EleCivil

A friend of mine recently joined the Navy. He was in town the other day, so we (and a couple others) went out to a karaoke bar to hang out. Now, for as long as I've known him, he's always thought that it would be hilarious to get the whole group together and perform a boy band song on stage. The rest of us figured, hey, the dude's home from the Navy - we ought to indulge him. This was the day it was going to go down. So, we get a turn, and saunter up to the stage. He's already close to falling-down drunk (and he's completely tone-deaf even when he's not), so we know how great we're going to sound. As I'm stepping onto the stage, he bumps into me, and I bite my tongue. Hard. Like, broken skin hard. Honestly, it felt like I just bit off half of my tongue. It hurts like hell, but, hey - the show must go on. We get up there, and we pick the song "Bye Bye Bye" by *NSync. It was popular when we were in middle school, so we all knew it. The music starts, and I open my mouth and begin singing. There's a gasp from the audience, and in a few seconds I know why. No, it wasn't because we all suck at singing (though we do). It's because there's blood pouring from my mouth, dribbling down my chin in fairly large quantities. Needless to say, I also sounded goofy as hell, because the whole of my tongue was nearly numb with pain. In short, it may have been the most violent performance of an *NSync song, ever. A few hours later, as we're getting ready to go home, we notice that our Naval friend is missing in action. One guy goes to the restroom to see if he's in there. He comes back, laughing, and says "He's in there puking his guts out into a urinal, because some guys are smoking up in the stall." He stumbles back to the table, puts his head down, and stays in that position for the rest of the night. People at the table behind us entertain themselves by trying to bounce quarters into his exposed plumber's crack. Being sober, and therefore the designated driver, I carry him out to my car, Bride-of-Frankenstein style. Now, he hasn't been in town for quite some time, so I don't know where he's staying, and he's in no condition to tell me. Hell, he's in no position to point. I glance at the clock and see that it's two in the morning, and I think to myself: "What DO you do with a drunken sailor, Ear-ly in the mornin'?" I considered dropping him off on his grandmother's lawn. She lives close to me, so it was convenient, and it had the added bonus of making for a rather amusing story when he woke up. I decided it was a bit too cold to be leaving him on the lawn, however, and he ended up spending the night in my bathtub (because he wasn't getting anywhere near any carpets or furniture, heh). The next morning, he said "Man, that really sucked, but you know the worst part? We never got a chance to sing. That would have been funny." "We did." I replied. "What? Awww, I can't remember it!" He groans, gripping his head. "Were we good?" "There wath a lot of blood." I shrugged. "Oh. Cool." He says, looking rather confused. "Wait...why do you have a lisp, now?" "Becauthe the front forth of my tongue ith gone." "...Oh. Damn, I missed a lot." (Actually, most of my tongue is still there. It's just got a giant scab across the front. My whole mouth tastes like pennies.) "OH FUCK, MY TONGUE! WHERE'TH THE RETHT OF MY TONGUE!?" "Bye Bye Bye" by *NSync

It's begun! I'm ahead of my daily word goal, so I'm happy. I'm hoping to hit 10,000 by midnight, tonight. I know I won't be getting nearly as much writing done during the school/work week, so I'm sneaking my laptop into work on the weekends to write during down time. If you'll direct your attention to the right of this post, you'll see that I've added a word-counter-ma-bob to the side of the blog. Feel free to berate and/or badger me if you don't see the number on that thing increase for a couple of days. You can click here if you want to see my NaNo profile, story synopsis, or an excerpt (once I actually post an excerpt, that is). The coolest thing about NaNo is the community. There's a fairly large number of us in the metro area, so we meet up at the local Barnes and Noble to talk books, writing, and geek culture. If you've never tried it, there's still time to get started - you're only a day or two behind. Just check out NaNoWriMo.org, and check the forum for your regional lounge to see if there are any meet-ups happening in your area. In other news, remember that six hour long standardized test I mentioned a couple posts ago? I passed it. I've got another three hour long one coming up on the 15th. Big fun, no doubt. "Picture a scene in your mind Look at all the people and take note of the setting behind Listen, watch, and wait A plot begins to take shape..." "Storytelling" by Belle and Sebastian

I, too, am NoNo-ing this year. I don't really have a PLAN plan, but I've got a general idea of where I want to go. You now, a beginning, middle, and one of those...whatta-ya-call-em...endings! Which is way more than I had last year or the year before.The working title is "A Whisper to the City Unspeakable", but that could change if I get a pretentious-ectumy or something.Good luck!

