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The passengers (the cargo) on the subway jiggle in unison: left then right, then left, then left again. Everyone leans but tries not to push on the person next to them—some, anyway. They stare in unison though the rays of their eyelines are chaotic, like security vault lasers for heroes to acrobat through, like Da Vinci’s underlying canvas plans. She stares at shoes. He stares at the tops of breasts peeking out from a blouse between jacket lapels. She stares at the window but is thinking about her mother. She stares at her boy, asleep by her side, the undulations of the train pressing him into her. He stares at some nothing somewhere between him and the door, the interplay of blurry reflections in the dual-paned glass.

From the Thread: 6 Train, Brain->Wash

Tags: 6 Train : Max Connor

Oh, I could die right now, he thinks as he watches the last 33 seconds of Phantogram’s “Futuristic Casket” count down on his iTunes. His lair feels like a futuristic casket; with his Britney Spears literacy poster and his gloss pens to draw on it and make her in to catwoman. With the cavernous clouds overhead, casting his windows in a pale light of grey, this could be a perfect time to go in to the nothingness. He’s got quests, yes, but it does no harm to dwell on the nothingness of the moment.

From the Thread: A Field Guide to the Socially Inept

After paying off some debts (in the sum of 1600 gold pieces) tonight (for credit cards) and realizing again that I had some freedom from the brokers and guilds, I started looking around this amazing apartment of mine. It’s no wonder I call it a lair. Batman’s got his darkness and trophies, and so do I! I have trophies that show that I’ve helped designed and make toys, that I ride a bike, that I stole a highway sign once, that I (apparently) like to take apart and collect pieces of electronics, that I have a healthy appreciation of art and books, that I will sleep in my living room¹, that I love the majesty of the inanimate becoming animate (nicely framed wind-up toys). I’ve even framed and hung classic literary works that I’ve read and admire. (One of them I haven’t actually read—Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle”—I swapped it out for one that I’m reading now. I’ll get to all of them; although I do sometimes feel that the amount I’m supposed to read is a flurry of pages around my head. But, I’m getting better these days, and I WILL get to them. There is much time.

Back to the lair! You see how that sounds? It makes it easy for me to stay late at work until I’m tired and stressed because there is such release in knowing that as soon as you finish this one daunting task, it’s BACK TO THE LAIR!!!

At any rate, it took some kind of Karma of the day to just get me to lie down on the bed early in the day (instead of being the usual night owl) and just take a survey of my surroundings. Most everything here is something I did or created. When you really step back to look at it, it’s a museum. But MUSEUM sounds so boring. I much prefer lair. Several times this evening while drawing, i jumped up to get a pencil of a particular weight or an eraser, or more paper, and I had to search for none of those things. They were right there, just like the weapons of an art ninja. Nah, ninja’s are passé. Besides, my Epic Win character is Thorin the Thoughtful, Swarthy Dwarven Toiler. And I think I had a moment (several) of weakness this week. But lo, I am only fourth level, and there is very, very far to go!

It is useful to have a lair when one seeks adventure.

From the Thread: A Field Guide to the Socially Inept

SCUBA is an acronym as opposed to an intialism. You can pronounce it, and that, apparently, makes all the difference. The first time Gene passed his SCUBA class, the hardest part was when the instructor took him down to the bottom of the fourteen foot deep diving area and then he had to slowly let our air until he reaches the surface. Slowly let the air out. Much deeper and much faster and you get the bends. Gene’s not exactly sure what that is, but he doesn’t want it. The ascent at the bottom of the pool starts “normally” enough. With breathing apparatus, Gene is at the bottom of the pool—breathing, no less. Then the blue shadow of the instructor reaches out for the mouth piece. At this point, Gene takes a big deep breath off of the tank and hands it all over to the instructor. Looking up, Gene can see the fluorescent lights from the top of the University’s pool facility; shimmering. The very idea of taking a breath rests just above him. It’s clear in patches, a space between the water and the ceiling where there is nothing but air. He launches himself from the floor of the pool, beginning to count down from 10. With each number arises a desire to get the countdown over with and arise from the surface, but the instructor is counting too, and so this must be timed accurately. Slowly, he rises close to the air, holding what he has in his lungs until just the number two comes up and he knows he is one second away from gulping air. The sound of coming up has a reverb bounced from the rails and beams and wavy steel of the Natatorium. He takes a breath. Done. Ten seconds from 14 feet down. Now he can SCUBA.

From the Thread: A Field Guide to the Socially Inept

He pulls away. “It’s just that you’re too cool to sleep with.”

“Huh?” In the back corner of a booth in the back of a nicely lit, red dive bar, she was just about to put her lips to him. Then he says that.

“Oh god. Not this shit,” she sighs.

“What?”

“I’m not you’re bestest girlfriend just because we’ve hung out this much. Ok?”

“What!? You tried to kiss me!”

“Yeah, like, slutty. Stop trying to make us a ‘thing’.”

“Ok?”

“What?”

“I thought I was giving you a compliment…”

“Don’t, Gene…”

“You rocked my world tonight! Everything I said was different from what you had to say. But we didn’t pause on stupid contradictions. We just went from one subject to the next and there was no problem!” Gene pauses to smile—grinny— and through the froth on his beard he says, “We disagree on a lotta’ shit, but we still get along.”

“Well—yeah. We get along.” The one side of her cheek puckers when she’s being smug.

From the Thread: A Field Guide to the Socially Inept