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Speaking of which, I'm moving up over the course of this week, I start getting paid soon, and classes start in early September, I'm very excited. I actually got a bunch of kitchen and bath stuff today from Target (as well as new shoes!).
I also went over to Nick's for some BBQ and hanging out today, which allowed me to see him, Erik, Tom, Jon, Steve and Greg, the people outside of my parents that I missed the most while at SLI (because I'm always in a state of missing Jen and am used to it by now). Talking about WoW and 40k and D&D made me realize just how much I miss gaming and how badly I want it back in my life. Gotta see about fixing that when I get settled in.
Well that's it for now, I'm going to bed soon.
So anyway, there's only three days of class left in Pittsburgh, and our flight leaves at 9:45 on Saturday. I will miss some people who are staying on in Pittsburgh, but I'm really excited about going to Moscow (of course), and a little intimidated at the same time. Ireland was easy, I speak English (and apparently can pass as Canadian), but my Russian is... well it's weak, I mean come on, I've been speaking Russian since early September. Not even a year yet.
Before I know it August 14th will be here and I'll be flying home. The prospect of getting home is kind of like the end of a good movie. You want the movie to continue because it's so good, but you want it to end because you want to know what happens. I'm going to enjoy my time in Russia for sure, but I'm also excited to get home and move to Lansing.
Classes start at MSU something like September 2nd, and I'm really excited. I always look forward to the start of a new semester, but this is a new school, and whole new program and a whole new life. It's a lot to look forward too. And it's a little intimidating too. But I'm going into this planning to bust my ass and not have a social life, so that when things aren't as hard as I expect them too, it's a wicked relief.
This post is pretty much Steve's fault, we were talking about MSU via Facebook and it got me thinking about the future. Not that I haven't been, mind you, but I also felt like writing while sitting around and listening to Mudvayne.
Party was Thursday night, and it went off without a hitch. I don't know how many people actually came but I'm putting the numbers in the high twenties, over all.
We drained a quarter barrel of Yingling (my new favorite beer) but didn't hit the liquor as hard as I'd have liked, there's a bunch of it left. Maybe we can finish that on Saturday. I got good and drunk though, thank you very much.
We played some flip cup although there's this wicked bevel on our dining room table that made it kind of a bitch. I intended to play beer pong with Helen and or Valya, but that never actually happened. Matt, Sam and I started drinking at like 8, the party started at 9, and by 10:45 I was drunk, but I held onto it for the whole night, which was nice.
I say that I intended to play beer pong but forgot too because I ended up sitting with Angela for like an hour and a half without realizing how long were were just sitting there talking. Yay for bonding!
I also got to actually talk to Ruth, who I hadn't really interacted with yet. Oh, and there was drunken jumping up and down and screaming like a teenage girl with Helen, so really it was a pretty normal night for me. We were very excited about the fact that we're going to Moscow and that we were drunk that that we'll get to get drunk in Moscow.
Only a couple of people got sick, there was no drama, and the mess is overall pretty mild. Floor needs a mopping though, there were some spills and the keg did sort of blow it's wad all over the foyer when Sam was tapping it. Angela committed a party foul rather early on and I had to teach these people how to ticket someone for such a trespass. As I texted to Tom, it's like living with primitives. They call Waterfalls "Kings" and have different rules and they don't ticket on party fouls. Issac thinks that we're the primitive ones, and attributes our South Eastern Michigan party behavior to some bullshit about Manifest Destiny going around Michigan.
You are wrong sir. Michigan does it better. Ask Tim Allen.
Last Friday was Slovak happy hour, which I was very excited about because that is my people's food. Well it turns out that my people's food is quite like Polish food (at least what was served there), which isn't too surprising, West Slavs and all.
Anyhoo, after that there was some drinking at the house before Matt (Kewley), Bettina and I went to see Away We Go which was really good. Then we went to Pizzaria Uno and then Bettina dropped us off at home and I went to bed a little before the rest of the housemates got home.
