Cot[ATF]: A DeviantArt Original
By William Alexander | December 17, 2008
Thank you, Jessica, for sending me today’s Comic of the Arbitrary Time Frame!
This gem is a DeviantArt, from This Artist. (I guess they are actually called Deviants…)
I’ll let the comic speak for itself and cite the actual post just in case someone wants to sue me!
Original Post: http://tyshea.deviantart.com/art/Expecting-106531997
comic comic comic
This reminds me of Sandra Bullock in Two Weeks Notice.
“What Baby???”
Have I mentioned that puns are my favorite kind of joke?
Topics: Comic of the [ATF], Utterly Random | Comments Off on Cot[ATF]: A DeviantArt Original
YourTurn. A Novel Concept
By William Alexander | December 12, 2008
(Oh how I love a good pun. Okay, onto the post)
—
This is what’s wrong with the world, she thought as she sorted through plastic and tin to retrieve the full, vibrant roses from the bottom of the trash can. On most days this wouldn’t bother her so much. She would usually just retrieve the flowers and enjoy them for as long as she could. Today was different. There was something about seeing the natural beauty of life buried beneath the manufactured garbage of the world, and stinking heaps of it that struck here more deeply than anything else that could at this moment.
“This is a microcosm of the world”, she uttered audibly to herself.
Suddenly her senses were on fire. the sound of passing traffic screamed in her head. The smell of car exhaust was making her nauseous. She began to shake. Her hands trembled wildly. God help me, she repeated to herself. God help me. God help me, God help me. She tried to close her eyes and disappear to anywhere. Seconds after closing her eyes she felt an immense jolt in her side. Eyes open. She falls to the ground. She had been hit by a bicycle. “Holy shit. you okay?”
—
Want more? Go write it here. As Cheetah specifies in the rules, the next part that you contribute can only be 160 or fewer characters before it’s someone else’s turn to contribute.
This is the newest addition to Rumbelow.org, Yourturn.
The idea is simple — we will collaboratively write stories, poems, etc. story together. The general rule is that you may only post one time in a row for each thread, and then you have to wait for someone else to add on. As you can see from the link above, it CAN be simply two people working on a piece together (as Adella and I did through text messages when this story was started) or tons of people can join in. I encourage you all to go start pieces, different genres and unique rules are encouraged as well. I will be working over this New Years break from school on starting some new stuff and adding on to people’s stories. (Brady, I swear I will add on to your story. I promise!)
As I continue to develop YourTurn, I will work on making the style shift from a forum to a wiki-style. Assuming people actually continue to contribute, I will make various “rooms/portals” that will guide you to find the niche you want to write in. Obviously, I will need to make rooms/portals for various content genres and ratings.
I imagine in a perfect world logging onto Rumbelow.org/yourturn and seeing this sort of set up. First I choose my content rating — I will probably steer clear of the XXX rated parts, so I’ll go into the R portal. From there I might decide that I’m feeling like a Fantasy genre that day. In the Genre portal, I see that my brother has started a thread with a 500 word minimum and 1000 word maximum. Furthermore, he’s elected the “random word” challenge, which displays 5 random words at the top of the page. I need to use at least one of these words in my addition or else I cannot post it. Additionally, Jim has allowed editing on previous posts (because he started the story, he masters these sort of options). Editing might work in some fashion like this: I am either allowed to add 1000 words as a maximum, or edit 1 word of something already written and add 995 words. I could edit 2 words and only ad 990 words, or something along that sort of algorithm.
Perhaps there will be some sort of point system — you earn 5 points for each contribution to someone’s story you make, but lose 100 points to start your own story. I’m not really sure, yet!
As for now, I will work my hardest to add on to each new post I see up on YourTurn to keep the momentum going. I guess I am closing this post now. Go check it out, register, and contribute!
Topics: Works of Fiction | 1 Comment »
Knowing and Being Thyself
By Billy | December 11, 2008
Uh oh, I’ve mentioned my blog to my girlfriend enough that there is now a decent chance she may be reading… I better keep the content in the safe zone to make sure I don’t say anything I’ll regret.
