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Apr. 10th, 2008

Experimentation

THIS IS INCREDIBLY DRAMATICALLY EXPERIMENTAL.

I haven't really done any character developement stuff for any of my people, so I thought I'd play around a little with myspace surveys. Feel free to throw bricks. And my apologies for writing with Sasha rather than anyone else. I really should be writing TtotFM. Bad Tasia. Oh well.

Another note: THE DAMON MENTIONED MULTIPLE TIMES HEREIN IS NOT TTOTFM DAMON. Well okay technically he is, because he's the same basic character, but somehow I ended up shipping him into something else that he doesn't really belong in and WHAM there he is. But the two versions of him are basically unrelated. Not that anyone really knows what I'm talking about...

___________________________________________

What it all came down to, basically, is that reality was boring.

When he'd first stepped out of the astral plane, or whatever it is you want to call it, into the reality of earth and its inhabitants, Sasha had nearly been blown away by the brightness, the color of it all. Comparatively, the higher dimension he supposed that he had previously inhabited had been flat and listless. A whole new field of colors had opened before him, and he felt that even if he wasn't here on solid ground for pleasure, there wasn't any possible way that the experience could be disappointing.

But now Damon was at school, where he did not feel like being (too much omg Sasha your hair is fabulous, or I have an open period after lunch, do you want to meet me behind the gym, or where did you say you were from? Transylvania?). So he was sitting, bored out of his everloving mind, in Damon's house. Damon's mother's house. The woman in question had left a couple of hours ago for her lawfirm in the center of the city, and now Sasha was completely alone. 

So, what did one do when he was stuck in a dimension not his own with nothing to do but watch the cars drive by on the street outside the window and listen to the song the raindrops were making on the window? MySpace.

Sasha was filling out bulletins. He felt ridiculous, but if he hadn't figured out MySpace sometime in the last two and a half hours he might have died. Damon had a MySpace. He never used it, but he did. Now Sasha had one, and for some reason he felt as though he'd finally entered this plane of reality in truth. The whole thing was terribly amusing. Reality was almost worth it for the utter stupidity of MySpace. When he was sitting by himself, he would admit (only to himself) that ninety percent of how he acted and what he did in this reality was ridiculous, but hell. What else could he do to entertain himself? All of these people were so very alike. Transylvania, he thought darkly, clicking the mouse for emphasis. Then, more brightly, Raine could have been Transylvanian. Bastard probably drinks blood, too. 

He pulled up a survey-bulletin-thing from some girl in Damon's class who had taken to following him around, which was almost cute, but altogether too distracting. 

RULES: 

"For a bulletin?" Skeptically, he read further. 

1. Put Your iTunes, Windows Media Player, ETC on Shuffle.

Three minutes later, once he'd figured out what in all hell shuffle was, he read on.

2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.

"Well, that's a unique concept." Stop talking to yourself, dumbass.

3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.

He paused, seriously wondering whether it was even worth it. How munch is a break from boredom worth? "Yeah, really. Who even used adjectives like 'silly' any longer?" But he progressed anyhow.

4. Put any comments in brackets after the song name.

"Well alright then." Click.

1. If someone says "Is this okay?" You say? 

"Is what okay, naturally." Click. "Teddy Geiger. Who the hell is this guy, and whoah... "

A Million Years - Teddy Geiger
Brackets are lame. Fight authority, screw brackets. He grinned. Apparently not.

2. How would you describe yourself? 

He was about to say "hot," when he stopped himself and reoppened Damon's media player. 

Exit Calypsan - Falling Up
Someone's lame remix of a song that sounds like it could potentially have been alright in the first place. A remix by someone who should not have been allowed to remix anything, ever. And I have no idea what that means, btw.

Click.

3. What do you like in a girl? 

A burst of laughter. "Or do you even like girls? Yeah. Question of the century. Hell if I even know what I am, anyway. For all I know I am a girl. Stop making the question even more awkward, Sasha."

Sadie - Alkaline Trio
Oh okay. So it's just one girl. Sorry all you non-sadie's out there. Tough luck.

He was humming happily, at this point. Click.

4. How do you feel today? 

He cheated and skipped a couple of songs, because they were more of that techno-weird Falling Up crap. Who cares, anyway.

This Velvet Glove - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Well well. I'll leave the interpretation of that to you lol.

What had he ever done without MySpace, anyway? 

5. What is your life's purpose? 

That one brought a pause and a chill, but he shrugged it off. "Not like I really know, anyway. I'm just hear learning things." Damon had a lot of weird-ass stuff in his collection.

