Descriptive paragraph–Sixteen

Kory heaved a deep sigh as he reached the end of the road, hoisting himself up on the worn cement block that was the only barrier between the dead end and the quiet water of the Gowanus Canal. Across the way was the same view that had always been there – the grey stone of the church towers peeking out over the trees, and off to the right was the towering, brown brick skyline. Well, about as towering as you were ever going to see this far into Brooklyn. Somewhere beyond those drab buildings was Governor’s Island, and beyond that, Westside and Jersey City. You couldn’t even see the Manhattan skyline from here, he thought bitterly. There was a large building right smack dab in the way, faced in what may have once been white stucco, with a sign on it that read “Brooklyn Truck & Equip. Repair”. Degraw Street was too far south, anyway, even if the building hadn’t been directly in his line of sight.

Carlo’s crazy tendencies–Sixteen

This HAD to be shared.  I can’t believe what happened here.  I really can’t.  I was struggling for inspiration, and suddenly….  WHAM!  Carlo may be totally wacked, but sometimes he has some slightly valid points…

 

“AND THE WORLD WILL KNOOOOOOOOOW!”

James shook his head and sighed as Carlo finished his elaborate dance number with a flourish of awkward movement. “Carlo, for the last time, we’re listening to Bon Jovi. Not whatever showtunes crap you’ve got playing in your head.” Carlo ignored him completely and began humming the intro to yet another song that was specifically not playing. “Good lord, where does he hear this stuff?”

Ryan laughed and shook his head. “Screwed up as he may be, he had a good childhood. Come on, didn’t you ever watch the classics as a kid?”

“Dude, that’s not even a classic! It’s like… obscure crap. I’ve never heard it before, and now I think I’m doomed to hear it for the rest of my life!”

“Or at least until you leave.”

James scowled. “Don’t remind me.”

Michael shrugged. “I dunno,” he ventured. “I kinda like it.”

“Yes, but some of us are trying to finish an English paper. What the— Holy fish! What the hell is he doing now?”

Ryan cocked his head to the side in amusement. “Looked like some kind of flying barrel roll to me.”

The boys were sitting in their shared room, listening to – as James put it – Bon Jovi on the CD player he’d snuck from his parents’ house. Their room was significantly better furnished than any of the others in the Houses of Refuge, mostly because of James. He was one of the very few that was actually in the Houses of Refuge program completely by choice. The way he saw it, though, life in The Refuge was better than life at home – as evidenced by the fact that he frequently brought stuff to share with the boys from home, and his parents didn’t even to bother to wonder where he went most of the time.

Ryan tapped out the beat to the song on his notebook with the back end of his pencil. “Hey, Michael, what’d you get for number four?”

The dark-skinned boy glanced up at his previous work momentarily. “Uh… B. No, wait… Yeah, that one I didn’t understand the question. I just kinda guessed.”

Ryan shrugged and added the answer to his own sheet. “Don’t matter. It’s still a better guess than I had.”

With a nod, Michael went back to his work. “What’d you put for number ten?”

“F,” Ryan replied without so much as a pause.

Michael started to put that as his answer before he stopped to think about it. “Um… Ryan? There’s only four choices for each question.”

Ryan laughed. “I know. I haven’t gotten to that one yet.”

Again, James shook his head. “Dude, it is no wonder you two get such low grades. All you ever do is copy off of each other.

“Nature’s calling!” Carlo screamed suddenly, right in the middle of the second verse of his song. He grabbed James’ cell phone – the only one in the entire facility – off the bedside table and flipped it open. “Hello?”

This drew a look of shock and confusion from James and a round of hysterical laughter from Ryan. “Hey, James,” the blonde boy struggled out between gasping chuckles. “He’s rubbed his… his crazy all over your phone. You’d better… better not touch it now.”

Carlo actually looked slightly offended by this, which was impressive indeed seeing as it was the first acknowledgement he’d given that there were other people in the room. “Scab,” he said simply.

“What does that even mean?”

“Means you’re a traitor,” Carlo replied. “Kid Blink was a traitor. Sold ‘em out, he did. That’s why they called him a scab.”

Ryan blinked in astonishment. “Okay, I have no clue what he just said.”