Wait. Scratch that. That’s not me at all. I don’t play the fit-in game any more. Not for my girlfriend, teachers, employers, or parents. Sorry guys. (But actually, I’m entirely not) In the lyrical words of Shirley Bassey, I am what I am. I don’t want praise, I don’t want pity. I bang my own drum, some think it’s noise, I think it’s pretty!
That’s kinda how I’m feeling these days. I hope you’re okay with that… Well, actually I don’t give a hoot.
I have spent two decades of this worldly existence. The first time I ever had a label for that ugly feeling I had in my belly was during my freshman English class in high school. There’s apparently an entire genre of literature surrounding this feeling — our ancestors felt is as strongly as I do now.
“Know Thyself,” Mrs. Wentzel said. She was alluding to the purpose of the ancient western literature we were reading. Gilgamesh needed to accomplish this, Beowulf had a desire to do so, Hector of Troy, everyone. For some it goes hand in hand with immortality through fame, for some it is to prove oneself to themselves, for me it is to explore myself, become comfortable with myself, and exist as myself. I don’t need fame or any accomplishments… For me, being myself is a reward enough. I need to prove nothing to myself or anyone else, for I am already me.
There are three major ways that I can think of in my life that I’ve made efforts to role-play. I have wanted a past girlfriend to be happy with me… For four years I hid myself from her to make her happy. (I never realized how utterly RIDICULOUS the phrase “make ______ happy” is. You can’t MAKE someone do or be anything!) Guess what. She wasn’t happy with me for those four years. Hmmm. Wonder why… She wasn’t with ME. Of course she wouldn’t be happy with me. I spent those four years in a battle between being someone that would make her happy and being myself. Being myself was the winner in the end. It’s not fair for us or the people we are with in a relationship to pretend. If she didn’t like me as the person I was, she needs to find a new person to be with. Why do so many relationships suck!? I fell into the trap hard enough that I don’t need to worry about that happening again.
Before, a bit after, and during that hell of a relationship, I also spent a lot of time pretending to be someone I am and was not for the sake of my ‘peers.’ I held my tongue to stand up for injustices because nobody else cared, I went with the flow to fit in and have friends. These people were but acquantences compared to the types of friendships I know now. I never found a way to be close with these people because I was not letting MYSELF out. Like the romantic relationship mentioned above, how would these people know whom to befriend? I was not being myself enough.
The third and final obnoxious type of role I tried to fit was the one I made myself try to fit. Throughout my life I have had a stupid “ideal self” that I’ve wanted to live up to… For some reason, quiet and shy were two of my ideal self qualities. I played the roles I assigned myself on and off with both my whole and hardly any heart for years.
This past year I have learned to let myself be. That means I am loud, that means I am goofy. That means I don’t wash my hands. That means I eat out of the trash can. That means I am barefoot. That means I am practical (to the point that it almost loses it’s meaning). (The Sound of Settling just came on my iTunes) Being myself means that as I type this post, I allow myself to bite my fingernails without regret. While doing this I smell pasta sauce on my right hand because I don’t use silverware anymore. My feet reek, my beard remains unmaintained for the second month in a row, and I am writing a blog post instead of studying for my French final. If I spend an extra 2 hours studying for my French final while I really have some creative expression brewing in me the entire time, I will neither study as efficiently, nor will I be able to create the thing I yearn to. Furthermore, I will be prepared for a test, that will go towards my GPA, which will help prove to employers that I am capable of putting aside my REAL wants in order to pass a test. This makes me question what test I am trying to pass. I would like to think that loving myself and doing the things I really want to do, the feelings that I know come from my spirit, is passing the important test with flying colors. Are we willing to be ourselves even at the cost of being rejected from jobs or excluded from certain things?
