tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292555341559621152024-02-08T04:02:18.992-08:00Chimeric WhispersI wanted to fly when I woke up. For real this time. Not just the feeling that sank in my gut, the one that I gasped air into as I woke and sat straight up taking the covers with me.
I think I mainly just wanted to keep from falling. Again.MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-83731543351263861192017-01-24T22:18:00.001-08:002017-01-24T22:18:22.380-08:00NODAPL<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="d1aup" data-offset-key="uqo6-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<span data-offset-key="uqo6-0-0">Home safe after the </span><span class="_5u8n" data-offset-key="uqo6-1-0" spellcheck="false" style="background-color: rgba(88, 144, 255, 0.14902); border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(88, 144, 255, 0.298039);"><span data-offset-key="uqo6-1-0"><span data-text="true">#nodapl</span></span></span><span data-offset-key="uqo6-2-0"> protest all the way around midtown tonight. We wove our way from Columbus Circle across town a couple of times and landed at Times Square (a.k.a. the swirling cesspool of doom). Our group almost got left behind at one point, but we managed to stick with the march with Cops swarming around the contingent the entire time. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="49qs4-0-0">Someone threw some ice out a window at us.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="ai66e-0-0">At one point I thought we might get arrested.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="fmfl3-0-0">A couple of people none of us knew did.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="56jdl-0-0">It was very scattered after we first left Trump Towers and began to feel frantic.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="4sskr-0-0">Then we built up steam, and it began to feel like energy vibrating together. </span></div>
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MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-84218597724135010912016-12-02T20:28:00.000-08:002016-12-02T20:28:14.608-08:00August firesAugust fires make ashes for<br />
September embersMiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-73805505148379648652016-11-23T13:13:00.002-08:002016-11-23T13:14:34.007-08:00The Girl Who Wore ArmorI started writing this story on the subway after a rant I had, either at work, or at a friend's house.... I kinda can't remember. Anyway it's about a girl who wakes up every morning and reads the news. She is frightened and disturbed by everything she sees until she can't get herself out of bed for days at a time, so she decides to go into the toxic junkyard behind her house and make herself some armor. After collecting all her materials, and starting her work, she nearly catches her house and the neighbor's houses on fire, and to make matters worse, she can't reach behind to weld the back plating on. She sets out to solicit help from her neighbors, who each have very legit reasons for not wanting to help her (ie: you're going to burn my house down and give me what in exchange? etc).<br />
<br />
I'm currently looking for illustrators and folks who are connected with publishers who might be interested in the piece. I'm very happy with where it is and the themes and stuff, but am totally open to collaborative feedback and constructive criticism that will ultimately make the story stronger.<br />
<br />
The themes are community based healing, trauma, and resilience in the face of oppression.MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-52760198942738951942016-11-20T15:27:00.000-08:002016-11-20T15:27:08.559-08:00I want to stand next to my SiblingsI want to stand next to my Siblings.<br />
<br />
I want to stand here next to my Siblings.<br />
<br />
I want to stand here next to my lost Siblings.<br />
<br />
I want to stand here next to my lost Siblings and hold them.<br />
<br />
I want to stand here next to my lost Siblings and share our love and hold them.<br />
<br />
I want to stand here next to my lost Siblings and share our love and hold them and never, ever, let them go.<br />
<br />
I want to stand next to my Siblings every day until we can't stand still anymore.<br />
<br />
And then I want to fight.MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-90947408105909865222016-10-24T17:46:00.001-07:002016-10-24T17:46:23.039-07:00Chromosomal SexI'm reading about conception, pregnancy, and childbirth for my human behavior class, which is, you know, a minefield for cissexist language and blind acceptance of the genetic gender binary. The thing is, it's gotten me thinking. Since "male" and "female" are two separate results of chromosome combinations with Y as the dominant sex chromosome, and given the many variations we now know to be true (XXXY, XXY, XY androgen insensitive person, etc), what we have are humans who respond to cellular reactions to proteins and enzymes that shape and form their bodies, beginning in their development beginning in utero.<br />
<br />
So the place I go as a trans woman in this socially constructed genetic maleness or femaleness, is that being trans is somehow often seen as going against our genetics. We are seen as defying not only the environmental and social influences over our sex and gender, but the very genes within us that are informing hormone operation, which guides the production of proteins and enzymes to certain cells, thus influencing genetic expression.<br />
<br />
It is with this notion of harnessing our hormones to influence our very own genetic expression that I find the most appealing about this cellular experience of being trans. We at our very core do not defy our genetic nature, but embrace our relationship to it. By defining the way our genes express themselves, we are making art out of our own developing bodies and shaping ourselves with the bodies we were taught to hate.<br />
<br />
