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tomash3tomash3[NOTE: Contains spoilers for major developments in the Post-Self cycle. Don’t read if you haven’t read through Mitzvot and Selected Letters.]
Wherein Daisy notices something new at the side of a road.
( Spoilers below )skunkceteraEarlier today, I came across this post on Tumblr of some fan art of Motes and felt compelled to write a tiny snippet to go with it.
It is important, Motes long maintained, that there must be some things that you are just plain not good at.
If you are going to be in this life for the long-haul — and she was most certainly in this life for the long-haul! — there would be plenty of things that she would have the chance to be good at. She was fairly good at painting, yes? And chalking up the streets outside the House on the hill, that house she shared with her Ma and Bee. She was a pretty good actor, of course, for she had her favorite roles to play in Au Lieu Du Rêve's productions. She was an amazing dreamer.
And there was plenty of things that she did not want to be good at. She did not want to be good at breaking hearts. She did not want to be good at growing up. She did not want to be good at being anything other than what she was.
But one thing she was decidedly, cheerfully, joyously terrible at was skateboarding.
She was in this life for the long-haul, and so perhaps she could practice long and hard to become good at skateboarding, and there were times when she might give this a halfhearted try for a month or two, but something about it just evaded her. She could go in a straight line, perhaps. She could sometimes make a turn, so long as it was to the right. She could drift to a stop or tumble into the grass and dandelions, but actually deliberately stepping off the board to come to a stop had led to the most skinned knees of all.
Better, she thought, to lay on her front on the board and push herself along with her paws, or perhaps lay on her back, tail hugged up to her front, as she scooted around down the driveway. Better to sit on her board at the edge of the sidewalk, feet planted in the gutter, talking to her friends. Better to rejoice in the incompleteness of it all, of holding out this one thing and saying, "One day, maybe I will be good at skateboarding. Maybe next year."
After all, she was in this life for the long-haul.
skunkceteraSomeone on the Post-Self Discord wondered what one of those silly recipe blogs written in the style of Idumea might look like. Rye took that as a challenge.
It is the beginning of summer, and the air still bears a chill, and yet the sun is hot and the memories of the life I lived before — the life of Michelle, the life of phys-side — are dogging me.
Memories are dogging me, and thoughts of food, thoughts of those lovely little things that we have discovered over the years. I have told you of The Woman's explorations with food, yes? I have told you of newness and of the joy of tasting, of that lovely restaurateur who doted upon her as she wept at spice, yes?
But there is also the comfort in familiarity! There is the joy in those foods we know well, having long ago discovered them. There is joy in every bite, I think, and I imagine you, dear readers, have experienced this as well, have dwelled in the simple loveliness of a very good sandwich.
One must understand the joy in contrasts, in the crumb of the bread and how it is specifically not the crumble of the tofu, in the crispness of the sprouts and microgreens and how they are counter to the avocado's smoothness, in the still-warm protein and the still-cold vegetables.
We are all, you see, beings of contrasts. When we find joy in ourselves, we find it in the ways in which we are contradictions. Why, I will look in myself and see the love of life and the dire terror of being beholden to the whims of my traumas. I will look around me and see the loveliness of my sim, my beloved up-tree and The Child zipping about the yard twelve times over, twenty four times over, and I will know that this place, this dream, was built from the trauma of the lost. From AwDae, yes, but did we not also shape the early days of the System? Was our trauma — our fears of being lost yet again — not formative for Secession? For all that the eighth stanza did?
Dear readers, surely you must know that we, that I, that The Woman and trillions of other individuals, contradict ourselves, just as does our beautiful and broken and terrific and terrifying world.
Do we contradict ourselves? Very well, we contradict ourselves.
We are large.
We contain multitudes.¹
You may also consider whole-grain mustard if you desire more tanginess.
¹ Cf. Whitman:
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
We are ever ourselves: built off that which we love. The Instance Artist read "Song of Myself" and latched onto this particular phrase. It has said it enough to have thoroughly exhausted it, then wrapped around to the point where it is endearing; where, if it were to not say it at times, it would somehow be less.
airahDid a bit of an upload story to try and shake some of the cobwebs out.
Posted initially to my main page, but also linking here. <3
It isn’t to say that older folks uploading is a particularly rare occurrence, but just that they are not nearly as common as younger folks. Generally, or so at as least the statistics tend, if a person was the sort to be interested in uploading they tended to do it as soon as possible. Even after the attack, after the climate began to stabilize, people generally uploaded early or not at all. Especially once it became nearly free to do so, or at least funded in such a way to be widely available to the masses regardless of wealth.
