My Stupidly Broken Heart

A while ago, a young artist I barely knew died.

I never met that person, so I know that my next sentence is going to turn me into a candidate for Bedlam, but ever since I heard about that passing there's been a tiny hole in my heart.

I miss that person more than I miss some of my blood relatives who died.

I know it's weird, but that person was a very interesting artist, and I really, really wish I'd discovered more about that person's works before it was too late.

Last night, something odd happened. I was looking for some info, and as I often do, I hopped from link to link, and I eventually found myself on a page that mentioned that artist - a page that mentioned a Facebook page and a Twitter account.

Now... don't call Bedlam just yet, please, but, yes, I do find myself reading the frozen timeline of a young artist we've lost, and the few things I read have widened the little hole in my heart because that person was funny, witty, goofy, interesting, challenging, and now that I'm on Twitter, I really wish I could have tweeted that person.

I know that I'm somehow sorry for myself because I never even was on a stamp-sized map for that person, but what a bloody loss.

I'll keep reading these tweets from months ago. They're going to make me happy and sad, but I want to know more about that person, even now that that person's gone forever.

In my book (and no need to tell me it's silly; I know it is), the world became a tad darker and sadder the day that person died. I'll keep the tiny hole in my heart for as long as I'll live.

I've got no right to miss that person, but, hell, I do.

Typing & Reading & Editing

I feel like telling you about the various plot bunnies, so... here's a post just about them.

I'm editing old bunnies written by one of my other literary incarnations in order to try to keep my eyes "sharp" for the more recent things I wrote.

I've been reading things about the way to format a play, and I've been reading again a few plays I really like in order to see how things were done; I think I got all the stage directions and indications right now.

I'm going to let Paper Cranes simmer a little bit more now that it's properly formatted (I'll come back to it with fresh-er eyes in a few weeks).

I've been working on my second play, as well. Since the topic's very, very close to me, it's coming rather nicely. It won't be as long as my first one (I am the proud owner of a 106-page play), but it should be somewhat interesting.

Working on my plays, I found a topic that interests me. If I finally dive into it, I'll have to do some research because Hadrian and Antinous would be the main characters of this story. It's tempting and frightening at the same time.

I also have ideas for two other couple-related short stories (both would be tragedies this time, and I guess it's time to be courageous and tackle "no happy ending" plots).

I'm still working on the background for my Sci-Fi PI short stories. Most of the characters, the worlds, the philosophies are taking shape, but there's still one alien character who's playing hide and seek (there's got to be something that I must come up with about her that I haven't spotted yet).

And back to my keyboard............................

The Lost Child

There might well be a Sordid Fairy Tale in the making with this entry, but I first only need to say what I saw on my way to work last Wednesday.

I was on my usual bus (the direct one that stops two streets away from work), and I had one eye on my book, and the other on the scenery around me.

At one point, we drive by a smallish garden where there are two nice playgrounds for the many children who come there with their mothers or nannies.

First, I saw a young man near the smallish slide (it’s built for children no older than about 6, I’d say).

Since there’s a bus stop right next to the garden, I had about a minute to observe the young man. I saw him climb on the smooth surface of the slide (which was odd and made me take a closer look at what he was doing), take position on the small platform and then slide down it as if he were riding an imaginary static wave, run once he reached the ground, be stopped by the railings and smile like a Bedlam resident high on something.

My first reaction, with one eye still somehow on my book, was: ‘He’s nuts!’, ‘He should be stopped.’ And ‘Good thing there aren’t any children here today.’

And then…

Then I tried to really pay attention, and it hit me like a ton of latinum. There was one child: the “young man”.

I really looked at him, and, though he was somewhat tall, he couldn’t be older than 17 (my money’s on barely 16).

And then there was the way he looked: decent clothes, but somewhat dusty – the kind that’s given by charitable associations to people who need them and that's worn until they fall apart.

And he looked Afghan.

His game took an entirely different meaning.

I know that there are many Afghan boys, who fled their country and ended up in various European countries where they’re like ghosts. I know that they try to gather in groups at night in order to protect one another, but by day it’s a different story.

Of course, I could be completely wrong, but I bet this teen was a lost boy, and when I came to that conclusion, I was disappointed with myself for my initial reaction [and even if he’s a local boy who was having some fun, he wasn’t destroying the playground, and I was denying someone a bit of fun for being too “old”. I’ve already slapped myself, thank you].

I could well be a victim of my wild imagination, but his boyish grin is haunting me, and I fear I spotted some sad tragedy right in my district.

