Thor's Day

It is way too early. Damn cat.

Administration
Hello to new reader valancy17 and returning reader chorus_of_chaos!

Medical
Pretty wonky last night. EDIT: Getting brainfuckery, wordfuckery.

Links Like Whoa
New Babylon 5 stories!

Comics in the '90s - worst costume design evar.

Did you know Jim Steinman was writing a Batman musical? Check out the Joker's song, "Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys".

Speaking of Jim Steinman - new Meat Loaf album coming soon! Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose! Get the title track here.

Speaking of highly-anticipated albums - Weird Al Yankovic, Straight Outta Lynwood. Aw yeah.

Daily Science
The Secret of the Booming Dunes: The bone-shakingly low bass notes that bellow during sand dune avalanches have captured the attention of explorers from Marco Polo to Darwin.

Likewise, people playing in sand dunes have found that pushing sand in different ways gives various notes: Scooting on your rump down a dune, pushing the sand downhill with your feet, triggers a low booming noise around 50 to 300 hertz (the low end of a piano scale). Pushing the sand around by hand or walking on so-called "squeaking beaches" yields higher-pitched squeals reminiscent of birds chirping or balloons rubbing together.

The causes of these sounds have eluded scientiests for more than a century....


To Heal a Wound, Turn Up the Voltage: IT MAY sound like something out of Frankenstein, but electric currents applied to the skin could potentially speed up wound healing...Cells and tissues essentially function as chemical batteries, with positively charged potassium ions and negatively charged chloride ions flowing across membranes. This creates electric field patterns all over the body. When tissue is wounded this disrupts the battery, effectively short-circuiting it. Penninger and his colleagues realised that it is the resulting altered fields that attract and guide repair cells to the damaged area...The researchers grew layers of mouse cells and larger tissues, such as corneas, in the lab. After "wounding" these tissues, they applied varying electric fields to them, and found they could accelerate or completely halt the healing process depending on the orientation and strength of the field...


Daily BPAL
( Ulalume, Glasgow, Elegba, Wolfsbane )

Back to bed! dark_blade, I shall call when I awaken...

(no subject)

I went back to sleep and had vivid dreams.

In my dream, I was in the park with asim - and we danced. :) And then there was snuggling.

And then I was on a college campus, with my beloved laptop, and I was writing.

And then azhure was there! And we walked 'round the campus and talked and had a grand old time.

And then Elayna ran up behind me and hugged me and walked with us, and it was so good to see her.

And then I woke up. And was sad that I haven't seen asim in months and that I've never met azhure.

But I was saddest that Elayna wasn't back yet.

Four days.

Blogathon

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My goal is $2,000.

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Two days. *vibrates*

(no subject)

Gotta love appointments where they call you a day in advance to ask you about your will.

I was literally stunned silent. Very "...the fuck?"

It's only a mammogram, dude. I get cysts. It's no big deal. I do not need a will. I do not need counseling. I just need you to squish my boobs and take some pictures, then I'll see you next week for a cyst aspiration or next year for more boobsquishy.

...my will?

BPAL note

Kweku Anansi and Nihil both have really strong throw, and do not go together *at all*.

Kweku Anansi: Vetiver, dusty pepper, nutmeg, thyme and grass over a deep, mossy wooden core. Dusty pepper is an excellent description. Dusty pepper and the herbs and darkly mossy, with a base of vetiver. Not getting any woods. It's a fascinating scent. Like Wolfsbane, I'm not sure I'll wear it as a perfume, but it's very effective at setting a mood. It is strong and dark and ash and... earth without the BPAL "dirt" note. I do quite like it.

Nihil has no description yet. But it smells absolutely nothing like I expected something called Nihil to smell. It is very very floral. It is department-store perfume. I'm not getting rose from it; I'm not good at identifying floral notes in a mix of same, so I can just tell you it's *not* rose, magnolia, gardenia, or honeysuckle.

And so I have this fascinating deep-earth-and-dust rising from my left arm and this "Would you like to try our new perfume?" *spritz* *spritz* aaagh *hack* *cough* department store gauntlet experience on my right.

My brain is so confused.

copying over from Vox

The question of the day = your dream restaurant...

It would be Tyka's coffeehouse in Shayara.

It's a boutique on the left side and a coffeeshop on the right; the coffeehouse is about 80% of the square footage, and the boutique is 20%. You enter through the boutique door. The boutique sells only Shayara-made goods - locally-published books and comics, CDs by local bands, handcrafted clothing. There's a door behind the cash register - that leads to Tyka's office. The other door from Tyka's office goes to the kitchens.

