2.29

[It's technically the first, now. Who cares?]

I'm sweaty. My palms are. My back is. My forehead is. Everything glistens.
I have too much riding on the line.

God tells me to be calm.
Breathe.
Tamp down the fear.
Calm.

Good. Now, step out, face smiling.
Excellent.

Stage fright.

2.28

I met a girl today
her voice
golden
liquid
voice
limpid
open

She had the voice
of age and knowledge
she spoke with purpose
to her words
and she didn't laugh.

I found myself attracted to her.
For the first time, a voice caught my eye.
I commiserate with Odysseus.
     I'll take beeswax any day.

2.27

I can't eat this. It's late. I'm full. I don't need it. I don't want it.
Why is it going in my mouth?
Comfort.

2.25

She's attractive when she eats. It's not fair, I tell you. Not fair.
I met her in the abnormal way, like people meet people. We were standing in a subway stop, waiting for trains going in opposite directions. She saw me reading her favorite book, and she pointed it out to her friend. I replied. Why is that a shock, really? I'm reading, so I'm oblivious? I replied. I disagreed with her thesis on the main character. We argued for the five minutes between trains.
She followed me onto my train. I didn't know she was on the wrong train until I got off at my stop. She was embarrassed for no reason. Her friend couldn't stop laughing.

Since that day, I haven't gotten her out of my mind. Every street corner has a hundred opportunities to stumble across her again. Every supermarket run is an opportunity to meet her. Every time the subway doors close, I swear she's standing on the other side, waiting for me.

I saw her, ten minutes ago. She was eating a sandwich. The sandwich was dripping sauce on her. She is the most attractive woman I'd ever seen. she is attractive when she eats.

I swear there is a God, to have made someone to consume me so entirely. I swear there is a devil, to keep her from being mine.

2.24b

Shipwreck

I'm trying to dig the feeling from the pit of my stomach. It sank there months ago in the middle of a late-autumn storm. Waves of sadness, twenty feet high, washed over me and threw my self-satisfaction overboard.

The color of the sun can't make its way through the rain-drenched clouds. Everything on the lake is washed-out. I'm throwing lines around thwarts, trying to get the mast to stay upright. I've long since taken my sail down; I haven't known the pleasure of a breeze for what seems like lifetimes. The rope I wrap around the thwart and then I then I don't know what to do. I cower in the bottom of the boat, soaked and soaking. I could bail, but the bucket leaks. I could signal for help, but no one is near. I could jump overboard, but I'm not fatalistic. I'm just in the worst position imaginable.

I can still remember it. It still feels like present tense. I'm lifting up on the cable--I hired a recovery boat from someone I knew. The motor churns and the pulleys scream. I know where my feeling sank, and I need it back. I know that its worth is only sentimental; the wood and canvas of the feeling is relatively inexpensive, but I need it back. A happy gull screams at me from high above. The water is calm. The cable is taught. A scrap of wind pulls my hair back from my face. My feeling is rising. I have hope again.

Then, disaster.

The cable rips off the pulley. The wheel swings sideways. The rope drops to the deck and snaps tight.

The boat lists.

I have to make a decision. I want my feeling back. I want to dig it out and pull it up and have it. I want to have it. But my friend's boat--it lists. The engine still burns, pulling the cable across the deck and pulling the gunnel to meet the lake. I pull out a sharpness, a blade, a knife. Do I let the rescue continue? Do I hope that the boat will right itself? Or do I cut the line, leave my feeling, and save my friend's boat?

I cut.

I slash.
I saw.

The line whips away from the cut and lashes me across the face. I crawl to the engine and shut it off. The boat sits, calm in the water, and I can feel my feeling drifting back down to the lakebed. My eyes are stinging from the lash I received. Everything I have is lost, but at least I saved my friend's boat. At least. At least.

I'm not crying;

     I'm breaking. Thanks for asking.

2.24a

I can't fit into the pants I wore when I was twelve. She can. I found them in the closet at mom's.

