August 7th, 2008
Today I’m going to tell you a story about a boy and his car. The car is the template, after all, for our first great status symbol and our first great step to personal independence, and thus, from there the Great American Love Affair. We never forget the first cars that made us stop and stare. The years wind by and men who’ve long since forgotten the names of the girls they took to Senior Prom can still rattle off the years, makes, models, and option-packages of their first cars.
Somewhere near Milpitas and not so long ago (either 2003 or 2004), there was a boy, I think, in love with the Mustang SVT Cobra. I imagine he was a boy, at least, but she may have been a girl; nobody needs a Y-chromosome to appreciate the Cobra’s beautiful, all-American brand of power and handling. Still, it suits my sense of aesthetics to believe that this was a boy, and so this is a story about a boy and a car.
The dealer, sadly, put too high a price on love, and the sticker on the Cobra weighed in at over $33,000, almost exactly an entire year’s wages for the average American man. This is a very old story, actually, at least as old as money and really as old as trade. Too frequently our wallets are too small to contain our hopes and dreams. I imagine him breathing deep in disappointment, but really this boy was still far from a pauper, modestly successful in his own right, and he let the dealer guide him around the lot, showing him less exotic breeds of pony. He might have seen the Mach 1, loud and brash as its name, and every dealer would have a few proud GTs, Gran Turismo cars built to run great long stretches of open American road.
Even these are expensive cars, though, and in time the dealer would have shown our boy the basic-model Mustangs. At $18,000 they were still badges of modest success, sports cars for those who refused to settle into the comfortable domesticity of Camrys and Accords. These, he could afford.
Still, he loved the Cobra, not the Mustang. Two hundred horsepower divided the two, to say nothing of the refinements in handling and trim. The Mustang is an American classic for its tunability, but the Special Vehicles Team had raised it to the level of art, and with the extra 800ccs of engine he could not hope to compete. Besides, the Cobra name brings a special, exclusive sort of cachet, and I am sure he dreamt of its effects on his circle of lady friends.
What would he do? He could tune the Mustang, of course, and even if it could not race the Cobra, he might well be able to match the Gran Turismo. That was a lot of work, though, a commitment to bury himself to the elbows in grease for months on end and pore over the tachometer’s wobbling like a scientist over his graphs, and he probably did not know how. The muscle-car gearhead is a dying breed. Perhaps he could drive a lesser car, something practical and boring, something economical that might let him save for a Cobra in five years’ time, but that was a desperate move. Like so many American boys, ours wanted his gratification now, when he was still young and full of flash.
No, none of these would be good enough. If this boy could not have his Cobra, he would make it.
Or fake it.
July 24th, 2008
Rio started… happening, I guess… in my life, a few times a week, sometimes with Jacqueline, sometimes alone. Maybe he’d always been there, curled up in that particular way of his, and I’d only just started noticing. Either way I was always happy to see him, and he always had some new, unpredictably wonderful fascination to share.
One night at Pilades, he slid up beside me and took a seat on the edge of my table, smiling just a little too much. I tried to ignore it, but he tugged insistently at the top of my newspaper, like a kitten who’s done something endearingly naughty and very much wants you to know. “Hello again,” he said, practically singing with happiness. “The Times? That’s a very good paper. I approve. And I have something to show you.”
“Rio, you are a strange, strange human being.” I folded my paper back together, shaking my head. “What do you want?”
Still smiling, he stuck out his tongue at me, then nodded over to the pinball machine. “I think she likes me.” The Billionaire’s Club listings began to scroll, glowing orange in the dim corner of the room.
I ran over to look.
July 22nd, 2008
Even boiling water grows cold without a fire.
Real Artists Ship.
Writing is like riding a bicycle. You never completely forget how to do it, but if you stop pedalling, and coast, sooner or later you fall off.
Telling yourself these things is easy; really knowing them is hard. Living them is nearly painful. It’s always been one of the most frustrating parts of my life as a writer: I write in little bursts and pieces, mostly when I’ve just barely woken up and my dreams are still dying in the morning light. Some of my friends can write a few thousand words in a session; I count myself lucky if I clear a few thousand words in a month. Even keeping that in mind, though, having dry spells that long makes me uncomfortable. It’s bad discipline.
I’ve been gone for a month now, and I don’t really have much of an excuse. I let my water get cold. I stopped pedalling for a while, and I fell off.
I’m back, though, or at least I think I am. I have a few projects burning, most importantly the next Tybalt story; I promised someone I would have it finished by YaoiCon.
Sit tight; I’ll try to share something soon.
June 21st, 2008
Hello everybody! This is Catboy. Adrian is caught up in an extended argument this week (and also working on new stories for you) so he did not have time to write a post. It has been a very long time since I have posted, so I have decided to share ten important ideas that I have found in my wanderings. Some of them I have learned myself and some of them I have learned by watching other people, but all of them are helpful in maintaining a cheerful, healthy, and generally-positive demeanor.
10 – Eat food. Not too much. Go out of your way to find some that is tasty and nutritious. Gooey cinnamon rolls are tasty but not very nutritious. Plain chicken breast is nutritious but not very tasty. Fresh fish, well-cooked vegetables, and fruit are both!
9 – People are surprisingly willing to trade all sorts of wonderful things for small green pictures of boring-looking men. Try not to promise to trade someone more pictures than you actually have. Very much sadness comes from thinking that you will get more in the future, and then not actually getting as many as you expected.
8 – All catgirls are pretty, though sometimes this is not obvious until you find the right perspective. This is a good idea to remember and very important, much the way that it is important to walk all the way around a banyan tree, or to take a few steps back and appreciate Kīlauea from a safe and respectful distance.
7 – There is a special kind of tough-pretty catgirl that is especially charming and makes you feel warmer and fuzzier than normal. Be very careful of these, because they are fast on their feet and can hug you with surprising force.
6 – Notice that I have said to be careful, not necessarily to be wary.
5 – Have an appropriate outfit for every occasion, and especially have a distinctive hat if you are a hat-wearing kind of person. Good attire inspires confidence.
4 – Always remember to take breaks for cocoa. Most problems do not feel so bad if you have enough cocoa. If you are allergic to chocolate, take breaks for lemonade instead. Lemonade is tasty both hot and cold, and works much the same way.
3 – Make a special effort to brighten at least one person’s day, every day. It will make your corner of the world a happier place.
2 – Have candy. Offer it freely.
1 – Remember this always: wherever you may wander, there you are.
June 13th, 2008
I’ve mentioned, before, a young friend and her indecision over college. She’s graduated high school, yesterday or today I think, so the question is substantially less abstract now. I still think that she should do it. For me and for almost everyone I know, university education was an unbelievable chance for us to learn about ourselves, discover who we wanted to become, and grow into those frames.
I think she deserves the same chance. Really, I think that everyone deserves the same chance (that teaching urge is hard to forget), but my friend seems particularly important right now. She’s endearingly quirky and I believe she doesn’t give herself enough credit for how bright she is. Sometimes I wonder how she might change in the experience; I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t make the most of it, but how is anyone’s guess.
I’d like to meet that hypothetical future-self, whoever she might be. I bet she’d have a lot of interesting, compelling things to say.
It’s time for me to put some money where my mouth is.
This is my open gift to her, my promise before all of you. I hope you get to hold me to it.
