Friday Flash #2 – Virtual Relationship

Shit, damn, fuck, cunt and a thousand other expletives sprang to mind, he wanted to meet – damn it, he wanted to meet. This wasn’t fair, it wasn’t supposed to happen – it was only a joke, a bit of fun. We’d only been seeing each other online for a few months now, how come he wanted to meet?

So I pinged up the IM : “How come you want to meet?”
“Cos you seem kinda cool, would love to meet you – your pictures are great!”
“Well, I don’t know if I can trust you yet.”
“That’s cool, but I would like to meet ya.”
“Give me some time i’ll be around for some time yet…. must dash though! TTYL!”
“Hehe, I know you will be, take care “

~~~

Isn’t that just typical?
The things in life that would never materialise, end up materialising. I mean, its the internet, right? The world is at the fingertips, and people are talking. A great many lonely hearts out there seeking their one true love, or looking for someone of like mind. The trouble here is that as big as the internet is, you will always find what your looking for, whether or not you actually want to find it. That’s how it started out, I was browsing a singles chatroom and Hugo there seemed to be worth talking to, he liked some of the same sites I did and so, I messaged him. The quick messages became conversations and conversations became regular and before long it turned into extended, late night IM conversations, various swapping of pictures and sharing of life’s ups and downs between us.

It was a match made in heaven and all without the costly inconvenience of a real relationship. So why did he want to meet now? Was I a little to friendly, did I hit too many right notes? clearly, he’s fond of me now and I’m going to have to deal with that.

Shit. I just better get it over with. So I pinged up the IM again, a few hours later “Hey Hugo”
“Oh, hey, how was dinner?”
“Wasn’t too bad, was quite nice actually”
“Cool, I had mine a little bit earlier – mmm pizza.”
“hehe”
“Listen, I was thinking about that thing you mentioned, you know about meeting?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Well I’ve been thinking, it might not be a bad idea really, I mean we’ve been – well, I guess seeing each other for ages now. I think I should give you a chance.”
“But you better watch out, I wont be alone.” (I lied)
“Hey, you’ve got nothing to worry about, when would you like to meet?”
“At the weekend, Starbucks?”
“Sure, what time?”
“Dunno, about 2?”
“Yeah, np, got the dog to take to the vet in the morning anyway. See you then!”
“Should we do anything to make sure we see each other?”
“I guess we could….. any ideas?”
“Nup, maybe both of us wear blue tops?”
“Can do see you there!”
“Cool “

That’s done it now, no going back – but some part of me wants him to stand me up.

~~~

There I was, sitting at Starbucks – wearing my fave blue t-shirt, it was fair trade cotton – really good quality though, worth the cost.

I rarely came here, but basically, everyone knows Starbucks right? and its not like there were any other decent places that everyone would know, I sighed and took a sip of my latte – my thoughts were racing double-time. Whether I was just nervous or it was the caffeine in the air – I couldn’t tell, maybe a little of both.

I kept noticing the time, always looking at that damned clock, I swear each time I do that the seconds get slower, yeesh, it was only 1:30 – I wanted to get here early to get one of the chairs at the back out of the way, you know away from the windows and the crowd – I guess some part of me just wanted not to be noticed. I hoped in vein

I turned around and just caught a glimpse of him, his eyes found me though, if briefly and suddenly I found my latte cup terribly fascinating, he didn’t seem to notice me – or, oddly enough didn’t seem to want to… how odd…

I felt my cheeks flush, he was really cute. Somehow, in person his photos didn’t seem to do him justice. He had slightly ruffled mousey hair, cut short with an unruly nest of curls jumping out at all angles – but those blue eyes… damn, I’d only glanced at him briefly and my minds eye was ablaze with wondrous imaginings. I wanted to look up again, you know tell myself my mind was exaggerating his looks, so ever so carefully I edged my glance up above the rim of the coffee cup, my heart was beating so fast…

He was at the counter and he was still really attractive – score one girl, IS hot. Well, at least there’s that wish I could stop being so nervous though must be genetic I guess.

