Normalcy

Today was nicer than most have been recently, with sunlight and blue sky visible between the clouds.  When I opened the door to my car this afternoon, I found a small puddle of water on the floor in front of the drivers' seat.  No doubt snow had fallen off my shoes and melted while my car was parked in the sun.

Various half-plans for removing the water drifted idly through my mind as I sat down and turned on the engine.  I could turn the heat in the car on high, in spite of the warmth of the day, and crack the windows so that the water would evaporate.  I could try to somehow pick up the rubber mat and bend it into a bowl shape so that the water wouldn't spill, then dump it outside the car.  Then in the midst of my musings I wondered, What would a normal person do?  Probably just get a rag to soak it up and clean it at home.

Wait a minute... back up that train of thought.  Did I just think what I think I thought?  What would a normal person do?  What kind of a thought is that?  It just came unbidden into my head, so it might mean that subconsciously I don't think of myself as a normal person.  But is that a good thing or a bad thing?  It could be a sign of some perceived line of seperation between myself and most other people, resulting in some sort of deep-seated neurosis.  On the other hand, since what a normal person would do wasn't among my first plans of action, maybe it's true in any case.  I'm not normal, and those thoughts are just an affirmation of my acceptance of non-normalcy!

...  Do normal people worry about these things?

Well crap.

Underground Lecturehall is finished!

Everyone at our writing group said it was great, and I'm actually reasonably pleased with it too.  I'll get the rest of it posted soon, I promise.  They're really pushing me to try to get it published, (possibly even for actual money).  So I might have to take it down again.

Still on an enthusiastic high from their good reviews, this evening I surfed around a little on various writers market websites, looking into who might be interested in a random long-ish steampunk story.  I meandered through the pro and semi-pro zines, clicked through the e-zines, and clicked on every submissions link I saw.  Soon I found that...

Crap, I have no idea what I'm doing.

Well, in spite of that disheartening revelation I'm going to try it anyway.  If I manage to fail miserably or get completely ripped off.  I'll know better for next time.

And now enough of that.  On to the next shiny thing!

Vampire Dream

Snow, snow, and more snow outside.  Meanwhile, inside under a mountain of blankets, I dreamed about vampires.

I'd been invited to stay at my Great-Great-Uncle Harry's home for the week.  I knew absolutely nothing about him, other than that he lived in a huge victorian house in the country somewhere outside of Chicago.  The year was uncertain, but everything had a late nineteenth century feel to it.

My rooms were cavernously huge, though sparsely decorated.  Two beds that looked better suited for a hotel room were set against the wall on the left, and opposite them was a small table and chairs.  The far wall was made up of stained glass and warped glass windows, and a door in them opened onto a balcony overlooking a vast dining hall.

That night, Harry was hosting a private dinner.  I wasn't invited, but could easily watch unobserved through some of the clearer glass of the windows.  As they entered, it was like a parade of fashion from the 1920's.  I ducked away from the window as the server walked by, carrying a crystal punch bowl filled with a suspiciously dark red liquid.  I had the distinct impression that he knew I was there, but he said nothing as he served the liquid to the guests.  Nothing else was served, and the plates remained empty as they drank their dinner from champagne glasses and conversed politely, a picture of modern civility.

The next evening, I answered a knock at my door and was surprised to see Cris.  She wore a strapless green gown with a pattern of whorls and spirals that traveled all the way to her ankles.  In the excitement and fear of the night before, I'd completely forgotten that we had been planning to attend a formal dance that night with our respective partners.  Fortunately we had plenty of time before we were due to meet them, and she waited as I ducked into the shower and scrambled to figure out which clothes were my formal ones.

I had just finished getting into my suit when the lights in the adjacent dining hall turned on.  I immediately switched off the lights in my room and crept to the window with Cris.  The same server stood with his back to us just outside the window, with another punch bowl of red liquid.  "Want to try a glass?" he asked without turning around.  I put a warning hand on Cris' shoulder and remained silent.  Shrugging, the man carried the bowl down to the waiting guests.

That night, the dinner progressed with far more energy.  There was laughter and dancing as the guests drained their glasses with relish.  While we watched, the waiter came up to stand with his back to our window again.  "They aren't normally like this," he said worriedly.

