[Jo's Scrapbook] Do I Dare Disturb The Universe?

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The player scrapbooks forum is literally a place for writers to warm-up, brainstorm, keep little scraps of notes, or just post things to encourage themselves and each other. Each player can feel free to create their own thread - one per account - and use them accordingly.

[Jo's Scrapbook] Do I Dare Disturb The Universe?

Postby Johanne on November 30th, 2012, 2:33 am

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"Today my love and I are four years together." by worteinbildern

I adore writing to music. I was just thinking about Johanne's history and where I want her to go, what she might feel and the people she might meet, and I found myself making a playlist for Johanne. I thought I might share it with you all. If you like writing to music, too, perhaps you could make one for your character? I'd be very interested to see them.

1. Bella by Angus and Julia Stone.
2. How To Disappear Completely by Radiohead.
3. Infinity by Merrick.
4. Dawn by Dario Marianelli.
5. Red Right Ankle by The Decemberists.
6. Skinny Love by Bon Iver.
7. First Day of My Life by Bright Eyes.
8. To Build A Home by The Cinematic Orchestra.
9. Blue Skies by Noah and the Whale.
10. Today Has Been Okay by Emiliana Torrini.
11. Clair de Lune by Debussy.
12. Let It Go by Fauxliage.
13. Staralfur by Sigur Ros.
14. Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova.
15. Ice Dance by Danny Elfman.
16. Dream a Little Dream of Me by The Mamas and The Papas.
17. I Didn't Have Any Summer Romance by Simone White.
18. Someone to Love by Kate Earl.
19. Blood by The Middle East.


"And the woman who stays up too late to write poems, love her."
Rosemerry Trommer
“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”
Vincent Van Gogh
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Johanne
These scars are stories.
 
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[Jo's Scrapbook] Do I Dare Disturb The Universe?

Postby Johanne on December 13th, 2012, 2:23 am

On Job-Hunting

(And why it sucks.)

Image

From The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I have worked in the same shop since I was sixteen years old. I really cannot express to you how much I love that shop. It was a tiny little second-hand bookshop in the alleys of Newtown, Sydney, if anyone knows where that is. We'd get maybe five customers a day, sometimes ten, if we were lucky. Most of our business was done online, shipping to book-traders and collectors. Everyday I'd come to work, and get to spend the day surrounded by dust covers and yellowing pages. I'd get to sit behind the counter in my spare moments and read poetry collections to my heart's content. When the shop was especially quiet, my manager, Amelia, and I would sit down with a cup of earl grey tea and talk about novels, new authors, old authors, and writing. Like Johanne, I am very much enamoured with the art of words and the books they are printed on.

And then my home away from home closed down.

We weren't getting enough business to keep up the rent in one of the most coveted areas of Sydney. And because it was a small, independently owned business, my manager made the decision to close down the bookshop completely, sell our stock and make her way in a different area of life.

For the first time since I was sixteen, I am now unemployed. And oh my word, it sucks.

My boyfriend earns enough to support us for the moment, but it's more of a pride issue, really. I absolutely despise sitting around at home while Santiago goes out and earns enough to buy us dinner and pay our rent. I like to be doing something. I like to be being someone. And right now, I have nothing to offer my house and my five year relationship. It's frustrating.

What makes it worse, is that the shop closed down just in time for Christmas. Being such a niche, sales never really picked up in time for the holiday season. Not enough to justify keeping the shop past the new year. So I've been job hunting these past few weeks for the first time in eons. The only experience I have is in one virtually unknown shop that failed in keeping going. And everywhere has already hired their Christmas casuals. There are practically no vacancies, at least not until February, when all the high school students resign and go back to studying. People look at my CV, complement the niche experience I have, and my writing abilities, and then look at me apologetically and wish me luck. And while it's really nice that they wish they could hire me, it'd be even nicer if they actually did.

I'm not just sitting around though. I'm cold calling, looking at newspapers, seek.com, making sure I call around and explore every avenue, but my God, is it frustrating. Santiago says he doesn't really mind if I don't get a job for a while. He's wonderfully supportive, but the thing is, I do. I mind.

