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I dumbass
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This afternoon I got a phone call offering me a spot in a top-tier paleoanthropology Ph.D. program.
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About once every four years or so i become a smoker for a month or two. It lasted three weeks this time, I had my last one at around 9:00 this morning. I just went out to pick up some take out for my wife. My real plan was, of course, as any addict could tell you, to buy smokes. I passed about ten gas stations and convienient stores on the way.
I got home without any smokes.
No great accomplishment, really. I'm not sure if it's willpower or masochism that makes me capable of quitting, whatever, it is gigantic pain in the ass.
The withdrawl is pretty intense, my chest hurts and my head feels like it going to come apart. I wish I could allow myself to fold. fuck.
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Location: Woodland mound site, american mid-west.
Day six: I am made of sun burn. The food could be worse.
We broke ground three days ago, after gridding and learning how to grid the site. Site wide, we have found many artefacts so far. Many chert flakes, small potsherds, fire cracked rock, a couple of very nice projectile points and one spectacular rim piece potsherd.
Tomorrow my teammates and I will move down another five-ten cm in our unit, maybe more if we don't find anything cool to slow us down. We spend all our time talking about the dig itself or grad school. I think I want to specialize in paleo work, maybe in the artic.
when I was thrity I thought all my dreams had turned to dust.
Heh.
Tomorrow I turn 39, and i can't imagine a happier birthday.
I hope you are all doing as well.
no surrender, no defeat.
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I put a new faucet in my kitchen yesterday.
Working under a sink sucks.
Home depot is a province of hell.
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I wrote this in 1992. It is 1025 words. I'm never going to do anything with it, so i thought I would inflict it upon you.
Walls
By
Michael R. Gibbons
Langford was about to snap
We'd been assigned to walk our section of Wall, but had stopped in the lee of a tower an hour before to get out of the wind and have a smoke. We had never continued on.
"Major's fucking crazy, ask me." Langford crushed a butt under his heel, dug a fresh smoke from his pack. "'Walk the fucking Wall. walk. walk.' What the fuck are we guarding against? That?"
He flung his arm out. Sparks jumped into the wind from the tip of his cigarette. Reluctant to look upon it again, I did not follow his gesture with my eyes.
"What're we going to do if we're attacked? Shoot it with these?" He raised his rifle. "Fuck that."
I looked down at the wasted land, inhaled some smoke.
"You listening to me, Corporal?"
"I'm listening."
"Well, listen up good. Back in the world, I'm an electrical engineer. Know what that is?"
"Careful."
"Got a kid too. Talking already. Never seen the little bastard." He finished his cigarette in one long, shaky drag. "But here I'm nothing. A morsel at the feet of the beast. Look at it. Look at it. It wants something..."
Looked at it then. Churning Wall of black chaos off in the distance, parallel to the insignificant stone ribbon upon which we stood.
"Lets move," I shouldered my rifle, stepped into the wind. Langford lit another cigarette, then ran to catch up.
We walked in silence, I hunched my shoulders and leaned into the wind. Had a question. Didn't want to ask.
I stopped and looked at the private.
"Langford, what do you think it wants?"
He smiled.
"You been having the dreams, Corporal?"
"Answer me."
"It's hungry. I think it wants to eat."
#
It happened during dinner.
I sat alone near the back of the mess hall, eating without thinking, when Langford stood up.
"You don't know you little fuck." His voice was loud and frantic. He pointed at one of the new guys across from him. "You don't know shit about shit, I been here-"
"Sit down Langford and shut up!" The Sergeant stood holding a dripping fork, eyes narrow and mean.
The first shot took him in the chest; he flew back; a trailing arc of blood leapt from his mouth. The fork spun into the air.
I ducked.
Langford swept the room with his weapon. Rifle-fire and screams drowned out the ever-present sound of wind. My table shattered. Burning debris rained down upon me. I waited for my own weapon to power up.
"You fucks! all of you f-"
I stood.
Langford neared the end of his sweep. He caught sight of me, tried to bring his rifle to bear, but by the time the muzzle came around he was jerking from the impact of my discharge.
And it was over.
Silence.
Wind.
"Make a count!" I backed against the wall. Timmons a seasoned private moved about the room, checking the fallen.
"Twelve dead, Corporal."
