Sunday, November 16, 2014

Round-trip Roundup

In Harlan Ellison's Eidolons, there is an ultra-short story within a story (maybe just 500 words) that begins:
"I awoke at three in the morning, bored out of sleep by dreams of such paralyzing mediocrity that I could not lie there and suffer my own breathing."
The remainder of that paragraph-long piece tells how the protagonist's boredom was "cured" by an unimaginable sequence of horrible calamities.  The piece ends with the only possible reflection:
"Somehow, the universe always provides."
Well, for me, the universe is providing.  :-)  No horrible calamities as yet (fingers crossed), but getting ready to move across country is making for some big-time disruptions that my goodly wife and I haven't experienced since our 20s.  I got home yesterday from a quick trip to sign an apartment lease.  Finding a place that's okay with our four felines was stressful, but luckily the in-person part was completed in just one day.  A red-eye flight got me home before a big snowstorm hit the Rockies.

But!  The chaos of packing has unearthed some interesting artifacts.  I found the colorful plastic name-tag from my first job: picking up garbage at a Six Flags theme park.  (No image to post, but just think of the "pieces of flair" from Office Space.)  I found a copy of the Norse myth play that I wrote at the age of nine.

A more recent layer of strata revealed the robot costume that we made for my son when he was 5 or 6...


A bit of garage mold necessitated a ceremonial disposal, but not before fully documenting the find, like good archaeologists.  :-)

There were also a few things that connect with the history of this blog...


Yup, this was pretty much a true story.  Below is the most surprising find...


...which completes the documentation of the Alphabet of Neptune that I previously revealed to the world.  The above symbol, by the way, is the "Interplanetary Peace Sign."  Nice.  If there's interest, I could conceivably post a translation of the whole booklet.

There hasn't been much time for writing fiction, but on the plane I added quite a bit to the copious notes and outline for the story that I talked about last time.  My characters now have names.  :-)

7 comments:

  1. Ugh, moving... May it all go smoothly for you.

    I love that robot costume! And I'd love to know more about Neptunian.

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    1. Thanks! The costume was difficult for him to get around in, but it was fun for all of us to make.

      I'm not sure how much more about Neptunian I should talk about... see the earlier post for some context.

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  2. Isn't it interesting which things turn up?
    Moving - after the Big Bang - brings order (after a while...) I wish you good luck, and neighbours who serve you a cup of hot tea on arriving, and a lovely new home!

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    1. Thank you so much, Britta. You've got me trying to come up with cosmology analogies for this process, but I think it's giving me a headache. :-)

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  3. What's in a name!?

    Strata.

    Good posting, sir. So sorry about having to dispose of a decent robot costume but lovely unearthed shell. :)

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    1. I'm all about the strata these days. My office has 18 years of it; our house has 14, plus all the stuff trucked up here from our pre-New-England days. Someone once told me about the benefits of sifting and winnowing as you go. It's a good thing.

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