I can't think of anything more empowering a response to the doctrine of trans as equivalent to being a genetic "mistake". On the contrary, we are in fact very skilled genetic artists.<br />
<br />
<br />MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-88147503155223956832016-08-28T21:14:00.001-07:002016-09-05T06:23:29.554-07:00I want wingsEver since I was little I remember wishing I could fly. Not like superman could fly. I wanted wings. I wanted to grow them and feel them burst from my shoulder blades.<br /><br />I wanted to feel my warm blood dripping down my back as the delicate, feathery wings quiver and twitch while they expand. Large brown hawk's wings, like the color of my hair. And a rounded fanned tail that could sweep the air beneath my body as I fling myself into the sky and be above the trees in seconds.<br /><br />Sometimes they were scaly wings and once I learned what gargoyles were, I envied their resilience. Their patience.<br /><br />A few days ago I wanted wings of fire and feet curled under me, hanging loose, but engaged. Talons dripping with flaming embers. These wings do not get me much farther than the flame they burst out of, but I needed them and they were there.<br /><br />Then I woke up again and my wings had fallen asleep. I can still feel them, brown and feathery, tucked sweetly beneath my shoulder blades. They itch and pop beneath the skin, moving the flesh around as they patiently await tonight, when it's finally cool enough again to fly.MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-80223304742777686382016-08-28T21:03:00.002-07:002016-08-28T21:03:52.573-07:00You are not a fraud.<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
You are not a fraud.</div>
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This is for you now, or maybe later when you need it more, for anytime you need to read the words "You are not a fraud." I write this also for myself, because I need to read that too from time to time, and remember that my thoughts, my ideas, my identity, my fears, are valid.</div>
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The thoughts and feelings that come from you do not have to define you, but they are meaningful and true in a way that no one else can take from you. And you have a right to remain u<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">ndecided about the ways that you interpret these thoughts and feelings no matter how much pressure others and the world place onto your ability to understand and interpret them.</span></div>
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The love that lives inside you can never die. It can never be killed, exhausted, extinguished, poisoned, or stolen. You can replenish it, no matter how long it has been since you last were able to feel it. Sometimes this takes a lot longer than others, and that is okay. Sometimes you need to feel safe in order to let it thrive. That is also okay. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. Least of all yourself.</div>
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<i class="_1gwo" title="heart emoticon"><i aria-hidden="true" class="_4-k1 img sp_fM-mz8spZ1b_2x sx_bf4186" style="background-image: url("/rsrc.php/v2/yA/r/UGJMusFXJAV.png"); background-position: 0px -204px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: 18px 476px; display: inline-block; height: 16px; vertical-align: -3px; width: 16px;"></i><span aria-hidden="true" class="_skr" style="font-size: 0px;"><3</span></i></div>
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<i class="_1gwo" title="heart emoticon"><span aria-hidden="true" class="_skr" style="font-size: 0px;"><3</span></i></div>
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MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-59035879892622243432016-06-30T18:12:00.004-07:002016-09-05T06:22:55.079-07:00Light behind paper.That thing I put on paper. It was a secret thing. A special thing. It was a tiny, private, ignorable thing. Until I put it down onto paper.<br /><br />Now there is light behind it, light that's not mine, projecting an image of the thing on the paper on the walls. Everywhere it points, it becomes real, makes itself true, shows what it is to me. To everyone.<br /><br />The light that's behind it is a light that's not mine and I can't control where it goes or when it comes on.<br /><br />The walls that it points to are sometimes blank, and sometimes too busy for the thing to project on, and that's when I'm thankful, when there is so much behind the thing that if someone were looking, even longer than a short time, they might still not see the thing that I put on the paper.<br /><br />Somehow I'm making my thing become something more clear, more specific. I'm making it a statement, a purpose. I want a real human thing.<br /><br />But I want it to be harmless. I want it to be a bicycle, or a sandwich, or a dress, or a subway story. I want it to be material attachment. I want the thing to be so unbearably unscary to say that it is easy to put on the paper. But it is not. It never is. And if it were, the light would not come, and people might not want to look.<br /><br />So I put blood on the paper, and the times I fucked up, the car I hit and drove away from, the boys I used, the girls I hurt, the harm that I did to my family while harm was being done to me, and the pain I brought on people I love. The trust I lost and the trust I gave away.<br /><br />I put it all down and now it's not just a thing anymore. It breathes. It bleeds. It betrays. It lies, and tells inappropriate jokes.<br /><br />I put it down and I can't burn it, or throw it away, or take it back in. And I'm so scared.MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-24705475683471780482016-06-30T14:36:00.000-07:002016-06-30T14:36:29.610-07:00Freewrite!Please be a ghost if you aren't I couldn't see you. What do I want to say? I don't think this makes any sense and I'm kind of in a block. Mostly what I do when I'm blocked like this is drink. Oops. Then I play guitar for a while until I get out whatever feelings I didn't want to feel are out. Check. Oops. Then, finally I sit down and am like, crack crack knuckles, lets get to clackin!<br />