Like I mentioned in an earlier blog, I've started writing again. It's rough going. I've never written this dark before, other than Fistfights With Flashlights (At least, I think - I wrote FWF all in one shot over the course of an hour or so, with no editing, no second draft, and I have yet to read it again). And, because of the nature of this new story, I keep putting way too much of myself into it. Every couple paragraphs, I've been stopping, thinking "Man, this is getting too personal. I've got to stop," closing the Word document, and walking away to do something else for a while. But I keep coming back. On another note, what's the deal with people and sidewalks? My college's campus is fairly open - a lot of grass and trees, with just a few sidewalks cutting through. I was walking from one side of campus to the other when I noticed that everyone else - EVERYONE ELSE - was crammed together on those little sidewalks. I was the only one crunching through the fallen leaves. The whole time, I was thinking, "C'mon, guys, if you're not going to kick through these leaves, what's the point of having trees around? Other than the whole oxygen thing, I mean." Humans are weird. I guess I still like 'em, though. They did invent non-dairy creamer, after all, and I do love some non-dairy creamer. As far as I'm concerned, mankind is redeemed. "We're going down, down, down To the bottom of everything, Just to see how dark life can get." "Down, Down, Down" by Daniel O'Sullivan

Is...is that sarcasm? I can't tell - sarcasm takes forever to load on my 26.4 Kbps connection.

Woohoo!Anyway, quick update: I accidentally wore my photo ID/name tag home from work yesterday. Seeing the opportunity, I've altered the job title section, so that instead of reading "Tutor/Proctor/Coach", it now reads "Tutor/Captain/Coach." I figure, hey, it's been a year since I've done any proctoring, but I'm the Captain right now. I wonder if anybody'll notice.

Last night, I dreamed that Michael Cera and a dude I knew in high school were fighting for my affections, after an especially well-played, small-scale prank of mine caught their attention. I ended up choosing the dude from school, which made Cera kind of jealous. Then terrorists took the building hostage, so we had to put our personal feelings aside, team up, and fight them off. Which we did. It was the best dream ever. So I wake up, realize it's a dream, and think "None of that was real. That's too bad." Then I get to work and realize that the prank that I played in the dream - a simulated bloodless coup in which I seized control of my workplace - actually did happen. Last week (this was my first day back to work since), I waited until my boss was out of the building, then printed/posted some flyers informing everyone that I was the new boss, that I was to be referred to as "captain", and that everyone needed to salute when I walked into a room. There was also a list of ten or so new rules that I'd instated, placing limits on time machine usage, changing one group's job description to "Marching in formation while playing brass instruments," and so forth. I get to work, and I hear everybody laughing about the posters, quoting lines from them, and...speculating about who could have done it. That's right, I forgot to sign my work. But, come to think of it, that makes it funnier - there have been coups, before...but have there been very many anonymous coups, where everybody stands around going "I think some guy might have seized power, but I'm not sure who it was."? The only major down side is that nobody's saluting me. Yet. "And my politic is that dancing is The only cause worth fighting for Because after the revolution, Every intersection will be a dance floor." "Stop Being So Cool and Get Silly" by Wingnut Dishwasher's Union

So, the other week, I called off work to take a six hour long standardized test. Three hours of Science, three hours of Pedagogical Theory. Fun. And I get to do it again for Language Arts in November. Here's the part that really sucks: I've been asked to play some classical guitar for my college's annual Arts Festival. However, since I'm taking all this time off of work to take these tests, I can't get off of work to go perform. Sonuvawench, right? Well, whatever. They told me I could come play next year as an alumnus. Oh, speaking of performances, I got to play the part of "Handsome Young Lover" in a one-act adaptation of "The Lady or the Tiger" performed for some middle school kids. That's right - I had to pretend to be lusting after not just one, but TWO girls. Heh. It was fun. I don't get into the drama stuff that often, but I don't mind hammin' it up on stage every now and then. In other news, I'm writing again. This time, however, I'm going to wait until I've got a fairly large chunk written before I start releasing chapters. My goal is to have a regular release schedule with this next one, rather than my old "Two chapters in a row, then four months of nothing, then another chapter, then two months of nothing, etc." schedule. SO! It'll be a while, but it's coming. "And as the spotlights fade away, And you're escorted through the foyer, You will resume your callow ways, But I was meant for the stage." "I Was Meant for the Stage" by The Decemberists

