Eight years old today, eight years old today! So much better than boring old seven years old, and only two years away from getting apprenticed! Rhuhi tried to whistle her excitement to the world, but it turned out that being one year older did not mean she had gained the ability to whistle. Well, that was too bad but the day was still exciting! Three of her five older brothers were already apprenticed and she was counting down the years/months/days until she could be too.
"Mum, I'm going to the creek!" she shouted through the house, "Muum, I'm going to the creek!" where was her mum? Oh well, she'd figure it out. Rhuhi made a run for the back door and oh there was her mother!
"Rhuhi, do you really have to go to the creek now?" her mother asked, "It's two hours until the whole family is supposed to arrive for your birthday, I don't want you coming back all covered in burrs and mud when relatives arrive."
Rhuhi gave her mum a look that said I am eight years old now mum, and I need to go to the creek! Then she said, "I am eight years old now mum, and I need to go to the creek! I won't be gone very much too long! And I only get covered in burrs when those bushes get in my way, so it's not my fault!"
She hop-skipped past her mother and grabbed her favorite cloak off of the clothesline where it was mostly-pretty-much-dry, and made for the large patch of forest that stretched out behind their cottage.
"I'll be back before the party, really I will!" she called back to her mother and disappeared into the foliage.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Sunday, April 1, 2012
9.1.x
The floors were pristine white, the walls a smooth light blue. Cases and displays surrounded the spacious room and wound their way around the center of it, similar to a high end jewelry store flashing its wares to the public. Inside the displays, however, not a single jewel shone out. Instead, taking the place were what looked like life sized doll parts, as if it were a store for five and six foot ball joint dolls. Near the door were cases with left, then right arms and hands in various shades of peach, olive, brown, and so on; different lengths and thicknesses and tones. The body parts continued around the room, with the more prized pieces in the center glass. The joints, where they had been disconnected, were wrapped neatly and perfectly cleanly in blemish free gauze. Spotless. Everything was spotless.
Tchien vomited onto the floor of the holding space he was confined to, and from the way he could see it, it seemed as if his neighbors were likely to do the same within a few moments. He and the others were seeing the room through the skylights that surrounded it; the glass was one way and completely soundproof, begging the question of who the view was really for. Was it meant entirely to frighten them? Tchien guessed so, but the knowledge didn't help the nausea at all.
The holding space buzzed forward past the light of the windows and into darkness again. Tchien could smell the vomit all over his clothes now, and fought back the urge to do it again, spitting the last of it from his mouth. He tried to wipe it off of his clothes, but with his ankles cuffed together and chained to the floor, and he himself surrounded by nineteen other boys, there wasn't anywhere for the sick to go, and the most he managed was to waft the smell enough that two others threw up as well. He knew everyone was scared, that much was obvious. He wanted to offer some consolation, some way of saying that everything would be all right in the end. Unfortunately, he had already figured out that none of the rest of them spoke Mandarin, they were mostly from way down south in the more Cantonese part of China, or from South Korea. Plus, even he would not believe such words. How could anyone get out of this?
Saturday, March 31, 2012
8.1.1
Dear reader, what can you do for free?
It's an honest question, after all. In the world we live in now, very little is done without some kind of monetary exchange. What has changed? Well, more likely than not it has been our expectations of the world. Who now wants to spend the day without the use of electricity, the use of electronic devices to keep us entertained in every way every minute of the day? Who wants to spend the time without the use of their phones to text people with, or even to browse the internet with?
Well reader, let me tell you. There is so much to the world outside of who the electronic generation has turned us into. I look outside every day and I see the green of the trees as spring has sprung, I see the grass growing at exponential rates, as the world continues on as normal without us. Please join me, dear reader, as I walk outside and enjoy the nature that has been provided to me, instead of just groaning at the amount of gas that it will take to cut your grass that has grown oh too well. Go outside on a rainy, stormy, thundery day and watch the clouds light up above you. Watch as the rain dances through the foliage and patters on the roofs of the houses around you. Animals that live around your house, as around mine, take the time to refresh themselves in the rain. It is a way for the world to renew itself for the moment. Renew yourself with it, and remember all that the world has to offer outside of your electric plugs and sockets. Even in the city, I assure you that this all is apparent in even the densest of populations. Reader, you just need to search a little.
