the globe

Aside from the obvious virtue of this story, it reminds me of Orson Scott Card’s Enchantment + I like the part about the cherry branches.

from visible thought

Artha shivers. Is this the place? There is the pond, lined with stone just as they told her, and the cherry branches reaching out, just so. But the portal is overgrown; a thick carpet of dead leaves covers the tile, and vines twine through the open ceiling.

She carries the globe tucked beneath her shirt, rounding her belly like she carries a child. If only it were a child, and not this cold, white thing, this thing that has already claimed hundreds of lives. She dares not show its face to the world. Even in the shroud of morning fog, something would see. Some pair of eyes, whether ant or bird or human, would gaze at the globe and then frost over, still and sightless.

Artha pushes aside the heavy vines. Yellowed grape leaves fall to the floor, and the wooden frame of the building creaks. She wants to scream, to cry out to those who built this place to come take the white thing from her, but her voice catches in her throat. It has been too long since she last tasted water or food, since she last spoke to another person.

She clears the leaves from the center of the floor, exposing a circle made from slivers of white tile. In the center, sits a shallow metal bowl. Its edges are caked with rust and dirt, but Artha can see her reflection in the very bottom. White. Her hair, hands, eyes, and even her lips. She whimpers with fear, and lets the globe drop.

Thrum! The whole world shakes. Leaves twist up from their decayed piles on the floor and spiral up, up and out, slapping Artha’s arms and face. Voices come and go in the vortex of wind. Artha hears her name, hears her memories, and hears the globe. She sees nothing but white.

Later they will speak of her with awe and regret. They will build her a statue and clean the muck from the pond and rip away the vines. They will tell their children how Archa carried the plague from the world and destroyed it here, in this place where the cherry branches reach out just so.

wanderlust

I’m a sucker for stealthily-but-not-really-stealthily romantic writing… and references to the sea. Whatever, here it is.

from bury your fucking secrets

his name was wanderlust
he told me a story of the ocean
and a girl with shells in her hair
he whispered into my ear
and held me as i shivered.

his hair was choppy,
deep sea blue
and he wore black pearls in his ears.
as he protected me from the chill of the ocean breeze
a warmth grew between us
and a kiss he offered to me.

the brackish taste of his lips
though normally deterrent
entranced me
for he was not a normal boy.
his name was wanderlust.

the end of the week

If I had a day job, I would be itching to get off work. I might even consider clocking out early because I can’t wait for the weekend to start.

However, as it is, I don’t have a day job. I have been, for the past month, working intermittently on my website which is nearly the only thing keeping me from sending out my resumé.

I was almost there, on Monday. Only, I had forgotten to do any cross-browser testing. So I did and confirmed my prior suspicions that Windows, Internet Explorer and Safari are in league against me. That is not to mention that fact that I am doubting my overall design, because that is the least of my worries now.

So I decided to approach the CSS in a very different way and change the layout very slightly, hoping to accommodate the errant browsers, and now I am utterly lost. This does not bode well for my career.

CSS doesn’t seem to make sense to me anymore. I used to think that it did, that it was easy; I think it has joined the Axis.

I have a crush on CSS… no, I am in love with it. I pine for us to be together in sweet harmony and create wonderful beautiful website babies together. Because I know that CSS is what I need to make superior babies.

But our future seems bleak because I cannot understand it… or maybe my infatuation is making it difficult to think straight. Or maybe I’m panicking because my weekend is full and I need to get this done now because I still have to do that mock-up for a freelance client and I still have to make dinner and I am forgetting that I need to slow down.

—

I am going uphill, with a backpack full of rocks that I have to get over the hill. If it were easy, these rocks would be things that I could simply say to, “I’m sorry, I don’t think you’re important enough to warrant a seat on my back,” and I would be able to do my now-almost-familiar habit of slowing down.

Not so, this time. All of these are things I need to deal with… and there are things coming up that sneak their way into my brain and make things worse.

I don’t know what to do first so I procrastinate, which makes things worse-er.

—

I need to breathe. I think I may need to cry. I need to make dinner. I need to wash the dishes. I don’t even have kids yet. And the things I need to accomplish aren’t really difficult things. And I know this. I know I can do this… but I am in doubt that I will have enough time and that I’ll have the mental resources to do these things.

I feel so drained and tired and I know that it’s because I’m sleeping too much and moving too little. I am upset with myself for procrastinating all week and getting very little done. Then I am frustrated for being upset because it only makes me feel bad and makes it hard to be productive.

—

I think about the things I have to do and I feel so overwhelmed. And it feels so stupid that I keep going in circles, writing about the same thing only using slightly different words… when I could be working, when I could be doing something… but I don’t feel capable. I feel paralyzed. Helpless. Frustrated.

Did I say frustrated?

And even more frustrated (same circle) that I don’t have to be frustrated because this is something I can do. But then I wonder why didn’t I do it all this week?

Then I wonder maybe I should cancel on everything I was supposed to be at this weekend? But I know that’s not an option.

I feel like there are so many things that have piled up but there really aren’t. It’s not a big deal, what I’m going through.

Or maybe I shouldn’t tell myself that.

Sh~t.

I’m dry of words.

not to sully: twenty and certain

This is so beautiful on so many levels that I won’t say anything else for fear of ruining it.

from nevergirl

The last time I slept underneath the stars, I remember, I was in love. The moon looked like it had been spun out of stories and silver; and the sky was so clear I felt I could look up, fall into it, and slip unnoticed among the stars. I was young, and happy, and in love, and my world at that moment whirled around the big blue sky above me and the boy I was writing love letters to. Even now, all I have to do is close my eyes and I’d be there again, twenty years old and so certain in my happiness I’m sure my face glowed like the stars above me.

taking cues

Do you ever notice that when you’re talking to different people, you talk slightly differently with each one? Or maybe with a certain group, it’s different from the next.

Do you ever notice that you’ve picked up some of their speaking habits, inflections, pet phrases?

At first, I thought it was high school again when I was accused of trying to be someone else, because I was unconsciously emulating my (I thought then) closest friend.

Then I realized what I think is a lovely* thing: I have a bit of every one in me and every one has a bit of me.

I guess, then, that when we find our bits that match, we use those bits to communicate. Only usually, the only way to find it is take cues from the other person.

*On another note, they have to make up new words for “wonderful” because it’s just been used so many times that it appears to lose meaning. All the other words in the Thesaurus don’t seem appropriate. “Lovely” is the closest I could get, here, but it doesn’t quite fit either.

That is not to say that it isn’t wonderful that wonderful is used so much, because that would mean that there is so much that is wonderful to speak about!