Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Doc Black's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009
1:34 am	Pirates and Giants. As Promised. (not really) And tales of Derring-Do. Which, they tell me, is different from dog-doo. But probably not by much. I feel like I've lost my way. I haven't been paying attention to my goals lately, and to some extent I seem to have forgotten what they were, or why they were. Part of it is that I've been on the verge of being in a good place with work, but not quite, and part of it is all of the health issues I've had lately, and part of it has been shuttling back and forth between York and the land of Sunder too much. And some of it is that I've been having an even harder time talking to anybody about anything than usual. And for those of you who know me, you know I didn't have much further to go before I started living in a cave and eating grubs in the first place. Except grubs are gross. And I can build a pretty good house from scratch, so a cave seems like a waste. Regardless. Trust issues abound. I like the work I've been doing. It's a fun job. And if it were more frequent, it would be great. That's fine. But I wouldn't want to do it for the rest of my life. And what's the step up from that? I mean, I could try and go into directing, it's a sort of cross path but it exists. And what happened to writing? I keep starting and stopping, and I like what I write, (mostly) but can't I finish something? Okay, yes, Jack Daw was sort of finished. And the poetry and prose is mostly complete... Can I sell it? I know people have said they liked it. Is that enough to chance sending it off? Risks are involved. I can handle rejection. I expect rejection, if I was to send work off. It's part of the process. But could I handle crushingly insulting rejection? Maybe. Maybe not. Is it possible I could get that? Yes. Not even necessarily because of my writing, but because someone didn't like it and was having a bad day because their wife ran off with the neighbor's dog and the kids can't spell bestiality, let alone understand it, and he just has to get it out somehow... Okay, maybe a little far-fetched.. Far-fetched. Brought from a far place to here? Maybe a paraphrase of 'went far afield'? Anyway. Still, people frequently do stupid things for the wrong reasons. And could I write as a career forever? Maybe. Maybe I could write AND direct. Do they let people do that kind of stuff? Maybe. For a long time, I felt like I had all the answers for my life. I was going to be a cop. I was going to go into the military, and come out and be a cop. I thought that was going to be it for a long time. Then I got rejected from the military and met too many cops, and put paid to that. From then on I've been floating. A lot of times I've wanted to write. I still do, I think. It's certainly something I can do while I do other things as well. I can work as a grip for long enough to get off the ground writing. But I guess it comes down to whether or not I can push myself to do it. It's reverse communism: it looks good UNTIL you try and put it on paper. And I'm not sure it seems like enough. It feels like something's missing. And it's felt that way for too long now. And so I'm not sure where to go. I've lost my way. My compass is twirling idly. I feel like Jack Sparrow, but not as poncy. One good thing about my life; very rarely have I been considered poncy. This makes me feel good every time I think about it. True story. I was going to say that I'm not looking for comments on this, I'm just writing it to get it out. But that's not entirely true. I don't think comments will really help, but I am kinda curious. And if I didn't want people to think about it I wouldn't have posted it in a public f-ing forum, would I? :) I guess what I would've meant by it is that I'm not in need of cheering up. I'm not depressed. (a little down, not bad) I'm just kinda lost. I'll figure a way out, I always do, but it helps to put it down and look at it like this. Sometimes it's easier for me to get thoughts out by just starting to type and seeing where it goes. My planning abilities are not much sometimes, but my improv rocks the house. :) Thanks for listening. See you soon. Lucael Current Mood: blank Current Music: I was listening to the air conditioner hum... It went HmmmmmmmmMMmmMMMmMMMMM... (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009
3:04 pm	Mairzy Doats. And Dozy Doats. And little Lamzy Divy. Home. (The final frontier) So I packed up my bags and headed north. Still settling back in, but nice to be close to friends. (and cats!) I get a little disconnected off by myself. And of course, almost as soon as I moved back, I got a call to work in NY again, so I'm taking a bus (or driving, not sure yet) back for a single day this weekend. On the other hand, it looks like I'm both Key Grip and Gaffer on this one, which will be nice to have for resume purposes. Rate isn't great, but it should be a short day. A lot of things I missed up here, too. Peace and quiet, better air, a good internet connection, the ability to make my own food without having to worry about vegetarians lurking nearby holding pamphlets... You know, the normal stuff. Not that I can eat much meat anyway, but hey. Hopefully I will be able to get into an exercise routine again, I'm feeling very creaky. And I may have to do a lot of fighting at ToV, we'll see how that turns out. ToV. I still have to make stuff for ToV. *sigh* Boring post today, sorry. Next one will have Pirates and Giants, and maybe some other baseball teams too... Lucael Current Mood: blah Current Music: Major Tom (Coming Home) - Shiny Toy Guns (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
