Excerpt from my NaNo Work from today

The dark figure walked directly up to Ryan, and as he approached, Ryan looked up. He pulled one of the earbuds from its place nestled inside his ear canal and looked at the guy with that jock-blank expression that could be interpreted as a challenge, a question, or a statement depending on the situation.

“Ryan.”

“Um, do I know you, Bro?” The bass of his voice sounded forced to me.

The question took the man aback. At least, that’s how I interpreted the arched eyebrow which was about the extent of his reaction, but something told me that it was quite expressive for him. He was incredibly pale, and his black hair fell limply around his head, a wet curtain that was parted in the front for ease of sight. He was dressed from head to toe in black, but the look of the clothing was high quality. The breeze shifted slightly and I could smell that dusty, dead scent that I had smelled in my apartment earlier today. That, and a more intense, sharp scent that I couldn’t place that was just beneath that.

“Yes. You do.” the words had the sound of command in them, and I could see his eyes shift to a greyish slate color as the pupils and irises seemed to just recede “You know me, and you had work to do for me.” Ryan’s schooled expression of neutrality shifted into actual blank. His muscles relaxed, and his eyes lost their focus. “Did you find the werewolf?”

“I don’t understand…” Ryan stared unblinkingly into the man’s eyes.

The man narrowed his eyes slightly and leaned forward, as if adding his body’s weight to the push of whatever he was doing. “Who did this to you?”

“I… Was…”

I could actually see a very slight, pale glow coming from the vampire’s eyes now. “Tell. Me.”

A small trickle of blood started to flow from Ryan’s budless ear, and he looked in pain, but still kept his eyes locked on the vampire’s.

Shit.

I stood up very slowly, and moved with a predator’s grace; each step I took was slow and deliberate as to not make noise outside of the norm in the area. I kept a very low profile, and hoped that this mojo was taking the Vampire’s full attention as I stalked out of his peripheral vision along the wall. Once I could see nothing but the back of his head, I angled carefully away from the wall and started moving toward him. My head was completely still as the rest of me shifted and walked forward. Ryan suddenly screamed, and that sound set me into motion. I darted forward and angled to tear at the Vampire’s hamstrings with my teeth.

I was fast. He was faster.

I felt the muscles tearing beneath my fangs and I threw myself forward and to the side to get out of reach of any retaliatory strike. What I didn’t take into account was that this thing was supernatural as well. The one that had hit my throat happened to do so when I was still shifting, and whatever magic was in me that rearranged all my bits just dealt with that. I wasn’t shifting at the moment, and this guy was much faster. So, even though I did score a hit, I got raked along the right side of my body with some vicious claws that felt like they tore much deeper than they should have. Like, I was pretty sure ribs were supposed to be there for just such a situation.

I hit the ground with the left side of my body rather than my feet and slid around on the wet grass so that my head was pointed at the Vampire and Ryan. Instead of jumping up to a standing position and darting back in, which I am pretty sure was what I commanded myself to do, I twitched and may have whimpered. Ryan fell to his knees holding his head in his hands, and the Vampire grinned maliciously at me, baring incredibly long fangs from the top row of his teeth. “Well well. How convenient.”

The vampire took a step forward and almost fell flat on his ass. He glared at his own leg, and I saw him grow slightly paler, which I didn’t think would be possible, and I could see the muscles that I had torn apart mend themselves through the tear in his expensive pants. He made a displeased noise as he then walked forward. “I liked these pants. I think you will have to suffer some for tearing them.”

Ryan looked around with a completely confused expression as he tried to make sense of the scene before him, but I turned my full attention on the vampire and pictured the much more powerful and muscular form that I had taken earlier. The shift would heal up the wound in my side, but I was not sure if I would have time.

“Hey!” I heard Erik’s voice coming from behind me somewhere, followed by a flash of lightning, a crack of thunder, and the vampire was thrown backward against the wall of one of the old brick buildings with a satisfyingly wet-sounding thud. I desperately wanted him to quote Sigourney Weaver right then, but I doubt either he or the vampire knew the reference. Pop culture references were the first thing to go with supernatural age. He stepped into my view and walked forward until he had placed himself between the vampire and both Ryan and myself.