Dandelions - Five Iron Frenzy
Little flowas, yo. Floatin' on the breeze. Beats me with a stick...

6. What is your motto?

"Well, not really." It was hard to be completely honest, in his position. Damon really... well, he already knew way too much shit, but Sasha had figured that he deserved to know. Since the whole thing revolved erratically around him anyway. Even if Sasha didn't know what the "thing" was.

Honest Answers - MxPx
And don't you forget it.

He could afford to BS at least a bit.

7. What do your friends think of you? 
</span>
"Or, more properly titled, do you have friends?"

Tear Jerk - Danny Burstein
Wow Damon. You have bizarre tastes in music. Who stuck this musical crap in here? Oh well. Granted.... that guy kinda sound like me. Haha.

8. What do you think of your parents? 
</span>
"These go kinda deep, don't they?" In truth, he didn't think anything of his parents. He was vaguely sure who his mother was, but she hadn't ever felt like telling him who'd sired him in the first place. And he hadn't asked. 

Children of the Revolution - Bono
Well, I guess. I don't see my children too much, since I came over here. Mostly talk to them on the phone. It's hard to rebel against people you never see, ya know?

9. What do you think about very often? 
</span>
"We really, really have to talk about your music tastes, Damon."

Born Like This - Three Days Grace
Hahaha, that's just my excuse for everything.

10. What is 2 + 2? 

"Bet it's not going to be four." Click.

Burn - Alkaline Trio
It's never four, is it?

He had the distinct feeling that whoever had written this ridiculous surver thing had begun to get bored around here, as well.

11. What do you think of your best friend? 
</span>
"Maybe I should just tell all of these nice people that deities don't make friends." He thought of Ailinn, who might count as the only friend he'd ever had. If friends ran around on four legs hitting you with sticks, then Ailinn definitely was one.

In Time - FIA
((here he burst out laughing)) That could mean anything.... thanks for the completely ambiguous answer, windows.

12. What do you think of the person you like? 
</span>
"This was officially written by a twelve year old. That's what I think."

The Animal Song - Savage Garden
Damon, we are definitely having a talk about your music selection, my boy... that's all I have to say, on that point.

13. What is your life story? 
</span>
Another One Bites the Dust - Queen
Well, there you have it folks. I fail at life. I guess. Or else I own everyone. Last one standing, booyah.

This was rapidly becoming ridiculous.

14. What do you want to be when you grow up? 
</span>
"You. Hahahahaha. Nevermind. Type, Sasha. Quit talking to yourself."

Blue - Eiffel 65
Oh geez. I'll just go over to Jackson-Hewett or whoever those paint-people on first street are and pick up a couple of shades, then. 

15. What do you think of when you see the person you like? 
</span>
The Moment I Said It - Imogen Heap
Well, I suppose that means I'm not supposed to be telling them anything. Rather not be bulldozed, kthx.

16. What will you dance to at your wedding? 
</span>
He stared at the screen for a couple of moments with his finger on his nose, pretending to listen to Imogen Heap. She was quite the melancholy artist.

Pieces Mended - The Used
That is going to be one hell of a long dance. To The Used. How sad. Eleven minutes of angst. 

17. What will they play at your funeral? </span>

Again - Kutless
Geez. Don't worry guyz, I'm coming back.... 

18. What is your hobby/interest? 
</span>
Dimension hopping. Plague. We haven't had a good plague for a long time. "That's more for Damien. I just make tornadoes."

Will I? - Jonathan Larson
Apparently I'm too indecisive to have hobbies... and interests.

19. What is your biggest fear? 

"What a devil of a loaded question..."

Time & Confusion - Anberlin
Too bad I'm pretty confused all the time, huh? Hahaha...

20. What is your biggest secret? 
</span>
"Oh, no biggie, really." He leaned back dramatically, waving his arms as if he were lecturing. "You see, I come from this place that runs parallel to yours, and basically when something bad happens that's us. Good stuff too, but who cares about that?"

Straight Jacket - Red Umbrella
Yeah, I secretly escaped from that assylum outside the city. It was pretty intense. Except I can't remember it because I'm actually insane.

21. What do you think of your friends? 
</span>
Seasons of Love - Jonathan Larson
None of you are safe, lol....

And then all of the sudden he was at the last question, which felt incredibly anticlimactic to him, at the moment.

22. What will you post this as? 
</span>
"Your FACE."


Candy - Mandy Moore
Oh, Damon. We've got to have a serious talk...

The perpetrator of terrible music's cat was sitting on the floor next to him, staring at him with glassy green eyes. How disturbing.