He looked just as flustered as I was. His dreamy blue eyes…. dammit, focus Trudy, focus… he was ordering something at the counter – funny that, he ordered the same as me, a Latte. Hey, did he notice what I was drinking?

For long moments he seemed to hover around the counter, seemingly fumbling with his wallet – I could see though he was stalling for time. Shortly after that though, he seemed to have plucked his courage out from his behind, he breathed in – oooh athletic too…… dammit, focus! and he walked over towards me with clumsy deliberate actions, almost like he had rehearsed from a book or something.

My face was red, I could feel it burn like hot coals and my heart was still beating fast…

“Um, er…. um….. Trudy?”

His voice was as ragged as his actions were, it almost looked comical. As attractive as he was, you’d expect him to have been well versed in this sort of thing, so I had to respond…

“Hhhhhi, Hugo?”
“Yyup….. May I?”
“Sit? Sure… I guess”

I was hopelessly grasping at straws for something to say but I was saved…

“Iiittts a little bit weird this you know…”
“Tell me about it…”
“I guess…”
“Heheh” I laughed, I could barely hold it in “we’ve virtually had a relationship already!”
“Hahaha… a Virtual Relationship!” he chimed in, loud enough to make his face burn with a brighter red.

~~~

Friday Flash!

Just a word of warning here folks, I’m from the UK as such I describe here the ‘boot’ and ‘bonnet’ of a car, these translate as "Trunk" and "Hood" in American English.

"Hello, you’ve reached the AA breakdown line – can I take your account number please?""Yes, its 65432198."
"Thank you, and you are the account holder?"
"Yes."
"Thank you, for security please confirm the car registration and account address please…"
"YU56 CPJ, 42 Grant drive, Ipswitch"
"Okay, how can we help you today?"
"Well, my car has broken down on the highway – I have a flat and the engine wont start."
"Oh, right okay…. we’ll get someone out to you in around 30mins, is that okay?"
"Yes, thank you."

–

I could see the orange lights a mile away, whether they were for me or not I didn’t know, still it was about the right time for them.
Yup, sure enough it was.

The van pulled in just behind my car lights flashing away. I hoped against hope that I wouldn’t be too late to work.

"Hello there, I take it you were the one that called?"
"Yes."
"Cool, I have your registration mark here – but can I have your membership card too? Just to do the checks."
"Sure thing…"
"It’s been somewhat a double-trouble day! not only did I get a flat, my engine stopped as well, just as I pulled over!"
"Hehe, no worries – we’ll soon have you up and running again…"
"Best we start with the flat, huh? Is the boot open?"
"Yes, just go ahead, it’s open." I said, smiling.

I stepped out, "Do you need a hand?"
"Oh, no that’s okay, I can manage."
"Cool."
"So what happened when the car stopped?"
"Um, when I pulled over the engine kinda shuddered and died – I tried starting it up a few times, but didn’t manage to get it going."
"Ah, right, sounds like you might have a little fuel problem in there, I’ll take a look once I finish with the tyre."
"Right, I hope you can manage, I’ll need to be at work soon…"
"We’ll do our best for you! You’d best call ahead and let them know, don’t worry though – if I can’t get the car started I can take you along, where do you work?"
"Just along the road, about 10miles or so."
"Right, that wont be a problem. There, all done – now lets have a look at your engine shall we?"
"Oh, yeah, sure."

I leaned over and fumbled around to find the catch to open the bonnet before I made the call to the office.

–

"There you go, that’s your tyre done."
"Great, thanks."
"Do you mind getting around to the passenger side? I need to try the ignition."
"Oh, sure." I said, quickly evacuating the seat. She leaned in the drivers door and tried the ignition, it spluttered and failed just as it did with me. After opening the bonnet she leaned in to the engine compartment.

Standing beside the car on the passenger side, I could see the goodly shape of her bosom as she was tweaking the wires and lifting the various mechanical bits and pieces – now don’t get me wrong, I’m not the best with cars but seriously, women don’t usually fit the bill as auto engineers, do they? Heck, usually the ones that are Engineers are usually the type that are ‘butch’ or those you think must be gay or simply not interested in their appearance. But I tell you this lady had the lot, she was lovely. Granted, the overalls she wore almost hung on her, but really, you could see the catlike curves even through the loose overalls. Oh, don’t get me wrong she was strong, she fitted the tyre didn’t she? She was actually quite bulky but not like in an overweight way, well its kinda hard to explain if you didn’t see her.