In that way it was fair for the upload technicians to be surprised by the presence of a man in his sixties. Time and the environment had not been kind to him, he walked slowly and slightly pigeon-toed, the trademark swelling and unevenness of arthritis was plain to see in his scarred hands. His arms and shoulders were pockmarked with tattoos of various styles, of various meanings. The technicians did not ask and he did not volunteer anything, but the old industrial worker’s union symbol etched into his upper arm marked him as a friend. He laid down upon the upload table, jacked in one last time, and willfully met his end upon the planet. A hell of a retirement party, he called it, moments before his motor control was cut off and his heart stopped.
tomash3Daisy was sure they’d gotten trapped on the road. This was supposed to be a six-hour drive — the description said so — but, even though they’d left before dawn, the sun was setting.
They’d pulled over at one of the rest stops. They were pretty sure they’d passed it once already. It was empty. The lights in the parking lot were dim or flickering or both. Usually both. It radiated creepy.
Did I accidentally get on a murder highway? they wondered.
There was an emergency phone pole in the parking lot. I wonder if that works, Daisy thought.
They pressed the button, expecting nothing.
The speaker crackled. “System Emergency Response Group, what’s your emergency?”
That hadn’t been what they’d expected. They didn’t even know there was a System Emergency Response Group.
“I think I’m trapped on this highway. It was supposed to be six hours and I’ve been going all day,” Daisy said.
“You can step out to a different sim,” the operator suggested. “Or if you want to keep driving, you can stick around while we have someone take a look.”
They’d considered giving up on this entire plan around dinner, but had decided against it. “I still want to drive to my aunt’s, and there might be other people stuck here.”
Daisy could make out faint keyboard noises through the speaker.
“Do you want someone out right away, or do you want to a realistic wait for your sim?”
Daisy considered this. “Uh …let’s do realism.”
“Should have someone there in a hundredth or two. Call back if you need anything.”
“Thanks!”
The connection closed with a beep.
Daisy took some time to explore the rest stop. There wasn’t much, and what was there had seen better days. Even the vending machine was half-empty. It had eaten a bunch of coins, too, but they’d gotten candy out of it.
So, with nothing else to do, Daisy stood around watching the sunset as they waited for help (would it actually be help? maybe asking to wait was a bad idea?) to arrive.
As the last hint of orange was leaving the sky, Daisy saw a van pulling into the rest stop. The letters on the side said “Lagrange County Public Works” — they weren’t sure if that made it more or less sketchy. Maybe this is "a murder highway after all.*
Once the truck had parked, its driver stepped out. Daisy wasn’t sure who they’d expected, but a dog furry in a “PERISYSTEM TECHNICIAN - DO NOT PET” vest wasn’t it.
“Hello? Daisy?” he called, looking around. A non-anthropomorphic dog that looked suspiciously similar to the technician hopped out of the van and went to sniff around the yellowed grass nearby.
“Right here!”
“I’m Tomash. Nice to meet you!” The systech walked over to stand by Daisy. “Hope we didn’t keep you waiting too long.”
“I’ve had worse,” Daisy replied. “Could be raining.”
“So, trapped on the highway, yeah? Do you happen to remember your exit number?”
“342. For New Omaha. I’m … pretty sure I didn’t drive past it.”
“Exit 342. Alright, let me take a look …” He mumbled something and frowned.
“Well, there it is. Some joker hooked the highway up to itself again.” he declared.
“Huh?”
“Yeah, the folks who made this sim added in interchange support but forgot to ban self-loops. Someone adds one now and again.”
“So what do I do?”
Tomash smiled. “I’ve just fixed it, so … you’ve got about fifty miles to go, straight ahead.”
He turned to get back into his van. “Thanks for calling this in,” he said. “Abandoned rural highway sims are a pain.”
“Thanks for coming, and for making this a fun story. Two dogs showing up to un-loop the road — only on the System, y’know?”
“No problem, it’s what I do. Happy to help,” Tomash said. He climbed back into his van. “Scout!” he called. “Back in the car!”
The dog-shaped dog — Scout, evidently — paused to contemplate if he felt like doing that, then scampered back through the driver’s side door. A moment later, Daisy noticed his head hanging out the passenger window.
The van bounced and rattled along as Tomash drove off into the distance, then vanished as it neared the horizon.
Daisy got back in their car and drove off into the twilight.
They made it to their aunt’s without further incident.
airah
skunkceteraairah
airahtomash3skunkceteraIn response to Invitation #1: Culinary Construct.
