I wrote a Setzer snippet on the plane, as we were landing. The sun was setting, and it reminded him of Daryl; I felt the need to oblige him in some silliness that involved a short opera solo and Shadow pretending to know what he's talking about when it comes to opera and the little games Setzer plays when he knows that winning isn't everything.

I also wrote a very quick SoS snippet, because Umbra finally revealed her real name to me, even if she doesn't quite have a last name. She is Deva, and at some point in her past, she was something much more than a student. Circles within circles...never play with reincarnation in a story- you never know how far back things will go.

My laptop is in. It's a Vaio. Depending on the color, I'm going to name him one of the following (I'm convinced my laptop is male, and I can only hope I'm right when we finally meet): Sephiroth, Sydney, or Schuldig. Various permutations of these names are possible; for instance, I might call him Losstarot, Creve Couer, or any of the other Schwarz names. But if he turns out to be Sephiroth or Sydney instead of someone Weiss Kreuz based, I'll be forced to name my Wacom Cloud, Zack, or Ashley.

Yes, I know, I hardly treat the thing well enough to merit giving it a name, but that's because it's attatched to Lulu right now, and Lulu's a pushy bitch who doesn't want to give any of her symbiotes a personality. But...depending on the name of the laptop, the pen in the pen holder is immediately going to make me think of spikey hair, hence...Cloud, Zack, or Ashley.

Yes. I am obsessive. I am a silly twit. I should not assign such blatant personalities to inanimate objects. I realize these things. But I am also very easily amused, and you have absolutely no idea how amusing I would find it to have a laptop named Sydney connected to a mouse named Ashely. That's beyond ironic right there.

Beyond something, at any rate.

It's also almost five in the morning, and therefore it is time to go to bed. Expect coherent thought at a later date.

You are....

Will's sword fetish! Spending hours at a time in a
hot confined room with sharp pointy objects
really makes you happy. Maybe you should listen
to Jack and get a girl. Or just...get out more.
I don't think all that sweat is from working at
the forge, mate.


Which Pirates of the Caribbean Character's Unhealthy Fetish are YOU?
brought to you by Quizilla


Oh. Yeah. Baby. *wink*

...on an unrelated note, I don't mind crowds, so long as they're not noisy crowds and so long as I'm not expected to interract with anyone in them. I can't stand my extended family for the simple fact that there are far too many of them, and they all tend to gather in enclosed spaces. *sigh*

And Robbie? Oh, trauma.

art

It's angry and angsty and rather crappy. But it's something.

Didn't really help with the aleviating of the anger, or the hurt, but hells, we do what we can, right? I'll be fine. I'm always fine.

Fucked up- Insecure- Neurotic- and Emotional. FINE. 'Least, I think that's how it went. I never really listened, not when I should have.

Fucking hell. I need to go to sleep.

"You have your mother's eyes."

"And my father's poker face, evidently."

"...maybe."

"Was that a challenge?"

"My wife would have my head if I gambled with you, you know that."

"What's a little friendly bonding between father and son?"

"More than you'll ever know, my friend. More than you'll ever know."

...

*kicks blogger*

feckit.

Boy Meets Boy first impressions:

Awwww. Cute gay men.

Second impressions:

0_0 This is so. very. wrong.

I do sincerely hope that the cash prize for the straight guys is very large, because anyone who would do something like that for money had better be doing it for a worthwhile sum. *anger* That's just beyond cruel, to do that to someone.

But! The following episode of Queer Eye was especially good (with an off the scale "aww, how cute!" factor), so that sort of made up for the "My god, how can they do that" factor of BMB. I've decided that, while the fashion guy is utterly shameless and truly hilarious, the grooming guy really is 'the cute one', with the food guy as a close runner up. I've decided that the show is like Trading Spaces, only gay. Sorry, gay-er. It's a good thing.

The parents just sort of gave me odd looks, and then sat down to watch part of Queer Eye. Mom couldn't take too much of it, and dad got distracted- but the funniest part of the show is the first ten minutes, when the Fab 5 first start ransacking living spaces. *evil cackle*

And now, I demand that it be Friday, right now. *pouts*

Not including today, I have worked a total of 76 hours this summer and have collected a total of 1796 potential new Ekornes customers for my Great Big List O' Stores. And, for reasons that are entirely my own fault, I have not gotten paid.

D'oi. >_<

So, I got to drive halfway home today. Mmm, driving. Vera is a happy driver, yes she is. While Kris was driving, however, we had to play the geography game to keep her awake.

Oh, the horror. I despise the letter 'e'. And the letter 'n', come to think of it. So, a few quotes from the trip.

"E, eh? Let me think...Evil, it's a state of being, you've got an 'l'."

...she got me back with Eden, however. Alas.
"And the stagheads!"
"Stagheads?!?"

"The place is immaculate, and therefore not fit to be lived in!"

"He's like an Anthony Michael Hall clone- only without the hormones. They even have the same hair!"
"So, does that make you Molly Ringwald?"
"God, I hope not."

"Cheers, queers!"

"There is to be absolutely no ABBA in this car while I am driving! None!"

"In other news, the state of Vermont has dropped off the face of the planet and no one cared. Next up, the Kennedies."

"I don't really have identity issues. I mean, I know who I am, and I know who they are. We all just happen to be the same person."

Stupid Vermont and its no free-local-calls. Bah. I did get to see Pirates again, though, and Spiderman and A Midsummer Night's Dream and SpyKids2 and Queer Eye For the Straight Guy and Mtv's shiny animated Spiderman show and VH1's general shininess in all things it does and The Count of Monte Cristo and Sleepy Hollow. I think that was it.

Queer eye for the straight guy is hilarious, and I am not developing a crush one the one with the funny name. Kyan or something to that effect. Damnit.

Alas. I am also not sitting here slowly eating a chunk of pumpkin flavored fudge.

...aw, screw it. My waistline's already shot to hell. A little fudge (or a lot) isn't going to change that much in the long run. At least a few good things come of Vermont.

Before the night is over (morning, whatever) I am going to order a ddr pad. I will, I'll do it!

...just not right now. But I need one for the exercise incentive. And before the week is over, I'll order myself a computer since that particular graduation gift (the computer and the ddr pad being the only things I actually asked for) isn't coming, either.

Or maybe I'll just go order doujinshi off ebay instead. So much to do, so little time...

The parents are gone for the time being. They left a note. It said to eat lots of fruit.

My parents are, without a doubt, completely insane. They're in Baltimore, by the way. They were supposed to be at the shore, but I think they took a wrong turn.

Ah, well. Leaves me home alone for the night, though Mark will be about tomorrow, even though I won't.

Mmm, fudge.

In other news, I am a moron.

But, I'm going to have this feckin' project done tomorrow, I swear.

Three new stores in every state would fill the company's quota quite nicely; it's up to me to find candidates for each of those stores, keeping in mind that states like Rhode Island don't have room for any more stores and that states like Nebraska don't have enough people for any more stores. It's a good thing I only need three, because my lists all just got a lot shorter. >_<

This is no longer a creative journal- it's a whining-about-work journal.

And some day, I'm going to get paid. ...some day.

huzzah.

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/abs_news_body.asp?section=Celebrity&oid=28366

Pirates of the Caribbean: Stick to the Ride
Oooh, that one smarts. The first paragraph makes me splee. Movie reviews are so much fun.

Oh yeah- Pirates of the Carribbean and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

Pirates was better. League was short, which was much appreciated, since it was intensely pointless but a fair amount of fun.

Stewart Townsend as Dorian Gray made me go Eeeee! And now I must read the book. I must read (almost) all the books those characters came from, because if nothing else, I have gained from the movie an appreciation for how much a character can be butchered.

But Mina Harker as Psycho!vampiress amused and delighted me a great deal, especially in combination with psycho!experienced!Dorian Gray. Mmm, sexy.

The invisible man amused me, and the boyz were greatly impressed by his ability to run about naked in the snow. Captain Nemo shouldn't have been able to kick quite as much ass, but hey, we don't really care. Sean Connery should have been shot. Sooner. Tom Sawyer made me want to bang my head against a wall, but I restrained myself and felt sorry for Dr Jekyll instead.

So many books to read...

Pirates, on the other hand...Now, Orlando Bloom is pretty and earnest looking and I understand in abstract why he has hordes of screaming fangirls hanging from his prancy little feet, but really. When compared to the swashbuckling delightfulness that is Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, he just doesn't measure up, I'm afraid.

Now, sure, Legolas is a prancy little elf boy, but Jack Sparrow is a prancy badass pirate, so I'm afraid he beats Legolas every day of the week, 'cept maybe when he's hung over. There are no words. None whatsoever. But when you see me staring off into space with a silly grin on my face, it's probably because I'm thinking about Pirates, and the rampant (gayness) swashbuckling. Mwahaha.

Unfortunately, I keep on getting Jack Sparrow and One-Punch Mickey confused in my head, so there's a prancy pirate with a Piker accent running around up there. Must watch movie again to get this sorted out.

But right now, I must go play scrabble with my family and try very hard not to get bored or angry and wander away.

*sigh*

Remember, children: Philadelphia is not in New Jersey.

I can't believe I've still got another hour...

It's much easier to exist in this place when you operate under the assumption that all of them lost their sanity under a pile of invoices, which were subsequently filed in the wrong place.

Except for Cindy's, of course, because she never makes a mistake.

Never, ever buy furniture from Huffman Koos, Breuners, or Goods. And especially don't buy any sort of Natuzzi furniture from them. The stores sell really stupid end tables, and Natuzzi has a really stupid website. Don't support stupidity! Blah. I still have an hour left. Shoot me now.

Or give me ice cream.

...I missed Baltimore.
*thunk* *thunk* *thunk*

That was the sound of my head hitting the desk. Repeatedly. Just don't ask me *how* I missed Baltimore. I'm not entirely sure, myself.

