So here we are and there isn't much going on. My infatuation with Amy is on hold. My interest in tracking down Jennifer has waned. And I don't have any problems with my teeth at the moment. The book is coming along all right, and Chapter 15 is almost finished (I just have to do the first confrontation with Natasha). The only thing happening is the snowstorm outside, and I'm not nearly bored enough to get into a discussion of the almost constant wintery weather that's been pulverizing us this year. So what is there to talk about?
This month, February, is a whole year now removed from one of my biggest low points. Last year at this time I was unhappy. I hated my job, I didn't like where I was living, I felt alone and unloved, there were money issues, and for the cherry on top I broke my freaking toe on a milk crate filled with books. We were not having a good time. I was still a few weeks away from meeting Jen. And I can't believe all of that was only a year ago; it feels like three.
Stray Bullets wasn't around then so I never told the whole story. At first, I couldn't stand Jennifer. I thought she was annoying and obnoxious, and she bugged the hell out of me. Sue put her with me because a) I trained everyone, and b) she was afraid to put her with Starr. Even during the interview Sue could tell that Jen was a pretty spirited girl, and someone that would probably clash with Starr. Even so, Sue believed that Jen and I would be like oil and water, you know with me being so quiet and all. That was more or less true to start with. She was hard to teach and was kind of a know-it-all, and I remember banging my head against my locker after one particularly difficult day.
Sue thought Jen might be kind of an antidote for the department. Starr and I both had a reputation for chewing up new people and spitting them out, which was not without some truth to it. Sue even said to us, the day before Jen started, "You guys won't be able to push this one around." Someone should have told Sue to be careful what she wished for. Not only could we not push Jen around (although, I could more than hold my own), but Sue had little to no control over the girl. And Sue's attitude about her in the beginning seems pretty ironic considering how everything turned out. There's no way she thought Jen and I would get along well enough to start hanging around outside of work, let alone well enough that the girl would end up convincing me to leave there. Sometimes people like Sue really do get what's coming to them.
Our first date was sometime in March, even though we didn't become a couple until later on in May. It was a fun night, too. We did all kinds of stuff. And there's even an idea from that date that I'm using in the book way way down the line in a later Season. So the time spent on Planet Jen is still paying a few dividends.
I've stopped looking for her. If my theory about her living around here somewhere is accurate, we'll probably run into each other sooner or later. I forgot for a moment that things don't work that way for me, as far as actually looking for her. It has to be a random, chance encounter ... because that's the way this chaotic universe works.
*****
Having just watched the last four seasons of Friends in rapid succession (the show was pretty soothing during toothache week), I have some notes.
--When I only watched the show randomly here and there and in syndication, I never really took to Phoebe. She seemed written weird just to be weird, and also seemed somewhat superfluous to most of the plotlines. But after watching a bundle of episodes, I really warmed to the character. She's really sweet. And in the gag-reels, the best parts are when Lisa Kudrow cracks up.
--Rachel has always been my favorite character, and the stories I followed the most were always Rachel-centric. That's why the 8th season is my favorite, and is one of the best seasons of TV period. That's the season where Rachel is pregnant and has the baby, which gets to me for numerous reasons I probably don't have to explain. It's also the season with the mini-arc where Joey falls for Rachel, and the episode where he realizes it is just outstanding television. Believe me, if there's one thing in the world that I know, I know *exactly* how he felt in those episodes.
--The character I identify with the most is Chandler. I bet most people would have guessed Ross, given my enthusiasm for the oddball things I like and for my tendency to fall for Rachel types (Jacquie, for instance). But no. It's Chandler. And while watching the last four seasons I came to see something that I wanted. I don't really want a Rachel, sweet though they are. I want what Chandler has with Monica. They have a tremendous relationship. And like with Phoebe, I didn't always get or appreciate the Monica character as much as some of the others, but she's really awesome. What's ironic here is that Libby is *totally* a Monica type person. Put that sentence together with the rest of this paragraph, and it's just more proof that I may be completely crackers.
*****
Ok. Bedtime. I have to get up early tomorrow because it's supposed to snow all freaking night.
Bleh.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Genesis
The book had very simple beginnings. In it's original form the story was told in a series of letters that I wrote to Milta. She was the person who first got me to talk about what had happened, and so I started telling the story to her in those letters. Before long, she had me convinced that I should try writing it out for a wider audience, and from there I started breaking down the chapters. In the original draft, which has long since been destroyed (don't worry--it was terrible), Chapters 1 and 2 didn't exist. Chapter 1 didn't come along until two years later. Chapter 2 came later in the book at first, but then became the first chapter, and the first, dreadful, version of it was written in the third person and never worked at all. The decision to change it to Emma's first person narration was the first good idea I had for the book. Chapter 1 came along when I felt I needed something to buffer Emma's chapter, and besides I wanted to set up some foreshadowing and whatnot.
The earliest version of the book was essentially a three person story, and I was using the real names, too. Emma, Alyssa, and Kelly didn't come into play until 1997 during the California trip. In that earliest version there was no Laurel, no Ben, no Gwen, no hospital scenes, no Diner scenes, no Milo, and none of the dozens of subplots that are running in the current version. Those scenes started to develop during the rewrites in late 1996. All the various character names were generated at the same time as the other three. The addition of the supporting cast was probably the one thing that improved the book the most. I love the large cast of oddballs. Those first three characters are still carrying most of the weight, but Ben, Laurel, Gwen, and Alexis (and Quinn later on) add a lot of dimension to the story that wouldn't have been there otherwise. And just underneath the Big 8 is another layer of juicy characters including Willow, Leah, Cindy, Jed, Beth, and Natasha (among several others) that really fill out the margins and add a lot. At heart, it's still Emma and Kelly's story, but the whole thing is much better as an ensemble piece.
I'll probably never write anything that doesn't have a large cast running around the pages. It's probably because so many of my largest influences, instead of being star vehicles featuring one or two standout performers, have used an ensemble cast. The tv shows I love the most have featured large ensembles that work together to make the whole greater than the sum of it's parts: Seinfeld, Friends, Arrested Development, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, the Simpsons, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, MASH, and perhaps the best of them all, the Dick Van Dyke Show. Movies? Same thing: Almost Famous, Boogie Nights (perhaps the best example of this overall), all of Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith's movies, Lone Star, the Fisher King, Star Wars, Young Frankenstein, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and even Elizabethtown to an extent. Elizabethtown may have mostly been about the two characters at the heart of it, but they were surrounded by several other colorful characters. Walk The Line is the same way. As far as books go, Stephen King much more often than not works with a huge cast. Both Catch-22 and The Illuminatus Trilogy feature gigantic casts. Even the comic books I've liked the most lean towards the ensemble thing: Preacher, Stray Bullets, Strangers in Paradise, Bone, Nextwave, and others. Even some of my earliest influences--the classic Warner Bros. cartoons, the Muppet Show, and Adam West's Batman--work along these same lines. And I can look at most of these things and see how they've influenced me in one way or another.
From a bunch of letters the book has evolved into a large novel that's broken down into six different Seasons (and an epilogue) featuring more than 30 notable characters, close to 100 speaking parts, and dozens of other characters that are mentioned but never seen. If I see the book as one long tv series with six seasons, and each Chapter being an episode of the show, the Big 8 are the characters that show up in the main credits (see Buffy or Friends for what I mean there), and then during the additional credits in the first scene characters like Leah and Willow would get an "also starring" credit. I guess it's impossible to overstate how much television has been an influence on me.
I've been watching a lot of Friends on dvd lately, having taken advantage of a great sale at Best Buy a few weeks back through which I picked up the last four seasons of the show, and watching so much of it has gotten me thinking about stuff like what I've been talking about. By the seventh season the characters were so developed that the writers could use them in almost any situation, in any combination, and it all clicked. That's what I've been working towards myself with my cast. I have strengths and weaknesses as a writer, but probably my biggest strength is character development and interaction. Kelly works well with just about everyone. Emma and Alyssa are great together. The Gwen and Willow chemistry was a surprise that I found during the writing. They clicked so well that it's no wonder I keep going back to that well. Likewise, Laurel and Cindy felt so natural together that I have to remind myself that the two people they're based on only met once for about two minutes. By the end of Season 3, all the major characters really should be in there somewhere, or at least set up to appear in 4. I haven't worked out all the specifics yet, but some big players do show up by Chapter 18, and there's only a couple left after that to deal with.
So it's shaping up nicely.
The earliest version of the book was essentially a three person story, and I was using the real names, too. Emma, Alyssa, and Kelly didn't come into play until 1997 during the California trip. In that earliest version there was no Laurel, no Ben, no Gwen, no hospital scenes, no Diner scenes, no Milo, and none of the dozens of subplots that are running in the current version. Those scenes started to develop during the rewrites in late 1996. All the various character names were generated at the same time as the other three. The addition of the supporting cast was probably the one thing that improved the book the most. I love the large cast of oddballs. Those first three characters are still carrying most of the weight, but Ben, Laurel, Gwen, and Alexis (and Quinn later on) add a lot of dimension to the story that wouldn't have been there otherwise. And just underneath the Big 8 is another layer of juicy characters including Willow, Leah, Cindy, Jed, Beth, and Natasha (among several others) that really fill out the margins and add a lot. At heart, it's still Emma and Kelly's story, but the whole thing is much better as an ensemble piece.
