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It's cold!

This is the gutter downspout on my garage, the ice is nearly three inches thick because when I was shovelling my driveway I left a big pile of snow in the wrong spot and all the water had nowhere to go. Oops!

test

Games?

Maybe I should write more about games, I seem to talk about them a lot.

Diary

I bought Chuck Palahniuk's newest book "Diary" and whilst talking with a friend of mine at the bookstore who has actually met the author I discovered that his name is actually pronounced Paula-Nick which is considerably simpler than I would have thought.

I would tell you if the book is good or not but I can't because I think I left it at the Gym, either that or it's somewhere in the house that I don't look very often like under the pile of magazines below the coffee table or inside the kitchen cupboard where we keep all the tupperware. Maybe I should go look.

Status

Work: Dull

Feet: Naked

Dinner: Soup

Airflow: inadequate

Next: A Stroll

Palahniuk!

That's a closer match that the post I made last week but i'm still not 100% sure it's right or how to pronounce it. I finished "Survivor". Twas good.
 

8 Oz. Americano - A short story

I’ve been sitting here for too long, I used to sit in bars and coffee shops to avoid work or school or other people but right now I’m just sitting here and it’s really been too long. As a student I used to resent those people in bars who could make a pint of beer last for three hours while they read their books and learned useful intellectual facts. I drank too fast of course and never finished chapter two.
 
I’ve spent years perfecting the skills I need and now I think I have it down to an art form, I grew up, graduated (although not in that order), switched my liquid intake from ninety percent beer and ten percent coffee to the complete opposite and started to drink slower. That envy I felt as a student took hold of me and I felt like I had something to prove to nobody in particular about how long I could make one drink last. I’ve been here three hours, I’m on the same 8 Oz. Americano that I ordered when I came in and I’m proud of it. It’s a good job I tip well or they would throw me out, possibly before I even finish my drink.
 
So I’ve been here a while, mostly because I’m in no hurry to go somewhere else and its fun to watch people. That’s another skill set I’ve been working on over the short but fulfilling years of my adulthood, “spy training” I call it. Eavesdropping while reading, watching without looking, nosing without being noticed, all valuable. Let me run through the list I’m mentally compiling right now for anyone who’s interested.
 
The guy in the corner is reading a newspaper, I know because I can barely see him out of the corner of my eye, I’m not being nosy just aware of my surroundings. He’s reading the personals, men seeking men it looks like but I’m not sure, maybe I’m too quick to categorize but that’s the assumption I’m making. I think I jump to conclusions too quickly, my father used to blame me for every missing cookie in the kitchen until I was twenty three years old, it wasn’t always me and I think I’m still bitter. This guy has been here about twenty minutes now and he’s drinking his second iced coffee (too fast you fool). I’m still gathering data on this guy; I’ll get back to him if nothing else catches my attention.
 
Directly in front of me there’s my main focus of attention, one older guy with a younger girl. I’ve gathered that this is a “date”. He keeps answering his cell phone and saying “I’m on a date” but he keeps talking into his phone anyway and she looks bored. He looks like her father and he’s got plenty of grey hairs. I’m confused by this one. It just looks out of place. His eyebrows are too bushy, that’s a problem for me, always has been ever since I accidentally walked in on my father while he was plucking his eyebrow hairs to thin them out. I’d say it’s another of my obsessions. I keep glancing up at these people and my eyes fix on his eyebrows. I should focus on not drinking my coffee and listen closer to gather the nature of this “date”.
 
The girl behind the counter is so bored. I can tell because she’s zoned out leaning against the fridge with a magazine that she’s not looking at. She’s been obsessively emptying the tip jar of everything but one dollar after every customer. She doesn’t know if the muffin in the front of the cabinet is bran or chocolate chip. I was hoping for chocolate chip but I’m not going to risk three dollars on a fifty percent chance of bran, I hate bran. Maybe that’s something to do with my father’s obsession with regular bowel movements.
 