8:55 am	No one hears Cassandra cry… Hi, I just wanted to- what? Oh. Yes, yes, it’s me. …Lucael. The guy whose journal this is? Um, I used to write here? Yeah… that guy. What? …No, I’m not dead. Prove it?! …Um, I’m thinking? Talking? Writing? …Not enough, hunh. Okay, try this: There was this guy, and he worked at all these different places, and then he sort of moved away, and lost touch. Then, later on, he got better. What? No, the story isn’t about me. I was just proving I was alive. What do you mean, ‘how’? It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare; Dead men tell NO tales. Anyway, sorry folks, I was just going to- What?! Look, the title doesn’t have anything to do with it, it’s from a Cruxshadows song that was stuck in my head. Sometimes I write things down just to purge them from my brain. And besides, I like mysterious titles. Deal. Now will you just be quiet for a second? Geez, some people. ANYWAY, I just wanted to say that I know I’ve been gone for a while, but I’m not dead, and if you wanted, you could check some of my writing stuff at ‘blackslist.blogspot.com’. You’ll prolly recognize some of it, but I’m trying to get as much of it as possible in the same place. Enjoy. I’ll try not to vanish again. I’ll try very hard. Oh, and before I go, some particularly bad puns I came up with on my way home, mixing latin and English. Sugar Coma: ‘Non compos Mentos™.’ Banned from the Playboy Mansion: ‘Persona non Grotto.’ I just wanted to remind people who I really am so they have a chance to remove me from their friends list before I get really warmed up. :) Lucael (exeunt) Current Mood: weird Current Music: Azathoth's Flute - 'Divers Alarums' (15 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, February 14th, 2009
12:28 am	Bad things come in threes. And I have drawn the third. Yad ho, groja UL. I am now home from my third hospital stay in a little over a year. I had either a second or (more probably) the same kidney stone that I thought was gone a month ago. This occurred (of course) during my first day of work in New York. By the way, I am in New York. I had to leave early, which fortunately the guy who hired me was okay with, and spent nearly an hour grunting and nearly screaming with pain until I got back to my brother's apartment to where I still (fortunately) had the generic Percoset from the previous bout. Then another 45 minutes or so for it to work. I spent Monday night through Wednesday morning hoping it would pass on its own, then reluctantly went to the emergency room at Long Island College Hospital... yes, the acronym is Lich, my gamer friends ...where I stayed, for not very useful reasons, until Thursday evening, surrounded by screaming people who would occasionally (for entertainment purposes, I assume) shit themselves. This happened three times, by the way. Not to me. I was not THAT bored, though it was close. Thursday they finally moved me to my own room, which was apparently some head surgery guy's private suite, very nice, no one else, great view of Miss Liberty and her torch. It also had the famous Screaming Window, which, when the wind was blowing (and it did during the entire time I was there) made a sound remarkably like what you would get if you lined up about a hundred people around a building from you and stabbed them each in the kidney at the same time. This made my dreams very interesting. The morphine they gave me made my dreams very vivid. It was an alright combination. Friday at 4 I was prepped for surgery, put out with general anaesthesia at 4:30-ish, and woke up around 7:45 wondering why my back still hurt. The easy answer is because during the time I was out, they inserted a small camera and device combo into a VERY sensitive tube, slid it up through my bladder, and FIRED LASERS at the stone in my ureter. ... Yes, folks, Star Wars could have been filmed in my penis. This brings to mind a famous quote by my dear friend Ms Pajer, which I will not now repeat. They also placed a stent in there to do something about preventing infection or such, I did not grok it fully, which they will have to take out in a week or so. This device currently hurts only slightly less than the stone did, so I am still experiencing the pleasures of heavy drugs, but they tell me this will go away. There is a good chance that they are lying. I am also experiencing the wonderful pleasure of pissing blood, which I do not wish on anyone in the world. It is likely that this is because occasionally, the lasers missed the stone. ...! Only imperial troops have this kind of accuracy. I would not be surprised if, at some point, I discovered floating in my favorite porcelain bowl the burned and contorted corpses of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. I think I already produced a Jawa. On the one hand, I am no longer possessed of a painful kidney stone. Tai-shar Lich! On the other hand, it may be a week before I can again work, because of pain and drugs and stent removal. The gripping hand is, I had better get my F*ing health insurance working, or I will be so far in debt it will not matter if I ever work again. So it goes. Well, dovie-andi se tovya sagain. If anyone would like to write to me, to prove that I actually live here, that would be a help. I'll be happy to email my address to anyone who asks for it. If you'd rather not, no problem. If you'd rather I suffer, well, then why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling donut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon? To those who live in or are in NY for whatever reason, no need to visit or call or anything while I'm drugged up (I'm less fun than you might think) but I'd be happy to hang out whenever I'm not working. Let me know. Until then, tonzura koite! And I've had my three, so if anything else happens, I officially call shenanigans. (disith bullets, will avoid, mullen shetland's body... disith bullets, will avoid, mullen shetland's body...) Oh, and if you can be the first person to accurately identify ALL of the movie, book, and TV references I put into this message, I will someday, somehow, produce for you ... a cookie. I can't predict its tastiness right now, but I will do my best. Milk may also be involved. Lucael out. Current Mood: uncomfortable Current Music: Theme from U.N.C.L.E. (22 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
