There's Something About a Cigar

Effective January 1st 2007 one will no longer be able to smoke in bars, clubs, etc., anywhere in DC. No cigarettes, no cigars, and sad sad sadly, no pipes or hookas. I understand the argument. Really it's not such a bad one - secondhand smoke does suck. Especially if you're trying to eat. And I couldn't imagine how horrible it would be to get cancer if you weren't even intentionally taking the risks.

Then again, part of me just wants to say, grow a pair of balls you goddamn hippies.

I refer you to a selection from a play written by a young Jack Kerouac, which is the namesake for this blog:

"But, there's something about a cigar just the same. Like the time I walked out of a movie in New York and began to walk home along Broadway. I was cold, and shy of the world. Suddenly, I saw a cigar store. I said to myself, "Zagg, you're going to go in there and buy yourself a cigar. What for? I don't know. I'm glad I don't know. I don't want to know. I'll just buy one and smoke it." So I bought a cigar and lit it, and walked out and went right along the street, a new man. I looked at everyone with new interest, because the cigar gave me courage. It made me say, "Well hello there. How the hell are you, you little pavement cipher, you little nameless, faceless cinder of Wolfe? I'm Zagg and I've got a cigar and I don't give a damn for anything, nor do I reject anything. I think that you're an ugly puss, but I like you because you inhabit this earth with me and we're both in the same boat.""

You get the idea. There's something morbidly noble about smoking - about saying to the world that you know the consequences and fuck it, you choose wrongly on purpose and to hell with everything else.

Some thoughts on Justice

A couple of nights ago I walked into the middle of a conversation between a jubilate friend of mine and a vocal atheist. We were at the U-Singers/Symphony Christmas concert and my friend had asked this guy (who I guess he knew was an atheist from something else he'd seen him at) if he celebrated Christmas or just secular "Holiday Season" and how he felt about the traditional music that was being played. Anyway, by the time I walked in on the conversation he was philosophizing about the nature of God's Justice and how for God to be infinitely Just he could not be a loving God, because it would be injust for him to save any of us, etc. Therefore there is no God because an entity cannot logically be in contradiction with itself.

It's actually an old argument. Very old. Early humanists confronted this problem 700 years ago, and it was one of the complications during the Reformation. I think, but I could be completely wrong, that it was the early Reformation thinker (and genius actually, getting his Doctorate of Theology at 19) Phillip Melancthon who first said that "God cannot be infinitely just and infinitely merciful." Someone look it up so I don't look stupid. Anyway, it got me thinking about the nature of God's justice. There are two ways that I look at it. First, I'm inclined to think that maybe this guy was right - it isn't just of God to forgive us without punnishment. Therefore, maybe God isn't infinitely Just. Maybe we should just get over it and be grateful.

But that's not really satisfying is it? That would basically be to say that whatever we do doesn't matter - our actions have no consequences. Everything about that is wrong to me. If there are no consequences then it follows that there is no responsibility, that there is nothing expected of us, which means there is no growth and no possibility to be more than animals, creations, rather than children and honored servants of God. (Note that this is not a discussion of Free Will, or Grace vs. Works - I think wherever you stand on the Elect, you can agree that God expects certain things of you, even if already saved).

Here's an alternative view. Maybe our conception of Justice is misguided. We tend to think of it as putting things right. That in the end, the bad people will be punished while the good victims will get their due. But that sounds oddly like revenge, not like Christian doctrine. Yes, of course, "Vengenance is mine sayeth the Lord." but if we are all potential children of God, and he loves the most base villain, then vengenance is not what he's primarily after. If you pull back to get some perspective, maybe it's not just at all. After all what would you do if a Toddler kicked you in the shins? Is it just to kick him back with equal force? Of course not. What if there was some awful tragedy and two of your kids were fighting, maybe one was emotionally disturbed and killed his brother. You would be heartbroken, but could you possibly want the police to take your other child to be executed? Our very nature rebels against this, and tells us that this is wrong, that it doesn't make anything right or better, which is what Justice is really all about. So maybe it's not as contradictory as it seems to be both Just and Merciful - perhaps they're not so far apart.

Finally, a third but related view (I know I said 2 but I can't help myself). To the Christian view there cannot be a paradox. God created a world in which actions mattered, and we had to take the consequences. Unfortunately, that means we all deserve death. Whenever we treat a fellow human being as a tool, whenever we cheapen a fellow soul by making them into nothing but an animal (either in a small way - using someone for sex - or a large way - the holocaust) we deserve for God to treat us the same way. In other words to take away our eternal nature as well, aka death. So to satisfy Justice, to make sure that our actions still mattered, but that his desire for us to live with him as human beings forever (love) also be satisfied, he died himself to pay the price. Whether you believe or not, if you assume a Loving God, but also a Just God, as well as our own fairly easily corruptible natures, then it makes sense that events would play out in this way.

Civil War in Iraq

So the new debate about Iraq (new a relative term of course) seems to be whether or not the "country" is in a state of Civil War. The Bush Administration desperately wants for the conflict not to be characterized in this way, suspecting that the terminology could cause further political fallout and erode support for the war even more than has been done so far. Democrats looking for a way to pull out want to use the term for exactly the same reason - thinking that it will give support for the argument that it is no longer our conflict. Meanwhile, news organizations seem to be trying to give themselves a harder image by "telling it like it is."

My problem is that to me - it's not a civil war, it's far far worse. Here's an apt description of the conflict by CNN's Michael Ware (as quoted by Washington Post's Dan Froomkin):

"I mean, if this is not civil war, where there is, on average, 40 to 50 tortured, mutilated, executed bodies showing up on the capital streets each morning, where we have thousands of unaccounted for dead bodies mounting up every month, and where the list of those who have simply disappeared for the sake of the fact that they have the wrong name, a name that is either Sunni or Shia, so much so that we have people getting dual identity cards, where parents cannot send their children to school, because they have to cross a sectarian line, then, goodness, me, I don't want to see what a civil war looks like either if this isn't one."

Only the situation Mr. Ware is describing isn't Civil War at all. Civil War, as horrific as it can be, implies some kind of organized insurrection from an established government. This isn't civil war it's anarchy. It's the complete absence of the rule of law, replaced by the law of the sword (or in this case the AK-47). It's gang violence on a national scale.

I guess what my point is that debating semantics is useless. Whether we call it a Civil War or not doesn't change the fact that if we (or preferably the whole international community) don't stop the extremists from killing every last moderate left, there will be no Iraqi nation, in fact there won't be even a Sunni nation fighting a Shia nation, there will only be neighbors brutally murdering their neighbors - chaos and the end to any semblance of civilization.

