clemgreenwood

[clemgreenwood]

There's something very certain about the way he talks, and Clementine finds an odd comfort in it. She's always liked the feeling of being around somebody who's so confident in what they believe, as if they and their sound sense of the world might be able to anchor her into reality more firmly she's ever been able to do herself.

"Yeah," she nods, and for a moment she's quiet in thought, mulling over what he'd said about doing false things for comfort. To her, it sounds a lot like what she'd done in high school, clinging to a religion she didn't believe in simply because the idea of it was so comforting. "Maybe that's okay, though, right? For some people, in some ways. Like, maybe if it's not hurting anybody, letting ourselves do comforting things even if it's not real isn't such a bad thing. Or letting someone tell us it's gonna be okay even when it's not."

Ramses bit back his laughter for as long as he was able to before a quiet hum fell from his mouth. “Humans do strange things for comfort. Even if it is false.” He would know that better than most people. Especially lately. When he had been diagnosed he had looked at all the studies. He Had decided that if he had to bargain with his life that he would go with whoever had the bigger percentage. Which put in hindsight he realized how insane that sounded. No one could promise him his life. No one could tell him that he wouldn’t relapse. The anxiety of worrying that any stupid cough or sign meant that it was back was close to driving him insane. His lips pulled upwards at the corners to show a faint smile, “As complicated as we try to be we are really simple. We want everything to make sense. A quick simple answer and for someone to tell us everything is going to be ok.” That was what his clients always wanted. Everyone wanted to be told that their case was bulletproof and that victory was in their corner.  

[clemgreenwood]

Clem tilts her head, taken by the quickness and surety of the answer. It's the sort of absolute she always wants to gravitate towards, even though she always inevitably finds herself wading back into the murky waters of gray area eventually.

"I'm not sure what My Girl is," she grins, "but I'm gonna say you're probably right about the bees. Something definitely evil about that. I've never liked killing spiders either — not to be weird but I think they're kinda cute." Pursing her lips in thought, she adds, "What's My Girl?"

"Killing bees is inherently bad," Rose answers reflexively, as if she's completely assured of the sentiment the moment it leaves her mouth.

"The only exception I'll make is Thomas J. from My Girl. They were fucked up for that. But otherwise if you kill a bee you're just a dick."

[clemgreenwood]

"Hand to god," Clem laughs. "Bonafide cute and delicious." She sucks some frosting off her thumb and puts the donut back in the bag, knowing that later on in the evening when she's elbow deep in homework she'll be excited when she remembers she has it. "I've always thought pastry decorating must be insanely hard, like. You can't erase or anything, and it's all so gooey and uncooperative. Really impressive." Hesitating a second, she then adds, "Could I, um...also get that other one? I'll pay for both obviously. It's for my neighbor who's cat-sitting for me for the millionth time this month, for free because she won't let me pay her."

"Yeah? Bonafide cute, you really mean it?" Eagerly awaiting the other woman to take a bite out of it, Mikayla holds her breath or the verdict that can make or break her pitch to her boss. Fists clenched tight on the counter, her brows remain raised until finally she speaks: slam fucking dunk. She hisses out a 'yessss' under her breath, pulling a fist towards her waist with excitement. "I knew it. See? I got psychic abilities, I really do. My dad already said it. And -- oh, yeah, I googled some photos of stuff and drew it with an icing thinger. It was ridiculously hard."

[clemgreenwood]

"Of course," Clem agrees, smiling. "I guess that's kind of the question, though, isn't it? If the binary moral system is just a social construct? But you're probably right, it's a little early for that." Both hands around her cup of coffee, she runs her thumb contemplatively along the sharp edge of the plastic lid, head tilting in thought. "Do you think about this stuff a lot? Maybe it's just me."