I am. I don’t want a job if they value my GPA higher than my ability to do what I love. I don’t want a friend if they’re bothered by how loud I laugh, I don’t want a girlfriend if she cares what content my blog has, I don’t want to get close to you if you can’t see how important this is to me. The funniest and funnest part of this is that as soon as I let go of caring about how people viewed me, I started meeting more people and being respected and loved by more people than I ever realized before.
Over time I learned to rely only on myself and God, for these are the things I have in the end. The consequence of this has been respect, deeper connections than I could have ever expected, love, and freedom. Another great part of this game (life) is how phrases from the Tao Te Ching float around in my head as I think about this. I tried to be the philosophical, sagely, whatever-you-want-to-call-it until I realized how severely I needed to work on loving myself. I gave up the intense philosophical journey and found the answers I had been philosophizing for. The sage attains by non-striving, says Lao Tzu. It’s funny that I would learn that by not worrying about it.
I don’t feel much like editing this. Tough. I hope some of this was helpful for someone. The point of all this is that you need to A) learn to hear your heart. It speaks all the time and you know exactly what it’s saying. Then you need to B) GO DO IT. You shan’t regret it.
(Hi Honey)
Topics: Comic of the [ATF], Philosophy | 4 Comments »
Yes, You Can
By Billy | December 8, 2008
I am in the middle of writing a 4 page paper about Feminism and the Peace Movement, which is something I am actually fairly interested in but I was inspired to write this short post. The last post I was working on decided to go MIA and I will have to write it when I don’t have exams breathing down my neck.
For now, I will say this:
I looked over to my roommate’s computer just now and saw his little desktop notepad. The same thing was written three times in a row; nine words in all. I think it’s important to share them with you all, and give my two cents (the most verbose thing you ever bought for 2 cents…) about it.
—
Yes, you can
Yes, you can
Yes, you can
—
First of all, that means… YES. You’re thinking it’s possible, so it is. Think positively.
Secondly, YOU can do it. You, better than anyone else in the entire universe, from the start of infinite time to the end of infinite time can do your thing better than anyone else could. I’ve heard people say that you need to work on being the best you that you can be, or that in the future you will be you only moreso… Falso. You are the best you, right now, in the future, and you were the best you when you were you a while back. Be who you feel like you are. There isn’t a damn thing in your way preventing you from doing that. You want to be something, be it. As Cat Stevens says, “If you want to be you, be you…There’s a million things to be, you know that it’s true.”
Finally, CAN. You CAN. You will never be forced to do anything in any other way than the way you choose to. Hopefully we all learn at some point in our lives that existence is full of this freedom of choice. Whether you believe God imbued you with a free-will, or you are free to make decisions specifically because there is no God, or perhaps your decisions are just a system of cause-effect, you still hold the power to make decisions. (I should rant about free will soon… a later post)
This also means that other people can do what they want. We have to let people fuck-up if they want to. We have to stand in the sidelines and worry about ourselves, sometimes. It’s not selfish to take care of your beautiful self, and you should realize that sooner rather than later.
So with that. I bid you farewell for the time.
Thanks, Moose, for the inspiring words. Yes, you can. You sure as hell can. If you want it, do it. If someone gives you shit about it, they need to break free from their cage of closed mindedness and accept and love you for doing what you want. What is more beautiful than loving yourself?
Back to typing my paper.
Goodbye, World.
Topics: Philosophy, Utterly Random | 1 Comment »
Have Another Slice
By Billy | November 29, 2008
Hello World. I am sitting down on the last day of my Thanksgiving Break and have decided in an attempt to get back into the habit of regularly updating Rumbelow, I shall sit down and write a poem. Usually I edit and that sort of stuff, but this one is going to be for the most part off the top of my head. Who knows if it is any good?
the stories
behind
the reasons we hide
the tales of our “downfalls”
the times that we cried
the endless pursuit of
ephemeral bliss
that thing we all grope for
that thing we all miss
some surely find it
someone still sees
the secret of love
god built in the trees
some people come here
to set us on fire
they love and they help us
attain our desire
reminding us
that finding us
is only the start
and showing us
that knowing us
comes from the heart
Hmm. I guess that’s it. Hopefully more regularly posted stuff to come!
