THAT is how it's done...

Give these guys a listen, they're great. 

When I'm not immersed in the ways and woes of the world this is what life feels like for me.  I can't stay in that frame of mind for any great long period of time, the energy draw is to high for me to maintain, but God knows I treasure the time I can spend there, it's what makes the rest of it worthwhile.

Sometimes it happens...

I'm not without my deviant side, a touch of practical perversion as it were.  I keep it in check, world of real life, it isn't seen often and never with folks who don't know me well enough to know it's a very minor percentage of my personality.  Most of the time.  But last night a little slipped out by accident.  No damage done, just a laugh that had someone confused, wondering if their feelings should be hurt.

Two things to set the stage for my story here: the frat rat party houses at either end of my  street, and an old country song, theme to the long gone TV show "Rawhide" actually.  Go ahead and start the song, the rest of this will make more sense if it's playing in the background.

Anyhow, last night there were parties underway on both ends, and I very nearly ran over a twenty head gaggle of sisters migrating one party to the other while pulling into my driveway.  Scared me into being slightly annoyed, I didn't want them for a bumper sticker or tire tattoo, does horrible things for your insurance rates. When parked I got out of the car and shook my head only to notice another twenty head gaggle going the other way!  I couldn't help it, it called to mind a most totally politically incorrect visual set as a video for the chorus of the old song:  a stormy night, the cowboys (they were from Oklahoma State University, the  Cowboys, of course) working to keep the herd moving, keep it a herd and not a stampede, horse and man moving like one critter in the darkness... lean, mean eyed men riding hard and swinging the long handled rubber paddles favored by the fetish/bdsm folk like polo mallets to keep the herd of nekid college girls in one group and headed in the same direction.  It just sort of wrote itself over reality, the wind was blowing and the sky cloudy dark, and the herd of girls were, you know, already there. 

I couldn't help it, I laughed.  One of the sisters heard the laugh, looked at me wondering, and never in my life did I wish so much to be a full projecting telepath so I could just push the reason for my laugh into all forty head of them intact en toto and walk away smiling.  But... no.  I'm not.  Probably just as well, they were apparently having a good time.  Somehow I don't think they were quite drunk enough to see any humor.  Not quite drunk enough, but close.

In postscript, 36 hours later:  Nah, that song should belong to the faculty and staff of Oklahoma State University... they suffer with them hour to hour, day to day, way more than those of us who provide the herd cover to play at being adults.  They, far more than we, have reason to want to smack some bottoms with a rubber paddle on a rainy night...

I'm in lu...er, love... Loving Miss Laura...

The woman is full dreamweaver, she has to be... I've looked at half a dozen of her still photos, no more than that and the image just jumped into my head intact, complete.  Only a dreamweaver of significant power can do that. 

See an airfield in the background, the shimmer of heat rising above the flat tarmac, the blue of a summer sky above... focus on the airplane parked there, shown quarter profile from the front, nose to tail fills most of the width, the bottom third of the frame.  It's a P-51D Mustang, warrior of the skies.  See the man, the pilot, seated on the leading edge of the wing, right arm up with his hand on his mount, the posture of a caress.  Now shift and look at the skin of the aircraft, see what he is caressing.  It's not the bird herself, it's the woman painted on her, his hand resting on her flank.

She's long, and sleek, the lines of her body fit the curves of the bird, stretched out full length down the engine cowling onto the fuselage, one arm full extended above her head, center line on the prop spinner fist forward, one leg extended behind to a pointed toe, the other gathered beneath her, toes curling around the root of the wing as if she were springing forward, the downhill arm tucked back, elbow against her body, hand pointed forward in the posture of the stabbing fingertip blow, her nails very long and pointed.  A flag drapes over one shoulder, the red and white stripes flowing back covering one breast, leaving the other bare, the union field behind her emphasising the curve of her hip... she's Miss Laura, and she's pissed.  If her posture didn't tell you that the look on her face does.  Seventy years later you can still hear her, that sultry sweet voice with just the tiniest warning, the tiniest hint of a snarl: "Come on up baby, come on up and play, rumor is you know how to dance..."

Now lift your eyes away from the warrior lovers, look into the sky and realize there is more there than clouds, realize that you point of view has faded five miles into the sky, you're looking back and down over the wing, Miss Laura's nose up, wing coming over as she turns to pursue the pair of Focke-Wulf 190's, her most formidable foe, that have just burst from the cumulus cloud and are streaking below, making a run at the bombers.  Take note of the pilots eyes, you can see his face clearly, his eyes and expression an exact match for Miss Laura's demeanor...

