Every. Single. Time.

Every Time the phone rings.  Every Time I see a (1) in my inbox.  Every Time I think This Time it's going to be the lucky company that has choosen me to be their next star employee.

So far, I've been wrong Every Time.

But my chin is still up!!!

Nanowrimo 3pm: 43000 words

    "The children are slaughtered!" the priest screamed at her.

    "Ha-ha!  Revenge is mine!" she screamed back to him.

    "Your brother's lifeless head is hung from a spear in front of the gates of hell!" he cried.

    "I will drink his blood and roar my rage and feast on the hearts of my vanquished enemies!" she screamed, her voice cracking and raw.

    "Good," the priest said.  "This ends our first day of training.  Rest a few hours and we will begin the second."

Last day of Nanowrimo!!!

Okay.  I am 10,000 words behind on the last day of Nanowrimo.  I have a little under 14 hours to go.  But I am not giving up.  No.  I have full support to spend this day trying to hit the 50k word mark.  I will not cheat, will not type 'a' 10,000 times.  If I fail, then I have failed and I'll try again next year.

But I am going for gold!  !!!

Nanowrimo Day 25: 30k+

My horrible, horrible line for the day:

"Ninjas are like amoebas: before you can kill one, they've already split into two."

Right now I'm playing super-catch-up.  I wrote 8000 words last night, and if I can achieve even 75% of that today then I should be in okay shape to finish this thing.

Nanowrimo Day 19: ~20.5k

She came into a dream of underwater beauty.  Deep underneath a lake or sea or ocean, where the sunlight barely reached and cast little curvy illuminated designs all along the sandy floor, Dawn swam like a dolphin.  The water was warm and comforting and rushed smoothly across her face and over her body.  Here in the deepest depths of water, the shadows danced and played in every direction, making the ocean world a mysterious theater of silent movement.  The shadows darted and sprang all around her.  The only sounds to be heard were the quick swishes of some darting object past her ears.  She would hear a swoosh, turn her head, but be too late to see what creature had made it.  Another swoosh, another head turn, again, seeing nothing but the dancing shadows.  Somewhere a million miles away, she hears the cry of a humpbacked whale: "myyyy armmmm... theeeey cuuuuut offffffff myyyyy arrrrrrrm!"

Nanowrimo Day 18: ~18k

Dawn asked Peter as he started dishing some corn and beans onto a plate, "Is this your father?", pointing to one of the photographs on the wall.

"Oh no," said Peter, "That's just another son of a bitch.  Our mother is kind of a murderous whore.  None of our fathers are alive.  Or the same."  He gave her a smile without taking his eyes off the task of loading his plate with food.  "You should eat something before it all disappears.  And before we head to the train station.  Have you ever been on a train before?"

Nanowrimo Day 17: ~17k

A girl with dark bangs covering her eyes spoke up, "Do you live with the nuns?  Your dress is absolutely sinful."

    The boy with the freckles said, "Is that blood on your dress?  Have you been eating wild animals?"

    "Please, I am in danger," Dawn said to no one in particular.  She walked along the group in a crouched, hunched way.  The kids began to circle her as they moved along, slowly absorbing her into their center.  "Where are you all going, may I ask?"

    "We are going to school," said the freckled boy, "where they teach us not to be slobs and sleep in the woods and eat wild animals."

    "Do you bite off their heads and drink their blood?" inquired a short girl with silky brown curls and thin-rimmed glasses.

    "I bet she eats off their penises!" said the tall strawberry blond girl.

    "She eats their doody!" laughed the small, mousy boy, and a few around him giggled and gasped.

    "I do not eat animals," said Dawn defiantly.  "I came from the mission up the road."

Nanowrimo Day 14: ~14.2k

    As the motorcycle drew parallel to the spot where Dawn hid, she noticed that there was a nun piloting the bike, and she noticed that the bike had a sidecar carrying a second nun.  Both riders were wearing large goggles, and the nun in the sidecar looked like she was carrying a complex blanket in her arms.  No, not a blanket, but a net.

