| Hardly Helpful Yuletide Letter 2011 Edition |
[19 Nov 2011|12:27am] |
Hello, Mister or Missus Yuletide Author of 2011!
First and foremost, thank you so much for generously pouring time and talent into a fic catering to my fickle whims! Kindness makes Yuletide go round, and every year I'm thrilled anyone would look at my requests and go "yeah, I think I can do one of those." The following suggestions are just that--suggestions. If you're working on the coolest idea ever and you find yourself breaking your story in half upon the anvil of my recommendations, feel free to throw said clumsy attempt at metaphor away and do whatever feels right. I'm not all that picky.
except...
Turn-offs
WAFF when it's not earned. Purple prose and flowery language. Lengthy aaaaaangst. The tropes and behavior of yaoi/shounen-ai. Needless gore.
Thaaaat's...pretty much it. I'm not bothered by smut, profanity, drama, or bittersweet endings. I do have a soft spot for Christmas stories, since this is a Christmas-y fic exchange, but that's not in any way essential.
Anyway! On to my requests:
1: Azumanga Daioh!
Year in and year out I ask for happy femslash smut featuring Nyamo/Yukari or Tomo/Yomi, and I think this is the year I finally give up on that. No porn necessary. I love this entire cast so much, but I especially enjoy the love-hate couples mentioned above. The way Yukari sleeps in Nyamo's bed without a second thought, or the manner in which Tomo climbs Yomi multiple times in the manga...there's a yuri story or two there, man! I'd love to see an examination of how these ladies' relationships tick, femslash-flavored or no. Involving alcohol if possible. The rest of the cast can show up, if the story fits, or it can just be Nyamo blearily carrying Yukari home from a bar. Post-graduation if possible, because I'm very interested in how the cast interacts as they get older.
2: The Vision of Escaflowne
So many of the characters in this show strike me as completely unready for the burdens they have to shoulder, and completely incompetent at expressing their feelings about those burdens. Even when those feelings finally come out, Escafowne ends on such a bittersweet note: true love separated, possibly forever. I want to see how Van, Hitomi, and especially Merle go on after Zaibach falls. Something tells me Merle and "Van-sama" end up together out of need/convenience after Hitomi leaves, and I'd love to see them ruling Fanelia as King and Queen (or King and Consort, or what-have-you). I'd also love to see Hitomi's life choices once she returns from her adventure. Snapshots from the lives of all characters would be acceptable too! Or, and here's me going nuts: total AU. Escaflowne in the middle ages, Kamakura-era Japan, WWII, etc! Dude, imagine Van as a brash fighter pilot who carries out risky maneuvers in a biplane...okay, maybe not.
3: Temeraire
DRAGONS. DRAGONS IN AMERICA. DRAGONS IN THE CHICAGO STOCKYARDS. I guess this would be an AU request: I want to see the places Novik hasn't yet explored. Whether that means Laurence is a weary immigrant working during the USA's industrial revolution or Temeraire is a FEARLESS JUNGLE EXPLORER slashing his way through South America, I'll be delighted either way. Go nuts on this one! Feel free to create original characters even!!! I do sorta love the image of dragons employed as slaughterhouse workers/mob enforcers though.
4: Scott Pilgrim
Another where-are-they-now request. In my defense, I had another fandom request set up and then my computer crashed and I lost it and sadly can't remember what it was. But it all comes down to this: what happened to Knives? My favorite character. Needs more closure. Is she in a band? Is she in love? Do she and Kim make out drunk again? Go nuts here too. Knives plus any characters from the original plus maybe christmas equals yay!...or whatever.
Write me gen, write me femslash, write me slash (so long as you avoid the usual seme/uke shounen-ai bullshit), write me smut, write me a 2000 word meditation on the world war applications of Guymelefs. I guarantee you I'll be grateful and the most important thing is that you enjoy yourself. Thanks so much and happy holidays!
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| the red ships |
[15 Aug 2011|12:49am] |
The red ships came from the east, and they would not stop coming.
