Imaginary Friends

Hi there.

I had a good day today (not that it's over, but so far, I mean). Still riding high from last night's acceptance. Last night I wrote a thousand words to finish "Meranhu's Gifts," total of 7,000 words. I think it'll shrink a bit in revision… I'm pleased with it, now. We'll see how I feel about it later.

Tonight I made some little changes on "Fallen," at the editor's request. Also got a rejection from The Urbanite, but that's okay-- it was a longshot anyway. I'm running out of markets for the story they rejected.

I've been really up-and-down this week, pingponging between happy productivity and depression. Every morning I consult my inner barometer to see how the emotional weather's doing, knowing that my mood has little or no bearing on anything external.

Well, that's not totally true. It has been a lonely week. Except for a couple of brief exchanges, I don't think I've talked to anyone who wasn't a co-worker or, you know, selling me food. Scott's sick, Lynne's taking care of him and busy with work (though she's been lovely the few times I've gotten to talk to her). That about does it for easy-to-access friends. I'm going a little stir crazy, though I'm certainly getting a lot of writing done. Every cloud has and et cetera.

Today I lurked on the alt.polyamory newsgroup… read through some of Mary Anne's journal archives (lots of good stuff, including good recipes)… read some short stories. I watched Friends. Matthew Perry's much less fat this season. I hope that's not indicative of some consumptive drug addiction… but then, he doesn't look as strung out as he once did, either. And my adoration for Lisa Kudrow continues unabated. Though I wish she'd get more roles in good movies. Not a terribly productive day, but satisfying. I'm eating chips now. I eat when I'm bored… it's very bad for me. I'm gonna balloon up like a puffer fish… but, hey, as of next week it's officially the holidays, right? I'm allowed to stuff myself during the holidays. I'm just getting myself pre-acclimated to over-consumption…

Tonight I did another "beginnings" exercise, like the one I posted before (one of those beginnings led directly to "Meranhu's Gifts," by the way). For your pleasure (or amusement), here are some of the less terrible ones from tonight:

My father's house had batwing doors, like an old-time saloon, and a player piano in the front room, and shiny mahogany bar. I made love for the first time under the staircase there, and lost my best friend in a storm of bullets and blood. I grew up in that wonderful, terrible place.

Ghosts lived in the bracken beside the house, lying deliquescent in the ditch, subsisting on grubs and snails and bitter fantasies.

I felt better in the long black coat, with the ax handle in my hand. I felt like the Last Lord of Destruction.

Then I met Lizette, and found myself and all my fury smashed apart.

He'd built up his image bit by bit-- the leathers, the cracked goggles, the glass beads. He creaked when he walked, he jingled, and if I hadn't known him in the days when you could still see his face, I would have had trouble believing there was a man under there at all.

Sometimes I think that if I can just learn the right thing-- how to speak Mandarin, or choose the proper wine, or make my own candles-- everything will open up, and I'll be at ease, and love will find me.

Here I am, camped out on the spine of a dead giant, scraping the frost from my friend's corpse, afraid to weep because the tears will freeze my face into a mask.

I only ever wanted invisibility, and the power to pass through walls. I wanted to be the ultimate voyeur. Instead I have this active power; instead, I can bring the walls down, and go where I wish, and make demands, and refuse to be moved. It is irresistible; it is all wrong.

And to think it started on a Greyhound bus, between St. Louis and San Francisco.

She was a woman unfolded, having made her life into an origami rose, exquisite and delicate and too perfect to endure. Her destruction began with a letter she found on her doorstep, a rough brown envelope sealed with a dollop of green wax. She broke it open with her fingernail.

Sandra came into the bar like a beribboned tornado, her crystal blue eyes wide, her pupils dilated. "You have to come see," she said, breathing her mint-and-ginseng exhalation into my face.

"The band starts in half an hour," I said, only half-resisting, already lost.

"Plenty of time," she said, tugging my arm. "I just met a dying spirit by the War Memorial, and she asked for you especially."

That's all. Show's over. Nothing more to see here.