The Random List Generator

(see the link to the article that inspired this at the end of the post, and hail Ray Bradbury) (this will maybe make more sense then)

skeletal tree branches scraping noise from an empty sky; tendrils of memories that bob like jellyfish; faery queen alights upon her lily pad throne; silence held with a jaw clenched, words battering against the backs of her teeth as she hastily smothers them with her tongue; a slow heartbeat, much like a slow clap, builds into a tumultuous ovation of effervescent love; the fading light drained the energy out of his pores, as if waning shadows and waning thoughts shared a common thread; motivation slipped through her hands, a rope burn that in her apathy she felt not at all; sacrifice and self-discipline were uncomfortably aligned in her brain, and she wanted nothing to do with either;

So here’s a little catchphrase collection, things that have popped into my head over the past few days that had no oomph behind them that I’m hoping will now attract their mating sentences to them like moths to a literal flame….

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/10/18/ray-bradbury-on-lists/

It’s Eternally Reigning

‘Why has my staff turned into a fish?’

‘I don’t know, but my sandals are marshmallows.’

‘Chaos! Will you go play somewhere else?’

‘Sorry, I’m sorry! It just happens, I can’t control it!’

. – . – . – .

This was the Trifextra challenge this weekend:

Buddhist cosmology tells of Trāyastriṃśa, or the Heaven of Thirty-Three gods, which rule over the human realm. This weekend we’re asking for exactly 33 of your own words about a god of your own devising that shares heaven with the other thirty-two gods. Make it yours and have fun with it.

Just Visiting

The amber shade on the desk lamp cast a gloaming dusk over the bedroom. It wasn’t the right light for reading, all the pages looked like yellow vellum and the type went spidery.

As it was the only lamp she had in her room, she pulled it’s chain and lay down. She heard the wolves howling outside, though she lived in a city and not anywhere wolves would find tasty hunting. Or shelter. Why were there wolves? With a shiver she burrowed under the covers.

She yearned, sometimes, for her days of beeswax candles and fur-lined coverlets, but she was not able to visit any longer. All she had left to her was books. There was television, to be sure; the skinny swarthy man had attached the satellite dish to her roof and Caleb had given her leave to order as many channels as they offered. Rarely did they have anything equal to the words. Television made her want things, let dissatisfaction seep into un-mortared cracks. Books just let her daydream, to splash happily in the rivers of imagination.

Someone knocked on her chamber (bedroom! she reminded herself) door, a thin knock on thin wood. ‘Anyah.’ A reedy whisper slipped into the air. ‘Anyah, I must speak with you.’

‘Enter,’ she sighed out, not bothering to hide her frustration as she slid a bookmark between pages and put her daydreams on hold.

Caleb grinned as he sidled around the crack he opened in the door. ‘Yes, yes, my queen, I know I’m interrupting your dreaming and I really do apologize.’

A smile tugged the corners of her lips up for this idiot man who knew her so well. She gestured theatrically, imperiously, beckoning him farther into the room. ‘Have a seat Caleb, and tell me what’s so important you felt the urge to drag me back into reality.’

‘Oh, it’s important Anyah. In fact, I think you would have been rather more cross with me had I not interrupted.’ The bed depressed around her feet as he wriggled back into a more comfortable position. ‘I believe that there may be a way to reinstate that visitor’s pass of yours.’

‘What!’ Anyah sat up from her plumped pillows and grabbed Caleb’s sleeve. ‘There’s a door? Truly?’

He held his hands up, palms out, a qualifier. ‘Yes, there is a door. I know not what waits on the other side.’

*******

The Master Class prompt this week was from Barbara Kingsolver’s Lacuna, and was to be used as the last line of our story. The line was chosen by the selected winner from last weeks class, and while I haven’t read a lot of her work, what I have read has been witty and funny (not always the same thing) intelligent and interesting. You can read her winning submission here: http://mycyberhouserules.com/2013/11/02/red-rover/

ooooweeeeeoooooo

The title is non-sensical, of course, but fits how I feel today. Life has been very involved lately, and having to send my laptop right back out again for repairs that weren’t repaired the first time along with a promotion at work that severely limits my surfing abilities has made me very quiet on the virtual front. So I figured, fuck it, I’m just jumping back into the game even though I’ve got nothing super interesting to say 😉