Me too. That made it tough to write the ending to this (and not just the ending, but the last couple chapters, because I knew what was going to happen). But one thing I wanted to do with this story was to completely tear up the fuzzy slippers - you know, set things up with a bunch of jokes and light-heartedness and some quick "cute" romance scenes...and then pull that rug out from under the readers and leave them feeling uncomfortable (I'll admit, though, the epilogue kind of softened the blow...I guess I'm just not ruthless enough, yet). Which is why... ...I never let the gun go off. Conflict, especially in the form of a knock-down, drag-out fight, is comfortable. We understand it. Even if the hero loses the fight, we can say "Hey, but he tried!" I didn't want that to happen. I wanted complete and total defeat. The kind of defeat that can only happen when someone's spirit is broken to the point that they don't see the point in fighting in the first place. The kind of defeat that comes from being raised to believe that your life's worth and your potential for happiness are completely at the mercy of another being, be it God or parents or lovers or subculture trendsetters or the scientists blasting you into space. One of my "alternate endings" that I was kicking around went that kind of route, but I decided against it. That kind of an ending would've left the character as some kind of a martyred saint, which isn't what I wanted. The kid had some serious issues, and getting into a relationship with his first almost-boyfriend wasn't going to solve them - in fact, it made his guilt and self-loathing a lot worse, until he finally decided that the pain of self-imposed isolation would be better than the pain of self-directed hatred. Basically, love couldn't conquer all. ...And that's why I love you guys. Group hug? No? All right. I'll be over here. (Seriously, this kind of response is awesome. Considering I was setting out to write an ending that made people unhappy and uncomfortable, this doesn't feel like a "pile-on", this feels like a love-in. Heheh.) Gears are in motion...but these particular gears are slightly misaligned, so don't expect to see anything for quite some time.

Let me just clear this up: I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the Pharmacist party. Personally, I thought of "pharcist" as "farcist" (as in, one who acts with much farce), in which case it's a perfectly accurate way to describe me. Seriously, though: No worries, Drewbie - I caught your meaning the first time around.

I read Summer of Night a couple years ago. I didn't really get into it, though. Probably because I'd just come off of my King phase, so I was kind of burnt out on the horror genre as a whole. Heh, yeah. To be honest, I wanted the climactic confrontation, too. I just couldn't see those characters doing it. Throughout the whole story, they'd spoken of the parents as a sort of force-of-nature. Whether that was true or not, they saw attempting to reason or fight against them as a lost cause. Hey, thanks again, Dabeagle. I tried to reply to your email, by the way, but it looks like it bounced - I got a message about our mail servers not agreeing with each other or something.

Same here. Except, I did read the Dark Tower: Gunslinger Born comic books. 'Cause, you know, I'm a nerd.

Hey, thanks, Dabeagle and Graeme! You made my day. It's funny you should mention Steven King - I was reading TONS of King when I was writing Leaves and Lunatics. Strip out the supernatural aspects, and stories like IT, Low Men in Yellow Coats, and even chunks of Desperation are great coming-of-age stories, and definitely helped influence L&L. Also, "whore-master" is one of my favorite swears of all time. Heh.

Not graduated yet, but I'm close. One more semester of classes, then one semester of student-teaching. So, by this time next year, I'll be done. Well, done with undergrad, anyway - I'll be going on to grad school after that, since my state requires that teachers get masters degrees. Yep - I'm majoring in Middle Childhood Education (grades 4-9), with concentrations in language arts and science. I've done field work in 2nd grade and 11th grade classrooms, but those were both kind of dull compared to the middle grades.