I'll probably never write anything that doesn't have a large cast running around the pages. It's probably because so many of my largest influences, instead of being star vehicles featuring one or two standout performers, have used an ensemble cast. The tv shows I love the most have featured large ensembles that work together to make the whole greater than the sum of it's parts: Seinfeld, Friends, Arrested Development, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, the Simpsons, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, MASH, and perhaps the best of them all, the Dick Van Dyke Show. Movies? Same thing: Almost Famous, Boogie Nights (perhaps the best example of this overall), all of Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith's movies, Lone Star, the Fisher King, Star Wars, Young Frankenstein, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and even Elizabethtown to an extent. Elizabethtown may have mostly been about the two characters at the heart of it, but they were surrounded by several other colorful characters. Walk The Line is the same way. As far as books go, Stephen King much more often than not works with a huge cast. Both Catch-22 and The Illuminatus Trilogy feature gigantic casts. Even the comic books I've liked the most lean towards the ensemble thing: Preacher, Stray Bullets, Strangers in Paradise, Bone, Nextwave, and others. Even some of my earliest influences--the classic Warner Bros. cartoons, the Muppet Show, and Adam West's Batman--work along these same lines. And I can look at most of these things and see how they've influenced me in one way or another.
From a bunch of letters the book has evolved into a large novel that's broken down into six different Seasons (and an epilogue) featuring more than 30 notable characters, close to 100 speaking parts, and dozens of other characters that are mentioned but never seen. If I see the book as one long tv series with six seasons, and each Chapter being an episode of the show, the Big 8 are the characters that show up in the main credits (see Buffy or Friends for what I mean there), and then during the additional credits in the first scene characters like Leah and Willow would get an "also starring" credit. I guess it's impossible to overstate how much television has been an influence on me.
I've been watching a lot of Friends on dvd lately, having taken advantage of a great sale at Best Buy a few weeks back through which I picked up the last four seasons of the show, and watching so much of it has gotten me thinking about stuff like what I've been talking about. By the seventh season the characters were so developed that the writers could use them in almost any situation, in any combination, and it all clicked. That's what I've been working towards myself with my cast. I have strengths and weaknesses as a writer, but probably my biggest strength is character development and interaction. Kelly works well with just about everyone. Emma and Alyssa are great together. The Gwen and Willow chemistry was a surprise that I found during the writing. They clicked so well that it's no wonder I keep going back to that well. Likewise, Laurel and Cindy felt so natural together that I have to remind myself that the two people they're based on only met once for about two minutes. By the end of Season 3, all the major characters really should be in there somewhere, or at least set up to appear in 4. I haven't worked out all the specifics yet, but some big players do show up by Chapter 18, and there's only a couple left after that to deal with.
So it's shaping up nicely.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
The Bloody Battles of High Street
Honest to Eris, I have no idea where the last week has gone. It's been really hectic and I've gotten all kinds of things done. I'm still working on adding all my old favorite websites to this new computer, and seeing what kind of things it can do. So far, it's frikking amazing. Meanwhile, I have to figure out what to do with the old one. Most of it I could give away to someone who wants a monitor or whatever, but the tower is not going anywhere. Besides the fact that it's infected beyond belief, there are things remaining in there I'd just as soon not share with the world. I saved all the wordpad documents to disk and to the laptop, but I had to leave a lot of things behind. I'll get to those sooner or later.
I also had my final showdown with Bank of America. I've been waiting for the chance to drop them like a brick, and that day finally came last Friday. My intention was to close my accounts and while doing so get off my chest how dissatisfied I've been with them for several years now. However, the nice young lady who helped me, Marissa, is really sweet, and was always cool to me whenever she was the one fielding my issue du jour. So I settled for the satisfaction of being done with them and just took the high road. It was enough.
*****
Due to the graphic nature of this portion of the post, reader discretion is advised. Really.
Generally speaking, I'm pretty durable. I've fallen out of trees and never broken anything. I had horrendous bicycle accidents when I was learning to ride those darn things, and never got more than a bloody knee. I've survived two major car accidents with little more than a pair of concussions. So overall I'm pretty hard to injure. But I do have an Achilles Heel, and that would be my teeth.
They've always been fragile. I'll admit upfront that I haven't always been the most diligent in caring for them, but the truth is it's never made any difference what I do for them. I could brush six times a day and floss for hours on end, and they will still break, chip, and fall apart. It's always been that way. And they've been the bane of my existence for the last fifteen years.
They got worse during the Dark Years of the 90's. By the point of the worst of the worst (late 98), they were a mess. This is a subject I've long since resigned myself to, so it doesn't embarass me to admit it. By the time Guinevere met me, they were already well on the road to ruin. My top front six teeth were the worst then, aesthetically speaking, even though they didn't hurt at all like some of the others did. They just, for whatever reason, started to give way along the gum lines. Even when I got those fixed, they started to do the same thing again almost immediately. I was horribly depressed about them, and I always did my best to hide the damn things, which is why no one hardly ever saw me smile (well, it was one of a couple reasons). I don't know how successful I was in hiding them, but nobody ever mentioned them to me (at least, nothing was ever said to my face, nor did anything said behind my back ever get back to me), even people like Jayme who weren't the most tactful.
The second time I got those fixed it stuck, somehow. But by then the rest of them started to destroy themselves in a more serious way, and they've been picking me off one by one by one ever since. I held them at bay for a while, but Christmas 2003 through mid-January 2004 was one of the most trying times of my entire life, not to mention one of the most relentlessly painful. There was one Sunday in the middle of it, after I'd gone to see Elaine Brown (local dentist and infamous tax-evader), after she made the problem worse with a prescription to something that caused and allergic reaction underneath my tongue, when my folks came up to see me ... and I was little more than a ghost. I was pretty much a dead man walking. And not long after that I went through with a decision that changed my life (for the better) and set me on the course I'm still on now.
The Christmas flare-up knocked me down hard -- hard enough that I went back to see the one man I'd completely sworn off, the guy who I believed had screwed me back in 98, the one man I was most afraid of in the entire world: Elliot, my old dentist. I don't know if you know him at all, and I have no idea who Colleen saw in the Greenfield area, but he's kind of a strange guy. And back in the mid to late 90's I think he had some personal problems that might have affected things, too. But I swore never to go back to him again for two major reasons: 1) in September of 98 I had a tooth go south, and it needed a root canal, but he treated it like a cavity and filled it as such, and three days later I thought my head was going to explode with the single worst pain I've ever felt in my life; 2) he kept putting off and putting off fixing my front teeth, which I was *desperate* to have done, because he kept talking me into fixing other things first, and by the time we got to the fronts my insurance was completely eaten up, and I ended up owing that office a great deal of money. I was convinced, at the time, he'd done that on purpose.
But I was knocked out so completely during that Christmas that I was absolutely desperate, and I let my mom call him, and I went back. And it was then that he proposed the radical idea, and I said yeah, because I could see which way the wind was blowing here. But I had to make sure my mom was going to be ok with it, because even though I was totally convinced it was the right thing to do, I don't think I could have done it if she wasn't going to be on board. And he even had her come in so he could talk to her himself, and he convinced her. At that point I made the appointment for late January. The problem that arose in mid-Janurary, resulting in the Elaine Brown mistake (also borne out of desperation) was an unrelated occurance, but it was also a sign that my enemies, my own teeth, were ramping up the assault. After near to five years of relative peace and quiet, they were now trying to kill me.
I had that appointment in late January. I was a little concerned about it, because it was a big step, but I was nowhere near as nervous as my dad, who went in with me and spent the whole time pacing the waiting room floor. While I'm not uncomfortable opening up this subject, I'm still not going to be explicit about what exactly I'm talking about. If you figure it out, great; if not, great. I wrote about it in the Joyride, without being explicit with the details, but I emphasized the intensity of the procedure, and let me tell you, folks, it was some intense. It hurt, too. But I've always been pretty tough in these circumstances. I've had a deep-seated fear of all dentists since I was little, but when I'm there I can tough it out. Afterwords, it took me a little while to adjust to what was done, but I believed then and do now that it was the best decision I've ever made. Period.
The next flare-up was in early 06. I think it was January again, too, but I'd have to check the NHJ archives to be sure. This one was an abcess that had been bothering me at least since Thanksgiving, and as I tend to do, I put it off and put it off until it was freaking murdering me. The pain of that tooth was turning me into a shadow of myself, but somehow I still made it in to work every day. It takes a lot for me to miss work, always has. I finally went and had the problem removed, and that experience is immortalized in my infamous "river of blood" post in the Joyride, because as it turns out, I'm a wicked bleeder and it would just not stop coming. It was like a volcano that keeps on pumping out that lava everywhere. I think it was worse in that way because it was a bottom tooth, and a molar to boot, so it all just pooled up and went everywhere. I wasn't ready for that, and I didn't know how to properly take care of it then, and the crater became infected. The condition is something they call 'dry socket', and it's horrible. That hurt even *worse* than the tooth did (and this is #2 on the overall list), yet somehow I still made it to work everyday, even though I was in massive agony and pale as a corpse. I thought it would go away on it's own, and when it didn't I called Elliot's office and begged them to take me in, which they did that same day (I'd finally called out of work). I felt so much better on the way home that I was actually singing along to the radio, and I never do that.
Things were quiet again until this past Christmas. A bottom tooth on the other side had collapsed months earlier, but it only flared up here and there, so it was manageable ... until late evening on Christmas, when it really started to hurt like a bitch. In the grand scheme of things, the pain from this one was really just an uncomfortable ache that wouldn't let me sit still, and it really wouldn't make the top ten list of the toothache pains I've suffered, but I won't downplay that it really hurt and was really annoying. That got me back to Elliot yet again. I figured with that taken care of, I might get a little break now.