“History!” Carlo hissed in annoyance. “Look it up, jeez! You’d think you of all people would get it.” He sighed and started over, speaking very slowly as if to make his point clear, though that did little to help. “Kid Blink turned scab. They almost beat him up for it. Would have too, if the coppers hadn’t shown up to stop them. You remember that next time you have an angry mob chasing you. Them coppers ain’t all bad.”

Ryan chuckled. “Okay, the very next time I’m being chased by an angry mob, I’ll remember not to… to scab. Whatever that means…”

Carlo just shook his head. “You have no culture.”

“And you have no sanity.”

“At least I’m not oblivious to what really goes on around me. Like some people.”

At this, Ryan scoffed outright. “Ha! No, I’m pretty sure you are, Carlo.”

Carlo just glared at him and started humming another tune, adding a little tap footwork to the song in his head, though this time he didn’t sing. Ryan went back to his work, tapping out the beat on the CD player. Then his tapping stuttered as it got mixed up with the beat to Carlo’s song, which was being sounded out against the floor in confusing contrast to the song that was playing. “Okay, man. I can’t concentrate with you doing that.”

“And I can’t concentrate with you tapping, either,” James pointed out. “Why do you have to do that whenever you listen to music? It makes it really hard to listen to anything when you’re around.”

Ryan shrugged. “Just something I do.”

“Well, could you maybe stop? It’s almost as annoying as his… weird… habits… What is he doing now?” Carlo was, in fact, in the process of trying to climb up on one of the bookcases and dance on it, though the narrow space and the presence of the wall behind him was making this feat extremely difficult. “Okay, that’s it!” James exclaimed dramatically. “I’m going to the other room to finish this!” And with that, he stuffed his notebook into his backpack and stomped out of the room. Nobody really seemed to mind.

Conversation: Jeff & Kory–Sixteen

Some conversation bit between Jeff and Kory.  It’s not finished, but I kinda really like it.  I love the dynamic that is developing between these two.  They’re very quickly becoming my main characters.  Which makes me happy, because I’m pretty much in love with Jeff Cooper.  No joke.  Kory Duchowski…  I mean, he’s cute and all, but Jeff and I have so much in common…  Eh.  Rambling.  Sorry.  On with the scene!

 

Jeff and Kory were sitting in their respective beds studying. Or, rather, Jeff was studying. Kory was doing his best to be a general pest. Though his efforts were sorely in vain, as Jeff had by now found some quite effective ways of ignoring the pesky blonde. Eventually, though, Kory resorted to plopping himself heavily on Jeff’s bed and yanking the text book clear out of his hands.

Jeff rolled his eyes. “What, Kory? I have homework. And so do you.”

“Actually, if I remember correctly,” Kory replied impishly, “you finished your homework an hour ago. So, if I’m not mistaken, this is Tony’s homework. Isn’t it?”

“Actually, it’s Justin’s—“

“Whatever,” the blonde shrugged. “It’s still not yours. So why are you doing it?”

Jeff let out an exasperated sigh as he attempted to snatch the book back. “You know very well why.”

“Because they’ll beat you up for it? I told them last time they’d be sorry if they tried to so much as touch you again.”

“Kory,” Jeff said patiently, “as nice a thought as that is, you know as well as I do that it isn’t likely to work.”

“Oh, shut it with your probability jargon.” Kory swatted at Jeff’s head and tossed the book to the floor. “I’m bored. Entertain me.”

Jeff sighed once more, though a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth this time. “You know, behavior like this really doesn’t help Carlo’s opinion of us.”

“So?” Kory scrunched his nose up in annoyance. “Screw Carlo’s opinion. He’s completely wacko, anyway.”

“Wacko, huh?” Jeff mused, leaning back on his pillow and folding his hands behind his head. “That a technical term?”

“Dude, you’re such a dork,” Kory laughed, smacking him in the face with a pillow from his own bed before settling down on his stomach with the pillow under his chin.

“Seriously, though,” Jeff went on, “what exactly defines a person as crazy?”

“Hmm?” Kory mumbled in reply, his attention wavering.

“Well, I mean, who’s not to say we’re not all a little… Well, ‘wacko’?”

