An Update

Hello ladies!!!!

Cerasi is no longer the only poster. I have spent the past week going through all your awesome posts. From flash fiction to zombie survival guides to Tyrion joining I have read them all. I have decided not to comment on all of them because I do not think you'd appreciate me filling up your inboxes to the brim with 'you rock' or 'lol.' Another reason for not commenting on all of them is that it I am going to be posting some new creative non fiction for you guys.

It's been a LONG 9 months since I began campaigning. There have been highs and lows but now I must look to the future. Love you all.

And as we always say: Let's skype!
Cylon

For Jedis Only

It's nothing too bad, but it isn't something I want the whole wide world of the internet. Also, why am I the only one posting? Fix that!

Hey Look! A Poem!

I'd feel bad about posting twice in one day . . . if we posted more. But we don't, so I don't. E and I went to a poetry reading today which was great. I actually wrote this a couple of days ago, but it's been on my mind and I want to share. Please enjoy.

Not Quite Moriarty

Villains, in real life,

are completely boring.

I was prepared for dastardly plans,

Mustache twirling highbrow egomaniacs-

their goals lofty, their devices fowl, yes, but with a kind of

deadly elegance.

Real life villains employ manipulation

To get out of parking tickets,

they play with the lives of others

by planning the work schedules in a way

that favor some more than others.

Devious energy I can handle,

But not neediness,

and contempt,

and blatant, blatant stupidity that I am

forced to endure while their

clumsy machinations fail to enchant me with their

complete transparency.

I never thought I would be so disappointed

in the nature of evil.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part II, Our National Nightmare Ends

In my defense, the last movie I saw before this was Life of Pie which is an excellent movie and which I recommend you see right away and in 3D. Maybe I'll write a review of that another time because it's definitely worthy of one.

Until then, I have to share this experience with all of you because I think you'll appreciate it.

I convinced my friend M to go see this with me. She hadn't seen any of the movies or read the books and I had only seen Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse because, well, Redbox exists, so neither of us really knew what was going on. Before the movie started, M turned to me and, in jest, said, "This better be good or I want my money back." I turned back and said, "Oh, it won't be. Did I not make that clear?"

Though I was disappointed to learn that I had missed all the good baby-attempting-to-eat-Bella-during-her-pregnancy-and-then-ripping-out-of-her-v-jay-jay action, there was still plenty of bad to go around in this convoluted conclusion to our nationally revered abstinence porn.

The plot of this movie is stupid, but here's quick recap, Edward and Bella have their darling baby Renesmee (snicker, snicker) and Bella has just turned into a vampire but doesn't have problems with munching on humans because she's awesome like that. Then some random, blonde vampire chick from another movie that I don't know sees Edward, Bella, Renesmee, and Jacob (Renesmee's babysitter/future husband because wtf?) frolicking in a meadow. Random blonde chick immediately jumps to the conclusion that Bedward turned a random girl into a vampire and rushes to the Voltari (because that's a crime). The Voltari say they'll kill her right away, but then wait like five months because, I don't know, maybe there's more of a legislative process to the Voltari then we get to see? Like they have to filibuster the idea and get it passed through the Voltari house and senate or something?

In the end, Bedward gathers all these random vampires to share the story that Renesmee isn't immortal, she's just like half vampire and has some powers that we don't really know about because no one bothers to explain it and makes no sense anyway. But then the Voltari show up anyway and then they . . . talk a lot. And then they have a fight which didn't really happen because it was just Alice's vision. And then the movie ends.

What struck me most about this movie, other than the surprising amount of beheadings from this previously tame cinematic romp, and other than a line where Bella screams, "You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness monsters!" which made a hilarious amount of NO SENSE to anyone who didn't see the previous movie, is just how much it sounds like everything I wrote when I was twelve.

Let's do a check list, shall we?