I tugged Cris' hand toward the door.  "I'm getting a malicious vibe from them," I whispered.

"I know!" she hissed excitedly.  She looked at me then and I was surprised to see eagerness in her eyes.  With a jolt I realized that the thing I was afraid was about to happen, she was looking forward to. Cris liked vampire stories and had a large collection of novels and movies at home about them.  To her they were the inhabitants of a mysterious, darkly seductive world.

Somewhere deep inside, the part of myself that always remains concious yelled at me, You aren't in her dream!  She's in yours!  This world wasn't the elegant and sensual masquerade of the vampires.  It was the deadly and unforgiving existense of the vampire hunter.  Here, if the vampires caught you spying on them, they didn't initiate you into their ranks.  They killed you.

"Uh oh," the server said quietly.  Down in the dining hall, the guests had run out of punch.  They were now looking up at our window contemplatively.

I grabbed Cris' hand and dragged her toward the door.  There was a sound of growling and breaking glass behind us as we ran out into the hall.  I slammed the door and bolted the door, but not before catching a glimpse of snarling canine jaws and black fur.  The sound of claws scratching wood came from the other side of the door.

Cris glared at me accusingly as we leaned against the door.  "In any of your books," I shouted over the barking and howling.  "Has anyone become a vampire after being torn apart by vampire wolves?"

She thought for a moment before shaking her head.  "No."

"Okay then."  We ran.

After a minute or so, Cris stopped me.  She was having trouble running in her dress.  I pulled out my knife, prepared to slit it with a callous, hero-style disregard for its value.  Cris spared me a contemptuous glare before reaching down and revealing a concealed zipper.  It ran from the hem almost up to her hip, allowing for both fashion and freedom of movement.  I sheathed my blade and we continued on.

It became jumbled after that, as I was starting to wake up.  We got stuck in, and escaped from, an elevator.  Eventually we managed to escape the mansion in a coach.

I've had conversations with vampire fans before, and what would happen if they found a vampire in their room.  It seems to me that the natural reaction would be to fear for my life, but apparently their first reaction is excitement at the possibility that he might turn them into a vampire too.  The part that struck me most was the thought, You aren't in her dream!  She's in yours!  Maybe I should call Cris and ask if she had any weird dreams last night.

Vacation foiled again

I'd hoped to take this next weekend off and get a much needed break from the theater for a while.  As soon as he heard this, the DM decided he wasn't going to stand for it and swung by for a surprise inspection.  So I spent yesterday enduring a constant littany of "you-suck-you-suck-you-suck."  The quiet satisfaction I felt at the fact that he had to search so hard for things about which to gripe was squelched by the constant undermining of my authority.
Then he cornered and quizzed my assistant managers so that he could ascertain how well they could function in the projection booth if I wasn't immediately on hand for a couple of days.  Although they could thread the film through the projectors just fine, and knew how to troubleshoot problems like tangling and replacing bulbs, he found them lacking in other areas.  Apparently, they didn't know what some of the parts were called, and couldn't completely take the projector apart and clean it.  These skills were essential to running the theatre for the weekend.  I'm not sure how, but he assured me they were as he vetoed my vacation request.
It wasn't until afterward that he shot me a challenging look with eyebrows raised and it all fell into place.  This wasn't just another case of him being an ass; he was actually making some kind of vindictive attack.  He didn't give a crap about how much the assisstant managers knew about projection.  Even if they'd measured up to whatever rediculously high standard he set, he would have found some other reason to shoot down my vacation request.
Now this would normally be the time when someone would say, "So he wants to play hardball, does he?  Fine, bring it on!"  But the truth is that I suck at hardball.  I need to find some other way to resolve this.

A lack of reaction

There was a gay guy hanging out in the lobby after his movie ended at the theatre while I was locking up.  At least I assume he was gay from the fishnet stockings and makeup, though I guess he could have just been an efeminite transvestite.
I didn't pay him much mind.  I was finishing closing, switching things off and locking doors when he asked if we had a lost and found.  He said he'd lost a black and silver necklace at a movie a while ago.  Then he gave me a look like he was expecting some kind of reaction.  Something more than, "Okay, I'll go see if anything's been turned in."
Something similar happened last week when I was picking up Dylan at his appartment, which he shares with a lesbian couple.  The girls were talking in their room with the door open while I waited, saying things along the lines of, "I can't get up with your legs wrapped around me."  It could have been pillow-talk, but they were talking a little loudly.  Then one of them came out with the same expectant expression.
It was like they'd said, "Yes that's right, we're gay.  Now the ball is in your court."  I'm not sure what they were hoping for, but I got the impression they were disappointed by my lack of reaction.

