Now, I'd be even more excited if the government hadn't stolen thoughtfully withheld the money from me in the first place:
tax refund cleared this morning. woot!

The beauty of electronic filing, and direct deposit. Lovely.

Maybe I should see if I can get off work early, the better to spend these ill-gotten gains in a sinful-and-morally-incorrect-though-technically-legal way. Or I could just go out for beer.

or both....

Won trivia last night. (at the Line, which may have one of the worst bar names ever) (leading candidate, currently, for all-time best bar name is of course "Fubar", though the fact that Fubar closed back in aught-two sort of takes it out of the running)

Drank a lot of beer.

Ate not one, but two unhealthy dinners. (I was there a while)

And we're done.

Oh, OK, some relevant details: I didn't have to work today, so felt absolutely no guilt in spending the evening out last night. My requisite eight hours at work yesterday were 7-3, so even without skipping out early like I had threatened to do, I was still at home and at loose ends before 4 that afternoon.

So I ended up at the Line at, say, a quarter to five. And had an order of wings and a couple of beers. And even though I knew about trivia later, I wasn't really in the mood for it. I figured I'd go home and write, then watch DVDs, and then crash. But it was still early, only sixish or so, so instead I went out to my car to retrieve my pipe.

(I haven't smoked in a couple of months. This isn't because I quit, or was trying to quit, or whatever. It's actually a normal pattern-- a couple months on, a couple months off. Not sure of the biology/psychology of this dynamic. Typically, the coffee-beer-nicotine combo leads to a very mellow buzz, followed by some of my worse hangovers. If I can limit myself to just the one bowl rather than the pipely equivalent of chain-smoking, however, then not only is the hangover not so bad-- I sort-of enjoy a mild hangover-- but I also get to keep most of my sense of taste. A couple bowls of pipe tobacco will temporarily stun your senses of smell and taste. And your tongue will be touch-sensitive as all get out-- carbonated beverages and brushing your teeth just feel funky. Add that to the pro/con list for pipes. Have I posted on that topic yet?)

So I sat down and filled my immediate vicinity with the lovely blue-white smoke and scent of Edward's Supreme (I also like the Special Balkan, and while I'm linking to Edward's, I might also mention that I like their house-brand pipes, and have been so impressed with both the quality and price that I haven't used another brand of pipe for more than ten years.) (Both my day-to-day model, and the "Gandalf" are from Edward's)



And one beer led to another, and I found myself not only still in the bar when trivia started around 8:30, but also in the mood to play along.

Just as well that I did. Like I mentioned earlier, I won.
Only a $30 gift certificate,
and my tab... was a bit more than that
--and they don't let you use it the same night you win, anyway.

But still, cool beans.

Though after [multiple] beers, and the pipe, and the wings, and a rather tasty patty melt that I had for my second dinner ...I had the weirdest dreams last night. Downright funky, almost nightmarish. No hangover though. (At least, no more so than usual. )

I'll post a quickie update since the latest added feature here will be easy to miss:

As you page down, you'll note a discreet addition to the right sidebar, just below the tagboard. That little bug is from technorati, a website that tracks the blogosphere and, among other things, allows folks doing searches for say, the latest info on Guinness... in Russian, to find the guy who's blogging that.

One handy thing, for me anyway, is the ability to search my own blog for important terms. I've been doing this for two years, there are 400+ entries, some of them pretty damn long, and even though I've got the oldest (and newest) posts lined up in neat little categories, there is still a large grey area (2005) where on a map it merely says, "Here there be dragons." I can't always find an old entry that I'd like to link to, even using google. I think technorati may only search the main pages of the 27-million-some-odd blogs they're tracking, though if I'm lucky, it'll also gradually engage my entire archive. (which will make that search function much much spiffier from my pov)

Though of course, there is also something to be said for searching 27-million-some-odd blogs, even-or-perhaps-especially if you only look at the current front pages.

The other addition to the log this evening is going to be a lot more obvious than the technorati bug (see the entry just before this one):

Radio Free Bender is now available on my mainpage; I figured out how to sneak the box into the sidebar. It should be pretty obvious, since it's the one thing around here that isn't colored green...

Now, you can still use the link above. (say, rightclick & "open link in new window" so radio.blog can happily chirp in the background while you link hither and yon from my mainpage) The box over here ------------>> is there for your convenience.

