the self

Stress Factor 8

2011-04-10T19:29:00.002-04:00

I got a buzzcut with a mohawk last week. The majority of my hair is only 1/8", with a narrow strip just on the top of my head that's about 1.5". It's the lest amount of hair I've ever had since I was born.

On the Tuesday after I got it cut, I was sitting in my Fabric Design class, using class time to surf the internet because the network was down at my apartment, when I heard the professor talking to another of the students about haircuts. The other woman was talking about how her daughter had just had a haircut - went from "No, I never want to cut my hair ever!" to "Can we cut it off?" And I heard my professor say, "You know, getting a haircut all of a sudden can be a sign of stress."

And I turned to them and said, "I am very stressed right now."

But as soon as I said that, I realized that, even though I should be absolutely stressed out of my mind, had been all of the week before, I wasn't at that moment.

Oh, I was still behind in my major's classes, was barely getting by in my academics, was miraculously doing fine in my drawing class, but I didn't feel all of that pressure anymore.

All this past week, even knowing how much work I have to do to pass my classes, worrying about finances and being able to eat, finding time to actually talk to my friends, I have been remarkably relaxed. I've nearly finished a book, made a lot of progress on my latest self-imposed ebook project, got my housing for next year mostly squared away.

Then again, sitting here and describing all of it has made me considerably more stressed than I was this morning, lounging in bed, pretending I had nothing to do for the rest of my life except lay around in bed.

Oh well.

the seamstress

2010-09-16T18:51:00.004-04:00

She stared at her fingers.

Shiny orange metal stared back at her.

The copper bits mocked her, taunted her, shouted her fears.

The silence of her workroom was suddenly thick and oppressive. For the first time she wished she had bought that old radio when she saw it in the shops last month, wished she had something to take her mind off of her 'healed' hands.

She turned off the lamp and left the room, hoping to forget all about the life she just lost.

Her fingers smelled sharp and tangy, a burning reminder of her disability.

Most days she managed to suppress her dreams, her desire to sit at her worktable and carefully stitch fine beads to a bodice, the drawn out shing of her shears through rich muslin and smooth silk, the quiet ache of her neck after being bent over the pattern papers for hours. She had closed that door and locked it, choosing instead to nurse her still-recovering joints with slow weaving.

She paid the neighbor-girl to wind the warp and thread the heddles for her and sat about with the window open, slowly working the treadles and moving from a loose cotton gauze carefully up to a plain linen, a fine silk, a thick brocade. And though the work was familiar, she found herself longing for the new metal bits in her fingers to wear down enough that she could at least begin a simple tapestry.

But the joints were still stiff, the metal too foreign for the flesh left between to properly grasp a needle of any size.

The day she sold her finest brocade for only a little under her old prices was the day her index finger had finally bent enough to properly grip a thick tapestry needle.

She used the money to pay for her shears to be sharpened, and bought a small cake at the local bakery in celebration.

The next day she managed to embroider a simple tree silhouette on a bit of linen.

She cut apart a few strings of beads and restrung them, just to prove she could.

That night she polished the metal bits to a high shine.

And as she laid down to sleep, she finally allowed the dreams she had kept at bay to creep in, trickle in, flood in.

She fell asleep smiling.

--
parts of a floor loom

Hazy: 1

2010-05-22T22:58:00.005-04:00

The first time I smoked anything was in early November 2009.

It was a rather chilly night in DC. Yasha and I were hunkered down against the wall of 9:30 Club, waiting for the doors for a Wolfmother show. At the time, Yasha was a smoker, and he had brought a couple Camels to smoke while we waited in the cold. He had handed me one, which I stuck in my back pocket while we went from the car to the line with our whole roast chicken dinner, and I promptly broke it when I sat down.

After we ate he lit the remaining cigarette with my lighter, because apparently his didn't work very well. He smoked most of it, and we talked. When it got down to almost the filter he offered the last of it to me. I've never been very good at resisting things, so it was with very little persuasion that I took it.

The first drag I didn't really inhale, just kept the smoke in my mouth.

The second one sent me reeling. I coughed the smoke back out for almost ten minutes, and remained rather light-headed for a while after.

I ended up walking a few blocks to Starbucks and getting a hot chocolate and to clear my lungs out. It took longer than I expected, and when I was on my way back Yasha met me. He was worried when I didn't come back.

That concert remains my most violent one. I rode an early Greyhound bus back to Richmond for my 10am Biology lab, and came in bruised and sore and exhausted. It was still incredibly fun.

----

I've started a short series of all the 'exciting' things I've started doing. This one isn't very excitingthough, probably because I skipped the concert and the actual smoking part was short and boring. Upcoming parts will deal with things that are illegal for me, due to my age and country of residence. They were still fun though.

that missing week

2010-05-01T13:20:00.002-04:00

The skipped week, because I forgot.

day 12: whatever tickles your fancy
Gosh, I love tea.

day 13: a fictional book
"Fool Moon" Jim Butcher, Book 2 of the Dresden Files

day 14: a nonfictional book
"Napoleon's Privates: 2500 Years of History Unzipped" Tony Perrottet
(I haven't read this yet, but I certainly hope to. I'll probably wait for the paperback...)

day 15: a fanfic
"Trials" semebay
fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
summary: After an argument, Matthew goes missing. Plagued by nightmares of being trapped in darkness, Alfred realizes he was the victim of a serial killer and sets out to find him.
(I just made that summary up, because for some reason bay managed to either delete the thing or set it to 'friends only' or something. But it really is fantastic.)

day 16: a song that makes you cry (or nearly)
"And So It Goes" Billy Joel
(And that's because it was part of a very good original yaoi story I read a couple years ago, and the double meaning of the song itself and it's meaning within the story gets me crying every time)

day 17: an art piece
Dave Chihuly

Bike Rides

2010-05-01T12:58:00.002-04:00

day 18: whatever tickles your fancy: riding my bike

It was 9:12am when she put her poor wheezing laptop to sleep and mentally sorted through her drawers for what to wear. She quickly got dressed, selecting her old beat-up and doodled on all stars. A quick pass of makeup to hide her lack of sleep, a stop by the sink to refill her water bottle, and she was out the back door.

As usual, it was warmer than she expected. Mentally shrugging, deciding the wind would make her light sweater useful, she shuffled back through her awkward key ring for her bike key. She slid the U-lock out from the heavy chain on the deck post, locked it again, and dropped it over the handlebars for transport. She heaved the bike around to the stairs, propping it against her hip, balanced on two steps, and re-gripped it for control as she let gravity take it down the stairs.

Wheeling it out the yard and to the back drive, she mounted, checked for wily cars, and pushed off down the slight slope to the gravel drive. She briefly contemplated reaching back to click on the red tail light stuck in a pocket of her backpack, but just as quickly dismissed it. Instead she focused on avoiding the potholes in the gravel. She gently gripped the rear brake, then the front one, slowing down enough to glance for cars on Gilmer before turning down it, pausing briefly where it crossed Clay, and continuing up. She clicked up one gear, paused at Marshall. She allowed a moment to enjoy the clear morning.

She came to a stop at Broad. While waiting for traffic to clear for a straight shot to Laurel, she put one foot on the curb and shuffled the opposite pedal around backwards to almost the apex of it's cycle. Resting that foot on it in preparation for the moment of movement, she looked around again. Pedestrians turned the corner next to her. Cars lined up at the light, but she couldn't get through. She glanced at her watch: 9:22. She had time.

At last traffic cleared enough for her to shoot out onto the main drag. That morning, it seemed, the cosmos was in alignment and she didn't have to stop in the middle of the intersection. Angling her body into the turn, she rounded the corner onto Laurel, standing up a bit to make it up the slight hill. At every such turn she smiled to herself, remembering the rushing wind, the screaming fun and edge of terror to riding behind her parents on their motorcycles.

She inhaled deeply as she passed the Panera, catching a slight hint of baking before remembering to pay attention before she accidentally went careening through the next street and possibly into a car. The light at Grace was red so she slowed, keeping to the curb, glancing around for cars. She came close to a stop as a car went down Grace, looked around again, behind for any cars looking to pass her, and pushed off again. It always seemed to be Laurel that was the most fraught with peril, rather than the busy Broad.

She hugged the curb as she glided through the Franklin light, passing her old dorm and the handfuls of other students on their way to classes. Glancing behind again, she swerved around an inconveniently parked SUV and slowed again as she came to the cathedral and the strange light configuration in front of it.

Avoiding a couple other students, she leaned through the turn onto the little drive that led to the Compass, wind whipping the ends of her sweater around her sides. She shook her head to clear the bits of hair from her face and slowed down for the home stretch. She clicked back down a gear and jumped the curb to the bike racks. Spotting an free space, she slowed to a stop and awkwardly dismounted. She was suddenly winded, panting hard. She tried to control it as she swung her bike around and locked it up.

Her mood damped slightly by the prospect of English, she entered the library and descended the stairs to her basement classroom.

She couldn't wait for the bike ride back.

----

yeah, i'd completely forgotten about these. so i skipped a week. and yes, this is exactly my bike route from my house to my morning class.

days 7-11:photos

2010-04-23T18:21:00.006-04:00

rather than attempt drabbles about photos, i'm just going to put all 5 of them here.

day 07: a photo that makes you happy: a Mark Jenkins street installation

day 08: a photo that makes you sad/angry: the suicide of Evelyn McHale by Robert Wiles

day 09: a photo you took: from my 90s birthday party

day 10: a photo taken of you over 10 years ago: no such thing exists on the internet. sorry...

day 11: a photo taken of you recently: from a trip to Belle Isle a couple weeks ago, by Emily S

2010-04-19T22:35:00.003-04:00

day 06: whatever tickles your fancy: the future

She was kind of terrified by the prospect of her future.