<br />
Then of course I still don't write anything good.<br />
<br />
Fuck.<br />
<br />
I'm doomed.<br />
<br />
So speaking of doom I have wanted to jump on this post-apocalyptic wagon for a seriously long time and I've had a super secret not-so-secret story brewing for a hell of a long time that I am dying to write. But now I have this fucking witch story in my way and I am stuck on it. I love the witch story, don't get me wrong. I'm just sick of it. I'm sick of writing it, workshopping it, I'm tired of thinking about it. I think I may have over done it and basically ruined a major part of it by tinkering too much. So now. I'm stuck.<br />
<br />
Then there is this completely alluring Mars story that I am dy-dy-dy-ying to tell everyone on Earth at once and it is so terribly disorganized that I am afraid it will become the same mess that the witch story did if I do anything to it. ART AND FEAR BABY. SHIT IS REAL.<br />
<br />
Then I guess I need to collect myself, fuck being professional, fuck being polite, fuck fuck fuck it all and all the propriety. I want to scream, foaming, and I want to be a fucking animal. I want to jump up and down and slam my fists on the roofs of cars. I want to drink and dive off a ship into the ocean. I want to fly high the black sails of piracy and never come back.MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-74890485989319001582016-06-30T14:00:00.000-07:002016-06-30T14:00:13.130-07:00If magic was real...If magic was real, I would practice it every day. I would go to work, come home, write, cook, clean, do my laundry, and then sometimes when I felt the urge coming on, I would practice magic. It wouldn't be much, at least to start out with. A little levitation here and there, maybe some telekinesis. I think it would take a while to learn it, but I have always wondered about teleportation.<br />
<br />
If magic was real, I wouldn't have to go to work, but I would anyway. I would get there on time, even if I slept in, because I'd be a bit savvy with the space-time continuum. I'd practice a little healing, a little empathy, a bit of calming of the nerves. I would offer my magic as a free service to those who need it the most. At least I think that's what I'd do.<br />
<br />
If magic was real, I would be able to fly.<br />
<br />
If magic was real, I would shapeshift as often as possible, and learn how to become any animal I ever dreamed of becoming. Oh and I would also talk to animals.<br />
<br />
If magic was real, there would be no poverty, no war, no disease, no inequality, no oppression. Everyone would be given equal access to services, and the world would be a better place.<br />
<br />
If magic was real, I would still read fantasy and sci fi books. I would try to write them too, although I would have an unfair advantage. Would everyone be able to do magic, if magic was real? Could I gift it to others? Would I gift it to all? What if I could only bestow magic on one hundred people before my power was drained completely? Would I still share it?<br />
<br />
If magic was real, would Donald Trump be able to, like, do magic? How would we stop him?<br />
<br />
If magic was real, I am pretty sure that there would be a lot more chaos in the world before there was order, but that's also kind of a good thing.<br />
<br />
Would there be dragons?<br />
<br />
Would anyone need cars?<br />
<br />
Would we be able to save the planet then?<br />
<br />
Would anyone care?MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-73312609454548417372016-06-30T13:25:00.000-07:002016-06-30T13:25:04.025-07:00DisembarkThere are all these tiny anchors pulling downward under my skin. Each joint has one. It feels like a thousand ships sailing on my blood, my ocean, all stopping at once and becoming a great heavy weight across a planet. <br />
<br />
I don't know what I did, but I know it was something bad. Something to make them turn away. Betrayal is familiar to me, and comes on quiet. It starts with anxiety and it's the kind that you want to wish away, or tell yourself is your imagination. But you know that it's real. I do, at least.<br />
<br />
The way you tell someone has betrayed you is when they won't look at you. Then they start to avoid. I knew it when she blew me off without asking again for a better time, more specific. Friends who know what it's like, don't do that unless they mean to erase something they are ashamed of. Friends don't lead you down a road they can't walk on and then disappear.<br />
<br />
For those who have felt love taken away by the people closest to them, she should know better. She should take more care, be more sensitive, give a bit of herself. Maybe it's wrong to expect this. Maybe it's wrong to ask. Maybe I'm just as fucked up as it seems like she thinks that I am. And how can I tell what is real when all I can feel is shattering?<br />
<br />
So I go to work and pretend like it's not happening. I'm tired of pretending for other people. I'm sick of being the one who always has to say sorry. I'm sick of needing to apologize for being myself, having feelings, needing assurance.<br />
<br />
I don't know what I did. I probably didn't do anything. I just was. I am. My being who I am sometimes isn't what people want to see in me, or want to like. My feeling my feelings always hurts people. I don't want to feel anymore.<br />
<br />
So I let the anchors pull me again and I try to stay as still as possible. I can't do anything but wait this out, until the ocean fills back up again and the ships aren't afraid to set sail.MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-11355128243935595122013-02-26T13:04:00.000-08:002013-02-26T13:04:07.859-08:00LimerenceTrembling limerence, deliver me<br />
from bondage.<br />
<br />
Believe in the skin that floats up like feathers<br />
coated in dry paint, comes off in flakes<br />
<br />