11:43 am	Update in C-major. In September of 2007, before I went to work on Apprentice, I started experiencing pains in my stomach. I didn't think anything of it. While I was in New York they went away, only to start again November 15th when I got home. (for the curious, we think it was the extra exercise that stopped them, fuller explanations on demand) At the time I had no heath insurance, so I attempted to fix it on my own, changing my diet, exercise habits, taking herbal meds etc to try and fix it. No luck. The pain was occasionally bad enough to prevent me from doing a whole lot, including ruining my ability to sleep a full night. A few months ago I finally got health insurance, and immediately saw my doctor about it. After a great number of tests, he tried treating me for gastritis. Initially I felt a little better, but the pains came back, somewhat worse. My doctor was planning on sending me to a gastroenterologist, but before I switched over he sent me in for an ultrasound. The ultrasound showed an unusual mass, and he scheduled me for a cat scan. However, before I could go for the scan, the pain became so bad that I had to go to the emergency room. I had the scan early, and they decided to operate. They removed 14 inches of my small intestine, including a 10-15 pound mass, the size of a standard football or so. It looked like a meatloaf in a uterus. I'm not kidding, I saw pictures of it. And I have a 12-inch cut on my stomach with 49 metal staples in it to prove it. At the moment I won't inflict those pictures on you. (But I have them) At the moment, I am still recovering. I had the surgery last Monday, and was allowed to leave the hospital fairly quickly due to rapid progress. I can eat normal food and walk around on my own, but I can't drive, lift anything or twist too much. This Thursday I get the staples out, after which I can drive, but still not lift. In about a month I should be back to normal, a condition I hardly remember after being in pain for so long. The lab results for the fluid part of the mass came back inert, but the biopsy results haven't yet returned. However, my surgeon said it looked like cancer was not likely. He said it may have been a congenital defect that chose to activate for some reason. All I know is it looks like they removed the alien baby just before it could hatch and eat me. I very much appreciate the visits and calls from those people who found out about it in time to do so, thank you. As of now I am recovering nicely and on schedule, and hopefully it will be all downhill from here. :) Lucael Current Mood: Healing (24 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 6th, 2007
3:03 am	O Rly? Because Lucael Can't Drive. Enter a word for your own slogan: Generated by the Advertising Slogan Generator, for all your slogan needs. Get more Lucael slogans. ya rly! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 25th, 2007
4:39 am	Because YOU want to know. That's how I roll. Today's lesson: Stew. Stew is one of those dishes where you throw whatever you happen to have in a pot and cook it for a while, and maybe add some spices to flavor it up a bit. So don’t feel the need to follow this recipe closely at all. I’ll tell you the important parts as I go. First off you need a big goddamn pot. Normally I cook for about 6-7, so that’s what I’m used to. You can do the same with a small amount as well, but why? More means more leftovers later. :) For broth, you can use just water, beef stock, chicken stock, or vegetable stock. You could use a red sauce as well, or gravy, but I’m not personally familiar with those as a base. Fill your pot up about half way with whichever of those you desire. I used to use chicken stock and then switched to beef stock somewhere along the way, but water works just as well, you have to spice it a bit more later. I tend to use two meats, one pasta, and stew veggies. My primary meats are cubed beef (with as much fat cut off as possible) and Italian meatballs. I just buy the premade meatballs from stop and shop. The meat I use whatever happens to be cheap. If the meat it tougher I know I have to cook it longer. The stuff they label ‘stew meat’ is actually on the tough side, for reference, but it works fine. The pasta I almost always use tortellini, either cheese or meat and cheese. You could use spinach tortellini if you had veggie friends as well. Stew veggies are onions, carrots, and potatoes, and sometimes broccoli. Onions should be white, but can be the little tiny ones if you want. Red onions don’t have a strong enough flavor. Carrots can be julienned (cut into strips) or cut into wheels or half wheels (full circle or half circle) fairly thin. Potatoes should be at most the size of your- um, MY thumb. Yours are too small. Not too big, or they’ll be uncooked in the middle, not too small or they’ll dissolve in the broth. If you use broccoli make it SMALL heads… big heads will be just like napalm when you bite into them, and they’ll scar your tongue for life. Okay: Cut up everything FIRST. Then put on your broth and throw in the potatoes, carrots, beef cubes, and shortly thereafter the tortellini. (like a minute or two later) Let this cook with occasional stirring for about 15 to 20 minutes. Then add everything else. You’ll be cooking for about another 15 minutes or so from here, during which you will be adding spices. You want to cook on medium high heat for all of this. I tend to use Mexican spices, ‘cus I feel like it. They are Chili powder, Cumin, and fine ground red pepper, also known as …something. It’s really really hot. Chili powder you can put on as a layer on the surface of your stew. Just wave it back and forth a bit until it covers the surface. Cumin goes on much lighter (it’s hot too) as a few streaks on top of the chili powder. It’s handy to add the cumin right after the chili powder because the light tan of the cumin tends to blend in to the stew and you don’t want to add too much. Then the… other stuff. Very little of this, or even avoid it. I like my food hotter than most. When your spices are in and everything is cooking well, you just need to worry about undercooking. Everything in the stew can be overcooked and not lose anything (until the tortellinis actually fall apart, which… really isn’t that bad anyway.) but undercooking is bad. Pick out a potato and squish it under a spoon. If it’s easy, they’re done. If it resists, keep cooking. Pull out a beef cube and see if you can pull it apart. If it’s easy, it’s perfect. If it isn’t, but is still cooked in the middle, it’s done anyway, and will just take a little more chewing. Not bad. If it’s raw, keep going. Break open a meatball to see if it’s cooked, etc. Don’t worry about the tortellini, onions, or broccoli. They’re done by this time. Above all, taste it every once in a while to make sure the spices are good. Remember, you want it to be a little bit overspiced for your taste. You’ll see why in a sec. Okay, LAST THING. Get a box of dried mashed potato flakes and a big spoon. Sift some flakes onto the top of the stew and stir until there are no lumps. Lumps are bad. This is your thickener, and