The girl on the sofa is reading a book, I can’t see the title from here but it looks trashy. She’s sitting forward and has the book close to her face. Every page or two she leans forward and feels around the table for her coffee cup blindly as she refuses to take here eyes from the page. It must be a good book.
 
The people on a “date” are talking about terminal diseases. I have to stop eavesdropping or I’ll feel sick. I hate talking about diseases, I think I’m developing hypochondria; maybe I should look up the symptoms online when I get home. I have a long history with terminal illnesses; they were a sort of macabre interest of mine at one time after the discovery of a web site that detailed all the symptoms of so many weird and wonderful things. I talked about them a lot to my friends but they didn’t seem as interested, I found myself spending too much time on that web site and in the end I went cold turkey and I haven’t looked back since. My father was a doctor you see. It’s his fault.
 
The guy reading the personals has glanced over at me several times in the last few minutes. I may have been staring into space in his direction while I thought about my possible hypochondria. He’s moved on from the personals now and it looks like he might be in the opinion section, I can’t quite see from here exactly what letter he’s reading but it’s got him all riled up judging by the look on his face. Perhaps it’s an anti-homosexual letter from one of those ultra-conservative types who write to newspapers every week, they’re usually quickly followed by an ultra-liberal letter proclaiming everything the previous writer said to be utter horseshit.
I went through my own period of being highly opinionated while I was a student (of course). I joined a few groups, went to a few meetings, wore a few badges and even went to a few rallies. I had joined up this one group because the girl at the recruiting desk showed a sincere interest in the Ebola virus which I had read about just the previous evening. I thought I’d found somebody who could share my interests while we actively campaigned for something (I forget what). The first meeting was planning a demonstration outside some building or something; they brought out some plywood and buckets of paint and asked if I could help paint some signs, that was the end of my activist career right there – I left right away. You see I have a slight problem with green, I’ve never liked it as a color and it makes me a little queasy when it’s used for lettering. I’m not sure where this little quirk of mine comes from but I think it’s something to do with my father’s first car when I was just a small child. It wasn’t green but I’m sure it was involved somehow.
 
There’s a new customer, she’s got horrible earrings. That’s about the only thing that catches my attention for the first few minutes of my observation. By the time I’ve taken a few more teeny tiny sips of my coffee I’ve gathered that she’s a tea drinker and likes to pay for things by check which I find refreshingly quaint. I’d never use a check myself of course but I have great respect for those willing to take a chance and go with a classic payment method. I’m a cash only person for obvious reasons.
 
The “date” looks like its going better, she’s not looking bored any more but I’m sure I saw her glance at her watch. It’s a nice watch, fits her wrist well and looks like it’s reliable, I wonder if it keeps good time. I took a brief watch making class one year as a student but I never actually made a watch, the teacher was a little weird and I don’t think he understood much English but we did play with some clockwork toys and I learned some really interesting Swiss words which I can only assume are offensive. The girl’s laugh is bugging me now, it’s not that it’s fake but it’s definitely exaggerated. I heard his joke and really it wasn’t that funny, worth a chuckle but not much more. I can always tell when laughter isn’t genuine; it comes from a temporary job I once had in a recording studio where we laid down laughter tracks for new comedy shows. I spent four months listening to people laugh, adding a few of my own fake guffaws and chortles and editing out those deep belly laughs that creep some people out. “Nothing but the best quality laughter for our audiences,” our boss used to say while he sat in his mirthless sound proofed office and filled out laughter rating forms. We paid people to come into our studio and listen to jokes then we recorded their reaction and mixed them all together to build all levels of audience response. My family had visited me at work one day and asked if they could be recorded laughing on some of the tracks, I told a joke about a chicken, a pig and a priest and my father didn’t laugh. I quit the next day, fake laughter still bugs me.
 
The girl with the horrific earrings has sat down with the gay guy reading the paper, I assume they know each other but wouldn’t it be nice if I had been wrong about his sexuality and this is a girl from the personals that he’s meeting for the first time. I hope he’s not too picky in the ear department.
 
