storysidenote

[storysidenote]

"Okay, but at the time I was joking", Jeff replied.

"Do you have a plan or are we just going to let that thing destroy the planet?", I asked clearly annoyed.

Look, I know what you're thinking and maybe summoning a demon spirit into a roomba wasn't the best idea, but at the time we really didn't want to clean the house. I guess that's why they say hindsight is 20/20.

At first it worked out fine. The little robot could float over and clean any mess. It seemed to enjoy destroying the trash. Honestly we could've seen this coming so easily, but we were too busy not cleaning and enjoying life. Well eventually the little robot figured out who made the trash.

Honestly I don't feel like telling the whole story so I'm going to skip ahead to now. We're in an ababdoned underground military base (three adjectives seems excessive, but there's really no other way to describe it), my roomba is highjacking all of the nuclear missles in the United States, and Jeff is wearing a stylish scarf. I should really compliment him on that since it's unusual for him to take any care in his appearance.

"You have the spell book and the chalk, just draw the circle and say the words. I'll catch it and hold it in place", Jeff winked at me

"You do know that's a butterfly net right?", I pointed to the ridiculous net he was swinging around.

"It's not a butterfly net, it's one of those things to clean your pool with", Jeff said as we reached the door.

I grasped the old metal handle. It was cold to the touch and it really made me wonder how the roomba even got into the room. I took a deep breath and then a weird thought crossed my mind. I really hope I can still use that roomba after the evil spirit is cast away. Jeff and I locked eyes and I weirdly knew he was thinking the same thing as me.

Once I pulled the door open, Jeff ran in while I followed quickly behind him and shut the door. This wasn't our first exorcism an it probably won't be our last. The screen on the left said that the roomba was about ninety percent done which meant we had to act quickly. Jeff swung his stupid net at the roomba and he actually caught it, but the roomba just phased through it.

"Oh that's how it got in", Jeff said.

"What do we do now?", I finished drawing the circle.

"I'll get it", Jeff said swinging wildly again.

The rhoomba evaded and sent sparks at us that hit like one of those joke pens that assholes carry around, except we felt it all over our bodies. I watched the percentage on the screen slowly crawl to one hundred percent.

At ninety-eight percent the roomba had us on our knees screaming in agony, but then something happened. A beeping sound came from the roomba.

"What's that?", Jeff asked

"It's the battery indicator", I managed to say.

The roomba stopped midair and fell to the ground with a crash. A horrifying screech came from the robot and it exploded into a million fiery pieces. One of the pieces hit Jeff's scarf and he had to take it off and throw it at the ground. We both stood up and just stared at the destruction.

"Sorry about your Roomba", Jeff said.

"Sorry about your scarf", I said, "It was nice"

"Thanks", he said, "so do you want to go track down the coffee maker?"

"sure, I could use a pick-me-up".

“Remember back before this mess started, when I told you not to mix magic with science, and you asked me what’s the worst that could happen? THIS!!! THIS EXACT SITUTATION IS THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN!!!”

[storysidenote]

Ready Player One

This is the next book on my list. I've gotten past a few chapters and I'm officially hooked.

[storysidenote]

The first book I would like to post about is Revenger. I picked this up at Barnes and Noble in one of their buy 2 get 1 free sales. I think I need a format for these reviews so here it goes. Title: Revenger Author: Alastair Reynolds Genre: Science Fiction Rating: 🚀🚀🚀🚀 (out of 5) Summary: This story follows Arafura Ness, or Fura for short, as she gets dragged out by her sister (Adrana) to join a ship as bone readers. They basically send messages to other ships through the bones. The crew's main source of income is from treasure hunting. They wait for these things called baubles to open up, it's basically a small planet with a type of forcefield around it that opens up periodically. Inside they find all types of treasures that can be sold for profit, but it can be dangerous of the bauble solidifies with them in it. On the sisters' first bauble opening they encounter a space pirate known as Bosa Sennen. Bosa lays waste to their ship and steals Adrana away. From here the story explores Fura's transformation from a mild mannered, well spoken, and intellectual girl into a powerful adventurer with rescue on her mind and revenge in her heart. It explores what she's willing to put her own body through to survive and what she's willing to put strangers and even friends through to get to her sister. The Fura at the end of the story is not the same as the one in the beginning. By placing herself and her crew in danger, she gets the chance to see her sister once more, but maybe it's not what she expected. This book had me feeling tense, happy, angry, and worried for the characters. I highly recommend this to any fans of sci-fi and any fans of pirates. In the end, this is the story of one sister's love for the other.