“Dramatic, but it will do.” a voice I didn’t recognize came from behind me. It sounded old--it had that scratchy papery quality that truly old women uniformly attained, and held a note of authority that came with experience of having those around you do exactly what you say. “See to the… Sam.” Laura entered my vision, and I watched the vampire with a smoldering hole in his chest dart away so fast that it made the first one I had encountered earlier that day look like the slow, stupid turtle in the race with a hyperthyroidic hare. On crack. And red bull.

Then Laura’s eyes went white.

Everything else went black.

Meh

Been a bit homesick of late. I'll post again soon with something more interesting, but I'm still alive :-)

Observations on DE

Lieutenant's Log (I am so not a Captain out here...), stardate: 2017.270 (year, and day of that year out of 365 by the way--yes I'm a great big nerd :-P)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/27/Flag_of_the_United_Federation_of_Planets.svg/1280px-Flag_of_the_United_Federation_of_Planets.svg.png

Delaware is a strange planet. I believe that the inhabitants may be resorting to cloning for their population. Evidence of this is prevalent in the classes I am teaching--one in particular. I have a good six or seven girls that I cannot tell apart or get my mind to stick name-to-face. They all have the same basic hair color (dirty blonde), the same basic facial structure (high cheekbones, dimples, light colored eyes), the same basic skin tone (what I am coming to label as "beach-tanned"), and the same basic fashion.

I am also noticing that they are supplementing the normal growth cycle of their male population to encourage height. I am regularly passed on the street or in the halls by people remarkably taller than I am. This is a strange feeling--having to look up at someone. It is... disconcerting.

Additionally, there is a strange social habit here of conducting pleasantries in the MOST inconvenient place to the flow of pedestrians (and vehicles) whenever humanly possible.

• Narrow staircase with people ascending and descending? Stand right at the top and block both. 
• How about a hallway that narrows down due to strange architectural choices? Stand in a small group right at the point it narrows down. 
• Tons of people walking quickly to try and get to a walkway at a traffic light? Suddenly stop and catch up with a friend from high school in the middle of the sidewalk. 
• Waiting at a traffic light at the head of the traffic? Great time to compose that lengthy email on your phone.

These are daily, not just every so often events. Perhaps there is some telepathic aspect to the population that allows them to know when such aspects transpire and adjust to them without inconvenience. More research is required.

Duckburg!

Greetings all,

So Disney is remaking DuckTales! (woohoo)

I watched the first few episodes today. It was pretty good. I like the updates that they've done (and come on, David Tennent as Scrooge McDuck!) Totally worth the watch.

https://img00.deviantart.net/8d44/i/2017/223/3/9/ducktales_2017_by_annemate-dbjq71c.png

This week has been pretty busy with work. Grading proposals for students (and then meeting with the ones that were way out in left field) took a good chunk of time. It didn't help that the program that we use crashed Wednesday evening. I got it all sorted and worked out, even if a few of those students just emailed me today about some of their problems instead of coming to their appointments.

Silly freshmen.

I've been doing some character development with my main character in the new story. So far so good, and he's definitely getting more in-depth and unique.

No new revelations about Delaware and the surrounding areas.

Aaron and I finally finished watching Luke Cage, and we have moved on to Iron Fist so that we can check out Defenders, even though it is apparently not getting much in the way of ratings.

That's about it for now. I'll post something more exciting this week.

Glorious Mexican Food!

So, for one I am changing my "daily" tag to "general" since I am having trouble getting on here daily.

Okay, so the movie I went and saw, "Mother!"
Well...
I went into it woth absolutely no prior knowledge other than the trailer I linked in my last blog. Literally. A colleague texted and said Hey you want to go see this movie and I thought "What the hell is that?"
Trailer was watched.
Okay, looks creepy.

So 5 minutes into this movie, I'm hooked, because I am looking at it from the standpoint of What the hell is going on here?! because characters were not interacting correctly, and the setting was strange, and I had all kinds of theories running through my head. All of which were way wrong. I felt like there was one piece of super important information I was missing most of the way through the movie.