The girl reading her book has just spilled her coffee all over the table and the bored counter girl is rushing over with paper napkins. It almost looks like the girl wants to keep reading her book but feels obliged to help clear up the mess. All the coffee shops I visited as a student had very poor table cleaning service and so I found myself cleaning the table myself when sitting down to save them the trouble. The bored girl it on top of it though, that spillage won’t stain the wood and it looks like the newspapers at the end of the table are unaffected.
I wish I knew what book she was reading over there that’s so good. I don’t read enough books myself anymore, I find my attention span to be a little shorter than I’d like and so books just don’t hold my interest. I started reading short story collections and that worked out well for a while but they just didn’t last long enough.
 
The “date” couple has ordered a cheesecake and two spoons; I find that a little unsanitary to be honest but the cheesecake does look good. Everybody seems to have their own dessert of choice and I adopted cheesecake as my own around three years ago. Until then I had been a chocolate cake person and cheesecake had held weird connotations for me going back to childhood and the four weeks when my mother was out of town and my father had cooked for us. I bit the bullet one evening in a bar around the corner from my apartment and ordered the cheesecake after dinner with an espresso to sip for a few hours. It took a while to take that first bite but after that I was sold and I claimed a mental victory over those four weeks in late June when I was seven years old. These days I could eat cheesecake three times a day if I had to. I don’t though.
 
The clock on the wall tells me I’ve managed to make this little 8 Oz. Americano last four hours, which is an all time record for me (and possibly the world). There’s a few sips left too if I really tilt my head back far enough. I’ve been here for too long. The girl at the counter was watched me take my last few sips and I know she’s figuring out my four hour world record in her head as she watches. I’m glad somebody else knows.
 
My cell phone has beeped a few times in my pocket and I know what’s displaying on the screen. I’ve been putting something out of my mind for the last four hours but it’s time I got going. I double checked my phone and I saw what I expected “7:00pm – Reminder, Dinner with Dad.” 
 

Palahuinik?

I can't recall the spelling of his name but I am reading "Survivor" by Chuck [insert unpronouncable name here](Author of Fight Club, Choke, Lullaby etc.) and it's pretty good. I like his style but it is a little surreal for me in places. I guess that's part of his style. I've heard a lot of people claim he is a very male oriented writer in obvious reference to Fight Club and Choke but I've noticed that luillbay and Survivor are not masculine books at all but do share the common macabre theme that gets a little depressing in a very likeable sort of way.

I haven't got much else to say tonight.

Lost for Words

Lost for Words

I clicked my "Blog This!" button while looking at my own Blog and discovered an interesting fusion of post-modern self-promotion and inifinite recursion resulting in what can only be described as a pointless hyperlink!

-F

Lost?

I am standing in a field, it's cold but sunny and the air smells slightly of some combination of grass and shit, that makes the farmyard idea leap into first place in my list of possibilities. I've been here for several minutes now and things are looking a little clearer. At first I freaked out and then when my brain decided there was no immediate danger I relaxed a little but it's safe to say I haven't finished freaking out yet. This is just weird.

There are trees over there and a fence that way, It looks like i'm on the top of a small hill as the ground curves away on all sides. I haven't moved yet. Should I? My bare feet register with me when the grass tickles between my toes as I turn on the spot to survey the area for the fiftieth time. Why don't I have any shoes? I've pinched myself four times now and i'm starting to bruise my arm so the dream idea has dropped down my list of possibilities to about seventh. I am the very meaning of lost. Tracing my steps back until I see something I recognise seems like am obvious option but that only applies to people who know how they got to their current position. At least I assume I didn't just walk here, that's another one for the unanswered questions list. Too many lists.

It's noon if I believe what the sun tells me and more than likely winter too judging by the fact that I'm cold and those trees are bare. This makes things doubly weird since I think it was Fall before I was here. Could I have changed hemispheres? I'm still ignoring the fact that I was standing up when I opened my eyes, that's at the top of my weird list because it means I could have gotten here on my own and had some sort of sudden brain fart of epic proportions. You hear about it all the time, people who suffer minor strokes while watching TV and forget who they are. I know who I am by the way, I just don't know where.