We've never broken any rules. I drive the speed limit. She walks in crosswalks. We make our parents proud. We've never broken any rules until tonight. I threw her in my parents' pool and we swam around in our clothes until midnight or one. It got so I couldn't see anything, and I kicked her accidentally once or twice and she splashed me in the face, so I dunked her.
I took her back to my room, trying not to drip so loudly that we might wake my parents. We peeled the wet clothes off like husks from corn. No lights. No touching. The rules are back. No noise. No impropriety. I rummaged around in the drawers for a while and gave up. I could hear her trying to get out of her wet jeans, but they sounded like tearing paper when she tugged on them. I chose to not think about her legs. On the top shelf of the closet in a box too big for its own good, I found a pair of pants I wore when I was twelve. I pulled them out and tried to hand them to her in the dark, but all I could see was hints and shadows.
"Lucy?"
"What?"
"I found some pants. Where are you?"
"Here."
"Where is here?"
She walked into my outstretched arm and I could feel her stomach hot against my hand. We both paused in that moment, nude and invisible. I could feel the space between us collapsing. I could feel my own self collapsing--into a tiny shape no bigger than a soul, until all I could feel was the heat of her skin through the beads of water. I felt bigger than the moon. She breathed, though, and I felt her shift against me. It broke the moment.
We struggled into the clothes I could find and scuttled off to sleep in the beds we shouldn't share. We hadn't seen each other, but I felt like I had slept with her already.

2.23

I laughed, and tipped the canoe into the water. We both fell in. Everybody in the party began swarming the craft, trying to get it upright.
We surfaced underneath the overturned hull--alone in a crowd. I grabbed a gunnel. She grabbed a thwart. We floated for a second.
Our legs twisted together, underwater.

It was our first kiss, under that canoe. I've never beaten it. I wonder if she has.

2.22

The sky is dark. It feels greasy.

She's beautiful and she won't stop laughing at my jokes. It's flattering, certainly, but the fact that I can think about what we're thinking about, yet she's completely incapacitated by a joke about a gynecologist means more to me than perhaps it should.

I won't look her in the eye. There's a bright edge there that feels like a lie. I've talked with brilliant people, and their eyes flash when they speak. Terribly brilliant people. Her eyes flash just the same as brilliance that sees the truths of humanity (such eyes that can divide and understand). Her eyes flash, but with no inner scalpel. The things she says are dull and predictable. The thoughts she has are old and tired. She brings nothing new to the table.

The sky is dark. It is so very dark.

The poor, old sky breaks open and rains on us.

She grabs my arm and we run (so fast, so very fast) through the rain to her favorite spot. We crowd under the hanging branches of a creeping vine. I can feel her breath blow hot against my neck (witless breath). I can feel how close she is, but we aren't touching. Our limbs are entwined, but they don't touch. We're standing so close, but I can't feel her heartbeat--I can't touch her. I whisper in her ear. She leans close, but we're already so close that she's blushing. There is no closer to get.

I'm only whispering "goodbye," but she treats it as if it means the end of our little beginning. We've only just met, but we've judged each other. She wants. I decline.

I leave.

We'll see each other again.

She'll say something cutting and bold and brilliant.
When nothing is on the line, she isn't afraid to be right.

The sky is dark.

2.21b

I keep waiting for something to go right, but. My arms feel sad. My legs.

2.21a

Daniel pulled the gun out of the holster, but Maria couldn't stop weeping. It killed him every time a tear pulled itself out of her lovely eyes. He cocked the weapon and held it to her head.
"Stop crying," he demanded.
She coughed, trying to regain her breath, but couldn't stop the tears.
He decided he would rather never see her cry again, rather than deal with a single tear more.
He pulled the trigger.

2.18

[My commitment to this blog falters a lot.]

She arched her back away from him. He couldn't tell if she was pulling away or grinding her hips into his, so he leaned forward to kiss her neck. She gasped.

[And in three lines I have written a more convincing love scene than SLOCUM. Thank you and good night.]

