New Years part 2

“Let’s leave the door open,” suggested Nick. He rested his chin on the back of the chair and peered hopefully into the canister of Pringles, but the chips had long departed to higher (or lower, depending on one’s perspective) dimensions.

“Why?” asked Mike from the floor, groaning softly as he tried to twist his arm into a position that did not remind the limb of its old injury.

“If people’re going to get drunk and celebrate,” agreed Zach, “I’ll rather not…you know…be there.”

“Oh com’on,” said Nick. “There’s hardly anyone back yet. It’s New Years!”

“I realized,” said Mike.

“We realized,” said Zach, at the same time. They looked at each other.

Someone knocked on the door.

“I’ll get it,” grumbled Nick finally, as that no one else had moved. He wondered who it could be.

“Yeah let’s not all volunteer at once now,” muttered Mike, as Nick opened the door.

“Hi,” said the guy standing there, to Nick. Then he peered around Nick. “Hey,” he said, to the other two occupants of the room.

“Um, hi,” said Nick.

“Hey,” said Mike.

Zach lifted a hand in acknowledgement.

The guy beamed at them, then left abruptly. Nick, left standing confusedly for a moment, let the door close and turned to face his friends.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“I thought you knew him,” said Zach, puzzled.

“I thought he knew you,” said Mike to Zach.

“Me?” asked Zach.

“You guys don’t know him?” asked Nick, bewildered.

“Are you sure you don’t know him?” asked Mike.

“This,” said Zach significantly, “is why we should leave the door closed.”

Someone knocked on the door again.

How was it that he could have all his relatives in a different country and all his friends in one room and still have people knocking, outside of his door on New Year’s Eve? Except Nick shouldn’t be surprised at all anymore, as that he was in an American University, and after the time when he opened the door and saw a potato zoom past his field of vision, he really should give up being surprised by anything. Even if it were a potato who was knocking.

However, certain knowledge, such as the statistical possibility of a potato knocking, did not encourage certain behaviours, such as opening the door.

“I’ll get it,” sighed Zach finally, completely free from any potato-induced paranoia, and carefully stepping over Mike’s feet, an empty popcorn bag, and an abandoned can of grape soda to reach the door.

“I wonder who it is,” Nick wandered out loud.

“Don’t we all,” Mike groaned again and rolled over, resting his head on his arms.

“Hi,” said a completely different strange guy, standing in front of the door. “We’re starting a game of Assassins and if you’d like to join…” he waved a vague hand that could’ve either indicated the air around him, the south side of the hall, or an invisible companion. “We’re meeting in the lounge right now.”

“Okay,” said Zach.

“The game starts in about ten minutes, I think,” said the completely different strange guy, beamed at them as done by the original strange guy, and disappeared around the corner.

“OOooh can we play?” asked Mike, who had, sometimes within the past few seconds, jumped to his feet. He looked excited which, Nick reflected, was a good reason for him to be nervous.

“What’s Assassins?” He asked.

“Good question,” said Zach, looking at Mike.

Mike gave them such a disgruntled look that Nick couldn’t help but smile.

“You guys,” Mike announced, as he tapped away at his laptop, “are absolutely hopeless. Here. Read.”

“Absolutely,” agreed Zach, skimming the screen.

“Aw, but you love us anyway, right, Michael?” Nick grinned at the expression on Mike’s face then bent, likewise, to read the googled explanation for the game. Or at least he assumed it was a game.

“Angh,” said Mike.

“No actual killing will be involved, right?” asked Zach.

“Our building has four floors,” said Nick.

“I know, it’s going to be awesome.”

“Hm,” said Zach, who, being raised in the English language, was the first to finish. He looked dubious. “We’re going to run around like maniacs on New Year’s Eve?”

“Lots of people run around like maniacs on New Year’s Eve,” Mike was reasonable.

“Sounds interesting,” concluded Nick.

“Com’on, Nick’ll do it,” pleaded Mike, when Zach looked dubious, and when that argument failed to work, he tried the Little Boy Look: lowering his eyes and looking up through his lashes. “Please?”

It looked ridiculous. It looked ridiculous and yet it worked for Mike in most cases, especially with females. As far as Nick knew Zach was the only person who appeared to be immune to it. He himself never managed to hold up under any sort of pleading, despite of having a younger sibling, and Mike, when he tried to be cute was…well, it worked for him.

“Come on, Zach,” he heard himself say. “It’s New Year’s.” Mike flashed him a sideways grin, knowing that his efforts were rewarded, even if not necessarily on the right person.

“Hm,” said Zach, again. “You know, as far as a logical argument goes, that’s the worst I’ve ever heard.” When they just continued to stare at him, he sighed and said, smiling helplessly. “This’s a loosing argument though, isn’t it? Despite of logic?”

“Oh yes,” said Nick cheerfully.

“Ya think?” said Mike. “Com’on, we’re going to miss the game!”

“Alright,” announced the guy, whose name was Brian. “Everyone’s introduced themselves already so…everyone knows who they’re supposed to assassinate?”

“There’re twenty-two of us and four floors. Individual rooms are off limits and bathrooms are safe zones. When you’re ‘dead’ you can either return to your room or go in any of the floor lounges but of course you can’t participate in the game anymore.”

“The time limit’s for the first game’s midnight, ‘cause there’s only so many of us and it’s going to be a quick game. I think that’s it…. May the best guy—”

A very pointed cough.

“Or best gal win. Let’s go.”

With a few giggles and a sudden rush of footsteps, they scattered throughout the floors, running, dodging, laughing through the lighted corridors on the eve of New Years.

--------------------------------------

I think Susan wanted me to post parts 2 and 3 for her. Right? Sorry, Susan, the emails were a bit unclear on that.

New Years

In three parts. And I am going to miss my beta-reader who is ...out of internet. =p
I must struggle through this bravely on my own then. *sigh*

Life is without beta. That's why there're so many problems with it. *cough*
___________________________________________________________

NEW YEARS

It had been a good two weeks, reflected Nick woozily. It had been a nice vacation despite of the relatives and Mike’s ‘plane-trip’—an event which meant that he would never, ever allow Mike to go near a plane again without some sort of high-security supervision. It was a good night tonight too, he added to himself, despite of the phenomenal jetlag from which he was suffering and the sudden drop in temperature. The café they were sitting in was mostly unoccupied save for a few other college students like themselves and the streets were quiet and empty save for a few occasional cars whose lights flashed past with the rapidity of shooting stars. The warmth of the heating system, coupled with the slice of cake and cup of hot chocolate that he had already consumed, produced a nice, mellow feeling in him. Very nice and very mellow. Nick yawned.

“Here’s to the new year, may it be better than the last one which, frankly, sucked.” Mike raised his cup in slightly lop-sided salute, face flushed from the warmth. If it were possible for anyone to get drunk on sugar, Nick would’ve supposed that Mike was that. “Off with the old and on with the new and whatever. You know.”

“Hear, hear,” chimed in Zach bravely, in the tone of a man who found the prospect of the future none-too-reassuring, likewise raising his styrofoam cup. “Happy Holidays!” Said the cup.

“Yay,” Nick heard himself say, then giggled in spite of himself because his voice sounded strange even to his own ears. He tried to touch his cup to those of his friends in their shared salute and managed, barely, in a feat that had more to do with luck than with fierce concentration, though he tried both.

“You should get some sleep,” said Zach, watching him over the rim of his cup.

“No, I’m fine,” Nick beamed at his two friends. “Happy holidays! Well, even though it’s almost over but,” he paused and tried to remember what he was talking about, shrugged mentally, gave up, and beamed at his friends again.