Forget words, forget religion, forget politics. We fucked up big time by causing this - we can't pretend we're not involved, but neither can we say we've fixed it or that it hasn't gotten worse. It's not about Democrat or Republican, or Christian or Muslim, or who did what when. It's about the people who just want their kids to go to school, who just want to work and laugh and live getting the shit kicked out of them and even if the level of violence it's reached hadn't been our fault, we would still have a responsibility as a witness to stop it from happening.

Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. -- John Donne

Happy but not Content

I've come to realize that I am, whatever momentary storm clouds of despair may float across my subconscious, incredibly and stupidly happy. I have so many things in this life to be happy about. I've managed to come through the public educational system virtually unscathed, with the ability to at least fool myself into believing that I can think for myself. Opportunities abound for me, and my future actually looks like it might have promise - I may never have the chance to do anything great, but I will have ample chances to do something good, maybe even lasting. I've had money enough to experience life without obsessing about survival, yet not enough to take away a sense of the value of a hard day's work.

There are many things on this earth that I honestly love. There are great roaring fires in the family hearth that keep away the bitterness of a winter night. There is good food to be eaten, good tobacco to fill my pipe, strong drink to fill my cup. There is wind in the trees that sounds like poetry, and poetry when read that sounds like music, and music that sounds like hope, or rage, or sadness, or love, or peace, or passion. There is Shakespeare, and Milton, Coleridge and Wordsworth, T.S. Elliott and Robert Frost. There is Poe, Joyce, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Kerouac, Tolkien and Lewis, and a million others. Pages and pages of dreams that remind us how much more there is beyond our own petty little lives. There is a smile from a beautiful stranger, the shared pleasure of a beaming child, the love of a loyal dog with his head resting across your lap.

There are memories: of walks under the moon, of football games played or watched, of little league, of my own drunken (figurative or literal) stupidity, of girls I've kissed and those I wish I had, of songs sung, dances danced, of life...lived.

And I am especially happy for those people - friends and family alike - who intrude on my solitude, who break me away from myself and my own egomania. People who, no matter how much you despise them from moment to moment, inspire you to love fiercely because they accept you for yourself even when you don't know who or what that is. People who somehow help you towards becoming the person you think you should become.

Here's the thing though. All these things make me happy because they remind me of home - and I don't mean Lexington, VA. I mean Home. I mean that place from which we've all been expelled or exiled, or just lost. You can call it whatever you want - Heaven, Never Never Land, the place between awake and asleep where you can still remember dreaming, The Far Country.
So I know that I will never always be happy. I know that things can go wrong for me - that my good life could end. But even when I am most satisfied, I know I will never be completely content. I can surround myself with all those things that remind me of home, but they will never be home. At my happiest there is that hunger, that pit of longing and desire for something that I know is so much better - like when you look at pictures of someone you've loved and lost. You love the picture, and couldn't part with it - but in some ways it actually makes the pain far worse. So, I'll keep searching for the hidden country, the door to the lost city, the key to a forgotten language, the leaf, the stone, the door. One day, God willing, I'll make my way back to Ithaca and the things I love then won't fill me with biting sadness, but with simple, happy, fierce content.

Look Homeward Angel

The Death of Benjamin Gant

The rattling in the wasted body, which seemed for hours to have given over to death all of life that is worth saving, had now ceased. The body appeared to grow ridid before them. Slowly, after a moment, Eliza withdrew her hands. But suddenly, marvellously, as if his resurrection and rebith had come upon him, Ben drew upon the air in a long and powerful respiration; his gray eyes opened. Filled with a terrible vision of all life in the one moment, he seemed to rise forward bodilessly from his pillows without support - a flame, a light, a glory - joined at length in death to the dark spirit who had brooded upon each footstep of his lonely adventure on earth; and, casting the fierce sword of his glance with utter and final comprehension upon the room haunted with its gray pageantry of cheap loves and dull consciences and on all those uncertain mummers of waste and confusion fading now from the bright window of his eyes, he passed instantly, scornful and unafraid, as he had lived, into the shades of death.

We can believe in the nothingness of life, we can believe in the nothingness of death and of life after death - but who can belive in the nothingness of Ben? Life Apollo, who did his penance to the high god in the sad house of King Admetus, he came, a god with broken feet, into the gray hovel of this world. And he lived here a stranger, trying to recapture the music of the lost world, trying to recall the great forgotten language, the lost faces, the stone, the leaf, the door.

O Artemidorus, farewell!

Carnifex

For those who may be interested, I've started writing a story, slowly, on another blog. It's fantasy story and mostly has evolved from the days when my brother and I were obsessed with fantasy books, yet couldn't stand them at the same time because they were so poorly written. We've always thought that we could essentially shit out books that would be better than the...well shit that's out there. So in that spirit you can feel free to read along as we write Carnifex (a horrible title that'll probably change - it means, among other things, executioner in Latin).

A word of warning - most of the posts for that story are, like this blog, largely unedited. While that means you get to see my unadulterated, raw, natural writing talent, it also means you get to see my raw, natural writing talent if you know what I mean. I'm doing this piecemeal when I have time and mostly as a writing exercise rather than as anything too serious. It is fantasy after all. And for once, I'm not trying to pretend to be greater than I am. This is run of the mill adventure type fantasy - not Tolkien.

Feel free to leave comments of approval, disdain, hatred, love, scorn, pity - etc. You can even suggest plot turns if you'd like, but I can't promise I'll listen to you.

Evangelical Agendas

In a story by washingtonpost.com today prominant Evangelicals, both liberal (relatively speaking of course) and conservatives joined in announcing a broader agenda including the environment, poverty, and even taking action to intervene in Darfur. First, I think this is great news. It's nice that even conservatives are finally admitting that there are more issues in the Bible than Homosexualtiy and Abortion. I'd love to see them go further and drop all political action on those two issues, but still, it's a welcome change.

The move hasn't been without it's opponents however. Just read this piece of the article, quoting the Rev. Michael Haseltine.

"I definitely don't like the widening of the agenda, because it muddies the water. Be good stewards of the environment? Sure, but how? These tree-huggers and anti-hunters think it's terrible to kill animals. Oppose poverty? Sure, but what's the best way to do it? We can't solve everybody's problems for them," he said. "Family and life issues -- abortion, sexuality -- they're much more clear from the biblical standpoint."

I think, Reverend, that if you read the Bible, nothing comes across quite as clear as the need to care for the poor. There's no muddying there. Not to mention the fact that, yes, as christians we should do everything we possibly can to solve other people's problems for them. Why not? It's what I believe Jesus did for me, and what you claim to believe. I'm not saying it's easy and I'm not even saying it's possible in this world, I'm just saying it's a noble goal. Far nobler a task for a Christian to undertake than thinly disguised gay bashing. It's positive rather than negative. Helping people rather than trying to force legislation that restricts them.