This stemmed, at least partially, from her lack of life goals.

In high school, her greatest ambition had been to turn an old VW Microbus into a traveling darkroom. Her photography teacher had told her about one year on a field trip to Washington DC, the photo students had set up a tiny portable darkroom on the Mall. It was a refrigerator box with red cellophane over a hole in the top. They developed small pinhole pictures.

In college, she abandoned that idea - or at least the darkroom part, she still wanted the bus. She changed focuses, from photography in high school to textiles in college. And she realized that she had even less of a guarantee for a job after graduation. She developed a somewhat pessimistic - realistic, to her - idea that she would be working at a coffee shop or other similar food venue, while attempting to sell her craft online. She even finally registered on Etsy, though she hadn't even thought about putting anything up for sale.

She worried about everything. Her teeth kept getting cavities, what was she going to do about a dentist? Where would she live? Who would her doctor be? Would she even get a doctor? Who would hire her? Would it pay enough for some tiny hole-in-the-wall apartment? Would she even be happy? What about insurance? Would she ever afford a car?

Surprisingly, she never thought about any possible relationship, as nearly everyone she knew must be. She had come to terms with her unique situation, even if she hadn't actually told anyone about it. She kept meaning to tell her best friend one of these days, but had a feeling she would be too nervous to tell him. Somehow, it was different from letting slip casually that, yeah, she had a girlfriend. But her summer fling had added a new perspective, and things made more sense. She didn't even want to think about what her parents might say.

For the moment, though, she was focusing on the next two years. After she graduated, or perhaps the semester before, she would take the time to figure out her life beyond school. Because she certainly wasn't going to stick around for four more years.

----

this got away from me a bit, so i had to end it...

Half of You

2010-04-19T21:45:00.002-04:00

day 05: your favorite quote: "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as much as you deserve." Bilbo Baggins, Fellowship of the Ring

----

i can't come up with anything to say. i may just leave this...

Keys to the Kingdom

2010-04-19T20:49:00.004-04:00

day 04: your favorite book: "The Keys to the Kingdom" Garth Nix, 7-book series

She loved reading. In the last couple years, with her growing internet addiction, she tended to read more online than in printed form, but she loved it nonetheless.

The problem, however, lay in picking a favorite. She read so much, of nearly everything - but not romance, never romance - it was just too hard to pick one book she liked more than all the others. She didn't even feel right in resorting to her usual defaults, since she hadn't read any of them in so long, had read many, many other things since then.

At the moment, though, of the 5 most recent books she'd read (or was reading), she would have to say her favorite was "The Keys to the Kingdom" series by Australian Garth Nix. The seventh and final book had finally been published in mid-March, and she had torn through it in a matter of hours (spread over three or four days, but it was the fastest of her recent readings). The end had left her stunned, not entirely in its brilliance, but in the manner in which it was reached. She really was sad to see the series end, considering she had been reading it as it was published for five or six years.

However, her summer reading list was growing. She expected her favorite to be replaced relatively quickly. After all, she was still working her way through "Life, the Universe, and Everything", and "Storm Front", soon to start "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" as well. She hoped to make it through the rest of the Hitchhiker's books by the end of her summer classes, and to make a decent dent in the Dresden Files. Dexter would have to wait, as she had mistakenly gotten the second book, instead of the first, despite knowing what happened after watching the TV show.

Hopefully, though, the list wouldn't grow much more. 19 and two halves was a lot to read before the fall semester started, after all.

----

fuck, i love books. i'm currently reading 2 right now, and i really do hope to read all of that at least this year. wiki links ahoy!

keys to the kingdom
hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
dresden files
dexter

also, since i wasn't home for this past weekend, i've got to catch up. so three more to come.

Lost

2010-04-15T19:50:00.003-04:00

day 03: your favorite television program: "Lost" ABC

It amazed her that the original reason she had started watching "Lost" was because she had been in the throes of her 'Lord of the Rings' obsession back in 2004, and Dominic Monaghan was one of the stars. She had heard about it on a LotR fanboard, and vowed to at least watch the pilot. It seemed interesting enough...

Six years later she can't get enough. She's worried she may go through withdrawal when the series ends in mid-May.

But for as much as she loves the show to pieces, she knows that not many other people do. Even friends who watched it with her when it first premiered have stopped because the show has taken countless turns into the strange and confusing since then. She doesn't even bother mentioning it to her best TV buddy; she knows it makes little to no sense anymore. But she just can't help it.

She thinks it might partially be a curiosity - or a burning need - to see how Carlton and Cuse end the monster of a series.

But it's also the characters and the overall style of the show. Since the very first scene of the pilot, the opening eye motif has been carried throughout, and she sometimes finds herself trying to guess who's eye it is this time. The flashbacks were essential for character development in the first three seasons, and something that no other show (that she knew of) did. The flash-forwards of the fourth and fifth seasons, and the new flash-sideways's of this final sixth have been something altogether new and compelling.

That, and they give her another look at Charlie, who remains her favorite character even though he was killed in the finale of season three, as he might have been if the plane never crashed.

Now, with only a handful of episodes left, she is on the edge of her seat, spending an hour every week simultaneously terrified, confused, excited and hopeful. However it ends, she knows it will be amazing.

And then she will spend a week over the summer watching all six seasons straight through.

----

i seriously can't describe how much i love this show. you have no idea.
seasons 1-5 in 8 minutes 15 seconds

Boondock Saints

2010-04-14T18:38:00.006-04:00

day 02: your favorite movie: "Boondock Saints" 1999, Troy Duffy

For years, she had professed her favorite movies to be the "Lord of the Rings" saga. The sweeping epic was a feast for her then-young mind, instilling in her a strong desire to visit New Zealand. The plot points were balanced by the battle scenes were balanced by the rolling landscapes. But nothing brought more chills to her spine than the lighting of the beacons.

However, upon recent reflection, she discovered the Oscar-winning films had been supplanted by a much smaller cult film.

It always seems to be the beginnings of things that suck her in, and violent vigilante justice was a far cry from a wondrous fantasy realm.

"Boondock Saints," which had seen a resurgence in popularity at the end of the last year with the release of the sequel, was frequently described by her to be "gratuitous violence with Irish accents." It had been largely a flop when it was originally released in 1999 to a one week run in five theaters, it had grown over the next decade into a huge cult favorite. But that wasn't why she liked it.

It wasn't even the accents, which she openly admitted were sexy.

It was the silly brotherly antics, the bartender with turret's, the real Italians and Russians, the violent gunfights, the fiddle-laced soundtrack. It was the sweeping opening scene, the subtle (and not so subtle) religious undertones, the documentary ending, the hint of a past with a promise for the future. It was the hotel massacre. It was the courtroom speech and a cross-dressing Willem Dafoe.

----

not as good as the first one. i had a hard time articulating any specific reason i love that movie. i just do. the sequel was also pretty good, but it had a more convoluted plot than just 'there are bad men that get away with bad things, so let's just kill them.'
the opening scene
the hotel massacre
the trailer
also, the lighting of the beacons

lucid dreams

2010-04-13T20:16:00.007-04:00

day 01: your favorite song: "Lucid Dreams" Franz Ferdinand [the original version, not the 'Tonight' album version.]

The opening riff is what gets her every time. That heavy rhythm and syncopation just sucks her in.

But it's the constant drum beat that keeps her there.

Every time she hears it she has to tap it out on the closest hard surface, or just in the air if nothing presents itself. It's one of the few songs that makes her wish she could play the drums. She doesn't even focus on the lyrics anymore, so much as the rhythm Paul lays down, hard and steady. She fancies herself quite the air-drummer, at least as far as this song is concerned.

Only recently has she begun to notice the bass line beneath the layers of Alex's vocals and guitar, Nick's guitar, and Paul's strong drum. But then, it's always the bass that blends the best.

----

me, air drumming to the better version. seriously. it's terrible, but i couldn't help myself. the sound is out of sync with the visual, and i messed up a couple times, but whatever. i fucking love the drums in this song. and the opening riff is my best friend's ringtone.

blank 30 days meme

2010-04-13T19:08:00.004-04:00

day 01: your favorite song [4/13]

day 02: your favorite movie [4/14]

day 03: your favorite television program [4/15]

day 04: your favorite book [4/16]

day 05: your favorite quote [4/17]

day 06: whatever tickles your fancy [4/18]

day 07: a photo that makes you happy [4/19]

day 08: a photo that makes you angry/sad [4/20]

day 09: a photo you took [4/21]

day 10: a photo of you taken over 10 years ago [4/22]

day 11: a photo of you taken recently [4/23]

day12: whatever tickles your fancy [4/24]

day 13: a fictional book [4/25]

day 14: a non-fictional book [4/26]

day 15: a fanfic [4/27]

day 16: a song that makes you cry (or nearly) [4/28]

day 17: an art piece (drawing, painting, sculpture, etc) [4/29]

day 18: whatever tickles your fancy [4/30]

day 19: a talent of yours [5/1]

day 20: a hobby of yours [5/2]

day 21: a recipe [5/3]

day 22: a website [5/4]

day 23: a YouTube video [5/5]

day 24: whatever tickles your fancy [5/6]

day 25: your day, in great detail [5/7]

day 26: your week, in great detail [5/8]

day 27: your month, in great detail [5/9]

day 28: your year, in great detail [5/10]

day 29: hopes, dreams, and plans for the next 365 days [5/11]

day 30: whatever tickles your fancy [5/12]

i didn't write this, i found it. i'm hoping to write little drabbles, or longer 'fics', for each one.

homework

2010-03-24T21:37:00.007-04:00

It was six o'clock and she should really be starting her homework.

