Memory - Bio

It was one of those dreams that you can't really remember when you wake up. Of course you can remember a face, or maybe the needle in your hand, but the rest is a blur that you'll never get back. I woke up.

The room was small. the first thing I noticed was the ladybug biting my hand. I shook it off. I stretched. The springs under the bed creaked, with, ever so slight, a sound.

I knew what the creak meant, even if i wasn't coherent enough to realize it at the time. As I worked all of the sleepies out of my eyes I would remind myself that I should have expected it. The creaking meant that somewhere, in the small Soviet built apartment, I had been living in, an otherwise moderately sane woman was about to take the plunge into absolutely fucking nuts.

Aunt Magda, my father's youngest sister, before him, was an over worked, underpaid artist, who, at the sound of the creek of my bed, would feel a tug of insanity. that insanity is commonly known as Polish hospitality.

Symptoms of this hospitable psychosis include a sudden bout with Alzheimer's that makes you forget that your back and legs hurt from working, cleaning house, and walking all over the city trying to get errands done before your kids get back from school. This is followed by an obsessive compulsion to feel guilty for thinking of resting your legs, when what you should be doing is making breakfast for a grown man, who probably could make it himself.

My door burst open.

"Oh, you're awake," she was speaking Polish, but I'll translate, "Are you hungry? I'll make you some breakfast."

She turned and bolted from the... (no, bolted is the wrong word. It was almost a scurrying. Shoulders and head slouched forward in a lurking fashion, small quick steps. Hands, chest level in thought. Yeah, that was more like it) ... the room, down the hall, and into the kitchen.

Meanwhile, I was in the bedroom trying to find and apply pants and a shirt to myself, while struggling to untangle myself from a bed sheet that I was having issues with letting go.

My clean pants were hiding beneath a mess of already worn clothes and a half open book. My idea of cleaning is throwing clean laundry on a convenient chair, and once a week throwing dirty laundry from the floor to a likewise convenient chair covered, inconveniently, with clean clothes.

By the time I had clothed myself with whatever I could grab (and thrown the rest back on the convenient floor), I could hear the stove turn on.

"ugh," was all I could say before the taste of my morning breath reminded me that I should refrain from talking. The room was still blurry, on account of the fact that I slept on my side, and slightly down, with my face jammed against the pillow. My eye felt like a stiff muscle. I made a groggy hobble to the kitchen.

"Aunty (in Polish), Shit it's bright in here (in English)."

She was already boiling water for tea, which meant I had to eat something. I get sick if I drink tea on an empty stomach... usually I forget this fact until I'm halfway through a cup of tea, and my sudden urge to vomit reminds that I haven't eaten anything yet.

"Oh, there you are," she wasn't actually aware that I was in the room until she by chance turned and saw me rubbing my eyes, "what would you like me to make you?"

I didn't have time to answer before she turned away.

Of all the things that I knew were about to come out of the fridge, the words "we have," where not actually inside of it, but managed to always come out, preceding the following assortment (which were inside the fridge, and were about to all end up on the kitchen table and counters).

The articles that would be pulled from the fridge were as followed : the words "We have (in Polish)," followed immediately by," ham, cheese, white bread, sourdough bread, chicken, more ham for some reason, rye bread, butter, goat cheese (hard and soft), swiss cheese, sliced beef, margarine, another kind of butter, eggs, sausage, blood barley sausage, bacon, oh look another egg I wonder why I didn't put that with the others, there is also lard, if you want I could smother some sausage in lard and cook that with bacon."

As the world was coming into focus, finally, and I no longer had to shield my eyes from the penetrating rays of the sun, not that the sun wasn't there, but my eyes were no longer hurting, I became certain that a cigarette had shit in my mouth while I was sleeping. I held back my gag reflex.

"Aunty, no thanks, I'm good."

A funny thing about translation is that it doesn't always come out how you want it to. For example, if I wanted to say "jestem dobre," to my aunt, I would be of the sound mind in thinking that I had just told her something along the lines of, "I'm fine," I'm good," "I don't need anything," "Look you fuckin' nut, it's seven in the morning I've been drinking all night, I just want to lay in bed for a while, instead I have to chase you down, wearing pants that, I'm pretty sure I put on backwards, so I can tell you not to trouble yourself because I can make my ow.. hey, smoked ham!"