Saturday there was reading (a chapter by Lewis Siegelbaum in a edited volume on Russian history that Lauren bought at random) and I watched a couple more episodes of "Brigada" with Matt Jennings. "Brigada" is this 15 episode Russian TV series about a kid that comes back from Afganastan in 1989 and gets involved in organized crimes (this is a common theme in contemporary Russian film). It jumps from 89 to91 to 95 to 97 to 2000 though, which is pretty cool. We're only four episodes in.
Saturday night, however, I went to Sphinx Cafe and Hookah Lounge with Mary (from my class), Helen and Issac (from Lauren's class), which was pretty sweet. There was a belly dancer, and good smoothies and mango flavored tobacco which we couldn't even smoke all of because wow they give you a lot when you order the large hookah.
Afterwards we walked to Issac's because he wanted to make us gin and tonics, as he is convinced they are they best drink ever, and we all hadn't really had them. I'd had one before and didn't like it, and didn't like it this time either. Tastes like a pine tree man. Eww.
Anyhoo, way later than we should have left, I walked the girls to their dorm and then walked my own bad self home. Took an hour and I got home at 3 AM. Pretty good walk though. I miss walking at night, actually.
Sunday I did homework and read and watched the first episode of "The Prisoner" over on the AMC site, which is pretty cool but I don't think I'll get finished before Moscow.
This is a short week, because we get Friday off on account of the 4th of July on Saturday, so we're having a party that night. It should be... big. I haven't played host to a party in a long time, mostly because my parent's haven't been out of town (because I don't want to keep them up, they don't care so long as we clean up, for clarification) and also it's kind of a pain. But this is pretty much a once in a lifetime chance here, so what the hell. Plus there's a certain sweetness to being able to just crawl into your "own" bed when you get tired, and not have to worry about getting home or sleeping on a couch or some shit. It allows one to go to bed still drunk, which is awesome.
I guess there isn't much else to say except that we're basically inviting the entire Russian and Polish sections of the program, so it should be pretty sweet. Pittsburgh Adventures Vol. 3 will certainly reflect upon this party.
Fridays feature [insert Slavic culture here] Happy Hours, which involve music and lots of food. This past Friday was Bulgarian Happy Hour, and also involved dancing, which was totally spur of the moment. That makes it even more awesome. So after about a solid half hour of Bulgarian folk dancing I missed the bus, didn't feel like waiting around for it, and walked home from campus. This took 45 minutes and turned me into a sweaty disgusting mess. Whoo!
There was a group called Slavic Soul Party that was playing at a Polish dive bar which Matt, Lola, Matt and I were planning on going to. G, who is our new med student roommate was going to go with us too, so we got ourselves some booze, ordered a pizza, and began predrinking at like 7. Played a few drinking games, did a shot of vodka with the Matts (yes there were pickles) and headed out. Except we never did manage to figure out how to get to the bar in question.
Adventure time! Katie will be so proud. We caught a bus towards campus and had some drinks at Hemingway's, which is a pretty cool little bar on campus where Matt, Valya and I couldn't get beers at lunch earlier that day because Tessa is only 19 (addendum: since I'm over 25, I can be responsible for making sure that she doesn't drink, so we can drink at lunch!), and then wandered around the campus area looking for more bars and found nothing! So we met some very helpful nurses at a bus stop and ended up going to South Side, which is where Pittsburgh hides it's bars, and also tattoo parlors. Found three of them in two blocks.
After we tried to get Lola's nose re-pierced (the piercer wasn't in at the time) we went to The Town Tavern, which is expensive, loud and full of posers and douchebags. But, there was this black guy with this awesome white jacket, so there's that. Oh, and "Sexy Back" was playing when we got there, and I haven't heard that song in years.
Valya got out of work shortly thereafter and met us with her buddy Zack from work (which Matt and I were trying to find but couldn't remember the name of) and we went to a much better bar called, I think, Intersection, which had more reasonably priced beer and we hung out and had good conversation about colleges and tattoos and drinking in Russia oh and also hockey.
