A Winter's Goal

So I have recently discovered that a good friend of mine is going to try to read all of the Torrey novels for this semester over break. (see this post) Will she do it? I sure hope so. I am going to try this as well :D We will see if it works. But yeah...at least half? I can do that!

so books on the list (1st half)
~Pride and Prejudice
~Jane Eyre
~Wuthering Hights

Hopefully I'll post some thoughts on these too...

I also want to read Adela Cathcart, cause its Christmastime and I still have not read it yet and Christmas time is the perfect time to read Adela Cathcart.

That is all.

Goodbye.

The Seduction

Her face appeared every time he closed his eyes. A beautiful face, though he could not make out any of her features. He knew he had studied them carefully, and yet the memory was vague. If only he could remember the shape of her face, perhaps he could drive her from his mind. He decided to take a shower.

The hot water relaxed his body and he breathed in the steam like warm breath. He suddsed up a washcloth and tried to wash, tried to get clean. He knew he had to go see Carrie tonight, he told himself he was cleaning up for her. He tried to think about her face, but it was so clear. He turned off the water and dried up. He put on a suit.

Calmly, he closed the door of his car but he failed to accelerate as slowly. He suddenly was speeding down the highway, out of the city and towards the forests just beyond the last few straggling houses. The red and golden leaves shuddered as he entered, and suddenly he began to feel her again. This was her home, she ruled here he felt deep in his being. The chills returned, across his entire body he felt as if the circulation had been cut off and was just now coming back all at once. He could hardly focus on the road.

Her face was still vague. Carrie would have been waiting about an hour now.

He pulled the car off the main road and onto a hidden but well-worn trail. The wind caressed his face and wrapped around his neck, drawing him along the path. Yet, it almost was an unnecessary caution, for his feet while unfamiliar on the path quite easily found their way. The sun had set nearly three hours before, but he easily avoided the fallen branches blocking his progress. He walked until Carrie had certainly given up waiting for him, he walked until she had most certainly cried herself to sleep. He began to wonder how far this path would take him before he got there.

Just a little farther.
I should turn back. She was waiting.
You’re almost here, it’s too late now.

He walked for much more than a few steps and saw dark walls at the top of a hill. He felt excited. He had been searching for this. His heart began to pound in his chest and he breath trembled as it came from his mouth. He slowly, carefully, gently, approached the walls without a ceiling to hold them together. They seemed so delicate, though so strong…as if a wind could knock them over, and yet they would stand strong through the torments of a hurricane.
Her face tempted clarity.

Come come. Enter my home, cherished one.
He hesitated outside the door, fearful of entering. A strange smell inside.
What do you fear? The smell was worse when you first met me.
Her hand brushed against his neck and gently moved down his shoulder to his arm, she stroked it as she had the day he first felt her. He had longed for months to discover her.
You must only open the door to know me. You were made to seek out mysteries, come and know mine.
He put his hand to the door and turned the knob, but did not open it. The smells of fragrant perfume came and overpowered his mind, all reason removed by the deep and lovely aromas. He stood, breathing them in, filling his lungs with them.
There is so much more for you, open the door, I am waiting.
Still, he did not open the door.
I will not wait forever.
She was angry with him, his hesitations had angered her, she knew his hesitation. He could not live with her angry. He quickly stepped in.

Bright lights blinded him and all around him moaning and screaming deafened his ears. Yet for being blind he saw first the girls, scarcely dressed in gold with ornaments to adorn their flaming hair. They moved with men, chained to the walls – moaning and screaming to be let out. The old men had given up screaming a long time ago and had learned to enjoy being here. The young men also moved strongly, almost unaware of the chains, seemed enraptured. The other men did all they could to avoid the girls, to try to escape. They screamed to be let alone, cried out for mercy, and yet the onslaught continued, the girls driven by a maddening fear. The men bound to never escape.

And then she entered, and roused them all and they stood before her. He tried to look at her face, he knew she had come for him but how much grander she was here than in life. Her light was radiating, and covered all the place with a blinding light so all he could see was her. He still could not fully see her face.