Customer cons

A woman came up to me at the theatre and asked, "Do you have a lost & found here?'
I nodded.  "Yes."
"Did anyone turn in something small?" She held her hands up in a vaguely rectangular shape.
I waited for her to finish, but it seemed that was all she was going to say.  "Like...?" I prompted.
She hesitated for a second before answering.  "Like a wallet or a purse?"
I shook my head.  "I don't think anything's been found recently, but I can go check.  What did it look like?"
Another long second passed while she considered her answer.  "Black?"
"...okay."  It was kind of busy, so I'd been running on automatic and hadn't really been giving the situation much thought.  This was enough to kick-start my suspicious nature though, so I stopped and aksed, "What's your name?"
"Oh, it's not mine.  My friend lost it and wanted me to ask about it."
I waited another moment before asking, "And their name was...?"
"Judy?"
In the office I did a token search, and wasn't surprised that there wasn't anything belonging to someone named Judy.
Behind me, she must have heard me digging through the lost & found box and recognized the sound of the many pairs of sunglasses that had been found.  "Oh, my son lost his sunglasses here last week too."
I turned around, careful to keep the box out of sight.  "What did they look like?"
"I don't really remember, could I just-?" She tried to look past me into the box.
By then I was getting tired of her wasting my time and I started herding her out of the office.  "No, sorry.  He'll have to come in and get them himself."
She gave me a final glare and stormed off.  It was about ten minutes later that she found me again, tearing tickets.  "What about cash?  Did anybody turn in any cash?"
I didn't answer, and just looked at her.  It was one of those statements that took my brain a couple of seconds to fully process.  Did I hear that right?  After all that did she really just ask for any cash that might be laying around in the lost & found?  How stupid was she and how stupid did she think I was?  She must have read the expression on my face and guessed what I was thinking, because she didn't wait for an answer and left.

A Random thing to know

The expression 'white elephant gift' comes from South-East Asia, where white elephants were believed to be sacred.  It was considered a terrible transgression to force these animals to do any kind of work.  Receiving a white elephant as a gift was a sign of great favor, but was also a heavy burden since the animal had to be fed and cared for but could not do any work to offset the cost of its upkeep.

Successful visit

Kirstin came up again last week, and this time I was able to actually hang out and have fun with her.  I'd managed to get my hands on a couple of free passes to ski A-Basin (a few free movie tickets may have changed hands), and convinced Kirstin to go skiing with me.  She'd never skied downhill before, but had gone cross-country skiing and rollerblading.  At first thought you might not think that knowing how to rollerblade would help in learning to ski, but they both require paying lots of attention to where your feet are pointing.  We stuck to the bunny slope most of the day, and by the end I could tell she had gotten comfortable enough to try going faster and  making sharper turns.  True, she fell down a lot (we both did), but after a few hours she had the hang of it enough that she let me take her higher up the mountain to try one of the longer green runs.  (green=easy, blue=medium, black=hard).

Having survived A-Basin with only minor bruising and sunburns, we returned all our rented equipment and went to Nozawa for sushi.  In my damp, disheveled condition I felt like a scruff and argued for getting takeout rather than sitting down in the quiet well-maintained resturaunt, but Kirstin wouldn't hear of it.  After stuffing ourselves with rice and seafood, we spent the rest of the evening watching Firefly.  I'd never gotten around to watching all the episodes, and Kristin declared she would make me.  In the breaks between, I showed her some of my own eclectic collection.  Some of which she thought were quite silly (Scott Pilgrim, Brak, Space Ghost), and others she just plain didn't get (Sealab 2021).

I almost managed to drag her along to game night again, until the weather started turning nasty and she decided to try to beat it back home before she got stuck up here for another week.  My own opinion was that that wouldn't be a bad thing, but responsibillity won out over goofing off with friends and she headed home.

So I declare this visit a success, particularly when compared to the last one.