It's an honest question, after all. In the world we live in now, very little is done without some kind of monetary exchange. What has changed? Well, more likely than not it has been our expectations of the world. Who now wants to spend the day without the use of electricity, the use of electronic devices to keep us entertained in every way every minute of the day? Who wants to spend the time without the use of their phones to text people with, or even to browse the internet with?
Well reader, let me tell you. There is so much to the world outside of who the electronic generation has turned us into. I look outside every day and I see the green of the trees as spring has sprung, I see the grass growing at exponential rates, as the world continues on as normal without us. Please join me, dear reader, as I walk outside and enjoy the nature that has been provided to me, instead of just groaning at the amount of gas that it will take to cut your grass that has grown oh too well. Go outside on a rainy, stormy, thundery day and watch the clouds light up above you. Watch as the rain dances through the foliage and patters on the roofs of the houses around you. Animals that live around your house, as around mine, take the time to refresh themselves in the rain. It is a way for the world to renew itself for the moment. Renew yourself with it, and remember all that the world has to offer outside of your electric plugs and sockets. Even in the city, I assure you that this all is apparent in even the densest of populations. Reader, you just need to search a little.
Monday, February 13, 2012
7.1.2
June 57, 4036 N.D.
“Poru, you slacker! Get back here and do your half of the work!”
Tona saw Poru ducked under the bottom steps of the large stairway that led up to the upper deck of the ship. There was only about two feet of space under the edge of the step, and Tona could tell Poru had scooted back as far as he could go. She could tell he was hoping that she hadn’t seen him duck under the stairs, but he was sadly mistaken.
“Poru!” She yelled again, stepping in front of the stairs so that she knew that he could at least see her feet. She waited a minute to give him the chance to come out and fess up, but when he didn’t her temper flared. She aimed a kick into the unseen space, and sent her bare foot flying, coming in contact with something that she couldn’t see below the overhang.
Poru let out a stifled yell, “Tona!” he howled, clutching a bloody nose and crawling out from his hiding place with tears in his eyes, “You freak! What did you do that for?!”
Tona stood in front of him, proud that she had caught her convict. Her dark hair hung to her shoulders, shining in the warm midday sun. Her yellow hand-me-down dress fell to her knees and her bare feet were tough from years of running barefoot through the decks.
“Serves you right!” her arms folded, she stuck out her tongue at him in a scowl, “Next time, don’t just take off and leave me to do all the work! Get down to base deck and clean the rest of the classroom, I’ve already done my share!”
“Well I cant now, can I?” he shot back, returning her scowl, “You kicked me in the nose, fish face!”
Tona’s face grew red, “My name is not fish face!” she growled.
“Oh yeah?” Poru countered, “because all I see looking at me is a giant catfish!”
She hated him. She hated Poru at that moment with what felt like every fiber of her being. She aimed a punch at his stomach that he barely sidestepped. Once she regained her balance from that, she let out a scream and went in to throw another punch at him.
“TONA!”
Tona froze at the sound of the powerful voice behind her. “Yes... Daru?” she didn’t turn around as a bearded man walked towards her with a deep set frown, “You fighting again, Tona? Get your ass over here now.”
Tona’s anger towards Poru drained. For a split second before she turned around, her face crumpled and her sadness showed before she could regain her composure. She knew Poru had seen the change, but she didn’t want to deal with it, so she ignored him and turned around to face Daru.
As she walked, or dragged her feet at least, towards Doru, she heard Poru say something behind her, “Tonitrui?”
What? She thought. The name - was it a name? - rang a bell deep in her being, and she turned her head, “What did you say?”
“Tonitrui,” he said again, looking as confused as she did and still holding his bleeding nose, “That’s what you just said.”
She narrowed her eyes, “Did not,” she said, but before he could respond anything else, she picked up her pace towards Doru and followed him below deck for what would be a lecture and punishment. She didn’t say that. That wouldn’t make sense.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
7.1.1
August 35, 4032 N.D.