1. Stupid character names that have no relation to each other. (Carlisle? Jasper? Renesmee? Does Smeyer use babynames.com too?)
2. Giving the main character too many powers to make them super awesome to the point of ridiculousness. (Bella can control her hunger and she's a "Shield" which means she can cancel out all other vampire powers.)
3. Taking a genre with a long history and making up stupid rules. (Vampires can only die from fire/beheading? They don't have laws about killing random people all the time but freak out when you turn one baby? Half vampire babies age until they're seven and then stop forever? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?)
4. Stupid love story with other love interest that obviously was never going to get the girl.

Seriously, number one kills me. There aren't enough synonyms in the English language, or in any language, to properly quantify the stupidity of the name Renesmee. I once wrote a story set in the magical medieval ages with a character named named Julie who went by "Dagger", so I know stupid character names when I see them.

But, the absolute worst part of this movie is the end. I mean, we finally FINALLY get a decent fight scene in this vampire trilogy (quadrology?) that I sort of cared about a little bit. I mean, Carlisle gets his head ripped off, Dakota Fanning gets all killed and stuff, and some werewolves that I didn't know because they stayed in wolf form the entire damn time died. That was kind of sad and emotionally affecting  Then, after it's all over, we zoom in to Alice touching the lead Voltari's face and realize it was all a vision. It's the worst narrative technique ever, it really is. You don't want to make a portion of your story null and trick your audience in the same breath.

THEN we have a random half-vampire baby from the Arctic or some shit show up and say that he aged until he was seven and is currently 150 years old. WTF? Do the Voltari really have that limited control and knowledge of their world? Shouldn't they have known that Renesmee wasn't a turned child? Shouldn't they have acted before like ten months passed? Goddamn! Why isn't this called Deus Ex Machina: The Movie.

Anyway, this movie sucks, but it's fun to see with someone whose as lost and baffled by it as you. I recommend waiting until it gets to the cheap seats. (There's a cheap seat theater near where I live that sells beer. That would be ideal.)

However, if they ever decide to make a spin off series called The Voltari Doing Badass Evil Things, I hope the creative team will give me a call because I would like to write them a screenplay. No kidding, the Voltari are my favorite characters. Watching them behead people is less puke inducing then Bedward's bizarrely chaste sex scenes. (Oo, Bella's face, Edward's thighs, and feet at the end of the bed. Hott.)

My 12-year-old self gives this movie 3 stars. Only three though, because I've never written a lead female character that was that useless . . . or that boring.

Quick.

It happened quickly.  That’s what would be said.  After it was over.  It happened so quickly. 

Quick.  Too bad those quick moments won’t ever leave.  Too bad they keep replaying.  But they do.  Quickly.

It was raining.  Pouring, really.  And there was lighting.  In the dark of a sky just past twilight, it looked like the strobe light at a dance party.  Except more erratic. 

Driving in the rain is like asking for something to go wrong.  Especially when driving up a windy hill on a road that’s too narrow.  Already know what’s gonna happen, right?

Sure.

But there’s something to be said of accidents.  People just can’t look away.

Work ran late today.  Hurry home.  In the rain.  Tried to beat the rain.  But outrunning weather is like trying not to hit roadkill.  Pointless.  Messy.  And really bad for the car.

So close to home.  But there’s this section of road that goes up the bluff.  That was never designed for the recent influx of traffic.  That’s dangerous enough when only one car is on it.

This part of the drive is always dreaded.  But it’s so close to home, it hardly matters.  Already thoughts of what’s going on at home.  Dinner cooking.  Favorite TV shows to watch after.  A glass of wine and a cozy blanket. 

The song on the radio lulls senses into false security.  The car turns and begins the ascent it won’t finish.  Singing along loudly to the radio.  Drowning out the patter of rain.  Ignoring the bright flashes of the storm.  And trying to ignore the stark light of the oncoming cars. 

Then there’s a pair of lights that’s coming too close.  That’s in the wrong lane.  That’s-

When this part replays, it’s still fuzzy.  Except for the churning stomach.  And the shock that courses through every nerve ending.

There’s a rushing feeling.  And hardness. That’s the glass and steering wheel.  But is the rushing rain or blood?   It’s hard to tell. 