She was a little hungry, but having actually eaten lunch that day she decided to put it off.

She surfed the internet, catching up on the threads she missed while in class. An interesting discussion on fandom, another on pairings. Oh, look, a new chapter in her inbox.

--

It was seven o'clock and she should really be starting her homework.

But this link in a review was interesting, and her best friend back home was sharing the official footage of him running a red light. She was hungrier than before, but she didn't get up.

--

It was eight thirty and she should really be starting her homework.

She opened a pack of toast-cheez peanut butter crackers. Oh, Woot is having a Woot-off. And where can she find other albums by the Morning Benders? Oh, this isn't downloading, there's no one seeding right now.

--

It was eight forty-five and she made an attempt to start her homework.

She opened to a fresh page in her graph paper/math notebook, sketched a diamond, inscribed a narwhal curled within. She changed the dimensions a bit. She decided to go to Rite Aid and finally get that plunger to finally fix that clogged toilet.

--

It was nine fifteen and she had forgotten about her homework.

The toilet was too clogged, the plunger wasn't enough. She would email maintenance about it, and mention the hole they had left in the side access that prevented her from getting her bike out. She washed her microwave pot and made Spaghetti-Os, added way too much sprinkle cheese and shredded cheese. She opened the four-pack of Red Bull, intending to crack down on her homework.

--

It was ten o'clock and she really was starting her homework.

Shortly after laying out a quick diamond-pattern, she opened the Red Bull.

--

aaaaand it was at about that point that i focused on actually doing my homework, as opposed to writing about not doing my homework. this won't be finished, and that's okay. i finished the project around 3 and went to bed. and here's what i did:

hair

2010-03-13T20:45:00.005-05:00

Most of the time, she really liked her hair.

Her bangs were her favorite part. They were angled in such a way that they were shorter over her left eye, where her part was. They swooped over to the right, resting on the hinge of her glasses so that throughout the day they sort of crimped and curved to fit the shape her constant head-tossing forced them into.

She liked the bits right in front of her ears too. When she put her glasses on, she would hook her fingers up under the temples and pull those sections of hair down to fall in front of her ears and frame her jaw. Before she got a hair dryer, she would wait to do it until her hair had dried, so the bits would end up curved outwards from being forced behind her ears from her glasses.

She liked the color. Most of the time, that is. She had been dying it various kinds of red since tenth grade, and it had been so long since she'd really seen her natural hair color she was convinced it was an unflattering color. All she remembered of it was it was dark brown and boring. Once she had bleached her hair and dyed it bright orange, but that had faded to a kind of dried wheat and her roots had grown out. She liked to forget that hadn't happened, it had looked so strange.

Currently, her hair was a dark auburn. She liked how no matter how much she dyed it, her hair retained its natural highlights. She wasn't sure if it was just her hair, or if it was because she preferred natural dyes to the chemical ones.

She liked how it was cut, for the most part. If there wasn't a need to keep it the same until August, though, she knew she'd have someone cut it different, just for the change. Her bangs sloped down on both sides at different angles to a bob that hovered just above her shoulders. And every time she blow dried it, or washed it, she fretted over the length. The style was fine, it was the length that was getting bothersome. It hadn't been quite that long since the last time it had been brown. She would frequently feel the need to pull it back into some semblance of a ponytail, which more often than not ended up as a blob of hair held haphazardly up with an elastic. Recently, during a particularly boring math class, she had french braided her bangs from her part down the right side of her head and behind her ear. She wasn't sure if it looked right, but it served its purpose.

But mostly she liked how, when it was smooth and slightly curled from her new round brush, it would fall just so and she'd see someone that wasn't quite her but someone more.

note on the future

2010-03-13T20:38:00.002-05:00

sometimes i get the urge to just write stuff. like, random descriptive ideas that never end up anywhere and i never really mean for them to go anywhere. i just get ideas in my head and feel the need to expand on them.

so, i think that's what i'm going to put here. those random descriptions. rather than cluttering up my regular blog, i guess. hope that makes sense...

november 7

2009-11-13T16:20:00.003-05:00

Saturday. Finally! Eleanor stayed in bed until almost 11:30 that morning. When she did get up she grabbed her camera from where she’d left it the night before and took a picture of her just-woke-up-fuck-the-world face. That day was National “A Day in the Life of ____” Day, as created by a guy on Facebook. He made it one of his life goals to create a national holiday, and he was starting with Facebook. All a person had to do was document in some way (mainly pictures) what they did that day.

Looking at her phone she realized her inbox was getting ridiculously full. So she deleted messages, starting at the bottom. Click.

Finally climbing from bed her feet met cold vinyl flooring. She shivered and decided she needed some nice fuzzy socks. After all, the upstairs wood floor wouldn’t be any better. Click.

She carried several plastic cups from her bedside table up to the kitchen and loaded them in the dishwasher. Click. She put the kettle on for oatmeal, finally having raisins to put in it. Click. She was starving and had a feeling just oatmeal wouldn’t cut it that morning so she popped two pieces of her preferred sourdough bread in the toaster. Click. Syrup bottle in the microwave, just to get it warm. Click.

The kettle was nearly whistling by the time the syrup was done, so she poured the water in her oatmeal bowl. Click. While that cooked she prepared her toast: one piece with honey peanut butter, one with butter and apricot jam. Click. She dropped a pat of butter in her oatmeal, poured syrup all along the edge, and put a small handful of raisins in as well. Click. Breakfast is served. She poured herself a glass of the last of her chocolate almond milk and popped an Aleve to try to head-off any pain before it got ridiculously bad. Click. She went back down to her room and climbed in bed to eat. Click.

--

In no time at all it was 3:30. And Eleanor was still in bed. She had finished her breakfast quite a while ago but hadn’t bothered to do anything else. She checked the (fucking) weather, trying to justify why she was still in bed that late. Unfortunately it was a pleasant 63°. Oh well. Click.

Finally she decided she needed to start the day. After all, as Laura had pointed out, that night there was a showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show in the Commons, and she needed to be ready for that. She took a shower (click, click) and sent a text inviting others to join Laura and herself (click).

After finally getting dressed (click) she went upstairs to make herself some dinner. For a couple weeks now she had been planning to make her own gravy fries, knowing that she wouldn’t get a chance to eat any for a while (it had been pure luck that the pizza place she went to with a few friends the last time she was home had some). She set the oven to preheat and covered her baking sheet in frozen fries. Click. After putting the tray in the oven, she set about making the gravy from a mix. Click.

While waiting for everything to cook, she noticed the pomegranate on a container next to the stove. I really need to eat that soon. Click.

Finally all was ready. She emptied the tray of fries into a large bowl and poured the gravy over it all. Click. The gravy-to-fry ratio was a little low, so she solved that by pouring the rest of her parmesan cheese on it all, thus creating a simple and slightly strange version of poutine (a Canadian dish of fries covered in gravy and fresh cheese or cheese curds). Click. She sat down to eat her rather unhealthy dinner.

Friday Yasha had gone up to Boston with his girlfriend and a couple friends to see a show. His friends were going for the opening band, who they knew, while he was more interested in the headliner: Dana Fuchs, of Across the Universe fame. Eleanor received a call from him, asking if she could look up directions to a club they were trying to find. She tried her best, but not knowing exactly where they were her help didn’t do much. After hanging up she took a picture of her computer screen with the map still on it.

While waiting for news on Rocky Horror from Laura, she decided to make cookies. They were her usual chocolate chip ones, though the product was far from store-bought cookies. She used the recipe her mom gave her before heading back to school that summer, which in turn was from her mother. Knowing she was baking history seemed to make the cookies better. Liz certainly thought so.

“So, you’re my favorite roommate ever. Don’t tell Cesley, but you are.”

Eleanor smiled and continued baking. Click click click.

Just as she was plopping cookie dough on the baking sheet she got a call from Laura. She continued haphazardly dropping spoonfuls of delicious dough on the pan with the phone pressed to her ear by her shoulder. The small group of Laura, Anna, Nicole, and Eleanor were going to meet at Anna’s apartment to prepare before heading over to the Commons. Eleanor said she would come when she got to a stopping point in her baking.

--

After putting the second tray in she went down to her room to get dressed. Laura was bringing her a jacket for her, and she was excited to dress up.

The year before she had dressed as Columbia, complete with a light orange tube top and black leggings, slicked back hair, and makeup done in her style. Angela went as Magenta and Nicole had butchered some scrubs to go as Frank after killing Eddie. This year, however, she couldn’t really spare the effort. Instead she was going as a random party guest with her black-and-white (and red, the result of two zombie walks) plaid pants, a tight red top, and her sexy boots. She had been looking for an excuse to wear those boots for a while now. They were while pleather platform gogo boots, and she loved them.

Coming back upstairs, carrying the boots in their box, she sat down to wait for the cookies to finish.

--

It’s just before 8:30 when Anna, Laura, and Eleanor leave for the show. At first the other two had expressed worry over Eleanor’s ability to walk in her massive boots, but she soon showed a mastery of them. After all, she told them, she had worn them to several conventions and even a few random school days in high school. She had plenty of practice, and always found a strange joy in being five inches taller. It certainly threw others off.

Upon arrival at the Commons, they located the ballroom that would be showing the cult favorite and queued up to get their props. Into a small paper bag went a sandwich bag of rice, a newspaper page, a glow stick, a party noisemaker, a piece of toilet paper, a rubber glove, a party hat, and a couple playing cards. They found seats near the front and sat down to wait for the event to begin.