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Apr. 4th, 2008

Symphony Hall of the Universe

mood: creative
music: Imogen Heap -- Hide and Seek
If the cabin had seemed unprepossessing, the room within it was anything but. Quite the contrary -- it was overwhelming. Keis blinked a few times in surprise as she passed through the door, unable for a few moments to orient herself in space and time, the atmosphere was so distracting. Things were spinning, fluttering, glinting in the light of lamps she was sure must be hanging somewhere in the mess, clinking distractingly as they knocked back and forth off of one another.

Strings and strips of leather were tied and wrapped around the supporting beams of the room (there didn't seem to be a ceiling, or perhaps there had been, but it had been removed) in myriads. Different lengths, colors, materials. Objects dangled from the ends of a good majority of the strings, and it was these objects that set the room apart and set her head spinning so dramatically.

Mainly, none of the objects dangling above her head and around her shoulders seemed to be of any practical use, beyond swinging a knocking off your head as you tried to maneuver through the room.

Keis reached out her hand and sent a string of brightly colored beads spinning into what seemed to be a large gear plucked from some grandfather clock long dead, the sound of their collision swallowed by the hundreds of other tones refracting throughout the room. No, not quite, she thought as she turned slowly in order to survey the room and its odd decor in full. It's that they could have been practical once, or had been practical, but now they're simply swinging from the rafters by frayed leather cords.

Once a person got past the initial sensory overload, the scene was quite striking. There, in the far corner of the room, gleamed a garland fashioned of what seemed to be an entire set of polished silver spoons. There were old bike wheels spinning here and there, some with things like feathers or twine or ribbons woven in between the spokes, strings of old-fashioned Christmas lights that flickered now and then despite a complete lack of electricity, keys of all shapes sizes and sheens, zippers and buttons all strung together in brightly colored and shining patterns, ash trays, rings, bracelets, bangles, earrings, combs and brushes, a few mirrors of varied sizes and shapes. She caught a brief glance of what could have been a toothbrush, as well, which nearly sent her into a paroxysm of giggles. It was all a-spin as if a slight breeze blew into the room from somewhere, so many sounds to accompany the astounding visual that moving was more of an all-around assault on the senses. She felt as if she were sitting in on a performance in the symphony hall of the universe, surrounded by stars and nebula and planets, familiar but made completely alien by the surroundings.

The floor of the room was nowhere near as exciting as the air above it, though it had a sort of austere beauty of its own. It was inlaid with wood of many different grains and colors and waxed until it gleamed with the reflections from the lights above. The only piece of real furniture in the room was a footstool.

Keis wove through the hangings toward the center of the room, trailing her fingers through the strings of beads and pans and scissors and good lord, was that Tupperware?, stopping once she stood next to the stool, and the man who sat on it. He did turn to look at her as she approached, only continued to stare up into a mobile that seemed to be fashioned of hundreds of sewing needles, following its progression as it twisted and glittered on its string, each needle reflecting back the colors from all of the other... flotsam surrounding it. That's what this is. He's just hung everything here. What he's picked up, collected. Each color reflected on the needles reflected in his eyes, which were wide and innocent-looking, more like a child's than a man's.

His features, as well, had a beautiful sort of simplicity about them - simple the way childhood is simple, the way pure silver is simple, the way blue sky is simple. Those wide eyes were blue, and they seemed to look more beyond things (and people) than directly at them, and were framed by long dark lashes. His lips seemed prone to smiling, and the slight lines at the corners of his eyes reconstituted the idea. He sat the way a child would sit, all in unnatural angles, and Keis thought that he moved as if he were a finch rather than a person.

The he in question was called James. James was a scryer -- a prophet. Something of an enigma, a pariah. He was a not enigmatic because he was a prophet, however, but more because he refused to acknowledge that he was a prophet. Thus, he was absolutely no help to anyone. At least, not to the majority of the people who would seek the assistance of any kind of prophet. And the kind of person James perhaps would have dealt with were more likely to take one look at him and run the other direction.

Keis, having traveled further and seen more than most (if not all) of those particular people, had absolutely no problem with James' eccentricity.

"James my dear," she said softly, following his gaze to the needles spinning in the unseen breeze, "I need you to gaze the wind for me."

____________________________________________________

Attempt at uh..... location.... description. Which I fail at. So I don't know. There are also a few words in there that I may very well have made up. Because I'm just that cool. My apologies for quite a few incredibly cliché moments. And mid-story entrance. This doesn't really belong to anything, story-line wise, though it might eventually because I like these characters. Characters, places, and storywhatever all copyright to me.
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Mar. 9th, 2008

Empty Spaces

mood: complacent
You thought the story would end once you stepped through the door, didn't you?