Kory just heaved a deep melodramatic sigh. “If you’re going to get all philosophical on me again, I’m gonna go make someone else entertain me.”

“Come on, Kory, I’m being serious!”

“Okay, okay,” Kory chuckled, rolling over so he could make proper eye contact. “What was it you were wanting to talk about?”

Now that he had the blonde’s full attention, though, Jeff suddenly seemed hesitant to say what was on his mind. The brunette shrugged uncomfortably. “I dunno…”

Vacant Lot scene–Sixteen

This amused me greatly, so I figured I’d share.  This came about sometime yesterday and pushed me over the 6k-word mark.  The scene itself is not yet finished, and there’s some rather irritatingly awkward description that comes before it, but this is the most interesting bit.  I hope you enjoy.

 

Carlo glanced up momentarily from listening to Ryan’s energetic and most likely over exaggerated story to take in the scene.

“Hey,” he whispered suddenly, interrupting Ryan mid sentence. “Hey, guys, hold up a sec.”

Ryan rolled his good eye as the delivery of his tale was completely ruined. “What is it, Carlo?”

Carlo gestured surreptitiously to the pair seated on the ground across the way. “Jeff and Kory,” he said simply, as if that explained the whole situation clearly.

Mark stared at them intently for a moment, then shook his head. “What about ‘em?”

Eyes widening in disbelief, Carlo gestured wildly. “What about ‘em?” he fairly shrieked, still trying to keep his voice low. “What do you mean, what about ‘em?”

This, of course, caused Mark to roll his eyes, nudging Ryan with his elbow before turning back to the rather excitable Italian and slinging an arm around his shoulders. “Carlo. Dude. How many times do we have to tell you? Nobody can read your mind, so you’re gonna have to just tell us what it is you’re seeing, man.”

Carlo’s eyes went from big as saucers to narrowed slits in point-two seconds flat. “Get that off,” he hissed. Mark removed his arm, though somewhat begrudgingly, and Carlo continued. “There’s something going on over there.”

“Dude, there’s nothing going on over there,” Ryan sighed.

“There so totally is! Why can’t you guys see it?”

“Uh… Maybe because we still don’t even know what ‘it’ is?”

With a frustrated growl, Carlo pointed forcefully in the direction of Kory, who was now lazily fondling Shadow’s ears. This was causing the mutt’s tail to swish right in Jeff’s face, bringing a rather irritated scowl from behind his glasses. Kory gave a soft chuckle before tugging on Shadow’s ear to bring him farther away from the other boy, after which Jeff shot him a grateful glance before going back to his book.

“See!” Carlo hissed again. “See! Right there! Look! Right. There. Tell me you saw that!”

Mark rolled his eyes again and seated himself comfortably against a metal bin. “I didn’t see anything unusual. What’s your conspiracy theory this time, Carlo?”

“No conspiracy,” Carlo commented, suddenly quite casual and calm.

Ryan clapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah, right. So what is it?”

Once again, Carlo glared at the hand on his shoulder. “Off!”

Ryan just chuckled and shoved him a bit, amused at the small Italian’s intense reaction to being touched. As the pieces fell into place, he only laughed harder. “Oh, come on, Itey,” he coaxed. “What’s your damage, man? You’re always convinced there’s something dastardly going on between those two. What’s it gonna take to convince you that they’re honest to goodness just really good friends?”

Carlo sighed as if in sympathy of their incredible lack of vision and shook his head. “Blink,” he said slowly, as if talking to a small child. “You just can’t see things the way I do. There’s something horrible going on right under our noses, but if you want to ignore it and pretend that everything’s all hunky-dory, well you go right on ahead. But don’t say I didn’t warn you when you walk in one day to find them… well, you know.”

Eyebrows scrunched in confusion, Ryan squinted at Carlo with his good eye. “Carlo, they don’t live in my house. How on earth am I supposed to walk in on them doing anything?”

By now the heated conversation was carrying well across the lot. Kory sat up and gently pushed Shadow out of the way, turning to Jeff and tapping his knee to get his attention. Once he had done so, he gestured over to where Carlo and Ryan were having their debate. Jeff listened silently for several moments before smiling softly and shaking his head. “Carlo and his conspiracies again?” he mumbled turning his attention halfway back to his book.