I've thrown myself into ASing here, knowing that once I get a job, my activity will decrease a little. I'm thinking of volunteering at the Cat Protection Society, for some extra experience, something to do, and for the wonders of being around kitties every day. But it's still taking a toll on my mentality and self-worth. And this is only after one month.

And I might need to last another three.


"Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living."
Jonathan Safran Foer
“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”
Vincent Van Gogh
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Johanne
These scars are stories.
 
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[Jo's Scrapbook] Do I Dare Disturb The Universe?

Postby Johanne on December 18th, 2012, 8:18 am

“On the girl’s brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, ‘Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress?’ I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, ‘I survived’.”

Chris Cleave, Little Bee
“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”
Vincent Van Gogh
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Johanne
These scars are stories.
 
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[Jo's Scrapbook] Do I Dare Disturb The Universe?

Postby Whimsy on December 21st, 2012, 6:30 am

To Do


Johanne
Haeli post.
Dariel post.
'I will find you in the river' post & finish thread, submit for grading.
Rewrite character concept and history so that it's more accurate.
Contact Quiarinox about a thread.
Contact Alea Davenport about a flashback in Denval.
Talk to Eosi about a flashback in Denval.
Contact Laszlo for a thread in Lhavit.

Whimsy (Most of this will occur after the holiday season.)
Misty Peaks brainstorm.
Thunder Bay brainstorm.
Training Yard in Lhavit. (?)
Last edited by Whimsy on December 24th, 2012, 6:22 am, edited 7 times in total.
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"Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away."
Louis de Bernières

[ Floating AS of Kalea ]
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made of tiny stories
 
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[Jo's Scrapbook] Do I Dare Disturb The Universe?

Postby Johanne on December 22nd, 2012, 3:25 am

Image

This reminded me so much of Leth and Syna. The moment of their reuniting, someday, far away, in their collective imaginations. I thought it was beautiful.


"And the rest is rust and stardust."
Vladimir Nabokov
“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”
Vincent Van Gogh
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Johanne
These scars are stories.
 
Posts: 212
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[Jo's Scrapbook] Do I Dare Disturb The Universe?

Postby Elysium on December 22nd, 2012, 5:13 am

That's beautiful, haley.
I adore that quotation as well. x
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[Jo's Scrapbook] Do I Dare Disturb The Universe?

Postby Johanne on December 27th, 2012, 12:15 am

Dear everyone I am threading with, and to those who expect more activity from Whimsy,

I am very sorry for slowing down these past few days. With Christmas, my mother's birthday, New Year's, my birthday, my parent's move and my boyfriend's birthday, everything is very hectic. I will still be present and able to talk, but my capacity for posting has slowed down a little.

I'm just a little exhausted right now. But I'll be back in full force as soon as I can.

Love,
Jo / Haley.


“In the morning it was morning and I was still alive.”
Charles Bukowksi
“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”
Vincent Van Gogh
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These scars are stories.
 
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[Jo's Scrapbook] Do I Dare Disturb The Universe?

Postby Johanne on December 30th, 2012, 2:09 am

To Do

Johanne
Laszlo post
Dariel post
Eosi post
Alses post/begin thread
Finish 'I will find you in the River', submit for grading.
Start a drawing solo.
Start a writing solo (the legend of Leth and Syna).

Whimsy
Mountainside picnic area (TB)
Dek residency (TB)
Rewrite the Processing Center (TB)
Hunting supplies (TB)
Misty Peak brainstorming
Kalinor NPC creation: nurses, Elyna and her colleague.
Meditation location (L)
Training yard (L)
Glyphing for Addy
PM Chemar/Kovac
Unforgiving brainstorming
Last edited by Johanne on January 11th, 2013, 2:08 pm, edited 4 times in total.
“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”
Vincent Van Gogh
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Johanne
These scars are stories.
 
Posts: 212
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[Jo's Scrapbook] Do I Dare Disturb The Universe?