Fighting for legislation to "protect" traditional family values isn't the hard thing, it's the easy thing. It's getting off the hard road onto the grass in Pilgrim's Progress because they seem to go side by side. As Christians we're called to do the hard thing, because the hard thing was done for us.

Collaborative Work

I've discovered something about myself - well part of it I've known for a very long time. I have no self-discipline. I mean none. I do what I like, but I can't stop myself from doing it to excess. Or I can't make myself do something that's hard, even if I do like it. For example - I want to be in shape, but it's extremely rare that I can make myself get off my ass and do any serious exercising. So when I do, I feel so accomplished that I convince myself not to do it again for a week.

What I'm really talking about is writing though. I love to write. I really do. I have so many stories that I want to tell: simple stories, complex stories, rants about politics or religion (see below), didactic thoughts on the human condition, etc. Only it's a hard thing to do. Confronted with a blank page (or far worse, a blank computer screen) I panic and give in to one of my easier excesses (see below).

But the new thing that I've found is that I can steal discipline from other people. I'm like a discipline vampire, sucking creativity and drive from those more ambitious than myself. Or even if they aren't - somehow my sense of responsibility makes up the difference. If I feel that someone is depending on me, I work hard not to let them down.

Lately the Jubilate Basses have been working on our Act for Variety Show (saturday 3-5 at University Baptist Church). Basically the writing has come from Dan, Zach, Tad, and I (with some help last night by Joseph) sitting in the old apartment shooting ideas and lines back and forth. Even when it's been especially hard, I love it. I really enjoy working in that kind of environment, and the hours just slip past. Not only does it produce quality work (and it's not always easy to bring the funny) but we actually get it done. By myself I can't make myself work for more than 20 minutes so nothing ever finishes. Maybe I'm destined to work on a sitcom or some other TV show where most of the writing is collaborative.

Only...I still don't want to share the credit.

Tridentine Mass

So the Pope is apparently about to make it easier for Catholics to worship like they did in the old days - with the priest speaking purely in latin to the altar rather than the parishioners (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101201563.html?referrer=email). First, not being Catholic, I don't really care too much. It's not like either my father or Tom Leland are going to start preaching in Latin. And second, I'm not saying that Latin mass can't be beautiful - I'm sure it can be very moving. Also, to be fair, the Pope is not saying that everyone must start speaking latin, he's only making it easier to do so.

Still, it seems like a bad idea in general to me. Services in English can be beautiful as well, and you know what's going on. Most Latin masses throughout history consisted of the priest mumbling to the altar in psuedo-latin. He could be saying anything he wanted. It's not like Latin is really the holiest of languages. He could easily just quote Roman graffiti:

Quisquis amat. veniat. Veneri volo frangere costas
fustibus et lumbos debilitare deae.
Si potest illa mihi tenerum pertundere pectus
quit ego non possim caput illae frangere fuste?

Whoever loves, go to hell. I want to break Venus's ribs
with a club and deform her hips.
If she can break my tender heart
why can't I hit her over the head?

How many people would really know the difference? I'm not anti-Catholic by any means - I know a number of devout Catholics whom I respect greatly (sounds like I'm saying I've got a black friend doesn't it?). Neither do I have illusions about protestantism. I just disagree more with the Catholic system in place, not to mention the insistance that it not be questioned. I think it makes it easy to assume that what's important isn't belief, but just showing up.

The Everlasting Man

I've been reading G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man over the past couple of weeks (it's taking me so long becuase I read it online when I'm at work, a paragraph here and there). If you haven't read any Chesterton, you should, if only to see that, yes, there are Christians (even Catholics) who use their brains. These days it's easy to find examples of so called Christians unwilling to use the reason that God gave them - worshipping not God but some psychotic bastard who hates the majority of his creations and doesn't believe in the natural workings of the world that he created and controls.

In the latest chapter I read he makes a very compelling argument for the divinity of christ, or rather, not for the divinity, but for the honest consideration of that divinity. There is a popular idea - popular in Chesterton's day as much as in ours - that the historical Jesus was a very learned and wise Jewish rabbi. He was a teacher, a wise man, even a prophet. The view stems from two things, both are rational assumptions. First, it is highly unlikely that Jesus the man, this historical Jesus as he is often referred to, did not actually exist. To say otherwise is simply ludicrous. It's to argue that shepherds and fishermen were able to dupe the world with a vast conspiracy that would have little point if they didn't believe it in the first place. In fact, it would have been a suicidal conspiracy - leading them largely to violent death at the hands of authorities or insane mobs, and certainly not leading them to riches and glory. This is like saying that the government caused 9/11 so that they could invade Iraq. As much as certain members may be capitalizing off tragedy, to say that there was a conspiracy involving hundreds of high level officials and no legitimate reporter has ever found out is basically retarded.

The second view of Jesus the teacher comes from reading the gospel. Anyone can see that the man must have been intelligent, as well as wise well beyond his time. The greatest atheist, if he honestly approaches it, cannot read the Parable of the Prodigal Son without thinking at the least - "Here was a great moral reformer." The longevity of his teachings elevates him far above the average philosopher and numbers him among the greats. His teachings are without exception, to my mind, beyond his own time and place: universally applicable. To love your enemy was as near an impossible thing but a uniquely insightful thing then as it is now. The greatest intellectual could not but look at his apparently paradoxical words about dividing with the sword and delight in the subtlty of his thought. As Chesterton points out, Jesus was a man of peace who knew full well that a good peace was better than a good war, but a bad peace infinitely worse. There is universal wisdom here.

That being said, I can agree with the popular view. However, those wanting to claim Jesus as great moral thinker run into a problem. He claimed, quite clearly, that he was the Son of God. This isn't the claim of a great man, this is the claim of a small man who might very likely be insane. One could never imagine a true thinker, whatever his pride, actually claiming to be the Almighty. That kind of egomania is the province of small minded men, unable or unwilling to see how they are men like everyone else. It is easy to discount, because it does not seem logical at all for a man to actually be the Son of God. If one approached the Gospels as someone who had never heard the name Jesus before, one couldn't discount it however. It would, in fact, be incredibly shocking. The speaker of the Sermon on the Mount - preaching wisdom, tolerance, love and moderation - suddenly makes the absurd and insane claim that he's God. There is a serious paradox here that can't be easily ignored.

