tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73668339513603321982024-02-07T12:43:20.223-08:00Writing in the Deep EndThe scrabbling and photography of ToryLynn Writer. Read, comment, stay. It's a cozy place.ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-21600135910044215602022-11-29T09:47:00.001-08:002022-11-29T09:47:22.570-08:00Temple<div style="text-align: left;">Manifest Joy... right?<br />That all you have to do -<br />You just continue to be happy,<br />And everything will fall<br />Into place and be</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Perfect?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What is perfect?<br />Not this life <br />Where every time I move <br />I am reminded that <br />My body- this temple-<br />Has a garden that bears no fruit.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I lay fallow.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But there is more to food<br />Than fruit<br />And there is more to life than<br />Love.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As the slippery kisses slide down the steps<br />In blood<br />I am reminded<br />There are bigger dreams<br />And time is precious.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What little we are allowed<br />Is sacred.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We wait for the world to set things right<br />But don't look to our own hands<br />To build a pathway to the temple<br />Inviting opportunity.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The gods help those who put in effort<br />Smiling with pride<br />That you can change the world.</div>ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-80583926477636495212022-10-18T17:41:00.007-07:002022-10-18T17:41:49.090-07:00Deprived<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deep into sleep</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-5b5ded5e-7fff-9773-6b88-8de5ad94529d"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Running through REM</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Melatonin muddled</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You woke me up</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You started quiet</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Softly speaking of treason</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In our bed</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lamenting my lack of compassion</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My sleep induced haze</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And I drifted in and out</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Trying to stay awake</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While you bitterly drained bile</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On me.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In response, reaching</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Out only to slake the surge</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of anger.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I struggled to stay awake.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Until I could no longer take it</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And sat up, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hoping to stay roused</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By becoming defensive.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I looked at the clock again.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">10:30 had changed to past midnight.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2 hours had passed.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I tried to speak through accusations</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">20 years throw in my face, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Though only ten of them are yours</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But all betrayal</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Must be accounted for.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tried to speak, but shut out</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the phrase “let me finish”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And all to do is wait.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1:30 ticks by, but we didn't notice.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My responses must have seemed unreasonable</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because by two, you were hissing hate</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Telling me that I’m worthless,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That I deserve the pain</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of a broken heart.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Overcome, I bolted to the bathroom,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And locked the door against the blast</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of bad behavior.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Barriers abate the hate</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And you calmed, asking of safety</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Knowing of the silent scars</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That bear witness on my arms</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of past pain</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You demanded to see wrist and thigh</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When the door was opened.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My sister was right– I should have slept</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Back pressed to door</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Towels for pillows.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead, at three</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I slinked back to bed.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Too exhausted to argue again.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-2575372813695692552022-10-07T03:54:00.002-07:002022-10-07T03:55:44.629-07:00Untitled Poem 9/12<div> I never<br />expect</div><div><br />you.<br /><br /></div><div>You just drip<br />into my life<br />like sweet summer<br />rain,</div><div><br /></div><div>flood my senses</div><div>until all is full of</div><div>you,</div><div><br />And when you are gone<br />I crave you.</div>ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-5509674509804944582022-09-27T19:06:00.002-07:002022-09-27T19:06:32.721-07:00Throuple<div style="text-align: left;"><i> Prince: Will you have me lady?<br /></i><i>Beatrice: No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days. <br /></i><i>Your Grace is too costly to wear every day.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: center;">(Shakespeare </span><i style="text-align: center;">Much Ado About Nothing</i><span style="text-align: center;"> II.i.319-323)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: center;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">And they lived happily ever after- </div><div style="text-align: center;">But is "they" always two?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Can three live as well as two</div><div style="text-align: center;">Or does jealousy seep through</div><div style="text-align: center;">A crack created when she smiles</div><div style="text-align: center;">In a different way</div><div style="text-align: center;">Than she smiles at you?</div><div style="text-align: center;">Or you share a kind of connection</div><div style="text-align: center;">That has his eyes blaze</div><div style="text-align: center;">With uncertainty.</div></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-17218019725236437612022-09-22T19:59:00.010-07:002022-09-22T20:12:25.062-07:00Equal Night<p><b> Equal Night</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><div>No lamb or lions for this<br />The celebration of equal delights<br />Autumn tiptoes in<br />On black cat's rumbling purrs<br />Dividing day and night</div><div>With a scratch and a scream.</div><div><br />The season of comfort: <br />Flannel sheets and pumpkin pies<br />Brings us closer to thoughts<br />Of our own final harvests<br />Pulling the veil back.</div><div><br />Preceded by pleasure,<br />Sinking down to sweet earth<br />Sipping the stars by moonlight,<br />We become drunk on promises.</div>ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-820186810012230762022-09-19T20:35:00.001-07:002022-09-22T20:15:00.202-07:00FlannelSlide so sweetly between<div>the soft shell of sheets.</div><div>Another night of dreams awaits.</div><div><br /></div><div>This favorite fabric is fine.</div><div>A feeling of freedom found,</div><div>no longer bound</div><div>by the restraint of reality.</div><div><br /></div><div>Carried back on waves of wistfulness</div><div>Folded in flannel</div><div>Pressed around me</div><div>the protection of pure love.</div><div><br /></div><div>Flannel was my fortune -</div><div>And my downfall.</div><div>Wrapped in a world, </div><div>dreaming of blissful delights.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now it reminds of</div><div>winter afternoons</div><div>wrapped in a safe world.</div><div>sheltered by you.</div>ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-35185475263813802712022-09-17T08:04:00.002-07:002022-09-22T20:15:42.635-07:00This is just to sayThis is just to say<div>that I have lit</div><div><br /></div><div>the oak moss and amber candle</div><div>which you seem to hate.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is not that</div><div>I want to keep you out of</div><div>my room.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's just that I like the smell.</div><div><br /></div><div>Time to myself</div><div>Is a bonus.</div>ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-57453600187099415972022-09-13T19:02:00.001-07:002022-09-13T19:08:21.337-07:00Imaginings<p> I've been spending some time lately imagining a world of what ifs.</p><p>For instance-</p><p style="text-align: center;">What if he met my husband?</p><p style="text-align: center;">What if I ran in to him locally?</p><p style="text-align: center;">What if he ran in to my sister?