Introducing...

...Mr. Landol, one of our band's other singers.  Like everyone else in the band, he's really doing this.  I'm the only hobbyist :-/

Blame my camera for the questionable quality of his voice, because, trust me, it was good.  I wish we'd been able to capture more.

I sing a little...

...in public, a very little. Like once a year.  In private, I sing all the frickin' time, unless someone puts me on the spot and asks me to. Yes, yes, I know I'm strange.  I'm not trying to hide it.

Anywho, last night was my one official performance for the year.  And I've got video to prove it.  Gah!  I think it's awful, but then I always think it's awful...  I apologize now for the poor sound quality and picture.  My camera's old and it shows.

I have 2 more videos to torture you with, I think, so stay tuned!  (Or run away screaming.  You have been warned, after all.)

I won't/Say you will

This is a story consisting entirely of dialogue, despite it's strange presentation.  I thought about putting in some description, if not actual dialogue tags, but I sort of like how it is right here.  I'll think on a second post with more detail.  None of the current capitalization/not-capitalization or spacings are accidental.  Enjoy!  Decipher ;)

***

-What are you trying to hide?

-What do you mean?

-Don't you know?
-Why did you run?

-...because if I didn't run away, I wouldn't have been able to walk away.

-So why not stay?

-Because you... because I won't take what's not mine.  it's not right, no matter how much I might want--

-So we keep dancing around the obvious?

-You keep dancing. 

-...you know I did all I could to keep you near me.

-i wondered.

-But you still ran away.

-I had no choice.  Was I supposed to wait for you to decide you were going to stay, or be the catalyst that helped you stray?  No.

-I'm sorry I made you feel that way.

-Are you?

-.....

Fin

Tell Her: Recompense

More from the Tell Her series.  Yeah, I hadn't realized it was a series either, but it suddenly went and had parts, and then an ending.  It's kinda wild.  I'm working on the end now.

She pushed her hair behind her ear, expression pained.  "I know I'm not the only one who makes your life crappy midweek every week, but I usually try not to be one of those people," she said, ending on a note that made it sound more like a question than a statement.  "So I kinda feel bad."  She pushed her hair back again, even though there was nothing to push.

He shrugged.  "It's okay.  It happens every week."

"I know, but..."

"You feel bad."

"Yeah.  So I kinda wanna make it up to you."

He chuckled.  "Don't worry about it."

Her nose scrunched and her lip curled as her expression became more pained.   

He chuckled again, turning away from her as he brought his elbows up onto the desk and laced his fingers together.  When he looked at her again, she was more forlorn.  "You really want to do something to make it up to me," he said.

Grey (2/2)

The second half of what I wrote for this year's NaNoWrimo.  It has not been edited (it is still November after all) and may never be completed, though I quite like this story so I do hope to come back to it.

---

Head to foot in the intermediate gray of position, Janelle was on one knee on the other side of Father’s desk, waiting to be acknowledged. She’d been waiting for over an hour, and had long since gone into a light meditative trance. It took her mind off the hardness of the cold stone beneath her knee and the burn of oxygen starved muscle. It kept her ready and relaxed for whatever came next as the world around her was pushed back behind a cloud of single focus—Father.

She hadn’t yet perfected the technique. Sounds of her brother and sister Greys moving in the hallways, their handful of servants all jolted her out of her trance in bright flashes of pain and tedium. What she was good at, though, was not breaking the look of concentration. Then again, that might be why she was still down on one knee, waiting to be acknowledged by Father.

At least she couldn’t pull her freshly redone stitches in this position.

The edges began to fuzzy again as she reentered the meditative state. It was easy enough in Father’s office. The stone was, as expected, a dull gray and sparsely decorated. The rich wooden bookshelves with their leather-bound volumes provided most of the color, beside Father’s own golden tan complexion. Even his desk was a spare affair. Father never kept any papers longer than he needed them, and preferred to get his messages via email or text when he could. Alorna, his secretary did in fact maintain extensive files for him. Somewhere.

“So Iris says it was...” He cleared his throat. “A Colorless ‘bilge rat’ that managed to wound you?”

Grey (1/2)

I started writing this as my novel for this year's NaNoWriMo.  A few days into the writing, however, I felt the need to go back to work on another project I've had on my plate for over a year.  I promised that I would post what I had written, however, so here it goes.  I actually quite like this and hope to be able to come back to it.  It had been on my mind for a while.  I must warn you, though, that like any good NaNo novel this hasn't been edited.  It's still November, after all ;)

---

Grey

Prologue

It’s the worst way for a Grey Assassin to die. They warn you about it in training.

Never get hurt alone. Never lie bleeding by the side of the road.

The reason was tacitly clear if not explicitely said. You couldn’t ever expect help from anyone but your brothers and sisters, because no one would ever dare. What we Greys did was legal of course. We were color-coded weren’t we? But we were one of the most mysterious colors. One of the deadliest.

Was the Grey lying in the gutter really dying, or was she on assignment waiting for her assigned Target to walk by? Better not to find out.

I wish they would. Because I’m not on assignment. I’m not on anyone’s time but my own. And my brothers and sisters… They’re probably wishing me to a wretched painful hell anyway.

What good is being a Colored Person, with a House and Name and Family if even they are going leave you to run out on the side of the road like Clear Water?

I was just looking for my kin.

Korean Day Parade 2011

It's not popularly known, but I am a big fan of Korean dramas (k-dramas).  Basically they're Korean soap operas or telenovelas.  Any given show will run from 16-100+ episodes depending on whether it's a weekly or daily drama.  They fall into several genres including rom-com (my personal fave and very popular for obvious reasons), slice-of-life, historical, action, etc.  Like any Western show, some are wonderful and some are terrible, with a bunch falling somewhere in the middle.  What I like about them is...  It's a little hard to explain.  I like the lack of graphic sex and violence (in rom-coms at least...your historicals can go there with the violence), I like the fast pace. I like the immense library of already completed shows!  And I can't neglect to mention the parade of hot guys.

What?  I'm just being honest!  I'll watch a show where I don't find the guys particularly hot (sorry, fellow beaners, but I don't think Wookie's cute and you know how I feel about Lee Min Ho), but it doesn't hurt.  At all.

*cough*

Needless to say all my k-drama watching means I now also have an interest in Korean culture.  I know a handful of Korean words, I have added Seoul to the list of places I want to visit (Paris, you're still first!), and I've written k-drama inspired fanfiction. But anyone who knows me well knows that my fannishness is wide instead of deep.  In other words, although I'm seriously tempted it's unlikely that I'll learn Korean.  :-/

But still, yay Korea!

So imagine my joy and surprise when I came up from the subway last Saturday on my way to meet a friend only to run smack dab into the Korean Day Parade!  I swear I didn't jump and down and squeal, but that's probably only because I was surrounded by strangers.  Seriously, I got off about 2 stops early because, well, I was early.  I had no expectation of catching the KDay Parade.  My tv's been out for two weeks, I didn't pay much attention to the news...it was totally God's surprise gift to me.  And what a delightful gift!

First of all, it was just full of pretty.  The traditional dress, the couple of floats I was able to see (I was on my way to meet someone after all), the street fair I wasn't able to actually visit...all very cool.  As a matter of fact, I ran into people going to the Polish Day Parade on Sunday and was kinda sad that I couldn't take pictures of it, too. 

Anywho, I promised my Dramabeans unnies, oppas and dongsaeng that I would post the pictures and videos that I did take.  In deference to those of us without hi-speed, or who think I'm totally nutters (you're in pretty good company ;), the pictures are all under the break.