"Wounded?"
"None."
"Sweet Christ..."
I took a breath and lowered my rifle, stepped over the fragmented table and went to where the Sergeant lay.
He was on his back, face and chest gone, their vacancy filled with a red hole. The fork lay on the floor next him.
I picked it up.
It was smeared with gravy and all the tines were bent.
Crazy.
I tossed the fork down onto the Sergeant's ruined chest.
Inhale.
Exhale.
"What're you waiting for? Bag 'em." I shouldered my rifle and turned away from the others, "I'll be in the Comm shed. Stack them near the east tower, someone come and report when it's done."
Into the wind.
* * *
That night I rolled and twisted, caught in the noose of dreams.
I stood on the Wall, looking at the boiling black barrier in the distance. Someone was with me. Langford or the Sergeant, maybe both.
Immobilized I was forced to gaze upon the malignant curtain. The Sergeant called to me, I turned to look at him.
He stood there, chest a gory pit, remains of his head and neck lolling against his left shoulder. I waited for him to speak again, but he only gurgled up some blood and raised his greasy fork in salute.
He became Langford, holding a mess tray, and smiling.
"Hungry?" he said.
I awoke to the sound of weapon's fire, pulled my boots on and dashed out to the Wall.
Others were already on the Wall. Timmons looked through a pair of binoculars. Down the wall, a mile to the north, I saw a flashing burst of gun fire atop one of the towers.
"What're they shooting at?"
"Couldn't tell you," Timmons said.
I snatched away the binoculars and looked for my self. but by then, the bursts were sporadic; within seconds, they stopped altogether.
"Shit." I shoved the binoculars back at Timmons.
"The Wall! The Wall!"
I turned my head and saw that the rippling doom had moved closer, was almost upon us. I looked at the others, who were all looking at each other, and looking at me.
The bastards thought I was crazy; I could see it then. They always had.
My arms ached to cradle my rifle. It was time. Time to-
They must have read it in my eyes. The way I moved. I leapt for cover.
Timmon's dropped the binoculars and fumbled with his rifle. One of the others wasted him before he could raise it. A lanky kid, from some back country shithole, began laying down fire at chest level.
Screaming.
"Jesus Jesus Christ"
"Die!Die!Die!"
"Bastards-"
I took a hits in the shoulder and gut. The churning black fence of doom rolled over us, shattering the stone battlements. Breaking the world.
I hung in seething black air, then fell through it, followed by twisting liquid threads of my own blood.
Impact.
Absence of sensation.
I lay there, aware, among the bodies and wreckage, and watched the hungry black curtain dance away- towards the garrison town in the west.
So hungry.
I was so hungry.
Darkness swept in from the edges of the world and took me home.
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Friday, I got really bored at work, so I appropriated some scrap wood and and made a pipe. For drugs.
Other stuff I've gotten for free from work.
Countless hard drives.idesatapatainternalexternalfirewireusbusb2, whatever.I really, honestly don't know how many. I've thrown out more hard drives than you have or will ever own- unless you're Jedihound.
PC with AMD athalon processor- gave it to the neighbors, I mean really what the fuck else am I going to do with such a thing? It had a floppy drive. A fucking floppy drive! neighbor lady asked me if it would work with her 'ubs' printer. Heh.
Apple first generation beige G3x2, G3 tower, G3 imac, G4 cube.
At least two other systems...
networking hardware.
lots of software.
lots more software.
my college education
enough cables to reach from my house to the moon.
a digital camera.
ilife 05 (today)
professional tripod legs for my video camera.
hardcase for my video camera
lots of crazy props for the cheap ass SF movie I'm putting together.
In times past, we would get free doughnuts every wednesday. Those cheap fuckers cut us off, though, like a year ago; even so, I'm down for about 600 doughnuts.
an ocean of cheap coffee.
a basket full of nuts and malted popcorn and crap.
toys for my kids
an inexplicable sense of entitlement, coupled with equally irrational feelings of invunerability.
Kind of angry today. I've been cruising the building, trying to get a screen for my pipe from one of the water faucets, but I can't get one off. They've got the spigot set up strange, and I'd need a special tool to remove the screen.
You?