    The motorcycle drove on, continuing its wild back and forth pattern, into the village.  A dog barked unconvincingly in the distance.  Dawn reached into her tote and pulled out an old woolen shall and placed it over her head and immediately fell asleep.

Nanowrimo Day 13: ~13.5k

They pulled her halfway up, and Dawn was able to position her feet under her bottom.  She offered a little more resistance against the nun's pull, forcing them to grunt and lean back to compensate for the added weight...and then she sprung forward, pushing off with her feet as hard as she could.  The nun's flew backwards, releasing their grips on Dawn and pinwheeling their arms to try to lessen their inevitable impact with the ground.  There was a sickening snapping noise coming from one of the nuns as she slammed into the ground.   The second nun landed on her side at an awkward angle, her head slamming into the earth with a thick slap.  Dawn didn't pause to check on them.  She had flung herself past the two nuns and broke out into a sprint back down the path that headed through the woods and back toward the missionary chapel and bunk house.  Her legs drummed like pistons, her thighs and calves and knees and back and shoulders and chest on fire, but she did not slow down.

Dawn only had a few minutes head start, and had to make the most of it.

Nanowrimo Day 10: ~10k words

Minutes faded into hours, and hours faded into days.  Dawn's black dress sucked up the ground's moisture, the air's moistures, until it was saturated through and through.  Dawn's knees began chilled, then grew sore, then painful, sharp, jabbing spikes of fire shot through her legs, until they became numb.  Dawn's back, straight as a pine tree, strained under the stress of remaining upright. Her lower back ached and throbbed until it became a soft white noise of pain and enveloped her like a blanket.  Dawn's arms shook, her muscles fatigued and nearing their breaking point, but her palms remained ever clasped, and her fingers never wavered from their direction toward God.  Dawn's mind was relentless, cycling through every prayer she could remember, asking the heaven's for an answer to the Blood Amulet until her request became a mantra.  She prayed the rosary after each round of asking for help, her voice speaking out to the empty, black room while her mind visualized and moved the beads.  She prayed so long that even the mental beads gained a mass and weighed heavily upon her body.  The physical representation of her limbs and breath and blood were lost to the comforting aura of extreme fatigue.  The stillness of the air in the small sanctuary aided her, for if even the smallest trace of breeze had invaded the room and moved against Dawn's body, she would have crumpled to the ground in a heap of flesh and bones.  As it was, only faith held her together.

Nanowrimo Day 6: ~6900 words

Dawn looks up at the Sisters with respect and reverence.  "Hello Sister Witchhaven, I hope you are having a blessed day."

"Explain yourself!" says Sister Witchhaven.  Sister Sprites remains on her hammock chair, sucking and puffing away at her pipe, her eyes fixed on the young girl.

"Well," Dawn begins, "There appears to have been a problem at the bunk house last night."

"There will be a problem here if you do not explain yourself this instant!" Sister Witchhaven cries.  Dawn is slightly taken aback, and doesn't understand where the nun's hostility is coming from.

"Well, there appears to have been a tad bit of killing, and an ounce of kidnapping."

Sister Witchhaven's caterpillar brows pull together so tightly they look as if they are kissing.

Dawn continues, unabashed: "It's a terrible mess.  Everything is sticky, and bugs are starting to show up."

Nanowrimo Day 5: ~5100 words

"The bunk house is transformed into a frenzied den of chaos.  A small boy across the bunk-room takes one step out of bed and is immediately snared in a rope sling and sprung up toward the ceiling where sharpened spikes have been fastened.  A red haired girl tries to run only to find her feet have been pinned to the floor by a pair of ninja sais.  A pair of children fall from their bunks after a green powder is blown in their face, their little fingers clawing at their eyes and mucus pouring out of their mouths and noses.  A lanky child is screaming under his blankets as he is swarmed by dozens of black scorpions.  A flaming arrow whistles across the room and buries into the spine of a running girl, catching her blouse on fire and crumpling her into an ignited pile on the floor.  A toddler walking on all fours is clubbed by a nun chuck and sent sailing through a glass window and out into the darkness beyond.  

The shadows in the dark are as relentless as they are efficient."