You walk through an archway to the coffeehouse. The floor is brick; the walls are painted in warm colors and hung with art by local artists. The tables are puzzle-pieces with dry-erase tops - they fit together for large parties. There's a mug filled with markers on every table. :) There's also a motley collection of sofas, armchairs, wooden tables, and old lamps.

The back of the coffeehouse has a small stage, perfect for concerts, plays, and Rocky Horror. To the left, a bulletin board on which one can find *anything*, the doors to the bathrooms, and the brightly-painted doors to the kitchens. To the right, the graffiti wall, covered with messages of generations. This place has been here for a long time, a fact that also shows in some of the subtle antiques scattered around. Funky lighting fixtures adorn the high ceilings.

Hi. This is my brain.

( Read more... )

On Cubitman

I wasn't always at Layne's side. Layne refused to take me anywhere on Business. For Business, read: drug deals. This did take up a not-insignificant part of his time. So I was free to roam Vegas as I wished. But there were two coffeehouses I always came back to... Cafe Copioh, when I wanted company, and Cafe Espresso Roma, when I wanted to write.

And that's where Brian and I first saw each other, and why he didn't meet me as Layne's girl. Brian first saw me as the skinny little girl with the black backpack who came in and sat at the table behind the door, scribbling in a notebook and drinking cup after cup of sweet black coffee. And I first saw him as... well, as a Greek God, practically.

Layne was tall and rail-thin - Brian was tall and solid, well-muscled without being bulky. I'd later discover that he was a construction worker. When you looked up from that body... his defining feature was that Roman nose. :) Aqua eyes, perpetual small smile. Straight shoulder-length hair, sun-bleached.

Utterly unobtainable. So I would look up from my notebook as he walked in and give him the shy, fleeting smile I gave all the regulars, and he would smile back, and I would duck my head back down.

But one night, Layne and I were going out, and he had a delivery to make first, to the 7-11 guy. He was pissed at the 7-11 guy already - the guy had asked me if Layne was holding. As mentioned before, Layne didn't want me involved with the Business at all, and felt that the guy was dragging me into it. I told him the guy hadn't asked *me* for anything, he'd asked if *he* had anything, which was both different and entirely logical.

Have I mentioned that paranoia is one of the most common effects of crystal meth?

So Layne took off to deal to/with the 7-11 guy, saying he'd meet me at Roma. And I went on my merry way to same, approaching from the rear of the building.

And there, sitting on the back stairs, was Brian. Just sitting and taking in the night air. And he smiled, and gave me a little wave.

And I waved back, and I did something I didn't think I'd *ever* do, shy as I was then - I went and sat next to him.

Layne's deal didn't take long. But by the time it was over, Brian and I were friends.

...to be continued...

Cubitman: Secret Origins

Brian was the only person I knew in Vegas who had a car.

This came in handy on many occasions. But for now:

The backseat, me straddling him, his hands in my hair as I kissed him hungrily - hands moving down... I have always had a thing for large, callused hands, and this may be where it started, Brian's hands in the back of Brian's car, spanning the entirety of my back, spanning my ass, bringing me closer to him. His mouth on mine, on my neck; his hands stripping off my shirt. My small hands fumbling at his belt - I have never been smooth, and this was no exception; he had to help me, I was shaking. And my hands unbuttoning his jeans, reaching in, and -

I froze.

My hands reaching in and getting far more than I'd bargained for, more and more...

I looked down at him, eyes wide. He settled back against the window, grinning, trying not to laugh at the look on my face - and I collapsed into giggles. He smiled tolerantly and pulled me down, held me - I pulled back, saying, "Dude."

"Yes."

"Dude."

"Mm-hmm?"

"You don't expect - I can't - you-"

More laughter.

What I had found, you see, was the largest penis in existence. The man had a baseball bat between his legs, I tell you. I touched this thing, my hand slid down, I realized how incredibly large it was, and - "You do not expect that to actually fit inside me, do you?"

"I admit that it's improbable."

More laughter, and him stroking my hair, saying, "There are other things we can do."

"No! I can do this!"

And we tried. Oh, we tried. But no. It was a physical impossibility.

I propped myself up next to him and measured his penis against my forearm. It was the exact length of my forearm.

"That's not a penis," I said. "That's a Biblical unit of measurement."

Cubitman.

The next day, we went to Copioh. As we approached the door, and our friend Geordie standing outside, he took my hand in his. Geordie looked at us and said, "You guys?"

Brian nodded, and Geordie started laughing. "Can that actually happen? I mean, you guys - you're like... Lego and Duplo!"