"come join the youth and beauty brigade"

I suppose a person can be stricken with nostalgia over anything, in the end. Sometimes, when I look at the MSU bell-tower, little used and graven with words like "love," "peace," and so on -- these never fail to remind me of the four ministries of 1984, like the Ministry of Peace (Miniwar) -- or see the jagged winter shadows slathered across the single street of campus, I sometimes miss the old worm-ridden place.

I was miserable there, you know. The classes were no different than my high school's, and the people acted much the same. I drove home every Friday, in the very late afternoon, and returned from home around the same time, to dilly-dally in my tiny room with my reticent roommate taking space before his computer. Sometimes I miss those drives, the familiar road that I can still navigate, years after transferring, better than any route in Richmond.

And all because it was long ago, I sometimes think. We can miss a great deal, us silly little humans, bags of meat and synapse, if we put enough temporal distance between us.

I guess I'm writing this because I'm not looking forward to moving into my small little flat, away from campus and its illusions of life and light. I see water-stained browns and light-crushing dim off-whites when I think of the apartment, and I'm surprised every time I go in it and see the fresh white paint. More than the place I'm going to, where I'm leaving is what's important here. I really do like my home, here, closed in by hills and the warped mass of trees grown large on the swells of hill and, if you'll pardon the humor, dell. I tend to miss the walks along the road, peering at rock-sunning lizards, deer in the evenings, and the shattered remnants of stray dogs that limn the road every summer, a swelter of hot stink in June and a crumbled, scattered mass of bone in August. I like pressing beyond each turning of the road and enjoying each vista of distant neighbors and river current as they open up.

I like the quiet, and the distance that allows me to be as loud as I'd like, at almost any time of day or night. There's a power in wild blackberry bushes; they grow over our rotting, out-of-use coal pile, sitll slathered with shards of black, under the mass of growth.

Even the figure of my younger cousin, invariably white-shirted in summer, mowing everyone's yard (family's, actually, but that's just about everyone in sight here) under his straw hat, amuses me. He's twenty-one (I'm shocked to find), and still doesn't have a driver's license, as his parents worry over the insurance costs. At least, that's what they say. I never take advantage of it, but I could probably show up in the evening, every so often, and they'd feed me.

I'm wistful as my break -- possibly my last scholastic summer holiday -- winds toward its death, and I suppose this is a love letter to it, and my home, and the rolling days of summer. I never really see anyone in the summer; it stretches, usually, as a mass of lonesome days, my parents leaving around noon, and then the day's all mine. I write, poke around the internet, and take up whatever project I find myself intrigued by. Last year, about this time, I was carving a gandr and wrapping it in green runes. This year I've been knitting. Both summers I've spent a little time cataloguing books -- more last summer than this, though. I read, obviously, and watch a little television. I sit through weather, every year, until that same moment in July when I turn the air conditioner on of my own volition, the air of the house wheezing and gasping under the heat of poor ventilation.

After a few weeks, like every year, I'll begin to enjoy my schooling again. I'll probably acclimate to whatever rigours this new job has for me, hack out a sleeping schedule that keeps me alive, and in short, deal. But for now this is my tiny little tower-top of ivory and bone, wavering against the pressing tides down below. It still offers a spectacular view, I must say.

"this ride is gonna be rough / this meat is gonna be tough"