Perhaps one of the most unique dishes I have eaten was at a small stall tucked away between trees in a seemingly endless forest. I felt we had wandered for hours between those trees — though I mean that without any negative connotations: the company made up for it — counting birds and leaves, squinting when the dapple of sunlight briefly dazzled me, before we finally turned a corner of sorts and there sat a food cart.
I really do mean a cart, too. It was the type of cart that might be hauled behind a bike, a folded box of sheet metal, a burner beneath a wok, steamer baskets stacked five high, and the young chef (one presumes) lounging lazily against a nearby trunk.
Our arrival did not startle them to action, so much as some automatic reflex caused them to waft into action. They plucked a folded banana leaf — and keep in mind, this was a deciduous forest of the type I remember growing up phys-side! — and lifted the lid off the top steaming basket and, not even flinching at the heat, plucked two steamed buns out with bare fingers and set them on the leaf dish. Apparently deciding for us that this was our entire order, they gave us a hint of a nod and settled back against the tree.
We hardly needed to worry about going hungry. Each of the buns was about the size of my fist, and looked more something closer to a large snack than any full meal, but, when one is confronted by a lone steamed bun seller in the middle of the Rocky Mountain forest, one trusts the process.
As was our habit from the first days of our relationship, Cress and I fed each other our first bites. Easy enough with a steamed bun, for we could simply hold it up for the other to eat. I can assure you, it is very cute: the two of us speckled in sunlight, holding food out to each other to hazard that first bite, cautious of steam.
The first bite was the most unexpected, as I was greeted with not the soft dough and sweet-savory filling of a steamed bunbut the crispness of a salad of green papaya and cilantro. The flavors burst forth with an eagerness that I was not prepared for: the fresh tang of the papaya, the zing of line, the savor of (vegan, I was told) fish sauce, the roundness of cilantro. Above it all, a subtle heat filled my sinuses from a sweet chili sauce.
Cress and I stared at each other in disbelief, chewing slowly as though that might somehow bring into focus the reality of what we were eating.
The next bite: a mouthful of noodles, of mushroom, of tofu, of a broth of lemon grass and coconut milk and chili. It was masterfully balanced with garlic and ginger, rounded out with a chili oil.
The next bite: a curry of some sort, sweet and creamy and almost refreshing in its execution. There was the kaffir lime and curry leaf notes peeking through the sweetness of the coconut milk, the fragrance of ginger and galangal, the crunch of bell peppers and onions and the chew of fried tofu.
The next bite: a wickedly spicy street noodle dish with mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, onions, bamboo shoots, and fried tofu. The seasoning was black pepper and soy and peanut, with plenty of chili paste thrown in.
The final bite: mango sticky rice. It was perfection, from the cool sweetness of the mango enhanced by a drizzle of sweetened coconut cream contrasting with the still hot sticky rice. There was even the faint pop of sesame seeds between our teeth.
Throughout our five bites, the bun looked much as any other might, with the dough snowy white and just as fluffy and the filling made of some meat and sweet-savory sauce.
We left stunned and talked of little else as we finished our hike. Neither of us have ever found the cart again.
hamratzaTell me of your experiences with food on the System. Tell me about how your relationship with nourishment changed when you uploaded, how your first encounter with hunger in a place without scarcity changed you, how it felt to taste the alien cuisine of first- through fourthrace for the first time. Tell me of decadence the likes of which never conceived on Earth, of excess as only a cladist can experience, of richness and vitality and sharing and compersion and joy and goodness.
Tell me as much, tell me a story, and ask for one in turn.
tomash3A story of those who try to make sure everyone makes it up to the System and some of the troubles they face.
CW: death, medical malpractice
( Read story )hamratzaWhile settling into this visit with muir partner in Vancouver, I requested a stool be brought into the bedroom so I could sit by their side while they browsed on their computer. I did not think this particularly significant to me until it was placed before me and I saw that it was the very same image of that stool likely still lingering in Jonas's living room.
It was haunting to perch atop it, to sit on this echo of my past on Lagrange. It was haunting because he was my friend and comrade of two hundred and fifty years. It was haunting because I remember the tenderness of time and of touch and of the unspoken tension between a man and a woman who neither had a conniption about closeness. It was haunting because it was he who orchestrated my death.
skunkceteraDot, I have been thinking while we sit here on the couch, you in my lap, dozing against my front, snoring softly as I brush my fingers through your fur. I have been thinking that you have spent more than a century now seven years old. That is one hundred seventh birthdays. Oh, sure, you have had a few twelfths, and once you even had a fifth, but no matter what, you have had more than your fair share of seventh birthdays.
I have been thinking, though — and this is between you and me — what if you grew up?
( Read more... )
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