(I'll see if I can't fix the color some other time. might be a lost cause.)
(also, my template kludges modifications seem to work in IE and Netscape/Mozilla, but let me know if something looks all kind of funky on your browser-of-choice)

Guinness is, perhaps, the perfection of beer.

Due to budgetary constraints what I've been drinking recently is... less... than Guinness. In fact, I may have to make good on previous threats and start reviewing 'blue collar' beers. Since I've been drinking a lot of them.

I may perhaps be fortunate in that my taste buds are a sensitive but steely lot. I've taken tasting courses for both beer and wine, and while I'm not a certified beer judge, even today I think I could walk into the exam and (with, say, a 50-50 chance) could pass it. (give me six weeks and I'll ace it)

I claim no special ability. From my cooking experiments, I realize that I don't necessarily have a skilled sense of taste, but rather an acute one: I know what the components are, I appreciate a wide variety of flavours, I have an excellent sense memory, and can find (or remember) parallels even when there are no direct correlations. But what tastes good? This would be the difference between accuracy and precision. My senses of smell and taste are very precise. Accurate, though? “Good, bad... eh. I'm the one the shotgun.” I love beer. others hate it. It's a matter of personal taste.

Still... we can't really say that I drink for the taste. Cheap beer is still beer. Lovely, lovely beer... [*homeresque garrggle*]

What brought on this particular bit of self-reflection? Well, last Friday I went out with a couple of friends to a place called the Grape, a little wine bar out in Vinings (part of a chain, actually, so there are other locations) where I had an opportunity to sit and taste a few old-vine zinfandels. It's been a few years since I've gone the wine route (well, I've drunk wine in the past year. Won't bother with details-- those were mass-consumption-type situations-- family reunions, that sort of thing) so it was an interesting little side trip from my usual beer-soaked evenings.

The exercise did bring up some old lessons and not-quite-forgotten skills. You slurp wine, for one thing, drawing air through the teeth to aerate the wine and activate flavour components. Professionals spit out the wine after tasting, but you won't catch me doing that. G'damn waste. Though I suppose if I followed through on the professional practice I could taste more than a couple of labels in a single sitting...

I spent $35 on two glasses of wine and a glass of port. (which is also a lovely little beverage) (yes, that's an average of $11.50 each... and the port was only an ounce serving) (later perhaps we can argue the merits of spending 30 bucks on what was only 3-point-whatever ounces of actual ethanol, but in my defence I'll note that the friends I was with were both female, and both very attractive) I can do the wine-snob bit-- while I prefer beer that doesn't restrict me. My main restriction is economic rather than aesthetic.

What was my point? “I may perhaps be fortunate in that my taste buds are a sensitive but steely lot.” I can do the hoity-toity bit, reflecting on cidery and floral notes in a lovely glass of red wine, bullshitting thoughtfully discussing the influence of climate and soil, knocking back multiple $40 bottles and some imported cheese with a gaggle of good friends (like my library/study: another nice image)

...but my taste buds and liver are at the mercy of whatever cheap-ass beer I can get my hands on.

Still, the old skills and senses were awakened by the wine tasting last week. I recently cracked open one of my hoarded Guinni, and immediately I note that the aroma of Guinness is at least as complex as the red wines so recently sampled. It may be the most difficult complex evocative hmm, singular flavour I've ever come across. I could spend the next couple of years analysing exactly how the aroma components might be described: cider, coffee, wine, liqueur, molasses?; or even a descriptor like “meaty”?

I suppose it's just as well I can't afford to drink Guinness every day. I'd be stuck with my nose in a pint glass for the next few years.

Oh my but Guinness is so much better than the cheap-six-pack-crowd.
(maybe I will start reviewing swill. Most reviews will be along the lines of “[hack] [gasp] well, I suppose I can choke this down” but maybe there is also some hidden merit to be found in cheap damn beer)

Not that I'm in college, but sometimes it helps to formalize things.

You know, like New Year's resolutions-- that's a practice I don't personally believe in, but countless hoardes of people make resolutions, which usually don't last past Valentines. But still, a formal declaration of intent is handy. Goals to meet, Progress to track, that kind of thing.

So, even without a school or teachers or any crap like that, here's my personal course schedule for the next semester (or so):

Fundamentals of Drawing.
Web Design (CSS and XHTML)
History and Culture of Japan and China (101-level: general overview)
Creative Writing (a): serialized fiction
Creative Writing (b): the novel
Creative Writing (c): script and storyboard formats

Senior research topic: Mythology and Jungian Psychology in the Modern Narrative Form. Academic Advisor: the Prof. Open ended and continuing; no set deadline.


