The Hour of the Wolf

And unfortunately, I don't drink.

My Christmas Eve was the longest night I've experienced in quite some time and I wish it had been because of excitement for Christmas morning!

I woke up about 330 full of nameless dread. This made it a challenge of willpower to get up and use the bathroom. Fortunately, nothing ate me. I went back to sleep and found myself being chased down a wooded path by something. I entered a cabin, where I felt safe, until a big rig crashed outside and the dead driver became a zombie. It went downhill from there until I woke again, this time about 530.

This was my Hour of the Wolf.

I laid awake for a little over half an hour while my mind refused to let go of the fear and conjured up multiple unlikely but really possible scenarios to keep me awake and knotted up.

With some fervent prayer, I was finally able to sleep again and now Christmas morning awaits!

Awakening, Part 1

Itch! Itch!

Right there!

I squirmed around, trying vainly to reach it or rub up against something, but the warm darkness which had comforted and kept me as long as I could remember was now serving only to keep me from relief. I squirmed again while the itch persisted. If anything, it was growing worse and now I began to notice an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. I wanted out, now!

I stretched, and there was a sharp crack from all around me. I paused in shock and shivered at the breath of cold! For a moment, I wanted to stay in my warm darkness, but the itch stayed, and the pangs grew worse. I stretched again and flexed my claws to try and gain purchase on my surroundings. I scratched insistently at whatever was within reach, but the cracks didn't seem to be getting any wider. And that itch!

I flexed my claws again and roared in frustration and the wall of my womb turned prison suddenly dissolved into icy wind and light, bright light! I sprawled open, and flailed all four limbs wildly. I hadn't expected it to come apart so quickly! Or quite so completely! A quiet hissing sound startled me then and I rolled clumsily onto my belly, trying to get my feet under me and get away. I roared again, and a wet mist tickled my nose while the hissing sound started again right under my head! I tried to scrabble away from the frightening noise and finally became aware of my eyes. I pried them open against a stickiness that threatened to hold them shut.

Then, for a moment, I forgot the itch, the cold, and even the hunger. Sight was entirely new to me, and the blurry blobs of light and brighter light in every direction held me spellbound, particularly when continued blinking finally begin to bring them into some understanding. As my skin already told me, everything out here was colder. And it was so big! I swung my head back and forth, somewhat weakly at first, to try and take in all of this new, large room and a flash of color caught my eye.

More than the end of the weekend

I think I've really been missing out on past Sundays.

This is the first time in a long time that I've gotten up at a decent hour. Read a little scripture, went to my morning meeting, ate some lunch, played some hymns (well, if you use the term "played" loosely) on the piano, went to church, ate some food and found some ways to buoy people up a little while chatting with each other, watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional, and now I'm writing about my Sunday.

That's quite the sentence. And isn't entirely the best composed sentence in the world. But it's mostly accurate. And more or less gets the point across.

And now I can be a "treasure trove of linguistic anomalies."

Back to my main point.

Sunday is a fantastic day! Ever since I decided I wouldn't do homework on Sunday (when I was in school) and keep myself from as many other issues of day to day life on earth as possible, it's become something of a refuge. Unless I let some of those cares and issues come into life on this day.

Which made me realize what a haven from unpleasantness a home can be, if I let it.

Semi-immediate progenitors

I love that I have two grandmas! It's SO great!

It's true I don't remember too much about Grandma (Dad's mom), but I know she's amazing (after all, she had four incredible kids, one of whom is my father! And Grandpa married her, so... :). I can't remember much of what she looked like (well, maybe, but my image is colored by pictures I've seen of her.

I do remember watching Dark Crystal while laying on her bed. I remember playing Frogger at her house. I remember always being excited to visit even though it was a 2 and a half hour drive (55 mph speed limits back then). I remember that there was a piper at the cemetery where she was buried. I was in the back of our red minivan looking out the window at the piper while everyone was over at Grandma's graveside service. I'm not really sure why I was in the car during that, but...

I seem to remember fog or mist, but I might be conjuring that one up because of the cemetery and the piper. It is pretty atmospheric, hey?

I remember a lot more about Grandma (mom's mom), obviously, I suppose, since she lived only a few minutes away most of my life and she's still around. She let us boys sleep on her trampoline more than once! :)

The greatest memory I have of her, though, is when I asked to borrow her dining room for a dinner before a formal high school dance I went to (I think it was Senior Ball). All I did was ask to borrow the dining room...

Well, when we arrive, we enter to see candlelight glowing from the table, hear classical music playing from the stereo, and her second best china set out! It was amazing and far above and beyond the call of duty! I loved it and will forever remember her generosity in that!

Although it was pretty fun a few months back to try and figure out where Spring Hill was on our atlas...

In Training

Trains.

What is it about trains that are so cool? Maybe it's the possibility of getting off in Narnia. Or maybe the chance that you can walk through a wall to Platform 9 and 3/4...

But they must have been cool before that, or why would those stories have done that? I've never really ridden on a train, but I believe I would quite enjoy the trip!

Especially if it lets me off in Narnia.

No time

I think I'm avoiding myself.