it’s the most important part of the broth. You want to thicken your stew up until it no longer looks like soup and begins to look like stew. But add it in small amounts and stir or you will get lumps. Lumps suck. The mashed potato will also attenuate the flavors in the stew a little, which is why you over-spice a little. If you don’t it will be bland and everyone will reach for the salt. Granted some freaks will reach for the salt anyway, but whatever. Right after the potato flakes go in, you’re done. (well, about two minutes) Serve with shredded cheddar cheese on top and with Italian bread. Don’t eat too much or you will explode. Leftovers can be nuked at will. So, you can do this with just tortellini and no meat as well, with different veggies, whatever. I used to add some Italian spices as well, I used to add some other pasta, you can really do whatever you want. You can roll the beef cubes in flour and then crushed red pepper and pan fry them before putting them in, you could used hot sausage as a meat, you could do a chicken version, an all-vegetarian version, WHATEVER. Use tofu, if you’re freak enough. :) Stew is awesome. Good luck, and don’t brush the stew with your finger after you add the flakes. It will stick and burn the absolute shite out of you. I still have scars. Lucael Current Mood: restless Current Music: Apocalypse WOW! - Reggie and the Full Effect (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 9th, 2007
3:51 am	Devolution and the ennui of stars Once again the lure of this place has dragged me back. The hum of processors and the quiet snap of diodes flaring always seems to lead to here, to the rushing silence of my own thoughts, only to come spewing out onto this electronic peep show into my life. So be it. You have been warned. Life proceeds apace, with adventures new and old to tempt me into sin or righteousness as the situation strikes me. On the whole I would say things are going amazingly well, and leave it at that lest my hubris call down the wrath of gods too large for me to give swirlies to. It's been awhile since I matched my strength to theirs, and for once I feel like relaxing. In itself this is noticeable. :) Transitions seem outmoded, a discarded toy of my yesterdays. The last, I faced down in a best-falls-of-three knockout that could have gone either way, and it seems that demon may be at rest. Let us hope his slumber is deep and lasting. New feelings have awakened, having lain dormant for too many years, almost doing damage to a psyche already quite twisted enough. New things are not required to be bad, after all. Cryptic enough? Not nearly. 'So too are the ones that have gone before, may they see the light they have desired and sleep the true sleep of ages.' There. Cryptic enough. Once again I flex my quill, finding it up to the task set, if only I can force myself to flex hard enough. Will it last? One can only guess at the future, though it looks so easy from the present. Or do I set up my future excuses in advance to ease failure? Only time will tell. ONG BAK vs. INFERNAL AFFAIRS If only Inspector Lau had the forthright asskicking abilities of Ting of Nong Pradu, perhaps the movie could have gone somewhere, but as it was only a giant buddha head falling on both Lau and Yan could have saved the ending. I have never seen a movie that so killed moments... The car horn in the middle of the death scene was bad, but the elevator doors closing repeatedly on Yan's corpse was far worse. IA was decent in retrospect, but OB was so very much better it was hard not to disparage the lesser flick. SHOUT OUT to my boys in Flavor Herd, was listening to Amphibious and The Bogart's Filthy mix again today and enjoying it all over. Special shout out to my boys at the Jack Daniel Distillery as well, and Lem Motlow in particular. Fine product you've got there. Luc out. Current Mood: tired Current Music: Summer Ain't Over (part one) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 6th, 2006
2:54 am	Be afeared. Be very afeared. The first five people to respond to this post will get some form of art, by me, that is in some fashion about them. I make no guarantees about quality or type, and it may take some time because of the craziness that is my life right now, but I will assure that I will give it good effort and that the art will be individual to you. The only catch: as with most memes, if you sign up, you have to put this in your own journal as well. Give to receive and all that. Welp, I said it. Who wants it? Lucael (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 15th, 2006
3:18 am	Public Service Announcement If I am your friend, I will listen to you any time, YES, this includes 4am or 11pm or whenever you might be wondering about. I will do this happily, without bitching, and I will do my best to do it in a cheerful and at least semi-professional manner if the occasion so deserves. Otherwise, I reserve the right to be a sarcastic jerk, as is my normal modus operandi. If you do not wish to avail yourself of this service, DON'T. It comes at no additional charge with the standard 'friend' package, and can be used or not at the normal fees, which is to say NOTHING. Just in case you were wondering. Lucael (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, August 31st, 2006
4:48 am	-=+Fiction7+=- "It was time I started getting some answers, but since nobody was volunteering, and the session at Venga's was 50/50- It could mean something but I had no idea what -I decided to bring my mind back to the time when I had first shown up, before all the bad stuff had gone down..." =FLASHBACK= It was a cold but sunny morning. The juxtaposition did nothing to ease my mind as I drove into Kentown. The heavy weight of the three guns I carried should have helped, but the queer ammunition in two of them made me nervous, and I didn't like being nervous. I liked being calm, and rational, and in the know, but silver bullets wierded me out, and I didn't like it. I realized I was repeating myself in my head and made myself stop. The briefing materials I had been sent were complete, down to a practically photograph quality sketch of the body on the floor, surrounded by a halo of blood. There were ancillary sketches of all of the people involved, which I had categorized in my head by nicknames: The Wide Man, Grandma, The Laughing Man, Knives, and Joe Cool were my primary suspects. There were