Lights are still flashing.  They soon become red and blue. 

It happened so quickly.

Spit-take

I've been working with this advertising agency and it's been harder than I thought. I'm not an ad copy writer or even a PR writer and it's going to take longer than I thought to adjust. The good news is the guy I'm working for is really sweet and willing to work with me because he really wants to have content creators he can rely on. Okay, it does make me feel like a twelve year old at times (especially because I got this gig because my mom knew him, but I did submit a portfolio and shit, so I deserve it, right?), but I should just take it.

Anyway, we were talking about payment for my first piece. Earlier he had mentioned that their on staff writer makes $40/hour and that another one of their regulars makes $30/hour. They're all older than me and have been in the business longer, so I was kind of hoping to make like $20/hour or something. We had a kind of roundabout discussion about payment today and finally he asked.

Is $30 an hour okay for?

Followed by.

How about I pay you a $200 flat rate for your first piece. (Because with the hourly rate it was less than that.)

Is that okay with me? Is that OKAY with me? Motherfucker, last time I got paid for an article I had to hound the magazine for three months and they sent me a check for $60 in a blank card from Hallmark with a WOLF on the front. A motherfucking wolf. Yeah, that's okay with me.

I realize that I'm woefully under-informed about what freelancers get paid and maybe I'm still being taken advantage of. (Should probably do some research or whatever.) I knew that $60 for my last gig was low, but hot damn.

Maybe it is possible to make it as a writer. Maybe I can move out of my parents house in the next month. Maybe a lot of things. Despite the fact that this is not the kind of writing I wanted to do, and I really don't have the hang of it, but I'm hopeful this place is going to work out for me.

Yeah, baby, we can swing that.

Glee Drinking Game

No, this is nothing creative. I'll try to post something for the last day of FlaFiOcto. I had E and M over last night (it's been a while since I've used the single initial, god do I feel like I'm in  Gossip Girl), and we played a Glee Drinking Game. I thought I'd post it here for those Glee lovers/haters among us. (Sorry Ada, but you can play too if you want.) The bad thing about this game is I end up getting SO MAD at the writers and cursing at the TV with abandon. Oh well!


Glee Drinking Game

Take a drink when . . .

• Anyone starts singing.
• Sue Sylvester insults Will Schuster.
• Anyone fulfills their stereotype.
• Someone makes a bad decision.
• They use the word "sectionals" or "regionals."
• Santana says something mean.
• Will Schuster patronizes his girlfriend.

Watch Glee responsibly! We all know overexposure to Glee can lead to latent rage syndrome.

Zombie Apocalypse Plan - Part 3

Part 1
_ Incubation _
http://padawansofwriting.blogspot.com/2012/01/zombie-apocalypse-plan-revised.html

Part 2
_ Accumulation _
http://padawansofwriting.blogspot.com/2012/01/zombie-apocalypse-plan-accumulation.html


Part 3

_ Aggravation _

FFOct24 - Flash Fiction 7

Girl Meets Mess

There was this man, and that’s always how the trouble starts. There was this man, and I fell from the edge of space to the bad part of my mind where everything always gets so complicated. There was this man, and I didn’t love him.

Well, not exactly.

Love gives you strength. Love is your rock. Love stands by you when you break down at the grocery store and say that the soup aisle reminds you of everything your mother always said was wrong with you. This was not that.

It started innocently enough. He rear-ended my friend. On his motorcycle. Never seen anyone fly over the hood like that, but he got right back up.

“Fuck,” was the first word I ever heard him utter. “What the hell were you doing?”

Standing still at a red light was the answer to that question. It was mostly the head trauma.

My friend, who is good at this type of thing, calmly informed him that he was as bright as a baboon’s rear end and also offered to drive him to the hospital and asked would he please give us his insurance information. He declined, paying us out of pocket with a mysterious wad of twenties, and then speeding off. I would later run into him at the grocery store and then my anarchist book club. God, what’s a girl to do?

