By about five everyone had gone to sleep. Drained. Reserves and backup reserves depleted. Not much past six, Cassie was awake again and silently made her way downstairs to the kitchen. So careful to be quiet to not wake anyone and then almost screaming when she was startled by Sweet looking out the window over the sink. "Shit!" she whispered, hissed, "What are you doing awake?"
"Nothing. You?"
"I was going to get a pop-tart because food was sounding good." She stepped past him to the pantry. "Want one?"
"No." He wouldn't look at her, his eyes kept fixed out the window pointlessly, the glass had iced over and beyond it the yard was dark and the swirling snow (that was still at this point an unknown quantity, x) would have obscured anything beyond a few feet if the first two conditions were not present. "Any lasting insights?"
She sat down at the table, "No." She was talking with her mouth full. "It all makes so much sense, everything, the connections. How does Carter say it? 'You can see the monads on the meta-structure?'"
"Yeah. I am not sure he knows what he is talking about sometimes—technically."
"Well, anyway," she finished her snack. "It all seems to click and you think, this time, this time it is going to stick. Eureka. I have it. Then you start to come down and it all slips away. The world starts to look very regular again."
"Yeah."
"The whole this is kind of S.T.C., and I want to give it up, I think." What had started out as a fantasy of seeing the deeper meaning of the world had become, for her, a tease and its seemingly adjacent answers kept retreating further with each glimpse. What it was like, she imagined, for her brothers deer hunting. Seeing them through the trees but they can outrun you and they don't have doubt and they are fleet to your floundering as you writhe on the floor in a drug induced stupor that was supposed to attract the fucking fauns to begin with. She was deciding, that very moment, that fucking instant as she said the shit, that she preferred a world that had unknowable mysteries where she had near complete ignorance of the possible answers to one where, like the latter seasons of The X-Files, every answer seemed only to obfuscate the truth a little more. A world that may bare little resemblance to the truth that is hidden but one she can build and put on a shelf to refer back to and understand.
Sweet listened to her and then turned to study her silence in the dark, tried to look with not his eyes and see some indication of what had transpired in that very kitchen earlier that evening. The soft sound of chewing or the personal details could betray the answers he was then seeking with as much ferocity as she was now turning away from her own insights. He wanted to know what Carter had said. What he had told her, what confidence or cadence he had let slip in his drugged out giddiness that she may, in the future, at some moment of greatest impact or insult, haul out and set up on display. It had all but sobered him up in an instant earlier that night. He had been watching Troll intently when she, when Cassie, reentered the living room. She chewed her lip and her eyes avoided his except in darts that a lesser man would miss. She caught his face whenever she thought it was safe as she sat with a deck of cards and Carter was no where to be found. The bathroom, he would say. God damn right, Sweet would think, no way he was in the bathroom. He gave her room, moments of solitude, to confirm his story and cement her confidence. And now she was sitting there, sizing him up again.
"How about you?" She finally asked. "Any lasting insights."
"That boyfriend of yours is smart."
"I don't think that counts as an insight." She dragged herself to her feet. "I effing have to get some sleep. How are you still awake?"
"I am a better man than you." He hoped she thought he was kidding and she did, but he wasn't. She went back up to bed. The wind, the hard, cold dagger winter wind sounded to be picking up even harder. Sweet could not hear the creek of the stairs as Cassie climbed them, he could not hear the whine of the heater kicking on or Carter's soft snore.
Right here, he thought, if it wasn't for time, he thought, he could hear what was said, what had to be about him, that Carter had transmitted to her. Sweet went back to lay down on the couch, Carter on the floor beside (Nick and CaliAnn to Sarah's bedroom and T.S. braved the weather at two a.m. and made her way across the street to see a friend) despite the fact that there were two more unused couches around the room.
Classism on the roads
Current mood: argumentative
Category: News and Politics
I was driving around Lafayette the other day and almost got pulled over for speeding. Cops on motorcycles pulled over the guy that was passing me, and I had almost sped up to prevent his passage, you know, just to be an ass.
That was when I realized that the speed limit on the new stretch of Camellia is 35. 35 mph!
Now think about that. Here we have a road that is, along at least half of its now total length, almost completely undeveloped and uninhabited. It is lined with so many lights that it never knows night, it is divided with well demarcated turning lanes and has wide sidewalks set back from the street. This has a speed limit of 35.
Consider, on the other hand, Verot School Road... Homes at building right up to the narrow road. Lights every few thousand light years, no sidewalks so pedestrians hug the sides of the road, only emerging into your headlights as you come around a curve, past tall trees and they are almost under your wheel. Not a turning lane to be had so traffic, which at one moment is slipping along, suddenly comes to a complete stop as the front of the immobile parade waits for a space to make a left. Speed limit? 50!
