Caving In

http://getofftome.blogspot.com/
Derp; caved in and made a new blog. I encourage my followers or anyone who finds this page to tap into their more...deviant side ;)

Food!

I've been hiding at my girlfriend's house for a bit, and I'm back for now. I've discovered a delicious and easy to make food; fried naan.

1. Buy naan
2. Fry on one oz. of virgin olive oil until dark brown
3. Eat it. It's amazing. You can eat it with meat (I cooked lamb), or ice-cream. It's cheap and easy to do, just try it!

I flew in an airplane today.

Going from the Bay Area to Portland, and I was a bit more nervous than if I were flying on a different date.

Today is the 11th of Sept, a monumental date to Americans who were old enough to understand its implications nine years ago. This won't be a long rant, but more of a question to those Americans(or not) reading this. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives due to preventable causes; dysentery, malaria, war. Do you think it's justifiable for Americans to see the ~3,500 deaths nine years ago as a major national tragedy, or are we overreacting considering it's a statistically trivial amount in comparison to the daily horrors we are generally naive to?

Infinite respect to those who have died that day nine years ago and those fighting to prevent it from recurring since then.

Epic Story Time

         True story of today, in the second person. I know ya'll said you want pictures more, I'll post more after.

           He will buy a mansion. It’s raining today, and it hasn’t rained in months. This is his first time playing the lottery, and the ticket sits folded and neglected on an oak dresser in the corner of his bedroom.  It had become apparent to him that furiously sweeping the bar on the ticket would not work until it would activate two days after he purchased the ticket at the Safeway a few blocks from his home. He had driven home in his green, paint chipped and equally neglected car with the nonchalant demeanor of “It’s ok, I can wait two days.”

            He will buy a Ferrari.  Two days later, he gets to the Safeway at 7:30pm, and after marching to the scanner it further denies him a prize. It had become equally apparent he would need to wait until 8pm to claim any potential jackpots. He scurries to the Starbuck’s stand a few meters away and order the Grande Frap he knows he can soon afford.  He scurried out of the Safeway into the safety of his car. He sits in the idle car as David Brubeck plays a tune on NPR; it isn’t Take Five, but he knows it is Brubeck.  He opens his eyes after the song finishes. 9:59pm. Cruelest of moments in his life, and although normally patient he could swear he was watching paint dry, ice melt, his vitality whither. He decides he will figure out who my true friends are once he is am wealthy.  It is 8pm.

            He will buy a yacht. The artificial illumination is exceptionally bright, and what sounds like elevator music is gracing his ears, the smell of fruit dances near the checkouts.  The neglected ticket is now my prizefighter, champion of what he deserves and has earned. The four small children putting pennies in the CoinStar gaze upwards in awe as he exchanges a look at his ticket, the air conditioned grocery pushing some moisture off his brow. The ticket is swiped, and there is an electronic beep.
           He slowly paced to his car, still shaking from the excitement. Jesus tapdancing Christ. I lost The Game.

Sorry loyal readers, lost $1 on the Lotto today and I thought I'd have you share my pain. Plus it's been a while since you've lost The Game. 

Pictures 3

I have a few pictures left to share before I either find or make original content, so enjoy! I appreciate the positive feedback and views I've gotten so far, and hopefully will provide things worthy of praise. I've considered making a tutorial for how to create some of the images I've shown/will be showing, as well as possibly taking requests. 

Enough of the blablabla, enjoy.

                                    

 

People Like Cats

It was so obvious, I should have known it from the beginning. Pretty words pale in comparison to posting cute animals, so cute animals you shall receive! Also, please don't say "hai i really liked your stuffs here's my site follow me", I'll delete it. If you comment "nice stuff mate, I like the lighting." and you happen to have an interesting blog name/premise, I assure you I'll check it out; I just have to click your name and go to your blog.

 

Horray they uploaded well! Morsels I crafted with Photoshop and a program I haven't used in a long time, Apophysis.  

Picture's Two

I'm a huge stats whore, and I'm happy I'm almost at 1000 views(not counting my own incessant refreshing to see how many followers I have). I know I have ~250 followers and only 50 or so of those are actually interested in story I posted, and I have another coming up soon. I'll add pictures to this post at some point; sorry ahead of time for the poor quality.

Ocelot(I think) in the Munich Zoo(Germany) Horray, decent quality!

Photography

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I felt like sparing you a few thousand more (if you read my story). I'll be progressively posting a few pictures I've snapped while... existing.

