[Caelum's Scrapbook] Use Your Words.

[Elysium]

Cersei Lannister wants unthreatened autonomy. Sam wants to eat green eggs and ham. Teehee. You really should consider teaching, if you don't already. Or at least doing seminars or panels or something. Seriously. Also, I am picking up the Curse of Chalion, just because you said that.

[Caelum]

It’s funny that you mention teaching, Ely, because you are the third person to suggest as much this week. I know it’s because I’m so bloody bossy in my scrap here about writing whatnot and gaming cameral, but the reality is I’ve largely been in the student role versus the teacher role. It is only in the past five or so years that I’ve begun to be much of a teacher at all. I think my role as such is most aptly explained by this excerpt of what I wrote in Will’s scrapbook, which was in part an excerpt from another thing I wrote for a different corner of the interwebs. It has the worst run on sentence in history. Anyway, I’m usually only a good teacher to those for whom I’ve been a student. Collaborative learning vs. collaborative writing. Something like that. I need a cigarette. I’m not going to have one. Blast. Since I was ten, I have been attempting to write the next great American novel or, at the very least, the next great counter culture, spit and tissue paper anti-climatic piece of so-called literature shit that all the same causes me to be both worshiped and despised in equal measures by the Unwashed Masses until I am either found, cigarette in hand, squatting by a rail road track in a little black dress and red patent leather high heels giving the sky the finger or vanish into an obscure nowhere with a different name and a white picket fence of which a very oppressed part of me is ashamed. Numerous novels, novellas, short stories, screenplays, performance pieces and a veritable horde of one take scenes have been penned or picked out in this endeavor since. Once I even tried my hand at writing a play. Imagine my surprise when a friend informed me that it might first be wise to know some small thing or three about theatre first (you mean it requires more knowledge and skill to be successful at than a rousing session of kindergarten make believe?). It must be said at this juncture that I am incredibly fortunate to be blessed with a number of highly talented authors as friends. I call this a fortune only because their talents make me so amazingly jealous that there can be nothing else but an equal if not greater achievement on my behalf. One-up-man-ship, making humanity strive for the stars since 10,000 B.C. Seriously though, I know some very talented writers and I’m not just talking about Mizahar. I have read their books. I have edited and critiqued their outlines. I have yelled at them to finish that chapter or demolish that first draft and listened to endless readings of screenplays and recommended paths out, above, below, around and every so often directly through the corner they have written themselves into and I have brought them gin and cigarettes when they receive the inevitable rejection letters or, sometimes worse, are forced to kill off a beloved character for the betterment of a very necessary plot point. Regardless, we’re all nameless, sometimes soldiers desperately scribbling with our ink either a-way-out-of-here or just a-way-to-survive.

[Caelum]

The story of nonsmokinghood continues. If any of you still like me by the end of this, I’m going to consider it a win. I’m posting the below conversation held in gchat earlier because I think it’s hilarious. It also aptly illustrates how incredibly stupid I am this week. Me: god, I can't focus. I blame nonsmokinghood. that's a new word. Friend: I like it. Me: it's a neighborhood overrun by ADD squirrels. but it smells like fucking flowers. Friend: ::giggles:: amazing Me: Mr. and Mrs. Condescending live on the corner. Friend: wow dude lol Me: I am going _insane_. Friend. ::huggles:: you'll be ok Me: totally. but in the meantime, I'm building nonsmokinghood up like a sim city. Friend: do it up Me: The HOA is run by vegan lesbian hipsters. fyi. Friend: ::snirks:: Me: and on every other block there is at least one couple standing on the side of their house stealthily sharing a Marlboro Light while peering around their vinyl siding to make sure their kids are still down the street and can't see them. Friend: naturally Me: There's a Sunday Supper Club that invites one Smoking couple from out of the 'hood to join them just so they can bum off them all night and still call themselves nonsmokers. And then there's the chick with the freakin' bubbler who says weed doesn't count 'cause it’s _natural_. Friend: don’t stop there Me: I should stop. Friend: Isn’t that what got you into this mess? Me: Shut up.

[Elysium]

I bet the vegan lesbian hipsters and the chick with the bubbler do lunch on thursdays.

[Alea Davenport]

Don't worry my goat friend! I will still like you by the end of this. So you will win! Yay! And if you ever want to complain to me on aim, I would be THRILLED to listen! I need my daily dose of vitriol to be a healthy...whatever I am ^_^

[Tobias]

I heard my nameeeeeeeee

Actually, I’m here to respond to your non-smoking posts (all of them, being the fashionably late charming devil that I am). I can relate, though only in weak, outsider-y type of fashion. You see, my aunt used to smoke. A lot. She would always hide the cigs when me and my sister came to visit but you could smell it on her, night and day. Ten years ago (give or take a couple years, maybe even centuries – I’m basically the unreliable narrator incarnate, so yeah) she gave up smoking. Went cold turkey and everything.

So, uh, yeah. Basically I didn’t see her for a couple weeks. Whenever I called and asked to visit, my uncle would say, “Not right now, Will, your aunt is going insane.”

...oh. Well, shit. I’m doing an awful job of starting this off, huh?

Listen, what I’m trying to say is it sucks and however many times you might roll your eyes when people say It Gets Better (I picture you as the sassy, eye-rolling sort) it eventually will. My aunt has never smoked since and she is better than ever. She has more energy than me, for Christ’s sake, and I basically act like I’m on crack, like all the time.

(Basically what I’m trying to say is if you ever need encouragement never come to me, or, in this case, let me come to you. Whatever the case. )

[Vanator]

I would love to pack a lunch and a bottle of sparkling cider and walk through your brain, Katie.

[Caelum]

Y'all are awesome. Even you, Will, with your incredibly demotivational story. And Mike, make that sparkling wine.

[Gossamer]

I feel like such a bad person watching you, Katie, go slightly off the deep end trying to quit smoking. I feel bad because this is somewhat amusing to me. And is it me or did Mike just offer to bring a nerf gun to a downtown middle east firefight? Mike... Mike Mike Mike...

[Caelum]

It’s okay, Jen. I think this is pretty damn funny too. You know, when I’m not flipping out. Guys, I told Jen this earlier, but when I got home from work yesterday I spent an hour cleaning up the storm branches in my yard. This doesn’t seem like a bfd until you realize that I did this in high heels and twenty degree weather fueled by an inexplicable rage at nothing remotely logical.