Bathroom Monologue: Rorschark Attack

A Washington D.C. Rationalist Think Tank was on holiday at the undisclosed beach that day. Three employees saw it break the surface. Tammy saw a deck of playing cards. Guido saw a platter of fried shrimp. Ironically only one of the rationalists, Virginia Welsley, saw a shark fin. Even more ironically, she was the only rationalist in the water.

She swam like Hell. Tammy would attest that the shark went straight after Virginia, while Guido swears it swam in the opposite direction. Other beach-goers looked when they heard the screams, but the majority said they didn’t see a shark at all (while three saw an ice cream truck treading water behind Virginia).

When Virginia looked over her shoulder mid-breaststroke, she saw the gaping jaws of her third grade Math teacher – the one who always put impossible bonus questions at the end of his quizzes, presumably just to watch his pupils struggle and fail. That pungent memory felt apt as she swam for her life, and even more apt when she was seized in the middle-aged Math teacher’s overbite.

She was fortunate enough to awake, alive, in the local ICU. Apparently the shark had nearly ripped her in half. After much fighting with her doctors she was allowed to see the damage the shark had done to her torso. When the medical technician removed the bandages so that she could see the marks he instantly stepped back and crossed himself.

“It’s the Blessed Mother!” he exclaimed, looking at the bizarre shape of her bite wounds. She frowned at him and looked down.

“No it isn’t.” she said disdainfully. Then she squinted at the sutures. “Is… is that a Ferris wheel?”

Off the WorldCon! Join me?

Early this morning I'm off to the first of two flights to San Antonio. I've never been to Texas before and am looking forward to experiencing the culture, if not the climate.

The big reason for this journey is the 71st annual World Science Fiction Convention, or WorldCon. It's one of the biggest SF/F conventions in America, hosting many of its premiere authors, like Scott Lynch, George R.R. Martin and Neil Gaiman. This is my second WorldCon, and I'm better prepared after last year. I've met more of the authors before and am helping arrange one of the parties, which is exciting. Carrie Clevenger is actually coming all the way into town for the SF Signal lunch on Saturday, which I'm terribly excited for. It's been an entire year since I've seen Emma Newman or John DeNardo, and this is my first meeting with Carrie in the flesh.

If you're anywhere near Texas, SF Signal has a free meet-up at the Rivercenter Mall on Saturday afternoon. You can also look out for me avoiding alcohol at Drinks With Authors at Ernie's Bar. If I have the energy, I'll also be staffing the Reddit table in the Exhibition Hall for a couple hours.

I'd like to live-blog the Hugos on Sunday night, but I'm hearing the convention center has either no internet or very expensive wifi. I'll still try to live-tweet them, though, and you can catch me @Wiswell. As it is, internet unavailability will keep me relatively radio silent until I get back home Tuesday the 3rd - the day before my birthday.

That reminds me: keep those Rarely Asked Questions coming! If you're lucky, I'll answer yours while loopy from jet-lag.

I'll keep updated on Twitter if I can, though, and I have a pretty special Friday Flash planned. If it's a fruitful convention, I'll be blogging it up all next week. And I still owe you folks a recap of the overpacked glory of Otakon...

Bathroom Monologue: Coldblooded Body Image Redux

“I try not to talk about it because it's unfashionable for men to have body image issues. Society is acutely aware of how unrealistic their demands are on women's appearances, but you never think how much pressure you put on a man. I spend hours in aerobics classes, arms behind my back and undulating on my belly. I've paid thousands for skin creams and mud treatments without a single scale to show for it. There's a surgery to bifurcate your tongue if you want to half-ass it. Truth is, science won't ever give you a reptilian mouth. The funding isn't there. It isn’t profitable enough. Now you're going to tell me I'm silly, that I'm too hard on myself, that nobody expects me to become a snake. Ride the rails in my shoes for just one day. How they stare at me while I’m trying to coil in my chair. They're all thinking, "What a worthless cobra he makes." But none of them are willing to help me become whole!”

Do Readers Actually Want Character Development?

According to Jack Miles,
even He changes.

This post was inspired by a Reddit thread questioning if Fantasy readers actually liked character development. The original poster, bradbeaulieu, had been on a panel where Patrick Rothfuss had taken the devil's advocate position that Fantasy readers didn't abide much character change. It had to be at least a little capricious given that Rothfuss's famous Kingkiller Chronicle is about a young Mary Sue turning into a broken old man.

To me, it depends greatly on the kind of character, circumstance and length of the novel. Flowers for Algernon without character development is a ridiculous idea. He has to change - the development is the plot, the gimmick, the engine for social criticism and introspection, and for the experiment of the prose. Its fame is largely from readers having strong reactions to the character development, and whether they prefer his rise or fall in intellect, or hopefully, having deeper reactions than just "liking" it.