^quality is fairly poor :(

Chapter 8

Natural heat fell onto my face from my bedroom window, and my eyes opened to an empty bed and an empty room. Alexis was still asleep in on the kitchen floor, her leg propped and the blanket on her chest moving up and down; not alarmingly slow or too quickly.  She could always sense when I was looking at her, and her eyelids raised to greet mine. What the fuck did I get into. She said it in a playful way, and nearly looking forward to the attention I’d be expected into giving her. My going out by moonrise and returning at sunset would be suspended; the reaper’s scythe would be leaned against the wall by the coat hanger next to the umbrellas on the door for a few weeks. I saw the fire return to her eyes, and I regret believing the possibly of ridding the world of vermin would be worth the life of a beautiful being.  Well girl, apparently the people I was going to kill last night didn’t think much of their parole and shot you in the leg.

 

Chapter 7

Enjoy! I hope people have skimmed through chapters 1-6 to get a better context.  I hope my imagery is stronger than I criticize myself for, either way, voila. 

Alexis’ consistent nagging eventually eroded my will to keep my missions precise, simple and clean. She had wanted me to bring her along for some time, and I couldn’t deny her despite her shortcomings.  She would leave hairs behind, maybe bite her fingernails, and in short, do something to fuck up. She said the fire would burn it all, and unless she lost a gold tooth I had nothing to worry about.  What are you going to do tonight? I knew there were two pedophiles living in a halfway house a few miles from me because of the public notifications I read on the fences I pass warning the decent members of society of such threats. I let her know they wouldn’t be plaguing the more moral members for much longer. What if they’re armed? They are released felons. I let her know that was ridiculous because they were on parole and finding a weapon would be too difficult. Nearly fish in a barrel, except these fish touched young children.

 Alexis kept pace, her red hair an oasis in the colorless sky.  I can recall her quietly panting, doing her best to be professional and giving me a brief grin as we skimmed into the projects, the type of smile from an enthusiastic and proud child.  Scaffolding from nearby buildings that always seemed to be under construction scattered the moonlight giving us a subtle guide in the otherwise darkened hellhole.  The well deserving soon to be victims were asleep, since their parole dictated an eleven’ o’clock lights out.  A thin balsawood sheet acted as a door, and I easily pierced it with the utility knife I had, and we slinked into the abyss. I grabbed my lighter and watched the flames for a few moments before preparing the ignition materials, enjoying the dancing embers. I prepared to lay down my ordinance and expected to see Alexis smiling at the doorway. I heard a shot. 

Eyes usually droop comfortably, but Alexis’ dropped like an elevator whose pulley cords had been cut. I dragged Alexis through the makeshift balsawood door until she was on the relative safety of the crab grass and tossed a lighter into the home, hoping it would ignite something flammable, preferably the homeowner. It was immediately apparent where she had been hit, us both hoping it wasn’t something vital. I picked her up and the vivacity returned like an old car being pumped with gasoline, and she screamed at me, at the pedophile homeowners, at life in general. I was burning every muscle, fiber and calorie to move us from where we were to somewhere we weren’t, and I am so thankful she had been hit in the flesh near her right shin. She wouldn’t be walking for a few weeks, but I wouldn’t be burying her either.  The two miles from the target to home were a marathon, the stars cheering on my progress, the moon encouraging us, the adrenaline keeping me awake and Alexis from subcoming from shock.  I had to blare music to drown out her agony, because lazy neighbors will generally call the police for hearing screams, rather than not calling from annoying music. I took off the black camouflage pants Alexis was wearing, laid her on her back and despite her begging, propped her leg atop a pillow. I had no idea what I was doing, so I sprayed a bottle of Neosporin onto the wound. The bullet missed the bone and went through, removing a cylindrical inch of skin. I grabbed the largest towels I could find to stop the hemorrhaging, the hemoglobin dripping into sticky, viscous milk on the kitchen tile floor. The screaming had stopped, and now I was struggling to keep Alexis awake. I put sugar into tap water and forced her to drink a liter before letting her pass out. Was it worth it she said. I lied to her and told her she was; sacrifices need to be made to ensure people get what they deserve. I made a mental note to ensure that only myself would make those sacrifices alone in the future.     

Blogging

Please don't spam the page with Adsense nonsense, I'm not in it for me money, and hopefully you aren't as well. I have more to post, and don't want to be shut down because people are saying "ohai I'm following you follow me too 4 moneyz". Best of luck everyone, have a good one until I post another chapter tomorrow :)

Chapter 6

Keep clicking if you have a moment, I'd like to eat :)

Keeping my glasses on at all times is important to me, so I disregard the drops of rain that pool and dry in specs on the brim, obscuring my view after I step out of my small, tiled shower.  My body is not a fine tuned machine, but a well kept minimalistic structure of fat and muscle. I can walk and lift things and the desire to consume artificial proteins or a fake tan is far below me.  If you need those things to be happy, you let them consume you, I plead that your surprise is minimal when you have an electrical fire that consumes what you hold close. I digress.