Some say pirates have more rules than any other people group in the world. At one point, they were all just mild superstitions, old wives' tales and legends. No one knows when the switch happened, but no longer would anyone call them mere superstition. No pirate dares go against the rule of the sea, even at the risk of their own ship, their own family.
The moderatori of the great ship Canna Carmen was in labor for a day and a half before she was finally blessed with a child. For that day and a half - and for the nine months before that - the entire crew of the Canna Carmen had held its breath. The rule of the sea states that having a moderatori on board is the greatest good luck charm a ship could ever have. Having two, however, would bring destruction. It was for this reason that if a moderatori birthed another of its own kind, if the ship was at sea, the baby was immediately thrown overboard. Sometimes, if the ship was lucky enough to be docked, the baby would be dropped off with a family living on the pier, who would then either get stolen from the family or sold to a pirate crew for a high price. The one exception to this rule, however, is if for whatever reason two moderatori have lived on a ship together for more than ten years. If that was ever to happen, the rules became acutely more complicated.
Tapa had not purposefully gotten pregnant, and had spent the nine months in fear, hoping desperately that she would give birth to a healthy, normal child; one with powder pink skin and small curved ears. For the day and a half that she was in labor, she could be seen throughout the day and night whispering prayers through clamped teeth. No one could really understand what she was saying, but that wasn't abnormal, and no one paid it any mind.
Moderatori more often than not seem to be whispering to themselves. The thing about moderatori that in fact makes them moderatori is the special skill that they possess; moderatori can control. What can they control? Rocks, trees, cups, lizards, anything that they can name. The moderatori are born knowing an ancient language lost to the world, and anything that they can name, they can control. Everything has a name, although not the one that most humans know it as. Everything that has a name can be controlled through that name. The moderatori can move the waters to forward a boat, they can sift the soil with a stream of words, the more powerful of them can bring the rain, snow, or hail upon the world - all with their words. The tricky part comes in when it comes to finding out names. The names of inanimate objects are always the same - the name of one rock is the same as the name of the next, all soil goes by the same name. Living things, however, play by different rules. Every living thing has its own name, individual to itself. Every oak tree, every mountain goat, every human. To learn individual names, moderatori have to listen. Everything eventually says its name. Sung in the sunlight by the sunflower, growled in the night by the wolf, or escaping as a whisper by the lips of a human, unbeknownst even to them. Of all of them, humans' names are hardest to hear. They say their name rarely, and mostly when no one else it around. Knowing someone's name means having power over them, and even subconsciously, that is something that humans hate.
So a moderatori can manipulate the language that is innate to them, to control the world around them. That is why they are so feared, so special, so wanted. That is why Tapa always whispered to herself. It was what a moderatori was born to do.
That day in late August, the prayers of the people of the Canna Carmen were answered. No life was lost, for the sweet baby boy that appeared onto that ship was, in fact, powder pink with small curved ears, in sharp contrast to his dull green skinned mother with her pointed ears. A healthy baby boy.
She named him Poru.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
6.1.1x
When universities become large enough, they seem to create a town of their own. The people in Orion South University believe this to be so. There are a good thirty thousand of them on campus at any time during the day, with even more still in their dorms or apartments getting over hangovers or doing last minute homework assignments. When the population size is considered, it may not be such a surprise that it takes a while for the police to find out when someone went missing.
Four disappearances had occurred since the school year had begun in September, an alarming number even for a school of over forty thousand. The similarities between the students was dim at best; they all went to OSU, true, but their grades ranged from freshman to third year, and none of their majors were the same. Two of the four of them took the same Math 150 class, moreover they all took a Math of some kind. Three of them took some kind of science class, all located in the science building, but since the building was the largest on campus at seven stories (excepting the library), that didn't really narrow down the facts any farther.
The disappearances had only slightly changed the overall nature of the student body. In general, it was assumed that the people who had disappeared had probably been drunk at the time, or done some sort of idiocy that would lead to a disappearance. While there were less people out alone after night fall, the feel of campus life was still fairly much the same. The overall feeling of 'it can never happen to me' was still very much alive on the campus.
