My Dear, You Are

My dear, you are the dirt,
The beginning in which I grow;
You hold my roots upon the Earth
You are all my strength below

My dear, you are the dirt,
You catch me when I fall;
You are each place I need you
You are, my love, my all

On A Sunday Afternoon

A full ten days without an update, you see. That's mostly because I wanted the previous entry up as long as possible, and lessly because I've been a scurrying thing. I've restructured my project list, pushing the Great Big Project back a wee bit to make room for others. Recording some hip hop lyrics is moving up, as is my vegetarian information package, and both things will coincide with the launch of my new web site redesign. In its development, I have tried to focus on functionality over formality. (That's not quite the right word, I don't think. How about, formal-ality?) Homes are rarely ever furnished before they're built, right?

In some related news of unexpected delight, I. and I have found a beautiful home to share. But we do not move for a month yet, so the tremors of tremendous excitement will shake me 'til then.

On Friday, I read a selection of my brief fiction. They were, in this order: Dolls, Regrowth, the Winter Beast, Petals in the Fall, and Flowers For Pepito. The audience seemed to enjoy them, and so you should seem as well. Perhaps. Grin.

Flowers For Pepito

When An knew that she absolutely must go, she stepped into the grass, the same way she had so many years ago. The mist was drifting in and soon she wouldn't be able to see a thing, not the grass, not Furrley or the nymbit, not even the beautiful ivea-violets she was holding. The nymbit squeaked.

"Now listen here, you. I told you I was gonna have to leave one day, so don't you go making this sad on me," she said to her friends. The wind blew her short hair into her eyes.

"You're right, Vivian," Furrley said. "Please, just be careful."

"Careful? Oh Furrley, there's nothing to be afraid of. I'm going home. There's no goblins or King Snickers or... or... or whispering fogs where I'm from!"

The nymbit squeaked.

"I beg your pardon?" An asked.

Furrley answered, "He means to say, as do I, thank you for defeating King Snickers. We are truly grateful."

"Well, you're welcome, no different than you would've done for me."

The little girl smiled. The mist was really closing in now. She could almost hear the whispers telling her which way to go until she was so perfectly lost all over again. No, as An had learned, it could be a long time before there was another chance to leave. She reached down for the little patch of grass around her feet and began to pull at it.

The nymbit squeaked, rubbed his head against Furrley, then squeaked again.

An stopped.

"He says - "

"No," she said, nodding slowly. "I know that one."

Without looking back at them, An reached down and pulled at the grass, pulling it higher and higher, all around her, until it was completely dark and swallowed her into the ground.

Soon she would pull the grass away and be back home, with her mother and father and especially Pepito, after being away for so long. She missed them very much, but for the time being, she stayed in the dark, waiting until the last of her tears was completely dried up.

(Based on the painting Flowers for Pepito by Kristian Adam, showing from Sep 18 to Oct 18 at the Ayden Gallery as part of the exhibition A Configuration of Posture, Pose and Purpose.)

A Waiting Time

I feel as though soon, and I'm not sure when, I'll have to take some time for myself. Months, as long as I can. I have enough saved up for it, and I could extend my sabbatical if I reduce my unnecessary expenses. Eating out, large grocery stores, miscellaneous luxuries. My body feels weakened a little, like an anxiety of wanting to do everything immediately.

But for now, all I have to do is take a shower and enjoy dinner.

Unusual Days

I had some bizarre dreams last night. And I slept for a solid nine hours.

I haven't had a session of coding like last night in a long time, probably not since I was in junior high school. I remember a couple nights when I was working on what I called TextGamez in BASIC. I'd just learned a new function (if I'm not mistaken, it was something along the lines of $x = $inkey) and I was going wild throwing it into loops. There must have been times since then when I was working on web sites or IRC scripts, but nothing like last night. I was literally falling asleep at the keyboard, my body couldn't take any more. My brain on the other hand was fighting to keep his partner awake. Sometimes what you're working on just becomes so clear that if you interrupt it to sleep, you'll never find that rhythm again.

It's my usual day off today. Yesterday I was also away from work, but that was unusual, just like the day before it. I was productive though, so it's not a great loss. Except financially.

Headlines

As Mr. Higgins picks up the newspaper, he sees tomorrow’s headline, in big block letters across the top:

TORIES LOSE 18 SEATS

“Oh right,” he mumbles, “have to go vote later.”

The thought doesn’t cross his mind that his vote won’t make a difference. He’s just happy to have something to do.

The rest of the paper is more of the same. A robbery later on, an explosion in Manitoba, a new Google something-or-other. He doesn’t read the articles, just skims the headlines until he gets to the obituaries. He looks through them carefully, looking for his name.

No, not today.

Cascading

So I don't know nor can I quite explain why I was so resistant to ever using CSS when developing web sites. I taught myself HTML months before my family ever got internet, a 56k modem that barely hustled 10k. I hard-coded everything in text editors, never seeing the usefulness of learning web-development applications just for a hobby. Then I taught myself PHP and MySQL, and now more than just being the logical conclusion, its practicality is beyond what I imagined. Rah rah, CSS.

I've been webbing a great deal lately. Expect things.