</p><p style="text-align: center;">What if I answer that email?</p><p style="text-align: right;">(yes, I saw it)</p><p style="text-align: left;">All of these scenarios play</p><p style="text-align: left;">Prancing through my head</p><p style="text-align: left;">Dancing through my thoughts.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Making me think about</p><p style="text-align: left;">something that will (probably) never happen.</p><p style="text-align: center;">But damn, they make great inspiration.</p><p style="text-align: right;">Thanks!</p>ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-31822497117636563202022-01-01T21:58:00.005-08:002022-01-01T21:59:46.353-08:00Desire (A Poem)<p style="text-align: center;"> <span style="text-align: center;">Drawn to darkness</span></p><p style="text-align: center;">Toeing the line</p><div style="text-align: center;">Between</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Good</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">and</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: x-large;">Evil</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">The wholesome interested you</div><div style="text-align: center;">With its wheat bran</div><div style="text-align: center;">and the touch of sweetness,</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">but the dark desire beckoned</div><div style="text-align: center;">And you--</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Wanting what wasn't yours-- </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">dipped just the tip</div><div style="text-align: center;">lost control</div><div style="text-align: center;">and drowned in decadence.</div>ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-56185577092334587252021-12-02T18:24:00.004-08:002021-12-02T18:29:10.470-08:00On the Run<p> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: justify;">I am dithering between packing up both of the suitcases, or just taking the big one with the most important stuff when my cat tangles itself in my ankles, and I second_ -well no- thirty-second guess myself. Should I be doing this? Should I leave him? I bend down to scratch Puck’s head, between the ears, and he looks at me with knowing eyes. Yes Mom, he says to me as a voice in my head, you need to do this, but can you take me with you? I smile. Of course, he will be coming with me. I’ve had him for eight years. He’s my familiar. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I decide on the large suitcase. It is bright pink and easy to spot if I decide to go to an airport to get away. Going to an airport would mean leaving my car behind in a parking spot, and I’m not sure about the rules for flying with a cat, but I can make this work. I open up the suitcase, throw my most comfortable and casual clothes inside - I won’t need the business suits anymore - and then drag my eyes around the apartment for a few minutes wondering what else to pack.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span> </span>The books have to stay here. No room, but I have my Kindle. My jewelry I tuck in between my clothes. I take one last look around the apartment - thirteen years in the same place - tuck Puck into his carrier and load everything in my car.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span> </span>My first order of business is just to get out of Weberstown and away from my soon to be ex-husband and soon to be ex-business partner. I drive to the nearest gas station, fill up my car and grab a few snacks. Puck has a whole bag of food that I already put in the back of the car, and he’s strapped in so he can’t wander around. I consider where I want to go, but just get in my car and start to drive east. East seems like the best option. The foothills surrounding Weberstown don’t have much cell reception, so I can get lost up there. I have already set my phone to do not disturb and turned off any location sharing with my future ex-husband, but my future ex-father in law is a cop, and I wouldn’t put it past him to try a cell phone trace of some kind. When I figure out where I’m going, I’ll change my number.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span> </span>I drive east for an hour, wandering around the golden edged foothills. The spring had been dry and so everything is golden brown grasses waving in the dry California winds. I stop, checking my watch to make sure he hasn’t gotten off work yet, and head to the nearest bank I can find in the foothill town. The bank account says that we have $4000 in savings, and I withdraw half of that, not even looking at the checking account, knowing that there are bills that may not be paid out of that yet. The crisp bills feel good in my hand. I tuck $200 in my wallet and the rest goes in the suitcase in the back. I’ll figure out a better hiding place when I get to wherever I’m going.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;"><span> </span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;"><span> </span>There is a place in the hills where the grassy fields end, and as I make the transition from fields to forest, I feel a transformation in myself. There is no doubt that what I did was the right thing to do. There was nothing left for me in Weberstown anymore. A very small office fire made out of the shredded documents and computer hard drive that had been my accounting firm's records made sure to burn that bridge. Some bad investments and some debts to some gentlemen with a rather creative way of collecting those debts meant that I couldn’t go back to Weberstown or my ex any time soon. Good riddance to both, I thought, looking through the rear view mirror. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Another hour or so east, and I find that I have wandered to Angel’s Camp, a small but famous town in the foothills. As I drive up the highway with the “Welcome to Calaveras County” sign, something in me relaxes. I know this is where I will stay for a while. Puck seems to sense this in me as well as he questioningly meows at me, though I’m not sure if it’s because he wants dinner or because he’s attuned to my feelings.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span> </span>I find a motel with a pet policy, pay the hotel room charge in cash and sign my mother’s maiden name with mine in the registry. I let Puck out, set up his litter box and his food, and then blissfully pass out.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span> </span>I wake, take a shower, and turn on the TV with the antiquated remote. The television is old, one of those big box kinds, and I wonder at the old-fashioned ways of Angel’s Camp. I flip through the few channels and land on CNN, not recognizing any of the panelists. I lay back in bed and Puck curls up at my side as I lazily stroke his belly. He seems to have lost something too in leaving. He seems smaller than I remember, and his toe beans feel tiny as I play with his feet, a game we are fond of. He meows at me and bats at my fingers as we settle down. The news analysts are talking about the next election coming up and it takes me a few minutes to realize that something is… different. The election that they are talking about isn’t the candidates that I remember. Instead they’re talking about Bill Clinton’s chances running against George Bush. I blink and rub my eyes, listening closer, thinking it must be a rerun of some CNN documentary of the 90’s. Just in case though, I head out to the lobby of the motel in my jammies. What I find there is even more surprising. The headlines of the newspaper screamed out news about Hurricane Andrew devastating Florida, Ross Perot’s chances in the election and the weather and sports information above the fold for August 24, 1992. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I walk back to my room and sit on the bed, stunned for a moment. Puck has fallen asleep on the pillows, oblivious to anything except the morning sun which was coming through the ugly maroon curtains in places. He is sleeping the rest of a kitten, and I rub my eyes again telling myself that it’s not possible that he has turned into the kitten that he once was. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I reach for my cell phone and find that it had died in the night. It still won’t even turn on after I plug it in. My only other thought is to pick up the motel phone and slowly dial in 767-2676. It is automatic. The voice tells me in its curt way that at the tone it will be August 24, 1992, 9:16 am. I sit and stare at the phone dumbfounded and then hang up. It is 27 years before I drove into Angel’s Camp.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Well, I think, Kevin definitely won’t find me here.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My second thought was my car. My cute as a button 2010 Volkswagen Beetle would definitely be a standout here in 1992. Definitely forward thinking in design. I peeked out the window, dumbfounded that I hadn’t thought about this before, and saw where I had parked was a mostly shiny, well taken care of 1974 Volkswagen Beetle. <i>Well, that’s something, I suppose. At least I got the same make of car, even if this one is older than I am. </i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></i>I laid down next to Puck and sank into watching an old daytime talk show. The antics of Regis and Kathie Lee amused me for only so long, however, before I needed to get out of the stifling air of the hotel room. I checked on Puck, who seemed even younger than the hours that he has before. I filled up his food bowl a little bit more, added some water to the dish. A growing kitten needs food, I thought to myself, but if he keeps de-aging, what will happen to him. He seemed content now, if not incredibly lazy, but then, he’s a cat. I pat him on his head, grabbed my purse, and decided a drive around Angel’s Camp was just the sort of thing that I needed to clear my head a little and figure out my next steps.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The last time I had been here was when I was 17. My father had just left his second wife for his eventual third wife and we were “between houses” again, which meant that we were staying in motels. He had work at Angel’s Camp as a bricklayer. If all of these signs were right, I was in that summer now and my 17 year old self was wandering around Angels Camp on her last day in town. I had one day to change her life, and maybe save myself.