"Aha! I found the problem…"
"You did? oh, great – what is it?"
"Well, it seems your fuel pipe there…" she said, pointing out a small white pipe " has a crack in it, and since you were slowing down – so did the fuel, which gave you a little air bubble – so your fuel wasn’t getting to the injectors."
"Oh, right – can you fix it?"
"Yup, just need to get a little cover for the crack then all we need to do is pump out the air and you should be on your way."
"That’s great news." I said through a smile I could barely hide, this woman had everything – the great looks, the magic touch, even the playful nature that’s the hallmark of all great women. I had to ask her, I had to speak to her , my heart was pounding.
"heeeh, its unusual for a lady to be doing this kind of thing isn’t it?" I said, as she looked up, she smiled (wow, great smile too) and rolled her eyes, "Yeah, like I haven’t heard THAT before!"
"Ahem, well, yes I guess….. " I could barely find the courage to bleat the words, but I had to, and quickly "You are an incredible woman."
"Haha! Nice try bub, but thank you anyway."

As she was looking at me, I could see it on her face, those deep hazel eyes, she was trying to read me. Trying to get a clue as to what kind of a weirdo I really was, I felt like one – a grade-A werido nutjob. I felt my face burn. I knew it was a shade of crimson red that wouldn’t look out of place on a kids balloon.
"Um…"

She paused for a second, switching her gaze between me and the car before she started fumbling with the engine once more and, for a few long moments there was silence as she was fiddling with the pipe and some sort of semi-circle plastic tubing she had pulled out of her toolbox, it had a coloured side, probably some sort of papery cover on the adhesive. A few long moments later her head rose from the compartment,
"There we go, let’s give that a shot."

She went to the drivers side again and turned the ignition and the engine roared to life once more.
"Right, that’s you all ready to go… now I’ll just get the papers for you to sign then I’ll let you get on to your work." I got the impression that she was hiding behind our professionalism, hey, can you blame her?

I felt like a complete idiot. Seriously, its not something you do, is it?
but god, she is something like I’ve never seen before. Taking a deep breath I tried to compose myself, there was no point to try and speak to her again – not on this blue moon anyway. She came back from her van with the papers in hand,
"Here you go, just sign here and here."
"Thanks." I added, trying to cut things short and make a sharp exit.

Signed papers in hand, she smiled at me (god what a smile), gave me my copy of the documents and left for her van.

In a few moments, the van was gone. I don’t know if I felt relieved or disappointed, I knew I’d probably never see her again – that Automobile Angel…

I took a seat back in the drivers side, ready to head to work – man, I’d be lucky to keep my job now, I did tell them I’d be late but I was already on shaky ground at that point. So, just before I headed off to my fate, I opened up the paper to check what she’d written about the problems…

"1. Put the spare tyre on the wheel, old tyre in boot.
2. Checked engine fault, fuel pipe crack responsible, added protective cover to affect temporary repair. Driver is advised to seek a permanent repair."

Then my signature and below that, in the space below:

"Hey, I’m probably going to regret this, heck you did come of a little weird to me but at the same time, there was something interesting about you. If you want to get to know me better, this is my number – don’t get any ideas though if you pull anything screwy I can block your number quick as anything. Elle"

Vinyl versus Digital, a modern day retrospective

Recently, my husband dug out his old Amplifier and Record Player (Turntable) and set it up once more. The Turntable is a Garrard SP25 Mk III and the amp is a NAD 3020B both apparantly were the upper end of the budget market in the 1970’s.

Don’t let the word ‘Budget’ put you off, they still beat the socks of anything we might call ‘Budget’ or ‘Value’ today, heck even the NAD 3020B still beats some of the most expensive equipment available today.

I was sceptical at first, having not myself heard a vinyl record in a very long time (hey, its old hat, right? old and not worth the time) until that was I heard a record being played.

The record itself was Neil Diamond’s The Jazz Singer album, it is the soundtrack to the classic film of the same name.