Which brings me to this week. I was eating a piece of toast on Monday (a piece of freaking TOAST), and I bit down on it and heard something snap in my jaw, below the tooth, a millisecond before I felt the massive, intense pain that followed. I knew what the feeling was, having felt similar before. It was root canal kind of pain, where you can't even touch the tooth without enormous pressure squeezing your head like it's in a vice. I was at home because it was a holiday for us at Rugers, and I called that office again seeking help. No waiting for weeks this time. The pain was much too fierce. But they couldn't get me in until Thursday afternoon. Oh man. I had no choice then, I had to try and tough it out. I bombed the pain with a liberal dose of Ibuprofen and just camped out on the couch watching Friends on dvd. As rough as this pain was, I can't put it higher than 4th on the all-time list. It wasn't worse than the root canal mistake 98, or dry socket 06, or the complete destruction of January 04. But it did hurt a whole lot, and I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through three ten-hour shifts between then and that appointment.
A miracle happened and I woke up Tuesday morning feeling ok. It did flare up here and there throughout the day, but it would always recede and give me some respite. I was still taking the pills, but in smaller doses than during the dry socket incident, during which I was taking five Ibuprofen an hour, on the hour, for days, to try and kill the relentless scorching pain. I'm sure that didn't do my liver any good, but I was willing to cross that bridge when I came to it. I'd have done anything to make that horrifying pain go away. This time, though, I could keep it at bay with less.
Until yesterday. I don't know what happened. I think maybe I bit down on that tooth in my sleep, but I woke up and it was screaming bloody murder. It hurt so much it was trying to climb the list past those other incidents. It didn't, but it tried really hard. It was massive, intense, and untouchable. No amount of pills would put it down. And I went to work. What choice did I think I had? I don't have any vacation time yet. I don't go to work, I don't get paid. But I should not have been there. It was a walking disaster. I tried, though. Everyone could tell I was not myself. The lights were on, but nobody was home. I was determined to make it through the end of the order we were working on, but I was pretty sure I was leaving right after, and let Barney know. Just to be clear, they weren't dicks about it. I could have left any time. I was just trying to be a good guy and finish something.
The final straw came quick. It even hurt to talk. Anything I said vibrated that fucking tooth and made it hurt worse. Then I was saying something to Barney and my tongue sideswiped the tooth and I'm not sure how I didn't break down in tears right there on the production floor. That's when I knew. I finished the order, and just before 7:00 AM I said to Barney, "Ok, I'm throwing in the towel." And I went home with the intention of calling that office back and begging them to take me in that day. The thought of having to make it to the afternoon of the next day was unbearable. I lucked out. They could get me in at 2:30.
I killed a few hours on the couch again, watching more Friends episodes, and mercifully the tooth lightened up on me for a while. I made it to Greenfield, had the appointment, and Elliot and I continued on with the longterm plan. And again, this being on the bottom like before, it was another "river of blood" situation. I left with a large piece of gauze clenched between my teeth, blood staining all the rest, and I looked like I'd just come from the Cannibal Jamboree ... which made stopping to get gas a little more interesting than it would have been if I'd had the foresight to buy it before the appointment. But it was over with. I knew I'd be sore later, because it was a difficult appointment, but at the time with eleven shots of novacaine in me (I counted), I wasn't feeling bad at all.
The difference was apparent today at work, because I was feeling great. I was animated and funny and happy to be alive.
But I know the rest of them are laying in wait. They're all ticking time bombs waiting to attack.
I'm almost mentally ready to finish it.
I also had my final showdown with Bank of America. I've been waiting for the chance to drop them like a brick, and that day finally came last Friday. My intention was to close my accounts and while doing so get off my chest how dissatisfied I've been with them for several years now. However, the nice young lady who helped me, Marissa, is really sweet, and was always cool to me whenever she was the one fielding my issue du jour. So I settled for the satisfaction of being done with them and just took the high road. It was enough.
*****
Due to the graphic nature of this portion of the post, reader discretion is advised. Really.
Generally speaking, I'm pretty durable. I've fallen out of trees and never broken anything. I had horrendous bicycle accidents when I was learning to ride those darn things, and never got more than a bloody knee. I've survived two major car accidents with little more than a pair of concussions. So overall I'm pretty hard to injure. But I do have an Achilles Heel, and that would be my teeth.
They've always been fragile. I'll admit upfront that I haven't always been the most diligent in caring for them, but the truth is it's never made any difference what I do for them. I could brush six times a day and floss for hours on end, and they will still break, chip, and fall apart. It's always been that way. And they've been the bane of my existence for the last fifteen years.
They got worse during the Dark Years of the 90's. By the point of the worst of the worst (late 98), they were a mess. This is a subject I've long since resigned myself to, so it doesn't embarass me to admit it. By the time Guinevere met me, they were already well on the road to ruin. My top front six teeth were the worst then, aesthetically speaking, even though they didn't hurt at all like some of the others did. They just, for whatever reason, started to give way along the gum lines. Even when I got those fixed, they started to do the same thing again almost immediately. I was horribly depressed about them, and I always did my best to hide the damn things, which is why no one hardly ever saw me smile (well, it was one of a couple reasons). I don't know how successful I was in hiding them, but nobody ever mentioned them to me (at least, nothing was ever said to my face, nor did anything said behind my back ever get back to me), even people like Jayme who weren't the most tactful.
The second time I got those fixed it stuck, somehow. But by then the rest of them started to destroy themselves in a more serious way, and they've been picking me off one by one by one ever since. I held them at bay for a while, but Christmas 2003 through mid-January 2004 was one of the most trying times of my entire life, not to mention one of the most relentlessly painful. There was one Sunday in the middle of it, after I'd gone to see Elaine Brown (local dentist and infamous tax-evader), after she made the problem worse with a prescription to something that caused and allergic reaction underneath my tongue, when my folks came up to see me ... and I was little more than a ghost. I was pretty much a dead man walking. And not long after that I went through with a decision that changed my life (for the better) and set me on the course I'm still on now.
The Christmas flare-up knocked me down hard -- hard enough that I went back to see the one man I'd completely sworn off, the guy who I believed had screwed me back in 98, the one man I was most afraid of in the entire world: Elliot, my old dentist. I don't know if you know him at all, and I have no idea who Colleen saw in the Greenfield area, but he's kind of a strange guy. And back in the mid to late 90's I think he had some personal problems that might have affected things, too. But I swore never to go back to him again for two major reasons: 1) in September of 98 I had a tooth go south, and it needed a root canal, but he treated it like a cavity and filled it as such, and three days later I thought my head was going to explode with the single worst pain I've ever felt in my life; 2) he kept putting off and putting off fixing my front teeth, which I was *desperate* to have done, because he kept talking me into fixing other things first, and by the time we got to the fronts my insurance was completely eaten up, and I ended up owing that office a great deal of money. I was convinced, at the time, he'd done that on purpose.
But I was knocked out so completely during that Christmas that I was absolutely desperate, and I let my mom call him, and I went back. And it was then that he proposed the radical idea, and I said yeah, because I could see which way the wind was blowing here. But I had to make sure my mom was going to be ok with it, because even though I was totally convinced it was the right thing to do, I don't think I could have done it if she wasn't going to be on board. And he even had her come in so he could talk to her himself, and he convinced her. At that point I made the appointment for late January. The problem that arose in mid-Janurary, resulting in the Elaine Brown mistake (also borne out of desperation) was an unrelated occurance, but it was also a sign that my enemies, my own teeth, were ramping up the assault. After near to five years of relative peace and quiet, they were now trying to kill me.
I had that appointment in late January. I was a little concerned about it, because it was a big step, but I was nowhere near as nervous as my dad, who went in with me and spent the whole time pacing the waiting room floor. While I'm not uncomfortable opening up this subject, I'm still not going to be explicit about what exactly I'm talking about. If you figure it out, great; if not, great. I wrote about it in the Joyride, without being explicit with the details, but I emphasized the intensity of the procedure, and let me tell you, folks, it was some intense. It hurt, too. But I've always been pretty tough in these circumstances. I've had a deep-seated fear of all dentists since I was little, but when I'm there I can tough it out. Afterwords, it took me a little while to adjust to what was done, but I believed then and do now that it was the best decision I've ever made. Period.
The next flare-up was in early 06. I think it was January again, too, but I'd have to check the NHJ archives to be sure. This one was an abcess that had been bothering me at least since Thanksgiving, and as I tend to do, I put it off and put it off until it was freaking murdering me. The pain of that tooth was turning me into a shadow of myself, but somehow I still made it in to work every day. It takes a lot for me to miss work, always has. I finally went and had the problem removed, and that experience is immortalized in my infamous "river of blood" post in the Joyride, because as it turns out, I'm a wicked bleeder and it would just not stop coming. It was like a volcano that keeps on pumping out that lava everywhere. I think it was worse in that way because it was a bottom tooth, and a molar to boot, so it all just pooled up and went everywhere. I wasn't ready for that, and I didn't know how to properly take care of it then, and the crater became infected. The condition is something they call 'dry socket', and it's horrible. That hurt even *worse* than the tooth did (and this is #2 on the overall list), yet somehow I still made it to work everyday, even though I was in massive agony and pale as a corpse. I thought it would go away on it's own, and when it didn't I called Elliot's office and begged them to take me in, which they did that same day (I'd finally called out of work). I felt so much better on the way home that I was actually singing along to the radio, and I never do that.