However the literal translation of "no thanks, I'm good," really comes out more in the fashion of, especially after taking into account the synthetic nature of the language, "I'm a good boy," ...

It was no wonder that she was now looking at me like I was retarded.

No man should be subjected to the unpleasant experience of eating polish sausage fried in a pan of lard with chunks of bacon in the mix. It slides around inside, and feels like you forgot to kill whatever you ate.

"I love riding horses," Kathy's hips swayed as she walked. Her hips weren't very pronounced, but things like that rarely really matter.

"you know, in high school, my friends called me horse."

"why did they did they call you horse," It was about three seconds before Kathy realized what I just said. A shade of pink slipped over her face as she pursed her lips to keeps from smiling. I watched her out of the corner of my eye.

"you're a shit," the edged of her lips made a prison break for her ears but were pulled back in. She ran her fingers through here hair.

I smiled. "You said you like to ride horses, what was i supposed to say?"

She didn't answer. She folded her are arms under her breasts, jutting her chin out. She bit her tongue with a smirk.

The streets of old town Krakow are cobbled. Street performers lined the edges, carrying violins, accordions, and other implements of their respective crafts and trades. The city was full of tourist traps. I needed to find a bathroom. Damn smothered sausage, I thought.

"Did you want see..."

"you on top of me, sure."

She rolled her eyes and sighed. Her chest rose.

"Did you want to see the castle?" she asked again.

"Not really, I'll probably see it with my school."

She shrugged, "O.k., what do you want to do."

I smiled. I smiled a lot around her, "You really make this too easy."

"What?"

I laughed and shook my head. her body angled toward me.

"You're english is terrible," the tease was underlined with a hint of I love giving you shit. I really need a bathroom, I thought.

"Oh, my English is terrible, then why aren't we talking in Polish? Or maybe we should speak Italian." She said something in Italian. Whatever it was, it sounded... inviting.

We didn't visit any of the tourist traps. No royal castles, with tapestries and lines leading to tapestries. No museums of historically famous Polish art. Instead we walked. we kept to the small streets of Old Town, the small art galleries of local artists, to teahouses in old cellars, and in quiet bistro's tucked away in the old courtyards.

"How long have you been riding?"

"Since I was little." She skipped. Whether from the thought of being a little girl riding, of from the recent victory in Italian, she skipped. Her hair bounced, so did her breasts. I peeked, Not that she would have minded.

"How long have you been playing guitar?" there's is a point where it's acceptable for a grown person to fidget like a child. It's usually when you're nervous, but happy. She locked her hands together behind her back and stretched. One foot came my direction just off the ground. Her knee peeked from behind the pastel flowers of her summer dress. I thought about her legs.

"Since I was in high school, we had a shitty band that used to play Kiss covers." I laughed remembering how bad we sucked, and that we actually played Kiss.

She rolled off from her grounded foot to her forward. Toward me.

"Hey." I couldn't wait any longer. "Let's go in here."

her eyebrows raised slightly, " are you hungry."

"Huh?" God no, I thought, "oh, I was gonna get a drink."

We walked into the Bistro and grabbed an out door table. The Small Ring wasn't too far away, with it's fountain, overlooked by the Pizza Hut, housed within a historical building. I shook my head.

"I'll be right back," I didn't bother sitting down, "If the waitress comes can you just get me some tea?"

"Where are you going?"

"To Touch myself," I said it loud. Her face went beyond pink. She looked from one table to another. Someone behind me understood English.

I winked.

Kathy, or Kasia in Polish, was once a student of my aunt. My aunt had tutored her in drawing and painting, for less than a real tutor would cost. Her parents saw a good deal in front of them, and like anyone who always felt slighted by the lack of profit to be made under Communist Russia, they took advantage of it. With a few silver words about connections and networks, Kathy's parents where able to procure the services of a talented artist, with no understanding of her work's worth, for about the Polish minimum wage, when she could have been making well over the American minimum wage, that was in the late nineties. It was significantly more.