The obvious option is to say that Jesus never said it. His followers must have added that bit later on. After all the Gospels were written some time after the fact. Only if that's true, and though I personally don't believe it to be true I'm willing to admit that in fact it could be, then it is the only mistake like it that has ever been made. Muslims don't confuse Mohammed with God, Jews don't confuse Moses with God, no one ever thought Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle were God. If it is indeed an error then it is a unique one. If it is a coverup written as it was after the fact, but when there were those who had lived through the events covered, it is an impressive conspiracy. Logic dictates that that is incredibly unlikely. How could one keep a stranglehold on all those who knew the truth?

If one accepts that Jesus was a great moral reformer, logically one must at least consider the possibility that he was telling the truth.

Womenfolk

Any girls that still read, maybe you can explain something to me. How is it that you can kick a guy right in the nuts (metaphorically speaking...or not) and then manage to convince him that no in fact, against all logic and the laws of physics, he managed to kick himself in the nuts. And he should be sorry to you for it.

...

That sounds bitter doesn't it? Don't worry I'm not bitter, I'm just trying to be funny. As someone recently pointed out to me, I think I'm funny, but I'm really not. I think I'm smart, but I'm really not. I think I'm clever, but I'm really not. I even think I'm sad and mysterious, but I'm really really not that. I'm just another asshole with a typewriter who thinks too much and maybe drinks too much but doesn't have the will or ambition to act. And there's nothing either inspiring or depressing about that.

Nutcracker

Not that anyone's reading anymore, but I'm bored at work and I found this especially funny. Checking my email I received the following from "Lizabeth":

"Do you want to fuck her until she is speechless?Generik Viagra will make your dirty fantasies come true.Erection with Generik Viagra is superhuman.With our Generik Viagra you can crack nuts with your penis."

Crack nuts with my penis? Who wants to crack nuts with their penis? Do people sit around thinking, damn if only my penis were harder, I wouldn't have to crack all these nuts by hand, I could do it by penis? How would that even work? And wouldn't it be painful?

I just think - some living human being must have written this - and probably spread his horrific genes around the planet. And I can't even afford cable.

A Life Plan

Today I sat down to make a plan for my life but this is all I could come up with.















Just kidding! There's no way I'd really make it 60 years. Actually I stole this from a great webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. You should check it out.

A Life Well Lived

Just remember kids: "Herpetic sores are just the body's braile for a life well-lived!"

O Lost!

Feeling that old ache come on him he grabbed some sad music, a beer, and his last cigar and went out on the porch to think. This what he did when that part of him that was empty, that ravenous lion started eating him from the inside out, and it helped, if only a little. He drank, he smoked, and he let the beast have its way with him. In an alcoholic haze he would dream of the day when it would all be over. Of the day when the beast was spent and he could think of other things – of love and peace and happiness. He wondered if that's what he really wanted. He knew he should be happy now. He knew that God would want him to be happy now, but what could he do?

O waste of loss, in the hot mazes, lost, among bright stars on this most weary unbright cinder, lost! Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost land-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When? --Thomas Wolfe

When he felt the first surges of his drunkenness and the heady spin of the tobacco coiling in his stomach he thought, I could do something about it. He picked up the phone.

He called Julia first, even though he knew that was a mistake. She was reading a romance novel. He hung up on her. He called Emily next, remembering their night under the stars. “Do you ever dream in poetry?” he asked her. “Do you ever curse the sun so you can howl at the moon? Do you long for something that cannot be touched, heard or seen? That can only be tasted? Do you ever want to chase dreams? Are you sick to death because you've lost your way and you know you can never find home again, but only shadows, shadows, damned shadows? Have you ever ruined, murdered, something you loved because you wanted it so much? Have you ever stifled a lover's torch so that you could see the stars, only to find yourself in darkness?”

She didn't understand, asking “Are you drunk?” He hung up.

He called Cristina - Cristina with a slavic soul - but when she answered he didn't say anything. She was broken too, but she was too young. She was broken but not lost. She couldn't understand a man who reveled in the blackness, who drew the horror of the dark around him like a warm blanket, and cried because it was lion's skin and it's claws sank deep. He hung up.

In winter, he went down joyously into the dark howling wind, leaning his weight upon its advancing wall as it swept up a hill; and when in early Spring the small cold rain fell from the reeking sky he was content. He was alone.

He put down the phone, knowing that they couldn't help him. They weren't what he wanted – they were reflected smoke, diversions, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

He drank, and smoked, and listened to sad music, and thought dark thoughts. And it helped, if only a little.

Blogging

Blogging, much like idealistic versions of either Communism or Capitalism, is a great idea. In a splintered world, the internet provides a medium that is truly free from constraint - a great forum for the sharing of intellectual, cultural, spiritual, and economic ideas. A place of debate where all can discuss freely, without fear of reprecussion. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken this idea and run with it, writing blogs from around the world - providing real personal news and insight, giving people the chance to truly understand other human beings, not just through a medium that pretends objectivity, but by being able to put themselves in another person's shoes, to see the world how they see it, even if just for a while.

You would think, with millions of blogs being posted everyday, that something, SOMETHING, would be worth my time to fucking read. But everything on the internet is tainted. Everything degenerates into name calling. The great discussion of ideas turns into a racist brawl, with half the people fighting just accusing everyone else of being racist.

To quote my betters:
"Holden: If the buzz is any indicator, that movie's gonna make some huge bank.
Jay: What buzz?
Holden: The Internet buzz.
Jay: What the fuck is the Internet?
Holden: The Internet is a communication tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another."

Seriously. And that pretty much goes for democracy in general. I'm not saying it's not better than the alternatives, I'm just saying it pretty much sucks that people take their freedom and destroy it with their own hands. Shit, we deserve the government we have.

Serial Fiction

So since I started work (all of 3 days ago) I haven't gotten anything else done. Yes, I know my track record wasn't that great before, but I really thought that working would structure my day and therefore make me more productive with the few hours that I did have. I was wrong. Mostly I've wasted them watching tv. I certainly haven't done any writing...I've found it diffcult even to reply to emails. I've got so little motivation, and I can't even think of any good ideas. So, in order to combat the brain killing lethargy, I've taken some steps. First, I've ordered a banjo. Perhaps a strange direction to take, but I like to come at problems sideways so they don't see it coming. Hopefully it'll get here soon - and it'll be something that I can play with for an hour or so which won't kill my soul.