To continue their ascent<br />
And allow me to recede from mine.MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-40381378892508469502012-08-13T14:12:00.002-07:002012-08-13T14:12:06.714-07:00And after all that,This.MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-65439956211498601042012-05-15T21:18:00.003-07:002012-05-15T21:50:58.250-07:00Jasmine: the Introverted Sorceress, Part OneNight time at the train station always made Jasmine uncomfortable. The pushy people, the echoes and the lights mostly. She almost always stared too long at the lights as they moved in long diagonals, projecting flickering vibrations. When the trains pulled in they howled and that upset her too. There was always such a long pause before the doors opened. The rush of people and smells made up for the stagnation and only agitated her nerves more. Most days with books she could ignore it a little, but today it was suffocating. She spent her few moments in line to board daydreaming about whether or not other people felt that way too. It seemed to her like she was the only one.<br />
<br />
Two pages into her new chapter, someone asked her to sign another donation form. It was for a basketball team from a local high school. She must have made a strange face while she was thinking about the boy's half-hearted speech that he stopped mid sentence and scoffed at her. Then he walked away. She hated it when people did that. It made her feel even more alone. Now she was thinking about what expression she could possibly have made to make him react that way, or if it was just the way she looked, instead of those first couple pages in her chapter. That bothered her most of all.<br />
<br />
It was raining on her street. Jasmine loved the rain because it made people move slow and carefully. She felt less like her own pace made more sense. She knew how to be fast, it just upset her in the same way the train station at night upset her.<br />
<br />
"Fast people are stupid" She mumbled to herself. The words got lost in the downpour, "They make me feel stupid for being slow but they don't see how the world really looks. They miss everything."<br />
<br />
After turning her usual pattern of corners she turned on tuesdays, Jasmine skipped up the short steps into her porch. The end of her walk home was the only time she ever skipped. She fumbled with her keys like always and heard a skittering. Her fumbling stopped with an abrupt rattle and slink as the keys fell flat next to her feet.<br />
<br />
"Hello?"<br />
<br />
Only rain.<br />
<br />
Her eyes became wide and her pale skin white. She wanted to be a cat and hide behind her claws in the hardest-to-reach spot around. Instead of becoming a cat, she just stood there staring into the night. Her eyes darted from bush to bush and her adrenaline pumped through her making her hands shake and her face quiver. Finally after several eternal seconds she knelt down to pick up her keys and went inside.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The next day, at QQC Enterprises, her mind wandered. Jasmine thought of little else beside that moment on the porch the night before. She always use to mind being surrounded by many anonymous strangers and the office was no exception. The thin carpet cube walls were all that stood between her and the dry forced interaction beyond. Even her computer screen, her last bastion of solitude, betrayed her with every stroke of the keys.<br />
<br />
The smell of the place was wretched, so Jasmine always plugged her nose with plastic wishbone plugs. She removed it to take a sip of coffee from her carafe. Spinning sideways in her chair, she caught a quick glimpse of a strange woman looming toward her. She quickly spun back to hide inside her computer screen and tapped the keys like crazy.<br />
<br />
"Hello?" A new voice. Smoother than most.<br />
<br />
She glanced up while tapping nonsense on her keyboard and tried to ignore the powerfully attractive woman resting on her cubicle. <i>Resting.</i><br />
<br />
"What is it?" She hadn't meant for it to sound so curt. <br />
<br />
Visibly taken aback, Chloe shot back "You been here long? I know just about every programmer in the building but I don't know you." She coyly tapped a loose folder against her palm as she leaned in overhead.<br />
<br />
"About three years eight months."<br />
<br />
"Huh. Well you got a name, Three Years Eight Months?" Chloe was absolutely pouring out of her half-open button down dress shirt. <br />
<br />
"Jasmine."<br />
<br />
"Hey Jasmine, I'm Chloe."<br />
<br />
"Hi."<br />
<br />
"Hi."<br />
<br />
Jasmine realized she had written ten long lines of completely ridiculous gibberish and that it was probably visible from where Chloe was standing. She turned the screen of in a brief panic and sat still.<br />
<br />
"Are you busy? I can come back later."<br />
<br />
"I was just getting ready to go eat lunch. Excuse me." In a sudden torrent, Jasmine swung up from her chair and into her favorite coat and made a dash for the door.<br />
<br />
"Jasmine!" Chloe turned every head on the floor when she called after her. The door slammed behind her. "You forgot your lunch," she finished to herself.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The train catapulted through the MacArthur tunnel and screamed as it passed another. Jasmine tapped her foot and could think of nothing more exciting than the two trains colliding in the dark. She felt so morbid for thinking it, but it was like a sickening thrill to her. She hated roller coasters, crowded theme parks, driving fast and heights, yet found herself locked in thought with the imagined crash.<br />
<br />
First all of the lights would crackle and snap off and the windows would shatter all around. People would be launched from their seats into each other in each car spraying blood and vomit everywhere. There would be no telling whose face had your foot through it or when the next thoughtless flailing human would crash into you.<br />
<br />