The bathroom was around a corner... The door was thick.

I didn't hold it against Kathy. She was still paying for it, in a way. Anytime we stopped at a gallery she would chat up the owners. They sometimes knew her father, or a friends of hers, sometimes not. She would drop my aunts name and get word that they'd be willing to sell some of her pieces. I don't know how much the pieces sold for.

I left the bathroom, feeling better.

My aunt would get invited to garden parties, by friends. Friends like Kathy's parents. She appreciated all their help. I could have been drunk and retarded and still known that she was being fleeced at every turn.

Kathy was outside at the table. Her legs crossed. Her face was like a stone.

"Why do you do that?" I asked.

"Do what?"

"You always look pissed off."

She was about to say something but paused. Then she tried again. She almost laughed. "I don't look pissed off."

"No, you laugh when you're around me, but whenever I see you walking alone you always look serious, and you look straight forward." I sat down at the table. Her legs slid against each other as they uncrossed and crossed again.

She was trying to object but, she kept stopping before she said anything.

"Look, watch this girl," A Polish girl walked by. Her eyes burning a hole into something a thousand yards ahead of her, her shoulders were straight. "I bet if I chucked my phone at her, she wouldn't even respond."

Kathy laughed and hid her face in one hand, "I do that all the time, and I've seen other girls do it too."

"It's like your trying to ignore a fart."

"That's gross, and the fart we're trying to ignore is creepy guys," she laughed.

"Hey," her tone interupted her laugh. "I was thinking."

"I'm so proud of you."

She pursed her lips again. Her arms folded and she tapped her foot. She was fighting a smile.

"What were you thinking?"

she didn't answer right away, "you are a pain in the ass, you know that?"

"I'm glad you like it." I sat, leaning toward her. Smiling.

She leaned toward me. "I want to hear you play guitar."

I leaned back, "yeah, not gonna happen, I haven't played in front of anyone in years."

"...and I have never told anyone about what we talked about last night, I think you owe me." I watched her bring her straw to her lips. It darkened as cola pulled through it. She didn't take her eyes off of me.

I drank my tea. I wondered if I was getting the short end of the deal. I hadn't played in front of anyone in years.

"I haven't played in front of anyone since Gina."

She didn't say anything.

I had never thought about playing in front of someone as being a problem. That was until she asked me to do it. I didn't even realize why I had a thousand excuses to get me out of playing. I shook my head.

"We are totally sleeping together afterwards."

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. She smiled, but I won't describe the smile. That's for me. Only.

Bio

Aharon Vadel was the name given to a Seraph of destiny. As the Seraphim, or Thrones, were the highest choir of angels in the theoretical Catholic heaven, the writer chose the name of this angel as representing a higher ideal than himself.

Aharon is now the pen name for writer uses in place of his own persona. The Writer has always been fascinated with angel lore since actually before he could remember, and is working toward writing a series of short stories, and some not so short, about angels found on earth. The fact that similar concepts have been dealt with by authors such as Neil Gaiman, and Steve Jackson causes some notable concern for the writer as he is often worried that his writing will be seen as standing in the shadow of these men.

The Writer is currently working toward dual degrees in English Studies and in Sociology. He hopes that these backgrounds will be a positive influence on his life and writing. Thus far he believes that they have been.

The writer joined Write Monkey Write to challenge himself as a writer. Although he knows himself to be young in the craft he often suffers from an over inflated sense of ego, and must from time to time remind himself that he has a great deal yet to learn… especially in the department of grammar.

About Aharon.

The pieces under Aharon at Write Monkey Write are usually in third person, or in a first person other than the writer. Unless specifically a memory The writer hopes to be able to write from the perspective of various personalities, and with different voices. Although this is the intent it is at times not fully realized and the writer often invited criticism that will help him improve.

Why would a Monkey Write the random sets of sound that the once monkey's call the written language. Does the monkey write for fame, does the Monkey write for the glory of god, does the monkey write for love. This only the monkey knows, and this is only shared with what god he chooses. Write Monkey, Write.

-Aharon Vadel- get well card

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.

- Socrates

bios up

I added the bios we have so far to the "This is who we are" link. As I get more, I'll add them.