--

Eleanor was quite pleased with herself for remembering several call-back lines. Not nearly as many as Nicole knew, but she was doing okay. She remembered all the cues for the props as least, and managed to not fall over or break her ankles while doing the Time Warp in her boots – especially given the amount of rice on the floor at that point. She left the ballroom with a distinct feeling of rice grains in her pants. Nicole had quite a lot in her hair.

On the way back to Anna’s they passed a restaurant that seemed to be having some sort of party. Out front was a line of about ten scooters. Nothing manly, like motorcycles, or anything hipster, like bikes, but slightly lame scooters. Click.

Not quite ready to go home yet, they ended up at a pizza place for some late night snacking. Nicole bought a pepperoni pizza to share. Click. They continued on to Anna’s, with Laura leaving them on the way to go back to her dorm. Eleanor gathered her things and left the jacket for Laura and led Anna and Nicole to her place for cookies. Click. She had to cut them off at one point before they ate them all.

[1425]
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God, I'm so behind... I'm going to be spending today catching up.

november 6

2009-11-10T21:07:00.003-05:00

Friday dawned and Eleanor was really feeling the physical effects of her Wednesday moshing. Her back ached and she just couldn’t wake up – more than usual, that is. But she had two classes to get through that morning before she could relax again. Might as well get up then.

Biology was nothing really new. They finally got to evolution, which the professor was constantly pointing out was “just a theory”. She was working hard to avoid any uncomfortable confrontations regarding the origin of man and the world. Eleanor felt slightly more prepared for that class having studied part of Darwin’s The Origin of Species in English the week before. She tried not to zone out completely.

During her break she checked her grade for the test Wednesday morning. She was excited to learn she had finally swung a B and resolved to continue with those caffeine pills. She knew she’d have to take the cumulative final, if only to get rid of that horrible D, but right then she was glad something was going well in her life. Her back twinged.

English brought the introduction of a new unit: Modernism. For every new section the professor would draw the participants’ ‘world view’: the Enlightenment had been a circle filled with dots (we’re all part of the same universe), Romanticism had been a circle with a single dot in the center (each person is the center of their own universe), Realism/Naturalism had been a circle with dots around the edge and a few inside (we are both within and without the universe). Modernism, on the other hand, didn’t really have a circle. It was more of an amoeba with what might be a circle in a large space. “It’s all in your head” had been the professor’s explanation. Frankly, the drawing confused Eleanor, but she figured the actual lecture would sort everything out.

--

The rest of the day passed in relative boredom. She sat in bed on her laptop, still in her pajamas (having not gotten dressed that morning), secretly hoping someone would suggest something interesting to do. When she went upstairs to make herself some dinner, Cesley found her. There was a Zine Fest going on that night at Gallery 5, a few blocks away from them. Without really knowing what it was Eleanor readily agreed.

Going out meant getting dressed. The roommates met up again upstairs at 8:30 and sat down to wait for Nicole to show up. It was a cold night, in the 40s, and Eleanor didn’t have a heavy coat. She hoped her corduroy jacket would be enough. While she was sitting, she noticed that she had managed to put on all her corduroy: jacket and pants. At least I’ll be warm. Nicole arrived in a thin hoodie, having nothing remotely warm with her, and they headed out.

The fest was not exactly what Eleanor had been expecting – though, she wasn’t really sure what she was expecting in the first place. The first floor was lined with tables, each occupied by a different self-publishing mini-company selling their zines. There was a small stage where a band was setting up and a bar in the far corner. Eleanor and Nicole wandered a bit, not really sure what they were supposed to be doing. Ces was picking up zines, looking at all the printed weirdness Richmond had to offer.

When it became clear that was all that was happening downstairs the three went to the second floor. This space was set up more like a gallery, with graphic and typographic art pinned to the walls. There were several limited (and fancier) print zines on pedestals with cotton gloves for handling them. Being such a ‘fine art’ nerd, Eleanor enjoyed the gallery more than the hectic strangeness of the first floor. It reminded her of the artist talk she went to earlier in the week (gosh, it was still the same week? It felt so long ago), and mentioned it to Ces.

They wandered around for a bit more then decided to call it quits and head back. Nicole hadn’t actually eaten that day, so she and Ces ended up going to Five Guys for a late dinner while Eleanor went back home.

[704]
[10313/50000]

Finally broke 10,000 words! In word the whole document is 19 pages.

november 5

2009-11-09T23:59:00.003-05:00

Eleanor’s phone alarm went off at 3:30 that Thursday morning. She grumbled and hit “snooze,” intending to just lay there for a few more minutes. It would give Yasha a little extra sleep, considering he was the one driving. So at 3:45 she got up and quietly crept to his room, closing his door before turning on his light. No reaction at first, then a bleary groan and a glare. She smiled sheepishly, nervously, sleepily. Those two and a half hours had not been nearly enough.

She put her belt back on and grabbed her backpack, going down to the kitchen to forage for breakfast. She found bagels in the fridge and set about toasting one while munching a Nutrigrain bar. Yasha sat at the counter, eating pita chips and drinking juice. She quickly buttered her bagel and wrapped it in a paper towel for easy transport. They put shoes on and headed out to the car.

“We’re never doing this early-morning bus ride thing again,” she told him moodily in the car. He agreed.

He dropped her off at the Baltimore station just after 4:30. A quick hug and he left, as she shuffled inside to sit and wait. She zoned out, glancing at her watch occasionally. Had this been any other Greyhound trip she would have her iPod out, but her ears were still feeling stuffed up and she didn’t feel like dealing with the volume level necessary to actually hear it.

Just before 4:50 she stood and waited by her gate, printed tickets in hand. The ride to DC was short, the traffic nonexistent, and she dozed in her seat. There was an hour layover in DC, and she thought sleepily how ridiculous their planning was, considering they had just been there not 6 hours earlier. She nodded in and out of sleep, checking her watch when she snapped her eyes open, not wanting to miss her bus. 6:40 came and she stood again, ignoring her achy back. The second leg was much the same as the first, though she thought she may have actually slept a bit there because suddenly they were at exit 79 and it was just about time to get off. They were almost a full hour early, meaning she would have no trouble making her ten o’clock – though she would be vaguely smelly for it.

Rather than wait the half hour for the number 24 bus, she ended up walking back down the street to Broad. Her shoulders were starting to hurt, the combined stress of the pit and having made that trek twice in as many days. She caught the first bus that came down Broad to campus. In the ten minutes between getting back and having to leave, she put on her pajamas (which didn’t smell of beer and sweat and smoke and who knew what else) in the hope they would somewhat disguise her unwashed state. She checked Facebook briefly and was back out the door.

On her way to class she stopped by the campus convenience store and got some pills for her just-starting to hurt muscles.

--

Sitting in bio lab Eleanor examined her arms for any obvious bruising, anything that might give her away. Her left triceps were especially tender, which was strange because that was the side Yasha sheltered for as much of the show as he could. She reasoned it was because she ended up bracing that arm on the back of the guy in front of her, pushing against him hard. Her throat was a little raw and her ears still felt a little stuffed, but she seemed hardly the worse for wear. Compared to Yasha’s kidney damage and concussion, Eleanor was fine – though she was slightly annoyed at having lost an earring.

Nate finished the introductory lecture on the respiratory system in large animals. They were supposed to be dissecting fetal pigs that day, but for some reason the department either didn’t order them at all or didn’t order enough, because their class instead was supposed to dissect rats. Eleanor, for some reason, didn’t have much of a problem with the rats as much as the pigs, probably because they were fetal pigs and her strange hippie ways were very much against that. However, due to the general gross-out factor of all dissections, Nate instead made it entirely optional.

“If you feel like your life won’t be complete without cutting into something in bio 101, then go ahead and cut open a rat. Otherwise, it’s not required.”

In her mind, Eleanor sort of wanted to do the rat. But she had a feeling her unnamed classmates wouldn’t want to – especially since Nate’s previous class had already done one and the rat was sitting on the counter for students to look at if they chose – so she didn’t mention it. Instead they played with healthy and smoker’s pig lungs, looked at slides of lung tissue, and found their vital air capacity. Without the dissection, the class let out a little after 11. She made her way back to the house, stopping by the dining hall to get a sandwich for lunch.

--

She took a nice, long shower when she got back, doing a more thorough examination for other injuries her clothes had hidden. Her knees were slightly bruised from being pressed and banged against the rail, and her upper back and shoulders were starting to ache. She knew it would only get worse before it got better and was not looking forward to the next few days.

She prepared a lie as to why her copper container wasn’t quite finished and headed to the critique. I took it home because my locker has been giving me trouble and won’t open. But when I took it out when I got back one of the feet had broken off and I wasn’t sure how to fix it. It seemed plausible enough. But when she got to the crit she ended up telling the half-truth anyway.

“When I was bending that foot so it would sit flat, the solder broke and it came off. I wasn’t sure how to fix it. And then I noticed the other feet weren’t really in the right places to so I have to fix them all.”

Luckily, only nine out of sixteen students had finished boxes, so everyone had until the next class to finish and fix them. Eleanor planned to go back to the lab on Sunday when Sheal was there, though she had a feeling she wouldn’t.

The crit went well for everyone else, though Eleanor said nothing. She periodically flexed her hands and arms, testing her muscles, but was otherwise silent. During the break and for a few minutes after class she worked on the crochet project in the hall. It had grown a lot since she had last seen it Tuesday, with some chaining reaching above and across the rail and around the steel pillars. It was soothing to work on it, even if standing there to reach the higher parts made her left shoulder ache more. When she got back home she took some Aleve.

--

Later on Ces texted her.

C: Shafer at 730 with Anna and Nicole?