Now, I imagine this boy alone, miles away from his country, fending for himself all alone, and claiming bits of normal childhood even if he looks too old for that.

I’m going to sound like a fool, but it broke my heart. He was grinning after he slid down and reached the railings, but no one was there to share that with him. He may be almost an adult (and I have no doubt that the authorities would treat him as an adult), but, right then, he was such a child. A lost child, alone in a foreign country.

My bus drove on, and I’ll probably never see him again, but he’s changed something in me.

I’ve got just enough money to take care of myself – and my cat – but this is with encounters like this one that I wish I could protect a few children and take them in or something [Note to the universe: never make me Dictator of the World, or I’d treat all the children on the planet as “mine”].

We’ll be a good species when our children don’t have to catch up on their childhoods in their teen years (or later, if at all). We must fight so our children can be children, and nothing else.

Inspiration: That Weird Thing, or 'Thank You, Mr Roddenberry!'

I'm still working on several things.

I'm not done editing my first play (the scary tragedy).

I'm still writing my second play (a kind of literary testament where I get to tell my truth about my life and how I relate to the world).

I have a Sci-Fi war-related story in my folders, and that one is linked to a fairy tale/pseudo legend I want to write and it's also linked to the Sci-Fi PI short stories on which I'm working.

I've got ideas for couple-related short stories that can join the ones I've already written on the topic.

I still have to finish the novel that takes place in Japan that I started months ago...

Basically, and in spite of the recent testament posts, I hope I won't kick the bucket soon, otherwise I'd be disappointed to leave all these plot bunnies in their closed and unfinished folders!

I'm writing a lot, and I'm reading a lot, too.

Last week, I started reading Stephen E. Whitfield's The Making of Star Trek. No pun intended, but it's absolutely fascinating.

That made me watch again the second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before. Now... I'm a Star Trek fan, so I'll never be objective, but I encourage you to do what I did and watch it (again?). It's incredibly modern and daring (not as daring as the first pilot that had a lady for second-in-command, but one couldn't ask producers in the mid-'60s to be that bold).

Funnily enough, as I grew up watching Star Trek, I found a quiz last week that said I'm close to Uhura (that seriously made my day). I think that Uhura's role, and the way she was written in the novels (she ends up working for Intelligence, which was something I loved: Uhura. Nyota Uhura, the discreet spy from Starfleet), was somewhere in my head.

The role of women in the series wasn't as important as Mr Roddenberry wanted it to be, but he did his best, and *points at the producers again* the Power That Be probably thought that the show would start a civil war if it hinted at full male/female equality - and yet, this is where we must go if we mean to survive as a species.

Sometimes, I dream that Mr Roddenberry had been given full, free reign over his stories. How things would be today for all these little Trekkers who grew up to wish the Federation will exist one day? Would people from minorities be even stronger? Would gals be bolder?

I know I am bolder thanks to Star Trek. I was a rather (read quite) shy girl, and when there was something I had to do, I thought about my TV heroes and went, 'Okay, if Starfleet were real, you'd never get in by being such a wimp! Go and do what needs to be done!'. I know it sounds as if I'm ready for Bedlam, but it was just a way to push myself - and it worked: today, I dare to travel to the other side of the globe all alone - and I'm not even scared a bit, so, thank you, Mr Roddenberry for that, as well.

Mr Roddenberry created many things, but he was slowed down by idiots who didn't see the potential of the jewel he was producing (the same idiots eventually killed the series - incidentally, I'm convinced that if the Internet had existed back then, the audacious fans who momentarily saved the series would have managed to save it for at least two Enterprise five-year missions).

Mind you, most channels thought, and still think, in fact, that viewers are stupid (just look at the sordid number of Reality TV shows! If that's not taking the audience for a bunch of brainless monkeys, I don't know what is - and the other appeal to producers is that it's cheap to make). Mr Roddenberry wanted to believe that most of the audience members were people with brains and the manual that goes with it; in most cases, he was completely right.

If you give people something a notch above their usual dose of brain stimulation, some will recoil and whimper (I've got blood relatives in that category... or read the one-star reviews for JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy, that's scary stuff: 'Oh, brain hurts! That's not Potter-verse. Bad book! Too dark!!!'), but others will be curious, open up and learn new things, and when something another notch higher comes their way, they'll be ready to learn and improve.

Incidentally, when I think of the way Star Trek was killed in the late '60s, I often also think of the way Alien Nation was killed in 1990; here's another series that was ahead of its time - so much that it wasn't renewed.