I decided that the selfless life was the righteous cause when I saw the photograph of Thích Quảng Đức, the Mahayana Buddhist monk who immolated himself for the cause of religious equality in Vietnam. Takes some fucking stones to pull that off Alexis would gently sigh as I reminded her that I was following in his footstep, in a way. That monk definitely got the fire part right. He may have been a hermit and philosopher, but he had taste.  Alexis grabbed a potato chip resting on the sofa near her, laying it on her tongue, and describing her ideology of mankind the best she could with a full mouth.

So you’re like Hitler or Stalin right? She knew the simplest questions annoyed me best, because they lacked the clarity to effectively counter one of her points, protected in ambiguity and vagueness.  I told her I wasn’t like those men, insisting they were killing people for political self interests and security, but Alexis was already turning the bag of chips inside out, licking the salt remnants and overall highly amused with the crinkling tinfoil, her ivy eyes focusing on a corner where a small fleck of a chip was giving her resistance.  She had a whimsical quality about her, but she knew I held my philosophies close to my heart, and sulked with guilt after belittling them. Honeybunnybear, I’m sorry. She rose from the couch to meet me a foot in front of her, where I had been making us tea.  She was a few inches shorter than me, so she stood on her tiptoes to kiss my nose. 

Chapter 5

5th chapter of (8?) so far of my fiction piece, Coal. It definitely has its flaws, but if you find a part you particularly enjoy, or better yet you find a portion that can be improved upon let me know! Thanks to those who have read and seemed to enjoy it so far! Keep in mind earlier posts are earlier chapters, so if you're reading the whole thing from scratch you'll have to start from my first post.

I was fairly well liked in my youth because of my ability to lie while looking people in the eye.  At a young age I was surprised when people enjoyed shallow things, be it the Snickers in a Lunchable or the pretty girls who developed breasts by twelve.  Alexis has thrown the punch line at me many times, and no, I didn’t have a fascination with Ray Bradbury.  I wanted Whitman and Tolstoy and Frost rather than X-Men, thinkers who wanted people to know that thinking outside of the ordinary lead to people being happy with what they have.  If they are not, I will take what they have, be it a home, car, or life.  Alexis now snickers and reminds me that I will also take their Chihuahua.  I put Alexis’ comment past me because I know she means no harm, a kitten yanking loose strings on an old scarf.  If Alexis were perfect I’d have no interest in her.  Her feet are a bit flat, her words can sting, and she can be a bit absentminded, but these flaws make her qualities more astonishing when you have a canvas to compare it to.  If every meal you consumed is and was the best you’d ever had, you’d have ended it all long ago.

Alexis was born to poor parents in Lansing, Michigan about twenty-six years ago, but I’ve never bothered to know or at least remember her exact birthday.  She wanted to be a psychology major in college, but spit on a cop after he stopped her for speeding; at least that was her side of the story.  Simply put, her financial aid was cut, and she lived off various well-to-do men. Why she is with me I prefer to attribute to luck, for I am not necessarily a head turner or well off.  I had won seven hundred thousand dollars from a lottery ticket my mother had given me for my eighteenth birthday. It is obvious her Alzheimer’s had began and she had forgotten my birthday and picked up the makeshift gift at a convenience store.  I spend minimally, but Alexis knew I was fairly secure.  I liked to believe she enjoyed my company. 

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 of my piece of fiction, comment, and enjoy! Much love and thanks for the clicks/views <3

Alexis whispered, asking me what I was thinking about, and I could feel the moisture from her breath collect and dissipate on my outer ear.  A light drizzle pattered on the gravel roof while critters ran into the shelter of the nearby forest. I sat in a large maroon chair, my eyes focusing on nothing but her. She was blessed with ponds of green flecks that swam in her earthen eyes, a small but feminine chest, and dark red hair that flowed to her collarbone.  Her petite head was propped upon her smooth forearms and her stomach, pudgy but appealing lay on the mattress as she kicked her legs in a smooth but playful fashion like a swimmer staying afloat.  Our relationship was not focused around sex, though she was beautiful to me and I let her know so. It should be obvious I’m not of the modest sort, bragging about my fires as Monet’s and the like but my thought process truly is extravagant. I loved Alexis and she deserved to know what had been weighing me down as of the last week. Michael? Are you awake? Answer me baby, please she pleaded.  I rose from the comfort of the chair, and leaned until my bitter eyes were eye level with her sympathetic mint pupils. I let out a sigh, grinned and kissed her on her sweet, small nose. I killed a dog Alexis. A Chihuahua actually, I was…why are you laughing? Alexis raised a trimmed eyebrow a few inches from my face, replying, Chihuahuas are barely dogs. Kill a collie and get back to me. I was used to Alexis being harsh, and she knew where my buttons are, and how to push them.  I got over it and continued I was killing a man who denied a doctor in the group ‘Doctors Without Borders’ a loan. Those people are helping the helpless, and this sick bastard denies a selfless man the ability to pursue his dreams of aiding people who need it. The man had a dog in the house, I didn’t notice, and the dog is dead because of me. I could have prevented this. Alexis thought for a moment, replying I should have killed the banker for just having a shitty taste in animals.