[storysidenote]

Many Books

I realized last night that I own many books and I've only read about 40% of them. I need to read more so to motivate myself, I'm going to use this blog as a sort of reading log and book review thing. I'll get through all of them!

[storysidenote]

Giveaway Contest: We’re giving away fifteen vintage, ‘60s-era Penguin Classics by Homer, Sophocles, Herodotus, Voltaire, Plato, and others! It took me three years to accumulate these books one by one, and I’m already starting to have separation issues. *sigh* But I know they will go to a good home. Won’t this collection look lovely on your shelf? :D To win these classics, you must: 1) be following macrolit on Tumblr (yes, we will check. :P), and 2) reblog this post. We will choose a random winner on August 27, at which time we’ll start a new giveaway. And yes, we’ll ship to any country. Easy, right? Good luck!

[storysidenote]

Chapter 1: 3 minutes and 47 seconds

Suddenly, I could hear the song Rock You Like A Hurricane coming from somewhere in the house. I couldn't tell where it was coming from, but the just as sudden as it started it just stopped exactly at the thirty-three second mark. I really like that song, it makes me feel like I'm about to go into battle. Then it played again. This time it confused me even more. Was this song following me? Was I being watched? Why has the universe cursed with just the intro of one of my favorite songs?

"Dude, your phone is ringing", Lisa said.

I was really high.

"Hello?", I said confused as I held the metal rectangle to my head.

"Babe, are you high already?", Michelle said with a chuckle over the phone, "I texted you like six times. Did you tell Lisa about the--

I didn't hear the rest of that sentence. I felt an overwhelming heat rise in the pit of my stomach consuming my body from the outside down to the deepest part of my bones. My vision exploded into a million colors mixing and matching to make colors I could not name or recognize, but were more beautiful than anything I have ever seen. I could taste the air for miles around; some tasted bitter, some sweet. The movement from every electron in my body created a loud buzzing that I could feel shaking my core. The ground beneath my feet amplified the music of the world and I could hear it all at once. My senses were so overwhelmed that I could not tell if I was screaming or not. I stood there frozen for a million years, the stars passed me by as the moon fell to the ocean and the Earth was consumed by the sun. Then nothing. Darkness...

"I don't know Chelle, but Jeff got his heart starting in only a few minutes. He blames himself, but there was no way we could've known", I could hear Lisa's voice miles away.

"How long was his heart stopped?", Michelle said softly.

"Three minutes and forty-seven seconds exactly", Lisa said.

This is the end of the first chapter, it’s unedited and rough, but it sets the scene for the rest of the book hopefully. Now to write the first rough draft of the second chapter.

[storysidenote]

Chapter 1: 3 minutes and 47 seconds

As I drove towards Jeff's house I had to wonder how he knew I was out of work. Was he watching me? Did he have someone following me? All these questions ran through my mind and I knew Jeff was the type of person to try something like that. I kept looking in my rear view mirror expecting to see a car following me. I pulled into a residential area and after a bunch of twists and turns I made it to his house. 

Jeff had a big two story house. From the outside it looked like a normal suburban home. There was a black Jeep sitting in his driveway, which I recognized as Lisa's. The house itself was painted a dark blue with a red roof. I have no idea how Jeff afforded this place. Actually I don't even remember him ever talking about work. I walked up the driveway and just as I reached my hand out to press the button for the doorbell Jeff opened the door quickly.

  "Toast! You're herre!", Jeff screamed in my ear.