That extreme example points us toward how good change typically works: being appropriate to the personality and circumstance. I don't want Bilbo Baggins giving into blood lust and singing war songs. He adapts to his circumstances, is forced to assert himself more, grows confident and capable, but is still timid, anxious, and by the end of the The Hobbit, is actually opposed to the greed that stirred him in the beginning. He is a better person for going through this arc, and the novel far much richer for it. If he became a ranty pacifist, it would have gone too far in that direction. If he became just another warrior Thorin could rely on, it would have gone in a less imaginative and compassionate direction and damaged the book. Bilbo goes through changes that we buy and that help the book.

Brad wondered if audiences didn't only like certain kinds of change, specifically positive change. Certainly Bilbo changes towards the heroic or the moral. Yet audiences love Batman and Breaking Bad, which are respectively about an innocent boy becoming destructively consumed with revenge, and a cancer patient becoming a meth tyrant. A frightening number of Breaking Bad fans are still rooting for Walter White in the final season, more attached to him than ever. My brother is one of them.

While I want Walter to fall from disgrace, his development has been superb and worthy of the attention its gotten. Breaking Bad is originally about Walter White's transformations, and the stages of his character are earned. That's what I want. Gandalf can be the same guy all the time for his role and his personality traits, and I won't mind. Lupin the 3rd can always be that lecherous thief. But an affecting novel usually puts its characters through some sort of development, or at least reveals more of who and how they are over time. The notion of readers being opposed to character development scares me more than any change itself.

The Succubus Argument

I don't see why we're always monsters. I mean, we are "monsters," but we're at least the best kind, better than vampires. They're walking STDs. They literally just want your blood; any sexy atmosphere is just a front to treat you like a juice box with two straws in the neck. We succubae want to screw you to death. You should love us!

At first, you evolved to eat and have sex, and though I didn't take notes, I know which one most of you seemed more enthusiastic about. Then you got culture, and prudence, and we drifted apart. But that was you playing coy. You invented capitalism and communism and skyscrapers – and all for what?

To ensure that you could have a place to stay. For what?

To ensure that you could afford clothing. For what?

So that you could stay safe, alive and warm?

Pff. Those are all excuses, means to the end of sticking it in my end. They're all ruses to get you more food and sex.

Well to a succubus, sex is food. Sex is the best food – the cream-filled puff of life itself. We're on your side. We've always been on your side, even when you got really scary. Modernity has jacked up some suicide rates. Poor little guys throwing away food – my food. My food with shattered little feelings that deserve nursing.

A succubus cares about your feelings. All the licorice strings of your insecurities, the robust stew of life experience, and just a sprig of prudential nervousness. We get it. We want you to be the happiest you've ever been, because that's when you're finger-licking good. I want you to feel comfortable, trusted, at ease and then at ecstasy. Loved, even. I love you as much as anyone on The Food Network has ever loved a dish.

I don't want you to die alone. I don't want you to spend tonight alone, and you don't want to be alone anyway! You want to curl up with someone who looks like… me. Who looks like a dream and knows all your fetishes in advance. I'll sit on your chest all night if that's your thing.

Look, if all your life is a struggle to get resources to hunt down sex, then why not give up the struggle and have the best imaginable? And trust me: it's the best imaginable. I'm mostly imaginary, which is why I only show up when you're asleep. We're sweet dreams, the cure to suicide and ennui, and the very best of homicide. Why toil? That's what seems monstrous to me.

Don't trust incubi, though. They're all pricks.

Request for Rare Questions

It's the time of year when I get to ask, "Have you seen my RAQ?"

The Rarely Asked Questions is my birthday tradition at The Bathroom Monologues. The internet is full of Frequently Asked Questions, and few too many rhetorical questions, but enough rare questions. Until Monday night, September 2nd, I'm requesting all readers leave questions they don't normally ask anyone. They can be questions about me, my writing, or anything entirely unrelated. Consider:

-If you were trapped in an elevator with Alexander Dumas, what is the last of his books you'd want to talk about?

-What's the boiling point of Tungsten?

-What happens if you try to mummify a Romeroian zombie?

What you don't normally ask anyone else is entirely up to you, but please ask it of me. I'll compile every question and answer at least one per person on September 4th - my birthday.

That's how I celebrate. With my big RAQ.

Please leave your mysteries and queries in the Comments section of this post.

Updated Less Than Daily.

Hey everyone.

I'm ending daily posting at The Bathroom Monologues. This has been a long time coming – according to Google, I've done at least one post per day for four years. Since May 2^nd, 2009, when I had no computer and was stranded in an airport terminal. Before that two-day break, I was posting daily going back into 2007. That makes it close to a six-year streak.

The blog isn't going away, just getting updated less than daily (I'll need to change that header). There are many factors in this. While in Baltimore last week, Blogspot borked posting my #fridayflash and I couldn't do anything about it until noon. Two more posts had their formatting entirely screwed despite my previewing and pruning them in advance.

