Archive for December, 2007
A Year in Something-or-Other
Posted by smokingpen in Odds-n-Ends on December 31, 2007
Well, another year is done, not officially, at least not in Utah, and I guess it is time to reflect on what the past year has brought me.
Unofficially, this time last year I was engaged to Erin. That was exciting for me. What was more exciting was that eight months later we were married in the Manti Utah LDS temple.
Two weeks later Erin and I were officially engaged and the search for an appropriate ring that Erin liked was on.
I turned 33 and thought my life was coming to an end.
Now I am turning 34 and know it is irrevocably over. Guess that’s what happens when you hit your 30’s, married someone in their 20’s, and hang out with people who are barely old enough to drive, let alone attend college.
I did make it through the semester engaged to Erin, though, at the same time, I think it was the hardest semester I’ve been in school… not hard in the sense that the classes I were taking required more of me than I expected or thought was appropriate, but more in the sense that every free minute Erin and I had together was spent driving or … well, together. Which, in turn, caused some turmoil as to my getting classwork done in classes that needed work done in them.
Let’s see, we did get Erin a ring and found me a ring. Mine is interconnecting Odin’s knots or interconnecting Trinity knots that make a continual loop around my ring forever. It’s pretty cool. As for Erin’s ring, she ended up sitting down with the guy that sold us the rings and designed one that matched her personality, to include a wedding band. When we picked them up, she insisted on wearing the wedding band with her ring because, together, they were all nice and shiny.
Shiny.
We took a class together, it is known, far and wide, as the dreaded science class. Neither of us really enjoyed the experience, which was a poo, but in the end we both got A’s, though Erin’s A was of a greater quality than my A. Still, it was satisfying.
On top of that, at the beginning of the Fall semester we both got new computers. Erin got herself an HP notebook with Vista. We hate Vista. I purchased a new Macbook. I’ve grown to really love the Macbook. More, we are considering ditching PC’s forever and moving in the direction of the Mac as Erin’s graduate work will (most likely) require the purchase of software and it would be cheaper in the long run to buy software for one platform than for multiple.
PLUS, Mac’s are just so cool.
I’m a convert to Macdom.
Let’s see, this year I quit working for the professor/dean on campus, did some freelance work for another professor writing television scripts (got to see the first one mostly finished not too long ago) and then went to work for the company I am working at now. After working here for nearly 8 months, I got Jordan a job here too. That was cool.
On the flipside of that, Erin has been working for a small company where the primary partners are writing a book. She was brought on to edit. Does some writing. And was offered a full-time salaried position as the semester was ending and the Christmas holiday’s beginning. So, she will be working full-time for the man. Exciting.
I, however, am moving backward in the number of hours I am working and taking an extra day off. Yes, I know, I am lazy. It’s true. OR, school is more important than work, at the moment, and I can finish by this time next year so long as I focus on school more than work.
With that, Erin has finished attending BYU and is scheduled to be a graduate by April. That is exciting. She was accepted into a Master’s of Communication course at Westminster College. Even more exciting. And is now trying to decide if this is the next course of action or if she wants to follow a different track. I am encouraging this for now, and deciding later what she wants/needs to be doing.
I did start writing the first Alicia Grey novel. That’s been exciting. Had a goal, failed at the goal, but don’t feel bad about failing as, in the interim, I discovered that there were some things that needed to be decided before I worked forward with the story.
I also discovered Cassandra West and a few other things that I hope to work through in the coming year. More information when things happen (though I will probably forward you all to In Order to Write for the more information).
In August, mostly to repeat, Erin and I got married. We then went to Maine where we spent several wonderful days in a bed and breakfast, before returning to Massachusetts and having a ring ceremony where I was finally able to meet her friends and her extended family. It was very cool. Mom and Dad came out along with Rebecca, Keith, and co. (co is her two boys). Mom and Dad drove Erin’s brother’s car back to Utah for him. He flew.