Soon it became obvious to me that he was a little unstable. At my anarchist book club (really we just read dystopian sci-fi that you’d find in any top 100 reading list for the American middle schooler) he got into ridiculous fights. He said that JFK was killed by Russian terrorists. He said that Diet Pepsi caused more cancer than cigarettes and that the FDA was a load of horseshit. He also said that car owners were the worst plague to every blight mankind.

Naturally, I was taken with him. That is until later. We started to go out together, my anarchist book club, and he got into three fist fights in less than a week. One was over a stolen parking spot and the second came at the end of a shouting match during a contentious dart game.

The last was with one of our fellow book club members over whether or not the idea of God could be proven true with empirical data. Telling you which side of the argument he was on will not give you a better idea of anything.

I started sneaking peeks at him. Then I started researching him on the internet. Then I started slowly inserting myself in his life, and it was all well and good until he started to notice my interest.

It turns out that the only thing worse than being spurned by an impossible crush is being intrigued by one. He started to ask me out to movies, shows, and bars. I cleverly dodged, but it was hard to keep it up for long.

Then, one night, I was describing the hardships of my ill-gotten amore to the same friend who was present at the time of the rear ending. She was smoking a joint at the time, but still gave me the single greatest insight I’d ever received.

“Do you think it’s possible that the reason you like him is because you don’t think you deserve any better?”

All that time I thought I was torturing myself for fun, but sometimes stabbing yourself in the thigh is just a way of avoiding the fact that your jeans no longer fit you properly.

There was this man, and that’s always how the trouble starts. Then there was this woman, and, for once, that was me. It was only when I realized how awful I was being to myself that I could finally stop staring at his thighs when we discussed 1984. Which was good, because his musings on A Brave New World were pedestrian at best.

Not FlaFiOcto :(

But I'm sure I'll write something on the eight billion hour train ride I'm about to undertake to visit Allya. Until then, I just wanted to leave you with this insane little ditty I came across in the poetry I've been writing off and on.

Pranked

Darling, have you noticed?

I’ve been wearing your skin,
all day.

What madcap
hijinks we get up to
when I forget
to be
human!

Flash Fiction 6

The first time it hurt. The second time was just confusing. The third, well, by then I was getting used to losing myself.

Rage-ometrics. A half joke and half-truth, neither part amusing or factual. My partner used to say that I was more emotion than woman. Not so much human and much more whirlwind of interpersonal destruction.

He was not wrong, but neither was he kind. That friendship would end badly with one of us wielding an ice pick with intention to harm. Telling you which was which would paint an unfair advantage for the other, so I will not reveal it at this time.

It was never my intention to become super human. Here the prefix “super” is defined very strictly by its Latin origins. Above and beyond. More than. Not just a woman anymore. Too many bits to be quite normal.

Once I knew I was no longer like everyone else though, I wore it with style. There are things you don’t let yourself do when you want to blend it. Haircuts that are shied away from. Leather jackets unbought. Body parts unpierced and untattooed. Once I knew I wasn’t normal, I let it all go. I took up three bad habits, but dropped two of them because hard drugs and sex with strangers wasn’t as much fun as I predicted.

I kept the cigarettes.

My partner always used to say I kept the masses nice and safe and ignorant while shielding them from the truth. Never mind that I stopped mass genocide, he had to fixate on the lie. The harm done by untelling.

He always was a cynic, and arrogant to boot. Hypocrite. I was taking on the sins of humanity, not him. It wasn’t him risking his neck. Unkind. As I said. I almost feel bad for going after him with that ice pick. (And here I said I wasn’t going to tell that story.)

In the end though, hollowing myself out was always the hardest part. As much as he made me crazy, he always called me back. Without him, it became harder to hold on to the me-ness. I started wanting to break things all the time, and not just the things I was supposed to break.

But it’s okay, because it wasn’t long after that I discovered the way to keep doing the indispensable task that was eating away at me. This is a universal trick that will surely help not just the above and beyond humans like myself (saving the world one batch of unfelt emotions at a time) but the ignorant masses as well. As such, I will reveal it here.