Things were quiet again until this past Christmas. A bottom tooth on the other side had collapsed months earlier, but it only flared up here and there, so it was manageable ... until late evening on Christmas, when it really started to hurt like a bitch. In the grand scheme of things, the pain from this one was really just an uncomfortable ache that wouldn't let me sit still, and it really wouldn't make the top ten list of the toothache pains I've suffered, but I won't downplay that it really hurt and was really annoying. That got me back to Elliot yet again. I figured with that taken care of, I might get a little break now.
Which brings me to this week. I was eating a piece of toast on Monday (a piece of freaking TOAST), and I bit down on it and heard something snap in my jaw, below the tooth, a millisecond before I felt the massive, intense pain that followed. I knew what the feeling was, having felt similar before. It was root canal kind of pain, where you can't even touch the tooth without enormous pressure squeezing your head like it's in a vice. I was at home because it was a holiday for us at Rugers, and I called that office again seeking help. No waiting for weeks this time. The pain was much too fierce. But they couldn't get me in until Thursday afternoon. Oh man. I had no choice then, I had to try and tough it out. I bombed the pain with a liberal dose of Ibuprofen and just camped out on the couch watching Friends on dvd. As rough as this pain was, I can't put it higher than 4th on the all-time list. It wasn't worse than the root canal mistake 98, or dry socket 06, or the complete destruction of January 04. But it did hurt a whole lot, and I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through three ten-hour shifts between then and that appointment.
A miracle happened and I woke up Tuesday morning feeling ok. It did flare up here and there throughout the day, but it would always recede and give me some respite. I was still taking the pills, but in smaller doses than during the dry socket incident, during which I was taking five Ibuprofen an hour, on the hour, for days, to try and kill the relentless scorching pain. I'm sure that didn't do my liver any good, but I was willing to cross that bridge when I came to it. I'd have done anything to make that horrifying pain go away. This time, though, I could keep it at bay with less.
Until yesterday. I don't know what happened. I think maybe I bit down on that tooth in my sleep, but I woke up and it was screaming bloody murder. It hurt so much it was trying to climb the list past those other incidents. It didn't, but it tried really hard. It was massive, intense, and untouchable. No amount of pills would put it down. And I went to work. What choice did I think I had? I don't have any vacation time yet. I don't go to work, I don't get paid. But I should not have been there. It was a walking disaster. I tried, though. Everyone could tell I was not myself. The lights were on, but nobody was home. I was determined to make it through the end of the order we were working on, but I was pretty sure I was leaving right after, and let Barney know. Just to be clear, they weren't dicks about it. I could have left any time. I was just trying to be a good guy and finish something.
The final straw came quick. It even hurt to talk. Anything I said vibrated that fucking tooth and made it hurt worse. Then I was saying something to Barney and my tongue sideswiped the tooth and I'm not sure how I didn't break down in tears right there on the production floor. That's when I knew. I finished the order, and just before 7:00 AM I said to Barney, "Ok, I'm throwing in the towel." And I went home with the intention of calling that office back and begging them to take me in that day. The thought of having to make it to the afternoon of the next day was unbearable. I lucked out. They could get me in at 2:30.
I killed a few hours on the couch again, watching more Friends episodes, and mercifully the tooth lightened up on me for a while. I made it to Greenfield, had the appointment, and Elliot and I continued on with the longterm plan. And again, this being on the bottom like before, it was another "river of blood" situation. I left with a large piece of gauze clenched between my teeth, blood staining all the rest, and I looked like I'd just come from the Cannibal Jamboree ... which made stopping to get gas a little more interesting than it would have been if I'd had the foresight to buy it before the appointment. But it was over with. I knew I'd be sore later, because it was a difficult appointment, but at the time with eleven shots of novacaine in me (I counted), I wasn't feeling bad at all.
The difference was apparent today at work, because I was feeling great. I was animated and funny and happy to be alive.
But I know the rest of them are laying in wait. They're all ticking time bombs waiting to attack.
I'm almost mentally ready to finish it.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Diary of a Virgo, volume 36
Every year, the Annals of Improbable Research gives out Ig Nobel Prizes to researchers whose work "cannot or should not be reproduced." Last year, awards were conferred upon chemists who managed to extract vanilla flavoring from cow manure, scientists who found that impotency drugs help hamsters to recover quickly from jet lag, and linguists who discovered that rats can't distinguish between someone speaking Dutch backward and someone speaking Japanese backward. I sincerely hope you will do nothing in the coming weeks that would resemble these efforts, Virgo. Please double-check to make sure that your considerable mental talents are engaged in tracking down out information that will be truly useful. Don't get sidetracked by trivial data, irrelevant details, and wild goose chases.
More actual, fully written posts to come soon. I promise.
It's been a bit hectic.
More actual, fully written posts to come soon. I promise.
It's been a bit hectic.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Diary of a Virgo, volume 35
"The Eskimos had 52 names for snow because it was important to them," wrote novelist Margaret Atwood. "There ought to be as many for love." Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to coin at least nine of those 52 new names between now and January 1, 2009. Of course that means you will have to discover or create nine alternate states of love that have previously been unnamed. And to do that, you'll have to put aside your habitual expectations and standard definitions of what constitutes love so that you can explore an amazing array of nuances, including varieties you never imagined existed. Start now, Virgo. Happy Valentine's Daze!
Live! From Newport! It's Stray Bullets!
We are back on the air. My other computer took a serious turn towards the useless over the past two weeks, and as it's been a burr in my backside for going on four years now, it was long past time to replace that deteriorating shitbox. And thanks to the magic of rent-to-own, the only way I was going to be able to afford anything, I have a shiny, only slightly used, computer here that I'm working with. So far, so good. The browsers respond when I try to open them, and pages load when I try to load them, and there isn't a half hour wait to get stuff to happen when it's supposed to happen. I'll call that a success.
I'm still loading in the webpages and such that I used to frequent into my favorites, and I haven't yet attempted to download the AIM program, but all good things in time. I'll be fully operational pretty soon.
As always, your patience is appreciated in advance.
Oh, and I have to figure out what to do with the 30 pound paperweight that's now sitting on my floor.
I'm still loading in the webpages and such that I used to frequent into my favorites, and I haven't yet attempted to download the AIM program, but all good things in time. I'll be fully operational pretty soon.
As always, your patience is appreciated in advance.
Oh, and I have to figure out what to do with the 30 pound paperweight that's now sitting on my floor.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Approaching the Final Frontier
Last night I finished Chapter 14, which is essentially a chapter length scene involving the three primary characters, and the introduction of a character first mentioned way back in Chapter 3. I think it all came out pretty well. There's a lot of subtle little things that have to be handled just right, and I really can't talk too much about it because it builds off of the conclusion of Season 2, and I don't know if anyone's gotten that far yet. I'm happy with it, and I think it builds on things nicely.
Which brings us to Chapter 15. Now I'm in the new newer stuff, which means it's the stuff I've gone over the least in previous rewrites, which also means it's the stuff that's the least polished. And that was proven no sooner than the first page of this chapter, which I pre-read a couple of days ago, and it was really really *really* bad. Like, so bad it was kinda discouraging. But I brooded over that for a couple days while finishing the other chapter, and I started to get ideas for how to fix it up. The structure of the scene is solid. It was just the writing that left a lot to be desired. I'm not being my self-depricating self here. It really was not up to the same standard as the work I've been doing the past few months.
However, my skills have improved a lot just over the last year or so, and I wasn't so intimidated by the badness of it that I didn't think I could find a way to make it work. And so I took a gun assembler's two best friends out of my toolbox -- a file and a big hammer -- and went to work. My approach was to keep the spine, but file everything else out of there, hammer the material a bit, and then start clean. And I think I did pretty well. The first paragraph alone, which features the first conceptual appearance of something that plays a big part later on, is frikking amazing. It's a quantum jump over how this chapter used to open. And I went on to beat the crap out of most of the first page, and it came out pretty strong.
That's good for the self-confidence.
From this point on, though, is where the heavy lifting begins. This chapter has four scenes (even though the first scene is really three parts), but I think the last scene and the 2nd to last scene need to be swapped around, and I need to crunch all of these scenes into a shorter timeframe, or else the hospital scene in the next chapter is too far out for it to really work. I might be pushing it as is. If I have all of these scenes happening over that same weekend ... it should work out.
The second scene in this chapter is the Alexis scene I mentioned a couple of posts ago, and it's one that I'm still dreading for the same reasons I mentioned then. It is, however, a fairly well written scene already, so that's a relief. There's also a Kelly and Ben at the Diner scene, which introduces a couple new faces, brings back a particular waitress, and sets a few wheels in motion. Chapters 13 and 14 threw a few monkey wrenches into the works, and Chapter 15 throws in a few more. By the end of the season, there's all kinds of good shit going on all over the place.
I didn't realize it until I paged through it a few days ago, and put this chapter into perspective next to my plans for the later seasons that only just came together over the past few weeks, but Chapter 15 -- even though it may not seem like it right now -- is extremely significant. I just can't tell you all the reasons why.
But man, that first paragraph .... tremendous.