"That is a very loaded question this early in the morning," he chuckled. Luca had been crunching numbers at the coffee shop for over an hour trying to find a way to bring down cost, while making sure the restaurant could hire on more help. He was half way through his second cup, when his attentions shifted towards the other besides him. "One, the binary moral system is a social construct." Luca had a hard time believing that there were only ones and zeros. "Two, that's all subjective, isn't it? Who am I to tell you what's inherently good or bad?"

[clemgreenwood]

Clem cracks a smile, and if anyone were watching them, the mixture of adoration and awe on her face while she's looking at her cousin would have been the brightest thing in the room. James is the coolest person she knows, which is totally crazy considering they're blood relatives and Clementine has never felt like the sort of person anyone would ever look at and think of that way.

"So the story goes," she says, legs crossed and the sleeves of her sweater pulled down over her hands while she fiddles with them. "Sorry, I just finished reading Jekyll and Hyde so I'm getting all philosophical about good and evil." Grinning, she says, "I think some people must be all bad, right? Like that guy who yelled at me for putting together his bouquet wrong the other day? For sure a hundred percent evil, guaranteed."

"Oh for fuck sakes, I'm not high enough for this, Clem." James says while she arches her neck to look at her cousin. "Can't you ask me why the sky is blue or something? Even that sounds better than trying to analyze why some people are gross. No one is good or all bad. There aren't any saints in this world and even the devil was once an angel... i think." And that was all the bible shit she knew because it was what her mother said in regard to her crazy aunt's beliefs.

[clemgreenwood]

Clementine takes the envelope slowly, eyebrows drawn, and turns it so she can read the addressee on the front — a Marley Callahan in Arizona — and then the addressor. Something about her dad’s name there at the top left corner, in his easily-recognizable handwriting, gives her a feeling like an ice cube sliding into her stomach. Her fingers itch with a terrible desire to rip it open and see what’s inside, what he could have been saying to this strange woman Clementine had never even heard of.

There’s a paradox of emotion then, a desire on one hand to tell Marley Callahan to take the letter and go, because whatever this is she doesn’t want any part of it, and on the other to grasp at this opportunity to bring her dad back to life for a moment hearing this stranger talk about him like he’s still alive.

Clementine stares hard at the other blonde—she looks like maybe she’s a little younger than Gemma—and then finally, after some consideration, says, “He passed away about four months ago. You should keep this.” She holds out the envelope a little hesitantly. “Did you come all the way from Arizona just for him?”

No. All of this and he wasn't even home. Marley didn't know whether to laugh or to cry or to scream, though the urge to do all three sat heavy in her stomach. This was clearly a mistake. Not just today, but every day that'd come before it, all that time she'd spent thinking that she needed this, that she was owed this. It was hard to think of Helen Callahan as a woman who'd done Marley any sort of favors, but perhaps keeping her father from her truly had been a blessing in disguise.

(Though, if Marley truly believed this, she'd have set the box of his unread letters on fire and let them burn under the Arizona sun instead of buying a fucking plane ticket.)

And of course she'd come face to face with who she was becoming increasingly more convinced was his child bride the longer this interaction continued. The defensive folding of her arms, the suspicious sweep down her body, the least pleasant please she might've ever heard. It wasn't as if she could blame her.

Not for the first time and certainly not for the last, Marley is filled with the desire to run. Apologize for the inconvenience and be on her way...but her fingers found themselves reaching into her jacket pocket anyways, not having forgotten the worn out paper settled there, envelope rustling as it was pulled out.

"...when he gets home, you can tell him Marley stopped by." The concealed birthday card was held in the space between them, what must've been his handwriting written neatly on the envelope. It wasn't like she needed it anymore, wasn't as if it hadn't already been committed to memory. "But tell him he doesn't have to worry. She's not stickin' around for much longer. He should know a lot about that."