Now the beginning of December, the last day of classes before the much anticipated Christmas break was fast in session, with a fair number of people already out and either packing up to leave or holing away in their dorms for the snow storm which was supposed to swiftly follow.
Jaylen was in the middle of a Biochem 436 lecture, which had in fact long ago stopped having any kind of educational preface and devolved into a discussion of what people were doing for break.
"You don't have a yearly Rudolph marathon," Anita called across the classroom at Elias, unwrapping a stick of gum from her backpack and sticking it between her mouth in between words. "A yearly marathon is something that you do every year! This is the first time you've ever had one!" Anita was leaning far back in her seat, her Biochem Lab book opened on her lap to a random page as she drew pictures of octopi in the margins.
"Well so what?" Elias called back, "It is too yearly! It's just that this is the first year!" There was a murmur of consent from Elias's close friend Kyle, who was always next to him, or texting him, during class. Anita shot back an artful "fuck that," and laughed, taking a pile of purple markers out of her bag to embellish the tentacles strewn across her page.
Jaylen, watching the dispute from the back of the room, gave an upward nod to Elias, "It start at eight again this year?"
"There is no 'again'!" Anita shouted, smacking a bubble that she had started blowing back into her cheek.
Elias ignored her, "Yep! My dorm, eight o' clock! Be there or be... your mom!"
Alice, sitting next to Jaylen, shook her head solemnly, "That was horrible, Elias. At least normally your 'your mom' jokes make sense..." she picked up her pen to go back to her notes on the Civil War over homework that she hadn't done, then turned to Jaylen, "Are you going, then?"
Jaylen nodded, "I figure I might as well," he said, "I already told my roommates not to expect me in the room tonight, figured I'd stay here and finish up that lab report that I didn't turn in last week, then head over to New China for dinner. Meet me there?"
Alice tilted her head and glanced sideways at him, "You'll only pay for my dinner if it costs five dollars or less, wont you?" she shook her head, but replied, "Yeah, seven's when I get off of work. I'll head over after that." She stuck up her chin at him for a moment before going back to her work though, "at some point you'll have to treat me to some real food, you know."
"Hell no," Jaylen protested, a defiant look on his face, "Treat a stray to dinner and she'll never leave. Treat a stray to five dollars of Chinese and she'll show you her Biochem notes for a month." she rolled her eyes at him and he laughed, "Fine. I'll get you something this weekend. Saturday's the day before Christmas Eve, we can head over to Uptown and go see what restaurants are willing to serve a couple of minors like us. That sound good?"
"Very much so," she replied. "I may even bring you back a cookie or two from work tonight." She ended the conversation by burying her head in her textbook, but not before Jaylen made a note that it should be a doughnut, not a cookie.
Jaylen and Alice had met their freshman year when they realized that they had the same major and could basically have the same schedule all four years if they swung their schedule right. It was a friendship built out of study habits, as they would normally meet up and study for their classes three or four times a week - and more when midterms and finals drew near. Buying dinner became a sort of victory dinner that Jaylen treated Alice to whenever they finished a final that they had studied hard for. Jaylen treated Alice, always treated Alice, because she was only at OSU because she was lucky enough to swing a full ride and didn't have the money for anything outside of her meal plan. It might have also been because he liked Alice, and wanted to give her the impression that he was, well, a good guy. He was planning to ask her out on Saturday, eating a real dinner of more than New China. That may seem a little backwards, asking her out on what would basically be a date to anyone else, but they had come so used to the agreement that it was only natural now. Besides, it would be harder to refuse that way, right?
Four disappearances had occurred since the school year had begun in September, an alarming number even for a school of over forty thousand. The similarities between the students was dim at best; they all went to OSU, true, but their grades ranged from freshman to third year, and none of their majors were the same. Two of the four of them took the same Math 150 class, moreover they all took a Math of some kind. Three of them took some kind of science class, all located in the science building, but since the building was the largest on campus at seven stories (excepting the library), that didn't really narrow down the facts any farther.