Writing's been more of a struggle today. I'm still not sure where everything's headed, though the first bits are fairly clear in my mind. I thought, as I couldn't possibly finish before school starts anyway, that I would be a little more footloose with the whole thing. I still need to work out the destination, though, or I'll just freeze, not being able to make decisions, as I don' t have enough info. Anyway, I thought I'd paste some stuff from today up here -- this shouldn't happen every day (hell, I dunno if I'll be able to work on it every day after school starts), but it seems like a laugh. This is nearly half my day's work:

~~~

Derik had a hand in someone's pocket – he couldn't tell whose it was, as he'd thrust his arm past several people to reach this haven for money and, apparently, large wads of lint. The idea was for the mark to blame any sensation on the press of folks behind him, and they were rousting about, craning necks and doffing caps in efforts to see the fight. Derik could hear a stomach-contracting sort of rustle-bang pattern, with intermittent wet, sploshy-thud sounds. The lady keeping Derik and his mark from ever meeting was bouncing on her slippered feet, ribbons waving about. The smell of citrus and rose-water plumed up and gagged Derik.

Really, he only had his hand in that pocket for a moment. Every cracksman and cly-hander knew not to overstay a welcome, no matter how long they might caper in a friend's doorway after several drinks. So it was just worse luck, then, that the something that had been blocked from Derik's sight as it approached on the other side of Maitesse and Scrivener's goosed him at that particular moment.

“Derik,” this goosing person said, voice full of the sort of gaiety and energy usually reserved for glad-handing politicians and madmen, “it's been too long, you horrible thief!”

This collection of words was delivered, much to the aid of Derik's building apoplexy, as his desired victim turned about and tried to push his face and arms through the crowd – Derik couldn't figure out which he worried about more: fists or recognition. The goosing hand balled up in Derik's grey shirt and pulled him backwards, then it turned him around.

The sky, Derik noticed, really is nice and blue today, with just a few of those dark clouds tooling around. The breeze is pleasant, and isn't throwing the smell of blood and fighting toward me right now. It really doesn't seem like a day tailor-made to kill me, does it?
He finally let his eyes focus on the person that had jarred him in the middle of his delicate money-making activities. She was taller than him by half a foot, wore expensive clothes in yellow and orange, and had her free arm tucked into her chest in a practiced way that lifted her bosom up and forward. Derik would have hacked and sputtered at this, except it was so damn familiar.

“Danielle,” he said, voice low, hissing, and vibrating toward the kind of high-pitched tension that usually signals the snapping of a violin string, “are you trying to get me killed?”

"I came from Wales, a soldier I was sworn"

This is just a bit of random fluff, but...

I've been reading in several LiveJournals of folks about something called BPAL. I had no clue what in hell's teeth it was, except people were getting it in their mail? Well, someone finally linked to it, and it's actually short for Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. They make strange perfumes and colognes. Now, I rarely use cologne -- I have one bottle that a cousin bought for me years ago, when I was still in high school. I've used it maybe four times. But some of these things they're selling sound interesting, and (this is important) rather old-fashioned. It helps that many of them allude to mythology and the like.

Some of you might know this company, so do you have any recommendations? They have a whole line based on Alice in Wonderland, including the Mad Hatter and the Dormouse. They also have one called Villain, which is billed as, essentially, a Victorian cologne they've brought back. I've been trying to become more conscious of crap like this, and I thought I should go with the strange and peculiar if anything.

They also have one commemorating the area of London where most of the Ripper murders took place.

"if your child ain't all he should be now / this girl can put him right"

I thought I would post the first page of what I started today -- it's theoretically another novel about our favorite half-fey, all panicky bastard, Derik. I did around 1200 words today; this is just the first 230.

Floren's streets, wavering drunkards of city planning that they were, had filled to the curbs with people, citizens and visitors alike. This made a perfect venue for what Derik liked to call “sidewalk shopping,” and what was, in effect, his habit of running his fingers and hands into the pockets of other people.

Winter was dead, said the crazy old man on the corner, Slim Jackal Sandy, and everyone agreed, even while they burrowed through the crowds to avoid his special fragrance. Slim wasn't one to bathe, and his beard – patchy rough in some places and dangly grown in others – tended to put people off their meals. What he meant, though, was that the sky had finally slipped its grey-shod weeds and bought some blue finery. The air still had some hints of winter; the wind could crack as well as caress, and the slightly stale, dead scent of hibernation still clung to bough and borough alike.