The second thing I was thinking of doing was an idea I discussed with Jack a few weeks ago. We both are really into the webcomic Something Positive by Randy Milholland and I've wanted to do something like it for a long time. Unfortunately, neither one of us can draw, and the (rather amazing) artist that we know will be a senior and VCU and its going to be hard enough to get him to work on the real comic we're doing. (It's pretty bad ass actually - we'll definitely let everyone know when its finished). Anyway, the idea we struck on was that we'd collectively write a fiction version of the comic we wanted to do. There's alot of potential in serial fiction and I think you could do some creative things with different styles (or even different forms...one week fiction the next a play script, or pictures added in, sound files maybe). We need to sit down and hash out some characters and some general plot structure, but potentially this could come out weekly. It would definitely get me writing in general, which is what I need to do. The more writing I do generally, the more I want to do it, and the more creative motivation I have.

So anyway...if anyone still reads this (I know a certain someone bored at work probably will) then let me know what you think. Maybe I'll make you a character, and you can be immortalized in fiction that few people will ever read. On the plus side, if we can really do this, my brother will tell his friends about it, and he has more friends than I do. We could get a readership of almost 10! If we're lucky: cross your fingers.

Sarcasm and The Human Condition

A friend recently told me that I'm too sarcastic with her. I feel bad if I hurt her feelings, but even while apologizing I couldn't help but laugh. Is there something wrong with me? Am I really nothing but post-modernist mockery? I often poke fun at these popular books that are all clever and no substance, but am I pointing out the faults in them I see in myself? Or maybe I'm legitimately a funny guy and she needs to get over herself...probably not.

I was going to write something like this: "Looking at the human condition one can either laugh or cry...I choose laughter." But I couldn't get through it. It's just too damn funny.

In which nothing is decided and nothing goes on...

I'd really like to write something, but, man, I don't even know where to start. I could go with more tales of drunken revelry (something involving me running outside at 8:00 in the morning with a sabre and an empty bottle of 151 and shouting all piratey at pedestrians) but that's old hat.

So, I'm graduating college, as most of you who would read this probably already know. I hate to be cliched but I'm sitting here asking myself, "What the fuck am I going to do now?" Get a job, they say. Get married, they say. To which I sarcastically reply, in quotes like any good sarcastician, "We're a generation of men raised by women...," etc. (If you don't know the rest you haven't seen Fight Club nearly enough.) I always bitch when it gets close to closing time. At the end of high school I beat my chest and tore my beard saying, "What a damned cruel system that makes us leave our bosom companions behind, and so forth and so on!" But I didn't really enjoy high school that much. There are a few moments that I can point to and say that there! That is something! Whether I enjoyed that moment or not at least I can say I was alive. But there are only a few really. Most of it is just a mesh of nonsense.

The same is really true of college. I feel the urge in me to hate the leaving of it, for all the great times that I had. I think maybe I just want to be sad because then I seem like I've done something of such worth that it breaks your heart never to do it again. But really, though again, I can point to some fantastic moments, I've squandered these years. How often did I waste time when I could have been doing something important? If not important at least something to remember?

Well, fuck. What's the point of living with regret? Isn't that what I'm trying to say? That I shouldn't be sad over it? Maybe I should be optimistic about the future - even a future as murky as mine. What's the point of living if it isn't an adventure?

That didn't really fit. I'm gonna stop writing now. Why, you ask, would he post something if didn't finish it, why wouldn't he just erase it or save it for later? Why does anyone actually post anything for others to read? It's all just bullshit half truths and boldfaced lies. Its the love of spectacle, I think. Pechorin-like we are conscious of our roles on the stage and we long for an audience.

I don't know. I can't think of the last time I had an answer for anything.

A Story Involving Nudity, and the Police

So. Tuesday night I'm at Jamie's for beer pong. If you didn't know, every Tuesday Zach and I trek over to his place on 14th street to play in the league he and his roommates run. As a side note, we started out really strong before Zach lost his shot. It's cool, we all lose our shots sometime, but he had been hitting pretty consistently. I'm not bad but I'm not good enough to carry the team and so the last few weeks have been rough. We're coming back for the tournament, though. Yesterday Zachy did pretty well, so I think maybe he's hunted it out. I have high hopes.

Anyway, after beer pong most people usually head out to bars, but we hung around and played some flip cup. I once read that beer pong is considered a binge drinking game. If anything its the opposite. It's what you do when you need to slow down. Flip cup, on the other hand, is most definitely a binge-drinking game. Still, I don't think it really compares to an hour long game of Moose which followed.

Needless to say, we were feeling pretty good by the end. So what do we do? We do what every self-respecting UVA student does when the weather's nice and he's got alcohol humming through his veins. We went streaking. Or sort of.

We made it to the Lawn without too much trouble, (but I seem to remember tripping over a guy with crutches? Who knows?) but when we got there a certain someone...cough cough Jamie cough cough...decided he wasn't gonna do it. While the girls were trying to convince him, I got the urge. You know, that drunken urge that drives you to just walk out of a room even though no one comes with you - the one that leads you to dirty strip clubs, or to jump off a roof into a shallow swimming pool. That one. So I just take my clothes off and take off down the lawn.

Its kind of further than you think. In daylight, with your clothes on, it doesn't seem like that far to Homer's poetic (and possible pediphilic - that statue is weird man) ass. Naked in the dark its an eternity. Still, I was full of liquid courage so the length didn't bother me. I was just hitting my stride when I was spotlighted.

I figured it was some jackass who lived there so I kept running until I heard, "Put your clothes back on and get back up there!" in a gruff, undeniably policeman voice. I wanted to argue. "But it's a tradition man!"

"It's also against the law."

I'd been running with my boxers in hand, just in case, but I lost my grip and this point and lost them somewhere in the grass.

Stalling, I said, "It's cool man! It's cool!" Brilliant, I know. I bent over in the grass frantically searching. Finally I found them and hastily threw them on, backwards. I didn't stop to fix them, but took off back towards the rotunda, passing a naked Zach on the way. When I got back to my clothes I quickly threw them on. Rachel, Meghan, and Jamie had split of course. Apparently Jamie thought we got arrested.

The cop came up to us, nodded, and said, "How's it going?" walking on. It was a fun night.

The Prodigality of Firdausi

This is one of my favorite poems:

The Prodigality of Firdausi

Firdausi the strong Lion among poets, lean of purse
And lean with age, had finished his august mountain of verse,
The great Shah Nameh gleaming-glaciered with demon wars,
Bastioned with Rustem's bitter labours and Isfendiyar's,
Shadowed with Jamshid's grief and glory as with eagles' wings,
Its foot-hills dewy-forested with the amours of kings,
Clashing with rhymes that rush like snow-fed cataracts blue and cold;
And the king commanded to be given him an elephant's burden of gold.

