence resumed. Mrs. Clemons continued to polish her glasses. The clock on the wall ticked softly. The entire audience was holding its collective breath.Three more minutes 'til lunch was over. Ryan hoped his teacher couldn’t hear his heart racing. He tried to study her face, to see if she’d bought it or not. Finally, Mrs. Clemons sighed and put her glasses back on. “Alright, Mr. Eason.” She said slowly, “I’ll give you an extension." The classroom full of kids cheered and Ryan smiled in relief. "I’ll be leaving school at 6:15 this afternoon, and I expect to have your paper in my hand as I leave the building. You have six hours, Mr. Eason. Make the best of them.” It was all Ryan could do not to shout for joy. However, a good procrastinator never allows a teacher to see their relief when an extension is given. So instead Ryan nodded in and said in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner: “Thank you, Mrs. Clemons, you’ll have it by 6:15 today.” “No later than 6:15, mind. No more adventures with your long lost twin. You’ll have plenty of time to catch up after you’ve written your paper.” "Yes, thank you, ma'am!!" Ryan said with a little half bow of thanks before dashing out into the hallway. He was met almost immediately by the two Agents of Procrastination from earlier, who fell easily into step with him. "That was a good show, Eason," the male Agent said, "of course I can't say anything official yet, but I think it's very likely we'll be seeing your name in the Hall of Extremely Conspicuous Procrastinators some day." "Uh, thanks. It was nothing," Ryan said. He tried to grin, but found he still had the shakes from all the adrenaline that had been pumping through his system. He managed a little half smile. "Here's your paper," the girl said, holding out the sheets of people they had confiscated earlier. Ryan nodded and accepted his essay without comment. To be completely honest, he was feeling a little faint. He wondered briefly if there were any tacos left downstairs… "Until next time, Eason," the two Agents said in unison before turning and leaving. Ryan started to walk away, too, when suddenly the girl Agent--whose name he remembered was Kara--ran back to him. "You were great in there," she said, stopping just in front of him. "You know, Char's one of my really good friends…I know she doesn't have a date yet to the Spring Formal…but I think that Bobby Boucher was going to ask her during lunch today. I don't know. I was up here the whole time. But, uh, you know," she nervously tucked of her long, blonde bangs behind her ear, "if Bobby did ask her and she does have a date and you still need one…I'm not going with anyone…I mean…no one's asked me yet." She was cute, but Ryan only had room in his heart for one girl--and that girl was Charlene Talisse. Of course, he couldn't tell Kara that. He had to be cool about it, let her down easy. "Sure, yeah, I'll get back to you…" he said, trying to be casual, but failing miserably. "Ok, great…" It probably would have ended a lot more awkwardly, but then the lunch bell rang again, signaling that they should all head towards their next class. Taking this as an excuse to bolt, Ryan did just that, making it across the school to math just in time for the teacher to collect the homework which, of course, he'd neglected to do. Crap. Pausing in the doorway, he wondered just how he'd talk his way out of it this time…

((A/N: I've been away from the Pen for an extended period of time, so I shan't take it personally if no one remembers me. I kind of disappeared, forgot, and then was reminded of this place and became something of a lurker when I graduated from high school and Degorram and Kikuyu Black Paws pointed me in this direction to continue reading their work. But anyways, what I'm trying to say is, hello again, mighty pen! How are you? I'm back, but I'm not quite the same person I was when I left. Like starbuck on battlestar galactica. Only, I promise to not go all crazy on you and point guns at anyone's heads. Basically, it's exam week and I should be doing constructive. Like studying for organic chemistry. Or plant biology. Or writing a 6 page paper on some random book that's due tomorrow. However, I am an insane procrastinator, so when I opened up a word document and started typing this, and not a 6 page paper, came out. It's rather unlike anything I've written before as I usually just stuck to silly humor related thingies, but considering that this is the first coherent thing I've written in awhile, I take what I can get. So I apologize for the overall weirdness to follow.)) -----------------------)( I think that as we grow up, imagination is the first thing to go. There just isn't time for it, not with school and jobs and bills and families and car payments and all those other terribly important things that steal our time away. Sure, there are plenty of people out there that can prove me wrong --I like to think I'm one of them -- but on the whole, we're a strange subset of the population, an odd testament to what once was. So what I'm asking you to do might be a little difficult at first. Are you ready? Ok, close you eyes, count to three... Imagine that you are a child again. -----------------------)( Emily Bevel sat at the Court Street bus stop -- the one by the library -- every week for as long as any of us could remember. And while no one's memory extended past four or five years, when you're eight years old that feels like a lifetime. I used to watch her, like all the little kids do. As you're lead by the hand into the library, she smiles at you, or sometimes she glares, but she always notices. You try to smile back, or stick out your