Topics: poetry, Utterly Random | 1 Comment »
WCot[ATF] #4: EXTRALIFE
By Billy | November 9, 2008
So I have been busy with life, once again, and part of my sad little existence is clicking the damned StumbleUpon button at the upper left corner of my browser. This morning I stumbled upon a comic that made the kid in me laugh out loud (I call those alols, since I actually laughed out loud)
I have been spending quite a bit time knitting (and failing at knitting), playing the Viola, and writing, not to mention thinking, dancing, singing, meeting new and incredible people, and saving the world by holding the door for oner person at a time. Aside from this, I have little to report. I’m going to show you the comic and wish you a lovely day!
Topics: Comic of the [ATF], Utterly Random | Comments Off on WCot[ATF] #4: EXTRALIFE
The Utopographer: Chapter 3
By Billy | October 23, 2008
Let me start this properly by sending you to Chapter 1 so you can understand where this post is coming from. I feel like jumping right in, so brace yourself. We’ll see where this takes us.
Chapter 3:
Trunkenkuss is a German name. A fake German name. Alex Trunkenkuss, as he preferrs to be called, has not heard his real name uttered since before he ever knew Dr. Margana had been watching him.
Alex started walking towards his shadow and continued on that path for three hours; the sun had reached its peak and then some. Eventually an old green Honda Civic zoomed past from behind, screeched to a halt, and traced a crooked path back to where he stood. From roughly the middle of the road, a woman hollered out the open passenger side window.
“You look lost, honey. You don’t belong out in this sun!”
Alex tried his best to respond politely, “I’m kinda a long way from home. Are you offering me a ride or what?”
The driver responded as she felt appropriate to the Trunkenkuss attitude, opened the door, and started driving as soon as the passenger seat was occupied. Examining his new ride, Alex noted first the Christian music playing just loud enough to hear the lyrics. Your sins are gone without a trace. There’s nothing left now, there’s only grace. Alex laughed audibly; his driver made no sign of hearing. The next noteable thing to notice about the car was that the back seats had been removed, their space being occupied by a hodge podge of unkempt newspapers, fliers, and books.
Wondering where on earth he was, Alex reached into his pocket for a cigarette. He exhaled the first drag and said, “You don’t mind if I smoke.” It was almost a question. The driver swallowed, looked at the rosary hanging from her rear-view window, and smiled. “Where the fuck are we, anyway?” Alex said as he let smoke seep from his lips and nose. “And what year is it?”
—-
Gah. I need to get this chapter over with. I will write more later– this car ride is aggrivating! It’s based loosely on my hitchhiking experience, though I wasn’t an ass to the poor lady in the car. I purposefully left money on the seat when I got out of the car. I don’t think she’ll know that was my gift to her, but it was all I had. Anyway. More exciting stuff to come. This chapter kinda sucked.
As always, critiques welcome!
Topics: The Story of Brahman, Works of Fiction | 2 Comments »
The Not-So-Epic Day of Blindness
By Billy | October 13, 2008
So I’m writing this long after the events have actually occurred; I thought to do this at first to make sure I could contemplate the facts and relay them accurately with a clear head. Eventually, that train of thought lead to my ruin, and I have a great deal of distance between the events and the recording of them. Boo hoo. Here goes, anyway.
I have been thinking about this day — this day I made, since at least fifth grade. I wonder what it’s like to be blind. I think that would be a really interesting and different existence. The world must look so different when you don’t have eyes to see it!
There was never a right time to do it, I felt. I wanted to experience the world whilst being blind, not just laying around the house doing nothing because I’m unable to see. By the time I had spend two weeks at JMU, I knew my friends, my disposition, my emotional state, my frame of mind, etc., were right for this to happen.