By 1:30 we realized that the last bus home was 40 minutes prior, so we hung out in the street trying to get a cab. We did not get a cab, but ended up flagging down a limo. He charged us $5 each and drove us to the other side of Pittsburgh to our house. Cheapest and also most random and probably therefore best limo ride I've been in.
After that we sat around drinking water and playing "Kings" which is what Lola and her weird friends from Boston call Waterfalls (also they have some different rules which are inferior to our own, except for their 8 rule). We all trickled of to bed and there you have it.
Saturday I did pretty much nothing but sit around on the internet and read some "Catch 22" and also walked really far to Wendy's, checked out a food co-op where I got this awesome vegan peanut butter cookie, and watched House Hunters and The Soup (which is so good, it's like the Daily Show about stupid TV) and the SNL.
Sunday is for homework and also some grocery shopping, and possibly going to the aviary they have here in Pittsburgh. That might have to wait, we'll see, and also we're gonna take in a Pirates game at some point. Monday is for exam!
Inspired by this comic I came up with first a setting and then a story idea. It goes like this:
In the middle of a vast desert is a massive impact crater created millenia ago and which is really the only source of life for a good long distance. An entire forest ecosystem has sprung up in this crater around a lake (and several small streams feeding into it), and upon this lake sits a village. It's not a particularly large village, but it is home to several hundred people and this culture has lived therein for many generations.
The people call their home the Bowl of the Gods, and believe themselves to be alone in the world, as nobody has ever gone more than a day's walk or so into the desert and returned. Their society is stable, albeit simplistic. They are a stone age people with no written language, although they do have art and a rich oral tradition.
Everything is fine until one day a stranger arrives in the crater. Understand that this is a people who don't even have a word for stranger, there has never been a visitor from anywhere else. They were secure in their knowledge that they were the only people in the world.
The stranger spoke a weird language that shared some few similar words with their own, and this formed the basis of communication. At first they took him to be a messenger from their gods, perhaps even a god himself, and they treated him very well and tried very hard to communicate with him. As time went on, and he learned more and more of their language, he began to tell them strange stories about far away lands and different people, peppering his tales with words from his own tongue. The children were especially fond of the stranger and his tales, and this began to worry some people in the village, especially the elders. Soon parents stopped letting their children go see the stranger, and his welcome became overstayed, he was treated rudely, avoided or ignored, but one child in particular kept sneaking off to see him, despite his parent's wishes.
It was this child that overheard the elders planning to lure the stranger into the forest and kill him, deeming him too dangerous to remain in their village. The child ran and told the stranger the secret, and the stranger quickly began to pack with the child's help, preparing for a long and difficult journey to the nearest civilization. And as quickly as the stranger had appeared in the crater, he was gone, and life could return to normal.
At first the elders saw this as a boon, they searched high a low for the stranger, but he was nowhere in the crater, and they figured that their work had been done for them. But in searching for the stranger they realized that a child was missing, and so the elders decided to send several of the village's best hunters after them, instructed to kill the stranger and bring the child back, dead or alive. Just as they could not allow the stranger to corrupt their world, they could not allow news of their existence to reach the outside world, for that would bring certain ruin.
By this time the stranger and the child have a pretty good lead on the hunters, and both parties realize just how close the crater really is to civilization. Once they reach civilization, however, the hunters are at a significant disadvantage, but so devout are they that they continue their search.
________________________
That's about all I've got so far. I know that I would like the story to shift viewpoints between the parties involved, allowing the reader to experience this whole new world through the eyes of both an inquisitive child and scared, angry men with a dire mission. I have ideas in mind for characters, the stranger and child, several hunters (I'm thinking three) and a few elders and parents, as well as contacts that the stranger has in civilization. I've recently played a lot of Assassin's Creed, and I've generally been interested in Arabic culture, so I might give civilization a certain Arabic feel, although I also imagine mountains (seen in the distance from the crater), and so perhaps a more Caucasian or Central Asian kind of culture.