Quiet times here, last few days.

Bio Assignment - Pete

I'm in my sort-of-late 30s, while most of my local social circle are in their mid 20s. The more time I spend here, the more it seems clear that you have the kind of life you decide to create around you. I'm working at creating a pretty sweet life.

I have a higher-end nerd job; at other times I’ve lived a life of intrigue and danger ( heh ) but now, not-so-much. I do information architecture and experience design for people with lots of pennies, I also do some work for people with no pennies at all. I am ( slowly but surely ) working towards my doctorate. At the moment, my side thing is spreading the word like fire through digital spaces. If I am able to someday shift this from "side thing" to "main thing", that would be... noteworthy. But I also wouldn't mind doing a few other things.

I'm doing many things in my life out of order, and for the most part do what I want, and what feels right... as opposed to maybe what most other people tell me I should do. So far, this is working out pretty well, though I do stumble now and then.

I live with intensity; "no power in the 'Verse can stop me."

Except me, that is.


...

I found her in our bedroom, straightening a very straightened lamp on a dust-free table. The colonial blue walls we'd painted caught the light of late October very well. She'd always had a very good eye, that way.

"Hey," I said, the word dropping out of my mouth, almost thudding on the carpet. My stomach was on fire. With bees. And lava. My arms and legs were numb.

"Hey," she responded, looking up for a split second, a doe caught in lights. Then turning her attention back to getting the lamp just right on the table. I saw her swallow, and wet her lips.

"If this is a bad time, we can do this later..."

I knew that sounded crazy, the moment the words were out. She laughed, with absolutely no mirth at all.

"A bad time, Peter?" Then she looked at me, her ponytail disappearing behind her head as she met my eyes, and looked at me. Right into me.

And I almost put t off, again. For the thousandth time. Her eyes were green and amazing. The freckles on her cheek noticeable now, for some reason. And she'd called me "Peter". She was the only person who really ever did. Not my mom, or any other person I'd ever loved.

Somehow, I reached out, and took her hand. I found some bizarre reserve of strength to do this thing. The kind of calm that people must feel before the blindfold goes on, and the rifles raise.

I led her into the loft area, which was still unpainted. She planned do do something edgy and festive here, when we got the time.

Ha.

We sat on the couch. I'd paid for it, outright with cash, so it was mine. Huge and green and the most expensive non-car or non-house thing I'd ever bought. It was the center of the room, everything else taking a sort of decor cue from it. However the paint on the walls would have gone, it would have definitely needed to take the couch into account.

It would have been amazing, I'm sure. I'd helped her paint before; she'd had the ideas, I'd been a strong and willing arm with a brush.

We were sitting close, knees more than touching, hands held, not looking at one another. Our heads were down. Over the last two years I'd been in this exact place very often. She being so close I could see her pulse in her neck were I to look. I could hear it. I always touched her at times like this, no matter where we were. In the car, on the bed, or on a couch. It was a conscious effort on my part to let her know I still wanted some contact with her, no matter how things went.

At these times, these trying, stressful moments of emotional agony I also studied the smallest items in my immediate space, ADHD trying desperately to get me off the tracks before the whistling train of choice bore down on me.

Somehow, impossibly, the dogs knew. They came upstairs, heads low, eyes up. Without ceremony or ritual turns they sat at our feet. I remembered then that just beyond them at the top of the stairs was where she left me a cake for my birthday. I was living here by myself while we were separated, in "the largest one bedroom apartment in Harvard", as I used to joke.

The TV stand from Ikea, one we picked out and I built the first weekend she moved back in was just behind me. The rim in the laundry room was colorful and peeking out from an open door; I would have never even thought to bring color into that space, but she did.

The desk I'd bought from Sam's with my cash and my girlfriend's card was in the room a few feet away. I remembered getting it here in her minivan, she and I putting it together in the vacant, unfurnished house before we screwed on it like pornstars, driving another nail into the coffin being meticulously built for my marriage.

Back to her hands, in mine.