others that would bear an interview or two, but they seemed to have the best motives. The Wide Man topped my list. He had had an affair with the victim, which she had cut off abruptly and recently. He owed her money, and did not have a dime in his accounts to cover it. And finally, he had had mob connections in the past, and had a fair to middling rap sheet... but with no convictions. Of the others, Knives was a convicted murderer now out on parole, Grandma was a confidence women and part-time psychic, Joe Cool was another ex-lover of the victim, and the Laughing Man had no information available about him whatsoever, except that he was on an Interpol watch list. I had decided that the Wide Man was at the top of the list, and had called him from DC on my way in. He was to meet me at a bar on Second and Winchester, in a not-very-nice section of town. I had talked to a few people that knew Kentown, and they all said that the Hotel Marrones was a good place to talk without attracting attention or being overheard by nosy parkers. I had brought the guns I had been given along with the briefing materials, but had decided to keep my own trusty Baretta in an in-the-pants holster instead of the fancy shoulder rig that I had been given to go with the new guns. I was comfortable with the Baretta, and didn't want some new trick messing me up if things got tough. And I had a feeling things might get tough... I got into town okay, and only missed Winchester once. I found a vacant spot on the street itself and slid into it, dropped a few coins in the meter and walked over to the Hotel. There weren't any rooms for rent, but they served a mean shot of whiskey. I ordered two and went over to where the Wide Man sat. He wasn't difficult to pick out from the crowd, sitting in a big bench seat and taking up most of it. He had blond hair and a froufy little moustache that looked out of place under his bright blue eyes. The sketch of him had been black and white, and the shocking blue lent new strength to a face that I had seen as sort of dissolute before. He looked up from his menu and smiled. It was a good smile, a movie-star smile, and I found myself feeling a bit more sympathetic than I had when I parked the car outside. However, I was a professional, and I pushed it aside as he began to speak in a deep bass voice. "I am Devon Sinclair, and you must be my mystery caller from the Capitol. I must say, I was a bit surprised to get a call from a private detective, and despite your hints, I have no idea what you might have asked to meet me here for." I searched his face, but there was no clue that he might be hiding anything from me. Either he was a top-notch poker player- something he was rather poor at from the accounts I had been given, or he didn't know anything about the murder at all. "Mr.- um, Sinclair," I said (I had almost called him 'Mr. Wide Man', and coughed to hide my slight flush) "I have to ask you where you were one month ago tonight, at approximately 6:00." As I asked, I happened to look at the clock and saw that it was 5:52pm exactly. The sweep hand on the ornate grandfather clock had just hit the twelve when I finished the question. The Wide Man looked thoughtful for a second. "I believe I would have been with Ms. St. Ives, at the Concord Inn, engaged in business of a rather... private sort." I stared at him, and saw him register my astonishment before i could smooth my features again. "I- I'm sorry, Mr. Sinclair, but to admit to it, so baldly! I was unprepared for this. Do you have... a statement you wish to make about the murder?" He looked at me like I had swallowed a tuna and then spit out a perfect model of the Eiffel Tower made of fishbones. "Murder? Excuse me?" Again, I could detect no false note in his face or eyes. His hands were steady on the table, and there were no nervous twitches at all. I watched him for a second, but there was no change. "The murder of Angela St. Ives, Mr. Sinclair. At the Concord Inn, her place of residence." Now there was a change, but not the one I had expected. He relaxed totally and wiped his forehead. "Ahh, sir, then there has been some mistake. For you see, I had breakfast with Ms. St. Ives this very morning, and she was alive and well..." Lucael (1 Comment |Comment on this)
3:58 am	Ganked from Madraxus * dominant or submissive * logical or intuitive * social or loner * kinky or vanilla * cute or sophisticated * kitten or puppy * warm flannel sheets or sleek satin * leader or follower * quiet or talkative * spontaneous or planned * teddy bear or porcelain doll * hiking or window shopping * tequila or vodka * bare foot or shoes * jeans or slacks * tender or rough * aware or dreamy * nerd or jock * brains or brawns * common sense or book smarts Current Mood: Fucked up. Current Music: Silence and fans (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006
6:26 am	-=+Fiction6+=- "'TURN THE TRUTH AROUND, AND SEE HOW IT READS FROM THE OTHER SIDE' wrote the man on the Chariot card, in quickly drawn neat block letters, and then rubbed his elbow on it and the words disappeared. It looked for a second like he was going to speak, but then he froze, and Madame Venga puffed a horrifically dense cloud of smoke at me. It was like being assaulted by a wet and somewhat diffuse angry cat, that smelled of poorly burned cherry wood. "I coughed once out of politeness and then stood up. 'I'll show myself out,' I said, and turned to the door. "She never even bothered to say goodbye. "I walked three blocks to the corner of Mercer Ave. and caught the bus to Kentown. While it rattled along I thought about the truth. I hadn't seen much of it in my life, like most people, and I was a bit wary of it. I thought about the various things I knew, and decided that there were three things I was pretty sure were 'the truth'. "One: Someone, or -ones, had hired me to investigate a murder... a murder that had not yet happened when I was hired. "Two: I had not killed Angela St. Ives, and neither had the Wide Man, because we were sitting in the same booth at the Hotel Marrones having lunch when it happened. "Three: My death was desired by parties unknown. There had been 6, maybe 7 attempts so far; Once with a knife in an alley, twice by poison, twice by sabotage, once by a sniper's bullet, and then the shootout, which may or may not have been started in order to get me dead. "In addition, I had some bits of