“Guys, will you help me be blind for a day? Two Fridays from now I will be putting a blindfold on at Midnight and I’d really appreciate your help since I wont be taking it off for 24 hours.”
My friends lovingly obliged. I immediately leaned a lesson about *planning* (I’ve inserted those stars because I hope to make a post explaining this later…) and I knew from then on that I’d be learning quite a bit from this experiment.
I “chose” Saturday as my day so that I’d be able to take my time getting from place to place, potentially use the same guide to help me from place to place (and they wouldn’t have to leave me alone because they were going to class or something) and I’d potentially be able to spend the night with someone if I couldn’t get a walk back to my room. This eventually turned out to be useless, since I had times of being a lone, and I didn’t spend the night with anyone else. I guess it was nice to feel no pressure getting from place to place, though. Maybe my next experiment will happen on a weekday.
Gah! On to the day.
“Okay guys, I’ll see you in 24 hours.” I say this as I roll up the cow-pattern bandana and lay it over my eyes. The dorm room held 5 people, talking, laughing, enjoying the evening… Within the first five minutes I understand somewhat of what I will be facing for the next 24 hours. My friends Laura and Nick decide to join me in darkness for a while, so they place blindfolds on and we clumsily crawl around the room for a bit. The conversation focuses around the interesting experience of not knowing where anyone or anything is for just a bit.
I ask my friend Adella a question… No reply. She and the fourth friend, I find out later, had been out of the room for a number of minutes already. This suddenly made me feel very vulnerable. At first I was worried about the cluelessness with which I would be stuck for the next 23 hours and 50 some minutes, but that feeling quickly shifted to worry about how liked I was by the friends in the room.
Someone decides to go for a snack. I hear the sound of something crunchy and wonder what it could be. “Oooh! Let’s see if Billy can figure out what were eating!” Laura says in her usual manner of speaking. I agree; pretty sure I’m listening to the sound of a Goldfish (Baked and made with real cheese) being munched. When the baby carrot lands in my mouth, the texture is entirely unexpected. Again, my first instinct is to assume some trick has been played on me. These two incidents epitomize the way I this handicap made me feel all day.
I realize explaining in this detail would be entirely boring for both you and me, so I will go at break neck pace (compared to how the day progressed for me). Here are the more memorable and interesting things that happened from one midnight to the next.
For starters, the walk home was fairly enjoyable. I learned that a) my friend Lisbeth is not a great guide, especially when she can’t see due to the darkness of night. I fell down three sets steps whilst she said, “ummm look out, there are stairs happening soon.”
b) would have to be that eyes are usually necessary for walking in straight lines for me, since I could not do this on the walk home with Lisbeth.
All in all, though, thanks for the help, dear.
When I woke up, I managed to find my way to the shower with my shampoo and what not – I am proud of that. I took off the blindfold and kept my eyes closed whist I showered. I manage to get out of my building clean and incident free minus hitting a poor guy with my cane while he was using the urinal.
Outside was big and scary — I tried to walk with a cane against the curb until I reached my friends dorm. This seemed logical until I started hearing the 700 girls a couple dozen feet down the road — It was time for Fall Rush for the sororities. I sat down and tried to call Adella to come and get me. Instead, I called my friend Caleb twice. I shrug and wait for someone to pass by, ask her to help place a call, and then I tell Addie to come save me.
Brunch was as enjoyable and difficult as expected. We played a little game of Guess The Food, which I enjoyed except the cherry tomato, which I spit out.
After Brunch, it was time to go to town. I was the only one who knew how to get to the building at which the bus stopped, so finding the place was a lot of fun. The bus was empty and fun — someone apparently started pounding on the bus windows to harass their friend, who was driving the bus. This thoroughly scared me, Nick, Laura, and Allison — the only of our crew who had decided to go down town.