I may drop the web design class. After all, I hardly need it with all the handy options Roy puts into Tabulas for me. (send Roy money!)

Not that I'm in college, but sometimes it helps to formalize things.

You know, like New Year's resolutions-- that's a practice I don't personally believe in, but countless hordes of people make resolutions, which usually don't last past Valentines. But still, a formal declaration of intent is handy. Goals to meet, Progress to track, that kind of thing.

So, even without a school or teachers or any crap like that, here's my personal course schedule for the next semester (or so):

Fundamentals of Drawing.
Web Design (CSS and XHTML)
History and Culture of Japan and China (101-level: general overview)
Creative Writing (a): serialized fiction
Creative Writing (b): the novel
Creative Writing (c): script and storyboard formats

Senior research topic: Mythology and Jungian Psychology in the Modern Narrative Form. Academic Advisor: the Prof. Open ended and continuing; no set deadline.


I may drop the web design class. After all, I hardly need it with all the handy options Roy puts into Tabulas for me. (send Roy money!)

eh.

I hate to be so blasé on the issue, with people dying and all. Still, to me it makes no sense. I can't wrap my brain around it. It's as thoughtless and inconceivable as kicking a puppy: why, in whatever god's name you care to invoke, are people resorting to violence over cartoons?

I want to see a cartoon where jesus and mohammed are squared off, pointing assault rifles at each other, with buddha standing between the two saying, "why can't we just be friends?" while a shinto priest and sámi shaman can be seen walking out of frame, one asking the other "So. No need to hang around here. Want to go snag a beer?"

If I thought I could do it justice, I'd draw it myself.

Not that I'm in college, but sometimes it helps to formalize things.

You know, like New Year's resolutions-- that's a practice I don't personally believe in, but countless hordes of people make resolutions, which usually don't last past Valentines. Still, a formal declaration of intent can be handy-- Goals to meet, Progress to track, that kind of thing.

So, even without a school or teachers or any crap like that, here's my personal course schedule for the next semester (or so):

Fundamentals of Drawing.
Web Design (CSS and XHTML)
History and Culture of China (101-level: general overview)
History and Culture of Japan (same thing)
Creative Writing (a): serialized fiction
Creative Writing (b): the novel
Creative Writing (c): script and storyboard formats

Senior research topic: Mythology and Jungian Psychology in the Modern Narrative Form. Academic Advisor: the Prof. Open ended and continuing; no set deadline.


I may drop the web design class. After all, I hardly need it with all the handy options Roy puts into Tabulas for me. (send Roy money!)

[you know, annotating these things --even when just using the same 3 sites all the time-- can be a pain in the ass. I hope you guys appreciate it.]

So there is some new music up on the radio.blog, and it sort of follows the last review in theme, though not musically, or stylistically. We've got some covers first, and funny ones at that: Richard Cheese-- who is also a stand-up comic though I won't reveal his alter ego since I haven't found it yet-- has released a best-of album called Sunny Side of the Moon.

If you like the songs I posted, let me just note that Dick & his big band (Lounge against the Machine) have done a lot covers (4+ albums worth, including Korn, Slipknot, Snoop, Nirvana, Limp Bizkit... and Baby Got Back) though unlike say Weird Al, they're not doing parodies but rather... reinvisioning the songs in toto.

From the lounge, let's go to the club. DJs are the new rock stars of the dance floors, and both the new and familiar are grist for their turn-table-mills. Taken to one extreme, we have the mashup, where one song is layered right over the top of another, or sampled to provide a new base for the other song's lyrics.

DJ Danger Mouse got a lot of press for the Grey Album, which produced the perhaps inevitable mashup between the Beatles White and Jay-Z's Black Album. eh.

I prefer DJ BC and his submission, on a similar premise: The Beastie Boys meet the Beatles. Of course, the Beastles result, and apparently this is a rich source of material, since it's resulted in two albums. (brought to my attention by Boing Boing-- I'm sure DJ BC's servers are hurting at the moment after getting sboinged, but the links should be active again in a few days. if you're the impatient type I guess you could see what google has to offer.) (While you're at it, you might try the search string "Beatles Mash-up Medley Hank Handy" to see if there's an active link for that one, too.)