Regular readers know that health has been declining; it's amazing what your lungs can do when they don't like you anymore. There are many days when getting to the computer is a fight, but now there will also be just as many days when I have no access to technology to check if my stories went up. The notion of my daily posting streak being broken by the blog malfunctioning is more infuriating than I can express among polite company. The people who were with me on that Friday in Baltimore know how silly I can get over it.

This is also about writing longer fiction. There are many nights when I've caught myself not working on short stories or novels because I needed the time for the daily Bathroom Monologue. They seem short, but they have an amazing way of eating time. As I struggle with what work my body allows me to do, I've got to buckle down on novels and short stories, and God willing, getting some of them up for sale. This ain't slacking. As evidence, here's my task bar right now:

 

Seven .doc files and one .txt – though the .txt is a shopping list and half an e-mail I owe someone. I'm working on six stories tonight, and this missive to you.

I love this blog, and I love doing Bathroom Monologues. I'll still write them as they come to me. #fridayflash will continue, as will Lit Corner. I'm debating moving Lit Corner to Mondays. I also want to run a third weekly feature, but need to figure out what. And there is no reason I can't run random Bathroom Monologues any day I want. I think I'll be posting for the rest of this week, which runs a little counter to today's message, but oh well. Life's a lie.

There are over three million words of free fiction on this blog. God willing, you've enjoyed some of it. I don't want to be pompous and say, "You can enjoy the archives!" But I won't pretend that comments popping up on old posts don't make my day. There are still stories up here that I think no one has ever seen.

Thank you to everyone who's read even one of my stories. Thank you if this is the first thing of mine you've ever read – though I'm also sorry if it is, because what a crumby first impression. Thank you to the persistent commenters, to retweeters and social media mavens that turned this place into a traffic hub, and most of all, to the supportive friends that have made this much work possible in degrees they don't even fathom. What would writing be without friendship? Besides harder to promote.

Thank you. And, irony of ironies, I’ll see you tomorrow for something else special.

Bathroom Monologue: The Giant and the Mediocre Kisser

"If you keep looking at me like that, I'm going to assume I'm a lousy kisser."

"The kiss part was nice. But why do you look at me like that?"

"Like what? Look at you from this angle? Because I have to look up. You're a hundred feet tall."

"I'm one inch taller than you."

"The difference looks bigger from down here, you giant."

"Now I'm not kissing you anymore."

"Good. My tippy toes were starting to ache."

"Hey!"

"You're a thousand feet tall."

"I thought it was a hundred."

"Maybe you grew while we were talking. I wouldn't put that past you."

"It really burns you up to be shorter than me."

"Mostly, I'm afraid I'm a lousy kisser."

"You're not. You're mediocre-to-decent."

"Really?"

"Don't get needy, you tiny thing."

"Needy? I'm relieved. I don't have that much practice. Mediocre is an achievement."

"Oh, now that's sad. Come here."

"Only with you, who's probably of another genus. Titanica or something."

"Yeah, no more kissing."

"Can you get some tissues from the top shelf for me?'

"And now I'm leaving."

"To fight crime?"

"I'm starting to think you like this more than making out."

"I knew the truth would travel up there eventually."

"Mediocre kisser."

"Thank you!"

At which point the narrator turns to you and asks: what did you think their genders were?

Book Review: River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay

River of Stars reminded me what ambition means in literature. It's some of most fun and thought I've had in Epic Fantasy, the most rewarding one I've read since George R.R. Martin's A Storm of Swords, and manages to carve out its own niche. It's inspired by Song Dynasty China, emerging from a nostalgia for past dynasties so rich they it must be at least partially false. It follows teens, bandits and elites up through the rise of a war against the north that is foolish, destructive, and defining of their generation. It's the cycle of one lifetime, told from a dozen points of view and with a richness that I'll re-read many times.

We're tempted to say that River of Stars is "based" on Song Dynasty Chinese culture, but that's not quite accurate. While Kay has meticulously researched the period, he creates incredibly diverse people from around the country of "Kitai," which make the notion of a singular culture or nation silly. There's Ren Daiyan, the brave outlaw who infiltrates the army and rises through its ranks, and his buddy, Zhao Ziji, a romantic thinker who buys too deeply into every calling in life, be it government work, war, or highway robbery. There's Lin Kuo, a scholar who so wanted a wise child that he raised and educated his daughter like a boy, and Lin Shan, Kuo's daughter, whose education leaves her particularly critical of the misogynist establishment, and later, estranged by the war it creates. We even meet the Prime Minister, his son, and the emperor himself, that last a fascinating introduction of a privileged soul deluded with visions of his own generosity and heart. The cast give us the rural life, the poetry and art, the politics and military motions that are irreconcilable with each other. There's no such thing as a culture for a country that big. There are bandits who can become heroes in wars that scholars will only ever hear and write third-hand poetry about.

