NightLightHouse

It Came From Cube City, Pt. I

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 03:04:14 GMT

Sometimes I find myself narrating my life in my mind and sometimes what comes of said neurotic habit is something almost worth sharing. And so, please enjoy my first enstallment of "It Came From Cube City"

A moment of mental coma strikes and I find myself unable to continue with what I was doing. I stare listlessly around my desk for something to at least make me look busy while my brain attempts another jump
start. I spy a stamp with a built-in ink pad and begin working it in my hands, scrutinizing carefully the mechanics behind its simple function. I notice the red, spongy pad that is hidden inside and, with all
capacity of reason currently out of order, I poke it. That seems to have woken me up as now I am faced with a strikingly obvious red spot glistening on the tip of my finger and the question of what exactly I am to do about it. Washing it off doesn't seem to be an option - I make enough trips to the washroom as it is, people are going to get suspicious. Instead, I carefully begin dabbing my finger on a post-it pad, creating a gradient line of little red dots riddled with the rather
incriminating identifying map of my prints. Perhaps that wasn't the best idea I could have come up with after all. While the spot no longer looks as though I had attempted to sign a binding contact with my own blood it is, frustratingly, still there. I attempt to be optimistic as I settle on the notion that at least I no longer run the risk of leaving little inky smudges on everything I touch. Still, the spot has got to go. Out of desperation I wet my opposing thumb with my tongue, which unfortunately tastes of dust and I am appropriately disgusted, and begin rubbing at my finger tip. It almost works, except that now my thumb is stained a rosy shade. Curses, this isn't working and it is more than evident what I have done. I decide to take this as a sign and after hanging my post-it art off of my monitor's edge, it's back to work for me. Another exciting afternoon in Cube City.

Tue, 08 May 2007 05:54:05 GMT

bird noise by ~arr-matey on deviant ART

An unfortunate scan of a painting from the Classroom series: Contemporary Literary Theory

From Saussure - consciousness as determined by differential meaning in language.

no noise = no trouble
noise = there is trouble

rudimentary form of language
consciousness

I was so inspired by that class.

Acrylic on canvas board.

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 03:54:36 GMT

I feel like this is just as good as flash fiction...

Shams says:
What's your essay for?
Jeff says:
Acting
Jeff says:
bogus
Jeff says:
I have to write out all this deep character exploration garbage.
Shams says:
Character depth be damned!
Jeff says:
It's so bogus
Jeff says:
I ain't gonna be writing no essays when I'm acting for realsies
Shams says:
Until you decide that your audience doesn't understand the beauty of your craft and you decided to pursue a side-career of critiquing the character depth of film characters for world-renowned cinematic journals
Jeff says:
MORE ESSAYS = NO
Shams says:
You'll see
Shams says:
You'll be disgusted by the shallowness of the general viewing public
Shams says:
Appreciate my genius! You will demand
Shams says:
But they cannot
Shams says:
They can however, apply the personalities of the characters whom you have previously portrayed to yourself, and you will grow frustrated
Shams says:
Feeling a deep and insatiable need to mingle with a more intelligent crowd, you will adopt a pseudonym and take up the old art of essaying. A skill you never thought would come in practical
Jeff says:
I am terribly afraid that that is how things are gonna go down for me
Shams says:
But lo! You find it completes you!
Shams says:
As a person, and as an artist!
Shams says:
Oops, sorry. Getting carried away
Jeff says:
But what if
Jeff says:
instead
Jeff says:
I decide to buy an F-22/A Raptor
Jeff says:
and teach myself to fly it.
Shams says:
.... Then your public will remain ignorant and you will have acquired a high-octane hobby. Jeff - 1, Universe - 0

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 23:53:18 GMT

We will always be the young
They, the old
And the children will stay
Free

January 17, 2007
Untitled
I found this scratched into the margins of my notes while studying for finals.
I had forgotten all about it until now and barely remember writing it in the first place.
Just a few lines I was musing over, really raw.

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 17:51:33 GMT

This is my life. This is my home.
This is all I have ever known.
Should I leave? I can’t just leave.
Where would I go?
There isn’t anything out there,
nothing that would really ever let me in.
I would be made to sit on the front steps
where I’d still be able to watch the distant
flashes of fire and hear the thunder
following me from the place
I had left behind.
Leaving doesn’t mean that it ends
and it won’t ever leave me alone.
There isn’t anything else out there,
and this is my home.
This is all I have ever known.

January 2007
Title: [withheld]
I've been really busy and felt bad about not having any new pieces to put up here.
I wrote this very quickly in a flash of inspiration during class one day.
It's pretty rough but I just jotted it down as it came to me.
I'm not giving the title because I'm interested to know what you think it's about.
Who's speaking? What's happening?
I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Beginnings Challenge #56

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 23:03:13 GMT

I found a really interesting community called beginnings
Unfortunately it seems to be dead.
It used to offer up story beginnings to work with and the challenge is to use them to write a piece of flash fiction in 500 words or less.
Despite lack of activity, I may just go back and use the prompts when I'm feeling the need to be creative.
This is my submission for Challenge #56: Catch Phrase

Tunnels

“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, you know that. Sweetie, you’re going to be just fine.”

Fighting against my trembling anger, I do my best not to slam down the receiver. I do, however, slam my bedroom door. I pound my mattress, scream into my pillow, and then I write. I write pages and pages of fury-driven words into a journal I rarely ever touch about her nerve.
How dare she try to comfort me with a cliché? Didn’t she get it? My situation is real, not something that can be coerced into a state of submission by a few cleverly strung together words worn like beads and flaunted like some designer knock-off. What a bargain! A prepackaged turn of phrase complete with meaning to save you the effort of having to think about something on your own! Am I not worth the effort it takes to think of an original sentence or two? I hate to break it to you, but this tunnel is dark and it is long and there certainly isn’t any light to be seen from where I stand.

But the more I write, the calmer I become until at last I let myself accept the fact that she was, in fact, right. Pages before these are traced with tunnels, all equally if not darker than this one and at the end of each I always found a light.

Slowly I close the book and sit for a moment in silence. I make my way to the phone. It’s late now; she would have gone to bed hours ago. I dial the numbers anyway and just as I start to worry that she may not pick up, I hear a sleepy ‘hello?’ on the end of the line.

“Hi, mom. It’s me. I just realized that I didn’t say… That I forgot to say, thank you.”

A long silence follows as I wait numbly for her reply. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had just hung up on me without saying a word. But she knows me well enough to know that my words are honest and she hears all of the others things that those words don’t know how to say. At last her tired voice – laced, I feel, with a hint of a smile - comes back to me through the night,

“You’re welcome, sweetie.”

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 07:24:07 GMT

I want to have you
in a cheap New York apartment
a relic in all its history
desperate beneath the shroud
of a world that could care less
our lust drowned out
by the roar of Broadway
and the city shining
like a censor unto itself

older, circa 2005(?)
untitled
nothing spectacular, still fond of it though
it was, shall we say, inspired
posting for the sake of reflection

On Love After Sadness

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 01:18:30 GMT

My magnetic poetry is rather optimistic.