tongue, or anything, but your mother pulls you forward and tells you not to stare, it's impolite, sweetheart. But that never stopped me from wondering--or any of the other kids, for that matter. We lived in a world of highly polished shoes and matching hair ribbons; the idea of this strange, frumpy woman who sat at a bench all day was unfathomable and therefore intriguing. While our mothers would trade recipes and gossip, flipping through glossy magazines, we kids would sit on the technicolor floor of the children's section and make up stories about the bus-stop lady. Her adventures varied by whatever book our mothers had halfheartedly helped us find--once she led a whole family of ducklings through the city streets, another time she was a princess, another the president of Canada. There was no limit to what she could be in our eyes. We rewrote her life story a thousand times over, but the name was always the same: Emily Bevel. Of course, none of us had ever spoken to her, and perhaps none of us ever would have if one day Marissa Clarke hadn't uttered that single most provocative of phrases: "I triple-dog-dare you to go talk to the bus stop lady, Carla." Of the children at the library, there were two groups: those that stuck with me, and those that stuck with Marissa--or the redheaded demon of terror, as I liked to call her. She called me Carla, the four-eyed guardian of death, though, so I guess we were about even. There was already a history between us--if I were to refuse this dare, it would be admitting defeat. The redheaded demon of terror had triple dog dared me, and there was no getting around it: I simply had to do it. So, ignoring everyone's protests and speculations about my impending doom, I marched towards the door. I tried not to let my fear show, and pretended to be having a great deal of trouble pulling on my little pink cardigan to avoid catching anyone's eyes. Sneaking out of the children's section was no problem--all I had to do was wait until the Circle of Mothers was adequately distracted, then make a run for it. As soon as they were occupied, I dashed towards the outside door. It opened automatically and I ran out into the world. The cold air caught in my lungs, making me cough--it was a shock after the radiant warmth of the library. I stumbled for a moment, tucking my arms inside my sweater, wondering if I should go back in after all---and then I hit something hard, a bench. And, suddenly, there she was. Emily Bevel. Staring right down at me. I favored her with a wide eyed stare, caught by both fear and reverence for this strange woman. Truthfully, I didn't know what I was going to say to her. What did one say to an Emily Bevel? After all the stories we'd told about her--never mind that they were made up--it was like trying to talk to a princess or something. I'd never really thought of her as a real person. And yet here she was. Why do you sit here all the time, I wanted to ask her. Why aren't you at home? Aren't you cold? Why aren't you inside? I couldn't bring myself to say those things. I was too frightened. All I managed to choke out was one syllable: "why?" She stared at me for a moment. I noticed that her eyes were very old, very deep. The kind of green you only see in desperate paintings of the sea. She looked half crazed: her hair, wisps of faded black and grey, had long ago escaped its bounds; the crisp wind had rubbed her cheeks raw and red. "Imagine: it's just before sunset on a cool evening at that time of year when the world is just thinking about spring, but still clings to winter. You're standing there, on top of a mountain and the world seems to stretch out around you, opening up and showing you all that beauty that'd been hiding around the edges. It's so beautiful, so terribly beautiful…it's almost too much for the likes of human eyes." Her voice rose and fell, drawing me closer. I had never heard anyone talk like this before. Even the readers in the children's room at the library spoke in short, clipped sentences. "There's clouds, layers and layers of clouds above you and below you, like white marshmallows floatin' in the sky. And over there, " she pointing a gnarled finger over towards a place which had once been a post office, but had now, by the magic of her words turned into a bank of clouds, "over there is the front of a storm, thick, dark clouds coming your way. Terrible and beautiful, you can just hear the thunder, you just smell the rain over in the distance, can you see it, child? The sun's going down in front of you, leaving bands of subdued oranges and stately purples behind as it sinks below the horizon. Then in the valley below you, the lights start blinking on, one by one…" "Like a thousand little fireflies, dancing and flickering…" I said, caught up in the moment. I realized with a start that I could see them, really see them. Using her words more deftly than any fairy godmother's wand, she caused the street and the cars and the shops and the library to be washed away by this beautiful afterglow, changing them all into mountains and valleys. "And then the clouds close in around you, wrapping you up in a bundle of white and grey until you can barely see. The wind, the wind blows clear through you, but the cold is delicious. Imagine: that wind carries the voices of everyone in the world. All the people you've met, all the people you missed, all the love and all the fear and all the wonder. You're surrounded by beauty, overwhelmed by grace," she paused there, took a deep breath and half sighed before continuing. "That's where I'll go before I die. If I'm going to breathe my last, it might as well we somewhere beautiful. All I have to do is