Otakon Photo Journal

I'm settling in after a long trip on the road.

Thursday alone was an 11-hour journey that's given me quite the back spasms. It was worth it.

So for today, please, enjoy this photo diary of cosplay from Otakon's 20th anniversary.

For the anniversary, Baltimore lowered the thermostat below 105 degrees for once.

The first photo I took at the convention: he wanted to be a tank, and so he was.

No one on the escalator knows the horror about to unfold before them.

A family of Majin Buus. It was then that I knew I was home.

Bathroom Monologue: Never Forget How to be Alone

It's long after the club has closed, and the Funny Man stands on the circular stage, one of the nicest he's ever seen, even though it's too dark to make out much more than its purple plastic cover bunching over oak boards. The seats are all empty, cushions collapsed upwards and into their seatbacks, the only things in the world the Funny Man knows of that collapse upward.

He makes a joke about it. Two people in the front row chuckle, and he bends to his haunches, looking them in eyes that aren't there for a follow-up. Laughter ripples in the seats around them.

He's working the crowd, feet already shuffling, smoothing out the purple plastic cover. It becomes his playing field, his circular baseball diamond, and he paces the bases as he likens politics to foul balls. The Funny Man raises three fingers in a gesture like no one else he knows has ever done, saluting into an imaginary outfield, and back rows clap with amusement. The Funny Man has never been comfortable with audiences applauding rather than laughing at comedy; he is there to be enjoyed, not agreed with. Yet he can't deny the warm feedback, the adulation radiating from a packed house. No one is even complaining how dim it is.

He asks, who decided to run a show in the dark? And the two people he started on in the front row are wheezing with laughter and clutching their ribs. He riffs on the dark theatre, the darkness of night, scary places that aren't lit well enough, for minutes upon minutes, until he regrets not having set up a camera to record a special live from the dark circle with its purple plastic cover.

Then he riffs off wishing he had a crowd like his for his live-to-tape special. Then he riffs off live-to-tape. Then he riffs off of Youtube, Son of America's Funniest Home Videos, and then what the Daughter of America's Funniest Home Videos would look like, and how the internet leaves no man unconnected. It's on that word, "unconnected," that a car alarm blares up through a window and his audience dampens, and thins, and three blinks later, dispels down the drain of imagination.

Four blinks later, there are no cushions that collapse upward. There is only the private theatre of his kitchen. He steps off the circular dining table, dropping to the floor and straightening the plastic table cloth. It's purple. It's not made of cloth, he thinks. He thinks that would make good material.

He has not forgotten how to be alone.

Bathroom Monologue: The iBelieve

"Your religion needs an update, Father. This crucifix. Yes, it's a cross, and the image of Christ suffering for mortal sins, but those are just two functions, and most consumers see them as one. Single-use devices are unfashionable. Can't it be a keychain, too? 

"Put a bottle opener at your Savior's feet. Can't this thing play music? I've seen MP3 players and flash drives smaller than this. You could fit a terabyte in Jesus's chest. 

"It needs WiFi; pray with the rosary beads, fine, but get some Facebook integration so God can Like your best prayers on your Wall. Twitter integration, for short requests and pithy spiritual thoughts. Boundless functionality. Auto-updates. The Vatican authorizes new canon and bang, streamed straight to your personal iconography. 

"Launch it next month. A new model next year. Make people feel like they've got outdated faithware. If you can't make Steve Jobs convert, you can at least convert his methods. You're not going to Hell because you don't have one; life is Hell because you don't have one. The iChrist. The iBelieve. Think about it."

Bathroom Monologue: 7 Ways Writing a Book is Not Like Raising a Child

1. Mine inspires the movie. Yours won’t shut up during it.

2. Mine falls on the floor in the mall and flops open. Yours falls on the floor in the mall and screams so loud security runs in.

3. People are more favorable about my Used market.

4. If mine breaks someone’s heart, it’s amazing. If yours break someone’s heart, he/she’s a douche bag.

5. I don’t send holiday cards with photos of my hideous rough draft.

6. They can both get banned from the library for bad words, but only yours gets banned for defecating in the Science section.

7. I can make sure mine turns out well.

Bathroom Monologue: Leave the Silver Bullets

"Don't bother with the silver bullets. That can't be true."

"You don't believe in the curse of the werewolf?"

"I don't know, but I've never seen a monster that shrugged off having its heart blown up just because the pellets were tungsten. And leave your Bible. "

"Oh, you don't believe in Christ now?"

"I believe in not pissing him off because you dropped his book in the swamp because you were fumbling for your gun."

"Fine. But I'm taking the wolfsbane and the silver bullets."

“Well, good luck.”

“You believe in luck?”