Naturally, being the curious cat I am, I decided a little impromptu comparison would be interesting to carry out between the digital version of some of the album tracks I had on my computer. The first thing I noted about the digital tracks, was the volume of them (both aurally and visually in the waveform) were incredibly high indicating some sort of Dynamic compression was employed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression) which basically means that the audio waveform has been processed to ensure that all high volume levels of the track waveform are hovering around the outer limits of the range acceptable for the audio production. This was great for loudness but not so much for the quality and ‘feel’ to the music and the compression makes it sound almost metallic. The digital version was sharp and clinically clear with little depth to the environment being portrayed in the music.

With the vinyl versions of the tracks, instantly you note the more detailed nuances of the singer and the instruments without very loud or very quiet segments. The track feels more balanced and you get a sense of exactly how the audio should have sounded in the studio. The reason for this is in fact that the records hold an exact mirror copy of the original waveform produced by the artists at the time of recording, essentially the audio is natural and unprocessed analogue signals – just like you would hear if I were actually speaking to you now. Digital was applauded for it’s bright, clear sound but it came at a cost of depth and ‘feeling’ of the track and since the audio in a Digital format such as a CD or MP3 track, the natural analogue sound has been ‘approximated’ – from that you can read ‘best guess’.

Initially intrigued by the amazing difference between the two versions of the songs, I started researching – and discovered something rather surprising in today’s digital world, Vinyl is making a big comeback in the face of falling CD sales (http://iamalaser.com/2009/05/01/vinyls-here-and-she-wants-you-back/) largely, this is due to the MP3 / Itunes download market getting rid of the need to carry a disk with you. Why? Well the simplest answer(audio quality aside) is probably two-fold, on one hand people seem to be wanting to build their home collections up again and the mediums used no longer need to be small or portable. Secondly, there is no real way to physically recreate or copy a vinyl disk that is widely available to consumers. This fact will only help the record labels regain a hold on the music market, which, in itself has been slipping due to the Itunes generation of legally and illegally downloaded music.

The discoveries I have made these last few days have really kicked my inner Audiophile back into the stream of concious thought and have me fascinated with audio once more, I used to have an interest in the audio engineering aspect of technology when I was in school and that was before I had any sort of income to make use of in pursuit of the hobby. Now though, I’m married and working I am starting to stare with wide-eyed curiosity once more at the wonderful world of Audio Tech.

When words seem flat…

As most of you reading this will know, my latest WiP is an article based on the business I’ve spent the last 5 years of my life in, games testing, the business and background of it. So let me be the first to tell you, its BORING – but the prospect of selling it to a magazine and having my first ever published article are very strong motivators. So I do my best, hammering out the Raw words that someday will become an article when I find the right way to shape and present it.

I’ve recently been reading through a copy of “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron and “All A Twitter” by Tee Morris and even “The Magician” by Raymond E Feist. So yes, I’ve been doing a lot of reading as well as writing. The most interesting to note here however is “The Artist’s Way” this is a book about unlocking your inner creative self, its not about how to be a writer/painter/screenwriter its simply about unlocking the creative energy inside, and believe me when I tell you IT WORKS .

I was sceptical at first, but kept an open mind and did what it asked of me and it astounded me just how much my creative energy is just beneath the surface. Thanks to that book, I started to draw and sketch things, just because I wanted to (its that little voice you should listen to) and it shocked me just how effective I could be at it, letting the creative energy guide the pencil leaving the conciousness behind you’ll find the pictures I completed here: http://www.twitpic.com/photos/lisa107b

But if I take you back to the BORING article, as you know BORING words don’t really flow as wonderfully as creative words but one thing stuns me all the more is that when I’m stuck, I want to draw. Honestly, I have compulsion to draw when the mundane words don’t seem to flow properly and when I do, something wonderful happens – especially if I create something that looks the way its supposed to, the buzz is amazing. I drew a rose today, from a photograph – I hope to post that up to twitpic soon .