Jasmine grinned without noticing.<br />
<br />
"Did you know that more people die in car wrecks than airplanes and trains combined? By about at least 4 times, I think." Chloe slid into the seat next to Jasmine. She was still holding her lunch.<br />
<br />
"Hi."<br />
<br />
"Hi. You know you forgot your lunch back there."<br />
<br />
She had to laugh, "Is that my lunch?"<br />
<br />
"I tried to find you but you sped off like Speedy Gonzales!"<br />
<br />
"I am not like Speedy Gonzales." Jasmine caught herself smiling and shied away for a moment and said, "Well how come you still have it? That was like five hours ago!"<br />
<br />
"There she is! Here," she handed her the semi greasy bag, "I ate your banana."<br />
<br />
"Okay."<br />
<br />
There was a long and very awkward silence, as there always was when conversations between strangers and Jasmine reached this phase.<br />
<br />
"You like movies?"<br />
<br />
"Not really." She blinked away the fear and dared to ask, "Why?"<br />
<br />
"Cus I'm going to see one tonight and I wanted to know if you liked movies and wanted to come. But since you don't like them I'll just go by myself. It's okay, I was going anyway."<br />
<br />
"No, I would - well what kind of movie is it?"<br />
<br />
"A violent one. Lots of blood and swearing. Just like the ones I had to sneak over to friends' houses at night to watch when I was little. You in?"<br />
<br />
Chloe looked at Jasmine now like nobody ever did. She felt uncomfortable at first, but forced herself to look up and saw Chloe's eyes every time, just piercing through to the core of her. Each time she glanced into Chloe, she felt a little bit more courage to do it again.<br />
<br />
"Okay."<br />
<br />
"Great! This is the stop, come on!"<br />
<br />
Suddenly Jasmine was being pulled through the crowded train and into the front of the departing commuters. She was squeezing Chloe's hand so tight by the time she realized she was holding it, it was too late to retract back into the comfort of her pockets.<br />
<br />
Chloe led Jasmine down strange Berkeley side streets at the speed of an extrovert bounding toward sensational relief.<br />
<br />
They turned dark corners into bright busy streets and crossed them together hand in hand. Wind blew across the heavier intersections, but always in the direction she felt it wanted to. Just as Jasmine began to relax and accept the new pace, Chloe stopped and turned to her and proudly presented, "The theater!" with her entire body. She then jerked Jasmine into the doors like a wild pregnant mare.<br />
<br />
They said nothing in line, except for "Two please!"<br />
<br />
This was utter shy-person hell. The theater was full when they got there and there were people standing in the aisles spilling popcorn as they laughed for what appeared to be no reason. There was a roar of haphazard conversation that rose and fell and crushed Jasmine beneath itself. The environment dawned slowly on Jasmine like a sickness. Somehow Chloe found two seats, in the relative center of the dark theater.<br />
<br />
"There!"<br />
<br />
"I don't feel good, Chloe." As she stumbled over feet and nearly slipped on popcorn twice.<br />
<br />
"What! It hasn't even started yet!" Chloe swam through the crowded aisles and found the row, "Use the sticky soda to stop yourself if you slip." She smiled back at her. They crashed down into their seats and immediately reclined. She touched Jasmine's leg lightly and locked eyes with her for the first time since the train. "Just relax."<br />
<br />
"Okay." Jasmine melted back into her seat and let Chloe put her hand wherever she wanted once the lights went down. <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
To Jasmine's surprising disappointment, Chloe had not put her hand anywhere she had wanted her to. They were holding hands again, but the pace was different now somehow. Jasmine began to feel uneasy again. Her feet kept up but she felt sad and couldn't figure out why. Chloe led her down through more side streets, dark and light until she found herself turning a familiar corner and stood bewildered before her own doorstep. Chloe's hand unclasped and released hers and she stood back and beamed at her.<br />
<br />
"Good night then." Chloe leaned in and kissed Jasmine softly between her ear and her neck and then on the other side of her nose just above her lips.<br />
<br />
Stunned, Jasmine gasped a "Good night," and slowly fell, no floated, backward against the front steps she had always savored skipping past. She picked herself up from a daze and on her feet again regained a more Jasmine way of seeing. She was still holding her greasy lunch bag.<br />
<br />
Chloe was gone. Jasmine went inside, listening for a soft whispered <i>hello.</i>MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-43377727748683093822012-04-24T03:31:00.001-07:002012-04-24T03:33:46.887-07:00The Everdark Whispers<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There
was a place in the pacific northwest of America where the elders dared not to
go. It reminded those who saw the
end, with their own desperate eyes, of what it had felt like to lose hope. But they didn’t remember
much before the empire fell. In the
forests and glades, somewhere in the People’s Republic of Oregon, a thick dark
valley slowly devoured the plants and animals that surrounded it. Helpless against the consumption, all
life became slowly trapped between the Everdark, as it was called by those who
remembered, and the places where the toxic sunlight burned hot through the
holes in the sky.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">As
with most of the American states, Oregon and Washington had merged with some of their neighbors
after the Federation lost power.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">Small settlements began to develop as people founded communities with
other survivors around them.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">By the year twenty-one twenty, the states had all gone back to