Nanowrimo Day 3: ~3600 words

Another gust of wind rolls through the mission courtyard, causing the two nuns to reach up to their crosses and lean forward against the stiff breeze.  From a distance the two appear wraithish and predatory, like spectral vultures perched above their prey.  A fly lands on Sister Witchhaven's cheek, flaps its wings and walks a jerky figure-eight there before a hand slaps down upon it and crushes its body.  Sister Witchhaven takes the mangled fly and rolls it back and forth between her index finger and thumb, unconsciously destroying the thing while she keeps her focus on the children.

"Tonight will be very exciting then, don't you think?" she says.  A corner of her mouth twitches slightly, her mouth's best representation of a nun's smile.

"Tonight will suck shit." says Sister Bachova.  "But I'll be glad to be done with the whole thing."

Nanowrimo Day 2: ~2000 words

"Inside the chapel the temperature seems to drop ten degrees, and the bright sunlight is dampened through the dark reds and blues of stained glass windows.  The chapel here in Croatia is smaller than most of the other chapels Dawn has visited, but it feels as welcoming as any.  A large bronze Jesus attached to a darkly stained cross is suspended by thick strands of rope above the small alter at the back of the chapel.  The two rows of pews that fill the floor are split evenly down the middle.  Warbling coos echo down from the rafters to mix with the clips and claps of Dawn's shoes as she skips her way to the front row of pews.  These sounds assemble to form a techno soundtrack for God."

Nanowrimo Day 1: ~1000 words

"A chime sounds, chirping like a tiny, metallic bird, and the delivery chute opens up.  A baby wrapped in a sky-blue blanket spirals down the conveyor belt and into a padded tray near Benny's lap.  The baby appears to be very young, its eyes pinched shut, flabby baby-fat reaching out at all the corners of its face.  A thin tuft of black hair circles its crown.  It remains completely unmoving for a moment, probably dazed by the recent decent, and then the mouth opens up and the razor screams begin.  Chinese babies sound like American babies sound like Russian babies sound like Vietnamese babies.  At Baby Dump Depot, all the babies speak the same language."

Nanowrimo 2008

Well, I am still unemployed and looking for work (and things to kill my time that aren't TV or Video Games), so I am looking forward to November to attempt Nanowrimo once again.  This will be my fifth time trying it, I think, and every year I get a little bit further.  I've never cracked 10,000 words though.

Anyway, we'll see if I last 2 days or 2 weeks or actually finish this time.  I'll post a snippet of my story every day if I keep up with it.  This year I think I am going to try to write a Christian Adventure-Romance story.  I'm only now starting to get a horribly vague sliver of a plot.  Who knows what will happen!

The End is Near

Jaxney walks into my office with a burning rage in his eyes. He marches across the expanse that exists between my door and my chair and bends at his waist so that his nose touches mine. Our noses slip and slide against each other while Jaxney stares into the depths of my retinas.

Through my heavy prescription glasses, I can't see shit at this distance.

Jaxney growls at me, "You keep putting your closing brackets in the same line as your Return statement. You KNOW that C++ coding standard demands that your closing brackets are placed in their own line!"

Jaxney's breath tells me he ate Spaghetti-Ohs for lunch. His carbon dioxide exhalations moisten my mustache. I hold back the urge to lick his chin.

"It saves space while decoding," I explain to him. Jaxney jumps backward in frustration. He pulls his hair, spins in a circle, and talks to God. Jaxney fondles his forhead, bites his lip, and then points both his index fingers directly at me.

"BUT... IT... IS... CODING... STANDARD!" he delivers. His cheeks pulsate colorfully. I cannot tell if he is about to cry or explode. I decide to diffuse the situation.

I stand up and put my arms around Jaxney and begin to walk him back toward the hallway. I tussle his hair, and coo into his ear. "I tell you what," I say softly. "You go back to your office, and I will continue to code my way, and then we will save space while we decode. How does that sound, young prince?"

Jaxney puts his thumb to his mouth and wanders off toward the restrooms, and everyone lives to see another day.