Stay here with me, beloved? How I have longed and desired for you to be here with me.
Who are you?
The one who loves you. Stay with me? Caress me?
He meant to think about the men in chains, he meant to turn away and run away, but the men seemed like a dream. He extended his hand slowly and touched her pale, white hand. Suddenly he felt pain in his side and looked in time to see an arrow pierce him and disappear. She grabbed his arm and shackled him and placed one of her priestesses before him.
Worship our goddess with me. Look in my eyes and love me, and our love with each other will glorify our mother. This is the first mystery.
He looked at her and loved her and the girl consumed him.
The lighted-she left the room as suddenly as she had arrived, a bit stronger now for his worship, while all around they cried.
Hail, Aphrodite.

The Thursday I Took Out My Earrings and Made Lisa Cry

Thursday, October 14th marked the first time I did not go with Lisa to the tattoo parlor. That day, while Lisa was busy getting her fifth diamond-colored stud shot into her left ear, I was busy taking all of mine out for good. The decision had been a long time coming, but she didn’t know that because I hadn’t told her. There were a lot of things I had’t been telling her lately. Like how scared I was about liking Sean, or that I wanted to stop wearing my lip rings…all my piercings in fact, or that I didn’t actually want to be like her anymore.

“Hey I’ve been feeling like crap lately, let’s going to Zee’s today to get another stud,” Lisa had said that morning in her usual, half-apathetic tone. It took her awhile to get the whole sentence out. She was straightening her already stick-straight hair into razorsharp bits that hung across her face and she apparently found it most natural to talk between passes of the superheated ceramic plates. She made eye contact with me through the mirror while I sat lazily on the bed that neither of us had thought to make for weeks. I was fingering a few old pairs of fishnet leggings Lisa had given me last year for my birthday. I wasn’t sure if I should wear them under my jeans today so they’d show through the holes. I usually did, but I thought that maybe these too would need to go.

“We’ve both got seven each….just in our ears,. We might want to take it easy for awhile?” I half-asked her, trying to soften my impending statement.
“What?” Lisa almost laughed. “When has that ever mattered?”

I didn’t answer and kept thinking about whether or not I should wear the leggings. She raised her eyebrows slightly in surprise, giving her face an even more superior vibe than normal. My phone buzzed and I turned my head around just in time to see a dirty, silver Toyota pull up, the type that probably wouldn’t have looked new even ten years ago. I tossed the leggings back in my drawer, I’d made up my mind about them, grabbed a faded green sweatshirt instead and started towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Lisa asked, her tone was stern, but her eyes softened for a moment, a look Lydia knew meant she had been taken off guard.
“Sean just drove up.”
“And…?”
“And?” I didn’t want to say straight out that I wasn’t going to go with her and was going to hang out with my own friends instead, so I tried for the door again. Lisa’s face hardened and she quickly stepped in with the straightening iron in hand. I relented.
“And we’re picking up Tawney and going to an animal shelter,” I said so fast I could hardly keep my tongue straight. Monday morning I had held my ground in an argument and the burns on my arm still hurt. Morning arguments are always the most dangerous.
“You’re freakin’ kidding me. You’re ditchin’ on Zee’s to go look at a bunch of diseased dogs with your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend, and we’re getting kittens.”
“Oh, kittens. Well,” Lisa tossed her arms in the air. “What the hell is up with you Lydia! You never go partying anymore…and since when do you care about kittens!”

I shrugged. I wasn’t actually quite sure why I suddenly cared about kittens so much. We both stood there for a long time. I thought about how bad would it be for me to go with her. I could call Sean and tell him I got sick and just never let him and Tawney know I went. They’d hate me for going back on my promise, they were both so proud of my decision. But, they had made me promise that I’d stop getting piercings, not that I couldn’t go into the place, exactly. Then I could put this confrontation off with Lisa for a little bit longer. Maybe? My phone started ringing. Sean was calling. “I’ll be right there,” I said into the phone and quickly hung up.