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"Winter kept us warm"
T.S. Eliot
Recentely my life has taken a turn for the strange. Things have turned around. Everything is going my way. School, work, art, all of it. My home life has always been pretty great; these days, with the advent of potty training, it's even better.
This turn around is now in it's second year. Things just keep going right.
It creeps me out.
It all started when my employer offered to pay for me to go to college. They told me I could take any class I wanted, get any degree I wanted.
Two years, a new manager, and more than $20k later. They're still paying with no complaints or conditions.
I'll graduate next may...
At work we had a hiring/promotion freeze, and a wage increase freeze. I got promoted and given two raises inside of six months during this period. I was moved from a menial support job into a technicle position, and given an entire lab of my own to run. I have a boss, but I am completey unsupervised.
Why? Beats me.
starting in 1998 and ending, at last in 2001, I worked closely with an editor at a major publishing house. I came fairly close to selling a book. In the end, though, the whole thing fell apart. I wont go into the details but the rejection had everything to do with office politics and nothing to do with my book. I was not even afforded the respect of a rejection letter. I was so angry. I ceased writing.
For about a year.
In time I came to view this debacle as a positive thing, hell, my book was really pretty crappy, anyway. I started to write fiction again. About a month ago, I got a rejection letter from a magazine, hardly my first; but this one was different, the editor requested a revision of the story and more of my work. Among other things, it the most complementary letter I have ever received.
I can't really explain the emotioanl rollercoaster of that day. Overcome by hope and dread and an emotion too strong to be called joy, I simultaneously laughed and cried on the drive home from work.
So next week I'll send out another story.
After that, I'll sit and wait for something to go wrong.
Hope is such a wonderful, evil thing.
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Morning is easily the most trying time me. My day usually starts at 5:00 AM and I rarely get to bed before midnight. I have two little boys, one that must go to daycare and the other to Montessori. The ordeal of dressing, feeding and getting the little guys out of the house is a day's work all and of itself.
About four months ago I decided to up my daily allotment of HELL. I agreed to give a coworker rides to and from work, everyday. I was originally supposed to be his back up if he couldn't get a lift from a family member. I transformed from back up to default the first time I picked him up.
Funny how often that kind of shit happens to me.
Funny as in it's not really funny.
Anyway-
This guy...
This fucking guy.
UGH.
He's not a bad guy, really, he's not. It's just that he is always, always pissed off about something. One day it's the roadwork on the way to his house and those fucking mexican fuckers; another day it's his boss; or the mother of his child; or his own mom; or his sister; or somebody else got something he didn't get and it wasn't fucking fair.
I show up at the same time every day. He's asleep at least two times a week. He does nothing, NOTHING, fast. If you tell him you'll be ready to leave in ten minutes, expect to go fucking looking for him after about twenty.
I want to cut him loose, but I gotta see him every day, and he has a daughter. He needs the job; his little girl needs him to have the job.
Rumor has it that he's supposed to be fired soon.
Everyday I wait for it, eager with anticipation.
I am soiled by my own hope.
what the fuck?
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This is the first page of the story I'm working on. This bit of garbage represents about twenty hours of my time.
Ages after the world had cooled, but still long, long ago, two continental plates came together. Force from this impact warped and rippled the smooth, sandy bed of a shallow sea. An eon of sustained stress shattered the ocean floor. The press continued, pushing the crushed earth upward; spikes and spires of fragmented strata thrust high into the atmosphere, as the bottom of the sea ascended to the top of the world. Water scurried and gushed over and down new made tracks and ruts, frothing, foaming, splashing, and trickling away, to some fresh made basin; transforming, becoming some new sea, the same old sea. On the mountaintops, wind and rain stripped and stole away the sand and the soft bone-rock underneath, leaving new made peaks of shining basalt, fresh and raw, against the sparkling, blue-black sky.
Unhindered, unabated, time pressed on; ages, and ages more, rose and dwindled. In the lapse, jagged peaks smoothed, rounded off, and, eventually, wasted away. Land lifted, land dropped. The sea returned.
Continents came together, moved apart. Mountains erected and eroded.
The sea returned.
And so on…
A goodly time after what was, perhaps, the tenth rotation of this cycle, men from the City of Relics came and built a rude structure of stone atop what had, not once, but many times, been the sea floor, or a mountain peak, or a patch of grassland, and was, now, the rounded top of a great hill.
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