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The realization that my life could be different, that I could warn myself that something was going to happen shocked me so much that I pulled over into a parking lot of a little Shop n’ Go market. Panic struck me in the chest hard, and I had to take a few deep breaths. <i>Things could change</i>, and as if this revelation wasn’t enough, there was a vibration that came from my purse sitting on the passenger seat of the car. I dug through the purse and found my phone there, buzzing away excessively. There was a text message. All it said was “Make her leave”.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I put the car in drive and pulled out of the parking lot, knowing exactly where I was going.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When I entered the diner, the sound of the bell over the door brought a rush of memories. Sure enough, the reality of the situation was true to what I remembered. I looked over at the corner booth, which could easily seat six people, but at that moment only held two girls. One was athletic, her hair pulled up in a ponytail, her clothing tight on her body. This was Becky, my little sister. A wave of nostalgia washed over me and it was hard not to burst into tears. My sister had stopped talking to me ten years ago, after I married Kevin. I hadn’t realized I had ached for her company so much, but in order to change my path and talk to my younger self, who sat on the other side of the table, sulking and drawing on the paper napkins with a ballpoint pen, I would have to get past Becky, or at least figure out a way to charm her. Then her pager went off, and I knew immediately how to get her out of the way. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Here”, I said, digging in purse and pulling out a twenty -fortunately my money seemed to have reverted to old bills as well. “Go call whoever you need to”. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Still trusting of strangers and not one to question where money comes from, Becky only perked up and then clambered out of the booth towards the payphone near the bathroom, which left me to talk to…myself.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Thanks for getting rid of her”, 17 year old me said.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“You’re welcome. Do you mind if I sit with you? I hate eating alone.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>She shrugged, and I took that as a sign that I could sit. She was hunched over, careful not to sit back because every time she did, she would hiss. I remember that I had gotten a terrible burn on the beach at Santa Cruz and probably should have been hospitalized, but my father didn’t believe in hospitals. I had been in terrible pain. I looked into my purse and found that rather than my cell phone, there was a bottle marked “burn lotion” inside instead. I took this out and pushed it across the table. “Here”, I said. “This should help”.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“How could you tell?” she asked.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“The way you’re sitting. Looks like it hurts.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>She nodded. “Who are you?”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It’s my turn to shrug. “Just a person.” </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Well ‘person’ thanks for your help. It does hurt.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“You should probably get checked out by a doctor.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>She rolled her eyes. “As if. I haven’t been to a doctor in years. But this should help a lot. Thanks.” She put the salve down on the seat beside her and continued her doodling. I looked over at what she was drawing. It was a flag and an orphan underneath it- a gross approximation of the Les Mis Original Broadway Cast album cover. She was not an artist. It was a talent I would never really pick up. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Is that supposed to be Cosette or Eponine?” I asked. I had been obsessed with Les Mis for most of high school. It was the first musical I had ever seen live. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Cosette. She’s the child lost in the woods.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Right, she’s looking for her ‘Castle on a Cloud’. Sounds like a nice idea, doesn’t it?”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>She shrugs again. She’s non-committal. From the phone bank, I can hear Becky raising at her voice, probably at her boyfriend Eric, who wonders where she is. She didn’t choose Angel’s Camp any more than the girl who sits in front of me did. That conversation isn’t going to be over soon. I don’t have very much time.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Listen,” I say quietly. “You need to get away from your father.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>She tucks a hair behind her ear and nods. “I am aware.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>She doesn’t seem to be surprised by this revelation.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“You can’t until you’re 18, but you know that you need to get away from home. Do you know what you’re going to do?”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>She shook her head. “I just know that I need to get away. I tried to run away. It didn’t work.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Those three days had been the most liberating and the scariest time of my life. But it had also taught me a very valuable lesson. One that I apparently needed to be reminded of now. “Running away is never really the answer.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Yep”, she said quietly. “I learned that one the hard way.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I take her arm gently and twist it until the soft pale flesh is exposed under her wrist. “This isn’t the answer either.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>She squirms out of my grasp and places her hand in her lap, covering the scars. “It makes me feel better.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Trust me.” I say, and pull back the sleeve of my shirt, exposing my identical scars faded from time.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Her eyes fill with realization for just the briefest second and then fill with gentle tears. “So, you know what it’s like.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I do. Only you can save yourself.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“You sound like one of those commercials.” She draws an arc in the air with her fingers. “The more you know”.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Maybe, but it’s good advice.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The phone slams down and Becky comes back, fuming from her conversation and throws her pager on the table. “Fucking Eric” she says.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Boy troubles?”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Screw him. He can stay in Stockton by himself.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“He will.” I say and then stand. “Think about what I told you.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The girl who will become me shrugs again, and then nods very very slightly.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“You have to confront it.” I said to her, but then they were words that I needed to hear as well.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I left them there and went back to the motel room, exhausted from the conversation and maybe a little bit from what seemed like time travel. I needed to get out of here and go back to where I came from, from the time I came from. I stroked the now very small Puck, who just fit in my hand and mewled at me looking for milk. In a few seconds, his warm little body relaxed in my hand. I took this as a cue and fell asleep as well.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When I woke, there was no longer a cat on the bed with me and I cast my eyes up and down the mattress looking for him. Puck had been my companion through everything and now he was lost. I made a keening sound, grief coursing through me at the loss of my best friend and curled into myself not wanting to know what else was different in my world. The grief was short lived, however, as I heard a familiar rustling from the bathroom and Puck strode out, tail high and shaking litter from his back paws. He was full grown again and he jumped up on the bed and put one of his paws on my nose as if to say, “What’s wrong with you.” I scooped him into my arms and squeezed him. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“We can’t run away, Puck. We have to go back and figure our own way out of this mess.”</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 1px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>He rubbed his cheek against mine in answer, and then jumped out of my arms. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The trip back down the mountain to Weberstown felt like it took less time than it did to get there, and as the forest opened up to the valley, I could feel that I had made the right choice.</p><div><br /></div>ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-55359392924398567822020-09-20T18:55:00.000-07:002020-09-20T18:55:05.534-07:00Ego’s Blog Challenge: Week 3 Milwordy Check In<p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">I put in all my word numbers for now and it says that I have written approximately 43000 words so far for milwordy. That’s a pretty good number for me, considering that I sometimes struggle to do 50,000 in one month when I’m doing Nanowrimo. I’m not entirely on pace to be doing the whole shebang right now, but I am getting words. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">So, three weeks in, what has milwordy done for me so far?