agrarian economic societies.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Farmland with good soil was the new prized
real estate and the market was getting bloodier by the decade.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Pretty soon all that remained of the
great American empire was forgotten as Melinda Zulinski, the last of the Zeitcaust
survivors, passed from the world.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">She lived to be one hundred and eight and left her legacy woven in the
stories she told to her grandchildren.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">* * *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">Willow
opened her eyes for the first autumn dawn, and peeled her body from her lover's.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">She rolled
around in her furs next to Jonah for an hour or so, but he still twitched, dreaming, in a way that could not be faked. So she touched herself and thought of how she climbed atop him in the dark like a motorcycle and how powerful that made her feel. She could still feel the heat of him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">The wind shook the golden
grass that threatened to snap at once, it was so brittle.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">At full light, Willow gathered her tanning equipment and her favorite pre-Zeitcaust magazine simply titled "Cycles", and climbed the short hill back to Camp Central. She liked flipping through the old pages and smelling the paper while she waited for her new leather to set. Jonah was not far behind, a rusty assault rifle slung loosely back. His hands were full with small sacks of seeds and grain. His feet drug a path to the camp's main stores where he left his and Willow's shares for that week. Theirs was always a modest one, yet it was almost always the same amount, so their fellow Weaver Camp citizens were almost always grateful. It was more than most couples in the camp could produce that didn't result in another mouth to feed. Both were purposes that could not be argued against.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">So that was the way of things until Illiah said otherwise. Nobody spoke above an elder.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 200%;">Decades of drought winters had brought lessons to the survivors of exactly what to expect in the autumn; hungry Ferals with lots of guns and practice killing. Desperate</span><span style="line-height: 200%;"> people without skilled agrarian communities usually meant hostile and ultra-violent raids. The Weavers had guns and the wall and the illusion of security but they had no solidity or true experience. They had been left alone for the most part the recent years due to such a small size of community. Thanks to Illiah, however, their reputation had grown more and more widely known across the Pac during spring and their crops did exceptionally well that year. She was so concerned with production, and keeping her title "Champion" on as many lips and ears as possible, that she ignored the obvious backlash that comes with all fame.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">"Every night I keep expecting to wake up with an arrow in my chest and a freshly cooked chicken squawkin' on the tip." Jonah said to Willow as she slid into the bedfurs beside him.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">"At least it'll be cooked and you won't get sick." She kissed him goodnight. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">* * *</span></span></div>MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-41853461274704219782012-04-02T23:55:00.000-07:002012-04-02T23:55:44.276-07:00The Cosmic Child Excerpt 2The blast took my breath but I kept my footing. I remember thinking that this was going to be the most exciting death ever. Complete with karmic irony!<br />
<br />
My glowing hands clenched the metal railing, that flimsy ass railing, so tight I knew it was going to break if I moved. This was the end of the world, as far as I knew it. This was me finding my voice by accident for the first time. When I realized the blast didn't kill me, or knock me down the windy fucking staircase that snaked up the inside of this ridiculous "wizard" tower this bitch lived in, I immediately panicked and screamed. It was so primal that I lost myself in the moment, in the sound, inside of the vibrating metal of the flimsy ass railing. Glass broke around me, above me. It rained down the stairs and threatened to slice out my god damn eyes. That's when it all started going really well for me.<br />
<br />
The Witch named Fury was stunned. She may have possibly run out of - mana? Chi? Mojo? Fucking magic juice? - or simply gotten careless. But I found a hole and I exploited it. Two twin beams of energy blasted from my open palms and pinned Fury to the wall. Rock and dust sprayed everywhere. It kind of got in my mouth, which is odd that I remember that detail as being one of the worse things that happened to me that day. <br />
<br />
That's the point where this all starts getting fuzzy. <br />
<br />
Somehow I ended up mostly buried in a giant pile of rubble and Fury was nowhere to be found. What is even weirder is that I was in a completely different part of town than the one I entered the tower from. But the flimsy metal railing was there, the concrete dust tasted the same, fucking everything about it. The same! Oh, except for being pinned beneath an armoire that smelled like old lady perfume. I had forgotten seeing that in the way in cus I was all sneaky sneaky floor's a creaky. You get the picture. <br />
<br />
Come on, now, Cosmos, don't fail me now.MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-6904158530746159282012-03-31T02:47:00.001-07:002012-04-01T00:43:25.971-07:00RobotiqueInspiration for this came from a video a friend posted online about tiny robots that can fly around, avoid barriers or obstacles, work in teams and even build simple structures using magnets. My mind of course soared to the land of the future where technology is everything and the world no longer resembles a lush wild habitat but a techno-industrial global metropolis. <br />