2.14

[I want to return to Catherine, but I don't ever want to carve the time for it, so I won't do it haha]

The open-faced sandwich sat down on his plate with a heavy sigh. Not really. But it looked settled. Passive. Lethargic. Lettuce draped over the tomatoes, which merely napped on the sandwich meat. Everything looked like it had been there for a thousand years. He lost his appetite.

She smiled. She had once been so beautiful, thirty years ago when they met. Her smile once had the power to melt men. She was vibrant. She laughed at things that weren't funny, and she meant it. Plus, she looked like clothes were made for her, if you know what that means. He didn't, really, but it's what he told her to make her feel like a million bucks.
What had happened? Thirty years, probably. Thirty years had happened and there was no going back.

He was older too. He looked like he had been slathered down, wearily resting on the slice of pure american cheese at the very bottom of the stack. Old. Weary. Open-faced.
He wanted a do-over. If he had one, he would have gone back and never walked into the thrift store where they'd met. He would have lived his life alone. He would. He would.

He repeated it to himself, crushed flat against the plate and only half done, the second slice of bread waiting somewhere, feeling sad at having been left out. His insides were only open to the air. He would survive.

2.13

I can't smell anything anymore. The girl with the hair, you know the one I'm talking about, the one who looks like she spends an hour every morning just curling it just so, she's wearing so much of whatever that is making it impossible to smell anything. Really, though, I just have to wonder: if somebody actually loved her, would she really try so hard?
I shove my tray away from me. You don't know why. It's disgust, is why. I can't smell the food I'm shoveling into my mouth; why bother? A huge sigh. You don't notice. I decide to not sigh again.
Her boyfriend walks behind me and his jeans brush against my head. Can he not feel that? He sits down across from her. Good word, I hate her voice. Could he just reply, just even once, to put a break in the way her voice creeps across the air and falls like a slouching pain into my ears. But what is she talking about? I can hardly decipher her vast sea of "um" "like" "so" "you know" "whatever." I get the feeling like she's really struggling. She's reaching out to this boy who wears fashionable scarves and rolls up his sleeves and eats without listening to a girl who needs him.

You haven't spoken for the last five minutes, but then, neither have I. Are you listening to a different broken couple and wondering how they got that way, too? Or did you just finish your meal and decide you had nothing to say?
I hope no one listens to us.

2.12

The lucid dream dripped down the front of his shirt as he ran for the bathroom, struggling not to vomit.
Really, he had just done the deed in a dream, not reality. Could he still be held culpable?

2.9

[Ugh, is he doing this again? Well, for my faithful possible readership of . . . eight? Twenty? One? I don't know. I'm going to be talking about something I said in the last post. Hold onto your horses and don't let go unless they threaten you with spears.]

["Creativity doesn’t have to be communicated, or even captured linguistically, pictorially, musically, sartorially, socially, or metaphorically. It doesn’t ever have to leave the head of the creator." I said that, and I meant it. Let me discuss what happens because of it.]
[In fairy and or pixie land, every idea that wanders into someone's head is eventually carried to fruition. Every errant thought is worthy of physical effort. Strangely enough, we don't live in this blissful paradise, and many ideas are lost along the way. I once read a post by a tremendously creative man: David Malki. He takes old and makes new with it in perhaps the most stunning display of the craft that I have ever seen. Once, he proposed a system of dealing with creative thoughts. Carry a blank book with you everywhere. Any time you have an idea, or think something clever, or say something striking, write it down. Write it all down. Capture everything. Then, at the end of the month, burn the book. Burn it. Don't look back, don't copy over, don't store away. Burn. Then, buy a new book, and repeat. It's an exercise in priorities. If what you wrote down isn't worth saving or acting on by the time the month closes, the assumption is that you wouldn't have acted on it in the first place. Now, most of the rest of us actually do this anyway, whether we think of it actually or not. You've got a brain book, and (over time) the things written in it burn away like mist in front of the sun. Poof, vanished. That's not so bad. Some people actually don't have the ability to forget. I can't imagine what life would be like.]
[So humans have these ideas. Some of them melt, and others stand up and grow. Now, there's no dispute over whether the ideas that bloom are creative. That's a socially accepted premise. But what about the ideas that never see the light of day? Are they as worthy of the title of Creative?]
[I would argue that they are creative. Judging by my definition of "Creativity is the production of new ideas or, as is more likely, the purposeful change of old ideas for use in a new way," non-acting ideas are included. Nowhere in my statement does it say that the ideas have to do anything, or be perceived by others as new, or go into the general milieu of cultural identity. In fact, I believe it is just these unused ideas that form the basis for the nuts and bolts of creativity. It is these ideas that resurface right when I need them when I'm writing dialogue or trying to create a clever interaction in a comedic sketch, or when I just need to have a comeback to something Philip threw at me. It's the ideas from before that come, unbidden, to my aid just when I've run out of creative juice.]
[Besides, if ideas that never see the light of day were discredited from being ideas, let alone good ones, some of my favorite things in the world would be uncreative. How about Half Life 2, episode 3? Not out yet. I still have faith it will be amazing.]