On the west coast alone, after weeding out and under-noting the multiple and unusable stores, there were still 186 entries from the states of Oregon, Washington, and California. I am so. Very. Sick. Of. Zipcodes.

45 minutes. I might be able to cut it down to half an hour. If I don't, I might go crazy.

By the way, I'm marrying Johnny Depp. Or, at the very least, I'm stealing his clothing.

I think the only states I have left are North and South Carolina, and Louisiana. Huzzah.

It's 5:05. In ten minutes, I'm leaving or so help me I'll stab myself in the eye with my cell phone. x_x

Right, I lied. I've actually got ten states left, but three of them are Rhode Island, Hawaii, and Alaska, so they don't count. There aren't any people in Alaska, and there isn't any space in Rhode Island. And Hawaii is just too far away.

Leaving now.

He didn't hit me for a home
Or hit me up 'cause he was cold
He was addicted to drugs
And I could see that in his eyes
What about me?

Well I was only rolled
He didn't rob me for food
It wasn't hunger, but a jonze
He needed a fix,
Someone will fix my broken bones
And I'll feel better in the morning
The pain will fade as time goes by
What was taken,
I won't miss, or I'll replace
Nevermind me,
Well I'm all right

He seemed to hate what he was doing
He sure knew how to get it done
Possessed by an addiction
I don't have to comprehend
What about me?
Well he whipped me with a gun

He didn't rob me for food
It wasn't hunger, but a jonze
He needed a fix,
Someone will fix my broken bones
And I'll feel better in the morning
The pain will fade as time goes by
What was taken,
I won't miss, or I'll replace
Nevermind me,
Well I'm all right

I'll feel better in the morning
Nevermind me, I'm all right

- "Nevermind Me", Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Social commentary with a kick. :) Didn't really listen to this CD that much before...kinda noisy sometimes, but good music anyway. Quite a few songs are about drugs, though...*sweatdrop*

Actually, it's not so much that he has gender issues; Dei really has more plain ol' identity issues, what with the whole being possessed and controlled and subsumed by darkness and all. The thing with the sword doesn't really help much, either, but I haven't written that yet.

He does occasionally get confused with a girl if his hair is down, though, and if he's in a goth mood. Still, he's quite decidedly male, all identity issues aside.

Now stop suggesting someone drop a nuke on my head. It wouldn't do any good, you know. My ideas would just mutate into something horrible and green...with magical, physics defying pants.

Oh yeah, and Sinbad? Oooh, was that shiny. And Brad Pitt was a sexay pirate man and Michelle Pfeiffer was a sexay Evil Goddess and Joeseph Fiennes was sexy strait laced goody two-shoes prince who gives up happiness for the sake of his friend- said friend who promptly deserts him. Gah. Catherine Zeta Jones was decidedly unsexy because she voiced a glaring Mary Sue named, of all things, Marina.

Ugh. I have moral objections to that name.

But it was preeeeety. And Sinbad was preeeeety. And Proteus was preeeeety. And Eris was dead sexy (and I want her hair).

Plot was predictable and the animation had wonky anatomy (they had no spines. and no pelvic bones! None! WHERE ARE THE HIPS?) and some of the CG was just plain bad...also, the love interest was a complete Rinoa, with a 'rebellious' haircut, and therefore utterly annoying and despicable. She had good banter, though.

The banter was good. The ass shot was good (you never get ass shots in Disney- why I love Dreamworks). The pirates were wonderful. The fight scene in the beginning was seventeen degrees of spiff. Eris' hair was the source of all Evil. Mmm, evil.

We were the only ones in the theatre. Whee!

"I told you it was flat!"

WARNING: Way too many details to follow- details of the disgusting and girly sort.

Don't say I didn't warn you, okay?

So, sometimes I wish I were a boy- usually just a few days a month. Like now, for instance.

There are, supposedly, girls who don't suffer much through their periods. Lucky bitches.

Oh, don't get me wrong, it's really almost quite pleasant. For instance, I just love being able to feel the walls of my uterus peeling away, bit by bit. That's always a great feeling. Makes me feel very in touch with my inner mother as my entire abdominal cavity decides to rearrange itself without my permission.

The not being able to walk thing, that's great too. Because when you're in so much pain in a more or less focused area so close to your legs, they just sort of sit there and tingle, instead of actually responding to motor commands. Nope, sorry, I'd love to get up from my desk, but that just ain't happening unless you've got a wheelchair handy, sorry. And when the numbness moves up through my back and shoulders to my arms- that's when it becomes far too much effort to do more than twitch my fingers, hence the reason why I'm being so jerky with the mouse.

The nausea's always lots of fun, too. I hate vomiting almost as much as I hate crying, so your chances are very slim of ever seeing me do either. Supposedly putting your head between your knees helps, and I really would like nothing more than to curl into a little ball of mindless pain, but it's a bit difficult to work when you're doing that.

Just a smidge.

Don't even ask about my current emotional state. Just. Don't. Fucking. Ask.

The bloating, that's always a great feeling. And the way my fingers swell from water retention until I can't fit my rings on them without making them ache- only most things ache, so that's hardly noticeable after awhile until I try to fidget with them (what else are they for, after all?) and I find that I can't because my fingers are too big.

I also tend to think in run on sentences because there's really no other way for me to keep track of much beyond the fact that- ow, fuck, this hurts way too fucking much.

I still can't decide whether it's better to grind my teeth down until my jaw hurts too much to talk or to just knaw on one of my fingers until it goes numb. Both actions have their pros and cons.

Actually, what I'd really like to be able to do is remove the lower half of my body- say, everything below the lungs. I've never had trouble with my lungs. My lungs and I get along just fine, as opposed to just about every aspect of my upper and lower abdomen. Except my kidneys. I'll keep them. Maybe my pancreas. But that's it.

What's really the worst part about this- the two worst things, really- is that it's not like this is a nice, constant pain. It's one of those fluctuating, throbbing pains that doesn't keep still, and just when you think it might be going away, it comes back again, twice as worse.

And I lost my bottle of advil and I've no idea where the other painkillers have been hidden around the house.

Fucking hell. I hate being a girl.

Oi. So, this new random mix CD by Squeaky?

Wow. Random. I don't recognize most of these songs, but I like 'em. I like 'em lots.
Track list so far...

1 When I Grow Up- Garbage (I like this song more than I should, I think)
2 Bohemian Rhapsody- Queen (We all know and accept that this song is God, yes?)
3 Stonecutter's song- The Simpsons (Who keeps the metric system down? WE DO!)
4 Hallelujah- Rufus Wainwright (...amen.)
5 Walkin' on the Sun- Smashmouth (*boogies* Yes, this song was made for boogying)
6 Road Man- Smashmouth (*giggle* RA-TA-TA-TAAA!)
7 My Name is not Merv Griffin- Garry Muller (*falls over and dies* His real name is George!)
8 Pinch Me- BNL (Underwear!)
9 Call Me Al- Paul Simon (*boogies retro style* how come they never got Art Garfunkle?)
10 The Peanuts theme-meh (*boogies jazz style*)
11 Random Jazz (because everybody needs a little random jazz in their lives)
12 More Random Jazz (in six different flavors!)
13 Really Really Cool Song That Doesn't Really Exist (because I can't find any trace of it on a search engine, damnit!)
14 Transcendental Instrumental Song- (*drool* preeeety)
15 Why Can't We Be Friends- Smashmouth (much amusment. I *heart* Smashmouth)
16 Zibby-da Song- damned if I know (it's like a Kirtan gone horribly wrong...)
17 Hoedown- dunno (Beef: It's what's for dinner. *boogies*)

An' that's it...I really wish I could figure out the name and group that does track 13, it's buggin' the hell out of me and I really like the song. Will have to ask Squeaky next time I see him.

Watched last two episodes of Eva. Reactions:

Director: I dunno, I think we could've done Kaoru's death scene so it had a little more impact, a little more emotive significance- we may need to re-edit some of those scenes, or make Shinji's hesitation last just a little longer.
Lackey: Uh, sir? I don't think that'll be possible.
D: Why not?
L: We ran out of money.
D: Well, get the animators to do the last two episodes, and we'll pay them later!
L: They all left, sir. And the screenwriter just shot himself. Said he couldn't take it anymore, the show deprived his life of all feelings of worth and joy.
D: Damn. What do we have left for the last two episodes?
L: Well, we have some of the preliminary character sketches, these pictures from my vacation last summer, and these doodles one of the animators did in the margins of this take-out menu.
D: And for the script?
L: There's this instant philosophic dialogue generator I found on the internet...see, you plug in a few basic concepts and it gives you a whole dialogue...
D: It's incomprehensible! That's perfect! The fans won't even notice the difference! Here, use my laptopt to put the images together into something resembling animation, and I'll give the seiyu twenty bucks each if they'll read these lines.
L: Yes, sir!

D'OI. >_< Must watch movies and see scaryscary Rei-Kaoru-Lilith Monster of DOOM and Cheesy Romance. *splee*

But still. Eps 25 and 26 were on serious bad crack. I almost would've preferred a depressing ending. Bah. Happy Shinji disturbs me almost as much as Bubble-Headed Rei.

Watched Spirited Away, as well, to introduce the parents to the wonder that is Miyazaki. *further spleeage* I still love No-Face and the mouse-baby and Haku, who kicks much ass and rocks in all the best ways. Mmm, yummy animation.

And the parents? Still no clue what's going on. Still no clue why my dad left three months ago, no clue why he came back on Monday, no clue at all...and I don't like it, one bit.

*sigh* And when I'm thirty, I'll tell my therapist "No shit, I hate my father. What the fuck am I paying you for, anyway?" Eh, well.

Hakuna Matata, and all that jazz.

Never, ever say that those Jedi mind power things don't work. If you concentrate on something for long enough, it will happen.

Of course, the reason I've just been thinking about this is mostly because I was too afraid to actually do anything about it...and now I'm backed into a corner and have reverted to the practice of not checking my email again.