--

It wasn't that long ago that I bitched about sampling. A critical observer (hi, Ali ) would point out that I seem to be reversing myself. I reserve the right to be incomprehensible to the sober greater masses, but let me 'splain.

I'd say mashups kind of go through my previous complaint and come out clean again on the other side. Maybe it's a matter of degree:

on the one hand, someone steals 3.8 seconds, recycles it ad nauseum, lays a line on top, and then passes off the final product as their own work (in a worse-case: Vanilla Ice vs. Queen/Bowie)

in a mashup, there is a certain reverence for the original material. Songs are taken *whole*, mixed with the unexpected, and the final result is more like a cover song. There is room for interpretation, but the original is still there. There is room for creativity, too, which honestly is amazing considering the limitations you put yourself under. It's sort of like taking an issue of Time and an issue of Maxim, a pair of scissors and a roll of tape-- and getting the end result to read like Hunter S. Thompson.

And... well, sampling is (usually) legal. mashups, technically, aren't. (yet) So maybe I just like bootlegs. (though a lot of folks would argue a mashup is fair-use, and should fall under statutory licensing just like a cover song. We'll see how that plays out)

--

To cut the cheese [groan] and the covers, I can also recommend some original music, though these guys are a cover band of a different sort.

The Redwalls love the music so much they're putting out tracks that sound like lost tapes from '68 or '71. Shades of Bowie, the Beatles, the Band, the Kinks, maybe even cleaned-up Clash and a bit of Elton's piano (without the costumes) all line up and silently bless this album. The old ghosts hang around these songs like smoke hangs in the air around art students; old ghosts, old friends.

This is what I learned was rock, back when I was a much younger man. I love this sound. New stuff is always cool, but someone should be keeping the old faith too. Thank you, Redwalls, for giving us a bit of both. (The Redwalls will displace Youngblood from the car CD player, occupying that hollowed high place alone, until I get sick of it in a few weeks and move it into the regular rotation. That's about as high a recommendation I can think of.)

The title is appropriate, I think: De Nova.

Per the challenge of sacrecoeur (o.k., so I was boasting, and she called me on it. anyway...)

A sestina:

The sun slowly sets, past the lake and the alpine meadow.
An hour or more will find us finally at nightfall.
The distant echoes are all that remain of the laughter,
the ghost image of lovers, as seen from the window,
The deep-gut fear that this was my last mistake,
the pain and torture of waiting by the telephone

Though awkward, I gave you my cellular telephone
before you drove away from that mountain meadow
“It's not you. It's me. This was a big mistake”
Your words still hurt, even now so close to nightfall
All I can do is sit with a beer, by the window
And try to erase the memories of your laughter

The cabin was empty without the warmth of that laughter
Even emptier for the silence of the telephone
The Teaton peak is looming out the window
Made closer by the shadow streaming 'cross the meadow
portending doom to come, along with nightfall
A massive echo of my last mistake

But still, an irrevocable mistake?
Can this poor poet still inspire laughter,
like I used to do before each nightfall?
Turning off the lights, turning off the telephone
And walking hand in hand down to the meadow
with shining moon and starlight in sky's window.


Your clear blue eyes may be your soul's window
And deep, reflected there, was my mistake
It wasn't the evenings spent in that sweet meadow
it wasn't long warm days and the shared laughter
nor hours we spent talking on the telephone
In the end-- it's what I did, before the nightfall

I still have the ring from that last nightfall
it's sitting by the phone, there by the window
as if to conjure up your voice by telephone
I don't know why it's such a big mistake
I don't know why my question stilled your laughter
When I asked to marry you, in that sweet meadow

My mistake. And the coming nightfall's here.
Past window, porch, the lake, and laughter's echo,
The meadow's silent, and so is that damn telephone

and other administrative crap.

I can always tell when another search engine 'finds' my little blog. There is a spike on the hit counter, and the logs will show 6.02x10ee23 hits from the same IP address.

In this case, the latest web spider is from opinblog, which sounds familiar for some reason, probably because I half-remember Roy saying something about them.

Automated web spiders can account for up to half of my hits in a given month. But I suppose I can deal with that kind of "inflation", since it's not like I really care one way or another, and usually it'll lead to a "real" visitor at some point in the future anyway.

Maybe I should be a bit concerned about the type of searches that land people here... nah.