Built of queer crimson wood, they landed en masse on Aislesland's shores. Some of them smashed headlong into the cliffs at East's Teeth in their haste to invade. Their red maws opened and spat out people by the thousands, men and boys in crude bronze armor. This cargo creaked across the sands, spoke in growls, fought through arrows and magic blasts alike. Little ability to their fighting, but they died hard and butchered plenty with their shining, bronze blades.
The nobles fought them first. Aislesland was lousy with nobility those days, a lord for every village and a thousand knights besides. Lord after lord stood on the cliffs at East's Teeth and pissed lightning on the bronze men. Knight after knight slashed across the sands and cut their feeble swords in two. A year's fighting later the beach was as red as the ships.
All this blood bought a lull of six months; then again, word came of boats on the eastern shores. Older men came out this time, and younger boys, but their eyes were desperate and the fights grew harder. The knights fell sooner. Every fallen knight meant a fallen sword, and every piece of steel the bronze men took hacked through twice as many Aisleslanders. The nobles stopped them at the cliff tops, tossing off so much lightning their palms charred black. When the next fleet came two months later the nobles died upon those rocks with flames streaming out of what was left of their hands. It was not enough.
The few nobles with the sense to run taught the peasantry basic magic while the blacksmiths built them decent armor. The king sent boats to the western islands and pressed the tan men there into service they didn't understand but knew they couldn't refuse. Village after village on the mainland joined the cause, and when the final red ships came a ragtag army waited and there were no nobles anymore.
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[02 Jun 2011|03:35am] |
The Leathern Bottle's door took three tries, every one of them cacophonous. The first attempt, a slip on the cobbles slick from rain, sent Ricket stumbling sideways into Broader's damned thornbushes. Wintertime, they'd be brittle cushions, almost a nice place to pass out; now they jabbed through his cloak and drew blood above an eye. Broader, daft bastard he was, thought they kept away the Folk. The thorns wouldn't, Ricket knew, but maybe the cracking of branches and his cursing voice would do the job. Try two went about as well: a drunk man pulling on a door meant to be pushed. Ricket kicked it once, twice; the second kick became attempt three.
Attempt three's success meant a wave of surprised faces, including one, two, Oh, hell. All of his brothers.
Most of them laughed; Cadell didn't. Cadell just watched and frowned, like he always did.
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| yeah, I'm still alive |
[25 Mar 2011|12:21am] |
I read somewhere once that forgetting is, while often (in my own experience, very very often) frustrating, key to remaining sane and functional. Imagine remembering every single slight you've ever experienced, every little mistake, every bit of trauma in excruciating detail...yeah, forgetting can be just as important as remembering.
Funnily enough, while I have no trouble forgetting people's names and faces, important dates, every birthday ever, I find myself remembering other stuff. Those stupid fucking rants on my LJ about fat acceptance or islam or my virginal rage at hearing about other peoples' sex lives. Drunken stupidity, over and over again.
I dunno why it's on my mind tonight, but uh, let's just get it out there: for any stupid, un-or-misinformed, arrogant, or otherwise hurtful shit I've said on this journal, I'm sorry. Hope we're still cool, internet. Now, if you'll excuse me, all that pornography and videogame banter aren't gonna consume themselves.
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[15 Jan 2011|02:39am] |
"Everything's a joke to you, isn't it."
The sentence implied a question mark, but there were none in evidence. Just a flat, boring statement, along the lines of oh, the weather is sort of rotten, or damn it all we're oukt of eggs. She looked at him, eyebrows up; she curled half-naked against the bedpost and expected him to say something charming, like he always did. Something to make it all right.
Salzel looked back and smiled, the way he always smiled, except there was nothing of it in his eyes. He weighed, for a moment, his options: make a joke, as if that would help. Go somber and be bloody dishonest. Tell her the truth and watch a lovely naked woman get dressed as fast as possible.
He went with option three, because out of all the things you could call Salzella di Marcos he was not a liar.
"Yes. It is." He watched her eyes harden, couldn't resist adding: "Everything is a joke to everybody, darling, it's just usually they don't get it."
Five minutes later he was alone in her bedroom with the implicit understanding that he'd be gone when she came back. He considered actually staying; lounging in his undershirt, enjoying the comfy goosefeather pillows he knew she'd made herself. Maybe, when she got back, there'd be spiteful kissing and hateful, angry sex.