Nah. Like, all stories, there's always an empty space, in between the action, where the characters sit in the rain and watch the damp leaves blow agains the porch steps, or trip as they're running up the stairs because they really, really have to pee. But none of that is glamorous, so it doesn't make it into the novel.

This is one of those empty spaces. You wouldn't know it unless I told you, because you know, it's your life. Sometimes it seems like evey day is an empty space, but that's completely beside the point. 

The door creaks shut behind you, and the bolt slides shut with a click. You didn't used to lock the door, but one of those unrecorded empty spaces before the story had occurred, and now everyone in your family has to carry a key, or they'd have to live on the stoop. You kick your shoes off into the pile to the right of the door, because nothing in your house is as sacred as the carpets, and snow and carpets do not get on together all that well. You're pretty sure that that pile will eat your shoes, someday, but for now you'll let it be. Shoes aren't that important, anyway.

Mount the stairs - one two, three four skip the fifth because it creaks like a banshee if you even touch it, light on the sixth, seven eight, ten then you're up. Two doors down - you walk quietly, because the baby's probably asleep, and if that step sounds like a banshee then there's not even a simile fit for describing Lauralee when she opens her mouth - and here's your room, the poster-painted door cracked open because you're pretty sure it doesn't even shut anymore, and if it does you don't care in the morning to force it. You're still being quiet, but you almost lose it when you trip over a skatebooard and have to launch yourself at your bed to keep from faceplanting into the floor. Mattress, wall, then the what the hell a skateboard?! pings off the back of your head, and you look back at your door to see the impish face of another munchkin sibling peering around the lintel. A cackle and a dive for the board and he's off around the corner and down the stairs. The fifth step screams as he tumbles down, his boyish laughter drifting back up in his wake.

You wish he'd decide that girls were cool so that he'd quit thinking of ways to kill you as he was riding home surrounded by seven-thousand of his equally impish friends on the bus. Elementary teachers didn't give enough homework.

It's too quiet, though. You should be hearing her voice on the other end of a phone line. It's quiet, without her voice. You flip open your phone, dial a number, your number, actually, and there she is. Why had she recorded your voicemail, anyway? That had been a major moment of weekness. You'd taken crap for that for weeks. Now you'd have to record it again - same old song and dance. Leave your message at the beep! Maybe you'd leave it. She has to call, sometime. 

You flip the phone shut and lean back on your pillows. It's not worth thinking about. She's not coming back. 

But now you're thinking about her, and that's not the best way to go. This is why they don't usually narrate the black spaces in novels. They're just... not that interesting, generally. People trip on skateboards, listen to old voicemails, dream about things they should give up on. People keep living.

You sit up with a sigh. It's only four o'clock, there's no use going downstairs. The baby will be up in a bit, though. Maybe you'll play with her. Kids aren't that bad. Except for when they boobytrap your door. You really should start closing that. Anyway. Your mom's probably started dinner. You could pretend to be doing homework, but that doesn't even seem appealing, at the moment. Oh well.

Back down the stairs, skip the fifth, spin into the kitchen, back into a life you just don't really feel like living.

Oh well.

Life's going on.

With or without you.
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Mar. 7th, 2008

(no subject)

 Did you ever think that maybe those headaches.... you know, the ones you get in the afternoons, or sometimes even early mornings, that start at the base of your skull and work their way up through your teeth to settle - snakelike - behind your eyes.... did you ever think that maybe those headaches were perhaps the ideas that stick in your head, yearning for a way out?

Maybe that's why they sit behind your eyes.

Yes, perhaps that's it. Perhaps if you could get those ideas out, set them free to slither across a page somewhere, the headaches would stop. Because if they're ideas then they're not really headaches, anyway. 

The drugs don't do anything except keep you awake at night. And the headaches always come back. They're inevitable, like the wind, like the snow in late January, like the banging in your heater. Even when they're not bad, they're there. You can always feel them. Maybe there's only one. Maybe it's the same idea, sitting back there at the base of your skull. No matter how many times you take a pill to dull it's scratching, relieve some of the pressure of it trying to claw out the backs of your eyes, it'll always be back again. Maybe it'll crawl back down into it's cave in the cavity of your chest, where it'll sit in a sleepy, melancholy haze until your head stops floating in caffeine-induced stupor, and it breathe enough to crawl back up through your throat, and nest in that tiny cavity behind your eyes. 

Why is the vaccuum so loud, tonight? 

It's the idea, mother. It's back again, and it won't come out.