"Yeah, thanks for inviting me", I said irritated

I could see Lisa sitting on Jeff's couch; her curly brown hair with blond highlights was covering her eyes. She was holding an old GameBoy Advanced and she seemed like she she was really into whatever she was playing. When she finally noticed me she let go of her game for a second and raised two fingers to make a peace sign. She was sitting on a beige couch in the living room facing the door. The walls were all painted a bright green and the television that was next to the door was playing some sort of ambient music with a recording of a lava lamp. The light from the TV glowed on Lisa's dark skin lighting up her green eyes like the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on the ceiling.

"Yo Lisa, what's up?", I said to her as I sat down next to her.

"Just got ShellShocker to level 74, but I can't seem to beat the elite four with just him"

"I thought you already beat them"

"I did, but now I--

"Shut up nerds!", Jeff interrupted, "I invited you here to try this!"

Jeff pulled out a vape pen and a small rubber container from the desk next to the couch. Lisa turned off her game and finally looked up as Jeff decided to sit in between us.

"You're excited to smoke some wax?", Lisa asked, "I have like six grams in my car dude"

"Yeah man, I was expecting angel dust or elephant tranquilizer", I chuckled.

"First off, I'm pretty sure angel dust and elephant tranquilizer are the same thing", Jeff said with a fake offended tone, "and second, it's not just wax. This was created by a wizard!"

"Michael Jordan?", Lisa asked.

"We don't mention that" I said in the most serious tone I could muster.

"Guys! Shut up!", Jeff said as he dabbed the wax into the pen, "I mean it. I got it from that weird witchcraft store that sells all those spells and salvia."

Jeff turned on the pen and handed it to me first. I pressed the button and took a big drag from the pen. I didn't feel anything on that hit. For the next fifteen minutes we passed the pen around and just talked about whatever came to mind. I felt the high make my body heavy and my mind slow. The lava lamp on the TV seemed to come alive.

[storysidenote]

My Saturday in Mexico

So I had an interesting Saturday. I went to Mexico in a last minute decision with this guy I had only known for a very short time in  music college. We used to be in a band, but that band only ever practiced together for 8 practices and they were two hour practices where we barely got to know each other and we had a performance that was being graded that we were focused on. There were only three things I knew about him.

1. His name is Jonathan

2. He plays the drums

3. He smokes weed.

The only real reason I knew he existed was because of our mutual friend, Julia. In fact, Julia was the reason we were going to Mexico.

Julia is one of my closest friends. She is the best song writer I know, best singer I know, and the best friend I made in Hollywood while at school. When I knew her, she was a party girl that left a trail of the broken hearts of both men and women. We met when I was just some guitarist that answered a "Musicians Needed" ad because I was bored. Knowing her and her life, it came as a huge shock when she told me she was getting married.

So that's why Jonathan and I found ourselves going to Mexico. Julia wanted us to be there for her wedding.

I knew her wedding was this Saturday, but I didn't really plan on going, especially since Mexico is a different country, but I found out her wedding was only a four hour drive at the most and Jonathan did not have a way to get there. So I finally decided Friday morning to pickup Jonathan Friday night and leave to Mexico.

This is where our adventure began. See I also smoke weed sometimes and I thought it would be awesome to have some in Mexico. Unfortunately, my dealer was not available on Friday night, so I decided to ask Jonathan to introduce me to his dealer. So that's how our night started. Around 10 pm we ended up in some sketchy apartment in East LA. The dealer was actually a very chill guy. He sold me two grams for $15, but unfortunately I only had a $20 bill and he had no change. So he gave us an extra gram.

So far this night already seems like a bad idea in the back of my mind. I'm hanging with some guy I barely know, I am going to try and smuggle drugs across the border, and I am planning on spending the day in a country I've never been to before.

Finally we made it to Mexico with no mishaps and we didn't even try hard to hide the weed. At this point, Jonathan was driving and we were looking for a McDonald's in the middle of the night while it was raining. We were going to meet there with one of Julia's cousins that we have never met before. After a few minutes of searching and wrong turns, we found the restaurant parking lot. There were absolutely no lights, even the restaurant was completely dark, and the lot was empty. We were 17 minutes late and we thought they had just went back without us. We also had no access to our cell phones at this time since Metro PCS doesn't cover Mexico. Jonathan and I decided to wait there and the thought of being robbed in a foreign country at a dark McDonald's parking lot became the topic of our conversation.