<div><br />
</div><div>So now I have to tell a story about Joe. Joe is fictional but very much alive.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Act one contains frivolous imagery, as usual. The exposition is clear but not as sharp and concise as I like it. Joe is introduced and we find out he is dying. At the end of the act, his brain is put into a low-tech flying robot but it is very fragile. There is a risk of loss of consciousness but he does it anyway because he is so scared of death. The relief of a successful consciousness transfer marks the end of Act one.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Act two the flying robot body begins to fall apart. The maintenance expectations are too low and Joe can barely keep it from falling apart. This puts him in almost the same condition he was in during the beginning of Act one when he discovers he is dying and decides to transfer his mind. A series of tests and prototype bodies come along. Joe finds himself becoming a guinea pig for a carousel ride of experiments involving several stages of what ends up becoming his more permanent body. Only real catch is that the body is the size of a sky scraper and moves at lumbering slow speeds relative to the rest of the world. Joe is alone but he becomes proud in his new form. Powerful yet humble. He feels enlightened. </div><div><br />
</div><div>This enlightenment is short lived however, when the disconnect he experiences between himself and the mortal world keeps him in the dark about a political eruption. The humans have been using him as a staging area for their radical movement against brain transfers. Joe is powerless against this threat that is literally happening inside of his colossal body. One human woman enters the core of Joe's brain center and learns to drive him. She forces the activists to leave by operating the body, which had been static for many decades. The activists lose their vigor and steam as they run screaming into the open arms of the law. She saves him by taking him half way around the world, from his home in the Republic of California to the Chinese Conglomerate Alliance where there are many others like him and he can be safe while his body is repaired. </div><div><br />
</div><div>While his body is recuperating, the woman begins falling in love with him and wants to undergo a similar procedure. Joe forbids it, but she goes behind his back anyway and arranges for them both to be placed in bodies the size of space shuttles that can fly and operate in zero gravity environments. The catch is that they have to serve as prototype spacecraft for the CCA and test warp drives and participate in other volatile experiments. They are promised they would remain in the same fleet so they could be together, but the promise is almost immediately broken when a global war breaks out between RoC and CCA. Joe makes off with one of the experimental warp drives and zaps himself into uncharted space and is all alone once again with very little solar power. The second act ends with Joe adrift in space with his power cells unable to recharge due to lack of sufficient solar energy within range.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Act three begins with a tiny space probe from unknown origin. It inspects Joe from aft to stern and determines that he is indeed a living thing, we presume. A kind of space tug boat comes to take him away and they warp out together to another part of space. When Joe comes to, he is greeted by an ancient planet-sized robot creature that is somehow able to communicate with him, though at first he doesn't realize how. Then it becomes clear that the planetbot is in fact his companion, the woman who he was separated with. She says she was taken in by a sort of Galactic Federation of Intelligent Machines capable of slowly altering the course of galactic movement and patterns in the stars. Joe must decide whether to continue growing and expanding or to die. His power cells are failing and will never be able to be recharged again. This is his last chance to cling to life. He must use all the power left in his cells to make the transfer happen.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Denouement: (I love that word)</div><div><br />
</div><div>When his mind is transfered, he discovers that he is not clear enough about what exactly he is going to be transfered to. It turns out he becomes a small, flying robot with highly degraded awareness and intelligence due to the repeated mind transfers he has undergone. He lives out the rest of his eternal days as a maintenance bot in a factory in a big city on the planetoid robot body of the woman he had loved.</div><div><br />
</div><div>End!</div><div><br />
</div><div>Thoughts? Ideas? Shit you're not clear on?</div>MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-31026531472655602242012-03-30T02:58:00.001-07:002012-03-30T03:00:19.014-07:00A Scene<span style="font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">A scene ends when you change the location or the time within which you have placed your subject(s). There are stricter rules for scriptwriting than there are in literature, but I am pretty sure the idea is the same. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">They are building blocks, just like sentences and paragraphs, and they are indeed much better when full of juicy meat like substance.</span><span style="font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span>MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-51982298577965369152012-03-30T02:33:00.000-07:002012-03-30T02:33:30.481-07:00LightnessSaying the word "happy" right now feels like the first time I said "fuck". It comes shockingly naturally and I can't remember ever not saying it about myself.<br />
<br />