Every person has the ability to sacrifice ourselves for the greater good, the selfishness to resist, and the good sense to pick when and where we make our final stand. Pick the hill you die on with care. The one I chose is filled with pests and weevils and ingrates. The only reason I don’t abandon it is because I love it so terribly much.

Every time I go, I get a little closer to losing myself, but every time I return I remember why I can’t. Rage-ometrics. Not funny. Not true. But me. At least, for as long as I can hang onto it.

Code:

Code: blue.  Heart hospital.  Fourth floor.  Room 2071.

It repeats.

I pretend like I can't hear.  Like the quietly playing NCIS on the small TV in the upper corner of the room is much louder and drowns out the sound.

Code: blue.  Heart hospital.  Fourth floor.  Room 2071.  For the third time.

Or like the book in my hand is so interesting, so engaging I can't even hear anything.

But I hear it.

And I'm glad we aren't on the fourth floor.


We are on the first.  Surgery wing.  He's in the bed.  Waiting for a minor procedure.

Sure.  Minor.  Because when they stick this little thing that connects to your blood vessel so that they can administer chemo without poking you, without trying however many times it takes to find a vein, because you'll get chemo every two weeks for six months, when they stick that little triangular thing that is as thick as a stack of quarters called a power port into the muscle in your chest, it's pretty minor.  It'll just be minor sedation.  An IV knockout.  Not the gas.  With anesthetic shots in the area.

It's no big deal.  It's not like a bowel resection using a DaVinci procedure that turns you upside down and uses four small incisions and some huge machine operated by your surgeon to cut out part of your intestine and a tumor and 22 lymph nodes, one of which is cancerous.  That was five weeks ago.


I guess it is fairly minor.  I wait in the prep room with him longer than it takes for the whole thing to be over.  It takes longer in that small room where I hear, maybe twenty minutes after it sounded the first time:

Code: blue.  Heart hospital.  Fourth floor.  Room 2071.

It's only repeated once this time.


I'm finished eating my $5.50 omlette, with spinach and peppers from the hospital cafeteria where I go after he's taken out of the prep room, when the beeper buzzes.  This beeper, that looks like one of those things you get a restaurant like Olive Garden, tells me I need to go speak to the ladies at the desk where we checked in.  I have an update.

I have two conflicting emotions.  One in the pit of my stomach.  Update?  How did it go?  But before that line of thought can go much further, my humor sets in.  I look at the beeper.  How bad could it be? My table is ready.

And there is nothing bad when I get to the desk with the nice ladies in colorful scrubs.  He's going to his recovery room.  I get a slip of paper and instructions.


I arrive as he's wheeled into the room.  The doctor comes in, does some explaining, hands me the script for more pain pills.  Obviously still groggy, he tells the doctor a joke.  What did the driver say to the one-legged hitchhiker?

Hop in!

It takes the doctor a few seconds to get it.  But he laughs.  He must be feeling fine if he's cracking jokes.  Especially the one he got me to tell on joke day in preschool.

The nurse goes over things, and after crackers, water and a percocet, he's ready to be wheeled to my car.  I leave to pull it around.

I'm walking through the automatic sliding doors, when I wonder if the person in room 2071 coded again.

I didn't hear anything after that second time.

But that could be good.

Or worse.

It's October 3rd

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mba4d591GC1qg462ao1_500.gif

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mba4d591GC1qg462ao2_500.gif

Tyrion Lannister is a Big Dumb Poopy Butt Whose Butt Smells Like Poop and is Full of Poop

What's with the title you ask? I'm just checking to make sure our dear Tyrion is reading since he hasn't POSTED ANYTHING!!!!! (Btw, if the fact that he's using his gmail account means that he can't for some reason I don't understand about Blogger, I take that title back in its entirety.)

Now, what was the reason I came on POW again? It wasn't just to talk about Tyrion's poopy butt. Oh yes, that's it.

I propose a writing challenge!