Thursdays were one of the nights Eleanor went to Angela’s and watched TV on the large flatscreen in her dorm’s common room. That night was Supernatural night, starting at 9. She figured she had time, and anyway, getting out was always a good thing for such a shut in. She readily agreed.

Ces and Eleanor left together. They were meeting the others outside Bo Dillaz since it was a fairly central location. Of course, since Nicole was involved, they were waiting in the cold for a good twenty minutes before she showed up – Anna had gotten there fairly quickly. They headed over to the dining hall.

Around 8:45 Eleanor left to walk to Angela’s for their TV night. She rode the campus security escort back to her house afterwards.

[1331]
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God, this took forever to get out... I forgot what I did on Thursday, and now it's Monday, so I've got a lot of catching up to do...

november 4

2009-11-06T18:59:00.002-05:00

Eleanor woke bright and early that Wednesday morning. She was nearly tingling with excitement for the coming night. That morning’s bagel used up the last of her cream cheese, but she hardly seemed to care. For once she actually got dressed before noon, even going so far as to put makeup on and bring the beer bottle cap earrings she made the week before. She could tell this show was going to be epic.

She left for her biology test, getting there with plenty of time. For once she was actually confident in getting a much better passing grade: all those extra notes seemed to have done her brain some good and real studying hadn’t seemed necessary. Nine o’clock rolled around and the tests were passed out. She whizzed through it, as usual. She was out of the lecture hall and on her way to the city bus stop by 9:30. The bus couldn’t come fast enough.

She ended up taking a different bus than she really needed. She was going to be plenty early to the Greyhound station, so she stopped at a 7-11 for a small hot chocolate. The day promised to be a rather cold one, reaching perhaps the low 50s. She walked the almost-mile to the station, clutching her toasty warm cup and thinking about how to pass the time while she waited for the bus.

Not long after sitting down she was approached by a young man, asking if she had any chapstick he could borrow. She somewhat-reluctantly handed her Burt’s Bees over to him, hoping he would leave her alone after that. No dice.

He began talking to her about where they were going (Florida for him, Washington for her), what they were doing there (going back to school for him, visiting a friend for her), where they were from (Florida for him, Baltimore for her). And when he asked if she had a boyfriend it became obvious he was hitting on her, an event that always managed to surprise her when it happened. In her mind’s eye she was kind of cute if you liked shorter girls with awkward haircuts and glasses. Being told she was pretty, attractive, or anything more flattering than ‘cute’ always managed to confuse her, though she hid her surprise well and took it in stride. She told him no, she didn’t, she wasn’t exactly interested in that sort of thing. She was more the schoolwork type, really.

He asked her where she went to school, what she studied, did she like to party. She answered as vaguely as she could (Virginia Commonwealth, art, not really), trying to show with her short answers that she wasn’t really interested. She pulled out her biology lab binder, hoping that it would deter him. It didn’t. He asked if she had a Myspace, or some other way he could contact her, a phone number perhaps? She told him her phone was dead, sorry.

Mercifully his reboard number was called and he had to leave. She sat there confused and bemused by his actions, hoping no one else would approach her and try that again. Finishing her lab, she pulled out her recently purchased Hitchhiker’s Guide and started reading.

--

The bus to DC was scheduled to leave at 11:15. She was skipping two classes for this little adventure, English and textiles, and hoped she wouldn’t have to go to the other biology lab class the next day. She bought the tickets almost a month in advance with her own money to hide the trip from her parents. Her mother had already gotten kind of mad the month before when Eleanor skipped four classes to work on an overdue project for textiles, so she had no doubt this would garner a similar reaction. That meant no mentioning it in her Facebook statuses or to any friends electronically, blocking her parents from the photo album, and using her own money rather than the credit card her dad gave her the year before for “school supplies only.” It had been tough, especially towards the end there, but she knew it would be worth it.

Her bus actually left just after noon, having been delayed due to issues involving a handicapped person. The driver had been rather vague about the whole fiasco, only telling them that they had to wait for another bus to come because of something or other. She sat next to her backpack in line reading.

The trip itself was rather uneventful. She sat next to a Middle Eastern businessman who snored occasionally and wanted to know how close the DC airport was to the bus stop. She didn’t know. The bus made all the local stops between Richmond and DC: Fredericksburg, Woodbridge, Springfield, DC. It was somewhere around Woodbridge that her stomach area began to feel a little weird. She couldn’t quite decide if it was from hunger, motion sickness (she had been reading), or menstrual cramps (because she knew her period was due that week, but hoped to God it wasn’t that day. Please, any day but today.)

They got in around 2:30 and Yasha was waiting to pick her up. But first she needed to use the restroom, if only to lay the stomach issue to rest. And horror of horrors it was that red devil. Great. She quickly wadded up some toilet paper and left the stall. Yasha was waiting in the terminal.

On their way to his car he gave her two options for what to do until the doors opened at 7. “We can go find the venue and then get something to eat, or we can drive over to Annapolis and you can meet Heather.” Heather was his new girlfriend, and so far she seemed wonderful – especially compared to the two previous buckets-of-crazy.

--

Half an hour later – and several U-turns – they were pulling up to the Whole Foods in Annapolis. Heather worked in the cheese section of the supermarket, and Eleanor was reminded of her own position as such at her own (technically former) place of employment. My Organic Market was a small company that was working to expand in the Chesapeake area – and was decidedly Whole Foods’ competition. It was Eleanor’s first time in a Whole Foods.

It smells strange in here. And it’s huge! They made their way through the produce area to a wall of open coolers where Heather was, in her bright red uniform shirt, finishing stocking. The introductions were slightly awkward, as far as Eleanor was concerned, but she felt better about Yasha dating her having now officially met her. She hadn’t disapproved before, but it always helped to have actually met your best friend’s significant other. He often came to her for advice about dating (though she had little real experience as such) and knowing the other party informed her advice.

They were starving, so they left Heather to her work and wandered off in search of something cheap they could share while waiting in the line. A pizza proved too much ($14? Seriously?) and Eleanor was reminded of how Whole Foods may be large, MOMs was much cheaper. She missed her work. And she made a mental note to email her boss about working over winter break.

The two eventually decided on a rotisserie chicken and a four-pack of root beer. Eleanor handed over the $15 she promised him for gas and because she always felt guilty when he mentioned how he was broke. (Which is why she mailed him $40 last year to help with his finances.) Yasha wrapped the chicken box in his winter coat to insulate it for the drive back to DC and they headed out.

--

9:30 Club was located on V street. Unfortunately, they discovered that V wasn’t a through-street, and spent at least half an hour navigating the streets around it, alternating between ignoring and using Yasha’s GPS. They even stopped to ask a couple for directions. Once finding the building, an unassuming tan two-storey with no actual sign, they began the task of finding preferably free parking. Down V to Georgia, passing up the Howard U parking lot (“What if we need a permit? I don’t want to get a ticket.”), a residential street (“Yeah, all these cars have permits.”), and a few side alleys, they wound up on 9^th, catty-corner to the venue.

They hid anything shiny or slightly expensive in Eleanor’s backpack in the trunk (Yasha even locked the release lever next to the front seat) and headed over to wait. It was 5 and in the low 50s. Two hours of waiting. There was an older couple already there, bundled against the cold, who said they had been waiting since 4:30.

Yasha, being the friendly guy he is, got to talking with them, telling them about the concerts they had been to; about his job at the Maryland Renaissance Festival; about being a Russian-Jew with a large nose that prevented effective head-desk actions; about how no, they weren’t dating, everyone thought that though, they were used to it. They tore apart the chicken, still slightly warm after the drive, and sipped their root beers. Yasha pulled out a cigarette.

It was sitting in that line, in the cold, that Eleanor took her next step towards being a “true college student,” as Yasha liked to call it (her first steps had been vodka and shots, which she took expertly and was left giggling and stumbling after). She somewhat guiltily, somewhat reluctantly, took the last drag on the cigarette. The first try she didn’t really inhale, just holding the bitter smoke in her mouth and exhaling it back out. The second try she coughed the smoke back out violently, reeling from the sudden light-headedness that came with the sudden drop in her already-low blood pressure, and very glad she was sitting down. She dropped the filter, too smoke-addled to bother stubbing it out properly.

It was several minutes of coughing and trying to get some fresh oxygen into her system that she could choke out a few words. “I hate you.”

“I know.” He had the nerve to smile. She wanted to punch him, but was still too delirious to do anything.

It was easily ten minutes before she could breathe normally and didn’t feel like the slightest change in height would send her falling. Never again. It had burned in her lungs and tasted horribly bitter. And it was “good Turkish tobacco”, Camels, which apparently tasted better than others. She realized that the three people she knew who smoked – her brother actively, Yasha socially, Liz sporadically – all smoked Camels. And then Yasha reminded her that pot burned hotter than tobacco, and was she sure she wanted to smoke that? She wasn’t so sure anymore, but would likely do it anyway.

Standing slowly, Eleanor told him she needed to go find a restroom. She walked down the block toward Howard’s hospital, having been informed by the other couple about there being a McDonald’s and a Starbucks a few blocks that way. She walked off quickly, trying not to shiver. She saw the McDonald’s first, but it was across the street, and went instead to the Starbucks, cringing internally at having to venture into the establishment (years of her mother working at a competing coffee chain had led her to avoid “the Evil Empire,” but desperate times). She changed the toilet paper, hoping she wouldn’t bleed through. And I meant to bring pads, too. Damn.

Considering the amount of cash in her pocket carefully, she ventured to the counter and ordered a small hot chocolate (none of that ‘tall’, ‘grande’, ‘venti’ shit). She was happily surprised that it was actually less than $3.