At one point, Erin and I were going to drive back on the last leg of our honeymoon. Fortunately, it worked out for everyone.
Erin’s brother came out in May to spend the summer with Erin. After being out here, he decided it was somewhere he wanted to live, he enjoyed his job, and as a result has been living out here since. We’ve enjoyed having him in Utah.
Since we both took the summer off from school, we had to hit it hard with the new school year. I worked nearly full-time. Erin worked part-time at her company and finished her undergraduate degree. We also made a movie for one of her classes and, if the actors will allow it, may post it… though I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one.
Uhm… mostly the year has been about getting to know Erin better, learn to communicate, learn that sometimes we just don’t communicate, and to work toward different goals.
We both had some of the same insights as to what I might need to pursue in the future, education-wise and work-wise, and Erin has been extremely helpful and encouraging when it comes to writing fiction. I guess it helps that she was able to sit down and read some of my stuff and… *shudder*… it might’ve actually been good.
That’s it. 2007 has been a good year. We are looking forward to 2008. And looking forward to finishing at BYU, moving on to other things, and figuring life (together) out.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
Real Heroes Fly
Not Updating
Posted by smokingpen in General Entries on December 25, 2007
I will not be updating my blog(s) until just before the new year.
Not Updating
Posted by smokingpen in Odds-n-Ends on December 25, 2007
I will not be updating until next week. I want a break from blogging.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
Real Heroes Fly
Four Days of Christmas
Posted by smokingpen in Odds-n-Ends on December 21, 2007
There are actually twelve days of Christmas. The last day of Christmas is January 6th. Count back 12 days from that, and you have the first day of Christmas. I would imagine, for those that don’t want to count backward, that the first day of Christmas is December 24th. Didn’t know there was something behind the whole 12 Days of Christmas song did you?
I am sure some did.
On the first day of my four day Christmas (okay, it actually does not start until tomorrow), I received a gift of an A- in the dreaded science class. When I calculated the weight of the class against the possible scores in the class I’d (allegedly) earned a low B. However, I am sure the class had a slight curve or I did slightly better than I thought I did and the outcome is an A-. I have to admit, the grade makes up for a lot of crapolla.
Erin got an A.
Erin’s parents made it into town. They left for the airport from their house early this morning. That was fun. Erin and I (two hours earlier) were still awake and I jumped when her phone started singing her mom’s song. I looked at the phone and asked, “Is anything wrong,” thinking it was actually her brother and forgetting that his ring is very different from her mother’s ring. I don’t know what her dad’s ring sounds like, at all. I also don’t remember what my ring is. It used to be Sting’s Englishman in New York, but I think it’s been changed a few times since then.
Actually, this morning I got up after about four hours of sleep (and no, I have no idea how I am still going once the caffeine pill I took wore off) to meet with Jordan so we could go and get him some software. I am a student. Software is cheapest for students. Go figure.
He was late. Said he miscalculated what it would take him to run errands by not accounting for snow.
It snowed last night.
Not the really cool, soft fluffy, what Utah is known for snow; but hard, ice crystal, sticks to everything and creates a mini-glacier in the driveway kind of snow. Not a lot of accumulation; and at the same time, something I still got to shovel to get Erin’s car out of the driveway. We wanted to get the oil changed and her tires rotated today.
ErinErin decided to come out and do some shoveling. I gave her my coat gloves (not very thick) and then watched as she finished up the shoveling on the driveway I hadn’t gotten to. At that point (or thereabouts) Jordan showed up, Erin went to Costco to buy “stuff” (to include ice salt for the driveway and walkway to our door) while Jordan and I took off for BYU.
We met up with James. Erin bought salt, 2 oz cups for me on Sundays (12,000 which if you take the sacrament 48 times a year equates to exactly 250 years… in case you were curious how long it would take me to go through these cups with our primary purpose in mind) while James, Jordan and I bought software, looked at computers, and then ate some lunch.