They felt natural in mine. They -had- felt natural for more than ten years. All my life that had -really- mattered. Before I met her I'd saved my brother's life once, I'd put my feet on yellow footprints, and I'd helped taken care of my grandfather. But every other real accomplishment I'd ever made that ever meant anything was with her, because of her, or for her.

Back to her eyes. She was crying now. Looking at me silently, tears pouring from her.

A fair weather friend at best, that reserve and determination. It had fled. Instantly, when I heard her cry like that.

The desire to pull her close, to take care of her, to tell her it was going to be alright was powerful beyond the simple tools of words I could use to describe it. If there was one thing I was -exceedingly- good at, one skill I'd been born to, it was taking care of her.

I pulled her close, and she wasn't silent any more. I did it because I knew holding her close was what she wanted, and really what I wanted, and I also knew that if I kept looking at her eyes, I'd lose my resolve. And I knew that whatever tentativeness I might give in my voice, any sort of tiptoe straying from the absolute path of what we knew this conversation was supposed to be about, that would be it. She'd cling to it like a life preserver, and I'd fish her up out of the stormy sea.

We'd spend another year being sweet, but not making love. Another year holding hands, but feeling trapped. Another year together, but apart.

I cried, too. Not the free flowing, sobbing cry she was, but my own silent outpouring.

After a while, we stopped. I reached over and got some tissues for her, an intimate ritual for us as ancient as my calling her by her full name, instead of some shortened version. And we sat there. Our legs wrapped together, our canine kids at our feet, and the clocks not-ticking as October leaves blew off the trees outside our first dream house.

"I can't do this any more," I said, after a very long time.

Another very long time passed.

"I know," she answered. Her voice was very small.

"I love you," I said. And I meant it. More than I ever had, since I'd first told her first, over ten years before that moment.

"I know, Peter," she said. "I know this isn't about that."

My hand come up to her cheek and stroked it, as we both silently brought more tears out.


...


At some point in the late afternoon of October 26th, 2003 I told my wife that I couldn't keep going on the way we were. At some point, we were both rational enough to agree that if things weren't better in 3 months, that we'd go our separate ways. We were driven by so many different things that had brought us to that exact crossroads.

If we'd had any idea what it would be like to divide furniture between us, or to go to our storage unit at different times to remove our own stuff with helpful and somber friends, or what it would feel like to sleep in separate beds whle in the same house, I think both of us would have pushed through. Maybe another year. Maybe for the rest of our lives.

But we didn't.

Three months passed. Three months of soul searching, couples counseling, taking the trash out and walking the dogs and sleeping in the same bed and living together, but apart.

The thing that hurt the most immediately after we had decided was that she wouldn't sleep in the same bed or room as I, despite the fact that we were still plainly deeply in love. She couldn't share a bed with me, knowing we weren't going to be together. It would later turn out that she couldn't share a friendship with me, either. Too painful for her, if we weren't going to be together.

It hurt even more that when I offered her our bedroom and she declined, taking the guest bedroom. I forget what she said exactly, but she made it sound like she was sacrificing for me, doing me a favor by letting me have the big bed.

I know better now, certainly. I'm a bit older, and wiser.

I'd spent a very long time not really knowing who I was. I defined myself by my ability to take care of her, my ability to live up to what she expected of me, and my ability to become the man I know she wanted, and deserved.

This is not a recipe for happiness, certainly.

Growing up, dad had passed away when I was young, and mom had always painted an idyllic picture of their time together, so I thought marriage was pretty accurately portrayed on the Brady Bunch. I thought fighting was bad, and I thought you always gave the other person what they wanted, even went it hurt you, deep down.

I've learned a bit about myself, since then. I've been in a few relationships I could call long-term. I've been in love since then. I have a much more defined sense of who I am as a man, and as someone himself; not as part of a pair.

I imagine I am a better part of a potential pair, for knowing this.

Getting to this point in my life has been brutal, at times; I am glad to be here. I look back and know that I've shaped almost every single aspect of my life, either with my intention or my action. I've chosen paths and roadblocks. I went back south to my family and my friends, the ones I'd been drifting away from since I started working full-time on the marriage thing. I got rid of a lot of my stuff, and lived out of hotels and my car for two years.

I moved back to Hawaii. And back to Chicago.