Interesting search strings, from the past week:
"what is a parenthetical aside" -- which someone types into ask.com at least once a month.

"royal oak pub dunwoody" -- which gets half a mention on the trivia bar list. I haven't even reviewed it yet.
"fox and hound howell mill" -- which I have reviewed
"amstel neon signs" -- I think that was the review for the Line

"keg trash cans"
"stout tap handle adapter"
"types of keg"
"unfinished table tops" -- which all relate to the Build, the Guinness setup I did last year. When I build the keg fridge (and blog it) I guess that'll be a different search set that ends up here, too.

"robbie fulks radio free bender" -- which has to be someone who's been here before; no way that's a random search.
also, "robbie fulks dancing queen" -- from a different IP. That's 6 for Robbie so far, if I remember correctly. (which means he just edged out Jonathan Coulton for the lead) I suppose I need to mention Youngblood, Afroskull and the Redwalls a couple more times, see if that makes a difference to Google.

& of course "funny photoshopped images" -- which has come up so often, I added the new note to my table of comments.

My favorite so far: "do shrooms open up a creative side". I think this guy may have been disappointed when all he found were my dinner plans for a Saturday night...

Oh yeah:

Youngblood is back in stock at the warehouse: link. (bn.com)

I think I've mentioned them once or twice. And there are still some tracks up on Radio Free Bender, though I did a partial shuffle of the lineup so it might take a second to find all of 'em.

"dude, did you get my message?"
no. what did you say?
"what, you haven't checked your voice mail?"
no... what did you say?
"really?"

[sigh]
yes. really. Look, what's the damn message?
"why should I tell you now?"
well... apparently you had something to say, and you wanted me to hear it, you called, left a message: so. what is it?

"I'm not sayin'"
Dude. I'm right here, standing in front of you, what did you need?
"Forget it. I'll call you tonight. Later."
OK. One of us is nuts; I'm not sure which.

/paraphase of an actual conversation. Technology is a fine thing, but which of us is using it wrong?
/my phone's been turned off since last wednesday.

So, after implementing categories some time ago, and then undertaking an effort to retroactively apply them to the previous 20 or so months worth of output, I finally get to the point where everything has been lined up in neat little rows for your browsing pleasure (and now, also, I need to find a new project to occupy me when I run into writer's block.)

Your typical serving of (p.a.) is going to be 8.9% drunken rambling, 4.7% maudlin crap, 6.9% baseless ranting, 2.2% straight-up fiction, and about 37% unidentifiable filler. Or some such, it's not like I'm actually going to do the math. It'll also run about 220 calories with a 5.3% ABV. All the categories are there in the sidebar =--------> so have fun.

We have the technology...

the pendulum swings back and forth, usually within a ten pound range, previously between say, 170 and 180 pounds. And then it was between 175 and 185.

And now the upper limit appears to be 190. I'm turning into a fat, miserable bastard (a bit of hyperbole. But then again, I've been down this road before; so it's time to turn around and go back up again.)

It was nine months ago that I injured my ankle. A bad sprain, a minor fracture-- whatever it was, it never quite healed right. I stayed off of it for six months (as much as I could, considering my job is out on a sales floor, on my feet for eight hours a day.)

The fact that I wear boots as a matter of preference certainly helps. Plenty of ankle support. (you just need to find a hiking boot with a plain suede or leather upper, so that under the cuff of your khakis, they could be mistaken for dress shoes. Or not. “but how often do you look at another man's shoes?”) Hiking boots are fine (in fact, ideal) for retail, but not so good for running or jogging. A bit heavy, usually, and of course running is a different activity from walking/hiking. Boots pinch and rub in odd places when you try to run any distance in them.

I found a neoprene brace relatively easily (hell, they have 'em at Target) and while the one-size-fits-all adjustable brace doesn't seem like the best solution, it does work. I went running for a mile last weekend, to test the new brace. Some pain in the ankle-- yeah, well, nothing's perfect-- but that went away in just a day. The stiffness in my quads was more surprising, though of course I should have expected that too, considering I haven't done more than walk (and that at work) for the better part of a year. The stiff muscles took longer to rebound than the ankle did, in fact.

Still, the brace has some drawbacks. It was a very tight fit, and caused some numbness in my toes. There's no way I could have done more than a mile like that, and of course my goal is to hit seven or eight miles (this is gonna be a few years, mind) because I'd love to do the hash at close to a full-speed-clip for the length of the trail. (...and I could stand to lose 25 pounds. I need to lose 15 just to make up for the past 6 months)

So, I found a different solution.