“I believe in a lot of things. Luck helps keep some of them away.”

Bathroom Monologue: The Worthy

"This will sound self-serving, but I don't think you've paid enough attention to the god you're trying to feed me to. This is an ancient god of five islands in a patch of frozen sea, who only appears in blistering weather, and whose only favored worshippers are giant raiders. He's demanded revenge killings for at least six centuries and decreed the blood of the "minor" be poured into his icy sea to thaw it. If local history is anything, he favors huge, cruel killers.

"I'd love to be walk across the cursed ice to the first for you, I really would. Then we'd have something to bond over and you'd stop considering me so dispensable. I understand why people from my culture would see this challenge of ice, beckoning the worthy to walk it, and you'd elect me. In my culture, the educated and the well-dressed are worthy of perhaps too much. I'm unscarred, I'm unsullied (thank you for that), and still probably electable for office if I get back home.

"Now if you'll look at these documents, you'll see none of the god' favorite heroes are even blond. Certainly none of these are unsullied city-folk; they're swathed in animal or human hide and scarred to the verge illegibility. So when he's talking about the worthy, he's not talking about lawyers.

"There's a perfectly good prison three days from here, full of perfectly good murderers and thieves. Some of them are probably his people. Half of them have to be some kind of descendents. The five island raiders got around, you know. I don't mean to be racist, just practical, when I say to buy a few of them and toss them at the ice.

"If none of them can walk the icy reef, then you should send a lawyer. For now, aren't I better used finagling prisoners for you?"

Lit Corner: Hemingway, Terminator, and Why I Love Twitter

Twitter is my favorite social network. It gets people the chattiest, the most conversations spring up there, and at its best, humor rolls out of exchanges rather than in somebody's polemic Facebook status. I saved this image a couple years ago to always remind me what Twitter is about.

This exchange started with Randall Nichols and I jawjacking about optimism and Ernest Hemingway. Then it became this:

Bathroom Monologue: And now, The News

If everyone believes it, it's the truth.

If enough people believe, it's history.

If too many people believe it, it's a lie.

If the minority believes it, it's a myth.

If nobody believes it... well, there's no such thing.

BM: Was Lincoln's Depression the Fuel for Greatness?

Joshua Shenk wrote a book called Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness. I read an article by him about it, not the book itself, but the title spurred something in me. The following is what it spurred.

The gnome was puzzled as soon as he departed the esophagus. His fellow gnomes were shoveling what looked like solid sadness into great ovens that burned around the president's stomach.

A slightly taller than average gnome approached him with a clipboard.

"You one of the new men?"

"Sir, yes, sir." The new gnome straightened his posture. "Reporting for duty in service of my country, sir."

"Good, good," said the superior gnome. "Fetch a shovel and get to burning that depression."

"Sir, is it constitutional to damage the emotions of the commander in chief, sir?"

The superior gnome frowned over his clipboard.

"That's why we're here, private."

"Sir, I read that depression was the cause of his greatness, sir."

"No, no. The fuel." The superior gnome came closer. "It's the fuel of his greatness. And what do you do with fuel?"

The new gnome kept his eyes forward.

"Sir, store it in something safe, sir?"

"You're a cute one. What do you do with gasoline? Burn it. What do you do with coal? Burn it."

"Sir, so what you're saying is..."

"What I'm saying is that if we want this president to get anything done we've got to find all his depression and set it on fire. Now come on. He's got to emancipate the slaves and win the biggest war this country's ever seen! It's going to take a lot of depression."

"And cause it, I'd assume.” And then he remembered to add, “Sir!"

The superior gnome pointed to the nearest oven, which billowed with a smoky melancholy.

"That is not our problem! Now fetch a shovel or start cleaning the stoves. The grease that builds up in there is figuratively and literally bad for morale."

Bathroom Monologue: A Narrative in Skin

Hers is a narrative in skin. There are castles at her ankles, drawbridges moored to the dimples on the inner junction to feet. The castle is burning, flames swaying mid-shin, and they sway whenever she jogs, cascading inked smoke to offend the clouds at her knees.

It's where tattoos of smoke ebb into tattoos of clouds that the narrative lives. Here, in the ridges and contours of inked air, the outlines of weeping and howling human faces emerge. There are no tricks; they do not murmur or tear at their hair when she does a little dance. They are remarkably still faces, frozen in mourning, caught in the cloud banks, no matter what she does. All their moist eyes peer up upon her thighs, to portraits of catastrophes that brought down the castle below. Their memories have been wrought across her midriff in sequential art that sags and wrinkles with time, and yet never loses its poignancy. Perhaps that's because she shows so few people the memories. Not all body art is public, after all.

All that is public is her face – colorless, you might call it, undrawn, never wearing make-up. All that is public are all the times she casts her eyes down upon the artifice climbing up her legs. Her expressions are a more living art. How do they look to you?