Then Jordan and I went back to my house, installed some of the software on my computer (macbook) transferred data back onto my external hard drive from his (he loaned his to me for this purpose) after I formatted my hard drive to speak to my computer.
Jordan watched Back to the Future – a movie, incidentally, that Erin has never seen. Jordan laughed. Erin looked like she was enjoying herself. She shared that she’d not seen these movies before marriage, Casablanca, or the Indiana Jones movies. Now that I’ve gotten to know her a lot better, I can understand this, but still… it’s shocking to me when I think about it.
Once upon a time I had some requirements for marriage. There was a list of movies:
- Casablanca
- Back to the Future trilogy
- Ronin
- Grosse Pointe Blank
- High Fidelity
- Rear Window
- and etc.
The list actually goes on. I was aghast that Erin hadn’t seen the movies I thought were important. Moreover, I have a list of books I want people to read as well. She has not read many of them; but then, I don’t force books on people so much. We still fit together.
Over the past couple of weeks, though, we’ve been reading Y/A books. Young adult for the uninitiated. I read The Golden Compass which, apparently, Jordan not only read but also the entire series. I liked the book. He wanted to discuss protagonists (what have I gotten myself into by introducing this kid to actual terms and what they really mean???), whereas, I was interested in Lyra and ice bears and the adventure. Erin (I think) started the book today.
Today, I picked up the copy of Coraline we bought a week or so ago. She read that.
Last week she also read Bras and Broomsticks which was nice. Apparently (and I recall thinking this when I first read the book) the first chapter is less than dross. It should’ve been dropped from the book altogether.
Anyway, I did fix In Order to Write. So, no more of that terrible Flash animation. Wow. All that work only to have me deride my own creation. What am I coming to?
I still have Frogs and French Kisses to read and Richard Aleas’s book that I started reading and tossed aside when I picked up John Zakour’s latest book The Blue-Haired Bombshell. Outside of that, the reading is going well and the writing is okay. More details (hopefully) in the next couple of days over at IOTW.
Beyond that, I expect that I will be updating over the next few days. There are some topics I want to cover. Who knows?
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
Real Heroes Fly
On Ann Coulter
Posted by smokingpen in Politics on December 20, 2007
I had the misfortune, yesterday, of reading a blog by Ann Coulter. I know there are a lot of people in the United States that think she is a great face for the conservative right, the extremist end of the Republican Party, and I agree, she is an attractive woman that can write, speaks well, and looks good on camera; but I also fall into the category (opinion-wise) where I think if you dress a pig up in silk, it’s still a pig and the silk is going to be ruined.
Why do I think this?
Well, I think it goes along with Rush Limbaugh. As a teenager this man said a lot of things that the people around me were saying. He would decry the president (when I started listening it was Clinton) and would tell everyone everything the President was doing wrong. After a while it got tiring to listen to Rush and, eventually, I just turned off the radio and stopped tuning in when his radio program was on.
He lost weight.
He became addicted to oxycotin.
At some point, I realized he was a blow-hard that really was just talking to be heard and did, or could do, very little to change the course of the American political machine. He is exactly what he presents himself to be, a showman, and very little else. He just happened to become famous for what he had to say.
Rush Limbaugh, for whatever reason, is no longer applicable to our American way of life.
I have also had opportunity to listen to individuals who work in the opposite extreme. I am, very deeply, opposed to the bleeding-heart agenda as well. I think there are middle ground between the two opposite extremes and I think that when someone who makes their money from speaking their political mind makes more money for speaking that mind, they often lose sight of what it was that made them famous – as do their fans.
Ann Coulter is the female equivalent of Rush Limbaugh for a new generation of extremely conservative American’s. Except, she’s attractive and thin.
Ann Coulter also represents what is currently wrong with the present administration.
What is wrong with the current administration?
G.W. is so sure that what he is doing is correct, that the course of action he has promoted is the right one for this country, that he ignores anything that might suggest that he is wrong.