Wow, I'm pathetic. I think I finally understand the people who thing that a girl can not have any sort of platonic relationship with a guy without there being some aspect of sexual attraction between them. *le sigh* I still disagree, of course, but I can see why some people might think that to be true. Eh, whatever. *kicks world, members of the male persuasion especially*

...also, Mordant's idea of 'walking softly' just means not making as much noise as, say, a herd of elephants being stepped on by a flock of giant rubber duckies. "Quiet" isn't really part of his vocabulary.

...quick, someone give me a stick, I need to bludgeon Fanfiction.net into submission. Give me Eva fics, you little rat bastard!

Wow, I'm still pathetic. I need to get out of the house more.

Went to The Book Shoppe yesterday, the place for all your random book needs (excluding any sort of manga, but including quite a few comic books). Bought Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb, since I've been wanting to read it for quite a while- I mean, pirates! Ships that talk! Sea serpents! Who wouldn't want to read it? Also got A Scattering of Jades by Something Something Irvine. Historical fantasy, from 1835. A little bit earlier than I'd actually been hoping for- I like things from the late 1800's, early twentieth century, ala Mercedes Lackey's Fire Rose and related books. Only I refuse to read anything by her now, so...

Haven't really started either book; Jades incorporates all sorts of Aztec mythos bits into its plot, which means there are words with far too many consonants in proportion to the number of vowels, and a distressing tendency to use the letters 'z' and 'x' in ways the Roman alphabet never intended. After the chapter on Aaron Burr's conspiracy, I put it down and read Ship's prologue- ditzy sea serpents! Much more my style.

Left Only Begotten Daughter at home, of course. I think I'm avoiding it because it frightens me.

Oh! Also bought Death- A User's Guide, because I figured it would make a handy reference.

I often wonder what goes through the heads of cashiers at bookstores when someone like me shows up- I would have gotten Almost Dead Gods, a Rolling Stones biography, had I not been limiting myself by the number of books I could easily carry stacked on one hand. I guess I'm really not that bad, but a girl I knew once went into Barnes & Noble and raided their discount book rack, their fantasy/sci fi racks and most of the rest of the bookstore and walked out with over a hundred dollars worth of discounted books on everything from Star Wars to Tolkien to selected readings by Khaleel Gibrain- which she eventually gave to me and is now sitting under my computer. It's a very large and intimidating book.

Damn. Forgot to buy Abhorsen. Meh. Will have to go after it later.

Must remember to order a copy of Equilibrium from Amazon and have it shipped direct to Kev...a belated birthday gift, of sorts. I'll be going down to see him this coming weekend, and he has promised to help pick out a computer for me. Since dad will be with me, not mom, there will be no problem with just buying the damn thing and sticking it in the trunk of the car- or ordering it and having it shipped back home.

Can't wait to see Kev. *happy days* And his shiny, shiny entertainment system and shinier cable connection, of course. :) Must make it through this week, first. Will work proper work hours all week long- no more 2 hour lunch breaks, no more snarky comments from dad, nothin' but work, work, work, and more work. Fucking zip codes. Think I'll do Maine once I finish with the midwest.

The parents are back from the shortest bike ride ever, and have just discovered that, no, there really isn't any food in the house. Organic peanutbutter most decidedly does not count as food. It disturbs me, however, that a large quantity of the matter in our freezer lies under the descriptive heading of "might be bait".

We have a new motto: No Food, Just Worms.
*ba-dum-ching!*

Thank you, thank you, I'm here until Monday. *bows out*

The bartender was accustomed to strange customers; just last week he'd had a man claiming to be a werewolf, and his girlfriend, an alleged alien abductee. But those sorts of people were certifiable, and not really out of the ordinary in this part of town. You saw a lot of crazies out here in the slums, and it was best to just give them their drinks and keep your mouth shut.

This guy, though, this guy took the cake. Even more than the...person...with one arm and six eyes (three of which were fake, he was sure of it), this guy was just plain strange. Oh, he looked normal, but the normal looking ones were always the worst, no doubt about it. He just sat there at the bar, looking glum. There was no word for it but glum- you look up 'glum' in a dictionary, and you'd see that guy, neatly diagrammed and labelled. He was wearing a black three piece suit- Armani, by the look of it, and the bartender had learned to spot money at thirty paces with unquestionable accuracy. Money, like sane people, was rare around here. But instead of a nice, expensive, tasteful tie to go with his neat, three piece suit, the guy was wearing this bright yellow thing with smiley faces all over it. And sunglasses. The mirror-reflective kind that kept you from seeing the eyes.

He was pretty creepy, actually, but the bartender figured he wouldn't have seemed half as scary if it weren't for that stupid tie. And he just sat there, not drinking anything, looking like someone had just drowned his puppy. Or his sister. The guy's face didn't seem like the type given to many nuances of expression.

"Hey."

He sounded normal, but you never could tell with these people.

"What can I get ya?"

"You got any of that cocktail sauce, the kind with horseradish in it?"

Certifiable, no doubt about it. "Yeah, but you gotta order somethin' with it. And I hafta give it to ya in those little plastic cups, customers ain't allowed t'have bottles."

"Gimme some cocktail shrimp, then, with extra sauce. And a spoon."

The bartender shrugged. He'd been asked for weirder things. At least this was legal, and not too disgusting. There was that one guy who asked for the worms in the tequila bottles- no tequila, just the worms. He paid for 'em, but the bartender had to watch the guy slurp down half a dozen of 'em, right there at the bar. Horseradish sauce was quite tame, comparatively.

The shrimp had seen better days, but they'd been in the freezer so long that anything living in 'em had gone into cryostasis. Happy-Tie didn't look like the type to suffer from food poisoning, anyway; the food wouldn't dare.

The guy picked up the spoon and the little cup of horseradish, still looking glum. "Can I get, say, ten more of these? It's been a long day."

"Sure, man." What the hell. He looked harmless.

--------

Mordant found him at the bar, looking glum, which was odd for Solneki. He usually just looked pissed. Six or seven empty little plastic cups littered the countertop around the blond. He was (glumly) working away at another little cup full of cocktail sauce.

"Man, I thought you were fucking pathetic before, but now you've hit an all time low. Hey, bartender- you got any limes lyin' around, like for tequila?"

"You want the lime, you gotta order the tequila."

"How 'bout I just give you ten bucks, you give me the limes, and I don't fucking blow your head off, huh?" Mordant was a very big fan of the 'walk softly and carry a big gun' mentality. Freud would have said he was compensating for something, carrying a magnum in his pants, but he would've shot Freud's head off, so that was alright. Most things were, to Mordant.

"What are you doing here?" Solneki looked glum, but he sounded pissed, as usual. Mordant grinned.

"Gimme a fork, too." The piece of cutlery hit the bar with a clang and bounced; Mordant caught it neatly by the handle before it stabbed him in the eye. His grin widened as the bartender made himself scarce. "Can't a man get a drink wherever he wants?" He stabbed the lime, squirting a thin stream of caustic juice at Solneki. It spattered across his sunglasses. Solneki reached for another cup of cocktail sauce as Mordant sucked happily on his lime.

"You're not drinking anything. Get out of here."

"What, afraid I'll interfere with your monopoly on the cocktail sauce? Man, I knew you were fucking weird, but this fucking takes the cake."

"Fuck off."

"Bite me."

"Blow me."

"Lick me."

"Eat me."

Their eyes met for a single, tense moment- or rather, Mordant imagined their eyes were meeting, since he'd never actually seen Solneki's eyes.

"You're asking for it."

"Oh, am I?"

In a clatter of cutlery and no small amount of elbow jabbing, he grabbed for Solneki's spoon just as the other man lunged for his fork. In the ensuing struggle, one of the limes rolled off the bar and beneath a table, and a cup of cocktail sauce was lost to the void beneath the bar, where countless beer tabs and dusty peanuts resided.

Solneki glared at Mordant, or rather, he imagined Solneki was glaring, as he viciously stabbed at a lime with his fork. Mordant saluted his sometime friend and sometime partner with the spoon, and helped himself to the cocktail sauce.

A rather glum silence formed between them.

"So," Mordant said after a few moments. "You do this often?"

"Yeah. Still looking for really good cocktail sauce. You?"

"You know how hard it is to find fresh limes in this fucking city?"

"Yeah."

"Fuck, yeah."

The settled back into glum silence, lime peels and empty cups of cocktail sauce littered between them.

-------------------------------------

Uh...no, they're actually not gay. I swear. In the alternate universe, where Solneki is an insane, human/plant hybrid scientist and Mordant is a scruffy, world-weary assassin-with-a-heart-of-gold, I'm pretty sure they are, but in this particular universe, where Solneki doesn't take off his sunglasses, not even for sex or sleep, and where Mordant is exactly what his name describes him as, only cruder and with a fouler mouth, the only thing between them is a business partnership of sorts, and they like it that way.

Amazing, for me. *snort*

I dunno. I like these two. They make absolutely no sense, and they have absolutely no plot, but they amuse me.

Whee.

This laptop just started singing at me.

Creepy. Very creepy. The parents are playing golf with Bjarte, and supposedly one of the uncles is coming down here as well...no sign of anyone, though.

Mom bought a case of poland spring. there was much rejoicing.

Watched up to episode 24 of Evangelion/eon/whatever...fell in love with Kaworu, squealed in outrage when Shinji popped his head off like a daisy (and how did I just know that was how he was going to die?), and promptly turned off the tv, unable to watch anymore.

Shinji takes first place as the Most Abused Character, Ever; I thought I was mean to my people, but at least I give them happy endings eventually. I've heard enough about "The End Of Eva" to suspect that there will be very little happiness going on.

Mixed feelings about the series; it started off too lightheartedly for me to reconcile the way all of the characters are being mindfucked now...and since it didn't start off on a very light note, that says a lot about what the end is like.