have faith. And so I've been waiting--I sit. I wait for the bus. I think about getting on, but then I decide against it. The time just doesn't seem right. So I stand up, I go to work, I go to the store, I go about my life and that's the end of that. Today's different, though. I could feel it as soon as I woke up, a tingling at the back of my mind." "Maybe it's you being here…change in the weather, I don't know. S'different. You know, I've spent my whole life just waiting. The Lord will provide, they told me. Well, I'm going to help myself. Maybe this is all His way of telling me it's finally time." Normally all this God talk would have lost me completely. My family was not religious, and I had often heard my parents discuss the "bible thumpers" with disdain. However, this woman wasn't thumping anything, as far as I could see. And moreover, with Emily it was different. She looked like she actually believed what she was saying. Like God was actually real. This was something new entirely. Something in my look must have amused her, because she started to laugh. "Nostalgia, especially for the roads we never took, is the greatest killer of man, child. We just have to learn to trust, I suppose. Accept what we've done--or left undone--and keep going. Faith manages, little girl, it's all you need, really." "Carla?" A voice called from behind me. I turned quickly to see my mother walking quickly towards us from the library. "Carla, sweetheart, what are you doing out here?" I knew Mother's voice well, and I could hear the hint of concern and disapproval hidden away in those few syllables. I wanted to tell her, it's ok, she's not trying to kidnap me or anything, we were just talking. But I couldn't say that. Mothers are a very strange breed of people, you can't always say what you mean, they take it the wrong way. So instead I didn't say anything. I just kept watching Emily watch the road, smiling. "I'm sorry, I don't know what's gotten into her," Mother said, slipping her soft, cold hand into mine. "Carla?" "'S'fine, she wasn't harming anyone, were you, dear?" Emily said, without looking at either of us. Here eyes were still unfocused. I wondered if she was still on her mountain, still enjoying the beauty she had described to me. "No, ma'am," I said, remembering my manners. "Come along, Carla," Mother said. She guided me back into the library and I followed without protest. I expected Mother to ask me what the woman had told me, to ask what had gotten into me, running outside like that. Instead she paused at the entrance to the children's section, then bent down to my level, "She's just a sad old woman don't you pay her any mind, Carla. Now, run and play with your friends, there's a good girl." "Yes, ma'am," I said, and she patted me absently on the cheek before returning to the circle of Mothers. "Well, what did she say? What did she tell you?" All of the other children gathered around me, pushing to get to the front, identical expressions of eagerness painting their faces. "I didn't actually think you'd do it," Marissa said, pushing to the front of the group, "I made Michael and Kelly-Ann stand at the window, to witness. And they said you did it, so…" she paused, put on her sweetest smile, as though we were old friends and not bitter enemies, "what did she say? Was it just like in the stories?" I paused for a moment, trying to get my thoughts in order. "Well," Marissa said, hands on hips, tapping a foot impatiently, "Did you talk to her or what?" I floundered for a moment more, and then I just spilled into it. I told them everything, all the things she had said about pretty clouds and mountains and God and living. Everything tumbled out, perhaps not with the eloquence of Emily Bevel, but out it came just the same. I took a deep breath after I was finished; I felt as though I had just run a marathon. My fellow children stood silently, staring at me, and for a moment even Marissa couldn't seem to think of anything to say. It was then that one of the boys came up and poked Marissa mercilessly in the side, causing her to yelp in surprise and start off after him. Soon everyone was on the run again, boys versus girls, group versus group, running around laughing -- all much to the horror of the children's librarian who quickly rose from her desk to referee. And thus all thoughts of Emily Bevel began sifting slowly to the back of minds. Imagine you are no longer a child. Imagine that many years have come and gone, etching themselves in your face and manner, snatching the minutes and the hours so deftly that half the time you never even noticed their passage. However, out of a million threads of memory flapping about, I never did forget this one. I held onto our conversation, a strange, childhood memory that's been gone over in my head so many times that even I'm not sure if it's entirely true or not. Maybe she didn't really say all that, maybe it's just my imagination taking hold of me. Maybe I've forgotten and filled in Emily's silences with snatches of other conversations. Maybe all she did was stare at me. I don't know. Regardless, it is her memory, her words that have propelled me forward through the years. But still, whenever I walk past that bench in front of the library where the old bus stop used to be, this time with my own child in tow, I think about her, the bus-lady. I don't know what happened to Emily, whether or not she ever made it to her mountain. I like to think that she did. I like to think that where ever she is, she's happy. That her faith managed. I hope that for once, life can end like the children's stories at the library: and she lived happily ever after until the end of her days.

