blogger, I feel that I am doing you a disservice if I do not recommend you to buy Rob Dougan's cd, Furious Angels, as quickly as possible. It is techno rock, with a full orchestra. Simply beautiful. Anyway, today was very busy. I bought Malachy two books, a bible story picture book with cardboard pages, and a father-son bible story book for Charles to read to him. [laughs] Yes, I know, but it's still there. At the church party, we wrapped presents for kids in a poor parish (I think), I don't know. Then a friend of mine, Kristin, whom I have known forever by face but never met until we were both pushed toward youth ministry stuff by Charlie (though she, at school, has been doing it more than I have here), Kristin and I went to see A Series of Unfortunate Events, but discovered it's not out yet, so saw National Treasure instead. good movie. I would put it in the same category as Pirates of the Caribbean; exciting and fun but shallow, well-enough written and well made, worth renting. now I need to sleep, dear blogger. I am very cold, and very mellow, and very sleepy.

so for the past two nights, I have been in charge of setting up lights and running the light board for a one-man show at church. Doug Brummel, a catholic comedian/family values speaker/entertainer. I highly recommend seeing his show, I mean going out of your way to see him if you hear about his show, if you're catholic or religious enough and close (a lot of his jokes and songs are "insider" jokes and songs that we would mostly recognize, but a lot of the ideas would apply to other christian denominations). Anyway, I had 6 floods on 2 sliders, and 2 spots on 1 slider (they had set it up on 2, but I moved plugs, because I never had only one or the other). It was very easy, the spots were duck-taped to the front pews, and the floods were clipped to dowel (sp?) rods, which were sitting on the floor in front of the first pews. but I still had to adjust them and run them. He complimented me on the fact that the lights were seamless enough that his attention was never drawn to them, so he was never thrown off. I don't think he would have been thrown off anyway, since at one point, the house lights came on when they weren't supposed to, and he stopped in mid-sentence and said, "well, that's strange. Let's pray to Mary that the lights go back off, shall we?" and proceeded to pray to mary that the lights go off until they went off again. [laughs] Anyway, I also had to hook up the sound tonight, or attempt to, meaning plug things in, unplug other things, and try to make them work. In the end, he had to come turn it on, since I had missed a cord that needed to be plugged in, and a power switch that was labeled strangely and did not make any sign that it was on or off. [grins and shrugs] but my lights were great. and so is cold pizza. mmmmm.

oh, and before I forget, wish my godson, Malachy, a happy 1-year-old birthday. (it's been his birthday for half an hour now). (Technically, he's a Charles, but his dad and granddad are Charles, so his dad decided to give him a middle name he liked and call him by it, rather than make him a Charles III). He's adorable and didn't learn to cry until about 8 or 9 months old, at which point he whines instead of crying. He's developing very well both motor skills and communication skills, and he already likes electronics and video games as much as his father [laughs]. I mean, he doesn't know what the buttons do, he just likes to push them. Especially power buttons. They get him more attention. [grins] But anyone of the praying-for-things persuasion, pray that he doesn't grow up with bitterness or emotional problems or anything. His parents separated, after only 3 years of marriage, for reasons that I'm not going to go into but that I'm positive no amount of help will overcome. So far, they're both excellent parents, jointly taking good care of him, not fighting over him or shirking their duties as parents or setting an example of being unhappy all the time, but happiness without morality isn't the best example he could, and should, get. But, his father being against organized religion for the most part, and his mother being neutral but against catholicism in particular (though not catholics in general), it is difficult for me to teach him about morality. I mean, he's only a year old, so right now he wouldn't be much different, and so it doesn't continually grate on me, but eventually it's going to be something important. ah, enough. it's his birthday. yay! I need to go buy him a bible. [laughs]

A conversation that I just had with my girlfriend, that I thought was worth sharing:

amadpinkflamingo: love
amadpinkflamingo: you're amazing
Wolf in Ohio: Grace
amadpinkflamingo: ?
Wolf in Ohio: [smiles]
amadpinkflamingo: what's wrong?
Wolf in Ohio: nothing's wrong
Wolf in Ohio: I just wanted to say your name
Wolf in Ohio: it was typed very lovingly [laughs]
amadpinkflamingo: oh
amadpinkflamingo: :-)
Wolf in Ohio: "'Grace,' he whispered, putting all the strong emotions he felt toward her in that one word, as if offering it up to her as a gift"
amadpinkflamingo: [kisses you]
Wolf in Ohio: "It contained the sweet tremble of desire, the soft pillowy feeling arising from the delicacy with which he treated her, and even the warmth of admiration he held for her."
Wolf in Ohio: "He felt that no other words were possible, and attempted to expound upon his statement with his eyes."
amadpinkflamingo: [kisses you]
amadpinkflamingo: I love you
Wolf in Ohio: "From them gushed volumous expositions upon the nature of love, it's affect on the human heart, beauty as an ideal and how she affected it and was affected by it, and in general every good thing inside him which desired to come forth to be lain at her feet."
amadpinkflamingo: are you writing this just off hand?
Wolf in Ohio: "It was a silence that wrapped loving hands around her heart, and she gazed back, reciprocating every unspoken word of his, taking it in and making it her own, before returning it to him as she recieved it."
Wolf in Ohio: "The world was far away from them, and had no meaning in their present moment."
Wolf in Ohio: "This was the only time that had ever and would ever matter, and it was cherished between them like a newborn child."
Wolf in Ohio: yah, I've been reading Anna Karenina, and that big chunk of writing just wanted to come out and be said.
amadpinkflamingo: haha
Wolf in Ohio: [laughs] inspired instantly by my own feelings when I said your name
amadpinkflamingo: well save it somewhere and send it to me in email form :-)
amadpinkflamingo: [kisses you]
Wolf in Ohio: oh pooh
Wolf in Ohio: copy it from your window
Wolf in Ohio: [grins]
amadpinkflamingo: oh so that's love?
Wolf in Ohio: yes
Wolf in Ohio: [kisses you tenderly]

p.s. ha, blogger got this post, not live journal. boo yah, lj.