</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">I think I’ve developed this habit of writing at least twice a day now. I have usually been up in the morning doing Morning Pages for the Artist’s Way or reading or just sort of toddling about. I get up much earlier than my husband does, even in the summer when I don’t have classes, and I cherish that morning time, that time when I can just do whatever I want, as long as I don’t have to go in the bedroom. We have a very small apartment, so when I am in the office, the bedroom is right next door, and the living room is right behind me. 700 square feet is tight quarters for two people, even in a two bedroom apartment, but I like my husband and he’s a writer, so he understands if I am sitting in front of a keyboard with my fingers flying and my noise canceling ear phones on that I am writing. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">The stuff that I write in the morning is often stuff that is inconsequential. My thoughts on the previous day, just getting words on the page. I call it my mental vomit. I get all the stuff in me up and out on to the page. Of course that metaphor goes away when I start to think about that I go over what I have put on the page and I think about what I want to keep and what is important to me, and what I can use, but often it is just crap, just some sort of mental garbage that I need to get out of me so that I can go on with my day and be a regular human being, whatever that is. Morning writing is where I can get the things that are bothering me out of me so that I don’t have to think about them. I put them on the page, and they can stay there, and I don’t have to think about them. That is what is most important. I can leave these thoughts there and come back to them, but more often than not, they stay there on the page. I will copy and paste these thoughts into my DayOne App, which is a great journaling app that just sort of keeps everything in one place and I can add tags and pictures and things, but more often than not, I just copy, paste and forget.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">My evening writing is a little bit different. I spend time with it usually. I will write about writing; I will write about books that I am reading. The most important thing that I do in the evening is write for other people. While the morning writing is just word vomit to get thoughts out of my head, the evening writing is things that someday someone will read - hopefully. I write my blog posts in the evening, I will work on my novels in the evenings, and sometimes I’ll write a poem or two. The evening writing is for an audience, and it gives my day a settled feeling, like I’m actually accomplishing something, that I have done some good in the world.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">Milwordy has begun to help with that. It motivates me to put the words on the page. I may be a bit behind, but really I’m only competing against the person who I used to be, and if I’m only competing against her, I’m winning every day because I’m creating this habit of writing for myself... and for any audience that I may get</span></p>ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-41539819276325951082020-09-01T17:28:00.001-07:002020-09-01T17:32:29.682-07:00Ego’s Blog Challenge: Day 1: Milwordy<h2 style="text-align: left;"><br /></h2><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">What is Milwordy? It’s craziness, it’s awesomeness, it’s a deadline, which as I am well aware is something that I need in order to do any good work. If you want a really good resource on why deadlines are good for me, there is a very good TED talk on procrastination which I show to my students at the beginning of the school year every year. You can find the link <a href="https://youtu.be/arj7oStGLkU." target="_blank">Here</a>. <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">In it Tim Urban writes about how there are basically three components to a proscrastinator’s life- and we are all procrastinators. He wrote a blog about it called “The Procrastination Matrix” in which he describes the reason that we need this deadline (<a href="https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/procrastination-matrix.html">Link</a>). </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">We all have a little monkey inside of us that wants us to to go crazy and do whatever. My procrastination monkey is prone to watching YouTube videos which are based on stupid reddit posts. Most of these posts highlight how awful people are, and I shouldn’t be watching them, but my procrastination monkey is absolutely *fascinated* with the idea that there are people out there who are awful, and she can judge them for being awful. One of her favorite Reddit forums is “Am I the Asshole” because 90% of the time, you can definitely say to the person who wrote the main post that yes, they are an asshole, and being able to call someone an asshole because they asked for it is very satisfying to her little monkey brain. She can do this for <b>hours</b>. But, if I have a deadline, the Panic Monster will kick her tiny monkey butt off of YouTube so fast that her monkey brain has no time to protest. So, I need a deadline. Deadlines are very important to me. I wouldn’t get half of my grading done without the deadline of report cards out there, so I need that deadline.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">Milwordy is hopefully going to give me that type of deadline that I need for writing. I have spent the last year of my life deep in a Creative Writing Program full of deadlines. I have written essays, short stories, papers on books, book reviews, poems and even a full one-act play because I had a deadline to follow. I earned my Master’s degree, but I found myself for nearly a whole month completely deadlineless. I had nothing to motivate me to write, other than 4thewords. (More on that later). Milwordy hopefully will fill the void that my Masters Program has left behind. It will give me deadlines, and is easily divided into parts, as any good goal is. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">I first heard about Milwordy over on the <a href="https://discord.me/thatwritingplace">That Writing Place Discord server</a>. I used to spend a lot of time there, but I fell out of it for a while, but now that I am quarantined like the rest of everybody, I want to get back into some kind of community, and Discord writing and reading channels are helping me with that as is the KittenAcademy Discord. I hadn’t realized how much I needed a community to sort of cling to and how much I missed people. I often will bill myself as something of an introvert. I feel like I’m awkward and uncomfortable in groups I often will find that I have a great deal of imposter syndrome. Even if I fit in with a group and I feel like I’m getting along well with them, there is a paranoid little voice somewhere in the back of my head that is telling me that I’m not worthy of their friendship. So, being on Discord at least takes away the physical awkwardness, and I can hang out and talk about books and writing, which are my two favorite things to talk about.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">So, there I was on That Writing Place, just chatting up, talking about writing and Nanowrimo and writing goals, and someone said “come and join us by writing a million words in a year.” I admit, it sounded scary, but then I did the math. That million words a year comes out to be about 3000 words a day. <b>I can do that.</b> Admittedly, I may have to move stuff around, but I already write at least a thousand words a day just on my morning journal which I use as a meditative practice. It comes from The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, which I may talk about in another post. So, every morning, I sit down for at least a half an hour (usually 5:30-6am) and write and write and just let my thoughts gush out of me. I used to do this longhand in a paper Leuchtturm journal, but I write fast when I type. Also, if I type words into a computer, I can put them in 4thewords and beat the challenges there, and increase my streak. So, that also helped to motivate me, since I love playing games and gamifying anything, especially writing, is helpful to me. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">Now, my husband, who is wonderful and always has my best interests at heart, reminds me that I should definitely monitor myself and make sure that I’m doing this for the right reasons and not to be obsessive. I tend to get obsessive and that is not a good thing. So, I am going to take this challenge casually and not get horribly upset and think that I am a horrible person if I don’t make it to 3000 words a day or even if I’m hugely far behind at the end of a month because really it’s small challenges just to get me writing that I need. I don’t need to write a million words. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">However... I want to write a million words, and that million words doesn’t have to be just fiction or a novel or some big project like Nanowrimo tends to be. Nanowrimo is 50,000 words, preferably on one novel in the month of November. Milwordy... everything counts. And everything means journal topics, blog posts (like this one) emails, editing, drafts, note taking, research. Everything that I do in the act of being a creative person and a writer counts towards the million words, and that is something that I can deal with. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">So, I guess challenge accepted. I’m going to do this. I don’t know if I’ll succeed or not, but I plan at least writing as much as I can in a day and thinking about all of the things that I do to communicate in my world. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">Of course, now I have to figure out how to use my blogging software again, or find a good markup editor that I can use that will work with Blogger. That sounds like some research.... yay! Or.. leave Blogger and transfer everything over to a WordPress or another blogging site... or take over my husbands...