I haven't used personal credit except for my present car in four years. I have decorated my own place, and liked it, and received compliments.

I have a lot to learn, but I am now the master of my own space in ways I could not bring into descriptive relief while I was married. I believe I am better, although sometimes I feel worse.

I am keeping half an eye out for my partner in crime... maybe I know her now, maybe I'll know her when I see her. But until I figure that out, I'll be just fine, I think.

....


I'm in my sort-of-late 30s, while most of my local social circle are in their mid 20s. The more time I spend here, the more it seems clear that you have the kind of life you decide to create around you. I'm working at creating a pretty sweet life.

I have a higher-end nerd job; at other times I’ve lived a life of intrigue and danger ( heh ) but now, not-so-much. I do information architecture and experience design for people with lots of pennies, I also do some work for people with no pennies at all. I am ( slowly but surely ) working towards my doctorate. At the moment, my side thing is spreading the word like fire through digital spaces. If I am able to someday shift this from "side thing" to "main thing", that would be sweet. But I also wouldn't mind doing a few other things.

I'm doing many things in my life out of order, and for the most part do what I want, and what feels right... as opposed to maybe what most other people tell me I should do. So far, this is working out pretty well, though I do stumble now and then.

I live with intensity; "no power in the 'Verse can stop me."

Except me, that is.

Keep In Mind

Warning: This is not going to be very good story-wise; there will be lots of grammatical mistakes, run-on sentences, and other abominations of the english language. I'm sorry; I tried to write this essay three or four times, and although I could've easily written some bullshit about when I went to Japan and "found myself" (heh, thanks Hemp), I realized that nothing has really had an impact on me -- or revealed so much of my personal weaknesses as this. I'm going to have to ask just this once that you be a little more kind in reviewing than is typical; normally, I like people being overly critical, but I don't think I can ever re-work this. I wrote it how I felt it, and I really don't want to look at it again. I just need to post it before I delete it and (futilely) try again.

--

Her very first words to me were "You know, this is a really bad idea." It was appropriate; it was November, too, but appropriate is more important in this case. Because what I had concluded, after a month of preparation and intense focus on both my schoolwork on my writing, was a terribly bad idea.

I stared at the computer screen. It was midnight on the dot, and my focus was almost non-existent. I had been so anxious to start my National Novel Writing Month novel that I couldn't really think clearly. There were other things on my mind, too, but at the moment I watched my start bar clock hit "12:00am" I was off like a speeding bullet.

I got to the line "You really need to learn how to write people that don't exist," and Stephanie -- although I always thought of her as Steph, although earlier on she was called Reese (short for Theresa, although why I have a fetish for that name I’ll never know) -- declared her agreement with the line.

"But you're not real," I reminded her.

"Bullshit." That was her response. Even before I had really solidified her character, she was incredibly feisty. Thus began a month that I can only recall in snippets of conversation, abject horror at a distance, and a growing realization that I had indeed pushed myself too far.

Over the next several days, we worked on the fiction and on her. I say we because, at the beginning, it felt more like joint effort than just myself controlling myself in weird ways -- or rather, letting myself give in to unrealistic impulses and impressions. The key to Steph's development was the internet. I found that by having two instances of IRC (a kind of chat protocol) open, with some diligent switching I could have out-and-out conversations with her, and she could have conversations with others. The former was not so terrible; mostly, it was me saying to myself how she was myself, so I was talking to myself. I used that one a lot.

But when she was talking to my friends, a different sort of pattern emerged. She was emotional from the get-go, probably bi-polar. She really liked certain things about my friends that to this day I swear I never noticed before. These were fun exercises, and they really helped channel a sense of being into her. She started to squawk a lot when the main character of my fiction had sex with her character, and I honestly felt a little guilty about it myself, but at the time it made sense. Who knows what I was really thinking back then.

The problem was, after my final projects for the semester were handed out, I was under a lot of pressure. I had just started playing World of Warcraft, for one. I was addicted, but mostly in control. I played every thursday and friday night, and I played with my friends, but I would play come rain or shine. I had declared that 'me' time, and an unfortunate number of people had gotten caught inside it -- and come out worse for the wear. I was writing, and although things had started so smoothly, as I was forced to spend more and more time working on code and dealing with teammates, my story started to suffer. I was trying to find ways out.

