tentative's New Writeups

February 5, 2010 (log)

2010-02-06T04:41:39Z

Dear E2

It's been a while since I wrote a log and there's been some stuff happening in my life that perhaps you'd be interested in hearing. Given the number of messages I received approximately a year ago about my last year of school, I'm sure there are many that haven't heard but are interested in my results. I got into the course I wanted, Bachelor of Science (Animal Science) and now have a daily commute of about 30 minutes into the city to one campus, and on Thursdays I have to make a journey of an hour out to the agriculture campus so I can play with animals. But it's not an animal course. Look at the title. It's a science course, based around animals. I get to do chemistry!

Uni is a big, scary step but there was no moment where it all hit me at once. Instead, the fact that I have left school and have moved on in my life has washed over me in slow, steady waves. Driving my brother to school, or waking up when he had already gone. Having my…

We never smile in a way that is not obsequious (fiction)

2010-01-02T00:13:18Z

She woke in the middle of the night, sheets tangled around her legs and his arm hot and heavy on her stomach. With tired care she slid out of the bed. The summer air was warm and the sound of the beach washed in through the window. As her head started pounding she recalled the bottle of wine... She glanced through the open door as she made her way to the bathroom. Yes, two wine glasses and the half-empty bottle of dark red wine was still on the table. A pink petalled rose wilted in between the glasses. She sighed. The story of her life: everything wilted but not quite dead.

She peed and washed her hands, dried them and then wet them again to splash water on her face. Her mouth felt rank so she brushed her teeth, rinsed, spat and put her hands on the counter, leaning forward so her head touched the mirror. Two persons the same, colliding. It would be easier if she were a reflection, she considered, wondering…

No place I'd rather be (event)

2009-12-24T13:35:10Z

"I love you."

I turned around in the drain to crouch against the wall so I wouldn't get wet in the small trail of watery slime at the bottom. The light of the torch illuminated his face and arm, and I grinned. Too typical of him to tell me that, right here right now, with spiderwebs in his hair, his clothes wet from where he fell into one section of drain that was deep with water. I've cooled down but I'm still sweaty, I've crawled through this drain for the last 45 minutes, my feet and socks are wet, my shorts are dirty and my new shirt is experiencing more than any of its siblings ever will.

He brought me here, to this underground den, asked me to crawl through water, dodge pieces of glass, try to ignore the spiders, the moths and the potential rats. He expected me to be okay in the pitch black and the small spaces, to…

Alcohol and teens (essay)

2009-12-18T13:44:29Z

From the teen's point of view:
Before alcohol is drunk: Wooo alcohol let's get totally trashed, dude.
While alcohol is drunk: Dude aren't we, like, so totally cool right now? Pass me another, whatiscalled, I dunno, but it tastes goooood.
Morning after: Omg last night I had sooooo muuuuuuch and I was soooo drunk. I swear I made out with like 5 people but I cant even remember cause I was soooo drruuuunnnnk.

From the parent's point of view:
Before/during/after: Argh no don't drink!

For some reason drinking becomes really cool between the age of 16 and 17, and doesn't stop for a little while. This is problematic for parents who want to keep their children's livers intact. (And for them to lose their virginity at least while sober, and to not have a hangover, and to keep their dignity.)

Fact number one: your kids will drink.
Fact number…

December 16, 2009 (log)

2009-12-16T10:11:25Z

School is over and the new year is just around the corner, or it may be right upon us, depending on when I post this. I've gotten this nasty habit of writing a node, letting it sit around on my hard drive for several days and then deleting it. Sometimes I don't even do that, sometimes I purposefully don't save them and then turn off the computer. I have not written since the Iron Noder Challenge, and I rather miss it, I just feel that I have no interesting words.

I haven't written a daylog in a while. I decided not to do any during the Challenge, so my life is cleverly or not so cleverly mixed in with my submissions for that. Since this is me and some call me the Daylog Queen, I suppose I should update you on my life, both for the sake of satisfying any interest you have in my world and so that there is a record seared into the internet to reminisce with.

Currently, it is summer, hot, dry and windy.…

Caspian (essay)

2009-11-30T02:28:14Z

It was cold and raining, and the mare's coat was weird and fluffy in the way it goes during winter. Her mane was absurdly thick and her demure absurdly calm given what the vet was doing to her. The fact that I got to meet her was astounding. Fifty years ago, her kind was thought to be extinct.

In 1957 Louise Laylin, an American, married Narcy Firouz, a fellow student at Cornell. Louise went with him back to his native country, Iran, where she had three children with him, and also established the Norouzabad Equestrian Center for children living in Tehran. However, she struck the issue of finding horses appropriate for young riders. Arabs can often be a handful, especially for a beginning rider, and so she began her quest to find the small horses of rumors living in the villages above the Caspian Sea.

She rode on horseback with several other women to the villages in 1965 and soon discovered the small horse that was subject of ancient carvings, such as those that…