I've moved so often and left so many places that the term "home" is kind of a vague one for me. Even most of my grandparents and other random family members whose houses I used to spend extended periods of time in have sold them to buy boats to sail around the world in or tiny condos on the beach to watch the sunset in. Home for me is really more of a feeling...generally when I'm with my friends, many of whom have become dearer to me than my actualy family in recent years. However, my grandmother's kitchen smells of onions. Not in the "eww! yuck! onions!!" way, or the "ugh, my eyes are tearing up" way but in the "oh, how nice, grandma's making something with onions again." That something with onions usually turned out to be her famous vegetable soup. Though made with a dubious amount of onions, it was always delicious and my grandmother claimed that the its recipe was the result of generations of tweaking and testing as it had been handed down through the ages. It was later revealed that the recipe was really called "Bertha's famous vegetable soup" --or something to that effect-- and had been nicked from the January 1994 issue of Southern Living. Nevertheless, she made that soup so much when I was little that the essence of the onions seems to have somehow sunk into the woodwork, counter tops, and the peeling wallpaper with its faded rubbings of common herbs of her kitchen.

=waves= Hello! I'm still here! Granted, I left for about two years, came back, left for another six months, then came back again. I actually wrote a pseudo-prequel/lead in a loooooon time ago...which can be found here, but never actually got around to writing sequel. Maybe now I'll try again Thanks for all your comments, you're all my heroes--I thought for sure that everyone had forgotten about this little story!

hi! Remember me? No...probably not. I don't think I've stopped by in something like a year. Maybe more. Well, that's partially because this is the first thing I've written that's actually ended up finished in a good long while. It's more to help me remember how to write again more than anything else. Well, that and to try and convince myself *not* to procrastinate since, ironically, I avoided writing an ending for this little story(and there are quite a few stories still on my hard-drive without endings) for longer than I'd care to admit. --------------------------------)( Today was the day. Today was the great, red letter—no, the great, 55-foot high blinking red neon sign day for which the world had been preparing itself. The billions of years for which this blue-green lump of a planet had been spinning faithfully around the sun were mere practice for this single, earth shattering day. Today was the day when he, Ryan L. Eason of Schenectady, New York, would be the subject of chat show pundits and dinner conversations and front page news stories. Today was the day that tickertape-parades and banquets and receptions would be planned in his honor. Today was the day that he would write his entire end of semester research paper in just six hours!! . . .or at least that was what he had told himself five hours and fifty-three minutes ago. Well, okay, so originally he was going to write it in just two weeks. Then in just one week. Then in just three days. Then in just 24 hours and now in just six hours. It hadn’t been his fault that he’d been so late getting started. Really, it hadn’t. In his sixteen years of life—12 of which he had spent as a professional, card carrying member of the National Order of Procrastinators (NOP) -- he had never been faced with a task so daunting, so important, so potentially advantageous. To pull this paper off at all would be enough to guarantee him a spot as on the Honorary Council of Procrastinators for the fifth year running. However, a spot on the council was small change to him now. This year Ryan was aiming high. To finish this essay past the general procrastination level of six hours would win him not only a seat on the Council, but also the coveted Order Of Conspicuous Procrastination, First Class. With an Order of Conspicuous Procrastination hanging around his neck there was no way that Char Talisse, the love of his life and the girl he was going to marry(she just didn’t know it yet), could ever turn him down when he asked her to the Winter Formal in January. With Char and that big, shiny medal in mind, he had decided to do the impossible: finish in less than six hours, slashing records and sending all procrastination precedent out the window. Alright, Alright, so when you take all that into consideration it had kind of been his fault that he had been so late getting started—but only kind of!! You see, he’d discovered that the prospect of running out of time on his paper (and thus failing the first semester of 10th grade English) contracted his mind wonderfully. Suddenly, he could focus in a way he could ordinarily never even dream of. Suddenly, he could remember all of the extremely important things he’d