</span></p>ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-3999235936222307282018-09-22T19:17:00.006-07:002018-09-22T19:17:55.720-07:00Number 9<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">In the last hours of summer, as the season was waning and getting ready for the equinox, Verse's ninth kitten, who shall go unnamed, but not unloved, passed away in the wee hours of the morning. It did not live to see the falling of the leaves, or the way that the autumn sky lights up with the clouds in the evenings as the sun sets and turns everything to a bright brilliant red. It did not get to see the leaves change from green to yellow to orange as the season progresses, eventually turning brown and falling off. It never opened its eyes to see Mr. A and DJ looking down at it, with love and devotion. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> But it did know the feel of love. It knew that love poured into his little body every time he snuggled up to his mother and put that nipple in his mouth, the warm milk giving it just enough to hold on until his little heart was too full of love and let go into the hereafter. It was old enough to feel the warm bodies of his brothers and sisters as he looks his last breath, pressing up against him, letting him know that he too was part of something special and wonderful and so full of love and devotion, that there was nothing in the world better than being in this fur pile. He could smell the breath of his mother, pouring over him as she licked him and cared for him, nuzzling him with her face. He is to be envied, for he will never know a world with cold bitterness or hate. He will never know a world where there wasn't someone there to love him, to nuzzle him, to take care of every need, to make sure that he is comfortable.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> His spirit, his energy, will flow into his brothers and sisters who will feel his love for him always, even if they don't know what that love is, but they will know that there is something in their little kitten hearts that makes them stronger, that makes them take on the world as they grow, and separate. He will be the thread that connects them through all of their lives, because he will be there to watch over all of them. And when their time comes, many years down the road, he will be waiting for them, still a kitten at the foot of that rainbow bridge asking what took them so long, and talking so fast about all of the great people and pets that he has to introduce them to as they cross over that bridge themselves. He will forever remain a kitten in the hearts of those who loved him.</span>ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-60669476206484503742018-06-16T14:41:00.000-07:002018-06-16T14:41:28.951-07:00The Spider's Web (Part II of The Escape).<div style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<i style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black;">Just a quick note. I don't think this is going to go on much longer than three parts, but we'll see. I'm sort of writing it as I go, and this is all rough draft of a story I'm still kind of making up in my head. If you like it, let me know by leaving me a comment here or on Twitter, since that's where I pretty much live. Thanks for reading!</i></div>
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The bustle of the city was not one that I expected. I knew that the ghetto was crowded, but I did not expect that the city would be crowded as well. I pushed through a few crowds, mumbling my apologies in Polish, smiling kindly when one gentleman or another tipped his hat at us as we wandered through the streets. I had the directions in my head, and had repeated them back to Mila several times before we left the ghetto, but my head was so full of fear that I would forget where I was going.</div>
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Three right turns, several left turns, and I find myself in a part of Warsaw that I had never heard of before and never seen. This part of town was dark and the buildings were decaying. Looking around at it, I was surprised that they had not made this part of the city, this beaten, old part of the city that looked as if was about to crumble into instant decay, the ghetto. I almost forgot my errand as I looked at this old narrow architecture, the pathways barely large enough for two people to walk abreast of each other. Gustav whined a little bit, clutching on to my skirt and popping his thumb into his mouth the way that he did when he was nervous or scared. I looked down at him, and his eyes were full of fright and worry.</div>
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"My darling, you have to trust me," I leaned down and smiled. "We are having an adventure. Would I let any harm come to you?"</div>
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He shook his head and I smiled at him as his thumb made an audible pop when he removed it from his mouth. "But Mum.. there are spiders." His voice trembled and his eyes scanned the walls up and down the alley. The dark walls did have a copious amount of spiderwebs on them, twisted among the masonry of the buildings and hanging in doorways and window frames like so much delicate lace placed there by a gentle hand. </div>
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"Oh, those," I said, trying to sound reassuring. "Well, you know about spiders, don't you?"</div>
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Gustav's eyes lit up with curiosity, and the fear seemed to drain from his tiny body. "No," he said. "What do spiders do?"</div>
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"Well," I replied, trying to put on my best adult knowledge voice and not let the fear that I felt myself creep into my voice. "Well, you see... Spiders eat other bugs. They actually help out a lot because they will eat things like fleas, and baby creepy crawlies and flies and things like that. They wrap them up in a big warm blanket of spiders web..." I stopped at this point, and checked the spider web in the one of the windows of a shop, making sure that there were no spiders on it before pulling it off carefully, and holding it out to Gustav. "See, they make these webs, and the webs catch the bugs in them, see how it's sticking to my fingers?"</div>
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Gustav experimentally pulled out his own finger and placed it in the spider's web and watched as it clung to the very tip of his finger. He pulled it back a bit and giggled when a strand or two of webbing followed behind it. His eyes widened in wonder as he began to wave the strands back and forth like a little flag. </div>
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"So," I continued, "The spider wraps up the little bugs to protect them from the big bad world. They wrap them all up in soft bundles and hug them and squeeze them so that they can't get out and hurt humans. They take all the nasty bugs and protect us from them."</div>
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"Then why do they bite humans?" The curiosity had overcome his fear.</div>
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"Remember what I told you about bees when we were in the country?" I asked him, thinking about the time that we had gone into the country and there were patches of flowers in a meadow, the bees buzzing warmly in the spring sunlight, fuzzy fat bodies collecting the nectar of the flowers. </div>
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Gustav nodded.</div>
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"Well, bees don't sting humans if humans don't bother them. If you leave them alone, they will go about their day and be a wonderful thing and make honey just for us."</div>
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"For our tea?"</div>
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"Yes, for our tea. Well, the spiders don't bite us very often except for the same reason. They bite us if they are scared or if we bother them."</div>
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"Is that what the red sheet means, with the spider on it? That they are going to help protect us like the spiders protect the us from the other bugs?"</div>
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My throat closed up in fear and apprehension and I was uncertain how to answer him, so I merely stood, brushing the cobwebs off of the front of my dress and took his tiny hand in mine. "Yes. They are here to protect people."</div>
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<i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Just not us </i>I thought as I took his hand in mine again and we continued our long journey.</div>
ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-194329016409546952018-06-08T19:37:00.001-07:002018-06-11T10:01:46.892-07:00Escape (Working Title)This is the first part of a story that was written for Ego's (<a href="https://authoramandamccormick.wordpress.com/2018/06/04/egos-blog-challenge-prompt-1/">Amanda McCormick</a>) blog challenge. The prompt was <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;">Write a story including the following three elements: </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><b>A stolen ring, fear of spiders, and a sinister stranger. </b>My story has some of those things, and is not finished. More will follow..</span></span><br />
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"But Maman, I don't want to go." The small voice at my side was high and frightened, wanting something that I couldn't give it, telling me that there was something wrong in their world, and there was little that I could do to end that fearful voice. </div>
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I gently pushed at his back, the cloth of his rough woolen jacket pressing against my fingers, and smiled at him as best as I could, trying to tell him that I was brave, that there was nothing to worry about. My son looked up at me with a smile, with eyes that shined with trust and I smiled back at him, trying not to cry. "We will be fine, Gustav. There is nothing to worry about. We have nothing to worry about."</div>