Essentially, it's a story about the shattering of perceptions, alienation, discovery and fanaticism (although personally I find it hard to blame the villagers for fearing and distrusting the stranger, though taking his life is hard t justify).
Anyhoo, my parent's drove my laptop out to me today so I can use it for the audio stuff for class and not have to rely on my housemate's computers.
Anyway, I've made it through my first week of SLI and so far so good. The people, both in the house and class, are pretty cool. The four Russian students I live with are all going to Russia, our Polish housemate is obviously not.
Homework has been pretty light so far, but class is moving along pretty quickly, more or less done with the first chapter of Golosa book two. Pittsburgh is pretty cool, it's neat that we can take a bus anywhere and then wander around like a real city, with big tall buildings and everything. Pennsylvania has some weird blue laws going on (you can only buy booze in state stores or bars, and stores either sell wine and liquor OR beer, and you can't have more than four women living in a house because that counts as a BROTHEL) but besides that, it's been a pretty sweet experience so far. Weirdly I have only been carded once in the four times I've bought booze at a bar or restaurant.
I don't really know what else to say, so I'm just going to end it here. Maybe I'll have more to say soon.
I have to get in touch with Dr. Brockey at some point because I'm TAing for him this fall. I'll be taking methods with everybody else, Modern Europe with Siegelbaum, and Europe under Nazi Control with Siegelbaum and Moch. I'm also going to be sitting in on Russian Culture to World War II (in Russian) with Jason Merrill, who is a life saver letting me do that.
All in all I'm pretty excited about getting all of this rolling already. I'm not going to lie, the three weeks since I finished classes/quit my job have been longer than fuck. Not that I don't enjoy watching DVDs and playing video games and drinking with my friends or anything, but those days where I don't hang out with people? Holy crap those days are long.
So there you go, that's where things stand. I'm going to take lots of pictures I'm sure.
I'm officially going to MSU in the fall, they're working out admissions stuff and in the meantime Dr. Siegelbaum has already sent me a reading list, which I would be working on more if I wasn't so busy with homework and that damned infernal job of mine.
Speaking of which, I have slightly less than nine weeks left at Lakeshore (counting this week), which means I have only ten weeks left until I'll be in Pittsburgh, and only fifteen weeks till Moscow! I cannot overstate how excited I am about this program.
Speaking of which, I should have scholarship information from them by Wednesday (if not Tuesday) and I spoke with financial aide today at WSU and will be getting another $5,000 (well, a little less but boo hoo) so I can cover things like housing in Pittsburgh and my bills while I'm not working. And of course some spending money, because I plan on spending me some money in Moscow.
By mid-August I'll be living in Lansing (finally) and all will be right with the world. Not that I won't miss WSU and the Slavic department (and the history department, too, but I know the whole Slavic department and interact with them "daily," it's more like a family than the history department). This has been a great semester so far, and I'm going to miss it and people and both Laura and Anna are teaching classes next semester that I would break a variety of state laws to attend, were I still around Detroit in the fall.
I will, however, be coming down once in a while, of course, and I'll certainly be strong armed into helping Slavic Club, since Monica is already mad at me for leaving, and I don't want to piss her off more. I've made a lot of friends this (and last) semester at WSU. Lot's of Slavic and Slavic related friends.
So that's where my life is right now. I have basically never been this excited about the future in my entire life. And this is a future that's actually in reach!
It was not only an informative (and persuasive) visit, but an exceptionally delightful one. I got to speak with a lot of interesting, intelligent and above all nice people who shared at least the love of history with me (there was a very wide array of specific interests, all of them quite, well, interesting). I feel that I came back home having made a bunch of new friends, and even if I don't go to MSU, would very much like to stay in touch with them and wish them all the best if I don't manage that.