Which brings us to Chapter 15. Now I'm in the new newer stuff, which means it's the stuff I've gone over the least in previous rewrites, which also means it's the stuff that's the least polished. And that was proven no sooner than the first page of this chapter, which I pre-read a couple of days ago, and it was really really *really* bad. Like, so bad it was kinda discouraging. But I brooded over that for a couple days while finishing the other chapter, and I started to get ideas for how to fix it up. The structure of the scene is solid. It was just the writing that left a lot to be desired. I'm not being my self-depricating self here. It really was not up to the same standard as the work I've been doing the past few months.
However, my skills have improved a lot just over the last year or so, and I wasn't so intimidated by the badness of it that I didn't think I could find a way to make it work. And so I took a gun assembler's two best friends out of my toolbox -- a file and a big hammer -- and went to work. My approach was to keep the spine, but file everything else out of there, hammer the material a bit, and then start clean. And I think I did pretty well. The first paragraph alone, which features the first conceptual appearance of something that plays a big part later on, is frikking amazing. It's a quantum jump over how this chapter used to open. And I went on to beat the crap out of most of the first page, and it came out pretty strong.
That's good for the self-confidence.
From this point on, though, is where the heavy lifting begins. This chapter has four scenes (even though the first scene is really three parts), but I think the last scene and the 2nd to last scene need to be swapped around, and I need to crunch all of these scenes into a shorter timeframe, or else the hospital scene in the next chapter is too far out for it to really work. I might be pushing it as is. If I have all of these scenes happening over that same weekend ... it should work out.
The second scene in this chapter is the Alexis scene I mentioned a couple of posts ago, and it's one that I'm still dreading for the same reasons I mentioned then. It is, however, a fairly well written scene already, so that's a relief. There's also a Kelly and Ben at the Diner scene, which introduces a couple new faces, brings back a particular waitress, and sets a few wheels in motion. Chapters 13 and 14 threw a few monkey wrenches into the works, and Chapter 15 throws in a few more. By the end of the season, there's all kinds of good shit going on all over the place.
I didn't realize it until I paged through it a few days ago, and put this chapter into perspective next to my plans for the later seasons that only just came together over the past few weeks, but Chapter 15 -- even though it may not seem like it right now -- is extremely significant. I just can't tell you all the reasons why.
But man, that first paragraph .... tremendous.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Red Skies Tonight
Sometimes with this whole destiny thing that I blather on about all the time, I start to wonder if maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see in the details. I know there's one of those fallacies of logical arguments that's something like this, but I can't remember which one it is, and I'm too lazy to rummage through my desk right now and try to find it. But you know what I mean. Something somewhat coincidental might occur, and then I'll bend it and twist it until I can find some destinial significance therein. Sometimes I start to wonder if that's in fact what I'm doing with some of the things I assign such importance to. But not today.
I found that phone number. I found it while searching through my desk for something else, and it turned out to be scrawled on the back of the envelope that my current lease agreement is stuffed in. See, I knew I wrote it somewhere where I'd have to keep it, but I guess in the past four months I never turned that envelope over, although I bet I did know where that number was written back in November when I first moved in, and just forgot in the interim.
Anyway, I found Jen's number. Almost right away, however, I remembered the reasons why I hadn't called that number when I knew where it was. I won't go into those reasons, but if you've been reading along, especially last fall, you can probably piece them together. While turning this over in my head I started my daily fight with the internet to get myself turned on and operational, with the intent of opening my e-mail and looking for a response from a particular somebody in regards to a question I'd posed the night before. The letter was there, along with some solid, good, useful advice related to the subject I was just talking about.
Now bear with me as I squeeze the significane out. The advice, from Guinevere, was in regards to Jennifer, specific to things I'd said in this blog last week. But it came today, not one half hour after finding the phone number I was searching for. Not last week, not yesterday, but today -- at the exact time when said advice would do me the most good. And she's right (she's always right). So, the point here is that Guinevere might have once again saved me from myself, and from making what might have been a fatal mistake. I don't always listen to the good advice that I get from people, but I'm not dumb enough to ignore advice from the one friend I have who is always looking out for my best interests, nor am I dumb enough to ignore the strange way in which those two things happened to converge. I know too much to avert my eyes from the evidence. What if I'd found that phone number this past weekend? Or last week? What if the letter hadn't come until tomorrow or the next day? You can call it a coincidence. I don't think so.
I know better.
I found that phone number. I found it while searching through my desk for something else, and it turned out to be scrawled on the back of the envelope that my current lease agreement is stuffed in. See, I knew I wrote it somewhere where I'd have to keep it, but I guess in the past four months I never turned that envelope over, although I bet I did know where that number was written back in November when I first moved in, and just forgot in the interim.
Anyway, I found Jen's number. Almost right away, however, I remembered the reasons why I hadn't called that number when I knew where it was. I won't go into those reasons, but if you've been reading along, especially last fall, you can probably piece them together. While turning this over in my head I started my daily fight with the internet to get myself turned on and operational, with the intent of opening my e-mail and looking for a response from a particular somebody in regards to a question I'd posed the night before. The letter was there, along with some solid, good, useful advice related to the subject I was just talking about.
Now bear with me as I squeeze the significane out. The advice, from Guinevere, was in regards to Jennifer, specific to things I'd said in this blog last week. But it came today, not one half hour after finding the phone number I was searching for. Not last week, not yesterday, but today -- at the exact time when said advice would do me the most good. And she's right (she's always right). So, the point here is that Guinevere might have once again saved me from myself, and from making what might have been a fatal mistake. I don't always listen to the good advice that I get from people, but I'm not dumb enough to ignore advice from the one friend I have who is always looking out for my best interests, nor am I dumb enough to ignore the strange way in which those two things happened to converge. I know too much to avert my eyes from the evidence. What if I'd found that phone number this past weekend? Or last week? What if the letter hadn't come until tomorrow or the next day? You can call it a coincidence. I don't think so.
I know better.
Monday, February 11, 2008
So Tired. Tired of Waiting. Tired of Waiting For You.
You'll have to excuse my recent blog non-existence, as I'm having wicked computer trouble on my end here, and I think it's about time to trade in this shitbox for something newer that isn't running on an obsolete operating system. I'm currently looking into options to do just that. So my blogging in the near future might be at a minimum. Please bear with me as I work on the situation.
There will be lots more blogging to come.
There will be lots more blogging to come.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
ZOMG. Boom.
I won't go on record here as saying that yesterday's post was among my very best, like I still believe "Darkness Descending" to be, but it was oh so satisfying. I upped the asshole quotient again today, too. I should be clear that by saying that it doesn't mean I'm going out of my way to be an asshole or anything, but instead that I'm putting myself first, being a little more selfish with my time and about what I want, and looking out for #1, which is something I almost never do, and letting the chips fall where they may. And if that gets anyone's undies in a bunch, well, SO BE IT.
Because, like I said yesterday, I have too many things to accomplish this year to waste any time being used and/or manipulated by selfish, inconsiderate idiots.
*****
I'm working my way through Chapter 14, which means that I have less than five chapters before I run out of material to rewrite, thus plunging me into the scary unknown of .... all new material. The fact that I have a plan for what happens later on only makes it marginally less scary. I think I'm about a month out from that frontier, at which point it'll be me and the notebook vs. the new material TO THE DEATH. At that point, I might be a little stressed out until I find a good groove. So please bear with me, in advance.
Season 3 looks to be an interesting creature. It picks up exactly where Season 2 leaves off, and by Chapter 18 pretty much every subplot that's running has advanced or escalated to the point of craziness. The big showdown in Chapter 18 is something I'm looking forward to getting back to. But then I have to figure out how to bring the season to the point where I think it should leave off, and that hasn't been all the way sussed out yet.
At some later point I might have to do a chapter, or at least a couple of scenes, that are Kelly-free if I'm going to get all the characters where I need them to be. I don't know how that's going to go. The benefit of staying with Kelly's perspective as much as possible (and so far, whenever I switch narrators, whoever is talking is talking right to Kelly) is that the reader only knows as much as Kelly does. The drawback is that I end up having to cover a lot of exposition where someone tells Kelly what's going on elsewhere, which I think I do well, but I don't want to overplay that hand.
I'm not sure if my idea for the character based on Jen is going to work out, if only because I don't know where to fit her into the already crowded cast of characters. I have, however, stolen an idea straight from my first date with Jen to use with another character: a high-stakes, winner takes all, best of 5 pool game between Kelly and a character I'm not naming right now (it isn't Alyssa, Gwen, or Quinn). That game did take place on our first date, almost a year ago now (wow), but the stakes were never collected. I can't really fault her for that, though, even though she didn't come through on a few other things during our six month entanglement, because .... I won. In the book, however, it's seen through to the conclusion.
I'm not totally sold on the Cowgirl thing either, but if I don't use her here, she'll definitely show up in some book sometime somewhere. Her character, like Veronica (Jen), would definitely be a scene-stealer, much like Alyssa and Gwen are right now (although, Rhonda totally steals most of Chapter 9 right away from Alyssa), and unless I find just the right thing for her to do, I'm not sure she'd be a great fit.
Season 3 also includes two of the three things that I'm the most antsy about including (the third is the blowjob at the end of Chapter one, which took balls of steel to actually put in there). One of them is a huge, major plot point that turns up in Chapters 17 and 18, and is fairly unavoidable. The other is the Alexis subplot, kicked off near the end of Season 2. It's made a lot more explicit in her scenes in upcoming chapters, and while it deals with something I've been fascinated with for as long as I can remember, it isn't something I ever discuss. Even as I write this, it makes me a little twitchy.