Heh, thanks, but I think I'm better at teaching than writing. But like Trab said, I can do both. Much appreciated, but watch where you're genuflecting in here - there's a lot of junk on the floor.

I've heard of cases like this - denial of care based on religious beliefs. I've usually seen it with regards to contraception and Plan B/the Morning After pill. http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Southwest/02/12...macy.firing.ap/ In this case, three pharmacists refused to fill a rape victim's prescription for the morning-after pill, believing that it would result in the termination of her pregnancy, which would go against their religious beliefs. According to this article, one of the pharmacists went to the back to pray and call his pastor before deciding whether or not to give the woman the medicine which her doctor had prescribed. They were fired, as this particular pharmacy's employee guidelines forbade withholding medicine for religious reasons. This is fairly common at Catholic hospitals - 50% of them refuse to give rape victims the morning-after pill, some of them even refusing to tell the patients that the pill is an option. Based on their personal religious beliefs, these doctors are refusing to provide a legal service to people who have been recently victimized. Rather than allowing the victim to choose their course of action, these doctors enforce their own religious rules on their patients. http://www.nbc10.com/news/9649699/detail.html

I came to a clearing in the woods, a small sunlit patch of rabbit-bitten blades, over which the blue was struggling through the insatiable leaves. As a branch broke under my foot, there was an explosion of birds, feathery shrieking shrapnel sent flying across the canopy gap. Further up, jets from the nearby airfield scurried across the sky, bushy tails dragging behind them. Jets, surpassing the birds in speed, size, efficiency, capacity...every category but beauty. Whispered "Why are you migrating, you jealous, straining beasts?" The birds made sense, but from the humans, no answer. Never any answer. "Where are you running, great-and-mighty self-escape artists?" And they fled from my questions, fled faster than the birds as they moved to escape the violence of my errant step. "Why do you fear me, oh self-made masters? Have you, too, mistaken me for your predator?" "Am I your predator?" Am I...

I remember reading something from a cultural anthropologist/bio-ethical/evolutionary philosopher about the idea of a universal morality. The gist was that, in order for any society to survive past a few generations, certain standards had to be met, simply because, otherwise, they would die out. These standards became "morals". The three examples he gave were the following: -Assumption of honesty, rather than constant paranoia. If everyone suspects everyone else of trying to cheat, steal, kill, or otherwise harm them, there would be no real interaction between people, meaning little to no reproduction. No interaction = no sex = no babies = no society. -Prohibition of murder. Murder must be generally considered to be undesirable. Specifics can change, culturally - what's murder? Can I kill people from another country? Another tribe? Another town? What about putting criminals to death? - but overall, if it is considered completely permissible to off anybody who annoys you, the society's going to wipe itself out. -Protection of the young. Simply enough, little kids and babies can't take care of themselves, so unless a society places importance on taking care of them, they're going to starve, wander into traffic, get carried off by wolves, etc. No babies = no future adults = no society. His basic idea was that all long-lasting societies must adhere to at least these three moral views. Those that do not get wiped out. As such, most (if not all) modern cultures follow these basic moral guidelines (or, rather, evolutionary imperatives that have been mystified into moral guidelines).

Yesterday was my birthday. I'm 22, now. Only a few more years until social security kicks in, right? I skipped class, half because it was my birthday and I wanted some time off and half because the class was going on a field trip to the zoo and I got lost on the way, and ended up spending 3+ hours driving around until I realized I had crossed state lines and was nowhere near the correct city, let alone the zoo. Yeah, my navigation skills are...non...good. On the plus side, though, I got a new music stand and some new (nylon) guitar strings for my birthday. Just in time for a show next Monday. New nylon strings = like the sangin' o' the angels themsalves. The summer semester ends in a couple weeks, so I'm preparing to go into final exam/project insanity mode. You'd think after the previous 8 semesters, I'd've learned to NOT put everything off until the last minute, but...nope. I'm resilient in my procrastinatin' ways. I had to read Nineteen Minutes for a lit class. UGH. Avoid like the plague. It reads like a Lifetime Original Movie ™. Little Brother was awesome, though (thanks for the suggestion, WriteByThySelf). Anyway, once I'm out of school, I should be able to find some time to write, again. My next semester's going to be easy - It's my last semester of on-campus classes, so it consists of all the random classes that I never got around to taking. I should have plenty of time to get creative with myself (that's not innuendo). "Now I know what I was born to do - I was born to hang out with you!" "Birthday Song" by Captain Chaos