Mike and Zach looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

“I saw that,” declared Nick, because he did and because something told him that it was very important that he let them know that he did.

“Alright, let’s go back,” said Mike, and drained his cup.

“Alright, let’s go back,” said Mike, giving in, and downed the rest of his chocolate in one gulp. Zach eyed the empty cup. He didn’t know how his two friends managed to handle all that sugar, with the hot chocolate and the cake, which Mike insisted that everyone order. Then again, he thought, watching Nick smile happily at his very much inanimate cup as Mike began to whistle, almost breathlessly, some forgotten Christmas carol or the other, maybe handling the sugar wasn’t the issue at all and he was, once again, missing the point.

“You do realise that I’ve got the stuff to make our own hot chocolate?” He told his friends.

“You know you’ve said that already. Twice.” Said Mike, airily. “And you know that it’s only,” he peered at his watch, “ten and that we have the rest of the night to go?”

“Hm,” mumbled Nick cheerfully. Or it could’ve been a “mmf.” It was hard to tell.

“We have the rest of the night to go after we go back to the dorms first,” He reminded Mike, getting up and pushing his chair back. Zach regarded Nick. “He can still walk straight, right?”

“He can still walk straight, right?” Zach asked uncertainly, giving Nick a slightly puzzled frown.

“Can he walk straight even normally?” Mike smirked. It was an on-going game, the teasing and the jokes, and he supposed that all the sugar was finally getting to him. But he was finally starting to feel…all holiday-spirit-y, and he wasn’t about to complain because the warm and frizzy feeling, while it lasted, was something to be treasured.

“I can so walk street—I mean straight,” declared Nick, catching himself. He stood up, and Zach hurried to save his chair from crashing backward, knocking over Mike’s empty cup in the process. Nick blinked at them sleepily, then yawned again. “And I can walk straight normally too!”

“Of course you can,” Mike grinned and held open the door, wheezing a little when the unexpected coldness from the air outside shocked his lungs.

“Does that even make sense?” Zach whispered as he walked past him.

“Since when did Nick make sense?” Mike asked back.

“I heard that!” interjected Nick.

“You were meant to,” pointed out Mike, putting himself between Nick and the street on the off chance that, jet-lagg-y, Nick might mistakenly walk into the streets and into the oncoming traffic. You never know with Nick.

“Mmrphk, fine.” Muttered the person in question, then sighed blissfully. “Happy holidays.” Sleep was definitely called for.

“You just said that not two minutes ago, you do realize?” Mike gave Nick a sideways glance. His friend showed no sign that he’d heard and yawned enormously. Oh yes, sleep.

“Happy holidays to you too, Nick,” Zach said peaceably, walking on the other side and still sipping his cup of tea.

Mike rolled his eyes at the sky, but held the silence that followed, that followed them as they walked back towards the campus like an old, faithful dog whose very presence could give off comfort. The reflected neon-bright eyes, the glow-green of the Starbucks and the gold-blue of Blockbusters, watched them go past, like they have no doubt seen many students go past in the years and were likely to see many more students in the time to come. Between the white-gold orbs of the street-lamps hung the sense of expectations, still fresh, still waiting for the peals now less than two hours away.

A tune came to Mike’s lips, and he whistled it. An old song that he’d picked up from French class in high school, something about the coming of another year. After a moment or two Nick joined in, singing softly, dreamily, filling in the words that Mike had forgotten. Another year, another street, another life; another corner and the blue lightning of the first school lamppost came into view. Like the lamppost from Narnia, thought Mike with dry amusement.

“Where’re we going?” He spoke first, breaking the spell.

“I have the stuff in my room,” offered Zach. “But we’ll need a microwave.”

“My roommate’s got one,” said Nick. Mumbled really. “And we can use it.”

Zach, lagging a few steps behind Nick now, looked at Mike, and he could tell they were thinking the same thing: microwaving things aside, if they met in Nick’s room, they’d have less to think about when (because it was only inevitable now) Nick fell asleep.

“Alright,” agreed Mike. “Your room, then. You better not have anything too weird in there.”

“Besides me?” asked Nick innocently.

“Good point,” conceded Mike, surprised that Nick was still awake enough to say something like that.

Nick made a small noise. Of victory. Of satisfaction. Of a dying urge to yawn his head off. Mike hid a smile.

“Oh you’re pathetic,” he muttered fondly, more or less steering Nick in the right direction as his friend attempted to wander left, two doors too early. “You do have your key, right?”

“Mm, am not,” mumbled Nick, meekly opening the door and turning on the lights. He shambled over to his bed and sat down heavily, then promptly toppled over to one side. “Pathetic, I mean,” he added, voice muffled by the bed.

“Maybe we should just let him sleep,” said Zach, looking down at the sprawled form that was Nick. “And stay up far too late somewhere else.”

“No, I’m fine!” Nick insisted, his face appearing over the edge of his pillows with a startling suddenness. He pouted. “I’m going to stay up till midne—midnight. For the New Year.”

“Nick,” Zach thought for a moment, “We’re eight hours behind GMT, the new year’s already happened to the world, you can sleep.”

“It’s not here yet,” said Nick stubbornly.

“Nice phrasing,” Mike told Zach, then added, when Zach gave him a blank look. “It’s ‘already happened to the world’?” Sounded like some time of pestilence.

“Egrk,” said Zach, and Mike saw that he understood. “Well it’s technically true…”

“I know,” grinned Mike. “Just sounds funny.” He looked at Nick, who was staring at them mournfully and determinedly, if somewhat glazed-eyed. It was, reflected Mike, a very bad way to begin a new year by not getting what you wanted. “Okay fine. Let’s just let him stay up late if he really wants to.”

“See, Mike agrees with me!” Nick informed Zach, quite triumphant.

“Yes, I heard him,” said Zach. “I’ll go and get the stuff for the hot chocolate, shall I?”

“I can get it,” offered Mike, “I’m getting my laptop anyway, and our building clusters are pretty close.”

Zach looked at him, looked at Nick, and appeared to consider this for a moment. “Okay,” he said finally, and fished out his own keys. “Here.”

Mike looked at the keys. Keys. Plural. And raised his eyebrows. “You’d trust me with these?”

“Well,” replied Zach, smiling slightly. “I don’t own an airplane, so yes.”

“Right.” He pocked the keys and cleared his throat. “Behave yourselves, children,” ordered Mike, opening the door with extreme dignity. “If you’re good I’ll bring you back candy. Er. Hot chocolate.” He amended.

Zach and Nick stared at each other for a long moment, then turned to Mike in unison.

“Yes, mother,” they chorused.

Mike grumbled as he left, trying to twist the smile off from his face. When he returned he found the two in relatively the same spot, save for the fact that Nick was now asleep, the sweep of his lashes dark against his cheeks. He stared at him, then at Zach, who gave him a slight shrug.

“We can go into the lounge to talk,” suggested Zach quietly. “It’s empty anyway.”

Nick woke up feeling very, very disoriented. He was, he knew, in his room, on his bed, which was all very well and normal except there was something that was important that his mind insisted he was forgetting. He sat up and rubbed his face and suddenly remembered that first, it was New Year’s Eve (a panicked look at the clock assured him that he had slept for no more than an hour that that it was, indeed, still the eve), and that secondly—

The door opened slightly. Before he could wonder why it wasn’t locked when he was, in fact, sleeping, Mike’s voice came, slightly amused. “Yeah, I think he’s awake. Le soir, Nick, comment allez-vous?”

Secondly, recalled Nick, was finding out where the heck his friends went because they were suppose to celebrate New Year’s together.