I learned a lot about the program and it's very impressive and very tempting, although I haven't made my official decision yet, as I still have to hear from four other schools (I got a rejection letter from UNC yesterday), but I also learned some things about grad school in general and myself in particular. Grad school is not nearly as scary as it once was. Yes, it will be very hard, and I
About myself, I realized that I really, really want this. I want to go to graduate school, I want to dedicate myself to academia. It's the life and the environment for me. Like I told Laura Kline today, being on campus at WSU is my escape from the rest of my life, it's in academia that I feel the most at home and the most like myself that I've ever felt.
And it's that homey feeling, the kind that I get in my beloved WSU Slavic department (for those that have heard me gush about it in recent weeks), that is a big part of the appeal of MSU. We'll see, and I'll be sure to keep everyone posted on my decision, as frankly there isn't anything else to talk about on here.
Music
Rush, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zepplin, The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Symphony X, Dream Theater, Ayreon, Tyr, Caliber, Flogging Molly, Great Big Sea, System of a Down, AFI, Ra, Alien Ant Farm, Rob Zombie, Powerman 5000, Thrice, Ice Age, Alice in Chains, Days of the New, Tool, Tantric, The Killers, Bare Naked Ladies, Threshold, Spock's Beard, Savatage, Tiles, Fate's Warning, Michelle Branch, Michael Buble, Outkast, "Weird" Al Yankovic, The Police, Pink Floyd, Joe Satriani, Jimmi Hendrix, Incubus, The Offspring, Sum 41, The Living End, Mindless Self Indulgence, Godhead, Zero Hour, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Breaking Benjamin, Tenacious D, Justin Roberts, Dispatch, The Donnas, Yoko Kano and the Seatbelts, Zero Hour, Suspyre, Fountains of Wayne, Jason Mraz, John Mayer, Vanessa Carlton, Styx, Dropkick Murpheys, Sheryl Crow, Carla Vallet, Les Nubians, Paris Combo, The Brian Setzer Orchestra, Richard Wagner, Genesis, The Foo Fighters, Finger Eleven, the Used, Fall Out Boy, Dethklok, Testament, Serj Tankian, Avenged Sevenfold, Hot Hot Heat, Paramore, Adam Ant, Simple Minds, Orcestral Manuvers in the Dark, Tears for Fears, Freeze Pop, Death Cab for Cutie, Gretchen Wilson, Kenny Wayne Shepard, Dierks Bently, Amy Winehouse, t.a.T.u., Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Lady Antebellum, Chris Cagle, Jason Aldean, Allison Krauss, Katy Perry, The Golden Dogs, Dragonforce, Rise Against, Opiate for the Masses, Фабрика
TV
Firefly, The Office, Scrubs, Metalocalypse, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Lost, Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch, The Daily Show, The Venture Brothers, The Simpsons, Futurama, Mad About You, Seinfeld, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Penn and Teller: Bullshit!, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., Mystery Science Theater 3000, Robot Chicken, Rosanne, Corner Gas, The Red Green Show, Who's Line is it Anyway?, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, Daria, Bevis and Butthead, Salute Your Shorts, South Park, Big Bang Theory, Arrested Development, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Babylon 5, The Guild, Angel, Mad Men, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Bones, How I Met Your Mother, 30 Rock, Weeds, Tru Calling
Movies
Serenity, Snatch, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Star Wars (origninal trilogy), Bruce Almighty, South Park the Movie, Fight Club, Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, Conan the Barbarian, Anchor Man, Dodgeball, Napoleon Dynamite, The Crow, American Beauty, Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later, The Usual Suspects, anything Pixar, The Emporer's New Groove, Lilo and Stitch, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Blow, Edward Scissorhands, Office Space, Shaun of the Dead, Ong Bak: Thai Warrior, Grindhouse (Planet Terror/Death Proof), Hot Fuzz, The Departed, Outing Riley, Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Shoot 'em Up, Smoking Aces, Transformers, The Protector, Waitress, Thank You For Smoking, Secondhand Lions, Borat, Cloverfield, Darjeeling Limited, Beyond the Sea, Big Fish, Death at a Funeral, Iron Man, Batman, Batman Begins, Batman: The Dark Knight, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Enemy at the Gates, Beetlejuice, Ghostbusters, Ghosbusters 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (all three), Mean Girls, Defiance, Кукушка, Питер ФМ, Katyń
Books
American Gods, Going on Being, A Song of Ice and Fire, Lord of the Rings, To Kill a Mockingbird, Farenheit 451, anything Discworld, Corrupting Doctor Nice, Anansi Boys, American Desert, Conan (Howard only), Gormenghast, Kill the Poor, The Innkeeper's Song, City Dharma, Candide, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?, Conversations With Stalin, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Lenin's Tomb, He's Just Not That Into You, Little Man What Now?, V for Vendetta, The Watchmen, Maus, Zen Guitar, Homage to Catalonia, Untimely Thoughts, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Shopgirl, War and Peace, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Born Standing Up, The Jungle, The Ten-Cent Plague, Our Earliest Ancestors, The Metamorphosis, Let Me In, A Christmas Carol, An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England, Cars for Comrades, Scott Pilgrim
FUCK. THAT. NOISE.
