tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44081919563622253572024-03-14T01:31:19.589-07:00Your Daily ImageWherein a developing writer shares something vivid each day.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-73072631066863526022011-06-13T13:19:00.000-07:002011-06-13T13:36:06.704-07:00PurgatoryThe world greyed. I didn't know it could do that. Even the "color-blind" saw some colors, saw everything in blues or greens. I'd never heard of a world without any color at all, but here was one and I was in it as black and white as Bogart.<div><br /></div><div>People dulled. Crowded streets held no vitality. Walking in Millennium Park, I shouldered through a hundred people like they were laundry. None of them pushed back. None of them even looked. I stood over a reading woman for ten minutes, and not once did she ask me to stop blocking her sun.</div><div><br /></div><div>No hunger, no thirst; it all tasted like cardboard anyway. I went three days without eating and felt sick when I finally did. Liquor still worked, but only just, and after 12 shots of bourbon failed to pass me out I got tired of buying.</div><div><br /></div><div>So this was being dead. I could've done with a little more heaven or a little more hell.</div>Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11746436109188009558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-7137641216632596192010-11-08T18:49:00.002-08:002010-11-08T18:52:37.695-08:00Herr DoctorThirty days into the project, Dr. Heinrich Brandt decided to give up on finding gold.<br /><br />Thirty days without one strike. Hot South African sun beating on their backs. Dust storms destroying equipment. Laborers starting to revolt; an indestructible boulder blocking the dig; and to top it off Dr. Heinrich Brandt had just met a dead person. She stood in the cavern which yawned open behind the almost indestructible boulder--a stubborn black thing that ate all his TNT before collapsing--and stared at him, eyes wide under a heavy, sequined hood. Her skin was grey, completely grey, and it wasn't because she was dirty. The only color on her face belonged to gold piercings, dotting her nose and eyebrows.<br /><br />"Hello," he offered.<br /><br />She responded in no language that Brandt understood, but pointed at the shattered remains of the boulder, waving away dust raised by six separate explosions. Her words were agitated, fast; every few syllables, they rose into questions.<br /><br />"Guten tag," Brandt attempted.<br /><br />She screamed, turned, ran.<br /><br />Thirty days into the project, Heinrich Brandt decided gold was no longer quite so interesting.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-4974272487687054122010-11-08T18:49:00.001-08:002010-11-08T18:49:43.456-08:00Ricket in AisleslandMagic 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.<br /><br />But then there was the Center.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />"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."<br /><br />She responded in singsong, discordant notes no one standing on two legs should've been able to make and gestured with the dagger.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-67975506637337779692010-08-13T13:34:00.001-07:002010-08-13T13:34:34.786-07:00GarlicThe 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />"Their water tastes like garlic."<br /><br />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.<br /><br />"They had water."<br /><br />"Yeah."<br /><br />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.<br /><br />"You drank the fucking water."<br /><br />"Yeah." That was hard to say.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />"I have been sucking gas out of this thing for half an hour and you have been drinking fucking water?"<br /><br />"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."<br /><br />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.<br /><br />"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.<br /><br />"Like..." I couldn't talk. My throat felt dry again. But I knew I couldn't stay quiet, either. "Like garlic bread."<br /><br />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.<br /><br />"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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />"Can we sleep now?"<br /><br />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."<br /><br />I looked down the freeway. Chicago looked as far away as the day before, and the line of cars still went on forever. "Okay."