By the time she got back to the line Yasha was walking towards her, worried that something had happened to her. She offered him some of her hot chocolate. There was a new person in line behind them, along with a man standing apart, leaning on the large U for locking bikes to. She sat back down and they continued to wait.

--

Finally, a few minutes after 7, there came the call to move away from the wall, and there were three lines so be sure to use all three. She presented her ticket and ID, receiving a large swirly stamp on the backs of each hand. “You are under 21. You are not allowed to buy any alcohol, drink any alcohol, or hold any alcohol. Enjoy the show.” She stashed her ticket and ID back in her pockets, checking what exactly was in which pocket, and went to find the bathroom again.

She rejoined Yasha at the rail, right in the middle. The room was buzzing with excitement, though it was sure to pick up as the show wore on. He made friends with those around them, knowing that once everything got started they would all become very close, so it was best to at least talk to those around you first. There was a guy from just behind them in the line next to them, and a couple of high school boys behind them, and Chris and Adam showed up to their other side and behind. They discussed the opening bands, thenewno2 and Heartless Bastards.

8 o’clock. Show time. thenewno2 came out. Yasha exclaimed over the frontman, Dhani Harrison, son of Beatle George, and how they looked exactly the same. Eleanor spent their set deciding if she liked them and just feeling the way her body vibrated to the music. It’s what she tended to do at concerts if she didn’t know the band. For some reason she preferred recordings over live performances when being introduced to a band because the listener could clearly hear everything. At a show some instrument or aspect may be played up. She could barely hear what Dhani was singing, too engrossed in the thumping bass in her chest and the strange expressions of the drummer. Yasha quite enjoyed them.

The second opener was a more ‘classic band’ (drums, bass, guitar, rhythm guitar, vocals), compared to the strange assortment of the first group (who was playing what now? There’s a megaphone?). Heartless Bastards were harder rock with a woman singer/guitarist who sounded vaguely country. Eleanor watched the bassist and his fingers, reminding herself that was why she had a vague goal of learning the bass, though she was doubtful if she’d ever get around to it. Yasha didn’t much care for them.

She had stopped paying attention to time after a while. When Heartless Bastards left the stage and started clearing their things out to make room for the rest of the headliner’s equipment, she turned around and stared at the crowd. It had gotten noticeably bigger, pressing forward as more people showed up. She was excited, thrumming with nerves. She hoped they were safe from the pit, knowing that he would protect her regardless but not really wanting to deal with it.

And finally they came out. Wolfmother hailed from Australia, sounding like a modern (and better) version of AC/DC. Eleanor stood in front of Yasha, his arms braced on either side of her own on the rail, shielding her from the hoard behind them. Then the sounds ripped them open, and the real show began.

She tried taking pictures, and managed a few good ones in the beginning. They opened with “Dimension,” from their first album, and continued with a mix of old and new (having just dropped their second album not even two weeks before). The crowed pressed forward, and the screaming started. It was chaotic and violent and amazing. They were standing right in front of Andrew, the singer and guitarist, and his three large amps.

As the show progressed the crowd got more and more violent in their moshing. Soon Eleanor had to take out her banging earrings for fear of them being ripped through her lobes and stashed the camera in her pocket in favor of hanging on for dear life to whatever she could, glad her footing was somewhat stable. She was pushed into the rail, shoving backwards in return, jostled everywhere, Yasha always behind her. Not even four songs into the set and she had to let go of the rail because two guys had managed to press themselves forward and in front of her, and Yasha had to hold her around the waist with his fingers gripping her belt tightly. And then he too had to let go, the sheer press of bodies was too great.

In the lulls between songs she felt cotton in her ears. She was manic, shoving others back and smiling wickedly, knowing she would be feeling the ill-effects for several days to come. This is so much more intense than Flogging Molly! Several people attempted to crowd surf, but were quickly passed to the front and into the waiting arms of the bouncers. Eleanor ducked whenever one passed nearby, making sure her glasses were still there, that she was at least somewhat safe. She was a tiny girl, and had no delusions about the pit and how it would tear her apart if Yasha wasn’t there. As it was one surfer kicked him in the head, and he was punched several times in the kidney.

Whenever the crowd slowed down a bit, she lifted her face, stared at the ceiling, and worked to get a few good breaths of fresh air. The press of bodies was sticky with sweat, and she relished those brief, clear breaths.

The show was a blur, the frenzy was so great. She wielded her sharp elbows at anyone who shoved into her, working to hold her own as best as she could. Near the end, during a slower song, Yasha managed to shove them forward and claimed a small section of the rail again, providing more shelter and stability to Eleanor. She turned to Yasha and spoke directly into his ear, “If this gets any more violent, hand me over to the bouncer.” She wanted to stay for the whole thing, but she was tiring and already achy. The bouncer would get her someplace safer and she would meet up with Yasha at the car.

They played the encore, ending the show with Eleanor’s favorite song, “Joker and the Thief.” And slowly the floor began to empty. Her ears were stuffed with cotton and her throat was raw and she was sure she’d feel worse the next day. But she was running high on endorphins and didn’t much care at that point. Even going outside, where the temperature had dropped considerably, didn’t deter her much – the cold didn’t even register at first. They shuffled excitedly to the car, pulling her backpack from the trunk.

Midnight. They got gas for the long drive back to Baltimore and Yasha’s house. Yasha called Heather while navigating them out of the city, taking the highways at 80. It wasn’t until they were on the Baltimore beltway that Yasha realized they should have stayed at his uncle’s, rather than driving all the way back home. They made it in less than an hour. Quietly entering his mom’s house they crept to bed, knowing they had to get back up in a few hours; Eleanor had a 4:50 bus back to Richmond and a ten o'clock class after that. She was asleep within minutes of lying down, her phone alarm set for 3:30.

[3233]
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This took so long to get out because I wasn't able to actually write while on that excursion. Stupid real life...

november 3

2009-11-03T23:23:00.004-05:00

Tuesdays were lazy mornings, at least compared to other weekday mornings. Eleanor’s first class wasn’t until 12:30, so she slept in a bit. Her phone alarm woke her at 9, and every five minutes for the next half hour. Nothing new there. But what was different about this morning was all the motion coming from the kitchen. The faint sound of music told her at least Ces was up there making breakfast. For some unknown reason Eleanor didn’t want to go up when someone else was there. But at 9:36 she was hungry, and the need to eat overwhelmed her need to be by herself while doing it.

Coming up the stairs the smell of omelets hit her. Ces has been cooking. Liz was there as well, just putting bread into the toaster for her own breakfast and turning on the coffee maker – a pink affair decked out in Hello Kitty as well, another addition from Ces. Disappointed that she would have to wait for her bagel, Eleanor decided to get something else to eat. She got down her Pampered Chef microwave pot and began gathering ingredients for Coco Wheats. She added some of the chocolate almond milk in addition to regular milk for that extra chocolate kick.

--

After a quick shower she set to work writing her paper for English. The intro paragraph had been written the night before, so it was all downhill from there. She knocked the whole paper out in less than an hour.

--

She left for class just after noon, even though it had been moved to a building closer to her house. The regular lecture class had been replaced with an artist lecture in the Art Foundation building, which was, in essence, down the street. Realizing her timing error, she slowed down and walked all the way around the building to waste as much time as possible. Finally coming around to the front, the automatic doors opened, and she stopped dead, staring at the floor.

There, as if waiting for her, was a large duct tape arrow pointing to the stairs.

To anyone else, the arrow simply pointed out the alternative method of ascending the building. But to her and several of her friends it was a memento of one spectacular day last November. Yasha had come down for a visit, wanting to try out something that a friend of his had tried at her college: duct taping a person to a wall. The other group had been unsuccessful, but Eleanor weighed barely 100 pounds, and with Yasha’s ‘skills’ they were sure to succeed!

And so, four hours and three and a half rolls of duct tape later, she was suspended a foot above the ground in a sticky silver blanket. She then proceeded to peel herself off the wall, hanging precariously for a moment by one arm before dropping the last few inches. She walked almost a mile back to the dorm still wearing the tape, random bits of trash stuck to the sticky side by her friends.

Back to the present. Taking a few steps forward and around the other people gathered in front of the elevators she marveled at the arrow’s continued existence. I wonder if anyone will ever bother to pull the tape up? Wouldn’t it be awesome if it stayed there till I graduated? The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside.

The lecturing artist was a young Chinese-American woman, Helen Lee. She described herself as a glassblower and graphic designer, using blown glass vessels to make letters. She was interested in language and the body and how they intersect and interact. It was one of the more unique and engaging artist lectures Eleanor had been to, and was definitely glad the usual class had been replaced with this.

While walking to the Fine Arts Building and her next class she sent a picture of the tape arrow to Yasha and to Facebook as proof of its continued existence. She stopped in front of the giant yarn contraption spreading along the railing. There was still almost half an hour until class, so she pulled out her hook and set to work adding more to her octopus of the day before.

Time for class. Pulling out her keys she attempted to unlock her locker and get her tool box out. But the key wouldn’t turn. I just opened it last night! What happened? Ten minutes of trying and still nothing. She was frustrated. Another girl in the class noticed and tried her hand at it, before calling over the only male in the class for a try. Finally the tumbler turned and the lock popped open. Grumbling she pulled her box out and started unloading tools, setting to work.

She finished the tension lip and sanded the main container with successively finer grits of paper. But all the soldering stations were filled, so she spent a while wasting time. Finally, an opening. She soldered the bits of the lip together. She soldered pieces of wire to the bottom of the container which would become the rivets for the plastic pearl feet. Class ended, they all cleaned up. She kept working.

