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Post by ReadyToBake on Aug 4, 2004 13:23:43 GMT -5
Okay, so the little pot stirring smilie guy is here as an option, but I still don't remember putting him on my previous post in this thread. hmmm, could it be a goblin
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Post by tjaman on Aug 4, 2004 13:33:22 GMT -5
It used to be a little crying face. This is obviously a "having-gotten-past-the-crying-stage-I-am-ready-to-kick-some-bottom" smiley.
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Post by Insane Troll Logic on Aug 5, 2004 7:50:21 GMT -5
Yeah, I replaced the crylie with the stirlie - I would put the word "raunch" on the pot, but it would be unreadable! lol
;D
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Post by Dr. Purple Goddess on Aug 5, 2004 8:00:25 GMT -5
yeah but it would add a bit of mystery to him hehe
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Post by Dr. Purple Goddess on Aug 5, 2004 8:01:50 GMT -5
oh btw ITL are you gunna replace any of the other smileys? I kinda hope so. Makes it more fun ;D
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Post by Insane Troll Logic on Aug 5, 2004 8:03:30 GMT -5
Yup, I think I might do - the one B'man suggested will get added soon.
;D
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Post by Dr. Purple Goddess on Aug 5, 2004 8:08:49 GMT -5
[glow=Yellow,2,300]SWEET!![/glow]
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Post by tjaman on Aug 7, 2004 10:45:55 GMT -5
From "Where Was I?" this is Pauls' repressed memory from the night of his father's murder, when he was 3, manifesting as a dream:
In dark uncertain dreams I stood unsteady on a terrace of wind and white columns. A storm raged dark and alive, an angry orange moon glared at me, the rain cold and soaking me through as the chill wind found my bones. The ripping wind lashed ‘round me as strobic lightning surprised the desolate front yard into shocked relief.
I turned and ran all through the house searching, searching for my father. I knew he was there, and I thought I heard him calling beneath another voice, a woman’s, yelling at me to turn back. I ran through a strange passageway that I both knew and did not know at exactly the same time. A door closed to bar the way upstairs, but since I was running through empty bedrooms and upstairs hallways, I must have gotten there somehow.
Suddenly I was in the front room. The black door to the outside flung wide open and the yard writhed in the lightning, but I didn’t look. I couldn’t look. Someone was there. I screamed and ran to the basement door. I turned the knob, I was falling, falling, falling ...
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Post by tjaman on Aug 7, 2004 10:54:56 GMT -5
... And this is the meeting with his school counselor at seminary.
After last night, I could be forgiven any amount of preoccupation. But the nightmare rankled. It was an old one, familiar. I’d not had it probably since last I was home, Christmas, and mom’s boyfriend’s kids had been creeping me out. That episode had been mild. Last night’s version had been pretty intense. When I’d crossed half the campus to the wrong building for the second time — earning a sharp look from Dr. Markau as I stumbled in two minutes into his lecture — I decided to check in with student services.
“Excuse me, Dr. Loehr?”
There was movement behind a desk piled high with the detritus of half a lifetime’s counseling students. A wrinkly gray brow with brown plastic-rimmed glasses emerged from very nearly under a pile of papers on his swing-arm desk. He’d apparently been reaching after some books which had slipped down near his feet, but his somewhat wild gray hair threatened to send another pile of paper down to join them.
“Yes? Can I help you in some way?” His voice was clipped and to the point. At least one aspect of this ancient book-lined office was geared toward efficiency.
“Your secretary seemed unsure about whether you were in,” I reached out to steady the pile of papers nearest his head as he collected the rest of his books. Classic fiction, by the bindings — Austen, Hemingway, Melville.
“She gets ... “ he coughed. The books came up with plenty of dust, and the room was pretty stale to begin with. He accepted a tissue as he recovered. “She gets a little vague this time of day. To be perfectly honest,” he leaned in confidentially. “I’m never quite sure if she’s fully in, either.”
“I needed to know if you were the person I should be talking to about ... well ...”
“Spit it out, young man,” he wiped at his mouth, and coughed again. “What do you need?”
“Last night I had a seriously bad dream.”
“Blood, gore, decapitation, a Crusade? Spontaneous castration?” He leaned in close. “Pop quiz?”
“No, nothing like that.” These were the first things that sprang lightly to mind?
“Nude in class?”
I grinned. “Nothing so cliché.”
“Oh well, then,” he leaned back in his chair, coming dangerously close to the flowering cactus on the window ledge behind him. “Tell me all about this completely unique-unto-yourself bad dream that you are having. Just — it’s actually my lunch break. Do you mind shutting the door?”
“Not at all,” I said, and turned to find him opening his window and setting a match to a cigar.
“Terrible habit, of course, but this is the only time I can smoke them,” he said. “Everyone else in the department has gotten to go to lunch.”
“Hmm.” I decided to ignore whatever accusation was implicit in these words. I settled myself in the faded seat cushion of the old wooden chair across from his desk and recounted my dream as he grabbed a yellow pad and jotted some notes, occasionally puffing his cigar.