The citizens of Floren took this as a promising sign, and had burst from their doors that morning, ready to begin a day of cheerful shopping, taxation, trading, mugging, assassination, plotting, brawling, and dandification. This contrasted with the winter days only in that during the colder months, citizens tended to sidle from their doors on their way to these activities, clutching at their coats and cloaks with gloved hands, and cursing the weather before their brethren, rather than after.

"crooked was the path, and brazen was the walk"

So, I wrote 2844 words today. I finished the short story I started last week -- I wrote over half of it today, that 2844 words. Keep in mind, I'm used to shooting for 1000 words per day. I'm impressed, at least.

I just wish I could keep this up when school started, because I'm finally getting ideas to congeal for another novel, featuring that lovable (well, not hateful) Derik, thief of many panic-attacks.

Maybe I should give him one of those stereotypical fantasy names, and it would be Derik the Panicky, or Derik the Easily Panicked. I should probably sit on that until I come up with a more descriptive version, but something along those lines.

Let me say, though, that this latest story isn't funny. Not really at all. I was mean to characters, actually, and it feels kinda good.

"I was meant for derision"

There are certain things I can't let pass without spreading them as far as I can. These are some of those:

From Gmail's little RSS thing: "practical" personal blimps. Well, finally. I was bitching, just last night, about how I've always felt we abandoned blimps too soon, because some Nazi idiot thought it would be a good idea to use hydrogen instead of helium (it's possible they had no choice, I don't care).

Seriously, blimps could provide a reasonably inexpensive transport method within certain distances. I wouldn't want to cross the Atlantic in one, as it would take quite a while, but would I take one from Louisville to Cincinatti (connecting flight #1 for my Britain trip last year)? Hell yeah. They could hit 80mph back in the Hindenburg days, and don't have to bother about road turns, you see.

Straight to BoingBoing: "Only Traitors try to make us afraid of terrorists. There's quite the set of arguments, ranging from statistical to practical, claiming we shouldn't be reacting the way we are to terrorists. View, and be enlightened.

Again from BoingBoing: SciFi Channel is hosting the first episode of a cartoon called "The Amazing Screw-On Head." They're actually taking comments from viewers, and if enough like it, they'll commission the entire series. That's quality TV service. I'm gonna check out the episode as soon as I'm back in high-speed land. Anyway, it's a steampunk with a secret agent reporting to Abraham Lincoln.

I ganked this from a v. old post in Lynch's LiveJournal: A picture from the Mars rover that's a little better than five feet away. Seriously, they tooled the rover up a hill and took a breath-taking (literally, if you're a nerd like me) picture of Mars.

"digest the poop and sell the poop on ebay"

I've been reading through the archives of Scott Lynch's LiveJournal, and I found an interesting meme I can use to embarrass myself: The Opening Lines Meme.

If you want to do it as well, just put in the first line (just the first!) of any current writing projects you have lying around.

Lynch's can be found here

So here's mine (some of the titles are working placeholders, not things I would ever, ever allow an editor to see in a submission):

The Opening Line Meme:

"The Nap-Time of Fate"
It all started when the leaves turned up their shiny backs and, still
green and fresh, leapt from the trees in great, spiraling bodies.

"Bernard and the Shine of Honor"
It's normal, or so I understand, to take life lessons away from horrible circumstances.

"Raiders of the Defaulters"
Telones was a solid man, in several senses of the word.

"Bernard and the Rape of the Tock"
It was a momentous day, I'm told.

A Serendipitous Formula
Derik, our erstwhile protagonist, slept the day away in a dingy little flat above Burning Ridge's half-busy street.

"you better you better you bet"

Well, I finished reading The Lies of Locke Lamora last night, and it was excellent. Probably the best book I've read this year. If you know me, you could have predicted this -- it's about a group of thieves in a fantasy setting, and I adore fantasy thieves, from Garrett (Thief video games) to my own lame-ass, Derik.

This book is definitely up there, in my library, with Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. My final reactions were different, though. Norrell stunned me, like a punch to the kidneys. I seized for a few moments after reading it, as autumn tinkled away outside. I couldn't conceive of ever writing as well as Clarke, and the turns of phrase I could remember haunted me. Some still do, like all the references to "behind the rain." It's such a simple idea that I could never have come up with. I specialize, apparently, in over-complex crap.

Lamora, on the other hand, galvanized me. I wish I had finished it during the day, instead of just before bed, because I wanted to write, desperately wanted to write. It forced me to finally think about my second novel, especially as I've been having doubts recently as to whether or not to send my first novel around to agents. I guess I should, I mean, it's written and all. I don't think I'll ever do what Lynch did, but his fantastic stuff didn't oppress me. And I'm finally going to try and get off my ass and get some notes down about my city, Floren, so I'm not just using it as a backdrop. I made some good efforts after reading about Lankhmar, and maybe now I'll take it the rest of the way.

Also, I've never heard/seen/read anyone, not even Lewis Black, use "fuck" better than Lynch. Crazy.

Oh, and Lynch has a Livejournal he keeps up better than I keep my pair of blogs.