“Éveillé et conscient,” replied Nick. He gave his eyes a final rub. “What were you guys doing?”

“Talking,” said Zach.

“Plotting to pour something strange on you while you’re sleeping,” said Mike, at the same time.

“You wouldn’t do that.” Well, he hoped that Mike wouldn’t, anyway. He had done nothing to deserve it. That he know of.

“Why not?” asked Mike, sounding only mildly curious.

“Because you like me?” Nick suggested, then added. “And I am trusting Zach to prevent you if you do decide to do it.”

“Oh right.” Mike’s mouth twists slightly to one side as he looked down at Zach with one raised eyebrow. “How do you know he’s not conspiring against you too?”

“He’s Zach.”

“Reassuring,” muttered Zach to himself. “I’m me.”

“I’m hurt,” said Mike. “Deeply injured. You’d trust him over me?”

“Well considering…” began Nick.

“The airplane incident…” continued Zach.

“Oh let it go already,” muttered Mike.

“Don’t worry Mike,” said Nick reassuringly. “I still trust you. Mostly. Just not around airplanes.”

“Thanks,” said Mike sarcastically. “And what’s with all this talk about trust?”

“It’s the basis of most human relationships and a few non-human ones,” said Zach. “It’s late. It’s New Year’s eve. I’m allowed to be philosophical.”

“You get all philosophical when it’s not New Year’s,” Mike reminded him.

“I’m allowed to be more philosophical than usual, then” Zach amended, defiantly.

“He’s weird,” Nick informed Mike, to which Mike returned a look that said “Ya think?”

Nick sighed. Then yawned. Then remembered the third thing.

“Are we going to make the hot chocolate?”

yay holidays

An all-natural Christmas, as drawn by Kate. =)

December

[written a while ago, never posted. Happy weekend before the last-week, and good luck, everyone!]

December 2005

The door was open, so Nick walked in, hoping that the open door meant that Zach was inside, and not his roommate. Nick was not a hermit-type, strictly speaking, and he loved to be around friends. It was merely the fact that talking to people he didn’t know ‘that well’ always made him slightly nervous.

Luck was with him. Zach was inside, reading a formidable looking volume that didn’t look like it ought to be taken outside of the library. The lamp was on too, and its light was golden and cheery because of the standard-dorm-issued lampshade. It was a blissful contrast to the dismal weather outside, where many, here for the first time, were harbouring deep misgivings about Southern California.

“Have you seen Mike today?” Nick asked. It was the question that had been bothering him throughout most of his afternoon classes and had been producing little nagging feelings of worries all along the back of his neck. Mike was liable to have certain period of moodiness and when he did—when he did Nick did his best to be as comforting and as understanding a friend as possible.

It never stopped him from worrying the next time the mood came around though, and he hadn’t seen Mike in any of the places where he normally was when he was not in class. There was no PE in their schedule today, so he would not be able to find out, by the rather conspicuous lack of his friend in his class, whether or not the Mood was around.

So he worried. Worried and hoped that Zach would know something.

Zach looked over the edge of his glasses and over the edge of his book and finally up at Nick. “No,” he said, and looked down again, the pale profile of his face slightly tired and perfectly calm. “Don’t suppose you’d seen him either.”

“He’s not anywhere that I’ve looked,” Nick complained. He sounded worried even to himself. “You know how he’s been reading that magazine and there was this article that he kept talking about.”

“The one that made him grouchy for three days and had him giving out one hour lectures,” said Zach dryly, “Yes. It’s rather hard to forget, you know.”

“Yeah well,” he sighed. No answers then. Again. Worrying about them was a part of having friends. It meant that you had people to worry about. He remembered the first few weeks of bewilderment where despite of his preparations, he’d stumbled around, an international student experiencing cultural shock of a completely different environment, and no friends, and asked himself if this thing with the worrying was worth the trouble.

And the answer came back to him, always, unchangeably: yes.

“Let me know if you see him,” he said, getting up from the chair into which he’d flung himself.

Zach closed the book, took off his glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose. He checked his watch. “I have a class in ten minutes,” he promised, “But I’ll go and look around afterwards and let you know if he turns up.”

“Alright,” Nick made for the door. Zach would do it, he knew, even if he didn’t find anyone.

“And Nick? Stop fussing.”

He looked back, and saw Zach giving him a slightly amused grin. The light from the lamp made his hair appear almost red.

“He’s a grown up, you know. Fully legal. And I doubt anyone’d want to kidnap him,” he frowned to himself, “Unless it’s a girl, in which case that’d be his problem, not yours.”

“I’d feel sorry for the girl,” said Nick, grinning slightly as he left.

“Don’t we all?” muttered Zach behind him.

What he loved about December, decided Mike, was the weather. The slate greys and pearly greys and …and cloud greys. The greys. The wind that, if you were high enough, didn’t so much bite as tried to scratch your eyes out. There was a feel in the air, as the dark silhouette of the trees crept onward with increasingly longer fingers of shadows. It was that time, just before the holiday spirits truly kicked in, where everything seem to lead, in hopeless, tangled circles, back to the word: resignation. Even in California, even in Southern California, there were inescapable days of greyness and gloom—perfect for quality sulking.

He felt like sulking. Alone. Without Nick hovering over his shoulder trying to make him feel better or Zach keeping an eye on him. The spot on top of the stadium was perfect for that, if a bit windy and chilly. But he liked windy and chilly, it made him numb, and he liked numb. It came, he reasoned, best with sulking.

Someone was coming up the metal stairs, almost quietly, moving with careful steps as he picked his way upward. Mike slouched lower into his spot—just at the corner where the topmost wall bent—and hoped that person would go away.

Quality sulking atmosphere, as it was, was easily ruined, and he preferred to enjoy it, as it was, while he could.

Despite of his wishes, however, the steps, slow, measured, kept on coming. A few moments later it ended and Mike knew that the intruder was along the top bleachers from the occasional scraping sounds of a sole against metal.

“Earth to Michael, come in please, over,” said a quiet and slightly amused voice, not too far away from him.

Mike opened his eyes.

“Go away please, over,” he said sarcastically, giving Zach a look that clearly said I-want-to-be-here-and-I-don’t-want-you-here.

“No can-do, sir,” said Zach cheerfully, stepping to the bleacher just below his and sat down. Mike glared at the back of his head. “The view’s very nice here,” Zach added as a comment.

It was, Mike grudgingly admitted. That was one of the reasons why he’d chosen here in the first place. The height of the bleachers and its angle offered an almost un-obscured view of the sky and the line of trees planted at the other side, which hid the buildings that gave away their surroundings.

Then he felt annoyed that Zach had interrupted his sulking—the thought process, anyhow. The view was nice, but it was part of the atmosphere that he needed, and Zach was definitely ruining it.

Words were definitely not a good choice. Zach could probably out argue him simply by being overbearingly rational, or, in other words, his usual self. Also his friend had a certain stubbornness that Mike rated to be about equal to his own, and knew from that the futility of trying to send Zach away by glaring and snarling when his friend had simply made his mind to stay.

Sometimes he would like very much to punch Zach and would spend a few minutes during those moments of frustration considering how satisfying it would be and how satisfying it was when he and Nick punched around but, in the end, he would always work to keep his fists down, because Zach was simply Not Nick and he, damn his guilt, would feel eternally bad about hitting someone who was smaller than he was.

Besides, he might seriously injure something. Zach looked the sort who’d get bruised easily, and he was clumsy enough to injure himself enough without anyone else’s help.