Still despise Asuka. Rei is pretty cool, if infinitely creepier than I ever thought she could be. Shinji needs a hug very badly, but he went and killed the only person willing to give him one, no strings attatched. Misato makes me sad. Ritsuko makes me angry. Gendo Ikari makes me furious. Who else is there...disappointed by the lack of Toji after episode 19; absolutely loved all the flashback stuff, even if Dr Akagi really was an old hag. I miss Kaji, and his melons. (D'oi.)

Now, of course, I am desperately seeking fanfic that has a happy ending, damnit. Or at least some happy bits. Or, y'know, a moment of happiness. Yeesh.

Of course, it being fourth of July, we were supposed to have a barbecue of some sort. Sun's gone down, no sign of parents...eh, well.

A very uneventful fourth of July. Not like last year. *bitter* I suppose I could stay up until four again, just for the hell of it, but there wouldn't be any point.

I'm not going to think about it. There's no point in being unhappy; I'm just not going to think about it. Maybe I'll go see the fireworks later on. It's been a while since I've seen a good fireworks show...

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

She thought she'd gotten rid of everything, down to the very cutlery he'd eaten with and the chairs he'd sat in. She thought she'd removed every last wisp of his essence from the house, from her life, from the universe itself- but somehow, impossibly, she'd forgotten this.

The old piano stood in the middle of the room, begging for a spotlight. The cracking plastic keys were bared to the air, and she could still hear their music in her head. She could still remember the way he sat and played and coaxed tears from the heart of creation- or forgiveness from the heart of an angel.

He only ever played here, in this little basement room, when they argued. She would wake up in the middle of the night to find herself alone in bed, and she would follow the strains of music, of that song, until she found him. He would play it for her, and sing 'Hallelujah, Hallelujah' for her ears alone, though he pretended, then, to be singing for himself.

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

It was like he'd never gone, now. She could still hear his voice, rough with too much emotion, accompanied by a piano badly out of tune. The very walls rang with the memory of music, and she could hear them all too well. He would look up in the middle of the song, and keep playing, keep singing, and she would walk across the room to touch his hair and whisper apologies in countermelody. And he would smile around the words and all would be forgiven. The music swelled and rolled around her, echoing all the things she'd meant to forget.

Maybe I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Halleluja

She found herself at the piano bench again, and could see him, shining and golden and beautiful in her memory, in the music. But instead of tousled gold, her fingers found only emptiness above the piano keys. She pressed her fingers to her mouth, trying to hold back the scream that had been lying in her heart since the day it happened. Music was beyond her, now. Without him, she had only silence within herself. Silence, and the memory of him. She would not scream, though her throat was raw with the need for it. She had no right- all she had was silence, now.

There was a time you'd let me know
What's real and going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dark was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

He was gone, but she could still hear his voice in the walls, in the floors, in the very foundation of existence. No matter where she went, he would be there, reminding her of what would never be, ever again. The bed they'd shared had been the first thing to go, followed by the pictures, the instruments, the books, the trinkets and gifts they'd given each other over the years. She slept alone, now, in a cold and barren room, but even that was too much like him to bear. Cold- he had been music and delicious ice to her senses and now even the emptiness reminded her of him. But the piano still played ghostly tunes, and it was all that remained. Her wedding ring had gone to his brother for safekeeping. In a hundred years, or a thousand, or ten thousand, maybe, she would wear it again, in memory. But now- now, all that remained was this piano, and this room, full of his voice.

Her fingers found the keys, but did not play, and silent tears streamed down her cheeks.

Maybe there's a God above
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
And it's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

The flames licked slowly across the keys, wavering and unsteady beneath her watery gaze. A sob finally escaped- not a scream, but close enough to make the fire leap hungrily across the laminated wood. The piano let out a single, all-encompassing chord as its wires snapped simultaneously, and the music in her head finally stopped. The fire rose up around her, impossibly hot and impossibly hungry, but she ignored it, crying in the silence.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
---------------------
"Hallelujah", Rufus Wainwright
Birds of a Feather: The Sequel

Look, drivel!
Man, that song depresses me to no end. It was on my latest mix CD and nearly made me cry- then it occurred to me how very Opal/Tyler it was, and then, of course, I got a random battle scene image in my head, and people started screaming, and crying- and then I listened to the damn song again and it occurred to me that yes, it really is a very Opal/Tyler song and he would serenade her in the middle of the night to apologize for being an ass at some point, and she would try to wipe any trace of his existence off the face of creation after he died.

So, yeah. Fucking depressing. Not saying that I'll ever take this anywhere, or that I will ever do a songfilk again (they're really annoying, and quite difficult) but the song itself begged for it, and I figured that if I didn't write something soon, I'd never write anything, so, there you go.

Of course, if it were Opal who died, and Tyler who survived, he'd turn the whole of the universe into some sort of shrine to her memory. Or commit suicide, dramatic little bugger.

*sigh* I'd been planning on writing a Boffo drabble, just not this one. Meh. I hate writing angst. And I'm never listening to this song again.

Oh, you're kidding me. The reason everything seemed so sparse and bare is because blogger now no longer seems to work on a 600/800 resolution.

Well, fuck them, anyway. Writing from the shore, on the father's laptop. Still afraid of words.

Finished Very Model of a Man, though. Ending was a little disappointing, a little anticlimactic (hah). Language still very beautiful, plot somewhat lacking.

Still adore Cain, though, even if he was a crackpot in the end. There's not a whole lot of suspense in the book; after all, we all know what's going to happen. It's just a matter of seeing how it happens, and what leads up to it.

But when he shouts at God, "I am my brother's keeper!" it made me want to cry.

Beautiful book.

Suffering from dehydration. Hate being here, because there's no drinkable water that isn't buried in the back of the fridge, gone stale from being there too long. The fridge is full of two year old diet pepsi, though. Caffeine free, no less.

Ancient, caffeine free, diet pepsi tastes vaguely like stale beer, I've discovered. Not that I have more than a passing acquaintence with stale beer, mind you.

On a screen resolution this large, I feel obligated to fill the space with more nonsense than usual. Have felt sick all week. Am now feeling sicker.

And so far, the only thing making Evangelion worth watchin is the almost constant fanservice. (I've just gotten to Asuka, and she makes me want to stab my forehead with a spoon. D'oi.)

At least this keyboard is very nice. Wonder if I'll ever get a new computer, or if they were just saying things to placate me. Not that that takes much.

My parents are out boat shopping, so I'll leave you for the moment with a very heartfelt sentiment:

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?

Bah. Humbug.

Too zonked out to even think about writing anything. Too afraid of writing to think about writing anything.

I hate it when I actually achieve a fruitful session of introspection. Sometimes I just wanna feel miserable without knowing why, thank you very much.

*le sigh* Oh, well. C'est la vie.

Four sketchy character sheet things up in deviantart. The only four characters in The Revolution Is Over with personalities; the only other character with a name is some random dude named Kyle, who isn't very interesting at this point.

I dunno, I feel like giving this idea a make-over of some sort...

So, it's Meg, Marc, Ghost, and Spots. Meg's got a tragic past that drove her to blowing shit up, Spots got tired of being owned by the company, Ghost used to have a body but she was killed and uploaded into a little black box that Meg carries around and Marc...Marc just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, poor baby. He's a strict pacifist and a Vegan, he works at a soup kitchen when not on the job, and he talks to his bonsai tree. It has yet to talk back, but he's still trying. And now he's a member of a rather violent terrorist group in the process of overthrowing the government.

Say it with me now...D'oi! If he weren't such a sucker for Meg's helpless female act, he wouldn't be in this mess. So it's his own fault for being chivalrous. And sexy. Because Meg probably wouldn't have asked him for help if her first reaction hadn't been "Damn...!"

Meg got a haircut and a scarf and a tattoo; she's more or less the same person, though, if a little more bitter and angry. Marc is actually drawn with some amount of skill this time (I took down all my old Revolution stuff on veradicere, so just take my word for it- it was rather awful) and has a slightly new haircut, a goatee, a new tattoo, and an Om on his t-shirt that wasn't there before. He's a hippy. Pat him on the head and tell him to stop trying so hard. Ghost is even more spastic than she used to be, but she used to just be a floating head. No idea why she's wearing that crackheaded ballerina get-up, but she's not really all there anymore, if ya know what I mean...And Spots looks ten years younger than he used to, is even angrier and more bitter than Meg, and has achieved the status of non-human, hence the barcode. I rather like his random tattoo, though...but his uniform is still retarded. All HavenSec personnel shall henceforth be referred to as "Bumblebees". Useful, I guess.

They're the good guys, those four. Kind of. Not really. Almost. Well, whatever. All's fair in love and terrorism, right?

It is
was
has been?

A year. A year and I blinked and almost missed it even though the pictures are there to accuse me I almost missed it. And still I lie silent, like everyone else. Silence.

There was a time when silence was all I ever wanted. Now, I can hardly stand it.

A year. No tense to describe the proper verb of being; simply, a year, floating aimlessly in the timeline of my own existence...mine, and theirs. Maybe it doesn't float as easily in their memories, maybe it doesn't weigh them down quite so much.

And, as always, there is a song to go with it, a song to serve as the soundtrack to summer. How ironic that the song for summer is titled "Winter".

And I, in blinking, had almost missed the year of summer but for finally listening to the winter once again.

It's enough to make you want to scream.

Ahah! My music directory is reorganized. Excited, ain'cha? And now I'm downloading more Red Hot Chili Peppers, because we all need a little spice in our life sometimes.

Feel free to smack me for that one.

I have 10 Luna Sea mp3s. I'm not entirely sure how that happened, but that's the highest concentration of anything in my music folder, 'cept for Bebop. Dunno whether to be pleased, surprised, or vaguely disturbed. *shrug* Eh, well. Looking up lyrics now, or trying to...