Lisa rolled her eyes and let me though the door. I ran down our staircase and pulled that green sweathshirt on over my head. It wasn’t cold at all, but I couldn’t wear the types of clothes I usually wore when I saw him. When I’m around Lisa’s friends I don’t really care how much of me they see or what all they think of me. But somehow I didn’t want Sean to see me that way. I ran down the hall towards the door, pulling out every one of my piercings from my nose to my navel and stuffing them in my pocket. I’d gotten quite good at this so that at the top of the staircase I looked like I belonged with Lisa and her crowd and by the bottom I looked a bit more like…well, I’m not exactly sure what I looked more like. Just plain I guess. But this time, I was never going to put the earrings back in.

I stopped at the door and paused for bit. That was a bad idea, to let myself think. I grabbed an umbrella, I opened it and closed it, and opened it and closed it, and opened it and closed it until finally I could walk out the door. I ran across the driveway and hopped in the front seat. Sean told me I looked pretty. I didn’t say much back to that…what are girls supposed to say to that anyways? I never could figure it out. He said it again when he dropped me back off. Most boys would have tried to kiss me, but he wasn’t like that. Instead he just said, “You looked really pretty today Lydia. Thanks for helping me find Shia.” He meant the little grey kitten that sat in a crate in the backseat. I smiled and climbed out of the car clutching mine. I had named him Milo. I know Milo’s not that original of a name, but it seemed to suit him at the time so that’s what I decided on.

I watched Sean drive off and then walked into the house. I passed by the downstairs mirror and felt instinctively to reach into my pocket and start putting my piercings back in, but I knew better. Instead I started petting Milo to give my hands something to do. The door to our room was shut, so I knocked. A loud thud, probably from one of my books hitting the door, was all I heard. I slowly walked inside, still clutching Milo, and saw Lisa sitting on the couch with a new earring in her left ear, crying.

Buddy

I am going to begin posting my short stories that I write...it should be fun and it will make this blog more of a place to try out creative ideas, which I want it to become. So that should be fun...I start out with a much lighter-hearted one, most of my stories have dealt with harder subject matter. I was getting tired of writing hard stories, so I tried my hand at a comedy...so please allow me to introduce my very first attempt at writing comdey...don't laugh (will, I mean laugh, but not like that ;) )

~The Author
Tawney had only met Buddy for 45 seconds and he ruined her life forever. She had been perched in her favorite eucalyptus tree for the last two hours trying to compose a poem. It had not been going well. This was evident because all the leaves from where she sat had been torn from the branches leaving a bald spot in the tree and leaf litter on the ground. It was also evidenced by the fact that in her notebook there were only three words and of those three, two had been crossed out.

Now Buddy was the sort of person who enjoyed seeing odd people doing odd things, thus when he saw the teenage girl with purple sunglasses sitting up in a bald spot of a tree, he enjoyed it. So, unknown to the girl-poet, he sat and watched her rip leaves and deliberately scratch out words while he ate an entire bag of potato chips. After a while, Buddy thought he would very much like to meet this girl. However, the potato chips he had just eaten happened to have been Lay’s Sour Cream and Onion potato chips and he knew that the only thing worse than onion breath, was onion powder breath. The skinny boy sat down rather dejected and pulled his plaid overshirt a bit closer to his chest. Then it occurred to him that she, given the height of the tree, would necessarily be rather far away from his mouth and so the chance of her smelling his breath was greatly reduced. This gave him much encouragement. He was going to meet the girl in the eucalyptus tree.

Meanwhile, Tawney had not an inkling of her impending doom. She had thought, being in a eucalyptus tree, to write a poem about koalas and she had finally started to get some momentum on it. Only, not very many words rhyme with koala, or Australia or even emu. This last one was only related by merit of it being an animal from Australia, a line of thinking she had taken up when a poem strictly about koalas had failed her. For lack of proper words to rhyme with Australian fauna, she decided to give up entirely.

She lept out of the tree and landed on directly in front of Buddy.

She was startled.

He also, felt surprised.