It was during those times that She would start to speak to me, and it would be her voice, not mine mimicking hers, and that started to scare me. But it was good to have someone to talk to.

"I think you should drop Nano this year," she said one day. A bright day, outside; I can't recall if I was walking from my job at the Library to home, or from home to my job at the Library, but I remember the street that lined the quad, and I remember that that's where I first thought the idea.

Or she said it. Whatever.

I didn't respond for a while, because I really didn't want to give up. I had given up the year before that, and the year before that. I had something really unique in my relationship with her, something that translated into... well, on the page, it didn't really translate into all that much, but I was growing attached to the spunky girl voice in my head. Of course, the second I thought that, she heard it, and she said "I know I'm not real. You know I'm not real. I told you this was a bad idea. You're not exactly the picture of fine mental health, y'know?"

I had to concede the point; there are stories I don't think I'll ever tell about my spotty history, but suffice it to say, they validated her claim -- my claim. "Still," I finally responded, this time in a mental tone of voice that indicated inward talking as opposed to mental wandering, "I know you wish you were real. I wish you were real. You're not, but... let's keep this going, if only for a few more days, okay?"

"Great. Asshole."

I kept walking; I was really close to my dorm now (or was it the Library?). "Asshole? What did I say?"

"Look, I know I'm 'not real' and all that, but that doesn't mean I had any plans to leave!" That forced me to stop, pinch the bridge of my nose in a highly cliché fashion, and take a deep breath. Had I just told myself that I wasn't going to let myself return to sanity? One foot in front of the other, almost where I needed to be. Yes, yes I had told myself that. Sheepishly, she added, "Sorry. I know this has to be hard, but it's hard on me, too."

Every day, I used her name, her voice a little bit more online. I was withdrawing, and luckily or unluckily, I called out to the girl who had dumped me not three days before the whole experiment started -- I let it slip (rather slyly, I thought at the time) that I was trying something completely new with this year's NaNo, and that I wanted to practice it with her. She was amused.

Sitting on my bed: "So, I'm writing a sort of meta-fiction about a guy who's writing a story about a girl, who exists in his head as a voice, except she shows up in the real world, his real world, anyways, and all sorts of crazy shit starts happening."

Michelle, sitting in my chair, leaning forwards ever so slightly: "Weird."

"So I figured, maybe I can get myself in that mindset. Maybe I can get into this guy's brain, and therefore get into this girl's brain. It was fuckin' crazy, but I figured I'd give it a shot."

I don't remember the rest of the conversation, but when she asked how it went and I explained that I couldn't shut her up, she was -- she was fucking interested. She wanted to talk to Steph. I instantly clammed up and became nervous and fidgety. Even though I explained multiple times that this was just a writing practice, that Steph didn't really exist in my head -- or rather, that she ONLY existed in my head -- Michelle was very kind and calm, and didn't call me any offensive names. I would've called myself some very terrible names, really.

But there was still a barrier, thankfully: I couldn't speak out loud as Steph; a part of my mind realized that if I started physically talking as a girl, then there would be no coming back. My stomach churned at the thought. So when Michelle got online, Stephanie said 'hi!'

I don't remember what we said. I don't remember it at all; I just remember the small bold letters, and I remember myself butting in with italics. It's stupid, but for some reason, font choice seemed very important to me to distinguish between the two of us. I was making borders. I was trying to section her thoughts off into some unknown region of my brain. Who knows what I was trying to do. My projects were proceeding on plan, and I was getting maybe four or five hours of good sleep a night.

The day after Steph talked to Michelle, I realized that I had shown how badly my mind was cracking. I knew it, knew it as plain as day. It's scary to realize you're going insane and that you can't do anything to stop it. Saying it sounds cheap and pathetic; writing it makes me feel like I'm telling, not showing. But there really is no other way to explain that growing tenseness in my chest, or the twitchiness that started to kick in.