You know what man? My life is fucking sweet. Seriously. You know what I did today? I went to Wayne State and hung out with a couple of awesome Polish girls and sold 300 paczki in four hours for Slavic Club. You know how I spent my Saturday night? I played Rock Band 2 with Erik, Tom and Steve and we got a million fucking points on Heir Kommt Alex, and we drank beers and Steve burned himself with a mini taco because it was 450 degrees and he is dumb when he's buzzed.
I have just over fourteen weeks until I quit my lame sauce job, take a week long vacation, then go to Pittsburgh and Moscow. Every Monday and Wednesday I spend the day at WSU with a collection of totally awesome people and study Russian. This academic year, and especially this semester, has been totally fucking sweet.
I've not only been accepted to Michigan State University, but I've been offered a full ride. I can go to MSU for free if I want too. For graduate school. Hell, they want to PAY my a thousand bucks a month to go to school and help somebody teach history.
Everything, it turns out, that I've ever really wanted in life is happening. Last Fall Erik and Greg accused me of having a fabulous life and damned me to Hell for it, and those wonderful bastards were right.
And you know what? Even my lame sauce job is pretty sweet, and it was on the way home from it tonight that it finally dawned on me that yeah, my life really is fucking sweet. And that was BEFORE I found out ust how badly MSU wants my shit (it is something on the order of $30,000 a year badly)
I had been checking my e-mail with my cellphone from my "office" on the forth floor of Manoogian Hall (which is just where I hang out all day on campus and occasionally direct people to different rooms because I'm a nice guy with little else to do with my time), so Dr. Laura Kline got to be the first one to find out that I got accepted (which is fitting, as she wrote me one of my letters of recommendation, also she's totally awesome). Then, still from my cell phone, I changed my status on Facebook to let everybody know.
I'll be honest when I say that I waited to make this post so I could see how many comments I could get on that status, but the excitement got the better of me and I had to post. This is a huge chance for me and I've never been so excited about something in my life, honestly. At least until I start hearing back from graduate schools.
And a fun side note, Wayne State's own Moscow summer program will be overlapping with my trip, meaning that I will hopefully get to see Laura (because I've fallen into this habit of calling my Russian professors by their first names) while we're both there, because she's pretty much my favorite professor.
Speaking of “light” and “seeing things” that furry fucker Punxsutawney Phil has yet again cast his runes and chicken entrails and murmured his ancient groundhog hexes to divine for our weather wizards what the next six weeks’ climate will be. Rodent-based witchcraft is far more accurate than DOPLAR radar.
Also:
The Afterlife and Times of Mr. Mitch Flattery has hit something of a wall again, but I think that's to be expected with such a story. It doesn't really posses a purpose yet, I have a concept but no idea what direction I want to take that concept. I just finished An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England, by Brock Clarke, which has a very bumbling mystery quality to it, and is generally good. At one time you feel pity for the protagonist and want to slap the ever loving shit out of him, and it kept you reading. Also made me want to write.