information that were not necessarily the truth, but begged attention nonetheless. First, the fact that no one seemed to know who the person was that hired me, including myself. I had received an unmarked envelope containing the details of the case and a rather large amount of cold hard cash. The details were unerring, despite having been in my possession at the time the murder occured. Second, I had been given a second unmarked package with two finely-matched pistols and about 500 rounds of ammunition, the ammunition being made of silver. And as a side note to that, I had used my own gun when I showed up, and in a chase had fired two rounds into the dark figure I was pursuing, which had no apparent effect whatsoever. And finally, I was currently attempting to follow instructions written for me by a man IN a tarot card. "So far that last seemed almost normal ... " (more later, too tired to go on right now) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006
11:56 pm	that right froggy old bitch karma. ...and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. with a pencil i slash the air before me, forming the complex equations of sentences with hardly a pause. it is not alchemy, or science, nor mystery and magic that i create but yet a simpler form of the misunderstood. for what i create is truth, in a way. and though it has many sides and angles it is indeed a simple thing. there should be no trick to it, no need to learn all of its ins and outs... but why then is it so difficult to parse? of course, it is more than it appears. to one person it is one thing, to another something different. can we then trust the truth? can so changeable a thing be, in fact, honest? And if truth is not honest, then what can we trust? and again, there is trust, for never was there an emotion so easily misplaced... is there no way to hold onto it? and if we lose trust and truth is not honest, then how can we know what is real? is my reality the same as yours? do i even exist? can i trust the truth of my own world? "I love you, Christine... But if all you wanted was soup from a store, perhaps this was all just a big mistake." what mistakes have i made? and can they be fixed? are you even listening? what have my yesterdays made of themselves... i don't know if i could show my face in public if my yesterdays were underachievers. they say karma gets you in the end... but which end? Lucael (alcohol free... so far) Current Music: Cavemen Rejoice - The Bags (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 20th, 2006
3:09 am	-=+Fiction5+=- "Madame Venga was already seated in her reading chair when I got into the room. The crystal ball and all the crap she put out for the tourists was gone, and only the solid grain table remained, with a deck of cards on top, so ancient the backs had mostly worn off. What you could still see was a wierd-looking collection of circles tied together with lines that didn't mean anything to me. "She pointed to the cards and I picked them up and started to shuffle. After a while I felt like I was about done and laid 'em back on the table. She looked at me then, and her eyes seemed to open up just a little wider, and I could see a little glint in them that almost reminded me of stars, just for a second. And then she took the top card and flipped it over. "'This is your past. It is the you that once was, the you that may never be again. It talks of your base nature and root causes.' "The card she flipped was of a poncy-looking guy standing in front of a table with a cup or something on it, with one hand up and a sideways figure eight over his head. An infinity symbol, I realized. "'This is the Magician. It speaks of taking action, of concentrating, and of experiencing power.' She looked at me a little funny and I gave her a half-grin. "'Must be from when I was a cop,' I said, 'but the only power I remember experiencing was from the brass, kicking me out.' "She didn't look real satisfied, but she flipped another card. This one looked like a queen from a normal deck of cards, except not split in half, and this one was carrying a sword and a pair of scales. "'This is your present. It is the you that is here now, and it is the focus of your current actions. It talks of your predicament, but not of how to get out of it. This is Justice. It speaks of assuming responsibility, preparing for a decision, and understanding cause and effect.' She went on this time without pause, and I was just as happy. I knew these two, it was the next couple that I was interested in. "'This is the first branch of your future, if events are not favorable to you. It is the likely outcome of you only react to the doings of those around you.' I knew as soon as the card hit the table that it was a bad one. It had good old goat-legs satan on it, with two little demons at his feet and a pentagram above him. "'This is the Devil. It speaks of experiencing bondage, staying in ignorance, and feeling hopeless.' "Yeah, that was about right. Jail, I never find out what's going on, and I can't do anything about it. Sounded great. 'So what's my other option?' I said, and she flipped the last card. "This is the second branch of your future, if events are favorable towards you. It is the possible outcome if you are proactive in solving your predicament.' "It was a guy in armor in some kind of cart that looked like it was being pulled by sphinxes. "'This is the Chariot. It speaks of achieving victory, using your will, and asserting yourself.' "I pondered it for a second. It seemed to be an obvious choice. Let things slide and wind up in jail, or keep slogging and beat 'em all. But it was too pat. I didn't like thigns to be so cut-and-dried. "And then the guy in the cart winked at me. I mean, the one on the 'Chariot' card, he turned his head to the side a little and winked at me in a real exaggerated way, like someone in a bad play - or worse, a car commercial. "I looked at Venga to see if she was paying attention, but she was lighting up a nasty smelling cheroot and was puffing furiously, head held high. I looked down again, and the guy was writing something on the side of the cart..." -=++=- (Lucael here) Wicked loud thunder outside, scared the crap out of me, am going to turn off computer before it blows up, bye! Lucael (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 16th, 2006
