the fangirl riseth

Whilst sitting maturely in the office at my computer, looking all important-like, I'm reading this.

Happy Friday!

Boom!

Did it. Wrestled down the query. Started from the heart and worked outwards.

I entered the problem-solving zone. Noise became too much. I could hold conversations, but I didn't contribute much. I could sense where the soft areas were and had to figure out the way to navigate through them.

I wouldn't sleep until I did it.

...

Read: Divergent, Veronica Roth; Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

the ice will do it to you.

Wanted:

Someone to write this query for me. Dear Lord. Nothing is working!

La historia proxima

Can't you see it? Noon on the town square, boots kicking up the desert dust. Here she is, girl and pistol. Stranger comes to town.

electricity

What's the difference between a deadline and a live wire?

Instead, freezing rain.

They say it takes one week to adapt to a new technology and I wonder if that science works for situations. To the left a bit, that's right, there you go, get a look at that view. Feel the skin crack in snowless winter air. Remember that.

disembodied

I float through the past three days. Blink to wake up, shake my head. It's not enough. I have to remind myself to look before I move across the dotted yellow, exaggerating the twist of my head as I search for nearby headlights.

Yesterday, between sessions of coaching, I walked through a mall both with purpose and no plan. Nobody bumped into me. Nobody looked at me. I didn't want either. I walked into one store, thought it was too hot, and circled back out.

Some things cause sensations, like the fall of a single snowflake on a bare foot. The cold metal chair on a colder night. A high score, yes, we'll take it.

Back on the highway, I wonder how to make these things last.

everybody's working for the weekend

dream dwellers

I want to hide in fiction. But there are voices above me. Break out, break out. Come to the surface. 

Will you please be quiet, please?

Blogger is so very silent.

Is it time to seek out other blogging lands?

...

1-11 always makes me think of:

It was a pleasure to burn

I don't want the music. I need it. I consume it like it might disappear somewhere between green exit signs or under the root that catches my sneaker. There's always the warning: Don't exhaust it or else you'll never love those songs the same way again and I listen, but not always.

...

Read: Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton

When seven eight nine

Eight miles is much different than seven, or maybe that's the effect of having run the day before. Either way, at the end of it, I feel that same wobbly sensation as the spring. It's not in my head, necessarily, but in my entire body. The feeling that I could drift off at any moment. 

I run for time, not distance, and at fifty-seven minutes, I inexplicably began to run the way I would to finish a race. There were twenty-three minutes left. I don't know why, but I followed it. I followed myself over the roots with rapid steps like football players pummeling through tires in training and around this bend and that bend and it felt like it never really slowed, the feeling, until the clock hit twenty and I ran an extra ten seconds and stopped.

I steady myself with music. No, I am not ready to leave this world yet.

I can't believe that we would lie in our graves

"I don't want to sit here a year from now having the same conversation," she said.

Promise?

To reInvent fire

Separation brings out the best on me.

...

So does a good writing partner.

Lena encouraged me last night to dust off the old screenplay. I have 53 pages and the journey plotted out. I just need to get there...which I've yet to do in two years.

I've had a few excellent friends over the years with whom I have collaborated. We understand each other's beats and build off of each other's rhythms. Lena is no exception. Moments after reading, she was already roasting the main character in a Michael Scott fashion. We threw a few ideas around. She understood the heart of the story and her suggestions reflected such.

Now, I just might finish it.

el dia de los reyes, and a forgetful sandwich

"When you weren't here on Monday, Rob and I got into a fight about him spotting my back handspring on beam," Sarah says.

"Why?" I say.

"We have trust issues," she says.

...

I've gained a certain kind of resolve since the beginning of November. No need for a new year. In my mind, there's an estimate of how many days per week I should run. Sometimes I meet it and sometimes I don't. No matter. The bigger matter is that each time I run, I do no less than four miles.

For as long as I've been running, I've been the queen of small runs between the tougher workouts. Twenty minutes, thirty minutes. Break a small sweat and call it a day, hit the showers. But I realized in November that instead of saving my body for those longer runs that happened sometimes, the small runs were just boring.

No more.

There's a difference between three and four miles. Three miles is just about a 5K, a distance most people can show up and run. Four miles requires a bit more concentration. A little more commitment. It's a look toward longer races.

I figure: four miles becomes the new twenty minutes, six miles becomes the new thirty minutes, and now we're building to something.

something, something about this place

You find it charming (and, though you'll never admit it, probably a little weird) that I read the same stories over and over. The hero reminds me of you.

I think we make a good team, you and I. I think we have the right kind of magic.

...

Read: Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card

"To fly is to be perfectly ourselves."

No vertigo from these heights. Rolling hills keep me grounded, make that burning almost too much. I bear it.

...

A new year, a new lack of resistance for a list.

Read: The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman; Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy Kaling; High Fidelity, Nick Hornby; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick. Many rhetorical questions to be answered in these titles.

Seen: Winter's Bone; The Kids Are All Right