A Tragedy.

Here is the first banana bread I ever baked. It was perfect. I mixed the ingredients exactly. I baked it for 1 hour and 20 minutes. My house smelled like heaven. It could not have turned out better. And here I set it on my counter to cool, and I took a quick picture to share with my friends and family. I was so proud. This was my first bread! I was about to start loading the picture from my camera when I hear: CRASH!

My dogs had pushed themselves up on the counter where the bread was and flipped the plate to the ground. My kitchen floor is clean, but not THAT clean. There is dog hair in small quantities. There is are broken shards of glass. My bread, only minutes from it's oven womb, was killed.

I tasted a small part of the crust before buring it in the trash. It tasted perfect. It was the finest taste of banana bread my mouth had ever savored. This loaf was meant to be shared with the world, and now it is just another sack of baked fruit and flour and sugar and eggs... gone too young, before it had a chance to impact the world for the better. Banana Bread Loaf, I mourn for thee.

Office Trolls

The thing I hate most about Fridays at the office are the trolls. I don't think anything can be done about them: no amount of bug spray or steel-sprung traps seem to reduce their number or deter them from coming out into the open.

I cross the hallway from the small office kitchen back toward my work sanctuary. I have a mug filled chock to the brim with an oily, skunky office coffee, and I must navigate slowly to avoid upsetting the brew. One step. Two step. I march down the hall like a North Korean arms-bearer submerged deep in an icy ocean. Left foot. Right foot. And then I see it.

A dark discoloration in the carpeting. A half-liquidy, half-slime puddle of darkish ooze. It has soaked into the flooring and splashed against the baseboard molding. The sickening sweet and musky odor of the substance overpowers the stench of the office java. Troll droppings. Great.

I pick up my pace, sacrificing some coffee drops over the side of my cup for slim hopes to reach my office sans confrontation. But luck be a scorned lady today: the troll is at my door.

Hunched over and exhaling white plumes of dusty disease motes, the troll eyes me up and down with hungered interest. Sour-apple saliva drops from its lips. Whistling sores pucker its face, opening and closing their mouths in a symphony of decay. "The copier needs a new toner cartridge, my pretty..." it groans with a voice like fracturing limestone. It shifts position and flies and cockroaches pour from the flaps and folds of its skin. Mimicking the sound of blended infants, the troll cackles wildly into the expanse of office hallway, and then dashes into the shadows of a nearby office.

A slimy trail of troll-filth remains hanging from the door of my office. I work myself a few feet into my office, but the place already reeks of a corrupted odor. I feel the blood draining from my face, and my stomach begins to clench. I splash the hot coffee in my face to try to settle myself.

TGIF. In God's name we pray.

Wednesday is here to stay.

Petronox crashes into my office, breathless and agitated. One hand rests against the frame around my office door, the other points down the hallway toward the front of the building. He is trying to tell me something, but all I catch is:

"Look...(pant)...dark...(gasp)...quick...(huff)...now...(rasp)!"

"Is it a monster?" I ask him, reaching across my desk for the small box of raisins I had placed there this morning. One by one I separate a raisin from it's smooshed brethren, waiting for Petro to regain his composure. One by one I place a wrinkled bit on my tongue, and then mash it between my teeth, while Petro doubles over coughing and gagging. I use a #2 pencil to pry some raisin from between my molars as Petro spits foamy saliva onto my office carpet.

There is no way I am going to clean that shit up.

Precise Instructions for Murf's Summer Stew

This recipe entry is dedicated to a special chef out there who, through some delicious creations of her own, has inspired me to improve my culinary techniques and methods.

Now, on with the show: MURF’S SUMMER STEW (recipe based off a recipe from Murf’s mom, who is an artisan stewstress.)




Why is it called ‘Summer Stew’ you ask? Well, because I made it in the summer. BAM! That’s why. Now here is the ingredient list. If you want to recreate this stew for yourself, then you must follow these instructions with the utmost precision. Luckily for you, I wrote them all down. And by ‘wrote them all down’, I mean I will vaguely recall what I think I threw into the crock pot this morning.