As you know, one of our biggest challenges in writing as a group is, uh, not writing anything. Or posting anything specifically to this blog. The other day my mom was telling me about this flash fiction contest on NPR (which is over now) and I got this idea. Since we all know November is NaNoWriMo, why not utilize October in a similar way?

Ladies and gentlemen(man?), it's time for the October flash fiction writing contest!

Flash Fiction October (FlaFiOcto?)

The rules: Write one piece of flash fiction (let's say between 150-1,000 words, we'll apply a pretty liberal use of the term "flash fiction") per day. It doesn't have to be good, it doesn't have to be spelled correctly, it just has to be often. (The rules can be modified for Cylon who has no time to do anything ever-maybe write flash fiction if you ever feel like you're head is about to explode. Or maybe, write flash fiction once this month. Sorry Cylon, the timing of this contest is not kind. I know.)

The goal: Come out of this month with a few little snippets of great writing. Not to mention the fact that this will push us to write more. I once met a poet from the Writers' Workshop who said she wrote a sonnet every day for a year to tune her ear to rhythm. This can only be a good thing in developing writerly discipline!

The winner: Anyone who writes ANYTHING. Seriously. I mean, this doesn't have to be a real competition unless it looks like a few of us are writing enough to actually compete. I figure it's like NaNoWriMo in that you win if you try. If we want to put a random number on it let's say try to write 15-20 pieces of flash fiction over the course of the month.

The timeframe: Since it's already October and not all of us read POW every day I figure we can make the starting date Friday-Monday and the end date the last day of October.

Stipulations: You can write more than one piece of flash fiction a day, but no more than three. This is about writing regularly, not writing a lot in sudden spurts. We all know that we can do that.

So how about it guys? Any takers? Even if there's not, I think I will undertake my own challenge just because I've felt such a lack of direction in my writing lately. If you have other writer friends (hahaha, none of us have friends, jkjkjk) feel free to encourage them to take the challenge as well. If you want to tweak the rules, I'm open to that as well. Let me know.

And let the flash fiction begin!

Promise

There is so much held in promise

          You are promised
          You show promise
          You must promise
          You have promised

I hold promise

But the promise that concerns is the one made me

The one
       never formal
                 but there
                       repeated and
                                     insinuated and
   
                                                      gone

        never realized

I was told
If I just

          buckle down
          study hard
          achieve more
          do well
          finish assignments
          get As
          get degrees

It would be there

          Future
          Success
          Security
          Career
          Job

It would be there

I was told

I was promised

Something I should have posted a while ago

Like June.  I had this since June 15, 2012.  Anyway, this is a collaborative poem, written by Cerasi, Cylon and myself while at Java House.  We did two rounds of each of us writing.  We did not furnish a title.


Everything feels bigger
     in here,
Either I shrank
or life is expanding.
Like the hypothesized universe,
     this big bang of life
Now it's slipping out of reach
     it's drifting from my grasp
Empty.  There is nothing here.
I stand here waiting for something to collide
But there is nothing.
It is empty.
I'm waiting for the
     God particle,
but at this point
I'd settle for rent or
a half a handle
of anything.
Is there anything left
     for me?
Not even two atoms to
     rub together
Or someone to ride this
     collision train with me
Where is god?
I have prayed many times with no answer.
May the chemicals in my brain find some meaning.
Higgs Boson was proven
So where is god?

Update from the Battleground!

Hey guys,

By this time you all know I made the decision to do one more campaign before the season ended. You guys know which one, but this time around it is different. Below I will list reasons why I may not respond to our correspondences until November 8th:

Average Week:
Monday-Thursday 9AM-11PM
Friday 9AM-9PM
Saturday 9AM-9PM (if lucky)
Sunday 12PM-10:00PM

This is an 'average' week. So from the looks of it I only work an 80 hour week, but actually for the last two weeks I have been working 100 hours a week. That is 100 hours of nothing but politics.