The very reason the conservative portion of this nation disliked Clinton is the reason the liberal portion of the nation dislikes G.W. He has set a course. He is unapologetic about that course. And his critics be damned, he is going to follow his heart and take the rest of the nation with him.
When we voted for G.W., honestly, we were expecting to hire a President who had a Christian ethic and a track record of working across party lines to get things done. For the first bit of the presidency, prior to 9/11, he did that pretty well. And then came the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Flight 93 over Pennsylvania and suddenly, G.W. had a mandate from the people that gave him the Executive Power to move away from bi-partisan politics and to lead the charge on a very partisan policy.
And with G.W.’s rise to power we also have his cheerleader, Ann Coulter, rising to prominence in the media. Here comes this attractive blonde who tells the conservative United States what it wants to hear. Who does not pause or back down. Who does and says what she wants and expects everyone to take her seriously.
The flaw in this, though, is that Coulter rose to power with G.W. and she will fall with him as well. I might try to get to that later.
Specifically, Coulter’s agenda is anti-liberal. It is anti-ignorance… or more specifically, it is anti-perceived ignorance. She is not anti-ignorance, Coulter is anti-percieved ignorance. She is literally the Tin Man (Woman in this case) where the Wizard grants her a diploma and she suddenly has something to say. In this case, though, it would appear the need to promote G.W.’s agenda (as well as a rather anti-science agenda… go figure) and she now has the authority to speak her mind.
Coulter has a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and a Bachelors in Arts from Cornell University School of Arts & Sciences. She is an educated woman.
I can deal with the uber right wing and the uber left wing. I can even deal with the less-than-intelligent who want to be considered intelligent. However, what I cannot deal with is people who, in the face of overwhelming evidence, speak in direct opposition to what is being presented.
The instrument at hand is Coulter’s arguments against Evolution. Simply, she doesn’t believe in it and counters that Darwin’s theories have been proven wrong.
Here’s my problem: Darwin had a theory. A theory is an explanation of viewable events with an explanation of how they happened and what outcomes can be expected. Theory is not fact nor is it a law. When Newton wrote his laws they were theories. Science has sufficiently proven Newton and as a result we speak of his multiple laws.
However, science cannot prove Darwin. It is impossible. To be able to do that we would have to travel back in time and see what the changes that took place for the world over time.
I agree with a lot of skeptics of Darwin insofar as I cannot accept that Darwin’s theories are provable to the extent that his theories become law. However, as for his theories on adaptation by a species to its environment, his theories are as close to law as they can get. We can observe adaptation not only of animals and plants to new environments, but also people within given environments over time. Moreover, science can point out that in colder climates people are often smaller, while during warming spells (we are in one) the population grows in height. We can observe adaptation. Moreover, we can observe co-evolution. And we can encourage adaptation (e.g. evolution) in species of insects that have shorter life cycles.
Moreover, you can see a skeletal lifecycle from pre-homo erectus to current homo sapien. Amazingly enough, none of these skeletons, and none of this information, flies in the face of my religious beliefs or faith. Interestingly enough, we, as children of God, are commanded to learn as much as we can about the world around us. Some are interested in science, others in nature, others in politics, others in writing, others into law, and etc. We get to constantly learn, observe, and make our own judgments.
What I have found interesting, though, is that the evidence that has been presented (to me) by one of these men of science is sufficient to indicate that modern man might be an offshoot of the offspring of homo erectus.
The only thing we do know is that we don’t know how God created the heavens and the earth. To disregard the notion that he didn’t seed the planet and let it move in different directions, influencing animal and plant life and growth over time is to say that we know God intimately as well as his methods, arts, practices, and his mind. We, that means every single person on this planet, do not know how God created the earth and everything on it. Nor do we know how man was created.
The bible is rather Spartan about that description. The King James version calls the creative periods days. Other translations go to creative periods. Over a series of creative periods, the time of each one we don’t know, he created different aspects of the planet.