The disappearances had only slightly changed the overall nature of the student body. In general, it was assumed that the people who had disappeared had probably been drunk at the time, or done some sort of idiocy that would lead to a disappearance. While there were less people out alone after night fall, the feel of campus life was still fairly much the same. The overall feeling of 'it can never happen to me' was still very much alive on the campus.
Now the beginning of December, the last day of classes before the much anticipated Christmas break was fast in session, with a fair number of people already out and either packing up to leave or holing away in their dorms for the snow storm which was supposed to swiftly follow.
Jaylen was in the middle of a Biochem 436 lecture, which had in fact long ago stopped having any kind of educational preface and devolved into a discussion of what people were doing for break.
"You don't have a yearly Rudolph marathon," Anita called across the classroom at Elias, unwrapping a stick of gum from her backpack and sticking it between her mouth in between words. "A yearly marathon is something that you do every year! This is the first time you've ever had one!" Anita was leaning far back in her seat, her Biochem Lab book opened on her lap to a random page as she drew pictures of octopi in the margins.
"Well so what?" Elias called back, "It is too yearly! It's just that this is the first year!" There was a murmur of consent from Elias's close friend Kyle, who was always next to him, or texting him, during class. Anita shot back an artful "fuck that," and laughed, taking a pile of purple markers out of her bag to embellish the tentacles strewn across her page.
Jaylen, watching the dispute from the back of the room, gave an upward nod to Elias, "It start at eight again this year?"
"There is no 'again'!" Anita shouted, smacking a bubble that she had started blowing back into her cheek.
Elias ignored her, "Yep! My dorm, eight o' clock! Be there or be... your mom!"
Alice, sitting next to Jaylen, shook her head solemnly, "That was horrible, Elias. At least normally your 'your mom' jokes make sense..." she picked up her pen to go back to her notes on the Civil War over homework that she hadn't done, then turned to Jaylen, "Are you going, then?"
Jaylen nodded, "I figure I might as well," he said, "I already told my roommates not to expect me in the room tonight, figured I'd stay here and finish up that lab report that I didn't turn in last week, then head over to New China for dinner. Meet me there?"
Alice tilted her head and glanced sideways at him, "You'll only pay for my dinner if it costs five dollars or less, wont you?" she shook her head, but replied, "Yeah, seven's when I get off of work. I'll head over after that." She stuck up her chin at him for a moment before going back to her work though, "at some point you'll have to treat me to some real food, you know."
"Hell no," Jaylen protested, a defiant look on his face, "Treat a stray to dinner and she'll never leave. Treat a stray to five dollars of Chinese and she'll show you her Biochem notes for a month." she rolled her eyes at him and he laughed, "Fine. I'll get you something this weekend. Saturday's the day before Christmas Eve, we can head over to Uptown and go see what restaurants are willing to serve a couple of minors like us. That sound good?"
"Very much so," she replied. "I may even bring you back a cookie or two from work tonight." She ended the conversation by burying her head in her textbook, but not before Jaylen made a note that it should be a doughnut, not a cookie.
Jaylen and Alice had met their freshman year when they realized that they had the same major and could basically have the same schedule all four years if they swung their schedule right. It was a friendship built out of study habits, as they would normally meet up and study for their classes three or four times a week - and more when midterms and finals drew near. Buying dinner became a sort of victory dinner that Jaylen treated Alice to whenever they finished a final that they had studied hard for. Jaylen treated Alice, always treated Alice, because she was only at OSU because she was lucky enough to swing a full ride and didn't have the money for anything outside of her meal plan. It might have also been because he liked Alice, and wanted to give her the impression that he was, well, a good guy. He was planning to ask her out on Saturday, eating a real dinner of more than New China. That may seem a little backwards, asking her out on what would basically be a date to anyone else, but they had come so used to the agreement that it was only natural now. Besides, it would be harder to refuse that way, right?
Monday, January 16, 2012
1.1.2
The studio seems to have become buried in a fluff of snow overnight. Here in the middle of College Town, the footpaths and streets are always free of any real collection of snow, having either had it stamped down or salted into melting before it could settle anywhere. Yet somehow, I still have to slog through what seems like a mountain of the bitingly cold formula to get to the front door of my studio. There are a few other sets of footprints leading to the door, but it's not a place commonly known about except by those of us who frequent it and I daresay that the state government doesn't much care to salt the road leading to a building full of amateur professional artists. It's just not high on their priorities.