Have momentarily given up on redoing the color scheme here. I'll do it eventually, no doubt of that, but it's being pissy so I'm not going to bother for the time being.

It's a beautiful day.

I'm not sure I'm much likin' this whole new and improved blogger thang...it's so...sparse. And gray. Very gray. Hn.

Listening to Hampsterdance reminds me of the summer before last...I took a pottery class then, and spent most of my time at the shore against my will. Cousin Theresa introduced the whole family to Hampsterdance, though, and I started outlining concepts and plots for The Revolution is Over, Seventh Sword, IQ, and other random things. I started reading webcomics...Eversummer Eve, Boy Meets Boy, Eat the Roses, Exploitation Now, 8-bit Theatre, D101...that was when webcomics, like scribbles and blogs and the like were the 'in' thing. Mega-super-ultra-uber trendy. Kinda like webcliques, but I think those were on their way out at that point...I started writing Boffo again, intending to finish it eventually.

That was the summer of 2001...I remember that summer as the Summer of Unblocked Creativity. I had fun that summer, though at the time I think I was sulking a lot. Had to spent far too much time with my cousins and aunts and uncles and I hate doing that. But I drew a lot, and read a lot, and had so very many ideas, things that leaked into the beginning of school and were wildly contagious. I am, after all, a communicable disease.

*sigh* There was a point to this, honest!

So, Hampsterdance. Audio crack. They do a remix of "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" which I once teased Kev with quite mercilessly. There's a song called "Even Hamsters Fall in Love", and you can guess how completely silly that one is. They sing the Chicken Dance. *D'oi*

In my manic summer of random ideas, I came up with the vague idea of a woman named Lacinia Emyrial (I was having a lot of fun with my obscure word generator, too) who was quite frightening and somewhat psychotic and worked as a bouncer in a dance club called...The Hamster's Wheel. I was fifteen, bored, and listened to Hampsterdance on a loop. Stop looking at me like that.

Most people just call it The Wheel, and it's something of a raver club, but rather upscale and caters to a somewhat more mature crowd. Not very mature, mind you, because the waitresses and bartenders all wear fuzzy ears and have whiskers. Instead of pole dancers, there would be wheel dancers.

I can picture all of this in my head, and it's a very strange acid trip indeed. The other bar/club that I've created is the Aurifex, which is Latin for gold smith and seems somewhat normal on the outside, but is really just as crackheaded- less upscale, much shabbier, more of a bar-around-the-corner kind of place than a screaming-neon-money-trap.

I really shouldn't be making dance clubs central plot points in any of my stories until I've actually been to one. Eh, well.

Whatever. I still think it would be a kind of neat idea, to have a club that played Hampsterdance every night...but then again, I'm deranged and squeaky. Eh, well. What can you do?

"Round and round we go..."

So, went and saw The Hulk on Monday, went and saw Finding Nemo last night.

Nemo was better, but only because it was two thirds the length of Hulk and was much, much prettier. Hulk was like watching a comic book, which was amusing and nifty for the first half hour, but then they started to get a bit carried away with the sliding panels and double viewpoints.

And that helicopter scene? So. Totally. Unnecessary. They could have cut it down to five seconds, and we'd have gotten the point; instead it went on for two minutes and we all just sat and stared at the screen, wondering when the hell it was going to end.

I'd have liked it if it weren't so feckin' long.

Went with Bo and Sonya and Felix; we decided that Hulk is really a sea cucumber of doom, and his father is a starfish...no wonder the guy has issues. Fear the sea cucumber!

Also, the pants? They are Super Pants, to have been able to survive all that stretching. The movie was secretly a Dockers commercial in disguise; Nice Pants and all that jazz.

Twice we were yelled at to shut the fuck up. Twice. I've never been told to shut up in a movie before- but then, I've never had in depth discussions about sea cucumbers and anger management in a movie before.

It was silly, but very long. And from a critic's point of view, it was awful; there was no coherency of plot, no central villain or theme to hold the movie together. The last twenty minutes were tacked on just for the sake of one last fight scene, and were as unnecessary as the helicopter scene.

I did like the very end, though, in South America. That amused me. The rampant destruction of Redwood Forests and the Grand Canyon, on the other hand, did not. The French poodle amused me. The gamma rays did not. When you sit four ubergeeks in a row and make them watch a movie whose concept depends on the belief that gamma rays will do funky things to sea cucumbers, you are going to get some very loud protestations- mostly from Bo, who was outraged by the broken laws of physics and the basic tenets of chemistry.

D'oi. My biggest gripe was with the special effects- particularly the ones done with cheap photosho filters. I could've done better on Lulu- emboss, pointililze, invert. So very simple.

Bleh. Being incoherent. The parent wishes me to get off the computer and go watch a random subtitled movie with her. Every time she says something, it throws me off.

Anyway. Nemo. Cute. Pointless. Pretty. Also slightly too long, and Marlin was disgustingly annoying and rather unsympathetic. (Just like Harry Potter!) Liked Dory, though. And Gill. Gill rocked. I may do a sketch of Gill as a human, because he rocked that much. Also loved the turtles. "Dude, offspring. Offspring, Jellyman." *snicker* Groovy.

I'm of the opinion that Pixar is evil incarnate, but they still do very pretty things. I just wish they weren't killing off classical animation; Dreamworks can't compete with Disney, even though I think they do a better job with their animated features most of the time...

Or maybe I just wish I owned Road to El Dorado. That's always a possibility.

Meh. Being random. Can't wait to see League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Pirates of the Carribbean. Still waiting for a good movie this summer, you see. Haven't seen one yet, and it disappoints me.

testing testing?

Yeesh. Welcome to the new Blogger. *pokes format*

Funky.

Feelin' antsy for a new layout...must work on this.

Started coloring Setzer pic. Stupid albino and his stupid colorlessness. Stupid. Have to figure out how to do all sorts of niggly little details, and I hate niggly little details, because they're little. And niggly.

Don't even ask what that means. I haven't got a clue. All I know is that I don't wanna paint the trim on his stupid coat or the stupid card in his hand. Stupider.

Am finally pleased with how the shading of his face came out, though. Black on half transparency so I can get a nice, even shade of gray everywhere...Open Canvas is wonderful. Wish I could find the link I downloaded it from, but I'm sure you can just type it into a search engine and find it like that. It's free. And primitive. And lovely and paint-like. Huzzah.

Wearing little hoop earrings right now...the temptation to string beads from 'em is very strong, but if I take 'em off, me ears'll hurt like nobody's business. So they can stay right where they are for now, and wait until I'm better prepared for a random craft project.

Finished Lirael this morning (read: 3 AM). Must find bookstore and buy Abhorsen before head falls off. 0_0

Mmm, Garth Nix, I'm sure that's a pen name but I'll forgive you because damn that was a good book. A filler book, but a good filler book. Sabriel was good, this one was good, Abhorsen will be better. I can feel it.

Prince Sam was just irritating. I'm suffering from an overload of irritating teenage males in my books lately; I'm almost afraid to pick up Only Begotten Daughter again for fear of having to face yet another shallow, angsty, irritating character. Stupid boys. *sigh* Lirael herself, on the other hand, was delightful. So's the Disreputable Bitch (if you're feeling technical). Mogget makes a return, and Mogget is always cool...I just wish Sabriel and Touchstone could have had bigger parts, but hey, s'okay.

The plot twist about Lirael's father was a bit obvious- not overly so, but I'm rather slow when it comes to these things. I always have to read ahead and spoil things for myself, 'cause otherwise I'd never figure anything out. *sigh* I r slo. Ah, well. Overall, I'm delighted with the whole book, even if there is quite a bit of angst. Garth Nix subscribes to the quit-feeling-sorry-for-yourself-you-silly-brat method of dealing with his characters, usually in the form of a familiar...so whenever someone started angsting too much, Mogget or Dog would bite them. I wholeheartedly approve. ;P

Must read next book, and soon...

...Right, why do I have Omaha on my playlist? It's only going to make me cry. Stupid Counting Crows and their stupid meaningful lyrics. *sulks*

It is a pretty song, though...

Read Fake vol 1 this morning instead of Harry Potter; saved Potter for this afternoon. Fake didn't require the attention span or the dedication to read...and I think I may have enjoyed it more. Because it's not like they can ****SPOILERSPOILER**** in the first book of something, unlike in some series I could name...*is very bitter and will be pouting and harping on about this for the rest of the summer*

So, Fake. Yes, yes, I'm a very silly and wacked little girl- but I have always been something of a closet fan of police dramas (see the Law & Order addiction) and that's essentially what Fake is...just toss in pretty art, occasional bad Engrish, and the fact that the primary love interest of the main character happens to be his partner, who happens to be a very confused and vaguely ditzy blond man...and there you have it.

Aw, shaddup. It's pretty. Like, really pretty. And Dee is snarky and badass while Ryo is adorable and spastic, and even if they are somewhat stereotyped and very random, they're cute. And it's all very pretty. *droooool* Preeeeety.

I like the characters. I like the fact that there is an actual plot in each of the episodes, and it doesn't revolve around Dee trying to get into Ryo's pants- that happens because of the plot, but isn't the end-all be-all to the whole thing. I like that there are allusions to Dee's dark and angsty past while he remains a remarkably cheerful, snarky, and amusing character. And Ryo is adorable without being cloying or overly feminine. I like that they get into an argument over the definition of bi, and that they bicker like a married couple.

Blah. I like it. It amuses me in my squeaky fangirl little way. I should've waited until after finishing HP to read it, though- it might have helped to diffuse the awful feeling of hoplessness and sorrow that hung around my head after that particular experience.

Sweet Goddess above and below, Ms Rowling, what were you thinking?

*scurries off to look at pretty pictures again*

Book Review!

Harry Potter? Oh, dear.

It's a very easy read, until about the 700th page, at which point you realize that the last four hours of your life were completely wasted, because absolutely nothing happens. The first umpteen pages were just a setup for the last hundred of battle scene.