2.6

[This won't be creative, but instead an essay upon creativity. Therefore:]

[I am annoyed by works such as Twilight. However, I am also annoyed by nay-sayers who never have anything positive or constructive to add to the general knowledge or awareness of our society. I must add something. I must make a constructive observation, otherwise my annoyance at Twilight is as useless as Bella's meaningless, consumer-driven life. My main complaint of the series is that they are lazy: Stephanie Meyer has taken the culturally powerful idea of "vampires" and repurposed it in order to add power to her novel, without doing the creative footwork of making her own idea. In order to really explicate my thesis, I think I have to do the impossible. I must define creativity.]
[Creativity, when set aside and dissected to find a definition, evades me. It should be huge, overarching, unattainable, and yet it's not. It's tiny. Exact. Certain. And saying so feels wrong. Let me say that this is riddled with holes, but Creativity is the production of new ideas or, as is more likely, the purposeful change of old ideas for use in a new way. A few caveats:

• Ecclesiastes 1:9 says there is nothing new under the sun, and Solomon was wiser than me.
• Creativity doesn't have to be communicated, or even captured linguistically, pictorially, musically, sartorially, socially, or metaphorically. It doesn't ever have to leave the head of the creator.
• The first half of my definition, Creativity is the production of new ideas, is far easier to use, which is why I hate it more. The second half is so enticing with all of its vague lines and easy loopholes. How new must it be? How old are the ideas we're using? How much change is too much? How much change is not enough? What if the ideas are my own? Is it still creative?
• The first half is probably more correct.
• No one is creative. Possibly ever.

[Hopefully, my flimsy, squeamish definition will hold up long enough under fire to service our needs. Therefore, I want to ask the question: what makes Stephanie Meyer's work so much less Creative in my mind than, say, Peter Sellers' Pink Panther? Twilight uses vampires as a quick cultural touchstone. Pink Panther uses James Bond. Why do I think Meyers is worse? Again, I fear I must resort to an aside.]