Once at the door, I have to kick away at the snowdrifts to make enough room to open the door. The second I close the door after me, I know that the drift will once again move back into place so it seems like a feeble and futile effort, but I attempt it anyway.
I pull at the door and wedge it open enough that I can come in, and at once I feel the blast of heat that seems like it should melt the whole block's snow blanket, if not set the dead trees on fire. I slip in and feel the door slam behind me, and the whomp! of snow falling back into place behind the door. How I will get back outside again seems like a good question but it is one for later hours.
Already the heat inside the studio is getting to me, and I make my way off to the side room - first to the right, directly beside the door - and start stripping off layers. I take off my cream colored hat with the pompom on top and flaps down the side that cover my ears, then my red scarf and matching fingerless glove mittens. I stuff those into my black pea coat and take that off as well. My long shirt and sweatpants came off after this, as well as my clunky snowboots. All of this I lay on a large wingback chair that I long ago claimed as my own. The chair accompanies a number of others, ranging from Laz-y-boys to gamer chairs to nice sturdy handcrafted wooden ones, most of them with some remnant of leftover clothing, and the occasional one with as much getup as mine now holds. I grab my favorite pair of boots from under it and lace them up around my feet. I would prefer to walk barefoot around the studio but some people insist that it's "dangerous" and I could "split my foot open" or some such other nonsense.
I brush my hair back and pull it into a tail, which I clip up with one of my many hair clips that form a neat little pile by my chair. I do a once-over of myself in the mirror now; it looks as if I have lost a good fifty pounds by shedding all those layers (always a little confidence boost), and I now wear a brown cotton dress that falls a little past my knees, armless and with a button down collar. Below that is a pair of black tights that goes down to my dull green high heeled steampunk boots, the all around favorite of my wardrobe. The heat of the studio makes this ensemble just about right, and I find myself so thankful that the kilns in the basement blast such strong heat throughout the building.
I made my way up the stairs that are directly across from the front door, my heels clicking like the nails of a dog as I hurry my way up to the second floor. The studio makes up a total of four floors but my particular room is on the second. Down the hall and through the door and I am in what I often feel is my second bedroom. Technically, the room is more like my second home but I consider the whole studio to be my second home, so my particular room needs a better title than that. However, this particular "better title" has not yet made its way to my ears so... This is all just getting too confusing. It's my personal studio room. Enough said.
I share the room with one other girl, a good friend of mine since sophomore year of high school. On the door to our studio room are our name cards - Thistle and Plum. No last names here. Last names can change over time, and unless we are certain that we will keep our last names forever, they're not listed.
Inside the room, I look around at the mess. At home, I try to keep the house as clean as possible, picking up after my roommates more than they would like me to, and doing my dishes as soon as I can after I've used them (and doing my roommates dishes when I can get away with it). I make my bed every morning and my desk is spotlessly clean.
Here at the studio, however, more often than not my half of the room is a mess. A large canvas sits up against a wall, with jars and jugs of pain surrounding it in no particular order and with splatters of color all over the wall and floor. My shelves of supplies are fairly disorderly and paintbrushes can be found in no particular order littered around the room. In the corner is my computer and tablet, sitting on on half of an art table, the other half tilted so that I can draw comfortable on it. The table, although untouched by paint of any sort, is littered with copics and markers, pens and pencils, and any number of erasers each set in mini altoids tins (a fascination of mine). I have stacks of canvases and note pads all around the room, probably taking up much more space than they should be. On my walls are the favorites of my artwork, mostly the cuter pictures printed out from my photoshop works, and the occasional inspiring poem, not by me but by people who do more than a preschooler's rhyme style.
On Plum's side of the room, the wall is no longer visible at all under the layers of her drawings taped up on the walls. The row of windows that glides across two walls of our corner room seem to have a sort of fur lining on top from the rows and rows of paper. She has a small work station for doing tattoos, permanent or sharpie styled. Her stacks of canvases are vibrant with color and each one looks masterful whether at the start or finish. Altogether the room is a mess. A nice, familiar mess.