been neglecting for weeks. For example, he needed to do things like clean the computer of the 2 gigs of “questionable” material his brother “accidentally” downloaded, clean his room, polish his collection of antique toasters, brush the dog. At some point he also remembered that he’d forgotten to feed said dog lately, and was therefore left with a rather puffy puppy corpse on his hands. Of course, there was nothing for the situation but to first determine the cause of death (cholesterol poisoning. Apparently the poor famished puppy had jumped up onto the counter and eaten the twelve dozen eggs Ryan made that morning after he remembered that he hadn’t made eggs in six months and before he remembered that he was allergic to eggs) and second, give the pooch a proper Christian burial. And if he was going to give the dog a proper burial, he simply couldn’t escape calling Char (so she could see what a caring and sensitive guy he was), his friend Andrew (who had a collection of vintage 1880’s spades that would come in handy against the frozen ground), and his cousin Glennon (who had recently been ordained online as an interfaith minister and could perform the ceremony.) The funeral had taken a little over four hours—including the time it took to tackle the three tuna-noodle casseroles and five jello-molds the neighbors had brought over when they found out there was a death in the family. Somehow the rumor had been started (probably by Glennon) that he deceased was Ryan’s “dear” little sister Kate rather than the family dog. Being a fan of tuna-noodle casserole and jello, he had yet to set the neighbors straight. With less than two hours left, Ryan had started to get nervous. Not panic, just get nervous. After all, he still had the image of the Order of Conspicuous Procrastination around his neck and Char Talisse on his arm to keep him going. However, he had to admit that it was about time to get working on the essay or risk losing everything. But try as he might to get started on his paper, things which had to be done just kept cropping up. By the time the morning the paper was due, rolled around, Ryan had deep cleaned the bathrooms, read War and Peace (Well, the Cliff’s Notes anyway), updated his Last Will and Testament, watched Citizen Kane, learned how to knit, announced his candidacy for the presidency on the Democratic and Republican tickets for 2028, groomed his sister’s cat, listened to all the Beatles’ records forwards, listened to all the Beatles’ records backwards (Paul is Dead!), and read sixteen issues of Scientific American cover to cover. Once all these important tasks were done, he found himself slumped on the floor, completely devoid of all energy. It was then he happened to glance at a clock. It was 6:25 am. In a little under seven minutes he would have to walk out to catch the bus. At first, the sight of these cold, hard numbers filled Ryan with ego-deflating despair. There was no way even a procrastinator of his skill level could possibly write an entire paper in seven minutes. Then something new occurred to him: He would write his paper on the bus!! Forget breaking records, he would be making history by writing on the bus! Pulling this off would earn him a national holiday in his honor! Despite his re-inflating ego and rekindled hopes, however, Ryan realized that he had one major obstacle in his way: staying awake. In a desperate attempt to ward off sleep for the next six minutes, he did what any kid would do in a similar situation: he turned on the TV. When he was able to focus enough on the picture to see what he was watching, Ryan groaned aloud. It was one of those morning news programs—the kind of show Ryan hated almost as much as he hated deadlines. “Goooooooooooood Morning!!” The slightly rotund weather man said, waving cheerily from the screen. “We’re witnessing wintry weather out here on the plaza! Seven inches on the ground in the last two hours, and it’s not just snowing here, folks! It’s a Winter Wonderland from Wanakena to Weatogue to Warwick and the plows just can’t compete! See the bottom of your screen for school closures! Back inside to you, Katie!” Blinking in disbelief, Ryan forced his tired eyes to focus on the scrolling text below the weatherman. Filled with unexpected energy, he leapt to his feet; His school was closed!! Against all odds, a freak snowstorm had closed his school! This was nothing short of divine intervention!! Suddenly, Ryan made a decision. Tomorrow. Tomorrow would be the day! Tomorrow would be the red-letter day in which he would shatter records; tomorrow he would earn ever ounce of that Order of Conspicuous Procrastination, First Class; Tomorrow he would become the subject of chat show pundits and—unfortunately it was at this moment that all his energy deserted him and he flopped to the floor like a rag-doll. But that was okay. He had all day to work on his paper. For now…he’d just rest. He could procrastinate for a few more hours—after all, it was what he did best.