SPOILER ALERT (I don't know how to do the nifty covered text for spoilers, so I'll just do a text color and background match, so you can highlight it to see it if you want to read this part):

The missing piece was that the whole movie is a rather dark interpretation of judeo-christian mythology. Pretty much everything and everyone has some kind of parallel in either the christian bible, or to history and current issues with the condition of the planet and how we treat it. The metaphors were abundant and had me holding the sides of my head mouthing what the fuck is going on. I mean, from the moment that Jennifer Lawrence's character (Mother) wakes up after being recreated from the ashes (which is how the damned film starts) it is genesis and moves on until there is a whole baby eating cannibalism scene (Jesus) with masses of people and really bloody wars that are destroying the house (Earth). I could probably spend a large chunk of several pages analyzing, but you get the idea.

Aaron, my colleage, her two roommates and I spent a good hour or three interpreting and discussing afterward. The wine helped with this.

Ari, if you are reading, it's way super squiggy in several parts, just FYI.


And as for the title of the entry today, behold!

They didn't have any chile, of course. Instead, they had a strange (but spicy and yummy) green or red "sauce". So, we had to drive to Kennet Square, located in Pennsylvania, for decent Mexican. Now revel in that sentence for a moment.

Go ahead, I'll give you a minute to reread it.

So, Kennet Square apparently is home to a large Mexican migrant worker community, and thus, there are many mexican restaurants in the area. It's not NEW Mexican, but god, it was closer than I thought we'd ever find out here. The tacos were awesome, the tamales were good (if a little sweet), and you'll have to ask Aaron about the burrito smothered in the "green sauce" because I didn't get any of that.

Bonus, I made these for dessert:

So, I finally made it down to the Days of Knights (local gaming shop) "Game Room" for their casual Thursday Magic: the Gathering. Aaron was able to join me as well. We didn't stay too long, but we did play a round of commander with a young man we met there. He reminded me of Siin, but quieter. He also had a friend that showed up with a slight speech impediment on top of a New York accent (and a possibly unhealthy obsession with Rick and Morty).

https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/rick-morty-split-1-2.gif?w=650

All in all, though, it was decent. It's a small play area, and had a good chunk of people (and it didn't smell bad; AND the bathroom, though a little questionable, had a large pale that was full of paper towels from people washing their hands--good sign!)

My working out is proceeding well. I am taking a break today and may go in tomorrow, but this week I have run a good 3 miles, worked out core and arms, and biked about 6 1/2 miles. Not too shabby.

We are going out with one of my colleagues tonight to catch the flick Mother! which I had not even heard of before; however, it looks creepy and interesting. Also, there will be wine and cheese afterward.

I have also started the arduous process of grad school applications again. I think the processes are purposefully made incredibly obtuse, complicated, and inane just to test applicants' wherewithal to complete the damned forms.

Hitting a Groove

I am hitting a nice groove at this point.

http://i.imgur.com/SoGDB5u.gif

My students are becoming more engaged as they figure out my particular cluster of crazy that I am expressing in class, and how I am doing it. Interestingly enough, the second class I have is more somnambulant appearing than the first one that meets at 8AM. I get to have several observations this semester, which is to be expected; after teaching for many years at UNM, this doesn't faze me in the least. Bring it on!

I worked for a little while on my werewolf idea. I like it. I only got 5 pages or so, then had Aaron read it for an honest reaction and if he thought it was interesting enough to want to see more. He liked it and gave me a bit of suggestions on the internal monologue that was happening that I like. After I finish up with this, I want to work on that a bit more.

P.S. I'm on Book 5 now of the Iron Druid Chronicles. I'm trying to take this one slower so I have reading to do on the treadmill; it makes a mile pass by insanely fast when I'm nice and distracted. Still riding the bike back home on work days, and I went running for about 1.5 miles yesterday at the gym (plus actual gymmy working out whatwith the weights and all). Yay me! I deserve pie!