1 cup of Stew-beef-meat. Maybe it was half a pound? It was one good-sized handful of those chunks of beef that are already cut into big pieces. It was two small-sized handfuls of those chunks of beef that are already cut unto big pieces. If you have medium-sized hands, then I will trust in your own interpolation methods to figure out the correct amount of beef.
14-17 baby carrots from one of those bags of baby carrots.
2 red potatoes chopped into potato chunks.
1 can of diced tomatoes with the basil on the label.
1/3 of a softball-sized white onion, chopped into onion chunks.
1 and a half cups of SANGRIA BOXED WINE (angelic humming queue here) Maybe 2 cups. Heck, just use as much as would fit in a small crock pot to fill it up to an inch short of the top of the vegetables.

Directions: dump all of the above into a crock pot. Make sure you dump all the juice from the can of diced tomatoes in there as well, as it, combined with the boxed wine, makes the perfect sauce. Cook on High for 8-10 hours.

How it tastes: Friggin amazing. It’s as good as a backrub from the Queen of England.

Office Dream

You know that dream where all of the sudden you are naked at work, and everyone is staring at you? That dream where, one moment you are in your pressed khakis and your sunset-pink button down, standing in front of the big dry-erase board trying to explain to your colleagues some pulse-width correction scheme, and then the next moment you are completely unclothed, chest hair undulating with the breeze from the ceiling fan, naughty bits hung akimbo, your heart's quickening beats visible for all in the conference room to see. That dream where you slowly turn back to your presentation, intensely aware that your pale buttocks are surveying the room, and that every freckle, every hair, every imperfect inch of your skin is screaming out to your audience for attention. That dream where you can feel the heat of those dozens of eyeballs burning through your body, hungrily devouring your every movement, lapping at the lines and angles of your exposed flesh as you shift positions and try to concentrate on explaining your thoughts on time-gain control and multi-trigger levels.

Do you know this dream that I speak of? Well, today I plan to live the dream.

Post Coffee, Pre Demerol

Dillian walks into my office this morning and comments on my work attire.

"Are those grenades on your shorts?" he inquires. His eyes protrude from their sockets. They pulse with greedy desire. "Are those actually orange grenades all over your shorts?"

"No Dillian, those are pineapples." I correct him with all the patience of atomic fusion. "And these aren't shorts, they are jams."

Dillian stutters and convulses in my doorway. He shapes his mouth into a grimace of mental anguish. "Would HR approve of this?" he guffaws at me, his teeth vibrating in his skull. My hand moves slowly toward my bottom desk drawer, where a real grenade sleeps, but then Dillian turns to leave. I can hear him bouncing and sliding down the hallway.

Highway to the danger zone, Dillian old buddy old pal.

An Amorous Essay on Potatus-Totius.

I love tater tots. I have to start off with that statement, because every other statement involving the small deep-friend ground potato bites simply pales in comparison. I love them. I don’t think you understand how much I love them. I love them fondly, mentally, emotionally, and yes, sometimes in the privacy of my home kitchen, physically. Do not judge me yet! Please! Listen to my tale of the tots.

You see, when I was a child, I belonged to an adventurous family. My Mother was an Amazonian big-game hunter. My Father was an esteemed tribal Psychologist. Before I had learned not to shit my pants, I was trouncing along in ancient rain forests on the backs of camels or hippos or albino pygmies. I could delouse a baboon before I knew my ABC’s. I could strike a fire using python fangs against a boar skull before I had even seen a picture of a bicycle. It was a quaint existence.

But life in the wilderness has the unfortunate side-effect of greatly lowering one’s life-expectancy, and it was only a matter of time before my parents were devoured (after a cultural misunderstanding in southern Peru). Luckily for me, I was young enough not to remember the incident well, although sometimes in the evenings when the wind rustles the leaves, I can vaguely recall the soft, meaty smacking of lips as the cannibals set in on them.