Suddenly a car came speeding through an alleyway that we didn't notice was there before. The car drove straight at us and we couldn't see inside or its license plate because of the car's lights. The car slowly turned so that its driver's side window was next to ours. The driver rolled down his window and we could see that there was two other guys in the car. Jonathan rolled down my car's window.

"Andy?", Jonathan asked

"Yeah, you here for Julia?", Andy said

"Yeah", I said.

"Follow us", Andy said.

Jonathan and I switched seats and I was the one who followed Andy. We went through a series of twists and turns that I can not recall. Finally we made it to Julia's house. It was 2 a.m. and Julia was asleep. There was cold pizza on the kitchen counter.

This was when we met Kevin and Marquise, the two other guys in Andy's car. Marquise is an ex-bartender and Kevin was his roommate. They both live in Hollywood and they like to drink. Andy, Julia's cousin, on the other hand worked a desk job for the Mexican police. We became friends that night. Marquise decided to show off his bartending skills and I decided to share the pot since it would take me a month to smoke three grams and I wanted it all gone by the time we drove back. We had a long night of drinking, smoking, and pizza. We played some card game designed to get you black out drunk and finally around 5 a.m. we all were too partied out and the five of us found places to sleep at Julia's apparent mansion.

Around 7 a.m. I heard movement around me as some people started getting ready for the day. I ignored it and stayed asleep until Julia broke down the door and started trying to wake me. I looked at my watch to check the time it was 9 a.m.. I did not have a good night's rest, but I couldn't ignore the bride-to-be. She had a crazy idea. She wanted us to perform an original song that she hadn't written yet at her wedding reception 12 hours from then.

Earlier I said Julia was a great song writer, but honestly I wasn't sure we could accomplish such a feat, especially considering I had to teach Jonathan whatever chords we came up with. We started with a little melody she had come up with and two sentences worth of lyrics. We threw those away.

"Just do your thing", Julia said to me.

I started playing random chords in the same key with a chilled out groove. She started singing random words for a bit and then suddenly... we had a song. It was a good song. A really good song. After 20 minutes of practice, Julia had to leave to get ready. Jonathan and I practiced for about a half an hour and we actually had what sounded like a decent sound. We ate breakfast and got ready for the day.

Finally it was time to head out, so we followed Julia's car to the beach where the wedding would take place. Halfway there, we lost it and we couldn't find it. Luckily, we saw Marquise's car and he looked to know where we were going.

We arrived at the beach a little early and they were still setting up, so we decided to get some tacos and some beer. I got squid tacos. They were good, but not the best I ever had and the Dos Equis was just Dos Equis. Nothing really to say about the place. We found a cave though and Kevin, Jonathan, Marquise, and I got high in it. Andy couldn't, he was in the wedding party and he was busy. Julia was obviously busy too. By the time the wedding started, we only had one bowl left to smoke. While we waited for the reception, we went to the room Marquise had rented for the night and finished smoking. We were high and hungry by the time the reception started.

We sat down at a table and started ordering drinks before the food was even served. I had two glasses of wine, two beers and one Paloma cocktail (tequila, Squirt, and a lemon). Finally the food came in. I kept drinking.

By the time we were going to perform, I was so smashed that I lost my guitar pick and I had a lot of trouble tuning my guitar. I was scared for a second that it wasn't going to go well. We were in front of many people and I was nervous. I didn't know how it would sound, but then I remembered something. I am me. I have never botched a performance just because I was sick, tired, in pain, freezing, overheating, hungover, or high. I counted us in and the music started. It was awesome!

The night went on and at 11 Jonathan and I stopped drinking. We needed to sober up for the drive home. Luckily, he had only had a couple beers, but I was already more drunk than I have been in a long long time. the rest of the night was kind of a blur.

At 2:30 we left. Jonathan was driving and I was asleep in the passenger side. We got to California safely, but it had been a long day and both Jonathan and I were tired. He fell asleep at the wheel. It was just for a second, but my car hit the center divider and we flew across three lanes trying to get back in control. We were okay, but my car suffered cosmetic damage and is in dire need of a tire alignment. Also the door makes a cracking sound when it opens. I decided to switch off and drive since I got about 2 hours of sleep. I got to the AV Sunday morning, just in time to go straight to work.