“Yup,” Kory replied matter-of-factly. Excited by the sudden burst of activity, Shadow jumped to his feet and clambered awkwardly into Kory’s lap, his tail once again slapping Jeff soundly in the face. “Shadow,” Kory muttered, somewhere between annoyed and amused but too lazy to do anything about it.

Jeff coughed a few times as he was met with a mouthful of dog hair, then watched as the friendly mutt attempted to lick at Kory’s face. “You know, you really ought to train him or something,” he commented casually.

Kory just shook his head as he pushed the dog away. “I’ve tried. I haven’t decided yet if I’m too lazy, or if he is.”

“It’s you,” Jeff said quickly, going back once more to his book. He chuckled softly as Kory launched a poorly aimed swat at his head.

SWEET!

So, like, I finally got LiveWriter back…  For a while I couldn’t get into this blog account, cuz I had set it up with Windows LiveWriter, and completely forgot the password.  It wasn’t until I tried to set up a second account with the same e-mail address that I was able to get back in.

Anyhow, just wanted to point out that blogging will now be a heck of a lot easier!  WHOO!  Yay, and stuff.

*facepalm*

I just did something stupid. I did just about the stupidest thing I can think of right now. Beyond stupid. Idiotic, even.

I've never done well in public situations. I hate working customer service because I don't like talking to people that I don't know. I invest WAY too much into the situation, emotionally speaking, so I usually end up beating myself up for saying or not saying something in particular, or generally just making a fool of myself by NOT speaking at all or something equally dumb. I dunno. It's ridiculous. I can communicate perfectly well - when I don't have to look the person in the eye. Even with friends, I have a difficult time not getting extremely nervous when someone is kind and generous enough to give me their full, undivided attention. It makes me uneasy for some reason.

So you can probably guess that celebrity contact is a HUGE no-no for me. I can't deal well enough with normal people, God forbid I should ever meet someone famous! I almost did once. My dad took us to a free PFR (Pray for Rain, big 80s-90s Christian band) concert and went to meet them afterwards to tell them how excited he was that they were back to putting out music (they'd been on a hiatus for a while, but that's not important). I hid behind him the entire time and kept my eyes firmly fixed on the ground in front of me.

I did slightly better when my mom and I went to see Ted Dekker. I got him to sign my mass-market copy of Thr3e. He smelled it first (odd?). But what I really wanted was to tell him what an inspiration he was to a budding young author. I didn't. I hate myself for that, but it's in the past and there's nothing I can do about it now.

Well, idiot that I am, approximately two hours ago I did the worst thing imaginable. I put some of my graphic design artwork out there for celebrity review. There's this band, Big Time Rush, that has a show on Nickelodeon. My mom's a big fan. We watch their show, listen to their songs. They're really cool. I like their music. Definitely one of Nick's better investments (since they so ungraciously took Roundhouse off the air without so much as a DVD release... :P). Anyway, they've got their first album coming out in October, and preorders opened up, I think today. The band's really excited about it.

I don't know why, but I have a Twitter account. Honestly, the only thing it's good for is celebrity stalking. And yes, that is what it's called. I follow quite a number of famous people, Nathan Fillion, NPH, the Jonas Brothers, Bridget Reagan, Kevin Stea, and the cast of Chuck, just to name a few... I also follow the members of BTR. Earlier tonight, one of them, Carlos, posted that he wanted his fans to make him a new background for the preorder. Something he could use as his bg, and he'd follow whoever made the best one.

Now I figure you can see where the stupidity comes in. First thing I thought was, "Oh, hey, I do graphic design! Why not?" So I did my thing. I went photo hunting, threw something together in about twenty minutes, uploaded it to one of the twitter photo apps, and sent him a link. And then I realized what I'd done. I'd put my personal artwork out on display for some really famous guy with over 30,000 fans to look at and to judge.

Can you say STUPID?!

Skittery: I can.

Rags: Shut up.