Wait, what?MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-4577334068985862002012-03-29T16:58:00.000-07:002012-03-29T16:58:39.632-07:00Blankity Blank Games Spec AdThis is a script for a spec ad that I wrote this time last year. Unfortunately it never made it to production, but I still very much want to produce/direct this piece. <br />
<br />
SOOOOO if anyone is interested, give me money! Hahaha.<br />
<br />
FADE IN:<br />
<br />
WHITE:<br />
<br />
DREAMER (V.O.)<br />
In my dream I travel from person to person, from mind to mind. At last I inhabit a killer. A mercenary. I’ve killed one of my own. Betrayal in cold blood and my brothers in arms smell a rat.<br />
<br />
EXT. WOODS - DAY<br />
<br />
DREAMER runs full speed through a thick forest. He breathes in heavy mechanical gasps and exhales steam. The ANTIQUE RIFLE in his hand catches branches as his stride quickens.<br />
<br />
Thunder cracks.<br />
<br />
Dreamer nearly slips but catches his balance.<br />
<br />
Closing in behind him are three men. All are masked and armed. They point and yell in a FOREIGN DIALECT to one another. Rage fuels their every move.<br />
<br />
Dreamer turns a corner and opens his stride into a grassy clearing. His pursuers follow only a short distance behind, still closing.<br />
<br />
DREAMER (V.O.)<br />
I distinctly remember resigning to my impending end. As my brothers more than match my quickening gate. They will catch up to me soon. Then they will end me.<br />
<br />
EXT. ROCKY LEDGE - DAY<br />
<br />
Dreamer crests a sheer cliff. Pebbles roll from his sliding feet as he swings his balance back to avoid a less honorable death.<br />
<br />
Thunder cracks again.<br />
<br />
Two rifles lock and click. (O.S.)<br />
<br />
ECU: A dirty thumb pulls back the hammer on an ANTIQUE REVOLVER.<br />
<br />
ECU: The chamber spins into place.<br />
<br />
DREAMER (V.O.)<br />
As I catch my last breaths, I feel the cold steel barrel before it even touches my right temple. I never see the bullet.<br />
<br />
The pistol fires.<br />
<br />
WHITE:<br />
<br />
DREAMER (V.O.) (CONT’D)<br />
The crack of the flint is faint and damp and it sounds like I’m under water. I feel the very life of me being swiftly pulled from my fingertips, my toes, up through my chest and neck, gathering momentum as it goes. Finally it reaches my head and I feel nothing.<br />
<br />
FADE TO BLACK:<br />
<br />
VOID<br />
<br />
Rumbling thunder.<br />
<br />
DREAMER (V.O.)<br />
Then thunder rolls to a deafening crash. <br />
<br />
Deafening thunder crash.<br />
<br />
INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY<br />
<br />
ECU: A TWENTY-SIDED DIE rolls to a stop in the center of the frame. The number “20” settles on the top.<br />
<br />
Four GAMERS, one of them, the Dreamer, erupt into cheering and laughter.<br />
<br />
DREAMER<br />
Oh man, another crit?<br />
<br />
GM<br />
Yeah. Sorry man, tough luck.<br />
<br />
GM hands Dreamer a BLANK GENERIC CHARACTER SHEET and a PENCIL.<br />
<br />
FADE TO LOGO:<br />
<br />
VOICE (V.O.)<br />
Blankity Blank Games. Cus you can never take it too seriously.MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-47117614508867526822012-03-29T10:26:00.000-07:002012-03-29T10:26:35.797-07:00The Cosmic ChildSome men are just old because they look it, even if they really aren't. This one old man outside a Peet's Coffee in the Pearl District looked me dead in the eye one day. His miscolored, aching eyes, so dry they made me blink and well. <br />
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"You are the cosmic child." He named me.<br />
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This distorted my perspective and ego profoundly for the following year and a half. Who the fuck was he kidding? The cosmic child? But then I thought, really?<br />
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Everybody wants to be special, I guess.<br />
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The conversation that followed on this, my name day, went in all sorts of astronomically comical directions. My heart pounding with joy, like some kind of opposite from a whore in church. Those first few months in Portland were pretty dry. I knew I was just experiencing some kind of ego high that wasn't really enlightenment. It was earned. It wasn't supported by some kind of rich epiphany. He simply offered it to me and I ran with it. For years, I ran with it. Believing I was some kind of celestial creature born from a city I had only just arrived in that week. I wanted to be connected to it all. The culture, the hip shit. The fucking zeitgeist. <br />
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That was my second mistake.<br />
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Then I let her in. "Enemy," they whispered to me beneath my nightmares. My only nightmares. The snake crawled in an open sore and bit down. <br />
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Humility hit me hard then. I think the planet cracked. Perhaps it was from the massive concussion my ego made when it came screaming and white hot back down to Earth. I gave up the dream, the special powers, the responsibility. And I let the inspiration drift through my empty ape eyes and across the greyscale cityscape along with her spectre gods.<br />
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Sweat. Not blood. "E-ne-my," echoing and enchanting. The word never held so much power before that. It covered me like a blanket and left me shivering in the cold.MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829255534155962115.post-6486284888482874042012-03-29T09:27:00.000-07:002012-03-29T09:27:43.536-07:00CherryThere comes a time in every blog's girlhood when enough is enough and nature unleashes her fury.<br />
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POP<br />
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All systems go.MiaPodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03496718797470232820noreply@blogger.com0