<br /><br />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.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-37029086553419179342009-05-13T22:57:00.000-07:002009-05-13T23:00:01.116-07:00So I just watched Star TrekThe collision of galaxies appears to us as the greatest light show in the universe. Millions of billions of stars approaching, merging. The fire of countless suns is a crucible, sometimes forging new creations and sometimes snuffing everything out.<br /><br />To The Cat, it is two balls of string, one batted into the other.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-34552361408792277662009-05-12T22:41:00.000-07:002009-05-12T22:59:13.198-07:00HmmTwo posts in and all I'm talking about is death and violence.<br /><br />Today I'd better write something about kittens.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-77027012118007556702009-05-12T22:17:00.000-07:002009-05-12T22:36:53.043-07:00They didn't even <span style="font-style: italic;">want</span> anything.<br /><br />Theft, Tommy could understand. He hadn't much to take, but the banged-up cellphone would go for ten dollars, and his shoes at least thirty. Others would have stolen them and pretty much left him alone.<br /><br />Four blows in, each one sending him stumbling, and they hadn't asked for <span style="font-style: italic;">anything.</span><br /><br />The fifth shattered his glasses and his nose; he fell back against rusting chain-link, blinking glass and breathing blood. The biggest kid loomed in triplicate, three clones hazing in and out of one another, and Tommy watched three size-nine feet wind back to kick.<br /><br />"Hold it."<br /><br />Tommy looked toward the voice. She sat on the edge of the basketball court and looked smaller than him, swimming in a grey sweatshirt face half hidden by the hood. Her chest, in faded black letters, read BLAM. "He's mine."<br /><br />"Sam--" whined the biggest kid, foot still poised.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Mine!</span>"<br /><br />The court clattered with the sound of running feet and he was alone with the girl who terrified the biggest kid.<br /><br />The helping hand up to his feet was therefore a bit unexpected.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-84090990583125601192009-05-11T14:07:00.000-07:002009-05-11T14:16:47.987-07:00And we're backRoger Albarn died alone at approximately 3:07 AM in a trailer that wasn’t even his, hunched over a shotgun and clad in a pair of black briefs. A self-inflicted 20-gauge blast traveled through the roof of his mouth and exploded the top of his head, killing him instantly and ruining the trailer owner’s carefully appointed rear wall. Said owner, a distant cousin, paid the cleanup company with Roger Albarn’s Mastercard, maxing it out. The bank responded by freezing Albarn’s total assets ($16.02 minus an unrelated overage charge) well before it was informed of its client’s death.<br /><br />Roger Albarn died quickly, sadly, lonely. Above all, he died <span style="font-style: italic;">messily.</span><br /><br />This last part was foremost in David Roe’s mind as he tried, vainly, to suture together the splayed back of Roger Albarn’s empty head. Three major flaps of scalp just would not fit together, straining the sutures. Roe watched one flap stretch and ultimately tear, flapping for the fourth time against the relatively undamaged side of what was once Albarn’s receding hairline. It gave a sad little <span style="font-style: italic;">splat</span> and rested there, flakes of dead skin fogging the air around it.<br />David Roe broke for lunch.<br /><br />Halfway through his sandwich, a maze of salami and swiss that showered his apron with every bite, he looked up to see Anna darkening his day with her sunny disposition. She smiled, leaning in over the breakroom table.<br /><br />“Working hard on Albarn, I see.” The lilt in her tone suggested this statement was funny.<br /><br />“You may as well bury him in a baseball cap.”<br /><br />Anna prodded his forehead with one green-tipped finger. He flinched away, but his glower didn’t seem to bother her. “I don’t think Mrs. Albarn would appreciate that,” she said.<br /><br />Roe’s eyebrows left their usual unhappy knot and momentarily quirked. “He was married?”<br /><br />“<span style="font-style: italic;">Sort </span>of. Wife lives in Reno, but she’s coming in for the funeral.”<br /><br />Roe shrugged and looked back into his sandwich. “Tell her he was a Cubs fan.”Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-85431601027630465022008-07-28T12:15:00.000-07:002008-07-28T12:28:36.197-07:00Your Daily HiatusI am David Hasslehoff struggling to eat an In-N-Out Burger.<br />I am Robert Downey Jr. in Less Than Zero begging yet again for money.<br />I am that guy who misses every recital and swears never to do it again, then finds himself racing through traffic trying not to miss the latest one.<br /><br />Put it this way: I am an unreliable writer, constantly slugging from the bottle of Occasional Updates and saying "Guysh, guysh, just one more week, one more week guysh." Now, I haven't been spending my time boozing or smoking, I've been grinding out a living at a coffee shop, but when writing is supposed to be your Real Thing and you keep failing to do any, you clearly need to take some action.<br /><br />My action is to halt this blog until I can update the Goddamn thing more than once a month. More than once a <span style="font-style:italic;">week.</span> I may start a different blog, one that fits my schedule and abilities, or I may just quietly resume updating. <br /><br />In the meantime, I'm gonna work out a real, grown-up schedule and stick to it. Once I know I can do that, I can go back to thirsting for attention on the internets.<br /><br />Wish me luck, and see you around.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-71467104564455127412008-06-20T00:49:00.000-07:002008-06-20T00:59:35.114-07:00Terminology"So you're basically leaking."<br /><br />"What? No. I'm bleeding."<br /><br />"Which means you're leaking blood."<br /><br />"OUT OF A BULLET HOLE!"<br /><br />"Yes, yes, the blood--normally contained within your body, a mostly-sealed unit, is now <span style="font-style:italic;">leaking</span> out of a hole in that unit."<br /><br />"Because I was shot!"<br /><br />"Because you were shot. You're leaking."<br /><br />"You asshole."<br /><br />"Hey, man, I'm not the one who refuses to acknowledge--"<br /><br />"You colossal asshole! You total fuckup! This is why I wanted to take an ambulance, this is why--"<br /><br />"--and here I'm letting you leak all over the leather in my new car, all because you--"<br /><br />"I'M NOT LEAKING!"<br /><br />At that moment, the engine died.<br /><br />"Uh."<br /><br />"You king of douchebags."<br /><br />"I bet it's the alternator. There's been some bleeding in the engine, and--"<br /><br />"Oh, so the <span style="font-style:italic;">engine</span> bleeds?!"<br /><br />"It's a mechanical term!"<br /><br />"IT'S A BIOLOGICAL TERM!"<br /><br />"We have to walk."<br /><br />"I've been shot! In the chest!"<br /><br />"Your shoulder."<br /><br />"I'm not walking!"<br /><br />"Well, clearly, you're just sitting there bleeding. The hospital's like a block away, you didn't get shot in the legs, come on."<br /><br />"Emperor of assholery..."<br /><br />"Lean on me. We'll be there in a second, god, don't--leak on my suit, would you?"Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-61926012588932453072008-06-12T22:20:00.000-07:002008-06-12T22:29:12.754-07:00Perfect MomentsA rainbow.<br /><br />Right out of a storybook, rising from the rumblings of an unwanted storm on a wedding day. It rained just long enough to merit the brilliant arc above our heads, looming intangible and achingly beautiful just above the Mississippi River. I looked through it, to the treetops of my own state; looked behind me, to the reception inside; beside me, to the pretty girl who, thanks to the concrete bench, was for once smiling <span style="font-style:italic;">down</span> at me.<br /><br />I rose in my tux shoes to kiss her on tiptoes, tears stinging my eyes, smiling so hard it hurt. Around us, the world turned so pleasant and happy it seemed to be applauding.<br /><br />Congratulations, James and Christine Gregory.<br /><br />----<br /><br />God, the thought of holding him was terrifying. A brand-new, screaming, above-all <span style="font-style:italic;">fragile</span> inductee into the human race, held above me by his father (my brother) who sternly lectures on the proper way to cradle a newborn. My exhausted sister-in-law smiling with that wary look in her eye; we all know I'm the klutz, but he is my nephew and, yes, I must hold him once.<br /><br />I take this bundle into my arms, and he is so warm, and he is so light. 7 pounds 15 ounces is nothing, and at the same time everything, my arms struggling to be powerful and gentle at the same time. There is no more screaming; there is only soft, almost inaudible breath, the invisible rise and fall of a baby's little chest. And the pride, so thick in my throat that I must swallow, so fierce I must give the baby back.