*****
And I'll leave you tonight with my personal pick for the hottest woman in all of comic books, Elsa Bloodstone. She's a very recent pick, and not a character I was at all familiar with before having just read the awe-inspiring Nextwave series. Not only is she exceptionally attractive, but she's goddam badass, and you know that just turns me on. As an added bonus, she's also British.
*****
See you tomorrow.
Because, like I said yesterday, I have too many things to accomplish this year to waste any time being used and/or manipulated by selfish, inconsiderate idiots.
*****
I'm working my way through Chapter 14, which means that I have less than five chapters before I run out of material to rewrite, thus plunging me into the scary unknown of .... all new material. The fact that I have a plan for what happens later on only makes it marginally less scary. I think I'm about a month out from that frontier, at which point it'll be me and the notebook vs. the new material TO THE DEATH. At that point, I might be a little stressed out until I find a good groove. So please bear with me, in advance.
Season 3 looks to be an interesting creature. It picks up exactly where Season 2 leaves off, and by Chapter 18 pretty much every subplot that's running has advanced or escalated to the point of craziness. The big showdown in Chapter 18 is something I'm looking forward to getting back to. But then I have to figure out how to bring the season to the point where I think it should leave off, and that hasn't been all the way sussed out yet.
At some later point I might have to do a chapter, or at least a couple of scenes, that are Kelly-free if I'm going to get all the characters where I need them to be. I don't know how that's going to go. The benefit of staying with Kelly's perspective as much as possible (and so far, whenever I switch narrators, whoever is talking is talking right to Kelly) is that the reader only knows as much as Kelly does. The drawback is that I end up having to cover a lot of exposition where someone tells Kelly what's going on elsewhere, which I think I do well, but I don't want to overplay that hand.
I'm not sure if my idea for the character based on Jen is going to work out, if only because I don't know where to fit her into the already crowded cast of characters. I have, however, stolen an idea straight from my first date with Jen to use with another character: a high-stakes, winner takes all, best of 5 pool game between Kelly and a character I'm not naming right now (it isn't Alyssa, Gwen, or Quinn). That game did take place on our first date, almost a year ago now (wow), but the stakes were never collected. I can't really fault her for that, though, even though she didn't come through on a few other things during our six month entanglement, because .... I won. In the book, however, it's seen through to the conclusion.
I'm not totally sold on the Cowgirl thing either, but if I don't use her here, she'll definitely show up in some book sometime somewhere. Her character, like Veronica (Jen), would definitely be a scene-stealer, much like Alyssa and Gwen are right now (although, Rhonda totally steals most of Chapter 9 right away from Alyssa), and unless I find just the right thing for her to do, I'm not sure she'd be a great fit.
Season 3 also includes two of the three things that I'm the most antsy about including (the third is the blowjob at the end of Chapter one, which took balls of steel to actually put in there). One of them is a huge, major plot point that turns up in Chapters 17 and 18, and is fairly unavoidable. The other is the Alexis subplot, kicked off near the end of Season 2. It's made a lot more explicit in her scenes in upcoming chapters, and while it deals with something I've been fascinated with for as long as I can remember, it isn't something I ever discuss. Even as I write this, it makes me a little twitchy.
*****
And I'll leave you tonight with my personal pick for the hottest woman in all of comic books, Elsa Bloodstone. She's a very recent pick, and not a character I was at all familiar with before having just read the awe-inspiring Nextwave series. Not only is she exceptionally attractive, but she's goddam badass, and you know that just turns me on. As an added bonus, she's also British.
*****
See you tomorrow.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Somewhere Out On That Horizon
I don't have any kind of unifying theme for this here post, nor do I have any weird, interesting, or funny pictures that will compliment whatever I'm talking about, so instead I'm going to have to just shoot around and see what sticks to the wall. I guess that means not much has happened since my last post.
My stake-outs at the gas station have turned up no Jennifer as of yet. It's still my best lead, though, so I'm going to try try again. If this doesn't pan out I'll have to resort to other tactics. The good thing about being me is that not only am I persistent, but I always have a Plan B ... and sometimes a C, D, and E if necessary.
Meanwhile, I haven't yet proven my theory vis-a-vis Amy yet, but I still believe I'm right about it. As such, I'm acting as though the theory is correct until proven otherwise. And the first part of that is the implementation of the Funari Principle, by which I've backed off about as far as I can possibly back off while still remaining somewhat in sight. I'm remaining pleasant still, but I've otherwise pulled back. And while I believe the theory to be true, I'm also not going to make myself available to the two of them for those drives up the mountain to pick up Allison, and Cooter is going to have to get off his lazy ass and do it himself.
That would be fine with me anyway, because the boy does piss me off. Nothing specific; just on general principle. I've always looked at my doing this as doing Amy a favor anyway. If I thought of it as taking time from my busy schedule to do this so that Cooter could lounge around on his fat, lazy ass ... my head would explode. Besides, I really like Amy and I enjoyed her company. However, if I'm right about what I think I'm right about, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for me to be there anyway, since it's just her and me heading out there. I'm awkward enough around girls I kinda like as it is without some stupid tension making it worse. And I kinda like her a lot, as you know.
And today I more or less ditched them, too. Cooter mentioned that Amy wanted to go back to Lebanon, specifically Newbury Comics, and I mentioned that I had a reason to head out there myself (to replace Veronica Mars season 3), so they could come along if they wanted. And that led to him talking to her on break and whatnot, and they were doing the typical couple thing and I never really got a straight answer. The closest I got was him telling me that she said it was up to him. Then at the end of the day he was in a snit because Jim pissed him off (which was my fault, btw), and he blew out of there and went home. So I came home, and since nobody had given me a straight answer I just took off for Leb on my own.
I was going to be kind of dickish about it anyway. Last time, I went over to Claremont and picked them up, and then dropped them back off after. This time I was going to tell them to meet me here by such and such a time and then we'd go. Why? Claremont is out of my way for the Lebanon excursion. It adds about 20 miles to the trip, and that's just on the picking them up side. Screw that. They want to tag along? They can show up here. I don't think Cooter would have been too keen on that suggestion, but you know what? Too bad. It isn't like he does me any favors at all. By the by, I never ever ask for any gas money for all those times I show up and run Amy up the mountain either. I'm not that mercenary. And none is ever offered either. If someone were helping me out like that? I'd pay them up front, whether they asked for money or not. But that's me. But he's to blame there. I'd do it for Amy either way for free.
To tell the truth, I wasn't much in the mood to listen to their Amazing Bickermans routine all afternoon either (as amusing as it often is). I was fine with the relative peace and quiet, while blasting Kittie at full volume. I went, did my business, lingered in Borders a bit, and came on home.
Besides, he just blew out of work without a word. Hey, asshole! Do you want to go or not? What am I supposed to do? Chase him down? Screw that, too. I'm not his babysitter. I have to put up with carrying his dead ass for 10 hours during the workday (although, that's coming to an end, too), and I'm not doing it after work, when my time is so much more valuable (I could think of it like this: any time I spend babysitting him is time away from my book). He's a big boy. He can take care of himself. Meanwhile, I have other fish to fry.
Oh, what about that part where the snit was all my fault? Ok. I'll tell you. Sometimes in Mini-14 Cooter is the square peg that doesn't fit into the round holes with the rest of us. All the rest of us, misfits though we are, can work as a team, and that's something Cooter isn't all that great at. And he has a big, ornery mouth, and he likes to run it, run it, run it. So there was this gun he couldn't get to work, and he got Jim to look at it for him, but he kept running, running, running his big, fat mouth at Jim. Sometimes Jim picks at him, and Cooter always takes the bait and gets really fired up (not unlike how Krysten and me used to get along at FMC), and this was one of those times.
So Cooter was being belligerent, but Jim was looking at that gun anyway. I was watching all this and said, "So, you're helping Cooter out, and he's treating you like shit?" And Jim stopped, looked at me, said "You're right", put the gun down, told Cooter to go fuck himself, and went back to what he was doing ... which set off another ten minute battle between the two of them. And, even though Cooter was flying off at the mouth, it was pretty much all my fault. He was still pissy at Jim, and everyone else, when we left. Oh well.
We were standing around at the end of the day, and Cooter was still yap yap yapping to me about Jim, and I made it a point not to ask about the Lebanon thing, and normally I would have, because that's what I have to do ... I have to stay on his ass and walk him through the whole thing. "So, are you going or what?" "So, how are we doing this?" and so forth. Not this time. If he was going, he had to tell me. And if Amy needs me for the Allison thing, SHE needs to ask me. Not Cooter. Amy does. Otherwise, I'll be unavailable. Because he annoys me and she's a sweetie.
A few weeks ago Jim was giving Christy a hard time about something, and she reminded him about his New Year's resolution to "try to be less of an asshole". Only hearing half of what was going on, I asked him about it. And I replied, "That kind of fits in with my New Year's resolution." "What's that?" Jim asked. And now everybody was listening. "To be MORE of an asshole."
Christy says I need to be meaner anyway, especially to Cooter. She doesn't really like him. She likes me. She's kind of my little buddy, and has been looking out for me from the first day. I'd read more into that, but I don't think there's more to read into it outside of what would be wishful thinking on my part.
Yeah, so either way I wasn't going to Claremont today to pick them up. That's stupid. I'll make unnecessary, out of the way, trips to Claremont to flirt with the nice young miss who works at the Dunkin Donuts inside Wal-Mart, but that's a horse of another color. I'm doing that purely for my own benefit.