Ten minutes later he was alone outside the inn, wondering for the first time in three days if his commander at all realized he was gone.
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[14 Dec 2010|08:57pm] |
Four days, actually.
Huh.
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| last year redux |
[14 Dec 2010|08:15pm] |
Oh, hey, Yuletide is due in like a week, isn't it.
Aheh.
Aheheheheh.
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| Dear Yuletide Author! |
[14 Nov 2010|04:59am] |
First of all, let's take a moment to congratulate you, for being the awesome kind of person who'd volunteer to write a story for someone on the internets. You're awesome. You're amazing. You're awesomazing! Congratulations. :D
Now, then, to business: fic!
Squicks
Almost none. I despise the Saw flicks and anything similar, so avoid gore and torture for the sake of gore and torture. Implication is better than outright stating in that regard, should you choose to go dark.
I don't mind explicit sex, so long as it's hot. Vulgarity goes with the territory; don't worry about offending my delicate sensibilities. You're writing for the guy who has "Feeding Frenzy" bookmarked.
Gripes
Sap and sentimentality hurt my brain when they're not earned. Yes, I want to see the star-crossed lovers kiss in the moonlight; I love Densha Otoko, Maison Ikkoku, and so on. But I want them to work for it, and I don't want to drown in purple prose when it happens.
I admit that, because it's Yuletide, I have a fixation on Christmas themes. Ignore it if you must.
Fandom 1: Azumanga Daioh
Every year I hope that someone wants to write me drunken Nyamo/Yukari sex, because I watch them fall all over each other while drunk, and talk about stuff that's "Ero Ero Yo," and tease each other, and for God's sake Yukari sleeps in Nyamo's bed without hesitation, and it amazes me there's no doujinshi catering to this pairing.
Similarly, Yomi and Tomo are just...obviously sleeping with each other. At least occasionally. The way Tomo just hangs onto Yomi without a second thought, their hate-love relationship, the fact they know each other so well and have for forever... I picture any smut between them being alternately affectionate and rough. BDSM flavor, lots of teasing, maybe exuberant Tomo tied by her wrists to a bed. Or, I don't know, a desk.
That said, as much as I like the idea of a happily smutty Nyamo/Yukari or Yomi/Tomo fic, I know that's unlikely to happen. So if you're not the sort of pervert that wants to write me lesbian fanfiction, you'll be relieved to know that just about anything Azumanga makes me happy. Seriously, anything, as long as it feels like Azumanga. The girls reuniting on Christmas Eve for karaoke and korean bbq, Sakaki's veterinary practice, all of them at a wedding reception--the only critical factor is the slice-of-life feeling. We know and love these characters, and there doesn't need to be much drama; just an amusing situation, the sort of thing that shows up in Azumanga all the time. If you can somehow work Christmas into it, I will be extra impressed. I wish I could list more than 4 characters, because I love every Goddamn one of them. Use whoever you want, and have fun!
Fandom 2: Genshiken
God, I love this series. So many discussions that were eerily similar to conversations I had during my 4 years of anime club in college. I have a few ideas in mind for a fic based on it:
-Ogiue and Sasahara, the working couple: maybe a little older, placed in a tense situation where Sasahara's ended up as Ogiue's editor at Jump or Afternoon. I'd expect a lot of world-building in a fic like this, a manga they've been working on together for quite some time--think Bakuman with a bickering couple.
-Kasukabe and Kohsaka, the odd couple: I'm a sucker for how good Kohsaka looks while crossdressing, so if you include that, bonus points! But mainly I'd like to see these two working through adult life and still retaining that friction they have by being a normal/otaku couple. Any way you can do that, awesome.
-The whole gang: anything. An anime premiere, Comifes, a trip to the hot springs. Like with my Azumanga fic, it's all about nailing how these characters interact and why we want to watch them.