The evidence does not support a stringent Christian view of the creation of the world. More, Christian’s, who are supposed to be a faith-loving people, should know that God does not give them all of the information.
We don’t know.
What evidence does is suggest what might have happened. Circumstantial evidence is sufficient to convict a criminal. In order to do that, though, the prosecutor has to have a theory. Theories can be based off of evidence, sometimes evidence is collected as a result of the theory. But in either case, it is up to professionals, lawyers, and judges to interpret that evidence. Evolution is a process of circumstantial evidence.
The evidence that exists suggests that homo sapien is an evolutionary offspring of homo erectus. That is interpretation of evidence. This is not interpretation of facts, this does not make Darwin some kind of a prophet, it is interpretation of evidence.
Do I believe science when they speak in terms of millions of years? No. And part of the reason for my disbelief is because scientists will also tell you that certain conditions have to have applied when the sample was laid down for their methods to work. There is no way too convincingly (for me) proving that the conditions existed, and as a result, I am always prone to ask, “What else can explain the geological or biological evidence?”
I want my religious view of the world to be the only view I can accept, and yet, I cannot accept that.
Ann Coulter is so set in her ways, she is Bush’s bulldog in such a way that she refuses to see there are other possibilities in the world. Admitting to another possibility is death in the political extreme environment. Her admitting the possibility of evolution is akin to AlGore admitting that global warming isn’t man made.
The problem with the religious view on creation is that it is not testable. That is why it is not taught, or wanted to be taught, in schools. What science is about (even if they are often wrong) is the ability to test a current theory or hypothesis. That’s it. Evolution is testable, Creation theory is not.
At present, with the information I currently have, I will go with an answer on Creation that includes God presiding over Evolution.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
Real Heroes Fly
The Final Countdown
Posted by smokingpen in Odds-n-Ends on December 19, 2007
I finished my last final for this semester today. I think, when all the cards drop, I will get an “A” in the class. There is a possibility that I will get a “B” but I think that is the lowest the grade will go. Not sure what to expect from the dreaded science class and I believe I will garner an “A” out of the creative writing class. So, semester done.
What this means is that I have 12 more months and I am done with BYU.
This turned out to be an interesting semester. I took some classes that I thought I would like and show up to all of the time, and a class that I thought I would love, and ended up loving the class I thought I would (at best) like, and hating the class I thought I would love.
On top of that, the last several months has been lessons in learning to live with someone else. Not just live but share a bed, share a bathroom, share space and time and a lot of other things. It’s been a good four months and a hard four months. And yet, I think Erin and I made it through pretty well.
Throw into that mix the number of hours a week I’ve been working on top of school, on top of being newly married, and on top of everything else I’ve been trying to do, and I am surprised that this semester has flown by. It’s been rather rewarding, actually.
I started Alicia Grey and my instincts tell me that I need to slow down on this story and become more comfortable with the slog through it.
I have been writing Cassandra West stories and my gut tells me this needs to be something I work on a bit more.
I’ve been working through In Order to Write, and I am planning some additional changes to the application and look of the site.
Going back to Alicia Grey, though, I have found that I am dealing with how to deal with her first days in a new school. Not that I don’t have some ideas, merely that I think some issues need to be resolved before I start putting her (and co.) in situations that surround the area they are in and deal with the people at the school and community. What this means, really, is that I want to take some time to think about what I’ve currently written. It would be nice if I didn’t have to, if I could just say, “The book will be 90,000 words long and don’t worry about the structure,” but truth told, I feel that the structure is important. It is important.
On the flipside of Alicia is Cassandra. I’ve discovered, by working through some pieces that I thought were short fiction (and really are) that the connections between the stories are such that I can’t expect to submit them separately. They are an all together or not at all kind of series of stores. What it does do is make writing Cassandra West a little different, weird. I mean, she’s a girl ripped out of her body and home and placed in the Old West and then made to be an adult, a grown-up. Each mis-adventure has her connecting back to that initial action, as well as events that transpired before she ended up outside of El Paso.