11:51 pm	Shocking News from the Front: Hey, I'm drunk! Who's surprised? (crickets tell you when it will rain) Yeah. So, I need to think less. A lot less. I believe that I have done about as much useful thinking as I will probably do in my entire lifetime, and I should really quit while I'm ahead. It's to the point where I talk to someone, and then there's this whole other conversation that happens in my head, and then it's really hard to tell which one was which later... In addition to which, unless I can see the person I'm talking to, I constantly misinterpret what's being said, and I get all paranoid about what they think about me, and it's generally just very very bad. Why can't I stop? Why can't I just enjoy a simple bloody conversation for once? Does everything have to have a deeper meaning? Fuck. Lucael (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 15th, 2006
3:32 am	Ganked from a Fyfe. 1.Your Full Name: 2. Age: 3. Single or Taken: 4. Favorite Movie: 5. Favorite Song: 6. Favorite Band/Rapper/Artist: 7. Dirty or Clean: 8. Tattoos and/or Piercings: HERE COMES THE FUN ... ... ... 1. Do we know each other outside of LiveJournal? 2. What's your philosophy on life? 3. Would you have my back in a fight? 4. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best interest? 5. What is your favorite memory of us? 6. Would you give me a kidney? 7. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you: 8. Would you take care of me if I were sick? 9. Can we get together and make a cake? 10. Have you heard any rumors of me lately? 11. Do you/have you talk(ed) crap about me? 12. Do you think I'm a good person? 13. Would you drive across country with me? 14. Do you think I'm attractive? 15. If you could change anything about me, what would you change? 16. What do you wear to sleep? 17. Would you come over for no reason just to hang out? 18. Would you go on a date with me if I asked you? 19. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together? 20. Will you post this so I can fill it out for you? (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 13th, 2006
3:46 am	Schwerpunkt: Jagdpanzer Another day, another holler. (holla-back!) Your pulp noir serialized epic has been delayed today in favor or more random mutterings and posing from your friendly annoucer, myself. To those of you who are waiting with baited breath to read the next tale of derring-do, fear not, we will return to Madame Venga's anon. What's important? (a question so rife with meaning that it deserves, nay rather say DEMANDS, a full 8 lines of its own) Really, what is important? There are a lot of things, you think, but how many of them are really important, and how many are things that we are told are important, and how many are simply just not? People are important, I think, but then it comes down to 'which people?'. Well, there are certainly people who are important to ME. And really, if you think about it, everything that's important is relative to the person answering, right? I mean, water is important to someone in a desert, but not necessarily to the man drowning in the lake... or at least its important in a different way. :) But back to the question: There are people that are important to me. Many of them in different ways, some in all ways. What else? Things? Some things are important to me, but they're not really important, they just mean things to me that remind me of important things. I'm losing my train of thought here. This thread came about because of a conversation Madraxus and I had while he was giving me a ride home, about government and the legislature in particular. And he was saying that maybe running the govt. like a business would be a good thing to try, and I was saying that the legislature would never allow it, no matter what the president wanted. I mean, we could elect Bobbi Stars-in-her-Eyes, (yes, fictional person) who is everything that government is currently not, and she could decide to make sweeping changes, and she could be charismatic and independant and enough of a workhorse to set everything in motion. And she could maybe even get a significant portion of the population behind her, say as much as 90%, an absolutely ridiculous number. But, do you think that she could get anything done? I mean, would the senate and the house REALLY be willing to give up their pork? To some extent pork is a fact of life, and a good one. For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, a pork barrel project is thus: Senator Dingo's Kidneys (also fictional) from Nevada hears that people are currently in favor of, say, wetland restoration. So he proposes a bill that will put up a bunch of funds and assets to promote wetlands restoraion, but he makes sure that the assets used, and therefore the workforce hired, is from Nevada. Therefore, money flows into Nevada, it pulls people off the Nevada unemployment line, and generally is just happy for Nevada in general. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, the people of Nevada elected good old Senator Kidneys because they wanted him to represent THEM in the Senate, so why would they want him to send money to some other state? And it's not that he's being sneaky and underhanded, he's trying to help out his peeps. Where it gets into trouble is thus: Lets say all of the wetlands being restored are in, say, Maine. If he still pushes for Nevada assets, then we have a problem. AND, there are sneaky and underhanded ways that Sen. Kidneys (R-Nev) can buy some pork. So, the way this all ties into the previous wierdness is - What is important? to everyone? Is there something that these senators lose along the way to their posts? Is there something big that us non-senators just don't see? But why is it that they would hamper the efficiency of the whole govt. in order to bring some money into their state in the hopes of being reelected? Is it because if they didn't, we would vote them out because WE don't know what's important? But in order to figure it all out, (and I'm having a wicked time trying to wrap my brain around it) I have to know what's important in the first place, and hopefully some things that EVERYone thinks are important. So if you have a moment, post me a few things you think are important to as many people as possible, and we'll discuss. If the thread gets too long, i'll post an 'end' message and post a reprise in a new journal entry so we don't have to keep scrolling back further and further to read it. Lucael (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, August 11th, 2006