Speaking of pie... Aaron made an apple pie this weekend. Luckily it was for a departmental picnic that we went to at White Clay Creek State Park (so I only got like, half a slice). It was a nice little gathering, and I met a few people that were quite nice. Still not what I would call friends, but definitely colleagues that are good to know with a possible PhD program here in the future.

The future is foggy...

So this was the drive into work on Thursday morning. The fog is really neat when it rolls in like this.

The temperature shifts can be upwards of 20 degrees between a rainy day and a sunny day, which is something I'm definitely not used to. We've gotten these accouterments called "rain jackets" to tote around and wear when the sky falls.

Still haven't made it to the gaming store for their casual Magic: The Gathering play night. Thursday is such an awkward day for it. By the time I go retrieve Aaron from the campus (after the 3 mile bike ride back) it just doesn't seem worth the excursion. Eventually it will totally be a thing, though.

I'm on book 4 of the Iron Druid Chronicles (and about 1/3 of the way through it). The characters have grown on me, as has the writing style. If Aaron and I ever get an Irish Wolfhound, I will convince him to name the puppers Oberon.

Not much on the plate for today. I am probably going to write some. On one of the stories rattling around my brain. It's getting jumbled and cluttered up there...

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--YsqGEHIg--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/18sxez2rv1oa6jpg.jpg

I miss the dry...

It's raining again.

I do like the rain, don't get me wrong. It's great, and the gloomy gray days make me happy.

But...

Things just never dry out. Towels. Clothing. Those paper wet-wipes in the gym. (Okay, the last one is a bonus, it takes maybe 2 for a full workout instead of 2 per machine, but you get the idea.)


Aaron and I have worked out a routine for our days on campus for optimal not-paying-goddamned-parking-fees. So he drops me off in the morning and goes home. Then when he comes in he rides a bike. When I leave, I take said bike home, and then I swing by later to pick him up.

I'm still huffing-and-puffing my way home. Damn, but biking 3 ish miles with some inclines is rough when that's your starting ride. I am making it, though. I even went to the gym today and ran a mile and worked out arms.

I may be back in shape when I visit home!

http://photos-ak.sparkpeople.com/nw/1/0/l1067477170.jpg

I have started reading a new series called "The Iron Druid Chronicles" by Kevin Hearne. Not bad at all. I'm well into book three and I started them on... Friday? Maybe Thursday. I mean, they aren't Dresden Files, but they are definitely worth the read in the meantime. (Damnit, Jim Butcher, write faster!)

And speaking of writing, I am trying to work more of that into my schedule so I can get back into the practice and finally get something finished. I keep bouncing back and forth between a few ideas and settings, but none of them are really working well for me yet. I just need to bear down (which I just had to look up the spelling for, heh) and write. I have new thoughts of an Urban Fantasy from a young werewolf's PoV. We'll see.

Until next time!

Stupid bikes...

Biked down to campus and back.
Augh.
Ugh.
Igh.
I remember when biking was fun. What the hell?
Granted, I haven't biked anywhere since I was like 12, but still...

Saturn's Day

So I have decided that Saturdays are the toughest for a new area. That tended to be the day that we hung out with people back home, or randomly had someone over to hang out, play cards, feed lots of yummy food to... and out here we still don't really have friends. Acquaintances, yes, potential friends, sure, but like "Hey, let's do a thing with little notice" not yet.

It's another drizzly day today, and looks like it will be for most of next week. Our bike ride yesterday didn't happen, but may happen later today if it clears up. We were told about this pretty cool App called Dark Sky that is pretty cool and fairly accurate at predicting rain start and stop times, as well as other info.

Our rent got pushed back a little, which is nice. I logged in to pay online yesterday and found contradictory information on what was due/owed/credited so we went in to the front desk to find out. Asked about a possible comp since we still have holes in our walls and no specific date to expect them to be fixed, etc, so when we get paid our first checks will be when we also pay rent, which is nice.

Other than that, things are starting to fall into a nice pattern. My students are funny little creatures that don't know quite what to make of me yet. I think next week will be good since that will be our first string of real discussions based on reading material.