Mike sighed. It was the very long and drawn out sigh of someone submitting to their fate. Zach made a muffled noise. Mike suddenly had the suspicion that Zach was laughing at him.

“Are you laughing at me?” he demanded, standing up and trying to see Zach’s face.

“No,” Zach looked up at him, all innocence. “I just sneezed.”

“Oh,” He felt foolish, then annoyed, at himself for feeling foolish and even more annoyed at Zach for being here because otherwise he wouldn’t feel foolish. “Um.” He gritted out. “Bless you.”

“Thank you,” Zach said gravely. The corner of his mouth quirked, “Okay,” he announced, a definite note of laughter creeping into his voice, “now I’m laughing at you.”

“Oh, thanks.” He sat down on the lower bleacher too, because that way he could more easily keep track of when Zach was really laughing at him which, he suspected, was more often that his friend let on. “So how did you find me?”

“By being logical and systematic,” said Zach serenely, caught the expression on his face, and explained. “Nick’d already checked all the usual places, so I thought I’d check the …less usual ones, and we’ve been here before for the football game, remember?”

“Yeah.” Indeed they had. The game was awful and posed absolutely threat of whatsoever as a subject of interest, but the stadium was a cool place to hang out afterwards.

“I recalled Nick’s attempts to try to save you from breaking your neck and your apparent obsession with height,” he shrugged. “A fair guess, right?”

“I was not about to break my neck,” Mike heard himself protest, almost in spite of himself. “It was perfectly safe.” He paused, slightly horrified as he realized his sulking mood was being torn to shreds right in front of him. “And he fussed too much,” he added in a mumble, sulking, even though he knew this wasn’t the sulking he wanted. There was sulking and there was sulking, and this petty thing ain’t it.

“He cares. Ever realize that people can care, ‘Mikey’?”

Mike could just imagine the smirk on Zach’s face. He angled a look at him. To his surprise, there was no smirk. Zach was staring at the area above the arena thoughtfully, seemingly lost in thought. Mike snorted to let Zach know what he thought. After all, why waste words if a simple sound would suffice?

A group of birds took off, despite of the lack of sunset, and wheeled about the field like dark phantoms seeking for a place to rest. The treetops, darker than dark against the cold steel grey of the sky, swayed gently. There was a promise of rain in the air.

“Eloquent,” agreed Zach after a moment. “Says loads about what you think about the rest of us too.”

Mike resented the fact that Zach would put it that way. He opened his mouth.

“One article. About a week ago.”

“That wasn’t it,” he muttered darkly, watching a particularly large crow as it traced its endless circles. Useless. Getting no where.

“Didn’t think it was.” Zach waited, his eyes likewise on the sky.

And that was the moment. That was the moment that usually came from conversations like these, where Zach waited, patiently, and Mike dived through the tangle of thoughts and emotions, measuring himself against himself. If he started talking, he wouldn’t be able to stop, that was a constant fear. If he started talking, he would trail off into rambles and rants. If the balance was tipped, even so slightly…. And if he came up, the sums and quotas of himself measured in careful doses against his own tolerance, he would chose to keep silent, and Zach would know and wouldn’t ask unless Mike volunteered the information himself.

He stared at the sky, now the grey-black of the coming night, and did his math. Mike’s math where numbers always trailed off into irrational, endless figures and estimation was always a necessity. He stared at the sky and at the departing birds.

And finally, he hefted a very hefty sigh, realizing that his sulking mood was ruined beyond repair and it was getting dark and for the first time in hours he realized he couldn’t feel his hands, feet, ears, or nose. He said as much to Zach while stretching his back, then his hands, studying the faint bruises upon fainter lines from years past.

“Next time, dress warmer,” Zach said dryly, climbing to his feet, then offered his hand to Mike as he tried to get up.

“You’re not gonna be able to hold my weight,” grunted Mike, wondering if he still had any toes left. Certainly he couldn’t feel them, and he’d tried to wiggle them in his shoes already.

“Actually,” said Zach, more dryly still, “if you know your physics equations, I’ll not be able to hold only your weight, but a great deal more. I’m stronger than I look,” he added challengingly, when Mike just gazed at him dubiously. His chin went up and he gave Mike his I-am-being-completely-serious look. “I never offer any help that I can’t give, Mike.”

Mike sighed for what felt like the hundredth time in the past five minutes and took the offered hand, and tried to pull himself up as quickly as possible without actually putting any weight on the hand. “Alright, I’m going back to my dorms and seeing if I have any toes left.”

“If you do loose some, I heard that Nick’s getting fairly good in his sculpture and art class,” said Zach, finally, beginning the walk down as carefully as he took the walk up. He looked at Mike, but didn’t say anything. Didn’t bring anything up, in fact. It was difficult to tell whether the thought had already passed out of his mind or if he was just refraining himself from mentioning it.

How very typical of him, thought Mike sourly.

“Geez, what did I ever do to you?” Mike complained, taking his steps down in jumps and small leaps. He got to the bottom first and waited while Zach continued to pick his way down.

“I’ve seen some of the stuff he did,” said Zach, clearing the bleachers with a disturbing lack of thuds and crashes. “You should give him a chance; he really is getting pretty good.”

Mike snorted again. “Look, they’re my toes, alright?”

“Should’ve thought about it before you went up there in this weather,” retorted Zach. He paused.

“I’m going to call Nick and let him know that you haven’t been kidnapped or anything.” The words were spoken lightly, but Mike could hear the faint reprove behind them. Probably for making Nick worry. He rolled his eyes, but it was already too dark for Zach to see it, because it was already too dark for anyone to see it.

“No, I’ll call him when I get to my room. Better reception there anyway.” He peered at his watch, faint glints of metal on a darker face. Records of time and schedules. “You should go get food. Don’t you usually get food about now?”

Zach looked down at his watch too. “Usually,” he admitted.

“Right. Go get food, and I’ll talk to you online if you go on.”

“Call Nick first.”

“I’ll remember, you don’t have to remind me.” Mike dropped the tone of mock-offence and added, sardonically. “If I didn’t call by the time we talk online you can yell at me, fair enough?”

“Uh-huh,” said Zach, as that both of them knew that of the many things Zach may or may not do, yelling was definitely on the Never Did and Never Will Do list. “Alright, food it is. Bye!”

“C’ya,” replied Mike, raising his hand in lieu of a wave, and began the rest of the walk to his dorm. He knew now that he had at least three toes and did not find the number particularly reassuring. Especially when they were split between his two feet.

The street lamps from the camps roads made his shadow shiver and stretch first in one direction, then another. Fading and growing again, clockwise, in a circle.

Nick tried reading his history book, he really tried, but there was something profoundly boring about American history that made it very hard for Nick to stay focused on it for any period of time longer than five minutes.

His cellphone rang. Nick pounced on it, saw who it was, and punched the ‘talk’ button with a sigh of relief. It was officially night time no matter whose when you considered night to start, by American or by French standards, and he was remembering belatedly that he ought to have told Zach to call him even if he hadn’t found Mike.

“Heard you’ve been looking for me,” said Mike by a way of ‘hello’, “You worry too much.”

That’s because you never worry enough so I’d have to worry for you, thought Nick, peering outside. It was very dark and looked like it might rain. Then again, it looked like that all day. “It’s called caring, Mike.” He grinned, “Never thought I’d be teaching you English. Wow, I must be smarter than I thought!”

He could almost see the expression on his friends face. Nick’s grin widened. The lamp’s cheerful glow was comforting, but too dark if anyone moved more than six inches away from it, so he turned on the room’s light.

“Riiiiiiight,” said Mike. “You keep thinking that.”