This morning I was overjoyed that when I went out to start the car before taking the kid to school – THE SKY WAS PINK! It wasn’t black or a deep velvety blue, it was pink with little touches of amber just starting to gild the yellow leaves on the trees we’re surrounded by. The whole drive to the high school was taken up with me creating the lyrics to my new hit ‘All the Pretty Colors’ to the tune of All the Single Ladies, and my kid yelling at me to shut up and asking me did I not realize that it was Monday, and by the way, could you please shut up and stop singing. (the answer to that question, much to his dismay, was that no, no I could not stop singing). Much to the dismay of my co-workers, I still can’t stop singing.

Also falling on the plus side today is that this week celebrates the largest tradeshow of the industry that I work in, which equals a blessedly quiet week at work. Time to get caught up on all that nagging paperwork, time to work without constant interruptions in preparation for said tradeshow, quiet phones as most of our customer’s are at the same show, and no bosses or managers to be found in the building. They’re not really tyrants or anything, but it’s still restful knowing that the inmates are running the asylum. Or, I mean, that the employees are behaving the shit out of themselves and being nothing but super-productive. Hahahaha, couldn’t even type that with a straight face. Giddiness abounds around here this week, and it’s a beautiful thing.

I left for work a little early this morning so that I would have time to drive through our Cleveland Metroparks because that is my greatest pleasure in fall. (Vote for Issue 80, Ohio!) I put on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and turned it up LOUD as I drove around twists and turns, over bridges and through tunnels created by YELLOW! ORANGE! PINK! RED! leaves, cold sunlight sparkling on muddy brown water, pine trees stoically standing as the remaining bastion of green in a forest of trees gone berserk. It actually gave me a cool kind of Fantasia-like idea for a story that I’ll hopefully have finished soon.

On the media front…
TV- this weekend I heard maybe the best line I’ve heard on television ever, from the Doctor Who episode where the Tardis is encased into human form: “Biting! I like biting, it’s like kissing but with a winner!” Maybe it’s just me, but I laughed full out for a good five minutes and it’s been a while since something gave me a giggle quite like that. On The Walking Dead, I rejoiced once again that I didn’t have to see anything with the stupid Governor (THIS CHARACTER’S ARC MAKES NO SENSE TO ME) and thought that Daryl Dixon pulling the silver back gorilla dead on intimidation face smoosh on the guy who dared to even think about challenging him was a fantastic moment. Although the kid shrugged and said I was crazy, it just looked like he wanted to kiss him. Subtleties are lost on teenage boys…

Movies- we watched The Conjuring Saturday, and I have to say that other than the last five minutes, it was really really really well done. It was much more realistic and believable than most movies of this ilk, and I found myself sidling down the darkened hallway of my apartment later that night to shut the house down with my senses reaching out to all corners, ready to jump through the roof if something clapped in my ear. I love it when movies just creep me the hell out, and there were even a few moments that I could tell scared my dude- he’ll start talking in the middle of a movie about random things, like a little kid who doesn’t want to admit they’re scared but all of a sudden just bring up how much they love chicken nuggets. It’s kind of adorable and hilarious.

Books- I was crazy excited this past week about two books. Firstly, I picked up Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep. This is a story about little Danny Torrance, from The Shining, who’s now all grown up. The Shining was one of those books that I read that just scared the ever loving shit out of me. Like, throw it across the room and yell ‘get thee behind me, Satan!’ at its innocent pages as it flies. This book didn’t, it’s not all up on the scares like that, but nonetheless I enjoyed the hell out of it. Excellent writing and a very interesting story, just creepy and original, touching and funny, with a little bit of the human condition pondering like you’d find in one of his more psychological experiments like Gerald’s Game. The second book I found that I just finished yesterday, was Lev Grossman’s The Magician King. I found the first book, The Magicians,at a used bookstore and picked it up because it sounded cool. I read it and then gave it to the kid and made him read it. It takes elements, purposefully obvious, from Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, and puts a more mature spin on it. They are both totally worth reading; the references alone make them worthwhile, you can’t help going ‘Oh!’ every time you catch one. Highly recommend both of these.

So there’s some nonsense for you, and I suppose I should get back to work….