Firdausi the carved Pillar among poets was not dear
To government. They smiled at the king's word. The Grand Vizier
Twisted his pale face, making parsimonious mouths, and said
'Send the old rhymer thirty thousand silver pounds instead -
The price of ten good vineyards and a fine Circassian girl.'
This pleased them and they called a secretarial shape, a churl,
A pick-thank without understanding and of base descent,
And bade it deliver their bounty, and with mincing paces it went.

It found the Cedar amoung poets in the baths that day,
At ease, discoursing with his friends. Exalted men were they,
Taking their wine and sugared roseleaves in an airy hall,
Poets or theologians or saints or warriors all
Or lovers or astronomers. Like honey-drops the speech
Distilled in apophthegms or verses from the lips of each,
On roses and presdestination and heroic wars
And rhetoric, and the brevity of the life of man, and the stars.

With courtesy the Lily among poets asked its will.
The bearers laid the silver at his feet. The hall was still,
The churl grew ple. Firdausi beckoned to the Nubian slave
Who had dried their feet; to him the first ten thousand coins he gave.
Ten thousand more immediately he gave the fair-haired boy
Who waved the fan, saying 'My son, may Allah send you joy;
And in your grandson's house in unbelieving Frangistan
Make it your boast that once you spoke with the splendour of Iran.'

Lastly the Heaven of poets to the churl himself returned
The remnant. 'You look pale, my friend,' he said. 'Well have you earned
This trifle for you courtesy and for the heat of the day.'
Clutchin his silver, silently, the creature slunk away,
And dogs growled as he passed and beggars spat. Laughter and shame
Wait upon all his progeny; on him, Gehenna's flame.
Immediately the discourse in the baths once more began
On the beauty of women and horses and the brevity of the life of man.

-- C. S. Lewis

FUCK

Girls

So men have repressed women throughout most of history, yada yada yada. Of course it's all true. We're greedy bastards that demand (on average) 32 more cents for every dollar. It depends what study you look at as to just how greedy we are, but I think everyone agrees that men have a history of keeping women in the place that we've built for them (the kitchen). We've even managed to convince some that that's where they actually belong. And if you think you aren't one of those then just consider what you wore to go out last Friday (or Tuesday if you're cool). It may not have been the sluttiest thing in your closet but I bet you wore things to accentuate your breasts, your ass, and your legs; I'd bet you wore make-up to make your eyelashes look fuller and longer, etc., etc. Who are you trying to please? Yourself? Maybe. But where did those conceptions of beauty come from? Men. It's all part of the "place" we've put you in and that you willingly buy into. Actually, that not what this is all about. My point is actually that women have long developed ways to get revenge.

I was walking down the hallway in Cabel and I noticed that there was a girl, sitting on the floor, wiping her eyes. At first I thought maybe she had just sneezed really bad or she had something in them, but she was wiping them in that delicate way that can only mean that she had been crying. She was talking on the phone. That could only mean so many things, and I was right when I guessed breakup, or post-breakup discussion. I overheard her asking those useless but necessary questions: What can I do? I didn't ask you to do anything that you didn't do for her, and so on. I felt a strong desire to sweep her off her feet and carry her away from there, and an even stronger desire to hurt whomever it was she was talking to. She wasn't even that attractive. Tears have some kind of power over us. You've ingrained into our genes, subtly and maliciously striking back at us for our years of overt occupation. Any man with a conscience cannot help but feel a pull at a woman's tears, and a need to help, whatever the cost. I can't speak for those 45% of us who have no soul - but for the rest, we're helpless.

A word of caution - it's a power not to be overused. Frequent criers are just annoying, and we can tell (eventually - we're pretty dense) when tears are faked and when they're genuine.

Almost Famous

Aw, man. You made friends with them. See, friendship is the booze they feed you. They want you to get drunk on feeling like you belong.

Well, it was fun.

They make you feel cool. And hey. I met you. You are not cool.

I know. Even when I thought I was, I knew I wasn't.

That's because we're uncool. And while women will always be a problem for us, most of the great art in the world is about that very same problem. Good-looking people don't have any spine. Their art never lasts. They get the girls, but we're smarter.

I can really see that now.

Yeah, great art is about conflict and pain and guilt and longing and love disguised as sex, and sex disguised as love...and let's face it, you got a big head start.

I'm glad you were home.

I'm always home. I'm uncool.

Me too.

The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool.

Fencing Conversations (sort of)

A conversation I reproduced/changed and added to for my playwriting class (names have been changed to protect the innocent)

(4 guys)

1: What are you guys talking about?

2: We were saying that before Brosnan, Connery was the best bond, but now Brosnan is.

1: You must be joking.

3: Connery is by far the best Bond.

1: The part was practically written for Sean Connery in the first place. I mean, he is James Bond. Pierce Brosnan is great, and I love Goldeneye, but Connery is clearly the best.

2: Brosnan has made 4 good movies – how many of the Conneries were really that good?

4: Seriously. Connery made Diamonds are Forever.

3: Fine, but what about Thunderball?

1: Or Goldfinger, or Dr. No?

2: Ok that's 3. Brosnan has made 4.

4: To be fair the last one sucked.

3: The one with Halley Barry?

4: Yeah.

2: Well, maybe. Then I guess they're even.

1: No way, dude. There are so many other Conneries that you're forgetting. What about From Russia with Love?

4: That movie sucked too.

3: That one was pretty lame.

1: Are you kidding? That Russian chick was hot as shit.

4: They all had somebody hot as shit. They're Bond movies.

2: At least we can all agree that Roger Moore was the worst.

1: I don't know man. He was bad but what about that other guy?

3: Timothy Dalton?

1: He was bad too, but no, at least he looked the part. I'm talking about the other guy who only did one movie.

2: Oh right. I can't remember his name either, but I know who you're talking about.

1: But you're right, Roger Moore looks like some kind of beach bum. He's not suave at all.

4: Clearly the only way to solve this is to get them all in the ring.

1: Or have them play Bond for 64.

3: Or, did you ever watch that show on MTV, um what was it, Celebrity Deathmatch?

4: No, something this important can't be settled by claymation.

(There is a pause when their dinner arrives)

3: So, John, who do you think would win, China or Rome?

2: During the same time period?

3: Yeah, they were around at the same time. I think it was the Han dynasty, or Song, or some fucking thing.

1: It was the Han.

4: Somyunguy.

2: Romans would kick their ass, dude.

1: I don't know about that. Chinese at this period were really far advanced.

2: Yeah but what did they ever do? I mean, they carved out some territory, but then they just mostly stayed the same. Nothing ever really happened.

1: Well, actually, they fought quite a bit, and would be conquered a lot later on. But this was the point when they were carving out their territory.