She had finished the rivets and was adjusting the angles of the feet when one of them broke off. It had been soldered with easy solder, the lowest heat one. There was nothing she knew of that could be done, and with the deadline just two days away (though one of them didn’t count) there was no time to start over. She was going to wait for Sheal to get back from her class and ask for help, but she was getting restless. She finished the rest of the box. The lid was assembled, the clay sand dollar was attached, the body was polished. She decided to just leave it and make up something about the foot coming off ‘in transit,’ rather than hot gluing it on and risking her grade.

As it was the other three feet didn’t quite match up. The box, even if it had all four, didn’t sit quite upright, listing to one side. When she held it up in the correct orientation two of the feet appeared to be almost centered along the bottom while the lone foot was sticking out the side. It was too late to fix it. The rest of the box was finished and clean; it would just have to sit crooked. She was not looking forward to the critique on Thursday.

It was 8 before she walked back home. She had gone to a sandwich shop earlier for dinner, ordering a salad because her hands were brown with copper dust and no doubt covered in other unpleasant substances. Such things had never really bothered her in high school. She would frequently forego the rubber tongs in the photo darkroom, preferring her own fingers, and consequently she imbibed small amounts of toxic chemicals over those four years. But this was a new kind of horribleness, one that she could actually see. So she ate her salad with a fork.

Arriving home a voice greeted her from the bowels of the house. It was Nicole. Setting her bag down – but not before fishing out her copper container – and grabbing a pint of ice cream from the freezer she ventured upstairs to Liz’s room to be social for once. Ces had gone to JMU for an event with a friend and would be back later that night. Eleanor sat on Liz’s nice carpet – hers was the only carpeted room in the house – eating her ice cream and lamenting the shortcomings of her project.

Soon the already ridiculous conversation going on around her divulged into reminiscing about Destiny’s Child and the Spice Girls and all those other good girl bands of the 90s. Eleanor sat there with her laptop – having traded her ice cream tub for the device after a while – listening and laughing at the antics of the other two. Her own childhood had been filled with different music, having never really had the opportunity to pick the radio station: talk radio or classic rock or the rotating mix. She wasn’t a very musically-minded child, though she had certainly grown to be a musically-independent young adult. She wasn’t really sure when the shift had occurred but the change had been for the better, she reasoned. It had gotten to the point where she could not stand silence. Silence was something to be beaten viciously with a blunt object. She thrived on sounds and music, even if she wasn’t really listening to it; it was more for the noise, the not-silence.

Around 10 she left them to their own devices and set up in the newly-furnished living room. She played her own music and wondered when exactly Ces would get in.

She anticipated the coming day, for it promised to be an amazing one – even though it started with a test.

[1487]
[5045/50000]

november 2

2009-11-03T00:16:00.006-05:00

Mondays: the bane of every student’s life. Eleanor’s first alarm, on her phone, went off at 7:30. Snooze. 7:35. Snooze. 7:40. Snooze. 7:45. Snooze. The old-style alarm across the room goes off at 7:50, and she throws back the covers to sprint across and turn it off before it can wake anyone else in the house. Her phone goes off again and she dismisses the alarm.

Her eye inflammation is bothering her this morning, for once involving both eyes instead of just the left one. Eye drops. The small bottle is running low and there’s little hope of getting a new prescription anytime soon. She is not looking forward to relying on regular eye drops, but knows she won’t have much of a choice while at school.

She checks her phone. From Yasha: “Imm so chill right now like the beatles rockband i am the walrus chill.” Received: 1:30AM. The coherency of the text is amazing, considering just how much he smoked. She goes upstairs for her morning bagel, cinnamon raisin this morning. She forgot her plate again, and went back down to get it while the bagel toasted.

At 8:30 she put her laptop to sleep and finished packing her bag for class that day: Biology and English notebooks, planner, wallet, clicker, laptop, external drive. She headed out on her usual route to Biology, bundled against the cold and iPod playing. As usual, she makes it almost 10 minutes before class starts.

The professor continues the lecture about protein synthesis. Eleanor is only paying marginal attention, given that she already learned this in Biology lab several weeks before. She takes notes anyway, knowing that her poor test scores will mean she had to take the cumulative final and needing to make sure she would actually do well on it. She had set her sights on taking Anatomy back in freshman year, but Biology was a prerequisite that needed to be passed with at least a C. At midterm she had an F, due to being still mostly asleep for the first month and a half of the class. She had started taking caffeine pills three weeks ago and was improving, though it was be an uphill battle to make that C happen. She had recently resigned herself to taking math the next semester instead, hoping she wouldn’t have to repeat Biology over the summer ju

A quick quiz and the class is over. She makes her way over to the library to wait out the hour between classes. At the beginning of the year she used that hour to nap, because getting up at 7:30 (though not really) was ungodly. She continued to nap even when she noticed her Biology grades slipping, not wanting to sacrifice being awake for one class for her naps. But in the end it became necessary to change her habits. So she started taking caffeine pills to wake up for Biology and bringing her laptop with her and using the library internet, wasting away the hour.

10:46 rolled around and she packed up and left for English. It was a review day. Wednesday was the Realism/Naturalism test, though the professor had yet to reveal if it was a take-home or in-class essay. She was secretly hoping it would be an in-class exam because she wouldn’t be in class to do it – though that would mean she’d have to take the final. In her two academic classes there were five exams, including the finals, but only four would count. If the first four were As or Bs, the student didn’t have to take the final. Otherwise the lowest of the five would be dropped. She already knew she had to take the cumulative Biology final, considering her first two were 75 and 65 respectively.

The review managed to take up nearly the entire class for once. And at the very end the professor posted the exam question online: take-home exam. Eleanor groaned. She would have to read the stories and write the paper that night, having skipped on the readings when they were actually due. She would have to give her paper to someone in the class to turn in for her since she would be missing the class. Jessica, a girl she tended to sit next to and who was also in her jewelry class, would be the lucky recipient of her finished paper. She walked home.

--

It was 1:30 before she decided it was time to get dressed. Morning classes were boring lectures and not worth the effort of getting dressed, so she had been going to any class before noon in her pajamas. Quickly, she pulled on clothes of dubious cleanliness and loaded her sewing bag for beginning textiles. It was perhaps her favorite class, especially now that they had moved past felting.

The previous class the graduate student teaching the class, Adrian, had given a demo on crocheting – something Eleanor’s mom had taught her to do when she was still in elementary school. A sudden revelation had showed her that a person can crochet onto anything with loops, and with that suggestion she had quickly ventured off into experimental territory. There was no worry about getting the actual coursework done, she was easily the fastest and most experienced crocheter in the class.

After a short slide presentation on tapestry in contemporary art, the students were released to work on the large group project that would progress over the remainder of the semester. Titled “Parasitic Growth” by the professor of the other textiles class, the two groups would be crocheting the banister and gridded railing over the first floor. Building off of another student’s chain stitches, Eleanor double-stitched a long section that would loop over one rail, around the top and attach to itself. When she started there wasn’t enough space to physically flip the yarn to go back and forth, so she improvised: she switched hands and slowly taught herself to crochet left-handed and upside-down. It was hard going and loose at first, and she had to switch hands after each row, but by the time it was long enough to flip she felt a bit better about the whole process – and more than a little proud of her improved skill set.

The long section finished, she began chain stitching loops that attached to each other and the grid and the already complete ‘scarf’. She changed colors at one point, accidentally taking the other end of a ball someone else had started – and that was still attached to where they had stopped. She worked rapidly, making loop upon loop and impressing Adrian, who was slowly crocheting bits of thread. At the end of class she clipped the yarn so her section wouldn’t interfere with someone working on the attached section. Stepping back, the bit she had done vaguely resembled an octopus.

Since she had failed to venture out the day before to the jewelry lab, she knew she had to spend some time that evening working instead. The crit on the containers was Thursday, and she still had a ways to go before she could be satisfied with what she made. Her container was copper and barrel-shaped with rounded ends. It would sit on its side and there was a square opening on the other side. The lid would have a small Sculpey Clay sand dollar fit in a prong setting and plastic pearls would be riveted to the bottom for feet. At that moment the main container was done – it just needed the feet and to be polished to a high sheen. The sand dollar was done, as was the base it would be fit to, but the tension lip that would hold the lid on wasn’t even started.

She set to work filing away the solder that still remained from when Sheal showed her how to do it, then going over the whole outside with 220- and 320-grit sandpaper. The second round of sanding was done with the flexible shaft drill and a bit of sandpaper taped into a dremel bit. It made the most obnoxious noise and coated her fingers in fine copper dust. But it was shinier and smoother, on its way to a high polish finish. She planned to solder one end of three pieces of copper wire to the bottom before finishing the polish, with the pearls being the last thing to go on.

Flattening the curves at the top so the lid would fit more flush, she measured the inside edges of the opening to fit the tension lid. She cut out strips for it and sanded the edges to be smooth and square. Deciding she had made sufficient progress for the night, and planning to go to Angela’s to watch House at 8, she packed her tools up and headed back to the house.

Dinner that night was two chicken patties with ketchup and ranch dressing for dipping, a mango, and a glass of chocolate almond milk. It wasn’t that she couldn’t have milk or soy, that wasn’t why she had the sweet drink. It just tasted good. Her mom had introduced it to her, a byproduct of working at an organic supermarket for almost two years. In the over breaks Eleanor worked there as well; it was her only experience in the work force, and it was a fun place to work. She missed it when she wasn’t there.

--

It’s 9 before she starts reading the stories for her paper. Going upstairs she puts the kettle on, dropping a bag of her favorite mango Ceylon tea into a mug with dancing hippos in tutus. She sits down and props her feet on the table while she waits, beginning to read. The kettle whistles before she gets very far. Must be because there isn’t very much water in there. She goes back to reading as the tea steeps. The timer goes off and she pours two full spoonfuls of honey in.