I still didn't make it to the casual M:tG night. This last Thursday was a football game, and my colleague let me know that starting around 4PM I want to avoid areas near the school. Alumni. Parents. Drunk freshmen everywhere. I took the advice to heart and just headed home after work, so maybe next week. I stuck up a notice about a week or two ago at the gaming shop to see about some possible RPG groups. So far no hits.

I think today I will update my CV and possibly work on PhD Apps (as well as play video games, but duh).

🎶I Want To Ride My Bicycle...🎶

So after a morning trip to the Acme Store (no seriously guys, the store's name is Acme. It's Albertsons out here) for veggies and breakfast necessities (I still didn't find that damned Wile E Coyote aisle), Aaron made his way to the campus to do some work, and I made my way to the MVA (Maryland doesn't have MVD's apparently) to find out that I needed several more documents than I had with me to do the whole license thing.

So I can back, played some video games, and after Aaron came back, we went to the gym. The faculty/staff section is pretty nice, and the cardio equipment all overlooks two different basketball courts. It's kind of neat while running to wach gymnasts doing flippity-flips. And everyone around there is super fit. I feel a bit Hutt-esque at times, but I ran a mile, took a breather, then did another third of a mile before moving on to some leg machines.

After we finished up, we went and retrieved my old Bike that Aaron stuffed into the back of the U-Haul (and I mean *stuffed* in; there were bungee cords and removing pedals and adjusting handlebars to make it fit). We had a local shop replace the tires, tubes, and give it a tune-up (thanks for paying for that, mom! 💖). Friday we are going to bike down to campus together (since I've never actually biked in traffic before) and hit the gym, then come back. After that, as long as the weather holds out, we'll be biking down to campus and back.

I may go to the gaming shop by the campus tomorrow for their casual M:tG evening. I'm hoping that the FNM crowd will not be there so I can maybe meet some players that are able to do adulting in a relatively sane way as well as card-flopping. Cross your fingers.

And, as it is approaching 9, I am going to play some Skyrim and then head off to bed for a bright and early start.

https://elderscrolls.bethesda.net/assets/imgs/backgrounds/Skyrim_1080x964.png

...And So it (the semester) Begins

Today was the first day of the semester.
It went well.

The sky has been falling steadily since about 7AM. I actually got to use one of those fancy Umber-LaLa things that I've heard so much about. ☂ We had to get a new one when we first got out here because it was super rainy on a day we were exploring. It was way overpriced because it was a UD one, but it was also a storm umbrella (big and heavy duty). It's not a bad thing that we got it since the two we had have holes in them. Nothing major; they still work, but holes nonetheless.

All of my classes went well. I love shellshocked freshmen, heh. I got a few laughs out of each class, even though they were reserved and nervous. Seems all freshmen classes are like that regardless of location. First impressions though are good ones for the semester. My office is located in the "Garden Level" (see Basement) of Memorial Hall , pictured below. It's kind of fancy, but the WiFi sucks; I need to get an ethernet converter for my Lappy.

http://sites.udel.edu/econseminar/files/2011/12/cropped-Fountain0738-102411.jpg

I met one of my office mates today. She struck me as really standoffish at first, but once we got talking, she turned out to be super cool. That seems to be the theme for people around here. Once you get through the first awkward encounter, everyone (at least in the English Department so far) is very nice.

There were lots of new names to try to figure out how to spell. I was happy when I hit two of the Spanish names that I am used to.

So far, the chile withdrawals have not yet set in. We have enough dried and some red thanks to Aaron's Grandmother to last for a while, but I am sure we will be jonesing soon enough. We ate lunch at a little pizza/salad place today called "Snap" and it was the cheapest we've seen in that area. It was also super tasty; however, they had a "Super Hot" pizza combo with "hot sauce and poblanos".

Super.
Hot.
Poblanos.

That's cute.

http://amigorealtyllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/hatch-green-chile.jpg

English Department Meeting

Today was the first big English meeting at UD.

It was pretty good. I seem to be on par with the overall ideology that I witnessed as far as pedagogy. I met a couple of people in the workshop we did that seemed nice. Hopefully I will meet some more people as the semester starts up.

