proschai, proving by example that all sequels don't suck

"Justin was at a party once, some sort of reception for yet another escaped nobleman who'd arrived in the city bearing nothing but a now-worthless title, and oranges were served. Everyone exclaimed over them, and the air was full of their smell.

Justin didn't touch them. "

""Fine, don't move then. I was just--" Lance broke off, cleared his throat. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. "Will you ever tell me about him?"

The two of them were in Lance's kitchen. Morning sunlight was streaming in through the windows, hitting the icon that hung over the sink. Justin could still only bring himself to look at it briefly, and mostly not at all.

"No," he said."

proschai, by amber. a shimmering, glowing star in the nsyncau firmament, to mangle a quote from my favorite movie.

sequel to ledischka.

just, oh, god

<--wordless... my mouth is open and i haven't finished the story yet. haven't cried but my eyes keep stinging. i keep fidgeting and the skin on my back keeps prickling, the way it does when a plot-story-character has me by the throat. i can't move, pinned in place and if i struggle i bleed.

e, let me go. *soulful hobbit eyes.* why didn't you tell me you had stories up???

the beauty is overflowing. you write the kinds of stories that i turn my eyes away from, that make my face feel foreign to me, and lips heavy with suspense.

and there are just--flashbacks. justin. why isn't he really like this? and chris, and the snow imagery, *whimper*--you keep shaving closer and closer to the bone of the essence of the themes you're writing about, leaving the edges and the parts that could have been there out so it's blindingly clear. few people come so close to expressing an idea so thoroughly and so indirectly and--gulp.

whew.

and i always seem to prove myself wrong.

ledischka, which comes before.

a short coda which comes after.

i just cried.

no, really.

and i don't do that.

hey, e. do you still want regular feedback? dammit. i feel guilty. will write tomorrow, or the day after, when this trembling releases me.

another dream--look, aubry!

otherwise known as the "retail" dream.

1. in the dream, i was dreaming, and woke up, and looked to the left. both roomies were asleep in rmt #1's bed, for some reason. no, not, like, having sex. just sleeping. i think this comes from the sleepover thing.

2. so i started to tell them about my dream, and i was able to remember it. in the dream, i worked at Group, this women's clothing outlet where i worked last summer. lisa and cate both worked there, too. so we had gone to work, and for some reason all the lights were out, but it was open. so the head manager, who no longer works there, is evil, right? and she had gone insane. she had draped the little living-waiting room outside the fitting rooms with black fabric, because there was a professional photographer there to take pictures, and he'd actually left, but somehow he could only take pictures on black. meanwhile, the half of the store devoted to formal dresses had been converted to a furniture store, but just for the winter season, when, she said, it was too cold to wear formals, so they wouldn't sell. there were lots of those little display beds with all the bedding on them that aren't really long enough to sleep on.

3. it's important to understand that i relived the dream, when i remembered it. so we're sneaking around the edges of the store, trying to avoid the evil manager. for some reason, she was going to attack us, and she had a bunch of swords hung on the wall near the fitting rooms for this purpose. we keep whispering. it is pitch black in the store, but we keep avoiding customers. we come to the first of these little display beds, and cate wants to take a nap in it, but we don't let her.

4. so even though i am reliving it, i know it is a dream. when we get to the second display bed, there is a cat on it. i remember the thing about not feeling pain in dreams so i put out my hand, and the cat scratches it. it hurts like hell, and it bleeds. lisa says, in an exasperated way, that that only works for pinching, so i pinch myself. sure enough, i do not feel it. then we all climb into the miniature bed to take a nap, but it is close to closing time so we have to go.

5. by myself, just before closing, i accidentally stumble on a shoe department which i have not known is there. it features lots of red and beige/white designer logo patterned boots with spike heels, knee- and thigh-high. manager #2, a diffident-looking elderly man in a cardigan sweater, wanders by and asks me if i like them. i point to my feet instead of answering, and this is when i notice that i am wearing thigh-high red velvet boots--with a little red buckle in the front of the ankle. satisfied, he says "oh" and wanders away after a vague warning about the evil manager, whose i name i cannot for the life of me remember. i try to leave the shoe department. it has been roped off. the cord is not as high as my knee but for some reason i cannot step over it. try about 5 times.

6. it is later, and lisa, cate and i are leaving. we leave via the store's mall door and start for the door, but then we recognize a gang of evil people cloaked in shadows who we understand are from the army, and will probably assault us, so we have to go the other way. "what other way?" says cate. "through the movie theater," i say, "it's always lit--trust me, i worked here last summer." we find the movie theater, and it is indeed lit. then i stop remembering. i look at lisa and cate, and they agree that it was a strange dream.

7. we start to discuss it. for some reason i am crying, and cate lends me a bunch of tissues. she crawls out of bed with lisa and sits on the end of my bed to comfort me. her tissues are blue. i stop crying and become fascinated with them, and keep getting new ones and wiping my face. cate points out that the last 10 or so tissues have been dry, as i am no longer actually crying. i look, and she is right; i have failed to notice this and am faintly ashamed, but she just laughs.

that's about it. ...weird. slightly disturbing. mostly funny. told lisa most of it. she was envious, as cannot remember her weird dream.

you mean they don't have special painkillers for viggo-lust-induced cramps?

rave never answers my emails, but now she did! and i loooooooooove her almost as much as i love aubry, holls, j, steve, and you.

me and rave on the wonders of the unintentionally-funny sweat fairy story(i promise i am not making this story up):