I'm still deciding whether to move, if I do start walking which way do I go?

What was I doing before I was here? I'm actually struggling with the memory and that frightens me even more. I was at home I believe, which is where? Now i'm panicking because I'm not sure where I live exactly, wasn't I just talking about hemispheres? Does that mean I live in the northern one or the southern one? My hands are shaking.

I'm scared and so I start to walk, I look all around one more time and head for the fence.

Five minutes ago...

Three young men are sitting on a rock by a road, hiking boots and socks scattered around their feet and a backpack contains the remnants of power bars and sandwiches. One of the men stands up and announces his intent to urinate in the trees. He's walking barefoot across the field when something in his head just stops. His eyes open and he's lost.

My Head

My Head Hurts :(

The correct way to eat a Kit Kat

I'm referring of course the the larger variety of Kit Kat, the "Chunky" or "BigKat" versions (depending on your country of purchase). As a child I never knew that there could be a correct way to eat something, cocolate and other candy was meant to be enjoyed and that implies eating it however the hell you want, doesn't it?

Well, No! There is a right and a wrong way for many candy bars and especially for a chunky kit kat...

Remove wrapper

Bite off chocolate on the end.

Use delicate jaw skill to remove about 1 inch of side chocolate pieces.

You should now have some wafer sticking out of one end with chocolate top and bottom cover only.

Bite this off and eat.

Repeat previous three steps until gone.

There are other candy bars that have eating rituals to be observed, more will follow.

Badly told jokes...

A man walks into a pub, ouch it was an iron pub.

Why did the alien temptress need dry cleaning?
Because Leonard Nimoy!

Two sausages in a frying pan, one says to the other
"How do you drive this thing?"

Two fish in a tank, one says to the other
"Boy it's hot in here," the other says
"Aaaargh a talking fish!"

Why does Edward Woodward love the letter P?
Because without it he'd be Edward Woodward!

These are just some of the world's funniest mis-told jokes!

I thought I had something to say

But it's gone!

Status

I used to do this a lot:

Mood: A-
Location: Work
Nose Functions: Partial
Lunch: Sandwich
ToDo List: Long
Socks: Black with grey stripes.

I'm at work

Finished one task and then started another one, I'm filling the gap between the two by typing this.

And now i'm done.

A note on that previous post

I started a collaborative story once set in a post-apocalyptic world. Each of the four contributors were responsible for the narrative of one character. It started really well but as with most projects of that nature died quickly. I did see some strong story elements emerging from the story however and decided to move forward with it myself. I stripped it down and re-wrote whole sections and now I have "finished" a first chapter of what could be a very long story. I'm planning on posting snippets here just for the hell of it while I work. I am expecting anyone who reads it to comment even just a little.

What I posted is the first page of chapter one, it currently runs about eleven pages so once I've posted them all I'll have to start writing new stuff :)

I'm also considering posting several of my short stories here too, I hope you don't mind.

-F

Post Life

Chapter One

Last night I watched my brothers play,
The gentle and the reckless one,
In a field two yards away.
For half a century they were gone
Beyond the other side of care
To be among the peaceful dead.