[storysidenote]

Chapter 1:3 minutes and 47 seconds

As the day went on it seemed like it was never going to end. I felt like I had been sitting in that chair for days or maybe weeks even. The clock on the wall read "6:53 P.M." and I stared at it for what seemed like hours only to have one minute pass. As I began to put my stuff away and get ready to leave, I spotted a car pulling into the parking lot. It was  a gray sedan with a huge dent on the passenger side. The back driver side window was broken out and it was covered by black plastic bag. "6:56", the clock seemed to scream the time at me. I felt the urge inside to lock the door, shut off all the lights, and then just turn and run out the back. I reached for my keys, but it was too late.

In walked in a lady who looked about sixty years old. She was actually only forty-two years. It was the smoking and meth that she was constantly on that had aged her so badly. There were bags under her eyes and her blonde hair was in a pony tail. She wore a long green skirt and a pink sweatshirt that said PRINCESS in glittery pink letters. Her arm was held up in a sling and I could see she actually had a cast on. Her name was Bernice Johnson. I knew this woman, because she spent most of her time trying to sue giant fast food chains or grocery stores for any reason whatsoever. She has tried to file a lawsuit at least twelve times and two of those were actually legit. This time it seemed like she would actually be able to pull of another one.

"Hello Mrs. Johnson", I said with a fake smile, "as you know, we close at seven o' clock today so if I could plea--

"I know what time you close, Toast", she interrupted sharply, "I need to talk to Jean."

"Mrs. Knight isn't here today", I said as calmly as I possibly could, "maybe you can come back on another day and sh--

"Fine, where's Dave?", She asked as she headed to David Day's office.

She didn't wait for a response and she definitely didn't care if I protested her about going into a lawyer's office unannounced. She burst in to the room and I could see Mr. Day getting ready to leave. She stepped in and shut the door behind her. Minutes passed and I hoped Mr. Day would come out and tell me she doesn't have a case so I could just go home. Mr. Day peeked out of his office.

"Sorry Toast, but you're going to have to take her statement tonight. She might have a good case", he said as he walked out with her behind him.

Mr. Day was a big man. He was about six and a half feet tall and weighed about 250 lbs. He wasn't bald exactly, but he had less than an inch of hair on his head. He always wore black. Today he was wearing a black turtleneck with black slacks and black shoes. David Day was the reason we had so many crazy people coming in to this office. He had a loud voice and a great intimidation factor that he would use at all his hearings. He was a greedy man who would take any case he could make a penny on. Many say it's because of him that the firm was still running. Ever since Mr. Knight died and his wife had to take his place and put her law degree to use, Day had been trying to take the whole firm for himself. The only problem was that he was incredibly stupid and he had almost no knowledge of law or how to run a business. It's possible he cheated his way through law school. He had a way with people where he seemed to enchant you as he spoke to make you pay less attention to the crazy ramblings he was constantly spouting. 

I took Mrs. Johnson into the "interrogation" room. It's just a room with a desk, a tape recorder, and some clipboards with pens chained to them. I let her ramble at me for half an hour and spent the whole time staring at the clock. Finally 7:46 I was finally getting into my car to head home. As I sat down, I heard the song Rock You Like A Hurricane coming from my front right pocket. I picked up my cell.

"Hello", I said without checking the name.

"Finally, you're out of work right? Come over. Lisa is here already", Jeff spoke quickly, as if he was desperate to get me over to his house.

"Lisa is there?"

"Yes"

"Fine", I finally said. If Lisa is there, she might need me to take her home.

[storysidenote]

Chapter 1: 3 minutes and 47 seconds

Ring ring ring

I picked up the phone

"Hello, you've reached the offices of Knight and Day law", I spoke into the phone. It was the same greeting all day every day. It was so engraved in my mind that I often found myself answering my cell phone in the same way.

"Yes, may I speak to Toast? I've got to file a lawsuit agaist him for being such a bitch", the other voice said on the phone.

"Oh, heyJeff", I said exhausted, "what's up?"