2:48 am	-=+Fiction4+=- "It was time to get some answers, and I had an idea where a few might be roosting. It was time to visit 8th Street, and Madame Venga's. "Only I hadn't gotten more than a few feet from the office door before the girl in the uncomfortable heels grabbed me by the arm. My right arm. My gun arm. "I spun around like I was doing a veronica and ducked my shoulder down to break her grip. I twisted my left hand and managed to drag the piece out of its shoulder holster and put it into a close approximation of the ready position, but then I stopped. "She was looking at me with eyes the size of truck-stop pancakes, sheet-white and motionless as a garden gnome at rest. Then she broke and ran, kicking off the heels as she went and screaming like mad. "Poor kid, probably wanted a light or something. Well, it was a lesson for her, to never grab someone like that. Why, she could've been killed! I switched hands with the piece and put it away, then rubbed my left wrist. That twist had pinched something, I thought, and as I walked away, for good this time, the building behind me belched smoke and flames as the fire finally found the cabinets of old film reels that the last tenant had left there when he was evicted. "Guess I didn't have to worry about paying my back rent. "When I got to Madame Venga's, it was nearly one o'clock in the morning, but the lights were all on, and Bobby was standing out front, looking like a Mack truck someone had carelessly parked on the sidewalk. He was near on to eight feet tall, and the black trenchcoat he wore turned him into a solid squarish shape, with a head bobbing atop that looked small until you got close and realized it was probably bigger than your torso. "He waved me in without even a courtesy frisk. That was a bad sign. It meant Venga had told him to expect me, and didn't think I was a threat. Which meant ... "Sure enough, the Smiling Man was sitting in a corner of the 'foyer', grinning away at a newspaper that looked upside down until I realized it was in Chinese. Without looking up he pulled a small bright bead out of a pocket and flicked it with two fingers. It bounced off a bell hanging over the 'parlor' door that was at least twenty feet away, and made a bright cheerful noise that was out of place in the seedy-looking room. "The door opened immediately and out came Grandma. Madame Venga was wearing a flower-print dress, a off-shite sweater, and a lime green shawl, and looked about 70. I didn't trust it for a second. Her birth records (Claudia Louise Carroll - I had looked them up once out of curiousity) said she was more like 40, but she wanted people to think she was old and feeble. Today, however, her face didn't have the usual friendly Grandma look. She was wearing her Venga face, the one she wore when she was doing readings. The somber, intelligent, and a little crazy face. "She took a long look at me and then just turned and walked back through the door, leaving it open behind her. I glanced over at the Smiling Man, but to all appearances he was absorbed in his paper. I wouldn't have been surprised if he couldn't read Chinese, and was just holding it there to look like he could. It would be typical of the man, as much as anything was. "Finally I sighed and walked into the darkish room behind her. I had come here for answers after all, and just maybe I'd get some. And if she wasn't going to give them to me willingly, maybe I'd see if there was another option..." Lucael Current Music: Prokofiev - The alien God and the Dance of the Evil Spirits (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, August 10th, 2006
3:57 am	-=+Fiction3+=- "I tried to get all the pieces to fit together in my head, but it was no use. They just sat, unconnected, like strangers in a dim and smoky bar. There was the Wide Man, and his dark-haired female accomplice, sipping Scotch on the rocks at a mahogany table. There was Antonio Rosseli, and the shiny gleam of a knife as he sliced lemons behind the bar. There was the fraudulent Madame Venga of the Three Veils and her enormous manservant Bobby, who I had watched crush a heavy bar glass in one hand without suffering injury. There was the Smiling Man - Peter Lawrence Reading, who had more passports than a stripper had dollar bills on a good night, tossing peanuts into a glass from ten feet away and never missing. And sitting in his own secluded corner was the man from the dump, eating a bowl of rat stew. "Finally, there was a huge mural painting of the gunfight this morning, and the nine bodies left behind, and the three that walked away, of which I was one. Somehow I even managed to look confused as I walked towards the streetlight. "I got up and walked out of the dump. There was nothing I was going to figure out here, and the smell was getting to me. Besides, the dump was near the docks, and I had a man to see about some fish... "It was just after dark when I got back to my office, and there was a dame leaning against the wall outside in the rain, wearing trashy makeup and a black mini and tank-top. The heels looked uncomfortably tall for such a short girl, but it was none of my business. "I went to unlock the door but found it was already open, and the smell of cigars was harsh and annoying. I checked the piece to make sure it was loaded and cocked it before I went inside. "It was the Wide Man, and he wouldn't be sipping anything ever again. He had a hole in one temple the size of a dime, and it looked like the whole carnival had waltzed out the other. It wasn't pretty, but there was no matching circus debris on my wall. Apparantly he had been carted in special, just to make a point. I walked over to the body and tugged at the big handlebar moustache: It didn't move - I had always wondered if it was fake. Then I closed his remaining eye and said goodbye. I grabbed the whiskey out of my desk drawer and poured a hefty slug on the table for him, and as I left a tossed a match at the puddle. It lit with a whoosh and I walked out. There was nothing there that I needed anymore, and it was a fitting tribute for a man who had lived true to the old blood he was born to, in the land of the midnight sun. "I would see what I could do to send him an escort, if I didn't die first..." Lucael Current Music: rising seranades in swedish (7 Comments |Comment on this)