Now, it was a very cool battle scene, but totally not worth the pages and pages of filler it took to get there.

Also, the Three and the other students are all very realistic teenagers. That is to say, they're infuriating and nonsensical and altogether annoying and unsympathetic. Harry, Ron, and Hermione have only managed to reinforce my dislike of teenagers further. Cho, too. She disappointed me a great deal. The problem is, it's understandable and realistic, and that annoys me. I don't want to sympathize when she's being irritating.

Hermione kicked ass, though. And Ginny has a personality.

I still love Snape, but I'm vaguely annoyed with him. (Read: severely pissed off.) Remus needed more pagetime. Tonks kicked amazing amounts of ass, also needed more pagetime. Malfoy and Co are beyond redemption. *gleeful* Two dimensional evil! I am vindicated! Sirius...I'll always love Sirius. Dumbledore needed to be smacked. Repeatedly. With a stick.

Luna Lovegood was wonderful, even if she was just a plot device. Loved her, she was great. McGonigal was great. Umbridge was fucking psycho. *shiver* Nucking Futs, she was.

Aside from the hundreds of pages of filler angst and mayhem and the *******SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER****** fucking plothole from hell and the death of *****SPOILER******, I enjoyed it. But those are two very big spoilers that will remain censored until more people read the book.

So many people are gonna be so pissed at Rowling for this one, though. Oh, so pissed.

The plot was disappointing, the characters were irritating and largely unsympathetic, the writing is still sub-par (if I see another weak adverb, I'll rend something), and most of it was pointless, but it was reasonably enjoyable, if only because it's Harry Potter, the marketing miracle. *sigh* At least the cover is pretty. It honestly wasn't that great of a book, but it's the fifth in the series so I've grown attached to the characters (even if Harry did become a little bitch during parts of it...) and don't really want to stop reading about them.

But oh, you screaming fangirls, you...all those fics just went AU on you...*snicker* I'm predicting mayhem, oh the mayhem...*glee*

Beneath the hiss of the rain and rumble of thunder, my breathing was harsh and loud and bubbling. Not good. Must have punctured a lung. I was three stab wounds, a blow to the head, and an explosion from where we started, and now I was on my back in the mud with a knife at my throat. Great. Just great. And now he was going to make some villainous comment or other, to stay in character. The bastard had to start getting wordy and trite now, of course. He couldn't just kill me and be done with it, no, that'd be to easy.

Good thing for me he had such a flair for the dramatic, otherwise my plan would never have worked.

"In the end, the only people who really matter in your life are your mother," that silky smooth voice mocked, "and your murderer."

I smiled. "I don't have a mother, bitch." His eyes widened. My arm flew up, and I could feel that knife dig into my throat deep enough to draw blood. Then he tipped backwards with a sick sort of gurgle, clutching at his left eye. It had sprouted a shard of glass when he wasn't looking.

I kicked the bastard off my legs and got to my feet without falling over. I'd been carrying that shard of glass in my ribs since our little duel began and it hurt like a bitch to have it out- but it was worth it to finally see him dead.

"I don't have a mother," I repeated to his corpse. "So I guess that means nobody matters to me."

I didn't need to tell him I was the only one who'd ever really mattered to him; he wouldn't hear me, and besides, we both already knew it. We'd both known it for a very long time.

Footsteps sounded, high and sharp, behind me. I knew who it was before I turned around and saw her standing where the road ended in her high heels and short skirt. She might have looked sad. I didn't really give a damn.

"You," I pointed a very unsteady finger at her, "have a lot of explaining to do." She might have been smiling when I fell over from blood loss. I didn't really give a damn about that, either.
--------------------------

Blaming this entirely on The Very Model of a Man. Stupid Cain and his stupid rationalization. Ugh. Brotherly love, indeed. Need to finish that book but it leaves me feeling deeply disturbed every time I turn the page.

No idea who they are, what they did, why they tried to kill each other...I know the narrator's an orphan, originally he was supposed to say a little more, keep the drama going, that sort of thing, but then he switched into first person and it all seemed kinda moot. Maybe that's his name.

Maybe it isn't. Moot.

On my third can of vanilla coke in the past half hour. What, me find solace in caffeine? Never.
As an aside, however, roasted potatoes and vanilla coke to not a happy combination make.

Scandinavia has invaded our house; Marita's mother and aunt are here as well. Bjarta isn't here yet, we're not sure if he will be. Mark was supposed to come, but he reneged. I'd call him a bastard, but he's the middle brother. *shrug* The sprogs, however, are adorable- but I'll claim to have been under the influence of too much caffeine if you call me out on saying so.

Downloading as much Luna Sea as I can get my hands on, since Lulu is being remarkably cooperative. I've got three new ones now, and I'm looking for a fourth. Yummy incomprehensible Jrock music. Mmm. Have to go find translations eventually, I suppose.

My favorite song is still Aurora, the first Luna Sea mp3 I downloaded. Beautiful lyrics, great melody- I can usually even remember what a few of them mean. I can sing most of 'em, though, and that pleases me.

Chikadzukitai, chikadzukenai...

Mmm, seven total Luna Sea mp3s. Not half bad.

By the by, the lemon bars never got made. Two chocolate pies, though. Oh, the sugar. Oh, the butter. Oh, my arteries.

That little snippet below could double as an interaction between any two random as-of-yet unnamed characters, or an interaction between my consciousness and my moody, literary side. Stupid pretentious literary-ness. *snort* I can't stand it when I get like that, hence why my sensible half (quarter? eighth? teaspoon?) has to smack me occasionally.

"We cannot, as human beings, simply accept happiness. It goes against the very nature of our souls, for what is happiness? We do not know, or understand, or accept happiness until we have something to compare it to. There can be no happiness without there first being overwhelming sorrow."

"Put down the shot glass and shut the hell up, or I'm leavin'. I hate philosophical drunks."

When I figure out why exactly I am downloading In da godda da vida, I'll let you know.

I'm blaming it all on Lynyrd Skynyrd having been on tv last night. Wow, that was sad. Good music, though, even with the random confederate flags.

I've decided to make Queen my new obsessaband, twenty years too late. Alas. Why do all the good ones have to die?

Attempting to color the Setzer pic now...but he's so monochromatic! Arrrg!

And who are you trying to save?
Go, drown thy sorrows and thy self
In a casket of too-sweet wine.
That your ghost might walk
to torment the dreams of your brothers
Whose eyes have been plucked out
By carrion siblings
Who can you save, unseeing, unbreathing?
Who can you save, if you yourself are damned?

...Thank you, Duke of Gloucester. I have to go back to school soon.

Open canvans feels like cheating, it really does. *splees* such a lovely, lovely way to color things, such a lovely, lovely way to sketch things...photoshop, you suck. Give me free non-english speaking primitive programs any day over your silly special brushes and useless filters!

Mmm, swooshy.

My right shoe is covered in writing. "My shoe is the greatest shoe there ever was." It's actually rather grungy, but that's okay. Buncha people signed it, too. Forced me to contort into all sorts of odd positions, most of them not particularly kind to my knee. Still. My shoe has shoe signatures on it. That makes me happy. :)

How bizarre.

It's very difficult to find a shading model to use for what I want to do...I may just stick a mirror next to my computer and shine a flashlight at my face; anybody know an easy way to figure out how to do an upward facing light source? I can't quite get the hang of it...so instead of the serious Setzer pic I started, I have these. First one's a random swooshy thing, the other's a sketch of Tana the half-vampire demoness albino. Don't poke her with a stick; she bites. Doesn't like men much, tends to be rather snarky and vaguely Amazon-like. Kinda scary. She amuses me, though, and is somewhat fun to draw.

Mmm, lightning. Maybe I'll study for calculus soon.

Saw Equilibrium today, in study hall, on Moham(one m)ed's laptop.

Oh, wow. Oh, my. Oh, dear gods.

What a delicious, sexy, violent movie. It's 1984 meets The Matrix, only three times better and not as long. And it stars not only Christian Bale (why did they ever make him a blond? *drool*), but Sean Bean, Emily Watson, and some other random but quite nifty guy as well. Sean Bean! Christian Bale! *drools*

And oh, god, do the two of them do evil. Neither of them are really evil, but they do evil things and they look damn good while doing them. Oi.

The premise is thus: after WWIII, the remaining survivors of the human race are drugged up with this stuff called Prozium, which inhibits all emotion. This leads one to think that there is a plot hole, but there really isn't: everything is explained in the end. I love it when they explain everything so that stuff makes sense. It's so nice when things make sense. Anyway. Your average unfeeling citizen is subjected to motivational speeches from Father and Father's Voice (who isn't gay, just French, and named Dupont) at all hours of the day from giant hi-tech flatscreen tvs. Kinda nifty, kinda creepy. Father's Voice actually gets pretty emotional during these speeches, extolling the virtues of Prozium and how murder and dissent and war are abolished because those pesky human emotions have all been abolished. Very creepy.

Of course, there are people who don't take their daily dose of Prozium, and they're called Sense Offenders and most of them are members of the Resistance. It's the job of the Grammaton Clerics to track down sense offenders and everything that might lead a person to feel something- art, music, colorful things, shiny things. The opening scene (after Christian Bale kicks ass and takes names in a nifty gunfight) is of two Clerics burning the Mona Lisa. *shiver* Christian Bale and Sean Bean are both top notch, high ranking Grammaton Clerics- they were lots of black, get utterly spiff fight scenes, and call each other "Cleric", which just makes me shiver for a whole 'nother reason. Sean Bean gets caught feeling emotions, and Christian Bale shoots him. *sadness* Then Christian Bale forgets to take his dose of Prozium and starts to feel too, and it all goes downhill from there. (There's an incredibly pretty scene involving him tearing open his window to see a rainbow for the first time in his life that would make such an awesome desktop wallpaper...*goes off to look for screenshots*) There's a happy ending, though, even if everybody (almost) dies. There are creepy creepy children, too. Really creepy. Like, miniature Hitler kind of creepy, straight out of 1984. There's even an O'Brian in the movie, which I thought was a bit overdone, but eh, whatever.