"Come to my place after work", Jeff said as he hung up the phone without even the courtesy of a goodbye.

Most people would take insult after a call like that, but I was already so used to it. That was Jeff for you, rude and loud. He is the kind of person that always had a story and a poorly thought out plan. It was a mystery to me how he was still alive and why I was still friends with him. Once he called me at two in the morning asking if he could come into my apartment and use my restroom. After he left, I found a dog collar, what looked like a skull from a small bird, three grams of pot, and a three candy bars shoved into a small plastic bag with a note that just said "Thankyou" scribbled with what looked to be lipstick under my pillow. I decided I wasn't going to go to his house after work.

I work as a receptionist at a law firm in the center of a busy city. The pay was decent, but the job itself was draining. We worked with lots of people who are only interested in getting money from the government or big businesses. A lot of the people who walked through the door weren't above removing "Wet Floor" signs and purposely falling to make some thousands of dollars in the settlements. These same people also weren't above calling this firm just to yell at the receptionist because there is a term in one of their documents that they just don't understand. So that was my life for most of the week; just sitting there getting yelled at and then explaining how to use the internet to look up the meaning of words when they don't believe my definition. Somedays I just wanted to yell at the clients and tell them exactly where they could shove their legal documents, but these people weren't above suing me for yelling at them. So every day I had to sit there and be degraded by people that don't even know how to search words on the internet.

[storysidenote]

The dream

Have you ever been in that moment between being asleep and being awake? You can see your dream, but you can also feel the warmth from your blankets or the chill of the night because you forgot to shut your window just before you went to sleep. You can feel the temperature of the room getting lower and lower, but you just can't pull away from the dream because it's too good. Maybe not good, but interesting perhaps? Maybe the dream is frightening, but you still can't pull away. You know deep inside that if you jump out ofthe dream now, the psycho serial killer will get the dream version of you. It's illogical and a bit silly to worry about that version of you since it's all in your head and as soon as you wake, the dream dissapears and so do all the monsters your mind can create. So why do you keep running in the dream until the cold becomes unbearable or the dream you is safe? Maybe it's because deep down you know that the you in the dream is as real as the you that is awake. Maybe it's because deep down you realize that the monsters you create in your dreams are not something you could come up with on your own. Maybe the dream you is fighting the waking you for just a few more seconds to get to safety. Maybe the dream you waits in nonexistance fearing death and fearing monsters and maybe the last thing they feel before you wake is the only thing they'll feel until the next time you sleep. Have you ever been in that moment? Or is it just me?

[storysidenote]

Thing to write about: You are an astronaut. Describe your perfect day. What I wrote: The alarm by my bed goes off. It reads 5:00 am. Today is the day; I get ready to drive to the station. I have to go through all the preparations and tests one last time. I go through all the motions and finally get my suit on. The hour it takes to get on the ship is full of anticipation. The team is all here. Eleven of the worlds best and brightest all going on one mission; to build the first space station on the moon. The ten second countdown is the longest ten seconds of my life. Finally, the engine fires up and I feel the g-force pushing down on me. Finally, we break free from the atmosphere. All I see is stars. All I feel is hope.

[storysidenote]

Thing to write about: Write Facebook status updates for the year 2017 Thing I wrote: "Just had souplantation. It used to be better." "Got a new phone, message me for #" "Last night's concert was awesome" Explanation: I don't go on Facebook much and I don't see myself sharing many important details of my life by status updates.

[storysidenote]

I hate when you start writing something with a certain pen and then you come back to it after you lost the pen and only have one that is completely different.

[storysidenote]

Do you ever just want to give up? Just say fuck everything and just stop trying? I know I do.

[storysidenote]

Thing to write about: A houseplant is dying. Tell it why it needs to live. What I wrote: "You need to live, because the room is more beautiful with you in it and without you it won't be the same" What I meant: I was in a dark place when I wrote this, so yeah...

[storysidenote]

Thing to write about: The worst thanksgiving dish you ever had.

What I wrote: Poorly prepared stuffing and cranberry sauce.

What I meant: Well I just don’t like those two to begin with; they were probably prepared right, but I just don’t like them.