So we have the best of times and the worst of times. A road of designer safety and a road where, like he says in FIGHT CLUB, on a long enough timeline, everyone's chance of survival drops to zero. One has been determined to be best served by a speed limit of 35, the other of 50.
Now if we accept the premise that fast traffic is more dangerous, then we are faced with a question that I will not think so little of you to answer...
Why would the road that is already better designed and more user friendly for both drivers and walkers also have the safer speed limits? What is the difference between the people who traffic (with the emphasis on those on foot to bring it in more stark contrast) Camellia and those on Verot School Road?
I wonder if tax returns would point to the answer, dear reader.
A scene with (maybe) a monologue from a longer prose piece
Current mood: artistic
Category: Writing and Poetry
Cassie had spent the day at CaliAnn's dorm room, camcorder running. Her professor had told her that she lacked immediacy, passion in her multi-media work. Her professor had told her to try something that would be uncomfortable for her, for her audience. Her professor assured her that she had the talent to address ideas that lesser talents couldn't. Her professor, she suspected, wouldn't know talent if it—but maybe he would; maybe she did have talent, more than she suspected.
Cassie set up the camera, pointing at a chair, a chair sitting in front of a bare wall. CaliAnn sat down, not knowing what to expect and only slightly trusting Cassie. "Ready?' Cassie asked.
"As I'm going to be, babe. How long do you want me to talk?"
"However long you have something to say. When you are done, just tell me to cut."
"Ok."
"Ok. Tell me about Jessie." She turned the camera on and took a step back.
"Oh. Ok." She paused and then, even though she was pretty sure her brain had shut off, she started talking:
"He wrote this poem once. It was really, really bad. It was a sex poem that was full of unfortunate rocket imagery—No. Rocket would have been at least phallic; it was the space shuttle. At the moment of lift off. God, I always thought the shuttle looked like an udderless cow.
"No, I couldn't do it. Couldn't remember a line. Just the image of the flacid, bloated cow space shuttle that has to be hurled into space by two rockets and a can of gas that outsizes it by two, three times. Not the image I would want of my penis if I had a penis.
"Maybe that was his problem, he had such a low regard for his penis. Now, even if you put a copy in my hand I wouldn't read a work. If you started to read it—aloud or even in your head—I would walk out. On principle. I don't know, respect for the dead, I guess.
"Well, then I wasn't writing. I'm an actor, writer, director now, but then I was just action, I was a freshman. Can you believe I actually called myself a 'fresh person'? But now I have more respect for writing. On principle, I wouldn't listen to his poem if he didn't want me to.
"I don't even know if a copy still exists—is existent—is...
"I, wait, I want to clarify what I said before. I do not believe, and I didn't mean to suggest that he killed himself because of penis potency issues: size or virility or anything. That was just a joke.
"Yeah, just a bad, sad joke. Bad/sad; bad/sad—well. The whole thing with Jessie was just not good. But I don't think the poem caused it. Now I am in the theatre because I believe in the power, the efficacy, of performance, but I don't think that Sweet reading that poem is what caused Jessie's breakdown. Nothing is that simple, not usually at least.
"Did Nick know Jessie? I don't know. They maybe met. I remember Nick took a class called 'Aging, Death and Dying' and I think he would have mentioned Jessie if he knew him. But it is weird, Nick doesn't get very introspective for a psychology major. He'd never make in drama. What does it say about me? My two best friends at college, Nick and Sweet. Nick is so unemotional that psychology is like astronomy in its remoteness. And Sweet, well, Sweet is just an ass hole that doesn't care about other people's feelings.
"I used to be friends with a better sort, I swear. Ha! They'd hat to hear that, I'm sure. They put lots of stock in my opinion of them, I am sure. Or not. Maybe. Who knows with them.
"And, despite the rumors that the trade papers like to spread, I have never dated either one. Not that I haven't tried all my third-wave wiles on Nick, but he is a daddy now.
"And, well, Sweet is gay now, I guess. Or bi, and that isn't a turn on for me. I don't waste my time with theatre boys, either. Carter, Sweet's whatever, wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't so ugly; a bulk, just kind of there.
"You know, I wonder, now, I am just saying: I wonder if there was more between Sweet and Jessie than friendship, more than roommates. Back then I had no reason to think because Sweet wasn't the type. Guess you never know. That would up Sweet's culpability, I guess.
"Wow. Weird. Poor kid.
"I have no proof, kind of like the penis thing. This, I guess, could be related to the penis thing. Now I am just scripting. Speculating points. Don't listen to me.
"Never in a million years would I have thought Sweet was gay, or bi, or—you know, right now he is dating Carter, so gay. Carter, I guess, is gay; he has only dated guys.