Fandom 3: Secret of Kells
This is my vaguest request. I just love this goddamn movie, and I was so heartbroken that Aisling went silent for the last 30 minutes. I want to see her story, as an immortal sprite of Ireland: anywhere between the fall of Kells to modern Ireland. I want her to interact with people: Brendan's descendants? Everyday pubgoers? No traipsing about as a wolf, she needs to be herself, reacting to any of the emerald isle's various developments: IRA vs England? Ireland reinventing itself as a silicon superpower? I want a mythical being watching the everyday world develop and grow. I want to know what Aisling thinks of St. Patrick's Day in Galway last year, or her interactions with terrified Black and Tans in the early 20th century. You have free reign. Just make Aisling Aisling, and if possible involve Pangur Ban (or her descendants!) somehow.
Fandom 4: Arrested Development
You know the documentary style used in Arrested? Narrator, cutaways to relevant footage (or the lack thereof)? You know the layers upon layers of humor? Running gags, etc? The general "Feel" of the show? God help me, I want to see an author nail that same feel via fic. Write the lost Arrested episode! No romance, please, because that's not what the show's about.
IN CONCLUSION
Again: as of signing up, you are awesome. Don't worry too much about my specifications; odds are, if you write me a good story, I don't care if this character didn't bang that character or nobody learned anything important. I just want some more of what made me love each series in the first place.
PS: ORIGINAL Fandom 4: Scott Pilgrim
I just like this fandom so much I'm leaving it on the entry.
Just one question:
What happened to Knives?
If you can work in her forgotten makeout session with Kim Pine, awesome, but if not, no biggie. As with my other requests, this is a series full of characters I love and I will be perfectly satisfied if you just find a reason for a bunch of them to interact together.
That said: this is SCOTT PILGRIM. Somebody better fight somebody, even if somebody's fucking somebody in the next paragraph.
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[05 Oct 2010|01:05am] |
Magic affects soil a bit like radioactivity: that is to say, you don't want to eat anything raised in magic-infused soil. Things grow wrong, or not at all; you plant a field of turnips, you get a field of cucumbers; you eat a potato, you turn into a potato. Most places didn't have this problem, unless more than a few casters decided to spell each other out of existence there, and the usual fix involved a fence, a sign, and a grave for whoever ignored the first two things. Any infused area was small.
But then there was the Center.
The Center was lush, green country: forests grew thick, and gentle hills covered in grass resided wherever forests didn't. It was of course in the very middle of Aislesland, because in a world of magic, locals had little use for imaginative names. It was also, as the legends went, where magic came into being. It was not a good place for growing crops.
Except, for some reason, beans. If you could put up with the occasional magical weather, the sometimes-marauding fair folk, and the odd patch of dirt that screamed when you plowed it, it was a positively lovely place to grow beans.
Ricket Barr hated beans more than anything save magic. As the sole owner and operator of the Barr family bean farm, situated on the edge of the most magical place in the world, this meant he started every day angry and ended every day drunk. His father, the late Antham Barr, lived much the same way and died at 45, leaving all he owned to his 15-year-old son. Since this included the farm and all its obligations, the only thing Ricket hated nearly as much as magic or beans was Antham Barr.
A decade passed after Antham's death, a decade full of alcohol and monotony and, mostly, a decade's worth of beans. Ricket celebrated this ten-year anniversary the same way he'd done so anniversaries one through nine: a trip through the woods to the neighboring town and as many pints as he could get from the Leathern Bottle before old Broader kicked him out.
It was halfway home, Broader's curses still ringing in his ears, that Ricket found himself at knifepoint and remembered there was something he hated more than Antham, magic, or even damned beans: Folk. Rare as dragons and twice as likely to kill you. Also known as The Good People when they were listening, and Those Bastards when they weren't. Sometimes they sported wings, or skin like tree bark; this one had eyes like a barn cat's and fangs to match. Ricket knew about the latter because under her hood she was smiling at him.
She stood a head shorter than Ricket, a fact that did nothing to draw his attention away from the thick, chipped blade she pointed at his heart. Her cloak was mottled brown, something like a beetle's shell, and her dagger was mottled gray, something like a blade which had been used many a time and cleaned almost never. He took a long, deep sigh, and, remembering the tales of Folk negotiation, pointed out the most important thing he could think of.
"Broader has my money," he said. He wished he could sound masculine while saying it, but it came out, as many of his drunker words did, in something like gravel meeting squeak. "And source knows I don't have much else."