Luckily, National Novel Writing Month was also Thanksgiving Week Off Month. I went back home, and I didn't write a single word for three days. Steph continued to berate me in my mind, and I still chatted using both her and myself, but I didn't write -- I couldn't write. Nothing was coming to me. I had started to grow bored with my own insanity, and without the stress of finals or papers or projects I started to drift, or... or something. And then, on wednesday afternoon, I saw an episode of Stargate Atlantis wherein Dr. McKay and some random military chick get sucked up into a Wraith beam, and then when he's spit back out, she's in his head, helping him do things in classic late '80s fashion. It was mildly entertaining, but most of all, it made me realize I wasn't half as clever as I thought I was. I was so irritated that someone out-did me that I didn't write any more. I slapped together an ending in an effort to make myself continue writing, but it didn't work. I was so pissed that Steph kind of stopped talking.

The end of November saw me turning in my final project for Doctor Kuofie, a madman in his own right. I also finished a paper for my Japanese class -- or perhaps it was one of the other minor classes I was taking at the time. Either way, things were finishing. My novel was left uncompleted at just under 20,000 words. Every once in a while, up until winter break, I tried to get Steph back in my mind -- to re-establish that strange mindset where I wasn't myself, or that feeling of personal connection that I just wasn't getting with anyone at the time. I guess I was pretty lonely. By winter I'd almost completely forgotten; by the start of the next semester, it wasn't even an issue -- I'd been sane from the get-go, and it was just me being silly and dealing with my stress in a unique sort of way.

I still miss Steph. I miss her a lot. I had created from my mind the kind of girl I would want to talk to, and I succeeded. I nearly lost my mind -- again -- in an effort to connect to someone after having lost one of my sole connections with the outside world. It's convenient to blame Michelle, but despite how embarassing what I said to her was, what I entrusted her with when I let Stephanie say 'hello,' she wasn't patronizing or insulting at all, and for that I'm very thankful. It helped me realize that my connections with the world were not so tenuous after all. I was able in the end to not only regain my sense of self, but to find what part of me lay in the world beyond myself.

Epilogue: Stranger Than Fiction came out during the next Nanowrimo, and I was amused (14 words!).

--

Zach Lome is currently a programmer for Sentact, who operate a web-based ticket, notification, and survey system for schools and hospitals. The stress of college finals and projects happend to over-prepare him for the working world, where now finds himself bored and unamused. He hasn’t had any run-ins with fictional beings since he started writing for the Write Monkey Write blog, thankfully, unless one of those fictional beings happens to be a genie.

Zach still has plans to write NaNo this year, but is going to shy as far away from meta-fiction as is physically possible -- just in case.

--

Steph still isn’t speaking up much, but she’s glad that Zach’s writing this stuff out. Maybe if people paid more attention to her, she’d actually get to talk with people once in a while. Well, here’s to dreaming! She also wants to say hi to the other Steph, because it’s cool to meet people with the same name as you.

(addendum: Yes, this really happened. No, I could never quite lose that distinction between reality and fiction, although it got terribly, terribly blurry in a not-so-good way. You can read what I wrote at http://www.ilstu.edu/~zslome/writing/nano.rtf , although I warn you, it’s not very good. Finally, the last bit is a joke -- don’t worry about my mental health, and for God’s sake, don’t ask to talk to Steph. Please.)

How to write a bio...

... I thought I'd find a few links to some resources, do a little bit of reading, and cobble together a post on bio-writing, in support of Tammy's excellent topic. After ten minutes of poking around on Google, I've come to a few conclusions.

1. If there are good bio-writing articles, I can't find them.

2. There is apparently money to be made writing other people's bios

3. The people making money from writing other's bios are hogging up the first 10 pages of Google's search returns when you enter such things as "how to write a bio" : /

One semi-useful tidbit I found was posted as a sort of teaser by one of these professional bio-writers. They offer it in hopes that you'll recognize superior bio-writing skills, and purchase one of their more targeted templates... such as "Blogger Bio".

Hmmmmmm.

An interesting point... making money at writing definitely doesn't have to mean writing novels and getting them published; you can write articles or templates that have to do with something you enjoy or are good at, then just sell them.

On your blog. Hmmmmm.

: )