“I will,” replied Nick happily, imagining Mike twitch at the other end of the conversation.

“So are you going online or what?” Came the eventual response.

“We-ell,” Nick pretended to be studious, if only for a minute. “I do have reading to do for my history class.”

“Nick—just—” From the tone of his voice, Mike was probably rolling his eyes at the ceiling. “Just leave the studying and being a good student part to Zach, okay?”

“I am a good student,” protested Nick, half mockingly, half offended. If he wasn’t a good student, would he have even ended up here? But that was part of friendship too, the joking that was also hurtful words, that would coalesce into memories.

“Whatever. Oh, I saw this really cool site yesterday…come online, I’ll give you the link.”

Funny how the memories that were mixed were the clearest of all, thought Nick vaguely, and smiled.

“Okay.” Said Nick.

“What?” Said Mike, as derisive as only Mike could be. “No more protesting?”

“Who, me?” asked Nick, already signing into his instant messaging program. The history book remained where he left it, at the abandoned corner of his desk.

It never stood a chance.

so

In lieu of Lucy's suggestion for some "subtle" Christmas flavor for the blog...

Happy holidays, anyone?

Actually

Anna, that's a good idea...
Not the actual omelette. Well maybe.

And yes I know what time it is so this perhaps has something to do with it, but mean while, allow me my indulgences.

I'm going to randomly type down memories I have that are "Lunatics" related. I, of course, encourage everyone to do the same (it would be fun, but if that's not enough, I'd greatly appreciate it?). Of course, this'd be much more helpful if the people we're mainly aiming this at remembers their account and the blog's existence, but oh well.
One step at a time. We can try to get those in the middle, right?

Enough divergences. Memories. I should start them from my 10th grade year because that's when the group we now call "lunatics" first really began to form. I'll list 10 then go and let my brain off for the night.

1. Ms. Kelly putting 2 times 3 equals 8 on the board while I stared with horrified fanscination at Lusine's Spongebob shirt, having never been previously acquainted with something that looked like radioactive cheese (my very words at those times, I believe), that had big blue eyes. Christine going "doom" and scrawling "doom" on the whiteboard at the back, when we later moved classrooms, because the math final's coming and we were so, so doomed.

2. Anna in multimedia and Victoria as Voltaire, together with a notebook which had a record of a poem which, I believe, went something like "Mac doesn't have right clicks/ And they don't have solitaire" something something "I really should tell Voltaire/ But he is a Neanderthal (joking!)/ Who lives behind the shopping mall" then something more or less along the lines of "I really should kill this poem /And it's stupid rhyming scheme/ because I'm so bored in multimedia/ I think I could scream."

3. First period, watching Soniya as she did her calculus homework, marveling at those little funny looking marks which I later found out (the horror the horror!) to be integral signs. Finishing the lab early and testing for faulty wires with her. Waiting for the bell to ring.

4. Waiting for the bus with Kate, vaguely worried that she might get run over sitting on the curb but deciding (my intuition was right at the time!) that that was probably the least of her worries. Walking home and wondering what's the TLV for alyssums as that my friend seems insistent on inhaling the flower. The bus missing my stop, repeatedly and cracking jokes about that.

5. Anna, Malvina, singing. Enough said. Actually no, not enough. The endless bouts of "Miss Amerian Pie" out there in the out fields during baseball, as inspired by our math teachers as a method of strange and unusual punishment; the discussion about Anna as an e-omelette who speaks Belt-buckle (remember that?). Our alternating attempts to hit the baseball at Mr. Sartwell and Anna tell me "the root of negative 99" when I asked her how many fingers I was holding up (I think it was either 2 or 3) after one of his more "inventive" runs.

6. Beginning of congregation outside of library. Continuation of meeting under the tree for lunch. Anna and Malvina singing "Pinky and the Brain" and me learning the words for the first time. Then there's always the "What, Huh" song which...makes me want to smack myself over the head occasionally...but it does have a certain ring to it.

7. Being threatened by Kate twice a week, then watching her develope a tolerance. Then watching her attempt to strangle Anna with her scarf and realizing that I need another tolerance-developement-theory.

8. Studying for the math final with Christine and Lucy in the library and actually feeling a sense of impending doom (partial contribution to Christine). Making so much fun of Ms. Kelly after proving to selves that we get along much further if we do not listen to her. Christine's list of "Why Ms. Kelly Is A Very Bad Teacher", or something like that, I think it's 50 reasons, but might be 100, depending on how charitable she was feeling. Wait. Christine? Charitable?

9. Victoria's Snape obsession. Continuous and multiplied over time, gradually merging with Kate, then later merging with Christine as a large sector of our group developed Slytherin-worshipping-syndromes.

10. Rather damp Christmas as I recalled it, bumping into people a lot randomly. A tangle of ribbons and colored papers and well-wishes. Gray skies. Candy canes. Wish I'd taken more picture of then.

I'm going to go and get some sleep.

food for thought

How does a blog provide a cake, and what would be in the cake? Java scripts?

lol funny thought though.

Keep thinking... we're all thinking...
Sort of, right?

Susan, that was so beautiful and touching!
Don't let me die!!!




Pretty please??

What we need is an incentive for people to post. I say, free cake for the first person to make 3,000 posts! ReadySetGo.

I'm serious.

The blog has spoken! kthnxbye.

[edit]
I have chosen the prize-cake.

Exact size and appearance not guaranteed, taste subject to restrictions.

one of my professors has a more exciting life than his geeky appearance suggests

He's currently in Antarctica doing research.

Hi Everyone,

Down in McMurdo trying to complete all of my trainings and check-outsbefore heading out to the deep field camp (WAIS-D: West Antarctic IceSheet - Divide). It will have a big ice core experiment happening thereover the next three years because of the 3400 m of ice and it is right atthe continental divide so they don't have to worry about "flow" of the icewith time as much as in other places.

Spent Thanksgiving out on the iceshelf in "snowcraft school". We learned survival techniques like buildingsnow structures, how to repair stoves, find someone in a white out, useVHF and HF radios etc. I slept behind a big ice block wall that I helpedbuild. The weather is cold and has been snowy but thankfully not muchwind. It is suppose to pick up tomorrow dropping the temps below zero (F)with the wind chill. I have snowmobile school and hazardous material handling on Monday.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My freeze dried Turkey Teryakiwas memorable since I ate it sitting in a snow kitchen I also helped digout with Mt Erabus spewing its steam 20 miles away.

p.s. What kind of suggestions, Susan? If about reminding people, I think a couple months back I sent out an email to everyone, but the response was so nonexistent I am wondering whether the email reached them.

Alas

The poor blog has been so ignored of late. I look down on the updates and it's mostly just Lucy's and mine name that showed up, with two of Anna's. In all practical senses, it seems like a few people have forgotten about this blog (some still read it, I know).
I wonder if they even remember that the blog existed.

Sad moment there. When the memories go, the stories are the only thing that reminds us of the past. The stories and the *checks* countless surveys that we've once filled out, once upon a time.

People act on the past, so why not the memories?
Suggestions, anyone?

Happy Thanksgiving!

4 photos and a slice of pie....

Mike sighs, but it's a content sigh. Or as close to content as he's likely to get for the time being. His great aunt and great uncle are out of the house, visiting, there is a good show on the TV, he has a can of soda in his fist, very little homework, and no school. It’s almost blissful, especially the no-school part, because it means that there’re no weird things going on and he gets to relax a little.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nick wanders past the living room entrance and enters the kitchen, carrying something. It occurs to him that this's the third time that has happened within the past five minutes.