Love and longing

Tonight I steal my own words from a friend's Facebook page. She's drawn out some amazing words by confusing me with her favorite movie character! It's a lot of fun!

My heart,

The breath caught in my throat as I read your letter and tears of longing threatened to overwhelm me, though I was loathe to reveal them among such as currently surround me.

To feel your head upon my shoulder as I embrace you with the warmth of spring while our fingers dance together the song of our dreams.

Then to ride apart, our fingertips a stolen kiss of contact from outstretched arms while stallion and mare race on beneath silver and midnight amid the sea of summer fields and floral jewels.

Then home, where autumn fire warms us, and you read of what you hope and cherish. Our hands once more united, at rest upon our laps and silver moon shines bright upon the snow while softly plays, once more, our song.

I hope it will not be long, my love.

Yours, forever and always...

Whoever you prove to be.

Written off?

"In my heart, I think that sometimes our deepest fears are not, that we are going to fail. Not that we will crumble and fall when our hearts are heavy and life seems like it is a futile effort. Our deepest fears are, that we are capable beyond measure...It is all the light that we hold inside our hearts, not the darkness, that most frightens us." -Jessica :D

I made a new friend today on the internet. She's a pretty amazing writer and this from her blog quite touched me. I think I do have something of that in me. And to the four of you who follow my musings, you should take a chance to read her blog. It's worth the time.

But...I'm still looking for something which holds my attention for longer than two days...

I think I've been delaying somewhat on deciding what I most like of things I do. Perhaps I was waiting to find that special someone and once I found her, I could sort of just...fit myself...around her likes and dislikes, picking out of my vast repertoire of things I find interesting those that would best fit her.

And here I am...and she's still MIA. So I'm left to myself to sort out what I most like. Or not. Maybe I'll just take paramedic classes and try that for a bit. Finally finish a degree in something interesting and then do that for a while. Then visit Antarctica, perhaps? Or herd cattle in Australia. Try making it in the movie business for a bit. Finally write out one of the oodles of ideas flying around in my head...

Sometimes, I envy those people with a singular amazing talent that they can just love and go with... and they probably envy me.

Realms and Realities

Hey that title could be a name for a dimensional hopping role-playing game! But that's not what I'm here to consider.

I watched A New Hope again for the first time in a long time and I still love it! Combine that with watching the new Star Trek some 2 and a half times the previous week and my latent excitement and enthusiasm for science fiction movies has been seriously rekindled.

I do have a dream of a fantastic universe or mythology that has room to shine in film and novels and RPGs and computer games... An ever growing realm of adventure and danger, challenge and darkness and an overarching feeling of hope...

I think I pull myself back from the brink every time I consider that leap. It seems impossible. Or at the very least so dependent on the reactions of others that there's no way I should pin my hopes and dreams and livelihood on something like that.

Not to mention that whenever you start talking of grand plans like that, people always want to helpfully bring you back to reality and remind you that most people don't succeed in such lines of work and you should have a backup plan and oh, maybe you should just spend all your time on your backup plan because that's really how you're going to put food on the table...

But I know successful full-time authors who've done it. Well, part of it at least.

Maybe I'm scared of being consumed by it. Or scared of losing creative control to publishers or producers.

But, then fear is no good basis for decision making.

A Wiki Walk...ish

Well, I really wanted to put up a picture of my first attempt at miniature painting, but my camera's auto focus is not up to the task. The camera could totally achieve it if it would give me manual focus control, but I don't think there's a switch for that.

It's like trying to get a command line on my iPod.

So...I really wish I'd had some snowpants and a good friend or two around today. The foot of snow that dropped was the most fantastic packing snow I've really ever seen and building a snow fort would have been the coolest thing ever! And I could finally join club G.R.O.S.S.

Or enter a monkery. Which would be more gardening and less tree climbing. Unless I found one in Fiji.

Speaking of Fiji, part of me thinks it would be superbly awesome to be a nuclear engineer on a ballistic missile sub in the Pacific. Small spaces are comforting for me. Although I'd have to go officer. Then maybe I could buck for Captain! Ooh. That would be pretty cool.

"This is Admiral Wall of Starfleet Command...sorry, I blew that." Oh, that line brings back some memories. I hope Dave or Dad reads this blog. Perhaps it will make them snicker. :D I really miss the simulator days. I have some really fond memories of that period in my life. I wonder if I could make it happen again.

My cousin bought a Sega Genesis on eBay which arrived today. I didn't even own a Sega Genesis and I'm still having severe nostalgia moments. Ah, the 8 bit days. I think I must've been somewhere around 8 when Nintendo came out and I trace my massively awesome platformer skills back to that. I won Rygar multiple times! (The fact that death was only a minor setback in that game and you had unlimited lives had nothing to do with it).

Which brings me to the link of the day. Some of those old school games were not just hard, they were Nintendo Hard.

Please be warned, if you are prone to Wiki Walk, you may not want to follow that link (or this one, for that matter).