Bathroom Monologue: At Our Best

He set aside his entire evening. He spent half a month's salary on bribes to get them a table at the city's most exclusive restaurant. He bought her the best chocolates. He found her favorite wine, in its best year.

Nervous, he showered three times and used that cologne he couldn't stand, but that she said reminded her of the ocean. She loved the ocean. So he made sure that their table overlooked it.

He had his best suit dry-cleaned and held off wearing it for a month, saving it just for that night. He wore the tie she'd gotten him last year. He got a dozen black roses, and put them in a bouquet with a dozen white ones. In the very center, he placed a single, brilliant red rose. That bouquet sat on the middle of their table for two hours as he waited for her. She never came. At the stroke of ten, he looked out at the night city skyline. His jaw fell as he realized. He'd forgotten to invite her.

Bathroom Monologue: You shouldn't watch those kinds of movies.

You shouldn't watch those kinds of movies. They promote violence. 87% of viewers were found more likely to commit a misdemeanor. 35% were found to have committed a felony within ten days of watching one. 11% of viewers disappear. Someone somewhere high up puts you on a list.

I've heard that when you leave the movie theatre, you never leave alone. A man nine inches taller than you, wearing a coat a shade of black seen nowhere else on earth, follows you back to your car. He lurks in your shadow for three days. Then you lurk in his for the rest of your days.

Really, you shouldn't watch those movies because they're haunted. I've heard about viewers getting obscene phone calls and being dragged into mirrors and television sets. Dark-haired little girls manifest and maul them.

Viewers keep dozing off and then waking up on the sun, with no stars out to guide them home. I hear they're touching movies, but surely you can find a more terrestrial way to enjoy yourself.

They eat your soul.

They don't eat your soul. They chew until they are bored.

You shouldn't watch those kinds of movies.

True Stories of John: The Devil Interrupts a Horror Movie

College felt like this to me, too.

So on Sunday my mother asked to go see The Conjuring. Apparently both the Catholic Church and CNBC had endorsed the movie, and they're who she listens to for Horror movie picks. I jump at the chance to watch any Horror movie with my mother because she is the only person I've ever seen jump out of a chair in fright (thank you, Wait Until Dark). I chose wisely because, recent viewings of Lawrence of Arabia and Pacific Rim notwithstanding, I had the most amazing cinema experience in years.

The Conjuring is an exoricism movie full of exorcisim movie tropes. Things are moving, the kids are hearing and smelling things, and the family finds a basement they didn't know was there even though it houses their boiler. Sure, whatever, why was it amazing?

So in the middle of one night scene, one of the daughters is woken by an invisible force tugging on her leg. Even though the weather is clear through her windows, I can make out heavy rain in the background. It's odd, eerier than anything the movie is suggesting to the girl as she gradually wakes and realizes this isn't one of her sisters. No one is around, but the presence is still looming over her in the dark. Face contorted in fear, she moves the edge of her mattress and does what only the bravest real kids and all fictional kids do: she looks under her bed.

We get a shot from under the bed, the wall pale against the darkness of the mattress and floor. The girl's head creeps down from above, millimeter by millimeter, and just as we prepare to see her eyes and read her reaction to whatever is under here, the walls of the cinema rumble with thunder and the screen goes blank. The dim lights in the cinema, which we normally tune out, all shut off, and the screen is a natural emptiness, not a projected black. The entire room is cast into darkness, as though the devil had seized our space as well as the girl's, except for one yellow light bulb that flicks on behind us.

The hurtz hum of the speakers has also died, but the sounds of pelting rain continue – from outside the cinema. A thunderstorm had crept up on us during The Conjuring and knocked out the power. I believe I mortified my mother by laughing so hard. It's things like this that make it impossible for me to be a deist. Thanks, exorcism films.

Perhaps the best part was the unease of everyone else in the cinema. They were looking around, murmuring, and for whatever reason I felt the need to editorialize, "It was the weather." Everyone gave off this short, nervous laugh.

After a minute, I ventured into the hallway and got a disgruntled apology from a booth worker who clearly didn't want to have to deal with the generator. And after a few minutes, the house lights returned and the film came back, just seconds away from a cheap jump scare. The movie actually ended very well, having more to do in its exorcism sequence than the traditional "you're tied to a chair, we yell back and forth while things move" routine. I downright admired how the movie juggled so many characters and entities bebopping around its script. But nothing they could have directed would have been as good as a jump scare caused by barometric pressure.

Lit Corner: My Contribution to the Tree of Life/Branching Out Story and a Contest!

This summer Samantha Geary is running a big writing experiment. She's organized and hosted 26 writers to assemble a short story, each composing 150 words, one after another. Each entry is to be inspired both what was written before and by Audiomachine's new album, Tree of Life. Each writer gets a spot in the batting order and a musical track to inspire where their bit of the story goes.