<br /><br />Michael Fitzgerald Smylie, born June 8th, 2008. Welcome to your life. I am so happy to be in it.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-32834836208431500432008-06-06T23:16:00.000-07:002008-06-06T23:22:00.327-07:00It was 8:13 AM on August 8th, and I was late for an interview with God.<br /><br />I tried to reason with my editor, pointing out that I wasn't on-duty until 9:30. I could <span style="font-style:italic;">hear</span> the clock on my phone shoot forward. I explained that I only covered local news. My editor promoted me. Desperate, I reminded him of my many (completely inane) appointments--if I could not listen to council meetings and fill the police blotter, who would?<br /><br />A cold breeze off the river blew open my appointment book. From 9:30 AM until 5:30 PM, in bold letters half a page in size, was simply the word <span style="font-weight:bold;">GOD.</span><br /><br />Well, you had to give Him one thing. He sure was a stubborn asshole.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-38039669893599729692008-06-06T00:07:00.000-07:002008-06-06T00:12:39.340-07:00Some days, he pondered murder in an almost scholastic sense. The logistics of it. How, if he leapt across the counter at his dead-end job in his dead-end life and dead-ended someone else permanently, he could get away with it. He was not the type to act out of passion; he would never kill someone without weeks, no, months of planning. And yet he wondered, with ten witnesses and a security camera, how he would escape.<br /><br />It wasn't so much malice as it was distaste. Irritation. The sound of voice after voice clamoring for service, the look of people desperate for service and heedless of the line. Every "uuuummmm..." and "uhhhhhh..." as they stared at the menu added a new dimension of cruelty to their imaginary deaths.<br /><br />Some days it was more visceral. He didn't consider body disposal, evidence disposal, any kind of disposal except the tossing aside of one suburban bastard's life with a spray of blood and the wet mulching of gore between his fingers. I could kill you with this espresso machine, he thought one day, the image unbidden. It bothered him that the subsequent thought as just, but I'd have to blind you with hot coffee first.<br /><br />All this behind the bland, fixed smile of retail, and he would have worried if he hadn't heard his coworkers saying the same things.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-45988602579391200332008-04-24T00:01:00.000-07:002008-04-24T00:04:47.024-07:00Way to ruin itThe physicist tells me that we live in a multiverse. Picture a filing cabinet, he says, thousands of sheets of paper always <span style="font-style:italic;">right next</span> to one another but never, ever touching. Picture it on a galactic scale, a universal scale, an infinite scale--and keep right on picturing it, until there's nothing but sheets of paper, all in perfect rows.<br /><br />"That's so cool," I say, eyes alight. "How do we get from one paper to another?"<br /><br />"Oh, we don't," he replies, holding up a sheet. "Otherwise--" He crumples it and tosses it towards the trashcan.<br /><br />Science ruins everything.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-85573409004525304412008-04-21T20:03:00.000-07:002008-04-21T20:08:11.160-07:00The Little ThingsJeremy’s day began with the utmost triumph: perfectly toasted toast. The bread, teetering on that oft-sought step between cooked and burnt, took butter and jelly in equal measure and crunch-squished between his teeth, every bite a testament to his culinary prowess. <br /><br />Jeremy’s day continued with a lesser, though not inconsiderable victory: the shower was hot when he stepped in. The streams above his head, which so often yielded nothing but cold water thanks to Mr. Paulaski’s daily neverending bath, today lapped gentle and warm across his back. He scrubbed in peace, still proud of the toast.<br /><br />Next was the drag of his favorite comb through his messy hair, which—normally uncooperative—yielded to each plastic stroke. He tilted his head, considered the calmed shock of black atop it in the mirror, and beamed. The crack in the center only slightly distorted his nose. Brushing his teeth and getting dressed and getting ready continued the trend of minor but not trivial successes, and it was with an unusual bounce in his step that he took the ten paces from his bathroom to his front door.