Once at the door, I have to kick away at the snowdrifts to make enough room to open the door. The second I close the door after me, I know that the drift will once again move back into place so it seems like a feeble and futile effort, but I attempt it anyway.
I pull at the door and wedge it open enough that I can come in, and at once I feel the blast of heat that seems like it should melt the whole block's snow blanket, if not set the dead trees on fire. I slip in and feel the door slam behind me, and the whomp! of snow falling back into place behind the door. How I will get back outside again seems like a good question but it is one for later hours.
Already the heat inside the studio is getting to me, and I make my way off to the side room - first to the right, directly beside the door - and start stripping off layers. I take off my cream colored hat with the pompom on top and flaps down the side that cover my ears, then my red scarf and matching fingerless glove mittens. I stuff those into my black pea coat and take that off as well. My long shirt and sweatpants came off after this, as well as my clunky snowboots. All of this I lay on a large wingback chair that I long ago claimed as my own. The chair accompanies a number of others, ranging from Laz-y-boys to gamer chairs to nice sturdy handcrafted wooden ones, most of them with some remnant of leftover clothing, and the occasional one with as much getup as mine now holds. I grab my favorite pair of boots from under it and lace them up around my feet. I would prefer to walk barefoot around the studio but some people insist that it's "dangerous" and I could "split my foot open" or some such other nonsense.
I brush my hair back and pull it into a tail, which I clip up with one of my many hair clips that form a neat little pile by my chair. I do a once-over of myself in the mirror now; it looks as if I have lost a good fifty pounds by shedding all those layers (always a little confidence boost), and I now wear a brown cotton dress that falls a little past my knees, armless and with a button down collar. Below that is a pair of black tights that goes down to my dull green high heeled steampunk boots, the all around favorite of my wardrobe. The heat of the studio makes this ensemble just about right, and I find myself so thankful that the kilns in the basement blast such strong heat throughout the building.
I made my way up the stairs that are directly across from the front door, my heels clicking like the nails of a dog as I hurry my way up to the second floor. The studio makes up a total of four floors but my particular room is on the second. Down the hall and through the door and I am in what I often feel is my second bedroom. Technically, the room is more like my second home but I consider the whole studio to be my second home, so my particular room needs a better title than that. However, this particular "better title" has not yet made its way to my ears so... This is all just getting too confusing. It's my personal studio room. Enough said.
I share the room with one other girl, a good friend of mine since sophomore year of high school. On the door to our studio room are our name cards - Thistle and Plum. No last names here. Last names can change over time, and unless we are certain that we will keep our last names forever, they're not listed.
Inside the room, I look around at the mess. At home, I try to keep the house as clean as possible, picking up after my roommates more than they would like me to, and doing my dishes as soon as I can after I've used them (and doing my roommates dishes when I can get away with it). I make my bed every morning and my desk is spotlessly clean.
Here at the studio, however, more often than not my half of the room is a mess. A large canvas sits up against a wall, with jars and jugs of pain surrounding it in no particular order and with splatters of color all over the wall and floor. My shelves of supplies are fairly disorderly and paintbrushes can be found in no particular order littered around the room. In the corner is my computer and tablet, sitting on on half of an art table, the other half tilted so that I can draw comfortable on it. The table, although untouched by paint of any sort, is littered with copics and markers, pens and pencils, and any number of erasers each set in mini altoids tins (a fascination of mine). I have stacks of canvases and note pads all around the room, probably taking up much more space than they should be. On my walls are the favorites of my artwork, mostly the cuter pictures printed out from my photoshop works, and the occasional inspiring poem, not by me but by people who do more than a preschooler's rhyme style.
On Plum's side of the room, the wall is no longer visible at all under the layers of her drawings taped up on the walls. The row of windows that glides across two walls of our corner room seem to have a sort of fur lining on top from the rows and rows of paper. She has a small work station for doing tattoos, permanent or sharpie styled. Her stacks of canvases are vibrant with color and each one looks masterful whether at the start or finish. Altogether the room is a mess. A nice, familiar mess.
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