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We walked through the ghetto, and I tried to avoid the eyes of everybody around me. I did not want to look into anybody's face, and I did not want to think about what we were about to do. All I did was clutch Gustav's tiny little hand in mine and keep going. I did not want to look like I was racing anywhere, I did not want to look like I was dawdling either, so I tried to keep my pace normal as I wandered down the streets. The stones of the old roadways rose and fell and she was afraid of catching her boot on the edge, but they made it to the arches of the ghetto and paused. </div>
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"What are we doing here, Maman?" Gustav asked. </div>
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"We are going to see an old friend of mine," I said, as I watched the hordes of other jews walk in and out of the gateway in front of me. Greta had told me how to do this, but I still was scared, I still didn't know if I could do it. I smiled down at Gustav, hoping that my smile was reassuring, or at least refreshing, since he hadn't seen it much in the last while, but he only looked up at me with the same looks on his face, a crease of concern on his brow and his little hand squeezing mine has tight has he could. He hadn't been this close to the gates of the ghetto in a while, and I tried to be reassuring, but it was as if he could sense the fear in my body. I smiled at him, and then turned towards the corner and slid the yellow armband off of my arm, quickly, so as not to be noticed. Gustav's eyes widened a bit at this; he was too young to wear an armand successfully, so he did not have one on his arm, but he knew that there was a punishment for not wearing the star. Even at the young age of three, he had seen death in the streets of the ghetto.</div>
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I slipped the star into my pocket and watched the flow of the crowd, and joined the stream just behind a nice older couple, who smiled brightly and held hands as they walked out the gate. I kept expecting the guards to jump out at me, to question me, to ask to see my star, to ask to see my papers, but the young men, who both wore shiny golden pins with the swastika in black on it. They smiled down at me, and Gustav, and I smiled back, but averted my eyes quickly. I did not want them too see the blush on my cheek or the fear in my eyes.</div>
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I had memorized the directions to the dealer's house. Someone on the inside had told me about him. I was not sure that I could trust this man, a broker in lost items and a finder of hidden things. I had hoped that he could perhaps find what I was looking for, and had sent word to him before I chose to take this journey. His answer was rolled tightly in a ball in the hem of my pocket. Just a single word printed in old script. "Come". it was the best that I could do for myself and Gustav, and so here I was, skirting the walls of the Ghetto, furtively looking through the streets, avoiding each face as much as I could while still making sure that I kept my head held high, as if I belonged. The trick was to look like you belonged.</div>
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The ghetto here at Warsaw was not what we expected when we were told that we would have to move out of the country and into the city. We had expected clean housing, a community of Jewish people who would help take care of us in the absence of my husband, a people that we could call family, even if we weren't related by blood. What we found was ... none of that. What we found was a community living in fear, where we were hunted or holed up like so many vermin, packed in so close that we did not have privacy, in a place where - in order to get ahead - sometimes a neighbor, a roommate, even a relative that you happened to find living in the same terrible conditions would rat on you. And there were rumors that our own Judenrat within our ghetto was working with the Germans, getting ready to deport us all. Some had said that there were families who had managed to find a way out, a place to live outside the ghetto, a way to get away, that their relatives on the council had told them that it would be best if they left.</div>
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I had heard that rumor too, through the lips of Marta Klein, who had suddenly disappeared one night with her daughter from the ghetto. She had let slip that she wasn't going to be around anymore for the Germans to kick around, and I was uncertain what she meant, until she was no longer there. It was Marta's disappearance that had led me to finally get up the courage to seek out help from outside the ghetto.</div>
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I held Gustav's hand tightly, and in the other hand, I squeezed the stolen ring that was going to be our ticket out.</div>
(to be continued...)ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-5539396585895938312018-06-02T20:36:00.000-07:002018-06-02T20:54:26.366-07:00Ego's Blog Challenge: Day One<div style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<b>Blog challenge: Introduce yourself as a writer. Write a post introducing yourself as a writer! Talk about what you're working on/what you have worked on! Talk about how long you have been writing and what got you started/why you do it! And then talk about why you're doing this challenge! Bonus points if you link to other people who are doing the challenge! Drop your post in here when you're done!</b></div>
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Hi, I'm ToryLynn Writer. Well, Writer is sort of a profession, but the reason that I use Writer as a moniker was that when I finally decided to be serious about writing on Second Life, they had the last name Writer available, and so about ten years ago, I became ToryLynn Writer. It kind of stuck. As a writer, I always figure that if I decide to have a pen name, it will just be Tory Lynn, or maybe Tory Lynn something, but I've been going by Tory or ToryLynn for over ten years now and it feels natural to do that. </div>
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Ten years ago, however, was just when I discovered Second Life and the writing communities there. I had, and still have, been a writer for much longer than that. In fact, I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't telling stories of some sort. I know that it's kind of a cliche for writers to say "Oh, I've been writing as long as I can remember", and then there's always the "I write because that's what I have to do to keep my sanity" trope. I guess I'm just a tropish cliche because that's who I am; that's what I do. </div>
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One of my earliest memories was telling my grandmother and having her transcribe a story about a black unicorn that didn't fit in with the other unicorns and was teased all the time. I probably was like four or five at the time, but I think it speaks volumes about my mental state at the time, and pretty much for the rest of my life. I have always felt like I don't really "fit in" in places sometimes. I feel like there are things in my life, or people in my life who are just there because I happen to be taking up space around them, like they don't really like me. I guess it's called imposter syndrome or something like that: the feeling that you don't really belong somewhere even though you've kind of earned it. That is always how I have felt in the world.</div>
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Except in writing communities. I am now part of a Discord Server full of writers who I really enjoy spending time with. I feel like I can talk to them, and I feel like I finally have some knowledge about something. In fact, it is often in writing communities that I have felt that I have found my place- just being around other writers. I also am part of two local writing groups in my hometown, which I enjoy being a part of. My favorite time of year, though, is October through the beginning of December as my writing groups, and many of my friends, decide to focus on Nanowrimo. </div>
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I started becoming involved with Nanowrimo around 2002. I have no idea how I got involved, who led me to this place, but since 2002, Nanowrimo has been my in to find my place with other writers. Every year I have attempted a novel. About eight of those 16 years, I have successful completed the challenge of writing 50,000 words. I wouldn't say that I have written a complete novel for any of them, and most of them are unedited drabble that will probably never see much outside of my hard drive Don't get me wrong, there are good bits, but there are also like a billion typos that I would have to go through and fix, and since most of the stories aren't that great, or just stuttering narrative, I think they are best laid down and put to rest.</div>
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But through Nanowrimo I found a calling as someone who loves to write, but also someone who loves to support the writers around me. I'm a writing cheerleader. I love watching other people succeed, even when it makes me totally jealous! I guess that's why I became the Municipal Liaison for the Nanowrimo bunch in my city. I love gathering people together to watch them be successful. It's such a rush to watch people be happy at something they have created.</div>
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Now I have online writing friends, real life writing friends, and memories of writing friends past. I even made one of those writing friends <a href="http://readlistennibble.com/">my husband</a>. I guess I can say I'm a happy writer. And I found a group that is really amazing and who inspires me to keep writing every single day, which is kind of why I am doing this blog writing challenge. It really helps to have people to share your writing with, and that's what I hope to do. it may be silly, or awful, or funny or just weird, but at least I know that there are people out there who care about me and my writing enough to read it once in a while. I guess I'm just proud to be a writer.</div>
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Oh, and if you're interested, here is a <a href="https://www.one-tab.com/page/HIT9HiVrQE2zCH5WauQnQg">OneTab link</a> to all of my friends who are doing the blog challenge with me this month. I totally recommend checking them out. They are awesome people. </div>
ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-84091709371554098612018-05-27T12:08:00.002-07:002018-05-27T12:08:52.755-07:00Graveyard Story<div style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<i>A note: This was written from a prompt a while ago, but is one of my favorite shorts that I've done in a while. </i></div>
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"Doesn't it always seem like all graveyards should be wreathed in fog," Gladys said to nobody in particular as she hobbled down the gravel pathway through the grass patches. "There should be fog... and moonlight." she continued, "but they don't let us out in the nighttime at that old home of mine, and California is no good for fog in August, even if you are in San Francisco." </div>
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She took a left at a particular fork in the path, keeping to the path for a while more and then cutting across the grass. She greeted the headstones as she passed old friends. "Well, Joseph and Edith. It is so good of you to visit. I hope things are going well for you down wherever you are." She chuckled to herself and remembered how Joseph pinched her bottom every time he stood to let her by into the pew at church. That was before his heart had given out while he was laying on top of Mabel Merryweather.</div>
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"Good to see you too, Moses and Rachel." Their tombstone not only listed their dates of birth and death, but the dates of their marriages and the life spans of their seven children. Too bad only three of the children had been Moses's. The other four had fathers of various patronage from around the village.</div>
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She came at last to the headstone that she knew best of all, her sister, Clarice. There was a bench near the tombstone and she laid her cane across the seat of the bench and sat on the edge, bending forward to adjust the wrinkles in her support stockings. As she did this, she spoke to the headstone.</div>
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"Well, Clarice. Looks like I'm about to join you. The doctor said I have cancer now, and that it's eating my bones, and has spread into my brain. he says I have maybe a week to live, and I thought I would come out here and say goodbye to you, since I'm not likely to get another visit." She fidgeted with her shoe laces, tied expertly that morning by the nurse, and smiled. "I beat you though. I beat you by twenty years, and I got to keep Albert for another ten after you were gone. Looks like I won after all." She turned her head and looked around her and then stood to walk towards the tombstone.</div>
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"Funny thing," she said, as she placed her hand on the tombstone and patted it. "They call these headstones, but they don't go to the head. They go to the feet. Your head should be right about" she walked about 5 paces and then turned. "here." She set her feet wide. "I'm standing on your head, Clarice. Remember how I used to do that when we were pretending to be acrobats for the circus. We always swore that we would run away to the circus together when we were old enough to take care of ourselves." </div>
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Gladys grabbed at the hem of her skirt and began to hike it up until it turned inside out and covered her rather ample bosom. "We were always going to do everything together, but then, you went and got yourself pregnant, and dashed our dreams forever. And you got yourself knocked up" she grabbed the band of her underwear and pushed them down past her hips.. "by my Albert. Do you think I would ever forgive you for that?" </div>
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She bent forward and sent the hot yellow stream down onto the grave where her sister's head would be. It wasn't much, as she still had an old lady's bladder, but it was enough, and she hiked her underwear back up, pushed her skirt down and stomped on the now slightly yellower ground.</div>
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"I hope, dear sister, that you are rotting in hell. Who knows, maybe we'll see each other again. But I won't be back, and I'm glad that you're dead and I made it longer than you, you fucking hussy."</div>
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She hobbled back to the bench, grabbing her cane and began making her way towards the pathway again. "Hope you enjoyed the show, Albert." she said to the tombstone that sat next to her sisters. "Sorry I didn't save enough for you."</div>
ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-21805984905714638612018-05-26T12:02:00.001-07:002018-05-26T12:02:50.434-07:00Writing Challenges and BloggingI haven't been blogging or writing nearly as often as I would like. It wasn't but.. oh,... 5 years ago that I had a pretty active blog, and so now, I am going to be blogging and writing again. This time, however, I am going to be working with a writing network and writing challenges, so that's pretty exciting to me.<br />
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So, what have I been doing with myself for the last five years? Not much. Just living the blissfully married life, focusing on the teaching life, being an amazing human being (or trying my best) and doing <a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/">Nanowrimo </a>every year.<br />
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I am involved with two writing groups here in Stockton, the <a href="http://www.stocktonwriters.com/">Stockton Writer's Group</a> and the <a href="http://www.sjvw.org/">San Joaquin Valley Writer's</a>, the local branch of the <a href="http://calwriters.org/">California Writer's Club.</a> I also have been keeping myself busy with teaching, which really helps me fill up all that extra time!<br />
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<b>So, what's in my future?</b><br />
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Well, I'm working with people on a Discord server who are amazing and who really are helping me get better at writing. I am trying to read through a bunch of KM Weiland writing advice as well as the <a href="http://storygrid.com/">StoryGrid </a>book.<br />
<br />
I am working on editing <i>Broken Dolls </i>in order to make it a novel that I'm willing to publish.<br />
<br />
I want to write more poetry.<br />
<br />
I just want to write more.<br />
<br />
Waking up my blog is going to start helping me do that.<br />
<br />
Here goes...ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-72765588464972629392013-12-20T01:02:00.002-08:002013-12-20T01:02:23.369-08:00What D&D Character am I?<center style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<h1 style="color: navy;">
<b>True Neutral Human Wizard (6th Level)</b></h1>
<b><br /><br /><u>Ability Scores:</u><br />Strength- 10<br />Dexterity- 9<br />Constitution- 9<br />Intelligence- 17<br />Wisdom- 12<br />Charisma- 13</b></center>
<br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><u style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Alignment:</u><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><b style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">True Neutral-</b><span style="background-color: #f2ecda; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> A true neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. He doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most true neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil after all, he would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, he's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. Some true neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run. True neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion. However, true neutral can be a dangerous alignment when it represents apathy, indifference, and a lack of conviction.</span><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><u style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Race:</u><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><b style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Humans</b><span style="background-color: #f2ecda; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.</span><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><u style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Class:</u><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><b style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Wizards-</b><span style="background-color: #f2ecda; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.</span><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br />
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<b style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Detailed Results:</b><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><u style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Alignment:</u><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><samp>Lawful Good ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (21)<br />Neutral Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (22)<br />Chaotic Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (17)<br />Lawful Neutral -- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (23)<br />True Neutral ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (24)<br />Chaotic Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (19)<br />Lawful Evil ----- XXXXXXXXX (9)<br />Neutral Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXX (10)<br />Chaotic Evil ---- XXXXX (5)</samp><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><u style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Law & Chaos:</u><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><samp>Law ----- XXXXXXXX (8)<br />Neutral - XXXXXXXXX (9)<br />Chaos --- XXXX (4)</samp><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><u style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Good & Evil:</u><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><samp>Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)<br />Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (15)<br />Evil ---- X (1)</samp><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><u style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Race:</u><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><samp>Human ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)<br />Dwarf ---- XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)<br />Elf ------ XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)<br />Gnome ---- XXXXXXXX (8)<br />Halfling - XXXXXXXXXX (10)<br />Half-Elf - XXXXXXXX (8)<br />Half-Orc - (-2)</samp><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><u style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Class:</u><br style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><samp>Barbarian - (-6)<br />Bard ------ (0)<br />Cleric ---- (-6)<br />Druid ----- XX (2)<br />Fighter --- (0)<br />Monk ------ (-23)<br />Paladin --- (-21)<br />Ranger ---- XXXX (4)<br />Rogue ----- (-2)<br />Sorcerer -- XXXX (4)<br />Wizard ---- XXXXXX (6)</samp>ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-16521224468771554152013-11-14T21:37:00.001-08:002013-11-14T21:37:43.644-08:00Peptalk!<div style="color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif, Arial, Verdana, 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.796875px;">