I have to make one last trip to Leb at some point to close my Bank of America accounts (Yay!), and the same parameters apply to that trip. If they come along, they'll have to show up. And they'll have to show up quick, too. I have to make it there before 5, and with me getting out of work at 3:50, that's pretty tight. And once I accomplish that task, I no longer *have* to go to Lebanon for any reason whatsoever.
So that asshole thing? It started as a joke, but it might just work out ok. I hate being taken for granted and I hate being taken advantage of. And just to show that I am somewhat self-aware here, the thing from a couple weeks ago that went on between me and Amy is absolutely a factor in this attitude. I had an opportunity and I blew it and I know it and that sucks. I'm taking whatever bitter taste was left in my mouth and using it for my own advantage.
I just have too many other fish to fry.
My stake-outs at the gas station have turned up no Jennifer as of yet. It's still my best lead, though, so I'm going to try try again. If this doesn't pan out I'll have to resort to other tactics. The good thing about being me is that not only am I persistent, but I always have a Plan B ... and sometimes a C, D, and E if necessary.
Meanwhile, I haven't yet proven my theory vis-a-vis Amy yet, but I still believe I'm right about it. As such, I'm acting as though the theory is correct until proven otherwise. And the first part of that is the implementation of the Funari Principle, by which I've backed off about as far as I can possibly back off while still remaining somewhat in sight. I'm remaining pleasant still, but I've otherwise pulled back. And while I believe the theory to be true, I'm also not going to make myself available to the two of them for those drives up the mountain to pick up Allison, and Cooter is going to have to get off his lazy ass and do it himself.
That would be fine with me anyway, because the boy does piss me off. Nothing specific; just on general principle. I've always looked at my doing this as doing Amy a favor anyway. If I thought of it as taking time from my busy schedule to do this so that Cooter could lounge around on his fat, lazy ass ... my head would explode. Besides, I really like Amy and I enjoyed her company. However, if I'm right about what I think I'm right about, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for me to be there anyway, since it's just her and me heading out there. I'm awkward enough around girls I kinda like as it is without some stupid tension making it worse. And I kinda like her a lot, as you know.
And today I more or less ditched them, too. Cooter mentioned that Amy wanted to go back to Lebanon, specifically Newbury Comics, and I mentioned that I had a reason to head out there myself (to replace Veronica Mars season 3), so they could come along if they wanted. And that led to him talking to her on break and whatnot, and they were doing the typical couple thing and I never really got a straight answer. The closest I got was him telling me that she said it was up to him. Then at the end of the day he was in a snit because Jim pissed him off (which was my fault, btw), and he blew out of there and went home. So I came home, and since nobody had given me a straight answer I just took off for Leb on my own.
I was going to be kind of dickish about it anyway. Last time, I went over to Claremont and picked them up, and then dropped them back off after. This time I was going to tell them to meet me here by such and such a time and then we'd go. Why? Claremont is out of my way for the Lebanon excursion. It adds about 20 miles to the trip, and that's just on the picking them up side. Screw that. They want to tag along? They can show up here. I don't think Cooter would have been too keen on that suggestion, but you know what? Too bad. It isn't like he does me any favors at all. By the by, I never ever ask for any gas money for all those times I show up and run Amy up the mountain either. I'm not that mercenary. And none is ever offered either. If someone were helping me out like that? I'd pay them up front, whether they asked for money or not. But that's me. But he's to blame there. I'd do it for Amy either way for free.
To tell the truth, I wasn't much in the mood to listen to their Amazing Bickermans routine all afternoon either (as amusing as it often is). I was fine with the relative peace and quiet, while blasting Kittie at full volume. I went, did my business, lingered in Borders a bit, and came on home.
Besides, he just blew out of work without a word. Hey, asshole! Do you want to go or not? What am I supposed to do? Chase him down? Screw that, too. I'm not his babysitter. I have to put up with carrying his dead ass for 10 hours during the workday (although, that's coming to an end, too), and I'm not doing it after work, when my time is so much more valuable (I could think of it like this: any time I spend babysitting him is time away from my book). He's a big boy. He can take care of himself. Meanwhile, I have other fish to fry.
Oh, what about that part where the snit was all my fault? Ok. I'll tell you. Sometimes in Mini-14 Cooter is the square peg that doesn't fit into the round holes with the rest of us. All the rest of us, misfits though we are, can work as a team, and that's something Cooter isn't all that great at. And he has a big, ornery mouth, and he likes to run it, run it, run it. So there was this gun he couldn't get to work, and he got Jim to look at it for him, but he kept running, running, running his big, fat mouth at Jim. Sometimes Jim picks at him, and Cooter always takes the bait and gets really fired up (not unlike how Krysten and me used to get along at FMC), and this was one of those times.
So Cooter was being belligerent, but Jim was looking at that gun anyway. I was watching all this and said, "So, you're helping Cooter out, and he's treating you like shit?" And Jim stopped, looked at me, said "You're right", put the gun down, told Cooter to go fuck himself, and went back to what he was doing ... which set off another ten minute battle between the two of them. And, even though Cooter was flying off at the mouth, it was pretty much all my fault. He was still pissy at Jim, and everyone else, when we left. Oh well.
We were standing around at the end of the day, and Cooter was still yap yap yapping to me about Jim, and I made it a point not to ask about the Lebanon thing, and normally I would have, because that's what I have to do ... I have to stay on his ass and walk him through the whole thing. "So, are you going or what?" "So, how are we doing this?" and so forth. Not this time. If he was going, he had to tell me. And if Amy needs me for the Allison thing, SHE needs to ask me. Not Cooter. Amy does. Otherwise, I'll be unavailable. Because he annoys me and she's a sweetie.
A few weeks ago Jim was giving Christy a hard time about something, and she reminded him about his New Year's resolution to "try to be less of an asshole". Only hearing half of what was going on, I asked him about it. And I replied, "That kind of fits in with my New Year's resolution." "What's that?" Jim asked. And now everybody was listening. "To be MORE of an asshole."
Christy says I need to be meaner anyway, especially to Cooter. She doesn't really like him. She likes me. She's kind of my little buddy, and has been looking out for me from the first day. I'd read more into that, but I don't think there's more to read into it outside of what would be wishful thinking on my part.
Yeah, so either way I wasn't going to Claremont today to pick them up. That's stupid. I'll make unnecessary, out of the way, trips to Claremont to flirt with the nice young miss who works at the Dunkin Donuts inside Wal-Mart, but that's a horse of another color. I'm doing that purely for my own benefit.
I have to make one last trip to Leb at some point to close my Bank of America accounts (Yay!), and the same parameters apply to that trip. If they come along, they'll have to show up. And they'll have to show up quick, too. I have to make it there before 5, and with me getting out of work at 3:50, that's pretty tight. And once I accomplish that task, I no longer *have* to go to Lebanon for any reason whatsoever.
So that asshole thing? It started as a joke, but it might just work out ok. I hate being taken for granted and I hate being taken advantage of. And just to show that I am somewhat self-aware here, the thing from a couple weeks ago that went on between me and Amy is absolutely a factor in this attitude. I had an opportunity and I blew it and I know it and that sucks. I'm taking whatever bitter taste was left in my mouth and using it for my own advantage.
I just have too many other fish to fry.
Diary of a Virgo, volume 34
"Success means controlling your own time," observed actor Rod Steiger. "If you gain control over 60 percent of the time in your life, you are really successful." In 2008, Virgo, you will have far more power than you've had before to fulfill this definition of success. And right now you happen to be in a phase of your astrological cycle when your hard work toward this goal will have maximum impact. The ironic fact of the matter is that it's an ideal time to slave away in behalf of greater freedom.
Strangely enough, I started on this today. And to implement it, I had to be kind of a prick-slash-asshole. And it felt pretty good.
Strangely enough, I started on this today. And to implement it, I had to be kind of a prick-slash-asshole. And it felt pretty good.
Monday, February 04, 2008
There's Something About Emilys
I knew it would happen. After spending a week on that sugar high brought on by the epiphany, I knew I'd eventually crash. And I did. That was Friday night, and it continued on through Saturday into yesterday, but now I'm fine. I just have to ride these things out. Early yesterday morning was probably the worst of it, and I felt alone, unloved, out of sorts, depressed, unorganized, forgotten, ignored, used up, and thrown away.
But I feel better now.
Also, it tends to happen just after printing out a "season", too. I don't know why, but it happens.
*****
I had a near encounter with Jen on Friday night. As I mentioned, I've spotted her in the area several times recently, so I've kept an eye out for her car so as to ascertain any clues to her possible whereabouts. Seeing as she was supposed to vanish into the wild blue yonder four months ago (it seems like longer), I'm curious to see where she landed somewhere nearby. And she is around. I'm sure of it.
Friday night was some crappy weather, so I decided not to go very far. I figured I'd pick up a chocolate milk for the morning, so I didn't have to stop on my way to work, and the place I go is only about a mile away. But they didn't have any. So I was headed back home and suddenly I was overcome with the urge to stop at the Shell convenience store, a store I've *never* stopped at before. But I was compelled to stop there.
And there she was. If I'd driven by I'd never have seen her, or if I'd been a minute later or a minute earlier, too. As it was, I just barely caught a glimpse. But it was definitely her. It was her and it was her car, and she was with someone. It was an older guy. I don't mean older like me, I mean older older. Like grandfather older. They got in her car and they took off, and he was driving. I didn't quite catch which way they headed, but I think it was the same way I saw her turn the last time: towards Keene.