Average Beverages:
Protein Water (Okay, so it is Special K protein sugar things in a canvassing water bottle)
Coffee (I get it a large latte every morning from an awesome local place) (also i have filled their punch card twice in the past week)
Beer (Blue moon, bud light lime and fat tire, maybe pbr or natty ice if I get desperate)
Soda
Water (I seriously need to drink more water)

Now it looks like taking the caffeine out of Four Loko may have hurt my beverage choices. Answer: Yes, yes it did, but keep in mind I dont drink beer till 8PM at night and only after a LONG day so about 4 days a week.

Average meal:
Nothing.
Bags of pretzels (we got a giant box donation of pretzels recently)
Scones (with coffee of course)
Bagels (there is a really awesome bagel place around the corner that is only open till 2PM)
One time I had thai food
Nothing.

I have gone two days without eating so I have to put an alarm in my phone to tell me to eat. This happens to me every campaign so I went to hyvee at 10PM last night and bought food for my office. I had a PB&J tonight for dinner with a side of mac and cheese. Need more veggies in my diet.

Websites I visit while bored:
politico
gottavote
cnn (specifically their awesome electoral map that all of you should check out and play with)
the hill
public policy polling
rasmussen
campaignsick.tumblr.com (pretty much my whole life on a tumblr)

Outside world things I just learned tonight that do not involve politics:
Pussy riot and russia
that there is a anti-masturbation asl jehovahs witness video that is set to ignition by rkelley
mean girls is on netflix (everyone on my campaign constantly quotes this movie)
not doing your laundry for a month is a terrible college habit i have kept so I am doing two loads tonight
that when i become more tired i cannot capitalize properly
theres a painting in my room
i ran out of conditioner awhile ago and have been using two different types of shampoo when i thought one was a conditioner
that i have missed a lot of pow and i am going to catch up asap

Amount of times I have dropped my work phone onto the ground and thought that the screen had broken and I would be fired since beginning this sentence: Twice

Hours I text Tyrion throughout the day: Inumerable

How much I miss you guys: Indefinable

So this is my life. I will be sending you guys my address and work phone so that we can communicate on fb. I'm sorry if I don't respond immediately to texts or calls, but I work so much that I am a tired mess. I am always on my work phone and always texting my vols (volunteers).

Love you much,
cylon

Because we need to post more

I know we are all very busy.  I am in fact very busy.  Especially right now.  But looking at the count from last year's posts and this year's is saddening.  We are not even to half of last year's number, and we didn't even start blogging until May of last year.

:(

So here's a fun article to read.  About how being smart is such a terrible burden.  And I must be really smart since I suffer from ALL of these things!

Like this!

:(

Anyway, I'm sure you really want to read about the

5 Unexpected Downsides of High Intelligence

Becoming a Better Writer

Nice article (well, really it's a smattering of quotes someone called an article..) I came across today:

25 Insights on Becoming a Better Writer

http://99u.com/tips/7082/25-Insights-on-Becoming-a-Better-Writer 

Who better to give us advice than other writers!
I think we got #15 covered <3
25 made me laugh a little.
Enjoy!

For Jedis Only

Hey Guys!

I wrote a post that I wanted you to read, but not be available for the whole of the internet. When you feast your eyes on it, it will be clear why. It's saved in drafts. I love you guys lots. Read away. <3

-Cerasi

3 Lies

"No," I say more emphatically.  "There's no one else here."

I stand with my family.  I stand on the creaky old floorboards afraid of their frailty.  I stand afraid because there are more beneath my feet.  Five more.

The man in the grey uniform continues to scowl.  I keep the bored look on my face.  My little Adelina is scared, clinging to my wife's skirt, and I will the harsh man to leave.

But I could never say so.  Even if the double "S" was not stitched in red on his collar.  Even if his Mauser Karabiner 98 wasn't slung on his shoulder.  We would still be at war.

And I am a traitor.

The SS officer in grey finally gives another disdainful glance around my home and leaves.  I suppose he is satisfied with my answers.  He slams the door.


I can almost hear the floor below me heave a sigh of relief.  Though I know it doesn't.  The five souls below me have hardly uttered a sound since I yanked up my floor to hide them in the crawl space below.


