I took up croquet today

Excerpt from a book.

2007-06-19T16:24:51Z

Apples aren’t red. Apples are cold and crisp. I took a bite and someone sat down. This is Emmett, Sherri said. When Sherri went to the little girl’s room, Emmett asked me whether I knew he was Indian or not from his voice. I told him no. He sounded just like everyone else around here. I told him I knew he was Indian from the joke a boy made under his breath at the next table, about huffing gasoline, when Emmett came into the restaurant. He let me touch his face, so I could see his big Indian nose.

A week later, Emmett took my fingers and touched them to the area around my vagina. He put them against warm skin. “What colour is this?” he said. “Did anyone ever tell you?” His voice was so quiet. It was a pleasure to listen. “It’s bright, bright blue,” he said.

Emmett’s mother let him take the car once, to go for groceries. It had windows that you could roll down. I couldn’t get over it. When I was a little girl I used to roll and unroll the window when we went for Sunday drives. Now our car has electric windows. Everybody’s does. With a button, god knows what is happening. I like to feel the window move. I like to know. I rolled down the window and fastened my seatbelt. Then I rolled it back up again. Then I rolled it down.

The sun is bright, or the moon is bright. That is what people would tell me. This light is bright. Grapefruit insides are bright pink. I didn’t get it. I used to tell him that. It was frustrating. Like colours. I heard the click of his pocket knife. “This is bright,” Emmett said, and he cut my thumb.

Emmett had six apples in a bag, three each. We stood where I could hear the cars rushing down below. “Tell me when,” Emmett said. A car was coming. It rumbled, then wooshed. Another car: Rumble. One, two, Woosh. Another rumble, then, “Now,” I said. And we dropped six apples. Glass cracking and brakes squealing. I unfolded my cane, and later showed a man my blind card. We were the innocent blind girl and her doting boyfriend. “Are you sure you didn’t see anything?” the angry man asked. I felt Emmett’s protective arm around my shoulder. “Sir, I think that was in poor taste,” he said.

“Can you hear people’s hearts beating?” Emmett asked me. “Can you tell if they’re lying? If you lose one sense, your other senses compensate. You get super hearing.” I told him, “No, but people can change colour for me. When my mother broke her finger, she was pink, crashing around the house. Then she was suddenly green.” He pulls me closer in the front seat of his own mother’s car. “What color am I right now?” he whispers. He’s pulling at my belt. He’s violet. He’s rose. He’s orchid white.

The car roared up the hill and I felt heavy. Then all of a sudden I was floating. My stomach was somewhere below me. Then it was over. “That was blue,” Emmett said beside me. “That was what color the sky is.”

Emmett died in a car accident, someone told me outside the school. It was another one of his jokes. Oh no, Emmett is dead. I better throw my arms up and cry. He’s standing across the street, waving because he knows I can’t see.

They let me touch him before the funeral, so that I could say goodbye. It wasn’t him. They got the big nose right, but it was the wrong colour. Emmett’s mother said, “It didn’t feel real until I saw him.” I sat up straighter, expecting Emmett’s voice, “I felt that comment was in poor taste.” But all there was was the air conditioner and her wet breathing and red.

par4n0idandr0id @ 2007-04-03T22:15:00

2007-04-04T02:19:08Z

There was nothing I wanted to do more today than lie on the grass, let the water beat down on me, and make believe I was melting into the earth.

Tomorrow's storm will wash my hollow self clean.

Read This

2006-12-07T15:12:38Z

http://brokendiamond.livejournal.com/116900.html

The Ultimate Showdown

2006-02-28T01:13:01Z

Too good not to share:

http://www.ultimateshowdown.org/

Prints

2006-02-27T00:04:38Z

Hey if anyone wants to buy one or more of my prints, I'd love you forever.

Shop: http://paran0idandr0id.deviantart.com/store/

DA site: http://paran0idandr0id.deviantart.com

Preview:

OFR Quiz

2005-11-04T01:46:30Z

I'm sorry but this is by far the coolest quiz I've ever taken. And I totally took that picture of him.

Everyone listen to the Oxford Farm Report on MySpace.

You scored as Dale. YOU'RE DALE! This essentially means you do a lot work for the OFr and get about jack shit in return. You would be super hott n sexy if you'd get a haircut, but no one will. You may one day take over the world.

</td>

Dale

69%

Joe

50%

Lukas

47%

Braun

25%

Who are you in the OFRmy?
created with QuizFarm.com

Why gay marriage "wrong"

2005-09-21T21:16:43Z

10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage is "Wrong" snagged from brokendiamond

1) Being gay is not natural. Real
Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air
conditioning.

2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the
same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3)
Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behaviour.
People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and
can sign a marriage contract.

4) Straight marriage has been around a long
time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't
marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5) Straight marriage will be
less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Brittany Spears'
55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6) Straight marriages
are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old
people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and
the world needs more children.

7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay
children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8) Gay
marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of
one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one
religion in America.

9) Children can never succeed without a male and a
female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single
parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of
society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted
to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans

Please post this in your journal if you are for gay marriage.

To borrow a phrase, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."

2005-08-23T17:03:28Z

Links found at LJ's cyberpunk community.

National Guard busts rave in Utah. They come in dressed in camoflauge with automatic weapons, nightsticks, helicopters, tasers, and dogs, which they let loose on the crowd. The crowd tries to leave peacefully, even though there is no reason to shut down a perfectly legal, insured, well-planned event on private property. The National Guard makes the owner of the valley leave her own property and starts shoving guns in people's faces and arresting them, setting attack dogs on them, and brutally beating people for no reason. When appauled partygoers refuse to give them their cameras, cameraphones, and other recording devices, they are knocked to the ground and beaten, their property is confiscated, and they are arrested. The soldiers throw canisters of tear gas into the departing crowd and continue to beat people who try to protest. Articles below. Videos are being passed around the net, not that hard to find if you're looking.

http://utrave.org/showthread.php?t=20020
http://www.404audio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14814
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2961967?rss
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2964938
http://sltrib.com/utah/ci_2964938

Protesting Homophobia

2005-08-11T17:26:15Z

I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.

I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.

I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away
from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I
wish they could adopt me.

I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I
survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in
another year I will probably be able to walk again.

I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.

We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.

I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore,
nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now
live with another woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who
found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found
out my abusive partner is also a woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better
person if I didn’t have to always deal with society hating me.

I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.

par4n0idandr0id @ 2005-06-11T07:12:00

2005-06-11T11:14:39Z

Stolen from mavrikgandalf

"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist - so I said nothing.
Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat - so I did nothing.
Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist - so I did nothing.
And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew - so I did nothing.
Then when they came for me, there was no one left who could stand up for me."

- Martin Niemöller

God Hates Stupid Homophobes!
Another rant from your neighborhood jesus_h_biscuit
click here

I took up croquet today and I'm on fire

2005-01-23T03:48:56Z