3: The Romans never really lost until the end, though.

1: That's not true at all. They lost at Cannae, um, what's it called – Thermopolye?

3: Thermopolye was Greek. That was the Spartans.

1: Oh right. I was thinking of something else, but I can't remember names today.

2: Wasn't there some group or something that was trying to keep them away from China?

1: um I don't know about that. They traded with China.

2: It was the Moguls or the Mongols or something.

1: It couldn't have been the Mongols because there weren't any Mongols.

4: Yeah the Mongols didn't sack Baghdad until the what? 11^th century? 12^th or 13^th century?

1: I think it was the 13^th.

4: Yeah, 12--

1: I can't remember the exact year.

4: I wanna say 1248 or 1278.

1: Maybe.

2: But wasn't there some battle out in the east where they were completely slaughtered?

1: I thought you said they would kick China's ass.

2: They would, but I didn't say they would never lose a battle. I was playing it on Rome: Total War. It's fucking impossible. You have to fight somebody from the east.

1: Adrianople.

2: What?

1: The battle I was thinking of earlier. Sorry it just came to me.

3: Is Rome: Total War a good game?

2: Oh my God, dude. It's so freaking sweat. Have you ever played Age of Empires?

3: I played 2 for a while.

2: Oh well, 3 is better. But Rome is better than both of them. It's turn-based except for the battles. And it's so realistic. You have to made sure your troops are flanking right, that they're not walking through each other...like you've got to keep cavalry moving, if they stay still they'll get slaughtered by any unit.

1: Not any unit.

2: Ok you can't kill cavalry with peasants.

3: Sounds cool. I wanted to play something with more realistic fighting.

2: Yeah Age of Empires is just a game.

1: And what, Rome is real?

2: You know what I mean. But what was that battle where they lost out in the east. To some group of horsemen or something. It's in the epic battle section of the game and I can't beat it.

4: It was the one where what's his name was slaughtered. He wanted to have military power or something.

1: Oh you mean—shit, what is his name? There was Caesar, Pompey, and him. It was the first triumvirate.

4: Crassus! That's it.

1: Right when Crassus was destroyed by the Parthians.

3: Parthinians.

1: I'm pretty sure it's Parthians dude.

2: Yeah that's it. Because they could circle around and his cavalry had all been destroyed earlier.

1: Well it's because of the Parthian shot. Where they could shoot at you while riding backwards away from you.

4: None of this answers the central question. Who would win, China or Rome?

1: You guys do realize that this is pointless right? It's like asking who would win, a Grizzly Bear or an Alligator.

4: Clearly a Grizzly Bear.

(They all laugh)

2: Yeah right. There's no question that an Alligator would win. I mean, think of the jaws dude.

3: What? You're joking right? Have you ever seen a Grizzly Bear?

1: Guys! Jesus, I didn't mean to start another conversation I was trying to point out how stupid the last one was.

2: Relax, dude, we're just joking around.

1: Were you really? Sometimes I'm not so sure.

2: What the fuck are you talking about?

3: Are you seriously getting mad about this?

1: No, I'm not mad. It's just that we always talk about this shit.

2: So? What's wrong with that?

1: I don't know. Nothing, I guess.

4: We just talk about things that we're interested in. So what?

1: So we're interested in James Bond, dead civilizations, and video games about dead civilizations?

4: No. We talked about Bond girls too.

1: Which brings me to my real point. Don't you guys ever wonder why we don't have girlfriends?

2: I don't know about you guys, but I've got me a girl.

1: Dude, Sandra does not count as a girl.

2: What?

1: I'm serious man. I hate to be the one to tell you but occasional sex is not a relationship. She's just fucking using you because your dad gives you a huge allowance.

2: What?

4: He's right, man. She cheats on you too.

2: What?

3: It's true. She hooked up with Sean at the Halloween party.

2: What?

1: Ok - stop acting so surprised. You must have known. We were in your room.

3: Um. While we're being all truthful and everything – I hooked up with her too.

4: Yeah me too.

1: She really gets around. You should think about dumping her.

(a pause)

4: I think he's in shock.

1: He'll be fine. The point is that, maybe the reason we don't have girls is that all we care about are meaningless things.

3: I don't understand why you're down on video games all of a sudden.

1: I'm not, video games are fine. It's just that there might be more important things in life.

4: ...like James Bond?

1: Well, yes, but think even more important than that.

2: You guys were joking right?

1: No John! Jesus, we all slept with your girlfriend. Get over it.

2: I think I'm going to lie down.

1: Listen. I'm a history dork. I know it. I love history and I know lots of random crap about it, and that's fine. But it doesn't really matter.

3: I'm not sure I see what you're getting at.

1: Ok, let me put it this way. You're a big movie guy, right Will?

3: Yeah, so?

1: You've got more movie quotes than anyone I know of, including me, so that's a lot. What would you do if you told a girl that you spent all summer with your uncle in Alaska hunting wolverines and she didn't know that was a line from Napoleon Dynamite?

3: Well, I wouldn't talk to her again.

4: Oh, I think I see what you're getting at.

1: And Jason, you're really into music. What if a girl told you that she really hated David Bowie. Or if she'd never heard of Arcade Fire, or worse, Modest Mouse?

4: Well, I think I'd have to tell her how stupid she was for not appreciating one of the greatest musical minds of our century – oh yeah. Now I get it.

1: And John over there -

4: Haven't we done enough damage to John for one day?

1: He'll get over it.

3: What really matters is what you like, not what you are like. Books, records, films – these things matter. Call me shallow but it's the fucking truth.

1: Isn't that a line from High Fidelity?

3: Yeah but I thought it applied.

4: I think you might have missed his point Will.

1: Nice quote though. That's a hot movie.

3: Yeah it is.

1: Damn it Will. You're getting us off track.

4: We get it man. You're right. We have to stop acting that we're so superior to everyone else just because we know trivia about Romans or about Movies or whatever.

3: Yeah we need to respect people's feelings and appreciate them for who they are not for what they know or don't know.

1: Whoa. Let's not get carried away. We're still male.

3: Is John crying?

4: Yeah so, anyway. I've got to run.

1: Yeah me too.

(pause while they gather their things)

4: Oh dude, this doesn't mean you aren't going to play CounterStrike anymore does it?

1: Hell no. You'll be on later?

4: Definitely.

1: Cool, see you then.

4: Later.

Flogging Molly

Tuesday February 21, 2006. Flogging Molly Day. Sweet Jesus I can't wait. If you've never heard them buy your ticket today. Seriously. I've never gone so nuts sober in my life.