Now, it's possible this old guy is who she's shacked up with, but I doubt it. I know she likes older guys, but this is a bit of a stretch. I wouldn't rule it out, because it is Jennifer, but I think it's a longshot. I think it's a co-worker. She likes second shift, and it's very possible she was on her lunch break. And, I think he was driving because she doesn't like driving in shitty weather, and it was pretty shitty out that night. So, I think she's working somewhere close by -- close enough so that this gas station is within reach of a lunch break. And it stands to reason she's living nearby somewhere, too. I have no idea where.
But now I have an idea where to look for her: that gas station, somewhere around 7:00 PM.
She might not want to talk to me now, thinking I've blown her off all this time (which is only half true), and she might tell me to go to hell.
But at least I'll know one way or the other.
*****
Meanwhile, I get the feeling that I'm starting to fall off of Amy's radar. I don't have a lot of tangible evidence to go by here, but sometimes I get a certain Spider-sense about it. We can call it virgo intuition, if you want. But I think I've fallen out of favor somewhat.
She's been very quiet. I used to get messages up the ass from her via Myspace, but I haven't heard a peep in about a week. That's the only real evidence; everything else is circumstantial and suspect. But I think being rebuffed has put her off a bit.
Saturday night was her birthday, and I'd given her a rain check she can cash in anytime to do pretty much anything (she can still cash it in if she wants), but I didn't hear a thing from either of them all day. Yesterday they each tried to call me to see if I'd go over and run Allison back up the mountain for them, but I made myself unavailable. Sometimes when people only call me when they want something, I can get in a bit of a snit about it, and I wasn't in the best of moods yesterday anyway. So I ducked those calls.
Turns out Cooter didn't do anything for her birthday. Not a thing. And he seemed irritated that she was irritated by that. When he told me that I was a little irritated on her behalf. Come on. That's your JOB. You're the boyfriend, after all. Doing something for your girlfriend's birthday is just a job requisite. There was a little while this morning where I questioned some of the decisions I've made recently, too. Why am I still alone when knuckleheads like Cooter get to hang around with a cool girl like Amy? I don't know.
Now, if I have fallen out of favor, I can live with that. I did make the decision that led here, and I know it. It's kind of a bummer, but I can deal. I'm tough.
If this is the sum total of Amy's influence within the Wheel of Destiny, she's left with with two things:
1) The epiphany that led me to sussing out the rest of the book.
2) Proof that interesting, attractive girls can still be interested in me.
And that's not bad.
*****
If I were somehow able to tap into Warren Meers's Buffybot technology and build myself a lifelike, robotic girlfriend, I'd probably create Emily:
No, I don't know who she really is either.
Emily was created to be the perfect girl, plain and simple. She was designed to be the perfect best friend for Jillian, and then the perfect girlfriend for Libby. And she was a success on both counts. Of course, when she was designed as 50% Erin and 50% Samantha there's almost no way that could fail. Those are, after all, the #1 and #2 most well-regarded girlfriends on my resume (for reference, Jen is like #6), even though Em took on dimensions all her own over the years. That'll happen. Some characters end up writing themselves.
She came from a troubled past, but overcame it, and in the end was probably the strongest of the entire six girl NHG (New Hampshire Girl) collective. She has inner strength you wouldn't believe. Libby might be the toughest, but Emily is the strongest. She has endless patience, even with people on the internet that Libby was *pissed* at. Emily still tried to hear them out and understand their side of the story. And when you stop and think that I was performing both characters, that's kind of amazing. I was just trying to be true to the character as I saw her.
Emily was always tolerant of all of Libby's vices and foibles, but was the one person who would take absolutely no shit from Lib, and was the one person who could tell Lib she was being a jerk and get away with it. That's kind of the thing I need myself, which is probably why Emily developed along these lines.
I could certainly do worse.
*****
And to wrap up, for the first time since the summer of 2002, the mighty Erica Campbell, often referrred to in the Joyride as "God's perfect creation", has fallen from the #1 spot on my list of hot internet girls
to be supplanted by Miss Emily Addison.
All hail Emily Addison.
*****
I know, that was gratuitous.
But I feel better now.
Also, it tends to happen just after printing out a "season", too. I don't know why, but it happens.
*****
I had a near encounter with Jen on Friday night. As I mentioned, I've spotted her in the area several times recently, so I've kept an eye out for her car so as to ascertain any clues to her possible whereabouts. Seeing as she was supposed to vanish into the wild blue yonder four months ago (it seems like longer), I'm curious to see where she landed somewhere nearby. And she is around. I'm sure of it.
Friday night was some crappy weather, so I decided not to go very far. I figured I'd pick up a chocolate milk for the morning, so I didn't have to stop on my way to work, and the place I go is only about a mile away. But they didn't have any. So I was headed back home and suddenly I was overcome with the urge to stop at the Shell convenience store, a store I've *never* stopped at before. But I was compelled to stop there.
And there she was. If I'd driven by I'd never have seen her, or if I'd been a minute later or a minute earlier, too. As it was, I just barely caught a glimpse. But it was definitely her. It was her and it was her car, and she was with someone. It was an older guy. I don't mean older like me, I mean older older. Like grandfather older. They got in her car and they took off, and he was driving. I didn't quite catch which way they headed, but I think it was the same way I saw her turn the last time: towards Keene.
Now, it's possible this old guy is who she's shacked up with, but I doubt it. I know she likes older guys, but this is a bit of a stretch. I wouldn't rule it out, because it is Jennifer, but I think it's a longshot. I think it's a co-worker. She likes second shift, and it's very possible she was on her lunch break. And, I think he was driving because she doesn't like driving in shitty weather, and it was pretty shitty out that night. So, I think she's working somewhere close by -- close enough so that this gas station is within reach of a lunch break. And it stands to reason she's living nearby somewhere, too. I have no idea where.
But now I have an idea where to look for her: that gas station, somewhere around 7:00 PM.
She might not want to talk to me now, thinking I've blown her off all this time (which is only half true), and she might tell me to go to hell.
But at least I'll know one way or the other.
*****
Meanwhile, I get the feeling that I'm starting to fall off of Amy's radar. I don't have a lot of tangible evidence to go by here, but sometimes I get a certain Spider-sense about it. We can call it virgo intuition, if you want. But I think I've fallen out of favor somewhat.
She's been very quiet. I used to get messages up the ass from her via Myspace, but I haven't heard a peep in about a week. That's the only real evidence; everything else is circumstantial and suspect. But I think being rebuffed has put her off a bit.
Saturday night was her birthday, and I'd given her a rain check she can cash in anytime to do pretty much anything (she can still cash it in if she wants), but I didn't hear a thing from either of them all day. Yesterday they each tried to call me to see if I'd go over and run Allison back up the mountain for them, but I made myself unavailable. Sometimes when people only call me when they want something, I can get in a bit of a snit about it, and I wasn't in the best of moods yesterday anyway. So I ducked those calls.
Turns out Cooter didn't do anything for her birthday. Not a thing. And he seemed irritated that she was irritated by that. When he told me that I was a little irritated on her behalf. Come on. That's your JOB. You're the boyfriend, after all. Doing something for your girlfriend's birthday is just a job requisite. There was a little while this morning where I questioned some of the decisions I've made recently, too. Why am I still alone when knuckleheads like Cooter get to hang around with a cool girl like Amy? I don't know.
Now, if I have fallen out of favor, I can live with that. I did make the decision that led here, and I know it. It's kind of a bummer, but I can deal. I'm tough.
If this is the sum total of Amy's influence within the Wheel of Destiny, she's left with with two things:
1) The epiphany that led me to sussing out the rest of the book.
2) Proof that interesting, attractive girls can still be interested in me.
And that's not bad.
*****
If I were somehow able to tap into Warren Meers's Buffybot technology and build myself a lifelike, robotic girlfriend, I'd probably create Emily:
No, I don't know who she really is either.
Emily was created to be the perfect girl, plain and simple. She was designed to be the perfect best friend for Jillian, and then the perfect girlfriend for Libby. And she was a success on both counts. Of course, when she was designed as 50% Erin and 50% Samantha there's almost no way that could fail. Those are, after all, the #1 and #2 most well-regarded girlfriends on my resume (for reference, Jen is like #6), even though Em took on dimensions all her own over the years. That'll happen. Some characters end up writing themselves.
She came from a troubled past, but overcame it, and in the end was probably the strongest of the entire six girl NHG (New Hampshire Girl) collective. She has inner strength you wouldn't believe. Libby might be the toughest, but Emily is the strongest. She has endless patience, even with people on the internet that Libby was *pissed* at. Emily still tried to hear them out and understand their side of the story. And when you stop and think that I was performing both characters, that's kind of amazing. I was just trying to be true to the character as I saw her.
Emily was always tolerant of all of Libby's vices and foibles, but was the one person who would take absolutely no shit from Lib, and was the one person who could tell Lib she was being a jerk and get away with it. That's kind of the thing I need myself, which is probably why Emily developed along these lines.
I could certainly do worse.
*****
And to wrap up, for the first time since the summer of 2002, the mighty Erica Campbell, often referrred to in the Joyride as "God's perfect creation", has fallen from the #1 spot on my list of hot internet girls
to be supplanted by Miss Emily Addison.
All hail Emily Addison.
*****
I know, that was gratuitous.
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