<br /><br />He nodded at the Collection, lining three walls of his studio at various wobbling heights. Monitors glowed, LEDs blinked, fans hummed, and a lone Apple logo blazed; all, it seemed, in cheerful response. <br /><br />Jeremy relished the triumphs of the morning, grabbed his broken doorknob, and stepped outside ready to seize the day. <br /><br />Judging by the wave of icy water a passing car immediately kicked up; the suddenly mussed hair soaking on top of his head; the muffling gray of the sky, and the flat tire on his Honda across the street, the day would do some seizing of its own.<br /><br />He still had the toast.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-81886408532373593342008-04-10T17:15:00.000-07:002008-04-10T17:17:02.902-07:00Your Monthly ResurrectionI suck.<br /><br />I'll hang my head and bow and scrape, but the truth of the matter is, I am just terrible at keeping a schedule without any pressure attached to it--especially when I have other things occupying my time, like a show or a trip to paradise.<br /><br />I need to fix this, obviously, so it's time to start <span style="font-weight:bold;">YDI</span> up again. Expect great things in the future! Just, you know, don't necessarily expect them on time.<br /><br />If anyone is still checking this: I missed you and I'm back.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-39897080615054833502008-03-04T01:31:00.000-08:002008-03-04T01:33:02.090-08:00Gotta love it when the foggy weariness in your eyes clashes with the shrieking activity in your brain.<br /><br />I could be dreaming of apocalyptic landscapes, sex in three directions.<br /><br />Instead I'm reading about a canceled Fox TV series on Wikipedia.<br /><br />Dream for me.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-29153913780100740262008-02-28T23:38:00.001-08:002008-02-28T23:39:05.590-08:00Oh man.<br /><br />Opening night tomorrow.<br /><br />The tension, it...vibrates. Right through your skin. It's not enough to bounce your knee, you have to bounce your <span style="font-style:italic;">everything,</span> waiting to go on stage.<br /><br />I could live with being a starving artist, if it's always as fun as this.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-45502732642898175782008-02-26T22:52:00.000-08:002008-02-26T23:17:47.006-08:00Baby it's Cold OutsideGHS-30938 was the worst planet in the solar system.<br /><br />In the galaxy.<br /><br />In the <span style="font-style:italic;">universe.</span><br /><br />At least other planets had the good grace to be so terrifying, so gaseous, so poisonous, and generally so Goddamned <span style="font-style:italic;">uninhabitable</span> that not even the most desperate spacers would attempt to settle them. Planet Meteo, bombarded daily by chunks of rock which, thanks to the atmosphere's unique characteristics, turned into planetwide cluster bombs. Planet Dust, so named because the wind storms made even the <span style="font-style:italic;">inanimate probes</span> choke and die. Planet Siphonia, which leached energy out of engines and blood out of people. All of them horrible, all of them unsettled.<br /><br />GHS-30938, which was so loathed no one bothered to name it, was the worst planet in the multiverse precisely because some desperate colony ship put down upon its just-barely-livable surface. Perhaps the stay was supposed to be temporary; MacIntyre could only hope so, because what kind of ancestors would land on a planet that was half ice cube, half <span style="font-style:italic;">lava</span> intentionally?<br /><br />GHS-30938 orbited a star so closely that its Day Side nearly boiled, and always stayed that way. Tidally locked. Its Night Side was, in a way, better for habitation--provided you didn't mind living frozen in perpetual darkness. Not figuratively frozen, unable to move--literally frozen, as in constantly buried in ice. <br /><br />McIntyre kicked an outcropping of ice, briefly illuminated in his path by the spotlights behind him, and reflected on this. It snapped against his boot, spiraled off into the distance.<br /><br />That meant he was getting closer. Only about ten below, here; try that shit farther from the equator, you'd break every toe in your foot, the ice solid as rock.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">I live on the worst planet ever,</span> he thought, <span style="font-style:italic;">and now I'm going to die on it.