James Howe is cool. I haven't read this one, but Joe/JoDan is also a side character in another of Howe's books, The Misfits, which I definitely recommend. Also, Howe was the editor of 13: Thirteen Stories About the Agony and Ecstasy of Being Thirteen, which is a collection of short stories (and one poem) by a bunch of big-name childrens'/young adult book authors (a couple of which involve characters questioning/discovering their sexuality).

I suggest www.awesome.d?d, because not only is it awesome, but it enco?rages ?se of the ?mlaut, which is q?ite ?nderrated. I'd like it on record that I realize that most of those umlauts were used incorrectly, but that I do not care. Grammar is, after all, just another one of your "systems," man.

Test results, today. Bad news - I'm gonna keep on tickin', so it looks like I'll have to actually do that pile of homework that's been building up next to...that other pile of homework that's been building up. The doc says I'm good. Apparently, the chest pain was left over inflammation from that case of e-Syph...er, strep, that I'd had earlier. The arrhythmia is harmless. All it does is make my pulse speed up and slow down a little at random intervals, rather than holding a steady beat. That's right. My heart's a nonconformist. It pulsates to the beat of it's own...um, beat. ...Should have seen that one coming, actually. "A rebel's embrace shall give us a taste Of truth that is masked by a sly poker face. A spirit is well and alive... Live and we will survive." "A Rebel's Romance" by Mischief Brew

So, I got out of school last week. Looks like I'm still maintaining a 4.0. I started summer semester this week. I need to take five classes over the summer and 5 over the fall to graduate on schedule. I've never taken a full load over the summer, before. It's insane. All the summer classes are accelerated - a whole semester's worth of work, compressed into ten weeks. Papers and projects and gobs of reading due every day. One of my classes is double-accelerated - two four hour long classes a week, with all the work squeezed into five weeks. Matt Lauer, it's the first week, and I'm already behind on work. My summer classes: Theoretical Approaches to Reading and Writing Teaching Reading Through Literature to Young Adolescents Integration of the Arts in Education Introduction to Theological Studies Spanish Guitar 2 Heh. You can tell I'm nearing the end of my degree - most of the classes have really long names. Also, on the chest-bursting front, I went in to get an EKG. As I'm checking in, they ask for my religious preference. In case I need a quick funeral or something, I guess. I tell them I'm a Druid (reformed, not orthodox). Some samples of dialog from the preparations leading up to the event, as I was lying nearly nude across a table: Nurse: "You look kind of tense." (*squirts goo all over my chest and begins to stick electrodes to me*) Me: "I don't do this very often." Nurse: "I do!" Me: "Is it more fun on your end?" Nurse: "Oh, yes. Hey, your ribs are too bony, I can't get this thing to stick. Speaking of which, when I take these off, it's going to rip out a bunch of your leg hair." Me: "...Neat." Then they get to the actual EKG part. It's the same technology used for ultrasounds, to see babies while they're inside the womb. Which gives credence to my "incubating an alien" theory, I think. Anyway, they stick this dealie to my chest, and I can see my heart on the screen. It's incredibly detailed - I can see all the little valves opening and closing, the different parts pumping and flexing. The sound is amplified, too, so I'm clearly hearing the funny "squish-POP-thump" and thinking "Holy hell, that's the thing that's keeping me alive." Weird experience, over all. I get to find out the test results next Friday. "And hearts aren't made of glass, They're made of muscle, blood, and something else. And they don't so much as break as bend and tear, But we have what it takes to keep it together." "Bikes and Bridges" by Defiance, Ohio

Nope, I'm not taking anything.Ah, well. If my chest explodes, cool. If not, even better.

"We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering."-Viktor Frankl, from "Man's Search for Meaning""Here's to our lives being meaningless! And how beautiful it is, because freedom doesn't have a purpose."-Johnny Hobo and the Freight TrainsAny way it comes.