Pandora

So, here's the thing. Though it has given me things to talk about, or at least text that makes it look like I'm actually updating this place, the music suggestions (instructions for a better life) are going to stop. That's because Pandora is really doing my job for me. If you want to know what I'm listening to, just check out the link to the right that goes to my favorites page. The good people over there have updated the site so that now you can hear a 30 second sample of whatever song I post, and you can even check out the radio station that I made on your very own Pandora. If you haven't checked them out...you're lame. Do it. It's a very cool concept and you'll find alot of new bands that way. http://www.pandora.com

Ok, check out my favorites, they're all good.

Peace

More Music for Your Listening Improvement

Ok here are a few more titles that should continue to improve your musical tastes. I'm jumping around a bit today, with some power pop, some hip hop, and some down and dirty rock and fucking roll, but it's all good.

Modern Way - Kaiser Chiefs

Bob - Primus

Lousy Reputation - We Are Scientists

Burn The Witch - Queens Of The Stone Age

Stay Tuned (feat Sojourn) - Ohmega Watts

Audio Visual - J-Live


Enjoy.

By The Pool

She sits by the pool, wrapped in clinging silk. She has done up her long black hair messily, so that three lengthy strands have broken free from their prison to drift down around her long neck. They twirl around in the slight breeze, lazily caressing her olive skin. Absent-mindedly, she tucks them back behind her ear when the wind blows them around into her face. As if mesmerized, she stares into the light blue of the pool at her feet: into the light of the reflected moon – full but broken by the gently lapping ripples made from her twirling feet. There is a glass of white wine resting on the ugly beige tiles next to her, but it is full, and no lipstick lines its rim. She sighs, and is sad, but she can't say why.

Slowly, she slips her silk robe from around her shoulders, revealing royal blue skin and golden spires, reaching up from below the line of cloth to their points at the center of her back. For a minute she pauses, mid-motion, allowing the robe to dip down, like the curve of a southern shore meeting the motionless sea of her back. The wind is warm on her skin, and so she pulls first her left, and then her right arm out of the loose sleeves, letting the soft material drop to the ground.

She is naked, but her body is painted from the neck down, except where her feet have been swirling the water – there the paint slowly washes away, its deeper blue spinning in tiny whirlpools and then floating on the surface of the pool, refusing to mix. A golden temple is painted on top of the blue background, with its base dipping just below her hips: a temple with thirteen reaching towers surrounding a dome the color of the snow capped peaks of Himalayas. On top of each spire is a large orange sphere of flame, where, if you looked closely enough, you could see a small yellow sunburst encapsulated.

The right hand corner of her lips twitch into a slight grin. She leans over to her left side, shifting her weight so that she can lift herself off the ground, and off of her now discarded robe. With her other hand she reaches underneath and pulls the garment out from under her: its hem dipping into the water. Slowly, as she looks at the robe in her hands, her smile gets bigger. She purses her lips, considering. Then, with a sigh, tosses it into the pool, where it floats slowly away, towards the center.

She can't help but tense as the sliding door behind her opens. She feels suddenly exposed, even slightly guilty, for being caught without any of her clothes on, even though she's been without them most of the day. Even though she was just photographed for hours, wearing nothing but blue paint, for just a moment, she feels helpless. Purposefully, she does not turn around, and forces her muscles to relax. She reaches over, takes her wineglass, and brings it to her lips, tipping a swallow full into her mouth. She lets it sit on her tongue to savor its taste before allowing it to pass own down her throat.

A woman emerges from the house behind her, bringing noise from the party with her. Inside, people are talking, laughing, drinking, dancing to the pulsing and neverending beat. The woman is laughing too. Laughing and dancing and drinking as she emerges through the doors. She is wearing silk as well, loosely draped over her naked skin, with the front completely open. She is beautiful, and relishes her beauty. She too has been painted from neck to toe, but her skin has largely been left its natural, porcelain, color – with a crisscross pattern of long, thin horizontal lines, connected by shorter vertical ones.

She shuts the sliding door behind her, shutting out the noise of people, but only reducing the sound of the music – the bass seems to have no trouble penetrating through the barrier. She shuts the door a little too hard, unintentionally slamming it into place. She giggles.

“Angeline!” she says as she turns back to the pool, “You're naked.”

Blue-skinned Angeline can't help but smile, though she neither speaks nor turns around to look at the newcomer. The other girl doesn't seem to mind, as she takes a sip from her wine – red, not white – and dances around in a circle, slowly, to the music pounding its way through the walls. She makes her way over to the side of the pool and looks from Angeline to her robe, now caught against the metal ladder on the other side. With a laugh like the musical tinkling of clay wind chimes, the girl drinks the rest of the wine in her glass, tossing it into the water, and pulls off her own robe. She gives her collar a kiss, and then it too follows where her glass had gone. Gracefully, she sits next to Angeline, letting her feet and calves slip into the cool water.

Angeline looks at her sideways, still smiling. One couldn't help but smile around Elaine, her own never ceasing smile seemed to affect you just like a yawn. Mysteriously it spread from person to person. Still, her smile was close lipped and crooked, as if she was thinking of other things. Raising an eyebrow, Elaine looked carefully at her friend. She wanted to ask what was wrong. She wanted to find out what was bothering Angeline – what had been bothering her for the last few months as far as she could tell. But she knew better than to ask. It would have earned her only a leveled stare that wasn't unfriendly, but clearly said that she didn't feel like talking. So, instead, she said, “You won't believe it, but Jack, you remember, the photographer's son? He asked for my phone number. I think I was the third girl he asked, but it was still cute, so I gave it to him. I'm sure he won't call – and I think his dad will kill him when he finds out he snuck into the party...,” she trailed off as she realized that Angeline wasn't listening, but had gone back to staring at the slowly rippling water.

Elaine sighed. She didn't know what else to do, so she reached out and put her arm around Angeline's waist and gave her a slight squeeze. Angeline shivered, even though it wasn't cold out. Her back stiffened slightly as if recoiling from Elaine's touch. Confused, but nonplussed, Elaine lets go and leans back lightly onto her fingers. She looks over at Angeline and smiles again.

Angeline smiles too now, quickly, as if it was pulled out of her. There are tears in her eyes as she reaches out and lets her hand rest on Elaine's skin, just above her knee. She leaves it there only for a minute. She takes a deep breath, staggered by tears that are ready to fall. She slips off the tiled floor and slides into the pool, breaking the reflected moon. The chlorine and water begin their work on the blue paint, but she seems not to care, dipping beneath the surface so that her even her hair gets wet. She floats back up and rolls onto her back, gracefully taking long backstrokes down the length of the pool.