Coming back downstairs she sees a rather large cricket pressed into a corner, between the wall and a small spider’s web. She tries not to think about all the other bugs in the house and goes back to her bed to read and drink her tea.

[1713]
[3558/50000]

november 1

2009-11-01T23:41:00.008-05:00

Eleanor emerged from sleep at what she initially thought was 11:28AM, but was in reality 10:28AM on that first day of November. Daylight Savings Time had ended that night, but it wasn’t until almost an hour later that she remembered.

Blearily checking her phone she found two picture messages from her best friend Yasha. He was up in Boston for his cousin’s 21^st birthday and was keeping Eleanor informed of his state of drunkenness. The first was him lying on a sofa with a kid’s plastic fireman’s hat haphazardly skewed on his head. Caption: “i b a fireman.” Received: 1:07AM. The second was two shot glasses filled with what was presumed to be very good cognac on a counter. Caption: “So yea im still good like for reals when i start typing funny then im bad btw that was number 6.” Received: 1:47AM.

Curling up once more in bed, Eleanor tried to remember her dreams. It had been a while since she could actually remember her dreams. She recalled something about dragons coming from the ocean and being extremely vicious until their tamers were found. And the proper ways to brush one’s teeth. And locating a new apartment/townhouse for the next school year and it had a charcoal grill. And being sought after by a jerk-prince who didn’t understand the word “NO!” and would probably not mind raping her at all. But that might not have been the correct order of things.

She found her glasses on the bedside table and made her way upstairs for some breakfast. She pulled out a frozen bagel and thawed it, then toasted it. When the toaster – a white Hello Kitty one, courtesy of her roommate Cesley – popped, she remembered she left her bagel plate in her room. Rather than get a new plate dirty, Eleanor preferred to reuse the same plate over and over until it was noticeably dirty. She made her way back downstairs and brought her plate back up. She buttered one side of the bagel and put cream cheese on the other half. She went back downstairs to eat.

Surfing Facebook reminded her of Daylight Savings Time. She noticed her laptop and phone had already reset themselves, but her watch needed setting. But for the life of her she can’t figure out how to do it. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to remember it’s one hour fast. She set her two other clocks.

--

Realizing it was 12:30 and she had yet to really start the day, she put her laptop to sleep and gathered her things to take a shower. She shared the front bathroom with Cesley, letting Liz have the back one to herself. Their bathroom had an old free-standing tub and a door that didn’t really latch – they had a string tied to the knob and a nail in the frame.

--

She took her usual route to campus: down Clay, up Goshen, down Broad. She took her time, avoiding the puddles in the brick sidewalks because she decided to forego her rain boots in favor of her favorite Chucks. She liked to think she occasionally left a slightly pink footstep from the leftover red paint from the Zombie Walk two weeks before.

The bookstore was having its floors waxed, so everyone was shuffled over to the one carpeted side of the large space. Eleanor browsed a bit, looking for an opportunity to sneak over to the other side where the Moleskine display was. She needed a new journal and for some reason the bookstore had a larger selection of them than the art store two streets farther back did. She also picked up a copy of all five Hitchhiker’s Guide books in one and a small Fahrenheit 451. She had been meaning to read them for several years now, and this month seemed as good a time as any.

Glancing over the humorous book display someone called her name. Turning, she saw Anna and her friend who was visiting for the weekend. They traded Halloween stories: they jumped between friends’ parties, while she took a canal ride and failed to actually get into any of the other places she meant to go to. They looked through the books on display, reading aloud particularly interesting or ridiculous selections – Stuff White People Like, How To Take Over Teh World, Bent Objects.

She gets a text from Yasha.
Y: (picture looking inside a basket filled with candy) Day 2
E: No fair i didnt even go trickortreating…
Y: nor did i … little cousin love
E: Still… Tho im gonna hit th leftover candy sales today

But Eleanor had another errand to run, so she left them to pay for her books and hit the ATM before walking to the grocery store. It was drizzling, enough to notice and fleck her glasses with rain but not enough to make her get out her umbrella. It was cool, and she thought about how it finally felt like fall had come, not that half-assed bipolar weather of the last two weeks, but real fall.

She headed straight for the after-Halloween candy sale, having not had a chance to trick-or-treat the night before. She picked out a bag of assorted Hershey’s for Cesley, another chocolate assortment, and a bag of candy corn for herself. She went through the rest of the store backwards, hitting the freezer first and her favorite organic teas last. She filled her two reusable bags and headed out, six blocks back down Clay to the house. Her shoulders started to hurt from the bags, reminding her of the long trek from the library to the house two weeks before hauling those same two bags filled with free books.

As she was putting her groceries away Liz came down with dirty dishes from her recent lunch. They traded Halloween tales, lamenting the suckyness of their respective nights. Liz opened one of the bags of candy and Cesley came downstairs. Eleanor finished putting her groceries away and started making her own lunch. The other two went back upstairs, talking about the couch Cesley had found and whether or not the seller still had it available since the Craig’s List ad had been pulled.

Eleanor put the kettle on to start heating water for tea while she ate her sandwich. She took the trash out while the tea steeped. She carried it down to her room to drink while checking her email. But the plain English breakfast tea had a bitter aftertaste, even after honey, and she gave up. In the back of her head she kept reminding herself that she really should be going to the jewelry lab to work on her container project, but was kept at home waiting for her roommates to get back in case they needed help with a sofa.

She soon got a call from Cesley, asking her to come out back to help haul a loveseat inside. It was a sleeper loveseat, which the other two didn’t realize when they went to investigate. The three of them hauled it out and to the bottom of the back steps but the handrail made them too narrow and even tilting it didn’t help. So they took it back to Liz’s van and drove it around to the front where the steps were wider. They managed to get it up and into the house.

While Liz reparked in the back, Cesley and Eleanor maneuvered the little sofa in the narrow hall and into the living room. When Liz got back inside they were trying to get it over the edge of the carpet to push it to the far side of the room, facing the door they got it in through. Flipping it onto its back they screwed the feet in. They tested the pull-out part, making sure it functioned properly. Now Yasha will have someplace to sleep when he visits.

--

Later that evening, Eleanor texts Nicole about seeing Where the Wild Things Are.

E: Wild things @ 7?
N: Fucking yes. You gawt Cher’ money?
E: That i do
E: Should i meet u by th stopsign around 630?
N: Yes.
E: Cool cya then

They spent the next two hours reliving childhood and reveling in the freedom it brought.

"I can see why people would think this isn’t a kid’s movie."

"But it was so good!"

"It’s one of those universal movies."

"They didn’t dumb anything down for kids."

"Even parents could enjoy it."

--

A little after 8 she gets a picture from Yasha. It’s a Coors Light can. “Yea couldnt help it.”

--

Over the weekend Angela finally got a new phone to replace her old Razr, which had been on the fritz for several months. She wanted people to text her just so she could use it.

E: This is me txting u on ur new phone. R u back yet btw?
A: Yay now i get to use my phone! And yes i have been back since 8 actually
E: Well then. U missed nicole’s leprosy. & we hav a loveseat!
A: Yay for the loveseat. So was that pic on fb real? Or was that her costume?
E: It was her costume: latex on toilet paper & extremely convincing.
A: Sweet i wanna c better pictures. And for that matter I wanna c pics of all of u
E: I wll get around to putting my pix up at some point…
A: Good. My friend was dean for Halloween nd her friend was sam. I wish i had been there!
E: Nice! Surf mlia, theres lots of epic there
A: Yes!. More distractions!
A: Omg u werent kidding about the amount of awesome on mlia

--

Sometime after 10 that night Eleanor got a call from Yasha. Except it was his cousin Maria calling because Yasha was learning how to properly smoke pot and wanted to call someone to share in his experience. Laughing at the antics from over the speakerphone, she was jealous. The two of them had been planning to try it together, and she felt a little betrayed that he would do it without her, knowing logically that she was being unreasonably possessive of him again. She tended to get jealous of him doing exciting things without her because of how much of a shut in she became when he wasn’t around.

But at least he thought to call me. In a way she was being included without actually being involved. She knew her first time would be mediocre at best, having never smoked anything and likely prone to coughing fits and general failure – though if her first drinking experience was anything to go by, maybe she’d be a natural. Those shots had certainly been easy enough. Although, that may have been because she watched as Liz showed Ces the proper way to do it.

Half an hour later he called again, proclaiming that she had to try this stuff – though not this stuff because it was so strong and she was a small newbie and would likely be totally flipping out way too soon.

[1845]
[1845/50000]

intro!

2009-10-30T12:57:00.001-04:00

I just decided to join NaNo, or National Novel Writing Month. Basically, you spend just the month of November writing a 50,000 word novel. Not ashamed to say I learned about it from the Hetalia com on LJ.

My idea is not really interesting. It's hardly original at all, and I'm not even sure if it can be called a novel. I'm basically going to document my life through this month from a third-person perspective. I calculated that I'll have to write 1667-ish words a day to make it. But really this is just an experiment to see if I can actually do it. Which is why my idea is so simple. No having to come up with plots or characters or anything fancy. Just my life from an outside observer. And I'll be putting each day up here.

I'll be linking my regular blog to this one so I can keep everything organized.

Hopefully this will work out! If not, it'll be an interesting experience.

My official entry page: here!

So every entry after this will be the parts of my 'novel', with a word count at the bottom for the part and the running total.

At some point I will change the blog title to the actual title. But since I haven't started yet there is no title.

Wish me luck!