She responded in singsong, discordant notes no one standing on two legs should've been able to make and gestured with the dagger.
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| ALL OF MY HATE |
[01 Sep 2010|04:53pm] |
About to walk to kinko's to fax my creepy worldwide exclusive contract to AFTRA because maybe it's illegal and at the very least it's bizarre.
Walking because the bike I was going to take, which was chained to my back porch behind a fence taller than I am but which most of us forget to close the door to every other day, has been stolen. The bike which was busted up with two flat tires and one nonfunctioning brake.
A few feet away from this bike is a nicer, newer bike. Unlocked.
I could be lazy and take my car if my car wasn't in the shop because someone broke in through the passenger side window and stole my GPS last week.
I...I just...fuck it. Fuck everything.
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| Draw something, Monica |
[31 Aug 2010|03:39am] |
God was shorter than I thought he'd be.
The attitude was big. Really big. I'm-a-movie-star-and-how-can-you-not-know-who-I-am big. But He, She, It chose to cram it into a package that barely rose above five foot three, with deep tan skin and an indeterminate accent that was more annoying than profound. And He--I settled on He because apparently so had God--smoked. Awful clove cigarettes, long black things that made His hotel room smell like potpourri. He took His time with each drag, too, deciding the arc and path of each exhalation with two gesturing fingers, crooked into an awkward C. Guiding it along to spell out answers to the questions I'd chosen not to ask.
OF COURSE I KNEW, He said through smoke in reference to my teenaged masturbation. IT WAS OFFENSIVE was his response to my fantasies about Mother Mary. Asking question through thought grew tiresome for both of us, though; it was clear He liked for me to hear Him talk.
So I decided to fuck with him.
"Name?" I asked.
"God," He said. He sat crosslegged on an elegant leather chair worth more than the Civic I'd parked illegally outside (which I wondered if I'd ever see again, given the crowds swarming the hotel). Smoke wreathed Him even after it should've faded away, seeming alive, forming animals and battleships though He wasn't paying attention. He noticed my pen, hesitating above my notepad, and helpfully added, "Jehova."
"Full name?" I asked.
The smoke vanished along with its pleasant scent. I smelled brimstone and this avatar was bigger, suddenly a large angry thing in little human skin looming over me despite my seven inch advantage. "Whatever you want it to be." He said it quietly and yet my ears rung. I ducked into my longcoat and held tightly onto the pen that was surely mightier than any flaming sword.
"Date of birth?" When I started asking it, I stood in the nicest suite Chicago had to offer, somewhere between the double French doors and the four post bed. When I finished asking it I stood in nothing, loafers astride a tiny square of shag carpet, gravity and air a distant memory. Something like a forehead pressed against mine, two things which inspired the idea of eyes glared through my vision. All I saw was fire that burned brighter than any sun, and all I heard was chaos beyond description, and then the concept of the words:
I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN.
And then He was a smiling man crosslegged in an easy chair and I was crying, kneeling on that luxurious carpet, trying not to piss myself as I made sure to keep writing this down.
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| I barely remember writing this last night |
[23 Aug 2010|02:02pm] |
He woke up tasting static and breathing the Medium. Pinned inside a frosted tube and screaming without language because he couldn't remember a single word. Never mind where he was, never mind why he was, his only thoughts were feelings: Wet. Cold. Choking. He could not articulate them, could not even scream with the thick, chilled slurry washing through his lungs. He thrashed like this for seconds that to him were years, thousands of bubbles roiling round his head, his waving hands sliding useless against glass three inches thick. And then I told him who he was.
Ensign Ayers, I said, and the terror ceased at once. His implant read wonder, curious awe rising in his brain to supplant blind fear. I found this satisfactory. Still he ground his fingernails against the tube interior, still he did not understand where or why, but now there was a god for him to pray to and a name which he could claim.
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| Freeway |
[13 Aug 2010|03:33pm] |
The water tasted like garlic. Don't know why. I spent ten minutes on the bottle alone, then twenty more searching the car. No food in the car. No spices in the car. Not even a garlic-scented air freshener in the car.