You’ve sat across your coffee table from your significant other, laughing at the Gary Larson comic, thinking Holy shit, that Blackjack dealer is going to be pissed when he notices that the chicken and cow are counting cards, and the love of your life disagrees. This is funny, in fact she thinks it’s childish, and she returns to her analysis of the socioeconomic disparities of workers in Mother Jones. She doesn’t think it is too funny, and for an instant you want to murder her for her lack of humor. You really love her, even during those insane moments of clarity, but sometimes you wished she’d just laugh with you. I love animals; they eat when they’re hungry, sleep when they’re tired and generally don’t give a fuck what you think. Humans are the exception, we are self conscious, eat if it fits our diet of the month and sleep when we feel we’ve worked hard enough to impress coworkers. Alexis’ comment rooted itself as a cancer in my brain, and it will only leave when I die.  I don’t murder Alexis, but accept that maybe she has flaws, and her occasional lapse in humanity is among them. I sometimes crease the tops of books I read.

Chapter 3

Third part of my fiction piece, Coal. Feel free to add constructive criticism!

To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.  It is right you see to push the lemming off the cliff, and do not fear for him. The earth will break its fall.  I am driving to a convenience store to purchase my army, my munitions, my Zippo lighters.  The man who is not from here is not someone who will perish by my hand.  He is arguably working in a dead end life cycle, but he is not fooling himself into luxuries.  He wants to be simple, and for that I commend him. The waxing gibbous moon rewards me a third of a companion on the concrete and I am thankful and say my graces. The grass from homes is decadent, and I feel a mix of emotions when I smell fertilizer. It is unnatural and this is disappointing, yet it contains nitrogen, creating brilliant cherry spheres.

It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness. I am a product both of society, but I have a function to counter it.  I will merely be a dent against this wall of ignorance veiling an organic life.  My second step through the desert has been taken.  A spark is all it takes.

If I were abused I may have been able to have a legal justification for my actions, but my family is the type that melts by my hand.  My older brother Aaron counts cards in Las Vegas, enough to get by and not enough to get caught.  His craft is harmless; he is scraping fool’s gold from the bottom of a mineshaft, and his wife thinks he sells yacht insurance in foreign countries.  He has a sharp, rapier chin, a comically long and thin mustache found on European bodybuilders in cartoons. He has two young fruit of his loins and a German Shepherd, and I realize I should be proud of what many would consider achievements.  We would play in the Virginian winter snow powder, competing at a young age; best handwriting, biggest snowman, prettiest girlfriend. He will prove to be a firefighter to my ignition; not quite an opponent but a necessity in counterbalance.

My mother liked and likes my brother Aaron better, she isn’t afraid of his calls, his aroma or aura.  I attribute her distaste of me to mere paranoia and an onset of Alzheimer’s. And what have I done to justify her fear of me!  She is naive because she only sees the things I do on the news and can’t appreciate I’m building a better world through demolition; I certainly have not merited her fear.  I realize I don’t see her often, I’ll give you that point, but who wants to see their parents? Who wants to know what they’ll inevitably become? When I do see her I openly share what I’ve done, to, or rather for people.  Her caretakers obviously don’t believe her when I depart, ‘arrest my son!’ she insists, and they merely attribute it to her mental deterioration. I sincerely pity my mother, to be trapped in a bubble of distrust that you can never pop. 