He scratched his head, but then extended his hand and almost said, “Hello, my name is Buddy” when he remembered his onion breath. He quickly resolved never to open his mouth, so he simply stood with his hand sticking out in the air. Tawney stared at the outstretched hand, she was not quite sure what to do with it. At first she thought about shaking it. This seemed the best option, but what if he was one of those sleezy boys her brother had told her about and as soon as she touched him, he would run away with her and she would never see her family again. She considered this for a while but then realized that this particular boy was likely to be beaten in a fistfight by a nine-year-old and she was much larger than a nine-year-old by at least three years, so her fear of that was offset. In fact, he was much more likely to be one of those street magicians who might electrocute her when she shook his hand, but since she was not on a street and much more thinking on the matter would lead to a truly awkward social situation, she decided to risk it.

She shook his hand.

It took Buddy a moment to shake her hand back, he was rather shocked she had actually done it after waiting so long to get around to it. He knew if he had might have spoken it could have made all of that go faster, but that was simply not an option. Not with a bag of onion powder flavored chips sitting on his breath.
Tawney let go and stood there, looking at the boy. She expected him to introduce himself now. She imagined that perhaps he had been a part of a community where words came after handshakes, or what sort of odd or strange things must have happened to him to keep him from being able to talk, never in her life imagining it to be something half so boring as a bag of Lay’s potato chips. Still no words were forthcoming.

“I’m Tawney,” she finally said.

He said nothing, but smiled. It was a cute smile. Maybe he was hiding some terrible secret, behind that smile and he was afraid to speak for fear it would all come tumbling out.

“Can you speak?” she asked.

He nodded, but never opened his mouth. Maybe he was a very young monk and had taken a vow of silence, and now his heart was breaking with love of her but he could never speak to her or marry her for monks also must be chaste. Chaste seemed like a strange word, she wrote it in her book.

Buddy saw her writing and wondered what she could be doing. He saw her write the word “chaste” and wondered if she was reminding herself of her virtues. Then he realized this was a very ridiculous and self-conceited thought and resolved to think it no more. He stood there a bit longer, hoping to hear her say one thing more before he left. She fulfilled this desire.

“What is your name?”

Here Buddy was in quite a bind. This comment required an answer and it required an answer that went beyond a simple head nod or shake. He knew what he was about to do next was mad, but he had no other option. He covered his mouth with his hand and said it much louder than he had intended to.

“Buddy!”

And then Buddy ran away, to quickly escape the shame of the breath that must surely have slipped between his fingers, clenched as tightly together as they were.
Tawney watched him run away. A thousand questions about Buddy raced through her mind. She was utterly intrigued by the boy she had met for only 45 seconds. Suddenly all sorts of words began to fly into her mind. Glasses. Scratching. Monk. Circus Performer. Lion Tamer. Lost Love. Secret Love. Forbidden Love. Runaway. Siberia. Spy. Lonely. Orphan. Hermit. Egypt. Ancient Pharoah. Second Life. Time Traveller. And many other words of even more extravagant meanings and lofty expectations entered and stuck in her mind. She wrote furiously all night and well into the next day and even then she felt she had only barely scratched the surface of this boy and all he was.

She had fallen in love with him, that much was certain. Not the romatic sort of love, but the obsessive sort of love where one cannot help but think about the person they love because they are intrigued and fascinated and thinking about them and their many possible lives has become a sort of fantasy, like a video game, but in the mind. And it completely takes over your life so that you never can have it back the way it was before this falling in love happened, and in some ways your life is forever ruined by a chance meeting. This was exactly what had happened to Tawney, and she knew she could never for the rest of her life stop being in love with Buddy.

With wit...

...my wit is marred.

Photo Contest

My Favorite Photo (I've Ever Taken) Brickfish

{aspirations}

Sometimes I thought I would like to be a trapeze artist. Soaring overhead and flipping through the air.

Then I remembered gravity.

Sometimes I thought I would like to be a trapeze artist in space.

{these thoughts courtesy of Lydia Brown {a character I am starting to develop}...she is also the "I" in the post below. I have recently discovered this girl...I'm trying to let her talk a lot so I can get to know her better and soon she'll have her own story. Not sure what yet...but she's starting to talk on her own now. Yesterday I discovered her name}