"Finally one day I was complaining about Sweet's boring, ugly friend that was hanging around all the time and he was all, 'You know we are dating, right?' Now I didn't but I said, 'Of course, but that doesn't mean I have to like the boy.' But really, I had no clue. And everyone else knew and just assumed I knew. Well, I didn't. I should have, I mean, everyone I know is gay.
"I don't get Carter and Sweet as a coule, Jessie and Sweet would have at least made sense. Common interests and all.
"Anyway. Weird. Poor kid."
She sat for a moment, not sure how she had gotten to where she was, not even sure the route that had come out of her mouth. "Cut, I think.
Cassie shut off the camera. "Good."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Good."
"You really think Carter is ugly?"
"Yes. Don't tell him. Well, I guess he will see the movie. Shit."
"I probably won't use it all, just parts." Cassie packed things up and headed home and, even though she was still figuring out the whole project, she was sure she would use the whole thing.
Keep up the fight, Ted; Give up the ghost, Hillary
Current mood: adventurous
Category: News and Politics
Ted Kennedy, the Lion of the Senate, is in a bad place health wise. Man has a brain tumor. Now the Right may use this as a source for humor, blaming his liberal stances over the years on just such a brain issue. But, seriously, he may be dying.
Of course our thoughts are with him and his family, but let me get political for a moment...
This is a golden chance for Hillary to get out of the race with a HUGE dose of dignity.
This is her option: "My fellow Americans," this is Hillary talking now, "our friend, Senator Kennedy, has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and is working with the same dedication and ferocious power to secure his health that he has used in the Senate for years to secure civil rights, education reform and advance the agenda of progress for America.
"Though we hope and have optimism, we have to recognize that the great men of our party are passing the torch to the next generation of legislators. The presidency is an office of great importance and power but it is not a unitary executive that can govern by fiat. A successful president needs a hard working legislative body with dedicated and passionate Congress people and Senators.
"Today, this year, my place is there. My place is in the Senate. Working night and day on the issues that matter to America: health care, environmental protection and our national security. Together with Senator Obama, in a few short months, President Obama, we will bring the change that we need after 8 years of George W. Bush!"
She becomes de-facto leader of the Senate, goes out on a high note and becomes the power behind the bravado of the next president.
I want a pony and to contradict those libertarian ass clowns!
Current mood: artistic
Category: News and Politics
We have all heard a friend (someone that seemed cool, usually) say it. Some of those reading this blog may say it themselves:
"I'm socially liberal and fiscally conservative."
To them I say this:
I want a pony!
What is the pony here? The pony is all these liberal social rights that these libertarian-types like: drug legalization and gay marriage and free speech and the like. All those things that young people think are cool. They are the pony. Got that? Pony.
Now, in their world everyone can have a pony. Free and clear (my blood parasites group), ponies are being given away to everyone that asks. You can have a pony, you can have all the free speech, all the gay marriage and all the legal pot you can stand. You can ride your pony to work or just hang with it on the couch eating Cheeze Poofs.
But, just because everyone has a pony doesn't mean this is a world of candy and candy apples. No, because ponies are expensive. You need stabling fees and you need to buy hay and maybe some sugar for a treat. If you want to ride your pony in shows, you may need to hire a trainer. All those things cost money.
So everyone gets a pony, but you have to pay for your own care and feeding. So the fact is, if you aren't rich, you may have to watch your pony weaken from starvation and die of exposure in your carport beside the 98 Honda that gets you to work 9 out of 10 days every two weeks.
So you have a pony you can care for. That leaves you with a few options... you could just not get a pony... you could sell or lease your pony to the rich family across town whose daughters don't want to share the pony they have... you could learn how to make glue. But the end of the story is the same: A pony is no good if you can't care for it. Look at how hard Homer had to work at the Quik-E-Mart!
Libertarians are just Republicans that like to smoke pot, and the socially liberal/fiscally conservative douches like to play the arcade games but don't want to have to buy tokens.
Taxes are the dues we pay to live in a free country. Social Security and public education and (if the democrats could get something done) universal health care and gumdrop incentives are the investment we make in the pony infrastructure.
Now you may be tempted to say that you have your stable and your pony gets oats three times a week and an apple a day. "Screw 'um!" you say about the people with Spanish Civil War emaciated ponies roaming the countryside. You got yours.
But what if a pony kicks over a lantern? What once was quaint is now a fire hazard and your pony, like that bum's is homeless and cold and your store of oats was ruined by the firemen, it is just soggy oatmeal now.
Face it, ponies are a spendy proposition. You can't afford one. There is a reason that only the rich girls that end up on MY SUPER SWEET 16 have ponies.
Now, in closing, remember the lesson: It does no good to be socially liberal if you are burning down the local barn.
sore
aroused
aggravated
argumentative
adventurous
annoyed
virginal