</span><br /><br />Looking up, seeing the dim, alien light on the horizon, he was given small comfort: at least he wouldn't die cold.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-90765285723755899282008-02-21T23:39:00.000-08:002008-02-21T23:46:13.534-08:00Things I LoveCursing.<br /><br />The sheepish grin you see when someone forgets she's cursing in public.<br /><br />Pornography.<br /><br />The first, painful bite of too-hot gyoza squirting soy sauce against your teeth and making you <span style="font-style:italic;">wince</span> at how goddamned good it tastes.<br /><br />Lazy strokes of a fingertip along a girl's bare back.<br /><br />Kisses at the throat, occasional bites, a fistful of hair.<br /><br />Post-workout glow.<br /><br />Post-sex glow.<br /><br />Glow.<br /><br />Driving 85 in a 55 blaring Reel Big Fish and poorly, but honestly, singing along.<br /><br />The blissful realization that you finally <span style="font-style:italic;">get</span> your monologue, <span style="font-style:italic;">feel</span> what your character's saying. It's the difference between reading a poem somebody handed you and performing one you wrote yourself.<br /><br />Cats. Cats are nice.<br /><br />This week, dear hypothetical readers: <span style="font-weight:bold;">tell me what you love.</span>Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-44508012610706680992008-02-21T01:15:00.000-08:002008-02-21T01:16:58.884-08:00Your Daily BRAAAAAAIIIINSRehearsals are heating up. I feel like the living dead this week.<br /><br />Got an interview with a web publishing company; let's all be optimistic.<br /><br />For tonight I'm going to sleep before I crack open somebody's skull and feast on the goo inside.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-40692828345461951502008-02-15T15:21:00.001-08:002008-02-15T15:24:07.338-08:00In Which I Make You Do My JobIt's friday again, dear readers, and though I tend to drop a day or two each week I'm striving for consistency. With that in mind, let's play a game:<br /><br />Describe yourself to me. What you're doing, what you look like, and what you're thinking about right...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">wait for it</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Now.</span></span><br /></span>Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-36666833151396341142008-02-14T16:54:00.000-08:002008-02-14T17:26:59.933-08:00There's something surreal and delightful about watching a forty-five year old costar order two glasses of wine (because it's last call, obviously!) and eventually start saying "fuck."<br /><br />"Oh, I'm sorry," she says, faltering.<br /><br />"No, no," I grin. "I love hearing adults swear."Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-82394152581693431922008-02-12T20:00:00.000-08:002008-02-12T20:02:57.996-08:00I try hard to imagine the thought process of my brother once I start inflicting Politics upon them like some vile disease.<br /><br />Is he--the Obama thing again? God, I already voted for him at the Primary, what more does he want? Oh, great, Iraq. Yeah, I want to hear about <span style="font-style: italic;">that </span>some more. I wonder if we have any beer. He's for <span style="font-style: italic;">raising </span>taxes? What kind of--yeah, Budweiser! Wait, what's for dinner. Kennedy? Can't eat Kennedy, why is he still <span style="font-style: italic;">talking </span>about this, wait, shit, I have to say something or he'll know I wasn't paying attention...<br /><br />"Yeah."<br /><br />I know, brother. I know.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408191956362225357.post-8237753953071082292008-02-11T19:37:00.000-08:002008-02-11T19:41:51.317-08:00FunerealIt's weird, watching everybody cry over somebody you didn't really know.<br /><br />Objectively you know you're <span style="font-style: italic;">supposed</span> to feel bad, and maybe you do; but forty minutes into the reflection on this person's life you find yourself surreptitiously checking delegate counts on your cell phone.<br /><br />Until you see the reason you came, til you see the grieving one. Til you hug her and feel her shudder as she says your name--and says nothing else, because all the gratitude and sadness she can express is in that solitary word.<br /><br />RIP, ma'am. I didn't really know you, but a lifetime's worth of people clearly did.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09598437779185407354noreply@blogger.com1