Chapter 2

I know which guards are not tentative, I know which inmates will start a fight for cigarettes, and I know when my friend will open the door I need to walk through.  A psychologist was scheduled to interview me in my prison cell, and I will enjoy traveling to his and making it beautiful.  In four days I will cradle freedoms.  I’m sure you’ve seen Silence of the Lambs on your quaint television screen or projected onto a wall at a theatre, and you surely remember Anthony Hopkins’ escape and I plan on executing a similar method of escape. My favorite guard is Sean, and he wears large designer tinted sunglasses and prefers to keep his beard trimmed. My chin looks like his, and I will grow a beard like his. He walks my large corridor often, informing me about the college basketball league that I pretend to care about. He is new here, naive in his belief that those who commit heinous crimes can, on occasion be sweethearts. He is the only guard who sees me regularly, and because of the prison pay cuts all guards have been more apathetic about identity regulation. I’ve paid an actual acquaintance that helps engineer the simple cots to leave a screw in my bed loose enough for me to wrestle it out of its bearings.  I’m not certain how he knows that particular cot will be mine, but I didn’t ask for any verification, for it would either happen or I would find a different means of escape. I was however fortunate enough that my cot-building friend was able to make word on his promise and I repaid him with two cigarettes. I told him that I would kill him if I found out he had been wasting his life when he got out of prison.  In four nights Sean would charge into my confines because I will be coughing (the fires have been kind enough to bless me with an acute lung infection from asbestos, I can cough on queue).  Sean’s neck will be near my head, and I will cut his throat open with the sharpened screw from the cot. I will quickly trade clothes with him, and yell that a cellmate has tried to commit suicide as a fountain of blood ruins my new attire.  The darkness in this rare moment will be an advantage; his guard companions will tackle him as he screams and beat him to the point where he won’t resist. I will thank the guards with a tip of Sean’s sunglasses, and leave an hour later in his car, headed towards anywhere that wasn’t cellblock 14. 

Chapter 1

Story I'm working on, please critique! 

  I am the proprietor of life. Cinder is my morning coffee, and the furniture roasts like beans.  My arrest was not surrender but an attribution, an artist composing a signature on work.  I was merely freeing them from a life of corporate servitude, and many mid life crisis robots will say it was a horrible act yet secretly wish they could just melt away in heat.  This heat and light is a plaything, for it is enticing and controllable. I understand that psychologists and criminologists will want to tease apart my mind, attributing certain deeds to certain parenting flaws, brain damage from drug abuse or the sort. 

  I am doing the work of the Gods.  You may believe you have left the pilot light on for just a moment; this is my diesel being poured down your chimney at night.  You certainly did not leave the heat on, but my lighter has been gracefully discarded into the accelerant.  It will consume your logs, than your rug. The smooth curved bathtub will be the sole remaining testament to your life.

I believe you think the flames are beautiful as they consume your drapes, and if you do not I don’t care.  Sweat drips from your forehead to the bridge of your nose, tickling you before it dives to the fine maple floors of your kitchen.  Your eyes will squint through the smoke, and I will only wonder why you fight so hard to stay alive, so you can return to your box, be paid in rectangles, and buy square cars.  Your home is now anything but uniform, and if you could speak you would surely thank me.

I am doing the work of the sun.  If it should content me the last light you see will be my fire, my work.  And I do wish it.  I no longer linger for their attention, for I am far above celebrity status.  The majority cannot appreciate what goes into a controlled fire, for there are chemicals to be measured, changes in pressure and temperature to account for, and finding the people who deserve a visit to be found and swiftly made sure to never be found again.  A cell surrounded by criminals, amateurs at art.  Your crude stabbing or drug deal is misguided.  That home on 23^rd and Parker was a Monet. 

I am keeping you awake when day subsides.  You will smell the trash you did not take out and convince yourself it is gas, convince yourself your daughters night-light is a spark, and you will go far madder than I, even though I am contained for now.  Fear not little worker bee, for I will soon burn your hive, your honey is not sentimental, only carbon. It is not important where I am, but where I am going. My first of thousand steps in the desert has been taken.  I have been asked why I created those portraits that were homes, now cinder and memories. Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. People were happier living without being forced into choices of consumerism, and I will make the decision they want to make but cannot; live simpler or don’t live.  For now I am in cellblock 14, with the people who accidentally were caught, people devoid of light.  They either have naturally twisted minds that couldn’t control themselves, or they took too much and made a poor choice. It is not important how slowly you are going as long as you don’t stop. I am alone in my cell because they are worried I would create friction, and this is true. These bars are an icy nemesis, and the moist atmosphere is a contrast to the heat I generate.

 For a while I cannot leisure under the warm rays, and this does not concern me because it does not matter where I am, but where I am going.  I cannot tell you how I will escape, but it will involve a few slit throats and no hard feelings.  I wouldn’t let myself out, and I understand society has done what they think is best.  These walls are thick, but my thoughts allow me to slip through the cracks and grip the daylight with my mind. It feels like spring.