Edwin Muir



Alexander
I remember my parents once telling me that I was a very depressing child; apparently I once asked my grandmother when the world was going to end so I'd have something to look forward to. Of course, she told me not to be silly and that I needn't worry about such things.
It's been a long time now since she was proved wrong, I still remember it well, or maybe I don't and my mind has filled in the blanks with random images that seem to make sense. Either way I dream of those images all too often. When you see your parents and friends die slowly all around you and you're dragged screaming from your home and told to run for your life, it leaves a scar. I have that funky gene that everyone said made me one of the lucky few to survive, ten years old and alone in what's left of the city that was once my home and they called me lucky. There and then, I would have given anything to die with my mother and father but I am here and this is now.
I've been heading north for over four months now. I left the shelter in the mountains when they started to run out of food, of course that wasn’t the only reason - I met someone in that cabin and what he told me gave me no choice but to head for the Canadian border. The guy called himself Styx, he was creepy and I didn’t enjoy having to be so close to him but he had information I needed and I wasn't about to let him go until I had it.
"Wind's getting up, we should lock everything down and get inside the truck." I started to bolt the steel panels over the windows and check the seals. Styx kept chopping wood for the furnace, it freaked me out the way he kept that axe with him all the time but it sure did come in handy if we were ever attacked so I wasn’t about to complain.
"Inside you say? Inside? Why would I want to go inside on such a lovely night?" Styx stood on top of the tree stump, spread his arms out as if to embrace the world. His figure outlined against a dark, yellowed sky. It started to rain.
"Come on man, stop messin' around and get in here." I could smell the air thickening, it burned my throat. Styx picked up the logs from the ground and hopped into the truck through the top hatch sealing it shut behind him. "I think that we could reach the wall by tomorrow, if we make good time." He shrugged, ignoring me and slumped himself into the back seat clutching his axe tightly.
I slumped down low into the passenger side of the truck, pulled a blanket over myself and lay my head back against the headrest to attempt sleep. My dreams these last few weeks had brought more and more thoughts of my brother, more vivid and disturbing than ever before. I try to concentrate on now and remind myself that I cannot be tired, tomorrow we reach a town and it’s important to be alert. I knew my dreams would be of him and I knew even more that those dreams are not real, but the words I heard from the man slumped in the back seat that made me leave my home and head north, they were real. If Travis is alive in that place, I’ll find him. Until then I need to concentrate on tomorrow.

---

The footsteps on the concrete behind me had stopped a short while ago but I didn’t look back and I didn’t intend to, I was pretty sure Styx didn’t make it but I had no desire to go back to find out either. I had what I needed. It was at least two miles before I stopped running not because I wanted to but because I just couldn’t keep going, my lungs burned and my legs felt like they were ready to snap. I collapsed onto the ground and looked up into the gray yellowed sky, the buildings either side of me looming at the edges of my vision as if trying to peer into my world from their uneventful roadside existence. The wise thing would have been to find cover, stay low and rest but I just lay there, my fingers wrapped loosely around the bloodied axe by my side and my shoulders resting on the tattered remains of my backpack which held what might just be the most important thing I will ever posses. And it fills my head with possibilities, dreams, ideas and worst of all, hopes.
Ah hour passes and sense overcomes exhaustion, I rise from the ground and take stock of my surroundings, I don’t know what this place had been called but it looked like it had always been this quiet – even before. I strapped my backpack tightly to my shoulders and waist and wiped the dried blood of the axe handle, the early afternoon heat was filling the air and there was little breeze to take the edge off which made me a little more relaxed. Stick to the hot zones they once told me, best advice I ever had. I wandered over to the nearest building and started through my usual searches, water, food, weapons. Time was when I used to look for other people too, I learned my lesson soon enough.
My search turned out to be worthwhile, I found my first canned food since we left the cabin in the mountains two weeks ago, Styx had taken twice what was fair and I threatened to cut his throat if he tried anything like that again. In some ways I’m glad that the freak was gone, even no company is better than a man with a death wish. I guess he got what he wanted in the end; I only wish he’d finished explaining where he got the photograph. All my information led me to the wall but after that? I’m lost again.

You have to start somewhere!

You know I did one of these before! A few years back I had a blog, before all this blogging stuff became popular I'll hasten to add. You might even say I was ahead of my time but that would be stretching things a little bit.

I'm not entirely sure why I started up a new blog, I considered reviving the old one but it wasn't me any more. I've moved on since then, all the posts are still there and I have fun re-reading them but I think they should all stay where they are.

I never did get round to a topic for my last blog either, just a collection of randomness from my brain directly to the recipient (via fingers, keyboard, internet, screen and eyes). So on a similar track this doesn't have much of a topic now and probably never will but I like to write things and I've been told they can be quite humorous at times so keep that in mind when deciding to read this or not. Hey, and if you choose not to then that's fine too. Just don't tell my pet Rhino! (that was one of the aforementioned attempts at humor - not my best).

Okay, I'm done for now.