Micro short story - first draft

Nathan gazed longingly at the moon-lit mass of ice beneath him, and thoughts of its massive lack of movement pressed down on him with the full weight of a wasted life. He was sure he could make a one way trip to stand on that bastion of winter, and become one with the immobile, unchanging landscape of arctic permanence that groaned and ached its way down the mountain through the year, leaving his challenges forever behind him. Yet as he imagined the glacial sounds in his head, he caught hold of that music in his mind, a grave fugue of smoothing stone, banked his plane, and headed for home.

New Moon....

you saw me standing alone! Cause I was three months before...the theater opened their door!

Okay, so this entry really has absolutely nothing to do with New Moon except I was waxing Weird Al-ish.

That and I haven't thought of much else to say except for a rather journalish report of my Sabbath day. Certainly I can spice it up more than that!

So...every time I sit down for part of an episode of Numb3rs (since everyone in this house is a fan), I end up wanting to go back and finish my Physics major. Or maybe major in math. And it sounds so exciting! And then I visit my FLGS (Friendly Local Gaming Store for all you less game geeky persons out there) and it makes me want to write fantasy and sci-fi gaming books and novels.

And then I watch some military movie and I want to go Coast Guard search and rescue, or Army Linguist, or Secret Service security specialist...

No wonder I'm driving a school bus in the everdark of the great white north and feel like I have nowhere to go. Wasn't I supposed to figure that out in, like, college? Or at least grade school...

Speaking of minis, I need to take pictures of the one I've painted. Or perhaps wait until I finish the second one that I think is going to look much better and post pics of both of them. But I digress.

What is it that is so appealing about posting one's innermost thoughts for the world to see on the internet?

White Cat
Just don't read all the comments. Your brain might die.

That is all.

Headed North

What does one say,
On a blog every day
When one write as one climbs into bed?
Share thoughts of grand things?
Speak of dragonfly wings?
Or how my life fares
Among snow, moose, and bears
In the north where it's white
Just six hours of light
Drive a bus
Never cuss
Keep searching
And searching...

I could write something silly,
A bit willy nilly
And let people wonder
What goes on in my head.

Shadowrun and baking universes

Shadowrun managed to mix cyberpunk and fantasy in what I think was a highly successful game. But traditional cyberpunk has too much unnecessary garbage. That and I'd like to have more space travel.

So, one of the ideas floating around in my head is a way to mix hard sci-fi with fantasy. Of course, I guess could insert some kind of inscrutable alien nanotechnology for nifty effects that are fantasy like, but I'm not sure that's really what I'm going for.

Visit to a Strange Planet...Again

I finally saw the new Star Trek movie.

I realize some of you will probably be surprised at this, given my upbringing, but I don't actually make it out to movies all that often these days. And looking back on it, I may have been subconsciously avoiding it. After all, there is such a thing as taking things too far. Still, some remakes have been rather impressive. Here's my take on it.


SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!




First off, it definitely showed Star Trek's characteristic blend of adherence to real science combined with total and complete disregard for it. A hallmark of many a well-loved science fiction story which Star Trek admirably achieves. This also gave them room to add a number of interesting features to the Enterprise herself (water pipes in the engine room, anyone?) that hearkened back to less advanced times (like the tech on the original series) while still making the technology look like it could exist in our future. It was a pretty good compromise that tied back to the old show while moving on to something new.

Second, there were a fantastic number of "Star Trek lines" that were well placed. I exclaimed in joy at each one and amazingly, only one was jarring to me in the dialogue at hand. This reminiscence of the existing show and movies was well used in quite a number of scenes and props and such. I mean, the nice shot of the Golden Gate brought memories of Star Trek IV, the scenes with Spock's mother and father well reminded me of similar scenes in the movies, and, of course, the brain worms (ok, I'm showing my lack of total Trekiness by not remembering their actual name) from Wrath of Khan. I half expected the villain to exclaim, "...for hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!"

The original characters were a must, and the new actors did an admirable job, but the real tie here to the original was the time travel plot that allowed Leonard Nimoy to "pass the reins." I wonder how he felt in that part, again? (That's actually where my inspiration for the title came from).

Anyway, end result is: I loved this movie (save for the apparently obligatory bedroom scene, which could have been much worse, but still...ugh). I think it was fantastic in its own right, but they successfully achieved the tie back to the old ones, and I think there was a ton to be appreciated only by long time fans of the franchise. Well done.

Someday they'll have feelings...

...someday they'll have dreams.

Where are mine? I'm interested in so many different things, I'm not sure I have a dream! Without a dream how can I have any goals? No wonder I'm treading water with no place to go!

Not that life is bad or anything, I'm just not sure school bus driver is really my best career option.

Debut

Well, here I am.

That makes me think of Firefly. In many ways, I miss that show. Then again, I've also been thinking I should go back and watch Babylon 5, too.

This writing is really stilted. Maybe if I can get into this on a semi-regular basis, it'll get a little better. But I've got so many ideas I just don't know where to start, and I can't ever seem to keep myself on one thing long enough to really get anywhere.

So I end up flailing about. Treading water in rough seas and not getting any closer to the boat. Er...ship. Because ships are cooler than boats, generally speaking. Maybe I can join up with the Yamato.