Huh. When I put it that way, it sounds grotesquely commercial. I promise it was a friendly artistic endeavor when I joined. Old college buddy of mine Beverly Fox is also contributing. It's taken on quite a life.

I wrote the second entry. I had to go early because this summer is a brutally busy time for me, and Sam was good enough to let me sneak in. I tried to earn my spot by contributing some unusual plot elements for the next writers to play with. I hope you'll enjoy what I did to the horse. 

My entry was inspired by this lovely song:

Also, every comment you leave on any of the chapters enters you to win a copy of Tree of Life as well as works by several of my co-authors.

You can read the first entry here, and my follow-up right here. Then it gets nutty.

Bathroom Monologue: Character Sheet for Nigel Poshington

Name: Nigel Poshington

Character portrait: "I'm not consenting to this photograph, I'll sue you if it shows up on the web."

Occupation: C.E.O.

Religion: DOWism

Alignment: Lawful Evil

Gender: "Do you have anything bolder than 'Male'? Something that pops?"

Hit Points: "Touch me and I'll sue for every farthing in that stupid dragon hoard."

STATS
Str: 2
Con: 2
Dex: 2
Int: 4
Wis: 3
Char: 14

Inventory: Cane, briefcase, Blackberry (can summon Short Stocks three times per day), bills for commodities x5.

Class Perks: Plausible Deniability, Golden Parachute, Insider Trading (always has Initiative).

Special Abilities: Inspirational speech that none of the employees actually find inspirational; once per day can call his "friends" in the government to bail him out.

Bathroom Monologue: The Problem with Free Speech

This is free speech.

"the holocost never happend! you culdnt hid that mny bodies. not possibl to kill tht many peepl DUH! gurmany would nevr do it. jews mad it up."

This is also free speech.

"You're a fucking idiot and a disgrace to the human race. There were millions of witnesses, the most famous trial in the history of the world, and thousands survivor stories. It's the most evil thing mankind has ever done. You should be kicked off the internet."

This is more free speech.

"Fuck off, kike. He can have whatever opinion he wants. You think you can just tell people what to believe? He's got the same internet you do."

This is still more free speech.

"where did the comments go? there was a whole thread of fighting here an hour ago"

This statement against free speech is free speech.

"This is my blog and you do not have the right to say whatever you want here. Trolls will be shot on sight."

So this is free speech --

"Feminazi deleted all their comments? You think you're God? You can just erase when someone says something you don't like? Big Brother much? I'm boycotting this site from now on."

--and so is this.

"Boycotts are censorship! You're what's ruining America."

We sometimes think of this as free speech.

"People have got to stop harassing her. So she deleted your comments. That means you should send her death threats?"

But lawyers would defend his right to post this in public.

"FIRST AMENDMENT BITCHES. I DIDN'T SEND HER ANY SHIT BUT SHE DESERVED ANY SHE GOT. DELETE THIS COMMENT IF YOU WANT. I'LL JUST POST AGAIN. LMAO"

This is liberty.

"I am so sorry that this ever happened."

Fundraiser in Memorial of Amanda

So today's post was supposed to be asking you to donate to the fundraiser for Amanda. She was a lovely young woman, cousin to my friend Lillie Webb, who struggled with Takayasu's Vasculitis, a rare and vicious auto-immune disease. She had to be put into an induced coma and had insanely unfair bills coming her way if she ever woke up. Lillie set up a fundraiser to help with those outrageous bills.

 

And then, on Monday, Amanda passed away. I'm deeply sorry for her entire family.

Before the news broke, I posted to Twitter and Facebook with messages like, "If this young woman wakes up, she'll wake up unbelievable hospital bills." It felt wrong, if not downright evil, to include phrases like "If she wakes up." It wasn't so much jinxing – my belief in jinxes is sporadic and less canny – as it was feeling that speaking of such an outcome was unfeeling towards Amanda and her family. It's wretched such an outcome came true and befell this family.

The hospital will still charge Amanda's family for her treatment and the procedures, and now they have funerary expenses stacking up on top of that. It's a morbid part of our economic system and a burden we can help them with. If you have anything you can spare, Lillie has kept her fundraiser open right here.

It would mean the world to Amanda's family to know that there were people who cared. Please spread the message and donate if you can. Thank you.

Bathroom Monologue: For Seven August Heavens

"No matter what disease you think they're carrying, no matter how contagious you say it is, I am not pouring fire into the valley and wiping an entire tribe from this world. I am not. We are not. Our little posse of four ends today if you think we are, and it ends with the three of you killing me, for otherwise, I will stop you. There is no world in which the slaughter of the innocent is protection, and any that pretends to be such will lose me to any of the Seven August Heavens that will have me.