There are good guys and bad guys.
In my head I see each adventure being a new chapter, of sorts. Maybe not. And yet, after writing the Darwin episode, it occurred to me that there was a rather coherent connection that required something more than I was (initially) planning for this story.
Moreover, between Alicia and Cassandra, I am finding myself learning some aspects to fiction that I really need to write about at IOTW. It will come. As the stress of the last several days to two weeks dies down, I will write more over there.
Which really leads to, I think I need to leave IOTW with the flash animation up for another 24 hours. Sad? Yes, I know. But, at the same time I want to make sure that the professor has a good chance to see it.
That’s about it. If I think about it, tomorrow I write about how Anne Coulter is an idiot… and I am not at all in line with the political left in this country.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
Real Heroes Fly
Cassandra West – The Cave of Charles Darwin
Posted by smokingpen in Cassandra West, short story on December 19, 2007
Cassandra sat in the dirt in front of a large cave opening, as instructed. She could hear water running that sounded like a river just to the other side of the entrance, even though she knew there was no way a river could flow from one side of that cave to the other. Every once in a while she dug around in the dirt with her hands, found a small stone, and threw it side shot into the cave. The stone would bounce off the back wall, ricochet up to the ceiling, and then shoot straight down into the water. She’d done the same thing with several sticks, a few larger rocks, and a squirrel that was stupid enough to get close to her.
“I hate waiting,” she said. “Why would she send me to a cave anyway?” She addressed her comments to a painted horse standing just north of the opening to the cave.
“I don’t know,” Thomas said. He stopped eating the grass that surrounded the semi-circle of dirt Cassandra was sitting in. “I wasn’t invited into the witches lair with you.”
Cassandra turned and gave Thomas a blank stare. “We both know you’re important to whatever it is that I’m supposed to be doing here. That doesn’t mean, though, that I don’t have to go places without you, at least occasionally.”
“Besides,” Thomas continued as if he hadn’t even heard her, “I am not allowed into buildings. I’m never there to hear you listen to oracles or witches or mages or wizards.”
Instead of answering, Cassandra dug for another rock and pitched it into the cave, watched it hit the wall, ricochet to the ceiling, and then fly straight down to the water where it thunked into something wooden instead of plinked into the water as she’d expected.
“Oy,” a man that was clearly sitting in a dingy said. “What’s that?”
“Oh, sorry,” Cassandra said, she blushed when the man looked at her. Thomas snickered into his grass and then turned and wandered off.
Cassandra shot him a glare and then watched as the man in the boat rowed it to the edge of the cave and onto the shore. “Who are you?”
“Oh, yes, quite a good question. I am Charles Darwin,” he said. Charles took his hat off of his head, removed the waist coat he wore, and placed both, gently, in the dingy. He bowed at Cassandra. All she could do was stare at him.
“Right then,” he said in a decidedly English accent. “I don’t suppose you know why I am here?”
“Not particularly,” Cassandra said. “I was told to come here and wait.”
“Oh, well. Doesn’t that place us in a predicament?”
“Who are you Charles Darwin?” Cassandra asked. Her hands had moved away from her guns as Charles stood there next to his boat.
“I wrote a book, once… or soon, I don’t know…it all gets kind of muddly, anyway. What year is it? Nevermind, doesn’t matter. The book, my dear, was on a theory I had while sailing around South America on a boat called The Beagle. The Origin of Species. Actually, the title is much longer than that. It’s about evolution. Yes, well, you know, the process whereby a population changes over time in adapting to its environment,” he said then suddenly stepped forward. The movement surprised Cassandra.
He pulled from a vest pocket a quill and held it in ink stained fingers.
“Don’t worry,” he said adjusting himself as if to get ready for something, “I think I know why I am here.”
He lifted the quill into the air and started drawing. In front of Cassandra was now the basic outline of a human man and woman. “This is human-kind.”