I had to buy two pairs of running shoes. I'm wearing a size nine on my right foot, and a size nine-and-a-half, plus the brace on my left. (the extra mismatched pair I'll give to goodwill or some such; they're new shoes, hopefully someone can get some use out of them) The extra half size is all that it needed. This is going to get expensive, over the long haul, particularly if I end up running each day and need to swap out shoes every six months or so. To start off with, I found the running shoes on sale (also at Target) for just $20 a pair. $40 seems reasonable to spend on an experiment like this, particularly considering that my other option is to just sit on my fat ass and slowly inflate as my regular beer intake catches up with me.

The cheap-ass shoes are surprisingly good, at least with the Dr. Scholls orthotics in them. We'll have to see how well they hold up to cross-country trails, over time. I'll stick with the 3-mile loop down by the river [pdf map, here's the web site] for the next month, but I hope to transition to the “back woods” trails soon, and stretch my limits a bit.

The first trip out, this morning, ended up at only a mile and a half. --But I ran half. And I'm not limping (yet) and I didn't get the side stitch that tells me I'm overdoing it.

The next thing to do (assuming that I manage to stick with a four- or five-day-a-week running program) (“HA!”. --shut up, you. “No, really, I [snicker] believe you. Five days a week, sure... [*uncontrolable laughter fading off into the distance.*]”) ...somewhere down the road I should get a stop watch, and force myself to go faster. At least historically, I only manage a couple of miles and then walk/wheeze my way through the rest. More endurance would be good.

Maybe I should concentrate on just adding mileage, even if I am walking half of it-- eight miles is eight miles, right? (“HA! dude thinks he can hack it for eight miles”. --I said, shut up, you. Damn figments, running around like they own the place...)

If I work through the main problem (my bum ankle) then it shouldn't be so much of a stretch to work to improve the rest of my 3rd-rate physical condition as well. (or so he said at the start of the program... past performance doesn't exactly inspire confidence, but then again, I might just mean it this time...)

(what will eventually be) A novel of Amphital

##

“Lady Rowan, can you help me?”

Lady Rowan was not Jesca's real name, but it was how she was known at this time, in this place. She glanced up at the shadowed doorway to see the face that matched the voice.

“Come in, child,” Jesca invited. “Please follow me to the parlour, have a seat, and help me to answer your own question.”

She often referred to clients as 'child', though she herself was not that old. Older than she looked, perhaps, but she had heard from many different suitors that she still looked quite young. Some said it was a side-effect of using the Art, though she herself had seen many in whom long use had caused much the opposite effect.

This client, however, merited the term; the lad was perhaps fourteen, possibly younger. She smiled. “You wear quite a dour face for one so young, child. Be calm and close your eyes a moment.” The young man shot her a quick puzzled look, then did as she said. “Now, breathe in deeply, and out slowly, and let some of your problems out with the air.”

Even with his eyes closed, she could tell from the tilt of his head and the momentary furrowing of his brow that he doubted the instructions. But still he did as she asked. “Good, child. And again, a bit more slowly this time.” Sometimes this breathing was all it took for her to help her clients. That or a chance to talk through problems, usually over a cup of tea. Today Jesca felt that it would take more, but still...

“and now, one more breath as you open your eyes. Good, good.” She rang a small silver bell, and after a few moments, one of the curtains behind her parted. “Rosyl, please put on a kettle for tea,” she said as she turned.

“Yes, ma'am”

“And our client could use some privacy. Would you close the curtains behind him there, and watch the shop counter for me?”

“Yes, ma'am.” Rosyl moved toward the front room of the shop, past the far set of curtains, but then remembered the kettle. Oh! she mouthed, but didn't voice, and almost hopped as she spun to return to the kitchen in the back.

“No need for haste, my dear. 'Calming breaths, calming thoughts, and time enough for anything.'” That last sounded like oft repeated advice, but Rosyl did slow down, slightly, as she went about the assigned tasks.