I volunteered some of my spare time to Dr. Cucciare (the directer of comp and the woman that interviewed me) because I want to both get involved in UD's English Dept and make myself invaluable. This may help in the PhD App process as well, but the main goal is to just force my foot in the door and make sure that it stays there until I can grab a broom, or crowbar, or jaws-of-life to get that door wider, heh.

http://wtip.org/sites/default/files/images/Jaws%20of%20Life.jpg

Christine (Dr. Cucciare) said she would put me in contact with people that may be able to help with getting some more work set up for next semester, so that is a big plus on the monetary front.

Master Bedroom/Bathroom closet has some new holes in it; but on-purpose holes. So that is good.

The dryer/blowers need to go for a few days. They will pick them up on Wednesday.

So other than the whole not-getting-paid-for-another-over-two-weeks aspect, things are looking up. I am very much looking forward to getting back to teaching. The world feels much easier to handle inside of an English classroom (and that's how I know I'm in the right profession).

Sunday, boring Sunday

Aaron and I went for a jog around the campus. We will work out more and lose weight! The campus is simply crawling with Freshmen. The aforementioned "move in day" is the whole weekend. It felt kind of weird running around in my jogging shorts and old T-Shirt past students that may be in my classes come Tuesday, heh.

Yesterday I poked at the Maryland ACA sign up page. Turns out I need a MD License before I can get much past step 2. We plan on hitting the MVD Wednesday. I am sure that will be so much fun.

Yesterday we had a super boring evening. We need friends in the area, and we are hoping we make a few at the campus fairly quickly. We are going to check out the local gaming store's Casual MTG Thursdays (I thought it was Fridays before the FNM crowd, but was off by a day; luckily I checked the website before heading down). Maybe we will meet a few people there. I am still looking forward to the new L5R hitting stores. Egan Ulbricht and I will figure out how to Skype that $#@!. Ultimately Aaron and I wound up playing some Sins of a Solar Empire with the Armada 3 Mod, which is either super fun, or super infuriating. It was pretty fun last night.

I have a big Englishy meeting tomorrow that runs 8:30--3:30 and Aaron is going to Dover with his adviser for some policy thing happening relating to the offshore wind program that his fellowship is related to, and then we jump into the semester. Sadly, from what I have heard, our first paycheck will be Sept 15th instead of the end of this month. I'm glad I had a chunk saved before the move.

P.S. I found the pen I thought I had lost yet again. Dan Chadborn knows the one of which I speak. This thing is like Sokka's Boomerang!

http://68.media.tumblr.com/90151837e285a0dacf41c8e0050dfee7/tumblr_inline_mu67tnAvB11r6oqyh.jpg

ADENDUM: Those who are on FB have already seen my post about the leak. We are not pleased. Aaron is much better at talking with people pleasantly when irritated like this, so we'll let him do the talking tomorrow when we go to have a sit down with the property manager. I'm thinking we should get something comped for the trouble we've had so far, but we'll see.

First Post

Greetings and Salutations!

Well, you found my little corner of the interwebs. Probably because you already know me and wandered here from the facebook.

I will endeavor to post daily here about whatever is going on out here. I may get distracted (random squirrel--of which they have many out here and some of them are really fat!--or shiny object) and miss a day or two, but poke me and I'll get on the posting.

Aaron and I have been checking out the many and small state parks around us in search of running/biking trails. We hit up one called Rittenhouse Park, and it was pretty. The bugs were almost loud enough to block out the sounds of vehicles. There are a ton of little parks like this all over. It's strange being so close to the traffic of the surrounding city, though.

Other than some basic exploring, we are gearing up for the start of the semester. I just got my classes all published online through the course management software I am using out here called Canvas. At least, I think and hope I got them all published and ready to go. We will go with "yes" and I will double check on Monday when I go in for our long meeting.

Apparently today is "Freshman Move-In Day" so we are keeping clear of the campus area. Sticking close to home and putsing around. I hear Aaron playing some Battlefront, so I will probably go join him shortly in resisting the Empire (or killing Rebel Scum, depends on which team I get put on).

:-D