I meant to write a good long post today, but I realized it will take far too long to write, and I need to shower and sleep. I worked 12 hours today, and I have to get up to leave for church at 7am tomorrow, and work 9-5. dinner with santa, woo hoo! except that we're feeding them all. Anyway, I went to see the annual Messiah concert at my old high school yesterday. There was a girl that reminded me of my girlfriend, I mean, almost everything about her reminded me of my girlfriend, I couldn't stop staring at her, and yet, half the time I was remembering something about my girlfriend, living in memories. All with the background of Handel's Messiah, for the most part beautifully sung. Ian's friend had a solo, and she sang it well. It was very well performed, but she does not have the discipline to prevent herself from allowing speech-quality sound to sneak into her almost-excellent tonality. whatever. we tried going out to dinner afterward, but the restaurant was closed, and, due to bad communication issues, it took us till 11:30 to figure out that we were going to aforementioned soloist's (my little brother's friend) house for dinner, since her parents were having a bunch of other parents over already as it was. While they swapped embarassing stories about the kids, we hung out upstairs and told jokes and chatted about weird stuff, as kids are wont to do. [laughs] but I didn't get home to sleep till 2am, which sucked, since I had planned on getting sleep in expectation of not sleeping enough tonight. and go figure, I'm still here typing [laughs]. Goodnight, blogger. Until I finish the other thing, tomorrow, au revoir.

So, what exactly is a "drabble". I mean, the loose definition is any piece of writing, focusing on a piece of a scene, that is exactly 100 words long. But what is 100 words long and is not a drabble? In poetry, a fourteen line poem, ten syllables per line, with one of a couple particular rhyme schemes is a sonnet, is it not? Very traditional. Easy to memorize, since they were meant to be used as an address, orally, not read from a sheet of paper. I have seen poems entitled "sonnet" that had no particular rhyme scheme, no carefully crafted iambic pentameter, not even ten syllables per line, or fourteen lines in total. Why are they entitled sonnets? Because they are reactions to sonnets. Because they were written with the form and intention of a sonnet in mind. I mentioned the form of a drabble, but what is the intention of a drabble? The one whom I love said tonight that the purpose is to present a beautifully crafted image based on a story that is already recognizable, so that background information is unnecessary. It is not meant to tell a story. Does that mean that a story cannot be a series of beautifully crafted images? I have watched several anime series that do just that. It takes half the season to learn much of anything. Noir, for example. Long shots, beautiful music, repetition of the same memories in multiple episodes, and it doesn't go anywhere quickly, and any question it answers only spawns more. But then, might I create something in 100 word segments that is not images, that each one is, in fact, a plot element, moves the story forward? I admit that the "beautifully crafted" part may not always succeed. I am but a poor writer hacking out things in his head because it would explode if he did not. Like the sonnet that has the form but not the function of a sonnet, and might be called a dirge, or a ditty, or anything but a sonnet, my drabbles have the form but not the function of drabbles. Because it is the form that my story wants to present itself in. If I fail, it is not the story's fault. It is my fault. Stories are perfect and alive, like children that are perfect, even while you have to feed them and change their diapers and pay to educate them. The price of telling a story is putting up with where it wants to go, while still trying to guide it to be the best that it possibly can be. I sometimes feel a poor parent, that the stories would be better served by coming to another. But I am not ungrateful, no. I love my stories. All of them. No matter how much agony they cause me. I thank you for your suggestions. I will take them to mind in the same spirit in which they were given, to help make my stories come across better. But it still hurts when someone tells you your child is ugly, or would have been better as a girl, or should have been taught better manners. I think it's time for bed. Allow my stories more time to incubate, or whatever.

oof. so I just finished creating a live journal site, http://www.livejournal.com/users/seventh_guest/ because I wanted to join a drabble community. a drabble is a story that is exactly 100 words. plus it has a function called cut tabs that allows you to put up a post, with a link to an inner post, which could be a long ass story, so that the whole thing doesn't take up too much space on the main page.

However, blogger is so much easier to use, and it's free. I mean, live journal has a free version, but it took me hours just to customize it so I was decently happy with it, whereas I could do this all myself quickly and easily. it has some friend function, but I can't figure out how to make it easy. blag. I can just save them in my favorites folder and it all becomes simple again. the added stuff I can get at live journal by paying money aren't worth it, because it's still frickin complicated.

Anyway, I figured I'd join, so I'd have a place designed to post stories and get criticism for them, but don't worry, blogger. live journal is a new best friend, but you are still my love. my literary love, that is.

on a side note, I think I'm going to read War and Peace, because I'm liking Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) so much. I recommend it, unless you don't like books where the author is wonderful at portraying human emotion in complicated situations.