“And it ends with you falling?” he asked.
“That’s just when I wake up,” I said. “I’m not sure how it ends.”
“What, apart from the fall, is so ... traumatic?” Dark eyes glared at me through the smoke. “I mean, what are you doing here?”
“Well, I always have a really bad sense of dread along with the dream.”
“Always?” He jotted this down. “So this is a recurring thing for you?”
“Every so often. I’ve had this feeling happen with bad dreams before,” I said. “Something I can’t see, something I can’t let myself see.”
“Intriguing,” he said. “So it’s not always this particular series of events, even?”
“Or even the same location,” I said. “It’s usually at night, and it seems to always have me falling at the end. But I can be outside in my dream. There’s usually a storm. And suddenly it’s like something is grabbing my heart and squeezing it,”
“Very interesting,” he said. “And the parasymp — I mean, how is your breathing, your heart-rate, when you wake up?”
“Last night I was sweating, and my heart was going about 90 miles an hour,” I said.
“Hmm.” he said. “You’re ... you’re new here at Iliff, yes?”
“I just started with the new term,” I said. “I came in from Atlanta, but I’m originally from Fargo.” I gave him the last five years of my life in about five minutes.
Loehr pulled in hard and let his last cloud of smoke drift toward the window as he stubbed out the stogie. He sat quietly for another minute, eyes closed, as I stared uncomfortably at the shelves lining his office. Suddenly his eyes snapped open and his raspy voice startled me from my reverie.
“So you’ve suffered a devastating breakup, an unreconciled loss of a son, on top of a lifetime growing up absent a father. You’ve undertaken an enormous shift toward what is supposed to be a more spiritual direction in your life while at the same time starting a brand new physical relationship with a person — God love you, son — whom you barely know.” He stared at me hard. “And you’re sitting here across from me wondering why you might be having a bad dream?”
God, I felt stupid. “It’s, um — it’s just been so long since I had one.”
“Look, anything I suggest is going to be colored by the fact that I’ve not had a thing to eat since last night and that cigar didn’t do a thing for my appetite.” He looked like he needed to eat something. He was all scrawn and bones. “Let’s wander over to Mustard’s and l’ll get some lunch in me and you and I can explore this bad dream.”
Mustard’s Last Stand was a deli place just off campus. He grabbed his coat from the back of his chair. “I’ll give you an initial suggestion, though, whatever it’s worth,” he said.
“Oh yes?”
“Like most students — first year or otherwise — you seem to be under a great deal of stress,” he said, shrugging his worn grey tweed jacket over thin shoulders. He peered up at me closely. “You might look at slowing things down a little bit in your personal life.”
He sighed, however, as he led me out of his tiny office. “The Vegas odds on your actually doing that, however,” he said, shaking his head — “they seem very, very slim.”
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Post by bitterman on Aug 8, 2004 7:04:56 GMT -5
The light in your eyes the sun, the moon, all the stars cuts into my soul
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Post by Dr. Purple Goddess on Aug 8, 2004 8:27:06 GMT -5
very interesting exerpt tj. I find the counselor a bit cliche' but then I suppose they get that way for a reason.
Interesting dream though. Much more poetically told than most. I think the dream is very inspired. Are you SURE you don't remember your dreams sometimes?? But then, I suppose you probably do in a fashion... they just come out in your creativity and so you probably don't even think of them as dreams.
Needless to say, I think it's very good. I'd totally read it if I weren't on my "Genre" kick these days. I've never attempted to write anything but "Genre" except in lyrics or poetry. So, I admire anyone who can write other things that are still intriguing and interesting.
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Post by tjaman on Aug 8, 2004 10:25:38 GMT -5
First and foremost, very nice haiku, b'guy. "Cuts into my soul" or "Makes me ebulgent"? Or go all Debbie Boone: "Just lights up my life" Nah, I like yours better. Actually, FP, the entire plotline for "Where Was I?" was a result of a single dream image. I didn't have the horror Paul experiences, and obviously a lot of conscious thought goes into the images and characters I needed to create, but I woke up with it all laid out in my head and felt really good about it. I probably should show it to someone sometime.
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Post by bitterman on Aug 8, 2004 10:34:49 GMT -5
First and foremost, very nice haiku, b'guy. "Cuts into my soul" or "Makes me ebulgent"? Or go all Debbie Boone: "Just lights up my life" Nah, I like yours better. Thank you. I'm in a good place and they just started springing out like little godlets from my forehead. Do you submit anything to publishers? Any bites? Some of your stuff is quite good.
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Post by bitterman on Aug 8, 2004 10:40:09 GMT -5
The fall of your hair the gentle touch of your hand the beat of your heart
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Post by bitterman on Aug 8, 2004 11:22:38 GMT -5
A Naughty Cordy Haiku For tj:
Look at those boobies she is built like a brick house pants are ebulgent
(any excuse to use ebulgent, we're all pretty shameless) ;D
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