He waits. A few moments later Nick leaves, then returns again, carrying a large book that looks like it ought to belong to a museum. Mike follows him into the kitchen, where he notices the various things cluttered on the counter and concludes that his friend is either about to build a fort of kitchen utensils or about to attempt to cook for an army.

“Nick,” says Mike after a moment of incredulous silence, during which he concludes that there must be a reason, however strange, behind the fort-building. “What are you doing?”

“I am going to make a pie,” Nick declares, picking up a few of the things from one side of the kitchen and transferring it to the other side for no reason that Mike can fathom.

“Please tell me you’re referring to the math constant pi in your weird French grammar.”

One of the main reasons why he invited Nick over to his house over the Thanksgiving break is that, despite of the dorms remaining open, the dining places are all going to be closed and Mike can’t bear the thought of Nick trying to cook for himself. Therefore, while watching Nick digging out a package of flour from a cabinet, he is forced to wonder if something in his well-meaning offer has gone sadly awry.



“Very funny,” says Nick, locating a rolling pin. “No, I’m talking about food. It’s Thanksgiving in America and I’m going to make pumpkin pie. You know…when in Rome…”

“You know, I think that is the most horrible cliché I know,” Mike watches as Nick carries more things across the kitchen. “And how do you know where everything is?”

“Your great aunt,” explains Nick, locating a doomed can of cooked and mashed pumpkin. He smirks. “Don’t be jealous that she likes me better than you.”

“Ugh, you can have her.” He mutters, watching Nick carry a knife by holding it points first. He considers his current situation for a moment, then grabs the hood of his sweater and pulls it over his head, as far as it will go, in an attempt to forget what he is seeing. “I can’t bear to watch this…”

“I haven’t even done anything yet,” says Nick, indignantly.

“Exactly,” says Mike’s voice from the sanctuary of his hood.



captions:
["I can't bear to watch this.]
[Attempt at pie crust #1]
[Attempt at pie crust #2]
[Attempt at pie crust # Nick-you're-so-bad-it's-apalling-here-let-me-you-idiot]
[Happy Thanksgiving; <- eventual product (we hope)]

How Christmas is made..

Literally. Sort of.

Dude, this tree is going to be freaking huge when it's finished. They're using freaking cranes.
Saw this before going to the movie and immediately noticed the Gryffindor colors of the decorations *geek*

Yay holidays :)

As promised

One photo and a bump in the dark



Practice apparently can make the drawing process slightly faster, thought I'm not sure how much better it is. I don't think I'm getting the expressions quite right (but then, that might be because I don't have enough aggravated people around to study anymore). Same as before, will formalize if someone will de-linear-ize. (3 weeks of NaNo, I'm entitled to make up words now, yes.)

Actually, this would make an interesting desktop background...you know...black save the the area of flashlight.

Binky. Death's horse. Where did the 'e' go?

BINKY!

Apparently it is an "official" word for the happiest state a bunny can be in and is also used as a verb. As in "it binkied".


The happiest rabbit expression is commonly called a "binky." It's impossible to mistake for anything else, and the first time you see one you will probably wonder if the poor thing is having a convulsion. When a rabbit binkies, it jumps into the air and twists its head and body in opposite directions (sometimes twice) before falling back to the ground. This can be done while standing in one place, or while running, which is really weird looking, and is sometimes

You can do a head flick too, by quickly dropping your head sideways and then back up, with a bit of a twist. If you have long hair that gets flung, your rabbit is even more sure to get the message. Some happy rabbits will head flick back at you to show that they share your happiness. It's always nice to answer a head flick in kind. If you want to go for the full binky, your rabbit will understand if you jump up a little in one place while doing a head flick. I recommend you don't try to twist your body in mid-air like a rabbit will, especially if there is any furniture around, you have a history of back problems, or are over 45 years old. Trust me on this one.

Yipee! 245K movie

The full text (and much more) is here . Site shown by Kate.

SPEAKING OF KATE: we have decided to, from now on, greet each other by binkying :D So I thought we might as well incorporate that into the general Lunatics lifestyle.

p.s. AIM convo:

Silly Rain Girl (20:57:57): The happiest rabbit expression is commonly called a "binky."
Silly Rain Girl (20:58:02): Binky!!!!
armenianluna (20:58:10): hahaha nice
Silly Rain Girl (20:58:22): sheppard
Silly Rain Girl (20:58:24): 's hair
Silly Rain Girl (20:58:27): is a happy bunny
Silly Rain Girl (20:58:30): *squee*
armenianluna (20:58:43): and sheppard gets to groom it
armenianluna (20:58:47): *falls over laughing*
Silly Rain Girl (20:58:50): lol
Silly Rain Girl (20:58:56): the licking would be hard though
armenianluna (20:59:09): and getting your hair to groom you in return
armenianluna (20:59:22): lol can you just imagine hair requesting to be licked?
armenianluna (20:59:27): someone should draw that

ok this made me snort

"Anything scientists say about the superstring theory begins to sound worryingly like the sort of thoughts that would make you edge away if conveyed to you by a stranger on a park bench."

And then, later, this made me snort again:

"But even when all these [WIMPs and MACHOs] are added in, 2/3 of the universe is still missing from the balance sheet. For the moment we might very well call them DUNNOS (for Dark Unknown Nonreflective Nondetectable Objects Somewhere)."

[short history of nearly everything]

*goes back to hw*

Ditto

Three photos, one confiscated item, and a cookie [as promised]



Captions: [I'm sorry, it's pencil, it smears, and this all occured between cognitive psychology and fatalism in modern America so handwriting wasn't really my greatest concern.]

I. Mike's hair is stagin a protest while he sleeps.
II. It's discovered, much to the digust of his friends, that Nick not so much eats fries with ketchup as ketchup with fries. [Thought you'd enjoy this, Lucy.]
III. Mike learning to be mistrustful of his friend, Mssr. Lucille's backpack.

Bottom left with added/changed caption: Side picture: Exhibit A as extracted from the bottom of the said backpack. Despite of Mike's assertions, the gum had, in fact, only fossilized and not developed its own class of metabolising organisms.

Bottom right: arrow with the label "Lucy's cookie"; it's chocolate chip, not raisin.

[I've decided that cramming all the drawings on one page is a good idea for something that I'll inevitably *cough* scan. Am willing to cleaned up draft if someone else is willing to dedicate their time to de-line this one. Happy Saturday.]

*UPDATES*

Yaaay, I got

and .

The first one, ironically, was the only required science text I had managed to find in a library. But it was so nice I got the illustrated version (=.

November- Mike's

Mike’s great aunt’s house was very, very big and very, very empty and at the moment Zach reasoned that that was most definitely good because he didn’t think Mike’d have a way to explain their current state, much less the unconscious girl bleeding in Nick’s arms, to a very inquisitive and overly friendly relative.

There was a physical check up much like the first one with results similar to the first one. There was Zach calmly analyzing the contents of his stomach as he extracted a piece of wire from the girl’s shoulder. There was Mike’s sweater which was carefully discarded outside of the second story window that was Very High Up. There was Mike who diligently bandaged away and who, possibly out of concern for the girl’s health, kept Nick away from attempting to help with a combination of snide remarks, insults, and little orders such as “stop-hovering-over-my-shoulder-you-idiot-I’m-trying-to-work-here.”

There was Nick, offering to make everyone feel better by rummaging through the fridge and eventually pouring everyone generous amounts of soda and offering cookies. There was Zach, sitting on the bathroom floor feeling nauseated and Mike finally badgering out of him that the reason he was not a pre-med was because he couldn’t stand the sight of blood. There was Mike, sitting through the first shift until well past mid-night and Zach sitting through the second shift until dawn, because they really would like some answers about an event that felt like a bad sci-fi episode.