Jesca turned to her client, the young man who sat across the table in her receiving room. “The tea will take some time, child, and I hope you will join me in a cup. Since we have a few minutes, I think we will look into your question.” The young man sat forward in his chair, eager, before Jesca made a small stopping gesture with her right hand. “Sit back, be at ease. One more breath, and then tell me your name”

Though not directed to, the teen again closed his eyes as he took a long breath. “My name's Emer, Lady”

“A fine name, Emer. I have a niece named...” She had said it without thinking, and saw a flash of anger cross the teen's face. She reached across the table to lay a hand on his arm, a soft touch of fingertips. “No, child. I meant no offence. Still, you must be teased often.” She saw the fierce expression quickly melt, replaced with the same yearning expression he first wore when he walked into her shop. “But I think your question goes beyond that.”

She again sat back, and took a moment to look over this youth: an unruly shock of brown hair, a slight frame that just now seemed to be coming into it's growth, and those deep brown eyes, that seemed to be searching, pleading.

“I thank you for telling me your real name, Emer. But from your reaction... tell me, how are you called?”

“My grandfather calls me Trey, Lady.”

Jesca smiled. “Well, that seems to fit you. Your grandfather, he is also named Emer? As was your father?”

Trey nodded.

“Well, I guess each family has it's own burdens,” Jesca continued, “and no doubt this legacy is part of the load you carry. But we shall look into what can be seen, what can be done about this weight that has settled over your heart.”

Jesca got up from her chair, just enough to get a small, silk wrapped bundle from a side table along the wall. She set it down in front of her, made a few quick but measured gestures over it, and then undid the ribbon. Inside of the cloth was a fat deck of cards, which she placed in the centre of the table while tucking the silk handkerchief into her lap.

There was a change in the tone of her voice, almost an echo, as she closed her eyes and said, “You come with questions, with problems. The cards do not have answers. But they may provide some guidance.” She opened her eyes and looked right at Trey. In a more normal voice, she said, “and with some luck they might guide us to your answers. Now let's begin.”


-- next --

The first question might be, who in his right mind would go and post the first draft of a novel, more or less raw and steaming as it pours out of his keyboard?

Well, that would be me, and the key phrase is “in his right mind”. Which I'm not.

Unfortunately, while the web log format is fine for many things (in fact I'm amazed at all the different applications, some of which I previously cited) a full length serialized novel isn't necessarily one of them. The reverse chronological format doesn't help things, and in my case, I'm also blogging on so many other damn subjects (OK, so at least half are beer related, but still) there is a high noise-to-signal ratio. If all you wanted to do was, figuratively, settle in with my little characters and setting for a couple of hours, your current option is to browse one of the fiction categories, which pulls up the most recent post first-- fine most of the time, but not really ideal for someone who wants to start from the beginning or who has missed a few instalments and needs to catch up.

And then there's the fact that I'm posting not one story, but three. This gets messy fast. HTML is pretty flexible, though, so in this case I think I can get water to run uphill.

First, let's simplify the category tangle-- instead of a separate tag for each project ('cause with the way my mind wanders, you never know how many of these little stories I'll eventually come up with) I plan to just tag things as fiction from now on. (..if it's fiction. Sometimes bits of dialog show up in other posts, but that's usually just me talking to myself.)

Next: the titles of each post. I had been using the titles to also designate which story was coming up, but (and this is a creative decision) if I'm constantly reminding you it's fiction fiction fiction that doesn't really help one submerge themselves in the story. And fiction is an ugly, awkward word. So screw that. I have no idea what sort of naming-system might develop to replace it, but I'm ditching the 'Fiction:' prefix right now.

And (what I hope is) the elegant solution to the novel/blog problem: a small, possibly colourful header at the top of each fiction post, identifying the project, and a then a few quick links to help you navigate just that book.

Click 'first' and start from the beginning. Page through by clicking 'previous' or 'next'. Should be intuitive.

Since I'll be linking entries directly, each will be the only thing on the page (other than the sidebar) without all that other noise on my blog. -- A virtual, stand-alone book that still fits in the blog format, and only requires me to add small links, not a new domain or css template or any of that crap. (I'm a little proud of myself for thinking of this) (and I'm glad I thought of this now, rather than 50 entries from now. Retrofitting the entries for categories was bad enough)

(...hey, wait a minute. All that 'other noise' on my blog is my life. Dude. That's harsh)

One last admin. thing about the web novel: to keep the pages clean, and to help the reader focus on just the novel, I'll be deactivating comments on most fiction posts-- if you want to complain about my writing, I'm sure you'll figure out a way.


Amphital: a fanasty novel project
-- first --

Busted Seventh: a novel experiment
-- first --

The Lecture Series
-- first --