Once downtown, I bought some 1$ sandals, helped Allison pick out some sunglasses (based on how they felt on her face) and got yelled at by a horrible lady at Goodwill. You are apparently not allowed to sleep on the furniture in Goodwill – to do so will earn you a nasty scolding. This was the only time all day I wanted to remove my bandana. I NEEDED to get out of that store and away from that lady, but I had no clue where in the store I was or where my shoes even went. I toughed it out and sat uncomfortably until Laura came and found me. She walked me outside, where I sat for a bit listening to some lady talk her friend through some difficulties I didn’t need to hear about.
As it turns out, the bus had stopped running and we had to walk the mile back to campus. I held Allison’s arm and began to march. In order from good to bad, I preferred Allison, Nick, then Laura. Laura earned her place at the end after she let me walk directly into so many things.
Wow. I just realized how boring of a post this is. Trudge along, Billy. Trudge along.
Okay. So meals when you can’t see are really fun. I had people get my food for me and had to ask many times whether or not I had finished my food. I’m realizing now that this post is terrible so I’m finishing it up quickly.
In fact, this will be it. I learned a lot of lessons that I don’t really care to share with the entire world. Being blind is extremely humbling, confusing, exhausting, and causes many insecurities to surface. I would do it again, and very well may do so. Someday I will do it in conjunction with several other handicaps.
Time to close this post and cover it with better, more entertaining stuff. Thanks for the read!
Topics: Nonfiction, Utterly Random | 5 Comments »
a humble return to existence
By Billy | September 29, 2008
Is it worse to have too much to do or too little to do? No, I suppose I am making distinctions there and that feels, for whatever reason, like the wrong path to follow. Bah. Wrong path. Another distinction. Why do I feel making no distinctions is better than making distinctions? Perhaps when I grasp this concept, I will be a Buddha. (Why would one want to be a Buddha in a distinctionless existence!?) Augh!
You see that? That is perhaps the exact reason I haven’t been updating Rumbelow in so darn long. I have been plagued by various terrrrrrible (and empty) things that have ruined my study, sleeping, eating, and living habits. One monster is the source of all this; life. She is confusing, she is overwhelming, she is… gah. She is life.
I have so, so, sooooo much to write, but I need to study study study, instead. I will leave one of the countless poems I have written up for you now, and tell you guys later about my day of blindness, my tattoo, my trip to an independent music festival (and therefore the discovery of countless amazing musicians), the various daily lessons I keep learning, as well as introduce some new quirks I have picked up in the past weeks.
As for now, I’ll leave the poem. Before that— little thing of the day that reminds me that life is good: I saw two turtles basking in the sun on a rock. =D
This poem is about the most beautiful leaf I have ever had the privilege of holding in my hand. Leaves are such good reminders of the ephemeral nature of this supposed existence.
A leaf
In dying she became her most true self
Her colors just bled out
Nothing left to hide, she shed
Every
Trace
Of doubt
“This is who I am!” She’d scream
“This is who I’ve been.
Now my veins have just stopped working
Resistance grows so thin.”
And even in her fragile state
Her spirit yearned to soar.
“Not with me here,” I’d reply
You don’t need me any more.
As autumn changes all your colors
I deny your failing health.
Yet you embrace the changing season
and embrace your perfect self.
More to come. Much, much more to be said.
P.S. Happy Jewish New Year!
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
WCot[ATF]! Installation #3: Sinfest
By Billy | September 4, 2008
So my dear friend Adella has ruined my life forever. Yes, she has already been a wonderful help in my spiritual growth, but she has honestly sucked my soul out of my body and given it to satans most devious incarnation. Stumbleupon.com is perhaps the greatest/worst thing ever. I want my life back!
My spirit tells me that I’m supposed to do homework instead of wasting so much time online. This will be a major challenge this semester. <sigh>
Okay. Well I have been using Stumble! to kill time since it gives me informative pages relative to my interests, spreading from pages about Shamanism, photography, artists, and nerd stuff. I just stumbled across this comic and thought it was kinda funny.
Here you guys go. Sinfest:
Topics: Comic of the [ATF] | Comments Off on WCot[ATF]! Installation #3: Sinfest
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