Ok.. Middle of the Second Week.. some word counts are lagging, some plots are in question and your ML has been missing ALL WEEK LONG!!! What in the world are you going to do?</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif, Arial, Verdana, 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.796875px;">
My solution... keep going! Keep it up! You can do it! Even if you 1000 words, that is 1000 less you have to write... 49,000 to go, right? 17 days to go (counting the little big left of today). That is less than 3000 words a day! You can do that! That's.. 300 words every hour for 10 hours. We spend 16 hours awake, so you would have 6 hours all to yourself for eating and working! That's EASY!</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif, Arial, Verdana, 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.796875px;">
If you need some inspiration, send up a signal flare here, and we'll get right on the inspiring. We have access to websites that have awesome writing podcasts (I personally had recommended to me Writing Excuses and I love it. Google it for amazing writing advice and ideas in 15 minute chunks). We also have writing prompts, challenges, word wars and a myriad of other things, or.. you know, propose a get together. You never know who could be out there in the middle of the day, wandering through life's loneliness just looking to reach out and find someone to share words with! You can do it!</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif, Arial, Verdana, 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.796875px;">
Just remember, this is a journey that is taken one step and one word at a time. You are not alone and while the final word count may seem daunting, 300 words seems like a piece of cake... so go.. write your 300 words and then do it again... and again.. and again.... Go ahead... we'll be here when you get back to celebrate!</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif, Arial, Verdana, 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.796875px;">
Love lollipops and lots of words!</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif, Arial, Verdana, 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.796875px;">
ToryLynn</div>
ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-29762086794419006752013-10-27T16:25:00.001-07:002013-10-27T16:25:47.670-07:00Halloween Poem by Sabra McGovernMummies, ghouls, haunts and spirits-<br />
They got nothing, compared to you.<br />
You make my heart beat;<br />
You make my knees weak;<br />
You may my poor hands shake too!<br />
<br />
When you climbed into my life I tried not to fight<br />
This feeling of unexplainable dread<br />
But now I can't stop<br />
My eyes want to pop<br />
And now I'm on top of my bed.<br />
<br />
Please, I'll do anything, just go away<br />
Stop crawling on top of my mat<br />
I guess I will stay here<br />
Shaking with fear,<br />
All just because of a rat!<br />
<br />
<br />ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-37136361705748073172013-10-13T19:01:00.001-07:002013-10-13T19:02:10.169-07:00Sabra's PoetryThe character for my new novel, Witch, has started to write poetry... in my head. And so I'm going to leave these here to just.. be.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Beauty</div>
<div>
by Sabra McGovern</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Beauty walks on glass</div>
<div>
The careful steps to make it right</div>
<div>
The painful process where we</div>
<div>
straighten something curly</div>
<div>
Curl something straight, </div>
<div>
Oil something dry, </div>
<div>
Use potions to try out</div>
<div>
Prick and poke and pluck and paint</div>
<div>
Just to feel</div>
<div>
That things can make us perfect</div>
<div>
Without realizing perfection</div>
<div>
Is just the way we are</div>
<div>
And beauty is attitude</div>
<div>
Not skin.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Prayer</div>
<div>
by Sabra McGovern</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I pray that you give me strength</div>
<div>
to not kill the moron who</div>
<div>
sits in front of me in English; </div>
<div>
to overcome that feeling that</div>
<div>
I get where my hand tightens,</div>
<div>
and my fist curls, and my body</div>
<div>
tenses as he guffaws at the</div>
<div>
moron who has stuck an "I'm</div>
<div>
gay" sign to the back of a friend</div>
<div>
in front of him.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I pray that you give me bravery to</div>
<div>
stand up in front of the class</div>
<div>
and instead of assaulting this</div>
<div>
pudgy faced moron in front of me</div>
<div>
with hands</div>
<div>
I can assault them with words; </div>
<div>
words that will shame him and blame him</div>
<div>
for making the kid who sits in the corner</div>
<div>
squirm with embarrassment</div>
<div>
because he's too offended to say "Hey, I'm gay</div>
<div>
and that shouldn't be an insult."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I pray that you give me peace</div>
<div>
to take on the chorus of </div>
<div>
voices that cry out against my opinions</div>
<div>
that say it is just a word</div>
<div>
that say it is just a word that</div>
<div>
we use in fun..."It just means happy....right?</div>
<div>
Right, in the same way that nigger just means </div>
<div>
black person and WOP is just an Italian guy.</div>
<div>
A slur is a slur, sir, and words can hurt.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I pray that you give me the wisdom to show that</div>
<div>
while a knife or a gun</div>
<div>
can break my skin</div>
<div>
a word is a weapon</div>
<div>
that breaks the spirit</div>
<div>
which can be even more deadly.</div>
ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-43594456468613181302013-06-08T07:58:00.001-07:002013-06-08T07:58:12.523-07:00Poem: The Room I knewI was walking in the dark<br />
Barely moving, afraid to stub my toes<br />
Or trip over furniture<br />
I couldn't see.<br />
<br />
I could not see around me<br />
But focused on myself<br />
And then a candle<br />
Brought a beautiful light.<br />
<br />
I could see-<br />
But only in shadow-<br />
Everything was broken<br />
A world shattered beyond.<br />
<br />
If I had tried to move<br />
there- in the dark-<br />
The blood would trail the room<br />
Leaving a passage of despair.<br />
<br />
But this light came<br />
Casting shadows long and deep<br />
Showing the way<br />
Through the broken bloody path<br />
<br />
I began to move<br />
slowly, then with more speed<br />
And as confidence was gained<br />
The path was left behind.<br />
<br />
Pushing past the problems,<br />
Pushing past the pain,<br />
Pushing past despair<br />
Until I found your light.<br />
<br />
5/26/13<br />
<br />ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-49337168380068140622012-05-26T10:12:00.002-07:002012-05-26T10:13:46.203-07:00The Artist's WayStarting up the Artist's Way again. I plan on putting my responses here to the exercises, but still hand writing my Morning Pages, like a good girl. At least this way I will have <b>something</b> to post in this blog. I will put the more "personal" stuff in my morning pages, but if you want to come along, or join me, the program is called "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron and I'm re-doing the first book for like.. the third time, but I need to make this my own program. It's a 12 week long program about finding your creativity and your spirituality. It should be fun. <br />
<br />
Anyway.. here goes nothing. I also plan on keeping up my blog at <a href="http://weightinginthedeepend.blogspot.com/">Weighting in the Deep End</a>, which will be about weight loss and food and diets and yummy stuff that I find that is healthy (and not so healthy). <br />
<br />
Now that I have the summer off, I should start doing this daily. Maybe. I can dedicate a couple hours (or less probably) of the day to myself. And hey, maybe I'll have more actual creative writing to post here as well!<br />
<br />
Love to all,<br />
<br />
ToryLynnToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366833951360332198.post-10441804777548677552012-05-06T18:25:00.000-07:002012-05-06T18:25:26.641-07:00Garbage<br />
Garbage by ToryLynn<br />
<br />
I moved in here months ago<br />
But I couldn't bear to do this<br />
Go through the old memories<br />
Throwing you away.<br />
<br />
It has taken me this long<br />
To settle into acceptance<br />
That my life has utterly changed<br />
And I am rid of you.<br />
<br />
I tuck away a few precious things<br />
But in bulk, things must go away<br />
And I have moved on<br />
And so must the things I have accumulated.<br />
<br />
The bag of stuffed animals,<br />
The old clothes that no longer fit<br />
The papers, the dust, the accountrement,<br />
The meanings that no longer mean anything,<br />
<br />
And here I sit,<br />
In the middle of the mess<br />
that you left behind.<br />
Throwing away memories<br />
<br />
To make new ones better.ToryLynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03895537381840660446noreply@blogger.com1