This idea doesn't like the lights. It's unfortunate how you need them to see. But you click that light on, and it's like the spear of Quetzalcoatl, or whatever his name was, or some sun god, jabbing straight through your eyes into the back of your head, where it lodges. The point of that damn light-spear is barbed, you're pretty sure of it. Wouldn't it be nice if whoever stuck it in there would yank it out good and fast, and catch that damn idea-snake? Pull it right out of there.

It's not coming out, otherwise. 

But no. Now you've got a light spear sticking out of your eye socket, and every time you turn your head it catches on something - the wall, the mirror, your brother's arm. Whatever it catches on, it hurts like hell. 

Damn that idea-snake, and whatever sun god figures it's better dead inside your skull than living on the outside.

You just want to go to bed.
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Feb. 29th, 2008

Flashdance

 Flashdance.

Flickers, flares, sparkles, glints: glimmering, flaunting, flitting. Straight across the ceiling, down the wall, spinning along the window sills, in and out, back and forth. For seconds, they'd be gone, then back in an explosion of tiny tinkerbell twinkles, zipping, whizzing, ricocheting off mirrors, faucets, rings, fingernails and eyeglasses. 

Close your eyes, little one, it's just the lights. See them dance? How could you not? They're reflecting off the backs of your eye sockets. There, that's a waltz, one two three, don't step on her feet, she'll shriek. Disco's not the only dance with lights. 

___________________________________________________________________________

I was gonna keep running with that, then I got bored and started watching Gothika, and now all of my creativity has been zapped by lameness. 

That's all.
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Figuratively Speaking

mood: blank
music: Fugazi -- I'm So Tired

You were sweet for a moment, then the wind blew you away like the snow, with the snow, now you're cold, and if you're not dead then you're gone, and I guess that's all. 

With a sigh she kicked through the angst and stepped on a crack in the ice on purpose, just to hear it crunch beneath her shoes.  Someone called from behind her, back there in the schoolyard. She didn't turn around, since she could see him standing there in her mind, exactly as she'd seen him stand since the first time she'd met him. She wanted to smile as she walked, and the ice cracked beneath her shoes, and he stood calling after her from the empty schoolyard. Instead she walked, and the ice cracked beneath her shoes, and chose to live in ignorance. 

The wind's still blowing, babe. Let it take you.

Shift perspectives, take a breath, breath it out and watch it cloud and crystallize and float into the sky and the sun like you suppose your spirit will, some day. But hell, it's still there. Your spirit, and your breath, so you might as well turn back to the schoolyard and sometime home, because she's not coming back. 

Turn and step, but you've got to look back, just in case she's running to you, in case you've got to stretch your arms out one more time. No, no, just step, you fool. No going back, now. Trail your fingers along the chainlink fence, to keep them from tearing out your hair, listen to the vibrations -- that'll be your sound. It'll sing along with the ice that's cracking beneath her shoes. You're that ice, you're sure. It'd be your heart, if you hadn't already left that by the gate. Who the hell needs a heart, anyway? Yours will be frozen solid, soon enough, if it wasn't already. It was better off, that way. 

You might write a song, because hell, that was what all of the emo kids did when they left their hearts in the snow and watched their souls float up into the arms of the sun. They wrote songs, and other emo kids cried their hearts out (they wanted them in the snow, too, and that's the only way they know how, you guess) and wrote your name on their arms and their chests and took pictures and posted their angst in your MySpace comments, and for a moment you had seven million friends, because all of their hearts were frozen, now. Everyone's gotta identify with something.

You stopped dragging your fingers through the links and broke the pencil in your pocket.

It was for the best of all the emo kids. 

The pencil's in the snow with your heart, now. You hope half-heartedly (no heartedly, you suppose, your heart is frozen in the snow) that someone steps on it. Just to make sure it's never used for evil, again. Let the poor thing rest in peace, there in the snow, numb to the world. Its job was done - it had written it's last fraction, last half-written note to a girl walking in the opposite direction, ice cracking beneath her shoes, always confident in her assumptions. Mentally note its location, because it was a good friend, really. Goodnight, friend. 

Hands back in pockets. No more music from the fence -- you've passed it. It's just you and the ice beneath your shoes, which you normally revel in, but now it reminds you of her shoes, and your frozen heart, and you wish it were fall again, so your mind could dance on the wind with the leaves, instead of sitting frozen, stagnant in your head, burried in cold thoughts. 

Sounds intense. 

But you know it's just words. And your mind sits in your head, stagnant but plenty warm, your heart beats in your chest like it's always beat, though perhaps a bit faster because your feet can sense that you're almost home. You breath, watch your breath cloud, and that's all.

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