Anyway. The Clerics are all trained in the art of the Gun Katas, or, as Oliver called it, Gun Foo. They also know how to use katanas, which was kind of random but also incredibly nifty. All the violence is graphic like the arena scenes from Gladiator (we were watching that in Latin) so there's much blood flying about and many limbs going off in random and uncomfortable directions, and the second to last 'fight' scene (in quotes because the other guy didn't get in a single hit, and Christian Bale only hit him three times total) involves some very very disgusting special effects that were entirely unnecessary but do lead you to wonder what exactly they make those katanas out of to keep them so very, very sharp.

I dunno, there's something about seeing a guy surrounded by men in body armor weilding machine guns pistolwhip them all to death without getting touched himself that's really quite impressive. Y'know the gun scene in The Matrix? So Equilibrium borrows a little bit- but the equivalent scene in this movie was five times better because a) there was no Carrie Ann Moss, b) there were no stupid non reflective sunglasses c) Christian Bale can do menacing and pyschotic so much better than Keanu Reeves (he can do just about everything so much better than Keanu Reeves can, actually...) and d) that niftyness with the clips was just cool.

Yes, yes, I still despise guns. But I still love a good, tastefully done, well executed fight scene. (The katana fight was a bit gratuitous...especially the end. He only had to hit the guy twice, really...) And there were a lot of them in this movie, because even if the violence was rather gratuitous and explicit, it wasn't sickeningly so (*coughGladiatorcough*). And the idea of Gun Foo is really quite amusing, and seeing Christian Bale go psychotic is really, really fun to watch.

They should've had him play Neo in The Matrix, they really should have. Because he can act, you know. Unlike some other male leads I could name. But he sings, he dances, he slays dragons, overthrows totalitarian societies, goes on murderous rampages, and does a pretty damn good Shakespeare, too. Really, what hasn't the man done?

Not that I'm an obsessive fangirl or anything. *coughs* Mmm, pretty...

Blue suede shoes... And many whiny martyrs, or
so
I was dangerous.There ought to
reveal itself rather not
you. blame but
I may
be
quiet, and I dun know You survive?
life that is an anti,
tactless, joyful, beauty.
And reappearing in the Guild that
Guns Sweet Child with a staff, and
more than you
have no one to
be was
like rabbits.

Because if Kristen can do it, so can I. From the February archives, all that I can get to at the moment.

Rabbit rabbit?

So Blogger ate a nice long dissertation and bit of dialogue that I wrote last night...Grrr. Stupid blogger. So instead...books!

Reading Only Begotten Daughter, but James Morrow. Completely and utterly Kristen's fault, and now I'm convinced that the devil is a vegetarian and Atlantic City really is evil. Julie Katz freaks me out just a bit, but what do you expect from the daughter of God and a celibate Jewish hermit who runs a lighthouse? Such a wonderful mindfuck experience. Mmm, twisted. Haven't gotten very far, but 'tis still much fun. It gets frightened looks from the people who read the synopsis on the back. This pleases me.

Not feeling overly creative, not in the literary sense. Have snippets running around in my head, mostly of Von acting very, very gay and frightening the hey out of Zyn. Silly little crackheads. (In this case, literally crackheads, or something similar- Von had a few substance abuse problems in the past that still occasionally bite him in the ass and generally lead him to call Ari'i at three in the morning and ask her to tuck him in again. Oi, they have so many issues. *huggles poor abused characters*)

Hum dee dum. Whee!

Generated from this blog at:
Rob's Amazing Poetry Generator
'Cuz dude, man, it's so true.

Come up most people fell over;
keyboard*Hah. I
can not so the young
woman fell
from his
arms. over it exactly
make you fell out of strange, cryptic
code, it?
far there
are creating their personalities and
a Chevy 69?
not.normally
have been a con. *sigh* as she
knew goneJumped into the music in
my mind.

zoot
interj. a retort used to warn someone to back away.
"You'd better zoot, boy."
boogie
n. a type of male.
"Yo, you're getting a boogie!"
woogie
v. to hate one's credit card.
"Mind you don't woogie, dude."

Hence, 'boogie-woogie zoot-zoot': A male who hates his credit card had better get the hey out of here, yo?
Slang Generator
And I thought the surrealist compliment generator was fun!

dei
n. a pair of sunglasses.
"Check out her dei - let's flirt with it!"
sounds good to me...

tyler
interj. an exclamation used in celebrating a victory.
"Tyler! I knew you couldn't flirt with my burger!"

jubal
interj. casual greeting.
"Jubal, man." "Jubal."

von
n. an old police car.
"Dawg! Gimme a von!"

floober
n. non-alcoholic drinks, but also a secret code-word for money.
"I'm gonna inject drugs into your floober, boy."

fork
adj. like a mobile phone.
"Someone dosed her drink and now she's fork."
so that's what I've been saying all this time...

"It's times like these I just like to sit awake, contemplating the concept of David Bowie."
"Oh, I don't like to use the term 'bisexual'. I find it far too...limiting."
"You know what this situation calls for? Excessive amounts of drama. Quick, someone slap me."
"You people? I am not 'you people'! I am...oh. Those people. Never mind, I guess I am."
"Well, isn't that just enough to make you wanna tear all your clothes off and skip in circles? Or maybe that's just me."
"Occasionally, I get the urge to do a good deed. Usually I put my head between someone's legs and wait til it passes."

...Whoever he is, I'm sure he has impeccable fashion sense. The nice thing about having completely random strangers piping up in my head is that they contemplate David Bowie for me so that I don't have to. I think he also contemplates Queen in a similar manner. I get the feeling he bursts into song a lot.

Maybe one of his many claims to fame is his ability to sing the opening verse to "Bohemian Rhapsody"- as a solo, in four part harmony with himself. He has a very versatile voice.

I'm sure he has very long nails, and paints them black, or an eye searing shade of orange, just to put people on edge.

There was a blatant Ragtime reference up there, and I apologize for it. He doesn't. He doesn't apologize for much of anything.

He probably has a name, but I don't know it yet. He might have a story, but I don't know that yet, either. *shrug* Maybe someday he'll tell me. I get the feeling he won't, though.

I remember things too well. Random things, of course, and some not so random. Little things, big things- I remember too well.

I remember a green worry stone brought to class in first grade. I remember an obsidian arrowhead that I broke in fifth grade and put in my pocket, then found it again the next summer, then lost, yet again. I remember Dippin' Dots at the mall. Mint.

I remember video games and books in excruciating detail. I remember song lyrics, but not always. I can never remember phone numbers, but I remember my fourth birthday party, and bits of my third. I remember band practice after Hurricane Floyd, when Monique and Marcus and maybe Christina went on and on about West Nile, and I flapped around in my Grumpy sweatshirt going "caw, caw".

...For some reason, they all thought I was on drugs after that. :)

The reason "How Bizarre" is a going away song for me is because it came out in '97 and was quite popular then...and Kevin graduated in '97 and went away to VT in '97, and that song played in the background through most of May when he spent most of his time on the computer (the same computer that is now in my room) playing Diablo on battlenet. I spent a great deal of time on my computer then, playing Diablo. The music was spooky and acoustic, and several months later the theme in the Shin-Ra mansion basement reminded me of it. I commented on this to Mark; he didn't know what I was talking about. When I wasn't listening to the spooky acoustic town theme, I listened to the radio- and Sugar Ray was on the charts with "I Just Wanna Fly", though that was more of a seventh grade song than a sixth grade song for me.

"Semi-Charmed Kinda Life" by Third Eye Blind was the number one song for that year on Z100's countdown, I think. I remember because the year after, it was the theme from Titanic, and because "One Headlite" by the Wallflowers was also on the countdown, and I watched the music video in the hotel room that faced the parkinglot in Blacksburg. They served hush puppies at the buffet, and dad had a random anecdote relating to them to tell. He compared them to grits.

I had a necklace (I always have a necklace)- it wasn't really a necklace, just a little green onyx star that I bought for five dollars at the mall with a hole in the center on a nylon cord (I went to the mall with Steffy, and I bought it from a little Indian lady who looped the cord through so the pendant wouldn't slide on the cord- I used to play with the loop all the time) and Mark kept stealing it and teasing me with it. He wasn't particularly happy to be going, but this was before he left, so he didn't have a choice.

I had a black mechanical pencil, too, that Kevin kept stealing and teasing me with, but in the end I gave it to him and told him to remember to write. He never did, but he called occasionally.

His roommate wasn't there when we showed up to help Kev move into his dorm room (seventh floor, I think, in the largest all male dorm on the east coast. ouch.) so we left him a note on the back of a Far Side calendar tear off. I don't remember the day, but there was a saxophone with arms and legs on it. I can't remember the punchline, either.

"How Bizarre" was a song for that summer that was quickly played out and forgotten, like most summer songs are. OMC was part of Mark's extensive and eclectic CD collection, however, and I listened to it for a while, after I got my stereo in eighth grade.

It snowed after that Christmas (in eighth grade), and I played Zelda in the morning while watching the snow shake off the trees. I loved that feeling, but we didn't have proper snow again for several years.

In ninth grade, we missed over a week of school because of the flood, and Bound Brook floated away while Manville drowned beneath the weight of its own rubbish. Mom and dad were in North Carolina when the rain started; they rented a car and drove home just in time. Grandma was staying with me then, and Mark had already left though no one really noticed his leaving; in those last few years, he wasn't really even there. We watched The Pink Panter and The Pink Panther returns while the roof leaked into the kitchen.