[I must define what I mean when I say "touchstone" and "taken the culturally powerful idea" and "borrowed" and "stolen." When I was in high school (words which I almost perpetually desire to capitalize, probably either due to my German language teaching, or high school's monolithic presence in my psyche) I learned all the facts that govern my existence. Nearly all. And "facts" must be said flat, pat, and matter-of-fact. The word itself is no-nonsense. In high school, I learned the parts of all stories. I learned that there must be characters, setting, and plot (I paint with broad strokes) in any tale, and that any which lacks even one element was not, in fact, a story. But the major problem is that not everyone has the time or energy to actually create (that sticky word again) the characters, setting, and plot anew every time they set to work. The first third of the book (or more) is dedicated almost wholly to establishing the characters and setting in order for the plot to do its work. Each author must craft each world for each character so the reader is likely to believe and trust and desire. The writer must craft each nuance. It is a pain. These beleaguered authors look at the daunting creative task set before them and then think, as any normal human would, "can I reduce this massive pile of work?" The good news is yes. It can be done. The tendency of human beings to remember has led to a crisis of information. Everything is written down, recorded, duplicated, and stored for later. We don't just value the past; we worship it. The stories of Homer and Virgil are valued above those of Crichton and King, whether or not the style or pacing were technically proficient, the characters were well-developed, or the setting was believable. So, authors of today are left with a tremendous amount of slag. Scrap. Free-floating material to which no formal claims are made. Olympian gods, large-eyed aliens, anthropomorphized animals, evil robots, and living dead litter the stories of yesteryear and creep, imperceptibly, through our own. Authors who are crushed and dejected may borrow freely from these old creations because literally no one will stop them. Do you have characters, but no setting to allow them to live in? Borrow an ever-popular space station from countless science fictions. Let them romp through the streets of old London or along the garrets of a Medieval castle. Do you have a setting, but no characters? Pilfer the Greek mythology or native American tribes or even Dracula, if need merits it. No plot? That's a larger problem, but, as Avatar shows, nothing that can't be extremely lucrative. Borrow the story of the Christian gospels or the story arc from a Victorian novel, or the moral question from Star Trek. This way, authors can (of course unconsciously and innocently) get away with being incredibly uncreative. It's as big a conspiracy as passive voice sentences, which only require the writer to dredge up the verb and the object from a potentially interesting sentence: "the President and terrorist walked the dog" turns into "the dog was walked." All that vigor, excitement, and joy: lost in the winds of time as surely as the settings, characters, and plots of the overburdened authors of the world.]

[But, according to my definition, the work of the author is no longer creative. Exciting? Maybe. Well-written? Possibly. Creative? Well, that remains to be explained. You may be begging me "Robby, how can an entire story be rendered uncreative by the introduction of one, tiny, eensy teensy, microscopic borrowed thing?" Well, despite all your hedging, the fact that the author took the easy route of theft for the setting, hero, villain, supporting cast, or, God forbid, the plot does actually render the entire work uncreative. I don't mean to say that an author can't have a sentence on page seventy two which reads "And then the purely created protagonist and her boyfriend sat down to watch a borrowed tv show." That sort of grounding is entirely different. And that necessarily leads me down what I hope will be the last rabbit hole of the evening.]

[We've now entered the twilight zone--the black ether between definite and plausible. This is the question "How much is too much?" Well, allow me to suggest a measure which is undoubtedly completely wrong. If the story would collapse with the removal of the borrowed item, the author has crossed the line. That seems open to a lot of interpretation, so let me hedge my bets by phrasing it in a completely different way and through a great many more words. There are borrowings, and there are borrowings. The differentiation is subtle, but easily definable if you are inside the author's head. Otherwise, it's impossible to know for sure. The line is drawn by intent: did the borrowing fill the purpose of reference, timing, believability, or taste? Or did the borrowing relieve the author's struggling? These two can overlap to an observer, but the truth is in the author's head. Did the poor writer decide "the castle will be made of grey rock because it is placed in an area with a great many granite quarries" or did the writer decide "the castle will be made of grey rock because that's what I saw in Monty Python, so it's believable?" The difference is subtle, and probably completely indistinguishable, which makes it useless here. I merely include it as a measure for myself, an author, to use for my own work.]

[Back to my main point, from which I have wandered more often than a child who has just learned to walk. Creativity is the creation of new, or the new adaptation of old ideas. The use of old ideas must be strategic, and not for laziness' sake. Finally, I believe that Twilight and other works like it are uncreative. Here is my incredibly imprecise reason why: Meyers stole vampires because they're dangerous and sexy and she had not the time nor skill to create her own group of dangerous and sexy creatures which would thrill and terrify the minds of preteens and soccermoms. The mythology of vampires was a labor-saving device, and it appalls me that society hasn't picked up on it yet.]