Finally, there was the girl, who woke up and started crying because she was SOLID, causing the thermometer in Zach’s hand to explode and Nick significant amounts of panic until Zach managed to convince him that he was bleeding a lot less than it looked like he was bleeding by invoking a lot of words such as “capillaries” and “epidermal cells” until Nick got sick of the lecture.

After that the problems escalated somewhat when they found out that the girl refused to tell them anything at all and had, to all appearances and assumptions, no relatives or guardians or place to live.

Zach reminded Mike that neither blinding anger nor torture was the way to go, especially since the first was hardly ever constructive, being blinding, and the second was ruled out by the eighth amendment. Nick reminded them that it was very early and they should both get a break and that was the stage when the girl fell back asleep.

The trio retreated into a guest room to contemplate the infinite mysteries of the world. Mike suggested that they start with aleph-null and continue upward.

[I was going to make a joke about the classes of infinity except I remembered that I don't remember anything about it. This week involved too much writing. I swear, it can't be healthy.]

Amen

...and which lesser Harry Potter character are you?

If I change three choices I get Dean Thomas. *grin*

[lets keep the blog alive :]

Look! An HP quiz! OMG how exciting, we've never seen something like this before!!11!!eleven!!

But this one is sort of different ;P. It only uses minor characters.

Well, go. *pushes towards the link*

...and which lesser Harry Potter character are you?

Aww I'm artsy and nice. This quiz is like MAGIC.

Halloween!

Mm, sugar.

Susan sent that to me yesterday, and I colored it even though I didn't have time to ;P. Here's the dialogue that goes with it (also from Susan):

"And what are YOU supposed to be?" demanded Mike,
eyeing Nick's costume with evident suspicion.

"Someone from what you guys call the Victorian
period," said Nick, regarding Mike's uniform with
a similar expression. "Please tell me you don't
have gun."

"Can't find a good-looking one in the store,"
grumbled Mike. He prodded the large, black felt
creation that Nick was holding. It sported a rakish,
if somewhat chewed-looking feather. "What's
this?"

"A hat," said Nick, a little hurt that Mike
couldn't recognize his favorite part of this
costume. "Like the ones they had back then, you
know?"

A pained expression crossed Mike's face, took a
detour, and settled somewhere on his forehead.
"You're not going to wear that, are you?"

"I am." Said Nick very firmly. "And you like it,
deep down inside. You know you do."

Mike crossed his arms and leaned back to see if they
were talking about the same thing. Nick, following
Mike's line of sight, held up his hat and gave Mike
a questioning look.

Apparently they were.

"Riiiiiiiight."

Nick's a musketeer, is what he is. *GRIN*

And here's something I doodled a while back. >.> It's Snape in the Pilsburry Dough Boy costume. Don't ask. I don't know.

Happy Halloween! =)

My baby is a princess.
I made the costume myself and took as many photos as I could in the 15 minutes she put up with it. I ended up taking most of them under the dining room table. =P

since the story's being poster here, lets have the pictures too :D

Halloween post coming later, but for now Susan's awesome picture of Nick and Mike which she let me color :D Yay, coloring stuff is always fun.


Yeah yeah, so Mike looks hotter, but Nick is totally the cute one. *hug*

(bigger and cleaner looking version of pic :here .)

o_O

I got an email from one of my professors (I emailed with a question first), and his signature includes the following:

"When Marriage is Outlawed,
Only Outlaws will have Inlaws."

I don't know why but it weirded me out for a minute. So random and irrelevant (considering he's an astronomy PhD).

It seems like a political view at first, but it's just a silly word play. x) Now I think he's cool. Well, he was the more fun professor out of the 4 that teach that one course to start with (it's a year-long course so we have a few profs).

November- "Isn't there always?"

“Isn’t there always?” retorted Mike. Something struck the street light nearby and it fell over with a clang, barely missing them. “Great, he’s aim’s improving—run faster people!”

It was a sensible order and it would’ve been better had they any way of carrying it out. Another lightning bolt struck a nearby convertible. Its lights went on and its alarms went off and the general racket, coupled with undiluted fear, was making Mike feeling positively murderous and so when Zach gave a strangled gasp and froze, causing Mike to skid to an abrupt halt, he was somewhere at his worst. “Dammit Zach! KEEP RUNNING!”

“Orange. Furry. Lots of teeth,” said Zach.

“Guys!” Nick shouted from somewhere up front.

“Zach,” Mike marched back to his friend, then jumped back when something that was orange, furry, and had a great deal of teeth lunched itself at him from behind Zach. “ARG! GE’ITOFF!”

The orange thing had attached itself to the front of Mike’s sweater like a horribly bloated piece of orange lint and refused to budge. When Zach approached it with a tentative hand it snarled, uncurled its head, and bared a set of impressive fangs at him, and Zach snatched his hand away with a reflex that might’ve impressed Mike had there not been a lightning bolt waiting (in more sense than one) to strike them down.

“Good grief,” said Zach.

“It’s not doing anything.” Mike moved tentatively, the orange bundle of fur stayed where it was like it’d grown there. “Alright, let’s move it.”

“Are you okay?”

“Let’s see, I’m trying to prevent myself from being killed and there’s a weird thing attached to the front of my sweater,” Mike decided to go for a generous helping of sarcasm. It made him feel better, sort of. Only not really. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

“Just a thought,” muttered Zach, as they caught up with Nick. The feat was made a great deal more possible by the fact that Nick was still carrying the girl.

In college, crazy things were known to happen on Friday nights, however, Mike felt that they had just stepped the limit. Okay, not so much stepped over the limit as zoomed over it at eighty-something miles per hour to land with the splat at the bottom of the cliff. Fine, they hadn’t gotten to the ‘splat’ part yet, and Mike would like to stay as far from that part as possible, namely by maintaining a reasonable run-for-your-life sprint.

They went down one boulevard, rounded the corner when the road stopped and sped down another street. It was late, the lights were on, the streets were empty though they could hear the tantalizing sound of TVs and dinner taking place inside houses. It sounded absurdly normal before a low rumble of thunder cut off the sounds.

Something clattered out of the many folds of whatever the girl was wearing and landed with a crack on the cement. Zach ran past it, stopped for a moment, and was about to turn back when the lightning promptly electrocuted whatever that thing was. Or had been, at this stage.

“Okay, maybe not,” said Zach under his breath.

“Hurry up!” hollered Mike, who was secretly condemning many things in his head, from meteorologists to the stale package of popcorn.

Two blocks later they realized that the lightning had stopped. They kept going another block because being frightened and adrenalin-filled, stopping and waiting didn’t appeared to be a viable option the first time round. By the forth block they realized that the sky had cleared and Mike eloquently cursed fate for all that it had put him through before leading his somewhat paranoid friends back to his great aunt’s house, where they’d originally planned to spent the weekend.

Plans, by general consensus, seldom worked out the way they were supposed to.

[edit: okay, in grand total, this is the forth time I've written this part...isn't that pathetic? On the whole though, I've decided to just write this story for the sake of writing this story. Makes it easier. Am going to stick with original depiction of Zach (also will be feeling oddly guilty if see the guy who looked like Zach in the DC again), freckles and all. Am going to develope the story without over-thinking it. Have decided over-thinking is the worst crime you can possibly commit to an existing story plot. Will stop.]