At some point, I went outside in the rain to find the backyard had turned into a very shallow lake. The water was warm and cool, and it seemed as though the house would be carried away. The water came up to my ankles and I splashed around until I saw what might have been worms in the grass, pale wriggling things like elongated mealy worms. I went back inside and washed off my feet, but when the rain stopped we were told to boil all our water because it was unsafe.

The roof still leaks over the kitchen, but it leaks at the juncture where the kitchen meets the family room because of the ice storm in '94. Third grade. When it snowed, I went outside that night and brushed the snow into a pile on the bird bath (frozen) and poked a face into it. School was closed for a whole week, and the tree in the backyard nearly fell over; it lost half its branches, including a main one on the side. The limb stayed down until after the snow melted and it was taken away. I found a stick shaped like a shepherd's crock and I used it to navigate the ice. It was so thick on top of the snow that I could walk without breaking the surface- but I was much, much lighter then.

Steffy's littlest brother was born then, after we made snow cones in her driveway and put chocolate syrup on them.

I tried to do the same later, with Becky, but she had no chocolate syrup. We used kool-aid, instead. The chocolate was better.

Sand is not particularly good for growing hot peppers, though we tried. I didn't was my hands afterwards, and rubbed my eyes at dinner and oh, how they burned.

If I don't stop, I'll keep going. I remember too little too well, too much too vaguely. Never anything important. It used to frustrate Mark, that I had such complete recall. Mr Foster in seventh grade asked me if I had a photographic memory after I passed his volleyball test that everyone else failed save for Joey who got a 67 or a 69. It's not.

I would forget, if I could. It's overwhelming sometimes. I can sit an simply remember...a dinosaur shaped eraser I left inside my third grade science project, and making pryaniki for the international festival in second grade. Pine cone cards, tomato seeds, and Birgit spelling "grandma". The sweater vest Becky wore when I broke my thumb at mom's 50th birthday party. Being told, "That went right over your head" and wanting to say in response "It wouldn't have if you didn't insist on sitting so high above me." Snails, snails, and snails.

Too many memories. I don't know what to do with them.

Brother Pele's in the back
Sweet Zina's in the front
Cruising down the freeway
In the hot, hot sun

Suddenly red blue lights
Flash us from behind
Loud voice booming
"Please step out onto the line"

Pele breathes words of comfort
Zina just hides her eyes
Policeman taps his shades
Is that a Chevy 69?

How bizarre
How bizarre
How bizarre

Destination unknown
As we pull in for some gas
Freshly pasted poster
Reveals a smile from the pack

Elephants and acrobats,
Lions snakes monkey
Pele speaks righteous
Sister Zina says funky

How bizarre
How bizarre
How bizarre

Ooh baby, (ooh baby)
It's making me crazy, (it's making me crazy)
Everytime I look around
Look around
Everytime I look around
Everytime I look around
Everytime I look around
It's in my face

Ringmaster step out
Says the elephants left town
People jump and jive
But the clowns have stuck around

T.V. news and camera
There's choppers in the sky
Marines, police, reporters
Ask where, for and why

Pele yells "we're outta here"
Zina says "right on"
We're making moves and starting grooves
Before they knew we're gone

Jumped into the Chevy
Headed for big lights,
Want to know the rest
Hey, buy the rights,

How bizarre
How bizarre
How bizarre

Ooh baby, (ooh baby)
It's making me crazy, (it's making me crazy)
Everytime I look around
Look around
Everytime I look around
Everytime I look around
Everytime I look around
It's in my face
It's in my face
- OMC, "How Bizarre"

Because I love this song, and nothing except "I Just Wanna Fly" says 'I'm going away to college and there's nothing you can do about it, neener neener neener' quite like it.

How bizarre.

There's an old Virginian vibraphone
With a calculated gait
And a man who thinks he's Al Capone
With a cumberbund and cape

Don't criticize what a vicar would prize in you
And talk to the man if you feel he needs talking to
And the hobbit on the rocks is crying
And the fish upon the docks are dying

There's an orchestra in rococo
and an insulated dwarf
And the ships are sinking in the sea
As they sail from the shores

Don't criticize what a vicar would prize in you

And the hobbit on the rocks is crying
And the fish upon the docks are dying
And the hobbit on the rocks is crying
For the grunion in the sand entwining

Don't criticize what a vicar would prize in you
And talk to yourself if you feel you need talking to
-"Hobbit on the Rocks", Toad the Wet Sprocket
.....
Err...yeah. That's all. *boogies away*

The young woman fell from the sky and hit the ground with a very loud, very painful sounding whump. The sidewalk cracked like plasterboard beneath her. Ed winced. That had to hurt. He resettled his glasses on his nose and poked her gently in the ribs.

"Erm, miss? 'Scuse me, miss? Are you okay?" There was a small crowd gathering around them; most people just walked by, unconcerned, but a few tourists were snapping photos. He tried again. "Miss, you're blocking the thouroughfare, do you think you could maybe..."

She groaned and shuddered, then slowly pulled her arms and legs beneath her and rose to her feet, a little undsteadily. Ed helped brush the concrete dust out of her clothing and led her to his cart. The tourists wandered away. She blinked at him, more than a little dazed.

"Where am I?" Her voice was a little slurred, which wasn't entirely unsurprising. It looked like she'd bit her tongue on impact.

"Lynna Falls, miss. The market district."

"Lynna? Oh. I'd hoped to end up in Radrezyria." She sighed coughed up some cement dust. Her face froze. "Wait a minute- who am I?"

"I'm afraid I don't know, miss. You fell out of the sky and hit the pavement pretty hard." This was a little odd; it wasn't every day that people fell out of the sky, but usually they remembered who they were afterwards. You don't go falling from high altitudes unless you know you're going to walk away with nothing more than skinned knees, after all.

"My name is Emmy, I think." She looked up at him with wide green eyes. "Who are you?"

He smiled his best professional smile. "The name's Rex, Oedipus Rex, I could kill my parents for it but they'd expect that. You can call me Ed. I run this fine establishment, Ed's Waffles, Espionage, and Tax Evasion." He gestured broadly to his cart. "Would you like a waffle?"

She sat down on one of the folding stools outside the cart. "I think I would, thank you."
------------

Leo was waving his arms and having a hard time of it, as the room was barely large enough for one of them to stand up, much less for both of them standing and one of them waving his arms. Quinn was just glad the other man wasn't able to draw his ridiculous Freudian sword; Leo was hysterical enough to start hacking at things, and, antiquated or not, that thing was still sharp.

"There are crazy people with big henchmen and bigger guns chasing after us and it's all your fault!"

Leo's voice had risen three octaves since he'd started shouting. Quinn rubbed his temples wearily, and decided he'd had enough. A flying tackle was a difficult thing to manage under the best of circumstances, and even more difficult in a seven foot by seven foot box with two beds and two adult men, but he pulled it off anyway because he was just that tired of listening to his accidental companion. They hit the opposite wall with a spine crunching thud and ended up on the floor. Leo finally shut up, most likely because Quinn had his elbow jammed in his throat.

"Okay, golden boy, we're going to do two things now. You're going to shut up, and I'm going to think. Okay?" He'd perfected his gravelly intimidating voice six years ago on his younger sister; Leo squeaked and nodded. "Good."

He left Leo sprawled on the floor and sat down on one of the beds. He thought. Leo remained sprawled on the floor. He kept thinking. His elbow hurt. Thinking did not cease.

"So, what's your name, anyway?" he finally asked.

"Adonis Marco Angelus Isidore Valiant Leocadia the seventh." Leo finally sat up and stretched, his joints crackling. "Who're you?"

Quinn snorted. "No wonder you prefer Leo. 'Adonis' is such a wuss name. I'm Quinn Sheridan Zelindo Frances Aubrecht Mallory Democritus Drinda the twelf."

Leo stared at him with wide gold eyes, completely and utterly shocked. Quinn rolled his eyes. The kid was probably severely inbred and mentally retarded. That happened a lot in the middle nobles- and he was pretty, too pretty. Kind of like show dogs, or something. Really pretty, really stupid, and really useless. Silver. People weren't supposed to have silver hair unless they were sick or really old or really vain. Leo didn't seem like the type to indulge in that kind of vanity, pretty or not, which meant that he was a natural silvertop, and that was just wrong.

Quin tossed his own impossibly golden ponytail over one shoulder and rested a foot on the other bed, waiting for Leo to recover from his shock.

"Y-you're a Drinda? That's like, in line for the throne, cousins to the emperor..." His big golden eyes had glazed over. Quinn half expected him to start drooling. Silver nobles. Completely useless.

"Second cousins twice removed, actually, and I'm all but disowned from my family, but yes, I am the eldest Drinda heir right now, even if I am just giving it all to my sister. That's not really important, though. What's important now is that we're stuck in a Sanctuary with the mob after us for no reason, I'm hungry, you're annoying, and I'm stuck with you and you probably won't taste good. So, you tell me how I'm going to solve these problems." He crossed his arms over his chest and looked expectantly at Leo.

Leo shrugged. "It's your fault we're here! You solve them."

"You're just like my ex-girlfriend, man- you expect me to do everything! Fuck, I don't even know where we are, or how we got here."

"Don't look at me- one minute I was at Cade's party, the next I was in the middle of an alley with people trying to kill me." Leo pouted.

Quinn gritted his teeth. "Right. Let's come up with a plan that will keep us from getting fried, then. Can you actually use that frog-sticker of yours, or is it just for show?"

There was a blur in front of his eyes, and then a very clear image of a very large, very sharp sword held at his throat. He reacted on instinct and the next moment they were both standing there, Leo with his sword at Quinn's throat and Quinn with his rifle jammed between Leo's ribs.

"I dunno, I'm pretty good at sticking frogs." Those big golden eyes suddenly seemed very dangerous.

Quinn tried very hard not to swallow. "Okay then. Maybe we can get out of here in one piece." He began to rethink his previous plans.
----------------

Dreamscape. Do they ever amuse me.