People working on TV series must really have a hard time when they come up with great ideas that are stopped and killed by a limiting budget.

I've always had a wild imagination (no kidding, as far as I can remember, I've always been imagining stories), but discovering Star Trek opened up my world and made my plot bunnies go at Warp 9.9.

I am still working on my Sci-Fi PI stories (as I've said, I'm really happy with the central plot). There's one character that I'm still wrestling with as she refuses to tell me everything about her, but that has to be because I'm missing a clue about her, who she really is, and what the heck she's doing in my plot - oh, and since it's Sci-Fi, I need to know what she is, too. If you spot her, kick her my way, please... ;)

While I'm constructing the universe for the characters in these stories, I've realized that I want to use it to describe the kind of world I wish for our future here.

Above my desk, I've got a signed photo of Mr Roddenberry smiling at me. He'll keep inspiring me, and I'll do my best to write a good world.

*off to tackle plot bunnies and build planets*

PS: My life as a Trekker/Trekkie started thanks to Mr Nimoy, but that'll be the topic of another entry - or maybe not.

This Is Impossible!

I am not going to pretend that I'm a GP, but I'm in my body, and I happen to know it rather well.

Since my nerve VII froze, I got even more used to reading the weird healing signals that I've been given over the past six years.

Strangely enough, since my nerve froze, I caught one cold. Just the one.

But... each time I have a major defrost, I do have cold symptoms, as if whatever I caught was attempting to leave my body alone at last.

Now, I can hear most doctors telling me that it's impossible because the virus died six years ago. I may not be a GP, but I understand as much. And yet... Each and every time I get better, it's after a bout of fever, or a lot of sneezing, or a runny nose, or some coughing (and let's not forget that each morning my eyes are practically sealed shut because of the infection)... and I'm not catching a cold or some odd-ish virus every other fortnight.

Now, that thing I've caught six years ago may have changed me, but I have super strong antibodies (I've got a vaccine scar to prove it), and when I do catch something, it lasts for a week - at least.

And what happened this week? Wednesday night, I thought I was severely dehydrated (after all, it wouldn't have been surprising since I was back on stage this week, and I hadn't been drinking enough on Monday night), but it turns out it was the beginning of two days of fever cum runny nose and severe coughing.

Work was hell on Thursday, and I spent most of Friday plagued with fever.

Last night was mostly unpleasant, but today was okay.

Then, I've been unwell for about two days. Now, I did some research and it might not be entirely impossible for a common cold to last only three days (anyway, I was 'off' only for two days), but with my reactions, it has never happened to me - and I don't think this is what happened to me.

I can see most doctors ready to ship me to Bedlam, or growl at me that 'it is impossible', but since I probably caught an orphan disease, I'll be the judge of what oddities my body's guilty of producing.

Oh, and to the ones who are going to think that I'm smoking the lawn (and I'm not a GP), how do you explain that, after this bout of weird and severe fever, my cheek is almost back to normal?

Then again, in the 'weird' department, I've had a really noticeable improvement when it's 'that time of the month' (not complaining, but you'll have to admit that it is odd).

Amongst the few people who caught the same virus I caught, I am recovering, but not everybody's that lucky.

The Faculty washed its hands and abandoned me four years ago. 

It's a bit sad when unusual cases are dropped because they're too strange, or too complicated, or too 'I don't know what' (might it be 'not common enough'?).

I know I've got to be right about that thing that's in me (and leaving me), but professionals never listened to me or believed me from day one. Why would they listen to me or believe me today?

I'm "just" in that body, and I read it pretty well, but even if I'm right, most doctors would look at me as if I were a simpleton, and some would snort at my audacity to self-diagnose.

I loved House, but each time one of the characters said that everybody lies (meaning patients lie), I cringed. I keep telling the truth, and no one listens because it doesn't fit known symptoms. Perhaps I should write a TV pilot on this topic...

Testament Update 2 (the sequel)

I'm going to get a free appointment with a notary (I hope I'll get a nice - and competent - one who can tell me if the testament I wrote is blood relatives-proofed).

Incidentally, something happened this week that really confirmed that for me, except my mother, the rest of my family is 'dead to me' (Merlin! If I didn't look so much like all the other gals in the family, I'd be tempted to think that there was a mistake at the hospital after my birth because I'm not wired like any of them).

After the family 'something' that happened, Mother mentioned testaments, and I had to tell her we're more or less covered since I wrote one. That was a bit awkward.

I'll write a 'Return of the Testament' when I've seen the notary. :)