Don't you just love a dreamweaver?  Artwork to follow...

In the Game...

I got invited into a different world the other day, and decided to accept the invitation for a variety of reasons.  My buddy Trevor was building what he called a campaign, a scenario set in one of the structured realities of the gamer worlds.  He said it was based on Mage: the Ascension.  That name means little to me, I have no point of comparison.  But it might mean something to you. 

For several years now the question "what has happened to imagination?" has been an ongoing subject in my quest to understand the world seen.  Imagination is a prime tool of human survival, the skills of survival among the most rapid of evolutions, I'm interested in seeing how imagination is faring among the youth in these days of compression and homogenization. 

A pornography of justice...

     !WARNING! CONTAINS MATURE CONTENT    

Author's Note:  Here be confession offered for the crime of stabbing the reflection of a girl with the reflection of a knife… as close to pornography as I'll write, written a year or so ago to a writers club prompt about personifying an inner bane and drain on the creative soul, an inner editor, an inner critic, personifying them and then doing them in… in a novel manner. 

***   ***   ***

Lucille liked to think herself a very proper lady.  Proper was her watchword,  her armor and her arms, it was her justification for the star she navigated by.  She took propriety very seriously.  She took great security in knowing any situation encountered could be conducted according to etiquette and custom long established, where things would remain simple and clear, easily understandable, for second only to proper any word describing a state of clarity was highly favored.  Lucille most definitely liked to know anything and everything she could, after all she reasoned, the more known in advance the fewer unhappy surprises to be dealt with later, and the fewer unhappy surprises the fewer consequences to be dispensed regarding trespasses marring the perfection of her day.  Such is how Lucille saw herself in the strangely convoluted mirror of her self perception, a proper Victorian lady defending every decent thing against a world gone utterly mad by installing the simplest of common grammatical virtues in the young minds society entrusted to her keeping.   

AP: Woof

You don't believe it?  You want me to show you? 

Of course I can, and no, it's not a problem.  But you'll need to get small for this, we can't be noticed, it would be terribly unfair to everyone.

Why?  You have to ask?  Because you want to see the real thing, that’s why.  This won’t be a couple of porn pros fucking from a script like you saw in training.  These are real people, my people.  This is part of their life, their reality.  

Did you hear a word I just said?  No I'm not going to tell you their names, where they live, where they work.  You don't need to know that.  Look, you’re new here.  It’s not official but it’s considered good manners here on planet to respect their privacy ok?  After you’ve been here a couple of centuries you’ll understand why.  It’s for them, and for us as well.  What you do need to know is these people are not casual, they're deep to each other, and getting deeper by the day.

Yes, they are, deeper than they know.

***   ***   ***

And you graduated?  Of course they’ll lie to each other, sometimes it’s the lesser of two evils for them, and of course there can be fear, discomfort, even pain.  They're mortal, no part of being mortal is exempt from those, this part of being mortal even less than most things.  

Look squab, this is more than I thought it would be, I may need to go active here.  If I do I want you solid on my left wing so I know where you are.  Sense stream with me if you want but don't interrupt, I'll be to busy to answer questions.  And for God's sake don't even think about trying to sense stream with them, I don't want to have to pick you up off the floor before you get stepped on. 

***   ***   ***

Yes, it’s part of nature, it’s part of her as well but don’t be an arrogant fool.  What that little human is feeling right now would curl your wings out your nose before you had time to sneeze.

OH GOD, OH GOD, PLEASE NOW, PLEASE, I CAN’T STAN... *gasp* i *pant* can’t take any…

***   ***   ***

Woof?  Woof?!?  *lol*  No, you’re not broken, just beat up and bruised.  You’ll be all right by tomorrow.  By the by, while you were busy getting knocked ass end over wingtips did you happen to notice a sizzling sound, sort of like a bolt of lightning going by your head?

Good.  Remember that sound squab, it isn’t anywhere in the training, but that’s the sound of a soul arriving.  You think you can fly yet?  Ok, we’ll take it easy.  Let’s go find some supper, about the time you figure out just how sore you really are you’re gonna need it.  *chuckle*  C’mon Woof, I have a real strong hunch you and I are going to be working together for about the next fifty years, we might as well get to know each other.

Graphite Gods...

THIS POST CONTAINS MATURE MATERIAL

If you are young, if girls are still yuk and boys to dumb to talk to?  If that’s the case then get outa here kid, go outside and enjoy the rest of the world, there’s a lot of it to enjoy.  You’ll get to this stage of life soon enough, believe me.

The Warning