The baker's family next door.  They are the ones that inhabit my floor.  Emmiel, the baker and father and friend.  He came to me that night of terror.  The night their reality shattered along with the wide window of their bakery.


"We need a place to hide," he pleaded.


"You need to get out," I replied.
Emmiel swallowed and glanced at his wife and three children.  They are all blonde.  His sons are twins with deep brown eyes.  It is his oldest, his only daughter who has the blue eyes the party idolizes.  But she is Jewish.  They all are.  Emmiel knows he cannot protect them all tonight.  This night of broken glass.  


I hide them. I cannot deny them this small comfort.  It is dangerous.  But these days, there is little that is not.


I close my eyes.  Remembering these events is tiring.  More so is the question they bring to mind of the future.  How will I get them out of this country? 


"Daddy?" Adelina asks, as she tugs my sleeve.


"What, my little cupcake?"
"I said," her small hands are now on her hips, mimicking the impatient stance her mother makes when I am late for supper.  "Why did that man come into our house?"


I scoop her up into my arms, unsure of how to answer my five-year-old daughter.  I don't want to lie to her.  But is telling a five-year-old the truth too dangerous?  


"He just wanted to know who lives here, sweetheart."
"Isn't he a soldier?"
"Yes."
"Then why isn't he fighting in the war?"


I smile but it is laced with heavy sadness.  This war is not just with other countries.  It is with some of our own citizens.  This war of domination and purification.  "He's a special soldier and he stays here."      These thoughts sicken me and I hope Adelina has no more questions for me.


She seems content and wriggles until I release her to the ground.  She runs to Fritz and begs him to play.  My twelve-year-old roll his eyes, but is only joking with her.  I am relieved to see his face returned to his jovial nature instead of the worried look he wore while the SS officer inspected our home.  


My wife, Cora, slips he slender arms around me from behind.
"I was so nervous," she whispers, hoping the Jews we harbor cannot hear her.  She rests her head on my back.  


"What do we do, Bernd, if they come back?"
I take a deep breath before I answer.  
"The same thing."  
I feel her sigh.  She worries.  About us.  About our children.  About what might happen.

"I will get them out," I promise.  She releases her embrace and i turn to face her.  Cora's lovely face in my hands.

"I'll get them to safety."
Cora smiles, but it's tainted with concern.

I cannot stop the next lie.
"Everything will be fine.  I'll make sure of it."

Truth in Your Lies

So I've been watching Lie to Me, a nice tv show about this British deception expert and his merry band of coworkers who help solve criminal cases because they can read people's face and can tell when they are lying or telling the truth.  I won't belabor you with more details in an attempt to watch it, but I do recommend checking it out if you have the time.  It's quite fun and I've been trying to do some face reading of my own...

Anyway, this IS related to my suggested prompt for the month of July.  There's a character on the show that says he practices "radical honesty" where he says whatever comes to mind and always tells the truth.  Wouldn't that me interesting to have a character that always tells the truth?  Whatever is on his mind?  Like what if you put him in a weird situation - bank robbery, funeral, etc - how would others react?

So my prompt is this, since the show revolves around lying and truth telling, write a story, poem, character sketch, whatever, about someone who is lying or telling the truth.  What is really going through their minds?  Are they saying it? Why/why not?

To get yall in the mood I've collect some quotes:

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave...when first we practice to deceive.” 
― Walter Scott, Marmion


“Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies.” 
― Oliver Goldsmith

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.” 

― Mark Twain 

“A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.”
― William Blake, Auguries of innocence


“Anyone who believes what a cat tells him deserves all he gets.” 
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust


“I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.”
― Al Pacino

“We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.” 
― Pablo Picasso

“Art, after all, is - at its best - a lie that tells us the truth.” 
― Nam Le

“Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.” 
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” 
― Oscar Wilde

It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.  
― Jerome K. Jerome






Or if you want a slightly different prompt, pick one of these quotes, or any one about truth/lies, and use it as inspiration for a story or poem.  May the writing be with you!