HAPPY HALLOWEEN SOON TO COME

Dear Diary,

I was afeared that you have been sadly neglected for weeks and weeks hence but I see that, much to all of our relief (I'm sure), that you have, in fact, still devout followers who, even if they don't post every day, read regularly. In fact, the more recent posts suggests that you may one day again rejoin the living. May I offer my sincerely congratuations, your presence have been sorely missed.

Meanwhile, Lucy, you might try starting on the LUNATICS Bible on your own or with Anna or whoever else wants to join. I'll drop in later?

This's the original text...

Genesis 1
The Beginning
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was [a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

This is somewhere along the lines of Anna's idea...

The Beginning
1. In the beginning Blog created bread with crust.
2. Now the crust was dry and tasteless, nothing was over the surface of the wholewheat, and the spirit of Blog was hovering over the slice.
3. And blog said, "Let there be peanut butter," and there was peanut butter.


Then something about jelly on day two and fuzzy socks on day three.
Amuse yourselves, by all means.

Dear diary,

..Is it just me or I update here too much?

Anyway. So we were driving to school (er, college) today and I kept seeing HP 4 posters EVERYWHERE. On billboards, on bus stations, on buses themselves.

And then, we were driving through Hollywood, and there was a building the two entire sides of which were HP 4 posters. *stare*

Too bad the posters are kind of ugly most of the time. Otherwise, very cool.

Oh, on an unrelated note, my psych book, while talking about babies referred to them either as "a baby" or "it". Oh man, that amused me. So 'it' is like official and accepted in reference to babies?

it was Newton, he's to blame!

"As a student, frustrated by the limitations of conventional mathematics, he invented an entirely new form, the calculus, but then told no one about it for twenty-seven years."
-pg. 46 (A Short History of Nearly Everything) <-- my favorite textbook (maybe b/c it's not even a textbook)

Psh, but couldn't keep his mouth shut long enough (i.e. forever), could he? ;P

Heh, anyway, I think I always knew he was the one but the knowledge was somehow forgotten amidst the test-induced violent tendencies expressed in daydreams of strangling the inventor of calculus.

Back to hw.

bwahaha

Makani is too awesome for words. And she keeps getting more awesome. Dooood.
STRINGS

November- There was't a warning.

There wasn’t a warning. There should’ve been. Instead there was one science fiction movie with horribly over-done special effects, a package of slightly stale popcorn, and a five-minute stroll in the streets before the confrontation of The Girl lying facedown on the street in front of them, unconscious and bleeding.

Many things are known to induce panic in humans, blood being somewhat near the top of the list. There were blood in this current situation, and there were a rather lot of it.

Mike did what any logical, thinking person would do under the given circumstances: he checked that the girl was real, that he was real, that everything else about this situation was real, then calmed freaked out.

“Mon Dieu! Que diable—” Besides him, Nick was doing the slightly less eloquent and more children-friendly version of the same thing, albeit in French.

“Hell,” said Zach quite simply, looking faintly sick.

“Okay, let’s be calm. I’m calm. I’m calm. Are you calm?” Mike looked at Nick.

“MOI?!” Nick stared at him like he just said something crazy, or stupid, or stupidly crazy, which wasn’t far from truth, and waved a hand in front of Mike’s face. “Bonjour?”

“Maybe not.” Mike paced two slightly erratic circles around the inert figure on the ground. “Give me some help here, Zach!”

“You mean hysteria isn’t an option?” Zach took a deep breath and cautiously edged closer to the girl.

“You’re suppose to be the calm and objective one, is she alive? Is she going to stay alive? What the hell is going on?” Mike demanded, tracing another lopsided circle with his path and nearly tripping over Zach, who was kneeling beside the girl and generally getting himself in the way.

“Can’t help you with the last question,” said Zach, who looked somewhat dazed. “But she’s alive and, uh, I think she’ll stay alive. She…doesn’t seem to be injured seriously at all.”

“Oh. Well, that’s just fine then,” said Mike. “Nick, get a grip and start talking in English. Do we call the ambulance?”

Nick stared at him then slowly shook his head.

“Why?” asked Zach, in what he obviously thought was a very reasonable tone of voice. A split second later lightning struck not three feet away from where they were standing, and a swiftly gathering storm let them know that they would expect more just like it, except perhaps with better aim. “Okay the sky was clear a few moments ago, I am awake, clear-headed and freaked out and there’re lightning bolts about to strike us.”

“Well that’s just great,” Mike grunted as he picked up the girl. “My God she’s heavier than she looks. Nick, a little help here?” Another lightning bolt struck, much closer this time and frying an unhappy newspaper stand nearby. “NICK?”

Zach was frantically searching the sky above him. “Let’s get out of here let’s get out of here let’s get out of here—”

“We’re taking her along?” asked Nick, wide-eyed and with a heavy accent.

“What does it LOOK like I’m doing?” Yelled Mike, exasperated. Or as close to yelling as someone who was strained with a heavy burden could go. Without another word Nick took the girl from Mike. “Let’s go, Zach,” called Mike.

“It’s ten o’ clock, on a Friday night, and there’re things I don’t understand trying to kill us,” said Zach, giving the sky a last worried frown before running after his friends. “Is there something I’m missing?”

[I'm giving a heads-start on November, seeing how I'll be doing NaNoWriMo. Happy? =p ]

October- "Bye!"

“Bye!” said Nick, who was already establishing his cheerfulness level for the day.

Zach opened the door, made a vague hand motion that might, if one was very generous, be called a wave, and left. Mike and Nick stared at the closed door for a moment, not because it did something strange, but because it didn’t do anything strange and remained unlocked as it was suppose to do under this sort of circumstances.

There were many mysteries in the world, and the number was still climbing with a certainty and skill that could put a mountain goat to shame.

“Where did she go?” Nick finally asked, as he climbed to his feet and checked the time. It was around six thirty, much earlier than he would’ve normally gotten out of bed.

“Hell if I know,” said Mike, looking at his watch in turn. “Who is she?”

Nick sighed. “Hell if I know.”

[end of October. whee]

. . .

Hey, look you guys, apparently Death Eaters ran out of funds and are using PAINTED CONSTRUCTION CONES for their hats.

WTF.

psych book

"Our catchphrases, hem lengths, ceremonies, foods, traditions, vices, and fads (think Harry Potter) all spread by one person copying another." (pg. 333)

Harry Potter is not a fad :(

October- "Wait."

“Wait. What?” Mike was instantly awake. He glanced at the empty bed, squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them and stared at the bed. The hallucination didn’t disappear which meant, more or less, that this was real. “How?”

“Door?” Suggested Nick, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

“Locked still…this is the sort of door that you’ll need a key to relock from the outside, right?” Zach yawned too, because yawning was among one of the most contagious things in the world, after bad jokes and really weird fashion trends.

“Yeah,” yawned Mike. “Window’s fine? And stop yawning, whoever started it.”

“Window locked,” confirmed Zach, stifling another yawn. “And that would be you and I can’t stop it so I’ll just wander back to my room and sleep before I fall flat on my face, ‘k?”

“What, you’re not gonna stay?” asked Nick, throwing the pillow back where it was suppose to be, before it attacked him.

“I doubt sleeping’ll help with the falling, but keep trying, Zach,” said Mike at the same time, trying to get his hair seated in an orderly fashion and failing.

“If the girl’s well enough to decide to sneak out on her own, and that’s what I’m assuming happened, then there’s no point in me staying around. Not to mention,” Zach struggled with another yawn, lost the fight, and yawned enormously. “An’ I’m pretty much useless until I get more sleep anyway. And thanks,” he added over his shoulder for Mike’s benefit as he trudged out the door.

“Of course,” said Mike, stretching and wincing as half of the muscles in his back declared war against the other half. “See ya.”