“What kind of tom-foolery is this?” Cassandra asked. She wanted to reach for her guns, but couldn’t figure out how to use them against drawings in thin air.
“In the future, people will discuss how man,” he pointed at the drawing of a man,” and chimpanzees,” he quickly drew a chimp standing in between the man and woman, “are related. In essence, many people will assume that man and chimpanzees are related.”
Cassandra looked at the man and then looked at the monkey, “They don’t look like they are related to me.”
“Right-o,” Charles said, “they’re not. Well, the species man or homo sapien and the species chimpanzee or Pan troglodytes are related, cousins if you will.” Charles waved his quill and sent the drawing of the woman straight at Cassandra. She didn’t have time to react as it came into contact with her. At that moment, Cassandra felt herself getting shorter, her head hurt, her throat seemed to move of its own accord, and as she looked down at her arms, they were now covered with fur and she was hunched over, using the backs of her knuckles to help keep her standing.
Cassandra started to say something and noticed that all she could do was make noises, chirps and growls, rather than words. She tried to grab her guns, but her arms, longer now, would not work in the same way.
“Now I’m getting it all confused. Let me be clear, chimpanzees and humans are related,” Charles continued, “but man is not a direct ancestor of the chimp.” Charles waved his quill at Cassandra she was almost immediately back to her normal self, “and chimp,” he said as a chimp appeared next to Cassandra, “is not the forebear of man.”
“Don’t do that…”
“Rather, if you take the chimpanzee, which is not the closest relative in the Pan genus, and follow a different route, you can find that man and chimp had similar ancestors.” He waved his quill in the air again and suddenly there was the image of a series of heads without bodies. The one closest to Cassandra looked like a normal human head and then changed slightly in appearance from human looking all the way down the line until it was closer in appearance to the chimpanzee standing next to her.
“It would be foolish to assume that if you de-evolved man,” Charles pointed at the drawing of man that was standing in the air in front of him again, “you would get chimpanzee. Nor could you take chimpanzee,” he pointed at the drawing of the chimp, “and evolve him to man.”
He waved the quill again making all of the pictures disappear. However, this time, he pointed it at Cassandra, and she felt an odd tingling go throughout her entire body. Odd, but not entirely unpleasant. “There are many ancestors to modern man. At each stage of evolution they are different from what preceded them.”
Cassandra found herself changing, again, though it was slower and seemed to combine cranial ridge changes, the separation of her eyes, where her voice box was located, her chin, her mouth seemed to project more giving her a muzzle until she was presented with a shimmer in the air and she stood there looking at the creature staring back at her.
“If you were to de-evolve a human,” Charles said, “our best guess is that you would get to something that looks very simian, but resembles neither human nor chimpanzee. Though, at present,” his eyes ran up and down her reformed body, “you are closer to the chimpanzee than you are to your human self.”
He looked at Cassandra. She looked up at him. “Yes, a very good rendering of homo erectus, if I do say so myself.” He looked at her with a sense of satisfaction in his eyes: “You now have the ability to stand on your own two feet.”
“I had that before, thank you very much” Cassandra replied as she clumsily tried to make use of her de-volutionized legs, and found she was, again, not speaking.
Once again, Charles made some swipes with the quill. The shimmer in the air disappeared and Cassandra found herself looking at Charles from her normal eyes. He took a couple of steps away from the boat so that he was outside of the cave and laid the quill down on a flat stone.
“I believe that is meant for you,” he said. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Cassandra West.”
Charles turned, put his coat and hat back on, pushed the dingy back into the river before jumping inside, and then rowed back into the cave before disappearing.
Cassandra turned to look at Thomas and noticed the chimpanzee was still standing next to her. The chimp looked up at her, skreetched loudly, and then ran off into the forest.
“What was that all about?”
“I don’t know,” Thomas said, “but I would gather that feather before it blows away.”