"If you want to impale me and then unleash the torrents of fire, then pray proceed, for there are three of you and one of me so the deed is at least plausible. I will ascend to any of the seven heavens that will receive me.

"I will bask in the shadow of the sun with my most pious ancestors, or I will descend the eternal stair in the company of my quietest ancestors and into the well of the world, or I will drift eternal in the Purgatorial Sea, alone as each cloud must be or in the company of a billion other rays of color that fly from the humble earth. I am at peace with every possible August Heaven, and do not waste breath questioning them, for I already have.

"If hereafters are false places, as three souls who think burning a tribe alive for the crime of being infected must believe, then I shall simply cease to be. If my only options are to exist in a world of genocide or to not exist at all, then falling and decomposing and losing myself to the myriad of unknown and unthought carrion is better. Run me through and know you've left me to die so you can live wringing abomination."

BM: Who would win: Superman or Batman?

If the writer likes Batman more: Batman wins.

If the writer likes Superman more: it's a tie or they're distracted and work together against a common third opponent. Superman fans are less awful.

If it's a fight to the death: neither of them kill people. Superman eventually wins by having a longer lifespan. Alternatively, Batman wins because Superman's died before and thus he outlived him.

If it's a race for who gets to the kitchen first: Superman, as he is much faster.

If it's a race for who gets to the kitchen first and Batman gets prep time: Batman builds the kitchen, starts in the kitchen, and wins.

If it's a race around the planet: Batman uses his superpower of money to hire The Flash, and wins.

If it's a competition of tragic origins: Batman's parents are dead, while Superman's planet is dead and in most versions so is his earth-dad. Superman wins, but since Batman is taking this worse, lets Batman think he wins.

If it's mortal combat and Batman has a kryptonite ring: Superman smothers him in lead at speeds faster than his eyes can follow.

If it's mortal combat and Batman has a kryptonite ring and infinite prep time: Superman likely also had such prep time and probably does okay with his laser eyes and ability to fight from space.

If it's mortal combat and Batman has a kryptonite ring and infinite prep time and Superman was screwing around for that infinity: the writer likes Batman.

If Batman has a really cool mech he suspiciously never uses for all the other cases it'd be useful: Superman probably rips it apart and leaves him alive.

If Batman needs to establish a mythos: Superman takes a dive in front of a cameraman.

If Superman needs to establish a mythos: he does something else impressive and lets Bruce abuse some children or whatever he does with his time.

If they're on hallucinogenics, brainwashed, in an alternate universe, and think each other are figments and villains and whatever other nonsense your message board requires to justify two non-lethal characters murdering people they love and respect: Superman throws the earth into the sun, are you happy now?

Bathroom Monologue: Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy

"It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. You're not even a nice person – you're nice relative to other social climbers in the company, but you've stepped on my forehead at least three times climbing the ladder. Nicer guys are rungs in a ladder that you are ascending effortlessly, and I might say, often callously. An even remotely nicer could not cut pensions that way. The stuff you've put on the company expense account? These charges suggest an absence of moral compass that, if possessed, would make your series of promotions wholly implausible. I can only hope that you are a nice enough guy to not destroy the blue collar level of the company now that you've escaped it. The workforce is worried. Many have been jilted before. It's happened to nicer guys."

Nine Times I Got an Author's Gender Wrong

I revel in human fallibility, and even love my own failures when they're taken out of judgmental spheres. You can shame someone for their failures, but this is usually the result of forgetting all of your own. It's better to recognize them, share them and learn.

It's for this noble end that I here expose some of my most boneheaded mistakes: nine times when I blatantly got an author's gender wrong. There's one writer, and I won't say who, but I met him without knowing he was a man. None of these nine entries are quite that bad, but I'm hoping to open a dialogue and find out if others have been so silly. If not, I hope to at least make you laugh.

1. Kim Stanley Robinson – That's Heteronormative Thinking with Names 101, which may be the most pedantic class in all of academia. But I have to take a certain ownership over the Kim-possibility given that I'd read the bio on the inside cover and still made it fifty pages before feeling like I had something wrong about her. In my defense: there was no author photo.

2. C.S. Lewis – This came less from the ambiguity of his shortened name, and more that everyone who tried to foist The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe on me as a kid was a woman. I was so young, and so into that Boys Vs. Girls mentality, that I just assumed the book girls kept telling me to read was by one of them. I hope I've outgrown that.

3. J.K. Rowling – I think she got reverse-Lewised. And then, as though to level the playing field for all the big male authors I'd mistaken as female, I mistook the bestselling female author of the decade for a guy. I've actually gone back and checked, and the copies of the first three books I read had no author-information on them whatsoever. I was reading "him" in some ignorant vacuum, possibly assigning gender because Dumbledore always felt like a stand-in for the author. Actually, much like the paternal figure the kids in Lewis's first book lived with.

4. Terry Pratchett – I thought she was so darned funny.