Two people in the car, but as far as I know people don't have garlic in them, not even after they die. Nothing poisonous in the car, anyway, so I drank the water, and the water tasted like garlic, and it was the first water I'd had in two days, so I didn't complain when I drank it.
I complained a little after. To Sean. He was looking for gas in the car and, since he was swearing a lot, I guess he wasn't having much luck. I found him kneeling by the gas-door-tank, sucking on a hose half the time and spitting out fucks and shits the other half.
"Their water tastes like garlic."
He looked up at me and I took a step back. Had to. Sometimes, his eyes were like a fist coming at you. He sounded like a hundred cigarettes soaked in gasoline smelled, which was normal, minus the gasoline.
"They had water."
"Yeah."
He stood. God, he was so tall. Taller than the car, definitely taller than me. I tried to hide in my hoodie but it didn't really work, like it never worked, and he grabbed the hood and almost lifted me, like he always did.
"You drank the fucking water."
"Yeah." That was hard to say.
He dropped me. My heels went out from under me and I fell next to the car, scratched my palms on rumble strips. I couldn't worry about them because he was staring down at me, even taller then, tall like God. He pointed at the gas tank with two long fingers. Stabbed the side of the car with them.
"I have been sucking gas out of this thing for half an hour and you have been drinking fucking water?"
"It tasted like garlic." I couldn't help it. It really did, like a bottle of garlic bread, but I knew from his eyes and the way he pulled back his hand that it was the wrong thing to say. So I made up for it, quick, desperate: "They have more."
He turned, first with his head and then the rest of his body, to look through the window. They were tinted black, but he pressed his face against it, and I knew he could see the case of water sitting behind the bodies. I wonder if he noticed the people were holding hands.
"It tastes like garlic?" He said. Trying to look at the water and back at me at the same time. The punch was still in his voice.
"Like..." I couldn't talk. My throat felt dry again. But I knew I couldn't stay quiet, either. "Like garlic bread."
Sean started laughing. Really hard. He laughed until he was on his knees again, almost level with me, leaning against the car and hitting it over and over again. Till his voice was soft, and then he laid down, next to me on the freeway, for once my eyes higher than his.
"Good find, Jen." He closed his eyes tight and breathed heavy. "Good find." We sat there for a while, him breathing and me scared, and then he helped me up and told me to "grab the goddamn gascan." That's when I relaxed. He didn't say goddamn when he was angry.
The sun was going down and my hoodie wasn't good enough. I found a scarf in tthe front seat, next to what used to be the lady. I wrapped it around my neck three times and then I dared to bother Sean. He was checking where I wouldn't.
"Can we sleep now?"
Sean didn't look up from the man's pockets. They were jeans once, the tight kind, so he was having a hard time. "Not yet. Just...yes." He drew out a pack of matches and laughed, throwing them into the lady's lap. Piled next to gum and some pictures of kids who weren't in the car. "Just a few more cars. Go on ahead."
I looked down the freeway. Chicago looked as far away as the day before, and the line of cars still went on forever. "Okay."
I felt cold and out of nowhere missed my parents so much I couldn't breathe. Then I moved, not fast, to the next car and hoped there wouldn't be any dead people.
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| Inception |
[17 Jul 2010|02:05am] |
Okay, keeping it simple:
I sat front-row and watched a waking dream. I saw the idea I once tossed out as ridiculous--a story set in dreams--done better than I could ever imagine . The concept was nonsense, but! Internally it made sense. Everything worked. Everything worked brilliantly.
All this time, I've hated my writing, hated my brain. Thought I was tapped out, thought I never had anything to begin with. Now I know different--I have something. It's in there, swimming around in my sea of dreams. I just have to find it and corral it and make it sing.
God, what would have happened if I'd sat in the back?
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[13 Jul 2010|05:49pm] |
Occasionally over the past week I've sat at bars in Wrigleyville with a notebook, a pen, and a beer and tried to write anything worth reading. And as you'd imagine it is going super great.
How do I combine immense self-loathing re: creative stagnation with total apathy re: the state of my life? I stare at the page and can't put down anything I would want anyone to see. It's not distractions, it's not lack of training, there is something fundamentally stuck in ME.