Cassandra walked over, picked up the quill, and looked at it. “That was interesting,” she said. “Fascinating really. Man is an evolved form of ape.”
“Not quite,” Thomas said. “Man and ape are both evolved beings with a common ancestor, but they are not directly related.”
“Right, different paths,” Cassandra said. “Wonder what was up with that money?”
“Chimpanzee,” Thomas said.
Blah I want Sleep
Posted by smokingpen in Odds-n-Ends on December 18, 2007
I sleep through Erin leaving in the mornings. Well, most mornings. That doesn’t mean I am not aware that she is not in bed with me anymore or that she’s not moving around the apartment; it does mean that I am not really aware of all that is happening. For example, this morning, it was noted that the moment Erin got out of bed I stole one of her pillows and was snuggling up next to it.
When this was pointed out to me I said, “At least I didn’t steal it while you were sleeping,” though I also have to admit, I have stolen them while she’s slept too.
The point, though, is that Erin leaves and I roll over and go back to sleep. Today, I slept until the phone rang and I had to answer it. It was someone asking whether or not I’d cashed a check. I told them since the wedding I’d moved and they asked for the new address and told me they’d resend the check. Interesting.
Then Erin called.
At this point I was awake, kinda hard to go back to bed when people call you every two or three seconds. I was showered, and trying to figure out what came next.
What came next consisted of me and my car driving all over Katmandu trying to find a box that would work for the present I bought for Erin yesterday. I ended up at the post office and got one of their boxes. It was frustrating.
At the same time, though, I also ended up with ribbon (brown to go with the brown paper Erin’s packages are wrapped in) and a new ornament, a big fat bear fishing out of the back of a boat that I totally felt needed to go on our tree.
I also stopped by Borders and acquired (legally) a copy of Stardust, which was a good movie and the last one (prior to The Golden Compass) Erin and I saw in the movie theatre.
I did wander around the store and looked at some books and other items, but ended up only being able to convince myself to buy Stardust before I made my way home.
What I thought was interesting, about today, were two things:
First, the stores were very busy. It didn’t matter where I went, there were crowds. You’d think that Hogswatch was tomorrow or something.
Second, I watched a small portion of The View and noted that their guest today, Denis Leary, came on, acted embarrassed and pleased, and then proceeded to talk about Rush Limbaugh (a man I am not fond of) and how he liked listening to him because Rush reinforced (by being wrong) everything Leary believed (e.g. the opposite of Rush).
What occurred to me was that I realized Rush Limbaugh is a man for young conservatives and super right wing members of the party. He has a lot to say, he says it, he doesn’t apologize, and I am glad that part of my life is far behind me.
Moreover, it also occurred to me that Leary was saying exactly what people wanted to hear from him. Specifically, we need a woman or black president, and hallelujah if you get both at once, because white, Anglo-Saxon, men have screwed up the country. However, at that point I also realized that even though Leary is a celebrity and he has a big mouth (which is what he is well known for, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and was given sound bytes so he didn’t sound like an idiot. He sounded like an idiot. Especially when he had to say, “I will be careful about what I say because you’re on in the morning.”
One more thing occurred to me (not really related to the above two):
I want to be a guest on The View and hope it sticks around long enough that I get to do that.
Sorry mom, but Oprah just doesn’t do it for me. Don’t know what “it” is, in this context, but if I had to choose between the two, The View has my attention.
I didn’t watch it for very long because I felt that I had a finite amount of time to find a box, buy a movie, wrap a present, and then put together a flash presentation.
With that said, I apologize, but for now In Order to Write has a flash presentation. Check it out (once) but after that, go to this link for the next … oh, lets say… hrm, 36 hours. I should be removing the page I inserted for the professional communications class after that. It’s for a grade people.
Anyway, in the morning I need to finish putting together a PowerPoint presentation and an Executive Summary for the semester and then I am off. Off to the next great adventure (also known as next semester).
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
Real Heroes Fly