I got a book called Russka for Christmas, by Edward Rutherford, that is long and very interesting sounding, and I would very much like to read. However, I feel that I should be getting down to brass tacks and reading stuff by the professors I've applied to work with because I need to concern myself more with that than reading or writing for my own enjoyment.
Looking back though, I've realized that I didn't really write fiction between the fall of 2006 and the end of 2007, possibly because I read so very, very little of it during that time. I did a lot of reading for class and a lot of writing, but it was all historical. I'm going to be swinging back into academic mode, vis a vis reading and writing again very soon, but I don't want to completely bail on fiction this time around. Without papers to write, I can really read works by these professors without the stress associated with classes, which I think will leave time for me to read some fiction and maybe even write.
The point of all this is that I want to write, but I'm not sure what. Of recent (as in the last few days) the idea of combining two characters into one and writing something two-fisted and pulpy has had my attention. I have an amazing title in mind, and a good idea for the protagonist, even a general idea for the theme of the story (dealing with and overcoming the past that has plagued him in recent years), but I don't know what the overall plot of the story would be yet.
The other issue is that it feels to me like this story (like many of my other ideas) has to be told visually, which means on screen or as a comic. I'm prone to lean towards the latter, simply because the former is so fucking hard to pull off. Erik has long admitted a willingness to draw anything I wrote (with the unspoken clause that he won't if it totally sucks), so there's that. I guess some good old fashioned head yelling is in order, something we haven't done in, dare I say, years, and which would probably help me a great deal.
While I'm confident in my skills (if not my ability to finish things like this), Erik is probably the better storyteller. Greg once asked us, while were were talking about Pixie after watching a disc of Buffy, why we were going to work together on Pixie. His logic was that Erik can draw and write, and that while I was a decent writer too, Erik frankly didn't need me. By all accounts this is true, but Erik admitted that he's the story guy, where I'm the idea man. He told Greg about how he showed me this sketch of a girl with some kind off fairy wings that would evolve into Pixie, even gave her the name, and that was it. Within a few days I had already come up with a shit ton of ideas for the story. I can pitch and pitch till I'm blue in the face, and when I sit down to do it I can write pretty well, but it's putting ideas together into a cohesive story where I usually stall out. Likely that's my problem with running D&D, but that's not the point here.
My ideas, plus Erik's artistic and storytelling abilities, are considered to be quite a combination, provided we ever get anything off the ground. The problem though, is that I usually want to write my ideas, and when I do try to put them to paper, I rarely finish the task. This is why I've still never done Kingfish (which is probably good, because looking back there was no point to that story and I really need to work that out) or finished a story longer than about 3,000 words or so.
Term papers are so much easier to write. They have a nice form that's easy to put into practice. You come up with a thesis, you do research, you modify your thesis to reflect that research (because to modify your evidence to say something it doesn't is, frankly, the highest intellectual sin, this is like murder in the academic world), and then you present your evidence. All nice and neat.
Maybe I just need to think of a way to modify that process, which is essentially the scientific method (especially when you go beyond presenting your evidence to defending it) and use it to write stories. Pick a thesis and then find characters and events to back it up (or create characters and events, as it were)
2009 is shaping up to be either an excellent adventure, or a terrible spiraling decent in to hellish madness (more likely the first one, actually), so I think spending the night in Oak Park/Madison Heights with three of my best friends and a consortium of total strangers was a good way to kick it off. Plus, we got annexed, and that is cool in more ways than I care to describe.
And, we've officially established this liquor store at 12 and Van Dyke as the official "Jason, Erik, Jon and Steve are going to a party where they only know like one person (and it's South of 12 Mile)" liquor store. That probably won't happen again, but it could well become the official store for going South of 12 Mile to drink anyway, since I'm pretty sure we will be again.