[clemgreenwood]

if i believe you by the 1975

i got a god-shaped hole / it's infected / and i'm petrified of being alone / it's pathetic, i know / and i toss and i turn in my bed / it's just like i lost my head / and if i believe you, will that make it stop? / if i told you i need you, is that what you want? / and i'm broken and bleeding, and begging for help / and i'm asking you, jesus, show yourself

[clemgreenwood]

Clem tries to fight a small smile when she sees him starting to think about it a little, and it grows when he laughs. She especially likes how poetic that last sentiment is, about how the only absolute when it comes to humans is death. "I agree completely," she says. "I don't think there's such a thing as some divinely-decreed sense of good and bad. Even if there was, you're right, humans don't really do well with absolutes, although I do think we try to create them sometimes, you know, like, when things don't go the way we want them, we definitely try to find one person to blame, even if it's something that isn't one person's fault." She gives a wry little grin, and adds, "You see that a lot with politics."

Before cancer, Ramses had been better at being an ass. If there was anything he missed it was that. The ability of just being able to be done with this a lot quicker than he was now. Now he cared a bit too much. Which explained why he stayed and decided to embark on this discussion. He didn’t have anywhere else to be till three hours, so he had time to kill. “Ok. If I had to choose one I would have to say no one is born inherently good or bad.” God he hoped he was right or he was going to end up like his father and his brother real soon here. Then again the apple didn’t fall from the tree, wasn’t that the saying? “Absolute? I don’t think so. I think a simple notion that we’re humans complicates things. We never have been creatures of absolutes.” He laughed softly as he took a pause, “You know aside from the notion of we’re all going to die at some point.” He found himself finding this just a bit interesting and waiting for her response.   

[clemgreenwood]

Clementine is surprised into a laugh at the anecdote, and she wonders if that's something he's really done or if it's just meant to be a joke, or even an embellishment on something that really happened. It's still insane to her sometimes, the kinds of things people have done in their lives, especially when they look as young as this guy does. She's gotten her toes wet in the last few years but doing acid at an outdoor concert is as far-removed from what she's used to as if he'd said he and his friends sometimes took jaunts to mars.

"I have not seen that one," Clem laughs, "but I think I definitely need to or this whole exhibit was a waste. I mean --" she lowers her voice so no one near them can hear and potentially get offended, "anything that isn't just random colors and shapes like this one."

While the girl concentrated on the painting that was carefully on display before them, Lucky's attention was on her, as if he would be able to spot a lightbulb moment happen that might end up illuminating them both.

It didn't happen, and in some ways, that was a relief.

"Okay, thank God, it's not just me. Someone beside me cried at this freaky looking one of people dancing in a circle and I was looking at it like, that just looked like me and my friends that time we did acid at an outdoor concert. Did you see that one?" He would most likely be rightfully tutted at by an art connoisseur for how he spoke of Dance, but that was the most meaningful comparison he could summon.

"I can show you where it is if you haven't."

[clemgreenwood]

closed starter for @milesofasher at adelina's italian restaurant

"I really, really appreciate you meeting me," Clementine says as soon as Miles sits down across from her at the table, the waiter setting down another glass of water for him. She's been here almost fifteen minutes -- well before they'd agreed to meet -- nervously playing with the cloth napkin in her lap and going back and forth between being determined this is a good idea, and fearful that it's a terrible one. "You've been so helpful these last few months, I swear, I don't know how me and Gem would've gotten through it if you hadn't been such a rock for us, especially with my mom being...well, you know." Her face reddens a little, and she hurries to say, with a small laugh, "Sorry, you've barely even sat down and I'm rambling."

[clemgreenwood]

Grace Van Dien and her puppy Pluto

[clemgreenwood]

"Really?" Clementine laughs. "Just one record and you'd do Taylor Swift? I guess a lot of people probably would, though. I think I'd have to go with...maybe Wednesday Morning, Three AM, by Simon and Garfunkel? It's got so many of my all-time favorites on it. You didn't say which Taylor Swift album, by the way. Any one in particular?"

CREEP RECORDS w/ @philly-starters

"If there was one record you could buy... What would it be and why?" Dilara asks, turning her head to look over at the person standing next to her. "I would have to say I'd get every Taylor Swift record... I heard one of them had different color records in it."