Of course the solution is brute force. I have to keep writing. But I can't escape this feeling that I have nothing, absolutely nothing, to say.
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[02 Jun 2010|05:33pm] |
Boy, I sure am boring lately, ain't I?
Nothing interesting has happened lately. Job still sucks balls, I hate not having an iphone, am nearly broke, etc.
I did go Prestige Mode in CoD, if that's worth anything. And I finally saw Iron Man 2.
Hopefully I'll have something written or at the very least something fun to discuss real, real soon. Life is tolerable in some areas, irritating/boring in others, so it doesn't exactly make for good blogging.
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[28 Apr 2010|12:13am] |
Lost my iPhone last night.
Rather, forgot my iPhone. At McDonald's. I was over there buying food for everyone at the apartment; sitting boredly while two guys in line ahead of me yammered on. Read some wikipedia entries. Suddenly it was my turn, so I must have put down the phone on the counter to order; afterwards I ended up talking with both guys while I waited, so I wasn't reading Wikipedia anymore.
My food came in two bags, so I grabbed it in both hands and sprinted the three minutes back to my apartment. I realized as I strode up to my door that my iPhone was not in my pocket. I turned and sprinted the three minutes back. The phone was gone. No employees had seen it. The two guys were gone.
I rushed back home. We called the phone 10 times. The 10th time, someone answered.
"Look, I need that phone back."
"Not today, man."
"I'll take a cab to wherever you want. I need the phone."
"Not today, man."
*click*
We text him. "I'll give you 50 for the phone."
No response.
We call him. The phone's off.
I call again today, repeatedly, between 10 AM and 1:45 PM. The phone is on, but no answer. I call when I get home from work at 9; the phone rings once then goes to voicemail. It could be out of batteries or just off. I call AT&T and Apple, who are both delightfully unable to help me locate the phone--they could have, they tell me, if I'd paid them extra for My Family Map and MobileMe, respectively.
At this point I can file a police report and then just forget about it. I can't afford a new iPhone; I couldn't even if I was eligible for discounted pricing, which I'm not. Mercifully, they will take the monthly data plan off my bill and let me buy a new, cheap phone.
Also my new job fucking sucks, I have to be there in under six hours, and I had a parking ticket this morning.
Fuck my life. Fuck your lives. Fuck the guy who stole my phone and answered it just to give me hope and now has turned it off. Fuck McDonalds. Fuck iPhones. Fuck everything forever.
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| oops |
[21 Apr 2010|07:59pm] |
Wait, I'm broke?
Not like I had a lot of savings to begin with, but man, if this is what happens when I don't get paid for a month, I'm kind of screwed. I need to stop going to bars.
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| Fog |
[31 Mar 2010|02:43am] |
I wake up and my sheets cling to me. I roll over, damp linens bunching, and kiss my wife's cheek. Slick already. I move out of the dampened bed and to the window, where our cheap seals are already cracked and leaking. I wave away a bit of seeping mist, sigh, and go to get dressed.
I'll never get used to the wet of it. Weather stripping, duct tape, goddamn tupperware, nothing keeps it out. You wake up wet. You fall asleep wet. You're wet when you climb into the shower and you're wet after you dry off.
I envy the kids born after the fog. All this is normal to them. The mold collecting everywhere, the slickers they wear every day, their daddies' special light-anywhere cigarettes that smell so much like brimstone. All facts of life.
I take my pointless shower and step into my vent beside it. Hot air blasts over my skin, fast and burning, just enough to shake the water out of my pores for a moment or two. Then it's into the wet of the apartment again, tiptoeing across sweating tiles. Hydrophobics on first, zipped tight against my skin; normal clothes next, though for what reason I no longer know. Even the nicest shirt looks like shit in the fog. A sodden tie around my neck, a dark longcoat last, and I'm ready to step out into the drowning world.
Dublin on its most Irish day, New York inside a raincloud, or just call it the wet breath of god: it still looks like the foggiest day you've ever seen in your life, and it looks like that every day, everywhere.
I take a breath. It feels heavy, seeping in my chest.
I go to work.
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thetruebard's journal