Sitting up, he smiles softly down at the sight of a small hand curled into a loose fist, tucked up against a pale mouth.

-- Wakin' up, 01.06.99

 

"Yes. Well... Let's see, we met before... Carry the two... I don't know. A year and a half, maybe? Look, you -don't- want to hear how we keep track of what happened when, trust me."

-- Beej to Randazzo, SpeedLight55a, 01.16.99

 

"Just that, and yes, I did. No one knew who he was, 'Dazzo, not even -you- would've known..."

-- Blackwater Jones to 'Dazzo, SpeedLight55a, 01.16.99

 

"Some days I swear I'm living out some elaborately staged movie, y'know?"

-- Beej to 'Dazzo, SL55a, 01.19.99

 

"Our number has increased by one. Let us hope they shall increase their number!" Laughter followed this

-- Priest to Beej and Neets, Wedding 2, 01.23.99

 

They weren't his friends, far from it, but they weren't going to bother him, either.

-- Re: Quire, Blade, Freye, and Alek, Pop 2, 01.24.99

 

The trees were dripping. This wouldn't have bothered him so much if they hadn't been dripping straight down the back of his neck....

 

The valley they'd chosen to hide in for the week was perfect; a lush, rain-soaked green trough that offered ample opportunities to get lost. Alone, together, figuratively or literally, it didn't matter.

 

Blackwater steadied himself against a tree and stared out over the woods, noting the dull silver crescent of the small lake broken by the dark shape and trailing V of a boat...

-- Discarded opening lines from Explorations, set in the day or two before The Fish Scene in SL53.

Katherine had never seen so many people in the school's parking lot before. It was strange to see them gathered here, and for her not to be safely behind a table or a chest or something, waiting for them. She missed that already, the waiting and subsequent queries on this, that or the other; often the haggling that followed someone's discovery of something they just had to have. This summer was going to be different... This summer, she was going to have... An Adventure. At least, that's what the brochures had promised.

She couldn't see how that was possible, at the moment. Loading all of the kids onto a big bus, sending them off to a bug-infested camp in the middle of -nowhere-, and making them stay there for six weeks? In one place? Chewing on her lower lip, she laced her fingers more tightly through her Daddy's and rocked, heel-toe, watching the line of parents and teachers and children.

One place... One location, for the duration. Hmm... Well, she supposed she could survive. Kath looked around again, waving shyly to the few kids she knew. Quite a few of the people were talking, Dad had taken off a minute ago to speak to somepne that had recognized him, she could see his hat from here... Oh, good. She grinned at him as he came closer, stretching out her free hand to him. He just smiled back down at her, taking her hand and squeezing it gently.

Her family was the oddest one here, she decided. No one, as far as she could tell, had two Dads... It made her feel somewhat more out of place than usual, but that was something she'd learned to ignore a long time ago.

-- Homesick 3, tossed opening section. 02.05.99

 

 

It did -not- help that pictures flared and flickered across his mind's eye with each repitition, most of which were not at all suitable for either repriniting or the family audience.

-- Beej, Post First-Kiss reaction, possible Creative Writing Contest entry, 02.06.99

 

 

Dark didn't -feel- anything, though he could fake it well enough that no one had either noticed or guessed.

-- From Fractals, 02.09.99

 

 

"...And you shouldn't be so God-damned picky about what happens while you're gone. Jeez, it was just the once, the little chippy wasn't even that great a lay... I -still- don't see why you're so upset."

-- Aeron to Beej, Beginnings 2, 02.12.99

 

 

Before you think that I'm some vacuous bimbette that chooses her music on the basis of the lead singer's looks, I'd like to point out that I never -saw- Reznor until _after_ I owned some of his music.

-- Music Thoughts, 02.18/19.99

 

Speaking of songs being 'about' things... I have this very Spiffy 'How To Improve Your Writing' book (Writing Down The Bones by Natalie Goldberg) and one of the points Ms. Goldberg makes is The Writer is NOT the story/poem/whatever. (At least in a fictional/metaphorical/simile sense.) So, one can take that and tweak it a little, finally arriving at: "The Artist is NOT The Song."

-- Music Thoughts, 02.20.99