Postby Johanne on January 6th, 2013, 1:35 pm

“I am sad and have a passion for unknown, distant places. I want to see the world. And I would love it, if I just had the chance to get away for a little while. But sadly, things aren’t that easy; desire won’t change a thing.”

Abraham M. Alghanem, A Dying Flower
“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”
Vincent Van Gogh
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Johanne
These scars are stories.
 
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[Jo's Scrapbook] Do I Dare Disturb The Universe?

Postby Johanne on January 9th, 2013, 7:16 am

I was asked by Imass to put up some of the pieces I've written. These are all unpublished.

"irezumi"

I have inked your name onto the underside of my left wrist,
my weak, willow wrist—in Latin, in Hebrew, in Aramaic,
in black & blessed ink.

Your name is a ghosting memory along my neurons,
synapses making love in a roll of desire.
I will learn syllables off by heart, my heart
to beat in time. I will worship your gleaming moonsmile,
quiet light murmuring through galaxy night.
You are made of seashells and summer breezes.
You are made of hopes, dreams,
and black & blessed ink.

You are forever inked upon my flesh,
softly scratching memories
with fountain pens.

(I will never stop breathing you.)

* * * * *

"forest"

I am the honorific Oak.

I stand tall,
surveying over an organic Manhattan
for tens / thousands of years.

My calves grow roots
that sink deep into virgin soil—
I am rooted into past & present & promise.
The nutrients here taste of sweat and sewage
we gathered in the never-ending summer night,
a sweet whispered contract between two broken
souls.

The night passes the same way centuries do:
a slow building wave, confident in size and power.
Inevitable movement shakes me, and while
my oakleaves tremble and my oakbranches flail,
my roots are firm and strong.

I signed the covenant of the Earth in blood.

I am scarred where huntsmen carved initials
into paperbark, but I have healed. Your tongue
traced stitches over broken flesh,
as it so often did
in ages gone by.

(I wonder if you pulled thread through skin,
or if that was simply a dream of the oak.)

Watch, how skin knits itself back together again
in an instant! in an eternity!

I am the honorific Oak.
I reign over this organic Manhattan.
SoHo resides in my left kneecap,
Harlem in my right shoulder,
and the long Central Park lazes down my spine.
I have breathed in this cityforest for thousands of years,
for barely
a moment.

Here,

(time travels through
blink blindly,
fall.)

* * * * *

"I am breathing."

She comes naked to the doorway. She looks into the room. He is stretched out naked on the bed. His feet dangle over the edge of the bedframe. They had bought a double bed because they had not the money for a queen sized.

“Will you come bath with me?” she asks, her head cocked to the side while she waits for an answer from the man she loves. His gaze is fixed on the ceiling and does not waiver.

“No.” She watches the way the moonbeams from the open window glance across his chest, his collarbones, his light dusting of hair that travels down from his bellybutton and into the secrets of his groin.

“Why not?”

“I am breathing.” His fingers twitch, a tiny spasmodic movement, disrupting the still air of the room.

“Do you not do that normally?” She asks this honestly, as though it has never occurred to her that one day, she could hold her mouth closed and put her hand over her nose and simply stop, letting her lungs wither.

“I do not. The moonlight helps.” And it does. The moonlight is filling his chest. He is photosynthesising in the night.

“Will you come bath with me once you have finished breathing?” She longs to make love in the bath, with the scent of ylang ylang rising around their entwined bodies, and their moans frosting on the heated mirror.

“No. The bath is too small for the both of us.” His eyes close, slowly, as though by losing sight he may disappear, melt into the silence and become a moonbeam himself.

“Everything in this house is too small.” She is frustrated. She only wants to touch.

“Yes.” His shoulders sag a little. She can see his body release, meld to the covers and become less present. She turns from the doorway, and pads across the hall. She watches the steam rise from the bath, and she smells ylang ylang. Her breasts sway with each breath she takes, and she never notices.
“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”
Vincent Van Gogh
User avatar
Johanne
These scars are stories.
 
Posts: 212
Words: 168999
Joined roleplay: September 2nd, 2012, 8:48 am
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Race: Human
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