[sweat fairy: have sex; it'll save the planet.]
Qui: Thank god for that! I guess I'm not a pedophile after all.
Obi: And it's not impure lust, or passion, or anything. It is
Serene!Love because it is Sanctified By The Force.
Qui: There is no death, only the Force. There is no lust, only sex.
Obi: Sounds good.
*pause*
Qui: Wait. You do realize we're doing this on the advice of a nymphomanic
Perspiration Fairy, don't you?
Obi: ...
Qui: ...
Obi: ...I feel so dirty all of a sudden.
Qui: No, wait! There is no dirty, only the Force!
Obi: *shrug* Sounds good.

you know, it's really fucking annoying that when you get up late and lie around, not getting dressed and not working and not eating, when it's time to go to work, none of your work is done.




hee. fishes, holls.

oh, j, im me today or sometime tomorrow--as soon as you do have the requisite free time. i can steal you a color scheme, but if you want to make your own it takes for-fucking-ever to figure out what the little labels mean.

in other news, i do not yet have my paycheck. i hate those stupid-heads, grrr. [music update--nickelback, "this is how you remind me"]

the wonder.

*waves* *blows kisses* *glares at psy* and don't even think it. hey, i think i dropped a sock for you!

holls! don't be sad!!!

holls! cheer up. :( mwah! bugs! fishes! virtual roses and naked pippins!

in other news, one of the toilets has been neon green since i woke up this morning. i am afraid of it. i want to close the stall but i don't want to get that close to it.

in even more OT news, lisa has a marilyn monroe dress with a neck plunging down to here with a huge diamond brooch, that used to belong to her grandma. <--much envy <--likes to look glamorous, likes to dress up, just doesn't like to actually wear uncomfortable (read: glamorous) clothes

and cate is not mad at me, at least, even if she is still mad at lisa. *grimace of pain*

NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF WORK:

today i was innocently reading my linguistics text, standing up, while guarding the mexican art exhibit, when the museum director walked up with a lady who does some kind of story-hour thing and started giving a tour. i'm fixed in only one gallery, so had to stay in their line of sight. there's no reading when someone is in the gallery, so when a little old man somewhat resembling laurence olivier walked in, i was forced to actually do my StalkerGuard! Job and follow him around. so happily we wandered from the folk art to the museum art parts of the exhibit about three times before he finally sidled up to me and said suspiciously:

LOM [little old man]: are you following me?

okay. i knew, knew, KNEW since they first told us what we were supposed to do that i'd eventually be asked that.

me: *engaging smile* it's my job.
LOM: *still suspicious* what? --oh, it's your job?
me: *nods emphatically, still grinning like mad and non-threateningly*
LOM: *still looking at me* *eventually looks away* oh.

[hypothetical conversation added in my head:]
me: but of course, you're also really cute.
LOM: what?
me: i like that hat. is it a cab-driver hat?
LOM: uhm... well i...
me: does it bother you that i follow you? because i could stay further than two feet away.
LOM: i think i'm done, actually.
me: do you see those two women? you couldn't possibly get them out of here too, could you?

my great-grandma had a heart attack.

yeah, so, fuck, man. it totally sucks. she's really old, but she's this sweet little old lady. i don't see her that much because she lives far away.

and i feel so guilty because i don't relate to her that much. my great-grandparents are like alien creatures. from the 20s, and great-grandpa used to be a trapper, and she lived on a farm, and lived through the Depression. it's just incomprehensible. also, her house is dirty and always smells bad, and i don't like to go there. yet another reason to feel guilty. when we visited our other family in kansas this christmas, my parents went to see her (only for one night), but i skipped and stayed with my cousin/aunt/uncle/second family instead.

fuck.

i don't know if i'm halfway-crying because of the guilt or because i really care about her more than i know or because i feel like i should cry.

me sumerjo entre mi--well, soledad is hardly the right word there.

i can't do work. this might be because i am stupid, or might be the result of brain damage caused by not doing work for too long. uhm, yeah, but that counts as stupid, doesn't it?

<--sat on the couch, staring at the greek notebook/textbook, for about 10 minutes without picking up a pencil

i'm absolutely positive i don't know how to say "was" in greek. i just can't figure out why i didn't ask the professor.

ickiness abounds.

(no subject)

there are plots floating around in my head and colliding. this is not producing the usual result of one of them demanding to be written--it just makes my head hurt. maybe i will take some ibuprofen. am thinking blond thoughts all of a sudden and also about the outer corners of a boy's eyes, which are very nice, but rarely get any attention. eyelashes+water=way overused; must not return to that. and then there's dom/billy and the orli-gets-dehydrated plot that was going to use lij as an extra character without any sexual tension between them. now also have mutliple nsync plots. that star trek iv plot bunny that won't leave me alone since last summer. vague thoughts about cars and spaghetti, and imagination. and the power of--something. my subconscious is churning. am not in a fic-writing-worthy state yet, for anything but crap or smut-schmoop, which i do like, rather, but. but. feel my writing has been going downhill from "burn": "kiss," "arkansas," "home" and the birthday het vampire story were all worse. and i know this is because of not trying. i have story-feelers. i have to use them to prevent stories from unbalancing themselves and coming out the wrong shape.

damn, i sound like--i need to go to bed.

right after this greek homework.

[edit- i suck and i hate my computer. going to turn it off. then i'll be able to work. oh the pain.]

something else to read,

wax's void, faculty slash (but you don't need to know anything about it first), an unfinished series--because.

forget transparent narration--it's transparent writing. you forget you're reading it.