[clemgreenwood]

"Well I'm not really talking about defending anyone's actions," Clem points out, though she's already gotten the feeling he's aggressively uninterested in these sorts of conversations. Which she gets, on some level -- some people don't care about the why, only the what, and maybe that's the smart way to live life instead of letting the unanswerable questions drive you crazy -- but she's never really been able to help pondering the mysteries of the universe. They're all so glaring and unavoidable. "I mean, like, is there such a thing as a moral system that exists outside of context? Where stealing is bad no matter the reason behind it? I guess it's just something I think about a lot."

It had been a while since he had taken a philosophy class. He had not missed it at all. He liked to call his ethnics called a one hour where people fought over each other to have themselves heard. So when the question was laid down he shrugged, mostly cause he had heard all the arguments regarding that topic and the only conclusion he had come up with was that he didn’t give a fuck. “Why does it matter? Let’s say they can — not a defense to their actions and if they’re not then oh well, right?” 

[clemgreenwood]

It's not important. She could almost laugh at that, but what comes out is more of a scoff of disbelief. Some unheard-of stranger coming to her house asking after her dead father like it's her god-given right to be here demanding things without explanation.

"No," Clementine says tightly. Her arms fold across her chest and she looks the other woman up and down, filled suddenly with a sense of foreboding. The voice in her head that never goes away tells her that's the kind of feeling you're supposed to get when the devil is near, but with a compulsive little shake of her head she dismisses that. "He's not. Tell me who you are, please."

It's a fair question, even when bypassing Marley's own with a curtness that, despite her being the trespasser, has her brows raising in surprise. It'd occurred to her that a house of this size probably did not only have one person living inside--she'd seen a various rotation of cars in the driveway, had even caught glimpse of a woman she suppose could've been the very blonde standing before her right then. She could've sworn she'd been older, maybe a little taller, but there was a decent distance between the spot on the street Marley's tires were surely wearing away at and the Greenwood's driveway. Her eyes could have deceived her.

Up close however, it was easy to pick up on the other woman's tenseness--the tight set to her shoulders, the pinched set of her mouth. Different than what had ahold of Marley, in the moment (re: a desire to turn around and run without looking back), and easily mistaken for…jealousy? God, wouldn't that be her fucking luck? Looking for her dad and instead, running into his…girlfriend? Mistress? Sugar baby? Her stomach clenched tighter at the thought, but the rising bile was swallowed down.

"I'm--" regretting about three months of life choices. She sighed, fixing the fellow blonde with an exasperated stare. "Look," if she wasn't going to bother with niceties, Marley could cut the shit too, "it's--not important, alright? Is he here or not?" At this point, she was hoping for not. Maybe this was all she needed in order to make a clean break; she'd say goodbye to Lucky on the way back into the city and be on her merry way to wherever it was that called her next.

[clemgreenwood]

open starter for @philly-starters

"Do you think there's such a thing as a binary moral system?" Clementine asks. "I mean, in any context, you know? Can something or someone be inherently good or bad?"

[clemgreenwood]

She never knows why she comes here. There's always intention behind it, even if it's a vague, nebulous sort of intention, like she's feeling homesick and her mom's house is as close as she's going to get. Sitting in the chair her dad used to sit in, picking up his old pipes and smelling the tobacco-stained wood, which will fade in time, probably, but is still so fresh right now that Clementine can close her eyes and picture him sitting beneath her, smoking while she sits on his lap and her mom makes dinner in the kitchen. But he's not really there, and his absence has made the house feel cold ever since late September of last year. So she doesn't know why she comes.

Today was one of those days where she couldn't be in her apartment anymore, or the city itself for that matter. She'd driven up to the suburbs in the morning and impulsively stopped at a church she'd never been to before on the way, mostly empty on a Saturday, where she'd sat in one of the pews and stared at the simulacrum of Jesus hanging bloody and broken on the cross up at the front and thought about how it really would be best if he'd never been a real person, so he wouldn't have had to go through all of that. Afterwards she'd gone to her mom's, which was also empty, and she'd poured herself a glass of orange juice and sat in her dad's chair and skimmed through one of her mom's annotated copies of the bible.

