Casual Friday: Story No. 5

I had been with the company for several years before realizing that the boss had a lazy eye. How could this happen? After all it had been literally staring me in the face for all that time, or at least one of the eyes had and one of the eyes hadn't. And yet I remained oblivious.

This oversight on my part would come back to haunt me in the specter of puns lacking both intention and taste.

Paddy used to say that the misdirection of my deeds were the worst part. I had the heart, the pluck, the follow-through, but the direction? Paddy would just scratch at a spot on her head, invisible for all her orange fluffy coif, and she would say, "Betty, you're a piece of work--and an oddball one at that!"

Fantastical Interlude: Story No. 4

A giant tentacle of foliage burst through the wall in an explosion of white plaster and pink insulation. Beige paint chips rained down upon the startled humans who staggered back in crouched defense. A massive trunk the size of a small tree curled up toward the ceiling of the opposite wall. The tip of the vine quivered and dodged as it explored the retaining space, looking for the Achilles' heal that would allow it to continue its path of architectural destruction. Even the offshooting leaves were sentient, twitching, alert. It appeared to the humans who caught tentative glimpses over the tops of their file folder shields, that they were being investigated by a giant serpentine office plant with squiggly leaves for scales.

Dead Man Walking: Story No. 3

My boss rounded the corner with his usual air of piercing self-satisfaction. I quickly slipped my hands out of my pockets so that they could assume the swing of the strident. Out of sheer instinct, my mind instantly cleared, my guts steeled, my breath quickened in preparation for the coming face off.

The hall wasn't big enough for the both of us. It would have to be him or me, and it wasn't going to be me.

Halltalks: Story No. 2

I slipped into the hallway for the eighth time in what had threatened to become an interminable 3 hours, wondering whether I'd make it to lunch without imploding in a puff of polyester and sawdust. With a sidelong glance at the "overhead light sensors" (aka "slave monitors") hanging derisively at regular intervals down the length of the hallway's popcorn ceiling, I felt behind me to make sure my shirt was well-tucked and no belt slippage would provide fair grounds for ritual ostracization and commensurate dismissal.

A person in my position, can never be too careful. Even the likes of Janet Jackson, mistress of pop, diva of dance, are susceptible to the disastrous effects of wardrobe malfunction. What's a stealth-mode operative like me to do when faced with the choice between the safety of the mission and the aggravation of relentless re-tucking?

I grabbed my collar by the sides, smoothed it along and gave it a tug for good measure.

Fabula Rasa: Story No.1

It was a dark and rainy day. My beige-walled cubicle was clammy with recycled air pumping in from the ventilation duct overhead. Despite torrents of rain falling on the other side of the window pane, ever-increasing humidity emitting from the air conditioning unit, and no less than three beverage varieties sitting on my desk in anticipatory hydration, my mouth was drier than the most pretentious of martinis. Bone dry.

I kept slorking water from the soggy waxed paper cup left over from this morning's dash through the gas station near the freeway exit for a breakfast of sugar and caffeinated concessions. No amount of liquid would satiate my thirst.

If swishing a half-shot of vermouth around, dentist's office style, and spitting it out into my tiny office-issue trash can without smelling like happy hour had been a viable option, I would have done it. Between the Superantioxidance Vitanutritorganic Smoothie, the Big Gulp filled with water, and the lukewarm coffee leftover from the morning, all I was getting was an aggressively energetic need to walk down the hall to the restrooms every hour, parched no less.

A Story A Day

New year, old fear: I will continue tripping down a path of mediocrity, never contributing significantly to the beauty of the universe and therefore failing to justify the continued energy expenditure on behalf of the conglomeration of atoms in which I reside.

In November 2007, I attempted my first nanowrimo novel: Marshmallow Macabre. I got through about 8,000 words in 30 days. Though a far cry from the 50,000 required to win, that's the longest story I've ever written. I self-deprecate. Yes, but I realize that building the kind of stamina I want will take practice. And so, on recommendation from a friend who knows best, I'm embarking on "A Story A Day" starting tomorrow.

The Rules
(as they currently stand)

1. Every day, I must write one story.
2. The story must be posted/linked in this blog.
   
3. There are no length/genre requirements.
4. Stories may be contiguous to stories from previous days.
   
5. There are no acceptable excuses for not writing a story.
6. No end date has been established at this point.
7. Some, but not all, of these rules are subject to change.

Unlike my approach to nanowrimo-ing, I see this primarily as an exercise in time management and discipline, as much as the actual storytelling. That said, I'm now 15 minutes past bedtime and too full of internet gobbledy-gook to continue any further examination of this endeavor. So, if you happen to find yourself tuned, please do stay that way for tomorrow's daring, outlandish, scathingly accurate, and even presumptuously precipitous: "Story No. 1!"

Scifi Channel's The Tin Man

I'm really looking forward to SciFi Channel's The Tin Man, coming soon to a basic cable packaged television near you. Personally, I'm going to try rigging the set in my Boise corporate apartment to record it for me as I'll be teaching and then back in SF on the days of the first airing. Of course, past experience with attempting to get VCRs to record leads me to really bank on SciFi airing this miniseries again on days when I will be around.

What is so compelling about Dorothy Gail's story? Is it the metaphor of the tornado? Is it the reinterpretation of the real world in terms of fantasy that we understand on a deeper level? Is it the framing of the stories and the wizard himself? I completely geeked out over the website for The Tin Man which literally dives into the Russian doll framing of the story-within-a-story, world-within-a-world. I recommend using the lever on the upper left corner to go full speed and then reverse it all!

I also HIGHLY and capitally recommend Geoff Ryman's novel WAS for a wonderful explosion of the entire world of OZ and L Frank Baum's novel and the Hollywood version and the effects of it on people in a "real" world and a very different perspective of what Dorothy's life might have been like. If you know Kansas you might also really enjoy this as Ryman uses excerpts from Kansas settler's dairies, memoirs, historical record to reconstruct the landscape itself. Even more than any of the sort of straight versions of the story, Ryman brings out that capability in all of us of letting the world get ripped to shreds in our pursuit of the magic, safety, or just plain quiet that might await us in the eye of the tornado.