[And yet, Homer borrowed the mythology of his day. And Bram Stoker did the same thing in his monolith Dracula. The incredibly famous works on Arthur by Tennyson are thefts. The work of the ever-growing Wheel of Time series are rife with borrowings from history and popular culture. This is not a new problem. In fact, I used the time honored tear-jerker of a rape victim in a story which I consider to be my highest work of art. So really, where is the line?]

[I suppose it's wherever you decide to draw it. As for me, I draw it here: right behind my feet. Good night everybody.]

2.3

[I've found myself reading way way way too much stuff outside of classwork. I've read four graphic novels, a hundred pages of essays, and watching three hours of videogames (which is not reading). So I don't write. I slide back and forth on a continuum between reading and writing. I like the reading side more, thanks.]

"You're just so . . . symmetrical."
She said it to him because he was. Symmetrical, that is. Daniel was, without doubt, even on both sides. But he didn't know why she said it. He was only fourteen, of course, and hadn't had enough experience with women to try to decipher this one. Daniel was from a rural area and was completely off his game. He wasn't used to a town with two high schools. "Why two?" He asked, incredulous. "We have enough kids for three," came the reply, "and funding for one. So we compromise." He didn't get the joke. Perhaps it wasn't a joke. But here Sandra was, telling him that he was symmetrical. He knew the word, but not the context. As a matter of fact, he knew a lot of things: the smell of fresh-cut hay, the look of a storm cloud on a distant horizon, and the feel of a fish's insides. His father had taken him fishing not two weeks before the new school, and hours later, Daniel had plunged his knife deep into the fish, loosening flesh from bones. His father turned to him. "Daniel, I want you to be good, you hear?" "Of course, dad. Don't worry." "Don't go getting no girl pregnant. I don't want to hear that. I'll put a hurt on your hide that will keep you from sitting down for weeks, son." "Dad, I've never even kissed nobody. I'm not gonna go get some girl pregnant." Daniel cast his mind back to his own school at home. He knew all the girls in his class. Had known them. Most of them he had, at one point or another, been skinny dipping with in the reservoir. They didn't excite him. It was like skinny dipping with your sister, but if you weren't related.
"Symmetrical?"
Sandra hadn't anticipated the situation, so she hadn't anticipated needing a response. So she spat out what first came to mind. Symmetrical. Well, there was no denying that Daniel was very symmetrical. She felt like such a fool. Perhaps she was a fool. Here's this nice boy, and he's not even very cynical, even, and he hasn't been ruined by living in the city his whole life, and she bet he'd never even stolen a stereo like her last boyfriend, or drank alcohol just to fit in, or talked about how many whores he was going to have when he got old. She bet he didn't have any problems at all, just an honesty that disarmed her and made her say "symmetrical" when she meant to say "wow, you are just awesome and I hope slash wish that we could just be as honest with each other hello my name is Sandra and I've actually never been kissed and I've worried about whether or not I'm normal because a couple of my friends have already had sex, and Imean I know that's kind of a taboo topic but I just feel like your honesty requires honesty of me so I'm trying to be honest about how lost I am when it comes to all of this relationship stuff and I have nobody to talk to about it because let's be honest if I'm going to fit in I have to let on that I know more than I do and so nobody actually knows the real me and your comment just kind of threw me off guard and Iguess I don't really know what to say to it other than thanks and I guess I owe you a compliment back because really that's how society works so I have to compliment you and it feels really weird because I've never ever complimented a boy because I've always been afraid that it meant something more but with you, the only boy I've ever met for whom it doesn't mean something more, I'm still veiled and vague and tremendouslyshy and I guess all I can squeeze out of my stupid stupid mouth is that you're symmetrical."

Because really, what do you say when someone says you're beautiful?

2.1

I'm Deathmongerer, and I self-identify as evil. It's not common to find someone like me, because we're always out fighting people who self-identify as good. We're too busy. I just wish someone would write a book showing that the goody two-shoes guys out there are human, too.