The thing about it is that in spite of her struggle with religion, Clementine had always liked the stories in the bible because they were interesting and fun to read, and she gets so caught up in it that she doesn't notice anybody walking up to the house, but she does finally look up in time to see a curly blonde head walking back towards the street. She stares for a second before curiosity makes her shut the book and get up from the chair.

Outside, when the girl turns around, Clementine doesn't even have time to question her before her dad's name is coming out of the stranger's mouth, and Clementine stares at her unblinkingly, stomach suddenly in knots.

"Who are you?" she says finally, sounding much ruder than she'd meant, but there's something off here. She can think of nobody who could have known her father that wouldn't know by now he was dead.

It was a nice house...if you were into that classic all-American, white picket fence and 2.5 children nuclear family two story bullshit.

Hardly anything about it had changed in the three months Marley had found herself parked across from 2936 Banner Rd, and so it made sense that the sight still managed to twist her stomach into knots (something she feigned as disgust but only to hide something more like insecurity).

She'd had three months to come up with a plan better than this: sat in her car, staring at the front door as if willing someone (willing him) to come through it, yet flinching and turning away at any sign of movement. The neighbors definitely thought she was crazy, or a stalker, or absolutely tweaking--the fact that the cops hadn't been called on her was a miracle, as was going completely unnoticed by the actual residents of the home she was...not stalking, but...casing? Investigating? Wasting gas in front of?

It was actually the dilemma of gas (more like, the lack of it) that projected her further along her makeshift plan than she'd managed to make it thus far. In a surge of faux bravery, Marley's fingers twisted the key from the ignition, her other hand opened the car door, two feet made their way up the driveway and the few steps that separated front door from walkway. She was doing this. Today was the day.

Now, what exactly did you say to the father that abandoned you before you were born and whose details of existence you only learned after your estranged mother's death?

So...maybe today was not the day. Marley turned on her heel to beeline it back across the street to her awaiting getaway car (inconvenient, when you are the driver of said getaway car), but the sudden twisting of a lock and the creek of a door opening left her rooted to the spot. No. This could not be happening. Not like this. Could she make it to the car before he noticed her? But it was too late, the damning echo of the door swinging shut sealing her fate. It was now or never, she supposed.

Letting out a breath, the blonde turned around to face...the other blonde girl staring back at her. She is equal parts relieved and confused.

"Oh, uh, sorry. I was just..." Running away from your front door? Trespassing on your property? Searching for answers from a man I've never met? "I'm lookin' for Robert Greenwood?" Marley didn't know what she hoped for more, a flash of recognition or a blank stare. She cleared her throat, "is he, uh...home, by any chance?"

@clemgreenwood

[clemgreenwood]

Art has always been a little difficult for her. Abstract concepts in general have always been a little difficult for Clementine, who prefers facts over interpretation. So many people feel so differently, and she can't understand why, because there's something so much more comforting to her about knowing the stages of mitosis than being able to figure out what's going on in some painting by an old man she's never met. She doesn't answer right away, tilting her her head and trying to come up with something, but in the end she just laughs quietly and shakes her head. "Nope," she says. "There's another one that's a sunset in Paris, did you see it? That one was nice. This is just...I dunno. Shapes, to me. I guess there's probably some kind of meaningful composition to it we're not getting."

where: philadelphia museum of art

for: @philly-starters / anyone!

With his hands clasped behind his back, Lucky peered at the painting on display before him with innate interest. He had been told he needed to see the Matisse exhibition before it's conclusion, but now he was there he wasn't altogether sure what he was supposed to be seeing.

"Do you get it?" He asked the person beside him after a few more seconds had passed, voice low as if he didn't want to admit that it was going directly over his head.