So yeah. I feel sick to my stomach now. My hands are shaking. My head is spinning, and it hurts. I know much better than to attempt sleep at this point. Even though he probably won't come to a decision for some time yet. Maybe not til tomorrow, at least. And I feel awful about it. But honestly, it's not like I'm some ridiculous fangirl begging for attention. But I feel so stupidly fangirlish with the way I seem to be reacting. In the end, though, it's really more along the lines of self-conscious than anything. I'd LOVE to see my work up on some celebrity's twitter background. That would totally make my day. But there's a lot of emotional investment here, because it IS my work. Sure, I didn't spend a lot of time on it, but I did put a lot of effort and every drop of talent that I seemingly posses into this piece, because I didn't want to submit some half-a** job.

And, I mean, come on. This would be about the equivalent of Michael Goorjian reading Making a Living. Or, really, any celebrity reading any fanfiction out there about their movie or tv show or book or whatever. Just to put this into perspective for my fellow fanfiction writers out there. So I think I have every right to at least be a little nervous.

Still. I cannot help but think that this has got to be the most stupid, whimsical, idiotic thing I have EVER done in my entire life!

Curtain Call

So last night was the closing performance of what I have decided was my final show. Things have become way too stressful and dramatic in a place that was supposed to be my sanctuary away from the stresses and drama of life. Acting was my get-away, my break from reality (I eat through books too quickly for them to do me much good in this department). Over the past two or three years, rehearsals themselves have been an experience all their own. The amount of drama I've gone through since Little Women in 2007 has more than made up for the fact that I dodged it all through highschool (being homeschooled certainly has its benefits). Unfortunately it has now colored my entire perception of our little community theatre group.

Not that my leaving is out of any kind of bitterness. After all, I stuck to my commitment and finished out this last show. But it certainly opened my eyes to the real issue at hand. In essence, I've grown up. And I feel like this whole thing that happened, whatever it may have been, was like God's way of telling me, "Okay, you're done here, time to move on." As sad as that is, I can't deny the fact that the door is, indeed, closing. In my face. Which is totally my fault for trying to get back in when I'd already stepped out.

Not only that, but since Godspell in 2008, when it really became like a family for me, I started trying to make myself content living in this little backwater town for the sake of my newfound family. I put dreams on hold because of that. Few people may realize this, but I have always wanted to live in a big city, New York specifically. I guess it comes from always having lived out in the middle of nowhere (I mean, honestly? Sixteen years in Euharlee of all places?). I literally grew up here. And recently, my passion for travel has been resparked. Call it obsession if you like, and I'll be the first to agree with you, but there's no denying the fact that there has to be some reason I'm so attracted to it. It may sound weird, but I dream of the hustle and bustle of big city life. The sluggishness of southern living has just about driven me insane by this point.

Of course, you need a purpose in life, and that's what I'm still looking for. And I feel that's yet another reason to step back. I'll be starting up school again in the fall, three classes to a quarter, and I still have to maintain my part time job in the middle of all this. Frankly, I won't have time for most anything else. But it's all for the dreams. I'm studying to become something of an artist. No, it's not art school. But it's ad design at a really good tech school, and it's practical, and I can get a really good job in less than two years. I mean, honestly, advertising is one of the few industries that isn't suffering right now. I'm still not sure where all of this fits in with God's grand scheme, but to be completely truthful I was always more of the lead-by-example type to begin with, anyway. And either way, I still think this is the direction He's leading me. Maybe the road doesn't go all the way to NYC, but it certainly goes somewhere. And if it really does stay right here, well I can be happy with that when the time comes. Because it's not one of those "I can't stand to be here any longer" things, it's more of a "I really think there's more for me out there" kind of thing.

So anyway, we'll see. At any rate, I'm going to miss so many people so very much, several of which I hadn't had much time at all to get to know, which saddens me greatly, and a whole bunch that I've known very well and for quite some time, which also saddens me greatly. Many I've lost touch with and who will probably be none the wiser, some I don't know very well at all who might notice whether I realize it or not, and some who haven't got a clue. I'd like to think that my presence will be very sorely missed, but to be totally honest, I really think they'll do just fine without me. I mean, come on, it wasn't like I was the best one on the boards anyway. But either way, I wish them all the best of luck in life, and many broken legs in future performances (which I will do my best to attend). I promise no hard feelings. And I pray that they never forget what they stand for and for Whom they ultimately perform.

And curtain.