Partly due to the whims of the nearest trading port, and partly due to the tattoo of the Irish flag I have on my left buttock, I was shipped off to Ireland with a cargo of cursed Cougar Gold to learn a trade in the potato fields. At the age of eleven I was reunited with a village of distant relatives and taught how to seed, sow, and harvest potatoes. I learned the hundreds of different ways to prepare potatoes to eat, how to tile a floor with potato skins, how to shoe a horse with potato-pads, and even learned how to brew special love-potions using the eyes of potatoes and special leprechaun dusts. By the time I was sixteen, no man in the village could claim a stronger potato-ale than what I brewed in my small cellar room. Potatoes were my life!

It was that winter that the Mongol invaders sacked our village. They were lost at sea for years, bound for India, and somehow found themselves at our meek little seaport. They wasted no time in reigning destruction down upon our town, setting fire to every building and running down every man, woman, and child. I was asleep in my cellar when the screaming woke me up, but by then it was too late. The mill above me was set ablaze, the horrifying aroma of sweet potatoes and flesh pouring down on me, fallen rubble blocking my escape. It must have been the potato-powder bins above me that ignited and exploded, but all I remember before being knocked unconscious was a deep, loud bang and then a warm, delicious softness covering my body.

By the time I recovered, the raiders had already left, apparently tired and full on potato products. I found myself covered in soft, fried potato shreds, warmed from the explosion and baked a golden-brown from the heat of the fire above. This was my first introduction to tater tots. You see, they had saved my life. They had cushioned my fall, had kept me warm, and blanketed me against the heat of the barbaric destruction. As I ate my way out of my glorious tater cocoon, I began to realize that I was the only person left alive in the village. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I mourned the loss of my friends and family, and I sat and hugged the mounds of warm totness, taking solace in its silky embrace.

My sorrow was short lived, however. Growing up with adventurous parents, and then earning my way in the potato fields had instilled a strength of spirit inside me, and I knew then where I had to go: America. I built myself a mighty potato ship, sealed it with potato oil, and drew up a mighty potato-skin sail and set off across the ocean towards the Land of Opportunity. If I had things my way, it would be the land of Totportunity.

Two months later I arrived in America, and was welcomed with open arms. I had eaten my ship down to but a small tot-raft, yet my desire for the potato treat had never died. Much to my surprise, the crafty Americans had already discovered the magic of the tot, and the cultural movement I had been prepared to set in motion was as needless as a scarecrow in a tater field. I had arrived home.

But sometimes in the evenings, when the brisk autumn wind finds its way through cracks in the walls, or the soft outside breezes smack meatily across the tree limbs, I find myself compelled to fill the bathtub with warm, fresh tater tots, and then allow my naked body to become absorbed by their embrace. And when you see me with greasy pockets filled with tots, think to yourself “Don’t I have photos of my loved-ones in my pockets?” We are the same, you and I. It is human nature to surround yourself among the things you love. And well, my friends, I love tater tots.

Typical Monday

I awaken at my desk from what appears to be a year-long coma. My eyes adjust sluggishly to the pulsing florescent lights of my office and on my computer screen I see hundreds of pop-up system messages telling me I need to Update Programs Download Security Files Resister Software Restart Computer? Click Here to Enlarge Manhood.

My face is sticky and slathered in drool, and a foot of facial hair is matted around my chin. I hope to myself that none of the office ladies have taken a picture of me in this state. I reach up to scratch my head and notice two-inch curved fingernails protruding from my digits. Gross. I look under my desk and see that the toes protruding from my sandals have also sprouted talons. Good thing I wasn't wearing shoes, because I'd be embedded in them now.

All around my desk are stacks of paperwork, data sheets, multi-colored sticky notes with phone numbers of reps who I'm supposed to call back. How could I have slept this long? Why didn't anyone wake me?

The secretary jaunts past my office and, upon seeing me alert and upright, pauses long enough to say "Can you change the air filters before you leave today Thanks!" I can't remember her name, but I think I remember it sounding like Petunia, or Old Glory, or Stitch. My head spins and I reach to rub my forehead and almost accidentally gouge out my eyeballs. Youza.

My joints explode and bones creak as I retrain my body to stand upright. I'm going to need some coffee in me before I start to call back these sales reps.