I really need to think, is it possible my craft is drawing, rather than writing – maybe both?

Creativity still perched on top

Yes, its been a few days now since I last updated but that’s cool – I’ve been busy! Promise!
Work on my article is progressing and I have a couple of questionnaires sent out, I have another three to draft and send out – but I’ll get those done too!

On other notes, I recently acquired a copy of “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron – this book is gold dust!
Just reading through the introduction gives you this very useful anecdote: “Accumulate pages, not judgements.” and just reading into the first chapter (titled Week 1 in the book) led me to draw this: http://twitpic.com/fzalz from a simple doodle on Monday, I simply told myself not to try and make it anything in particular and that page organically grew from that sense of security, you know where you aren’t worried if it’ll look okay or its not perfect. You don’t worry about it because you haven’t a preconceived notion of what it ’should’ look like. It’s almost like free-writing in a way.

Speaking of writing, I intend to do some more work on my story soon – I had a wasted 2hrs last night trying to get the new wireless network up and running so I can use the bedroom as my artist’s retreat again, so I’ll need to get the questionnaires done first. The first wireless router I had inexplicably stopped working, I hadn’t worried too much about it, the thing had been on constantly for over 9 months, rather than mess about with it I decided to get a new one. I gave up on spending endless hours on PC troubleshooting years ago -
ultimately I just figured it wasn’t worth the trouble and nowadays I just wouldn’t have the time anyway!

An update for yesterday, 26th August

For any of you wondering, yes, I did write last night – but not on my fiction story. I set to work on my big article
I drafted questionnaires up for the various people willing to participate and tonight I plan to do a rough outline of the main ‘meat’ of the article.

I didn’t do a word count I think I’d only do that for my fiction stories and I keep a track of the word count in brackets at the bottom of my story – this will give you an idea of my progress to date, yes don’t shout at me for the gaps – I’m working on that and you should know that!

(355~ words Friday, 22nd May)
(180~ words Monday 25th May)
(918~ words Thursday 28th May)
(820~ words Saturday 30th May)
(580~ words Saturday 6th June)
(518~ words Thursday 30th July)
(1014 words Sunday 23rd August)
(614~ words Tuesday 25th August)

Its always a good idea to keep track of your writing, it gives you a ‘yard stick’ of sorts, to gauge how your doing. I read this tip the other day, I’m sure it was on “The Renegade Writer”. This is a great site, full of useful info, if you haven’t already – bookmark it! its a great resource for writers

Lisa (@Lisa107b)

Wow :) 8 Hits more today…. and without a Twitter Plug!

I’m impressed!
Seems I’m getting a higher profile, as in one notch above obscurity. It’s really pushing me onwards and upwards!

Today, I had a Dynomite idea for an article this morning on the way to the daily sludgery. I realised of course that the daily sludgery could actually be my key to a brighter future. You see, come September the 15th – I’ll have been at my current company for FIVE years! That’s some amount of time when you think about it and with that thought, I realised that I have the rare kind of experience to make something of it.

So there it is, in its skeleton form – to write an article about what I know best. Now its up to me to put some meat on the bones and launch myself at the mean and nasty proffesional writing world.

I know this isn’t a passport to instant success, I’m fully expecting many years to pass before my career gains enough momentum to come even close to my main income souce, but everything has to start somewhere, right?

Which brings me to my next muse perhaps writing a blog post is my way of warming up to do some writing on my story, it certainly seems to be a case where I start to write here and the words simply flow out like water down a hillside (SEE, amazing huh?) LOL

Anyway, I better stop rattling words in here and get to my story before my time and energy run out!

Thanks to you all for looking and commenting!

Lisa (@Lisa107b)

Yaaay! 1014 Words!

Okay so its not a lot of words, but they’ve been the first my story has moved for some time. So I thought it deserves its own blog post – I’m proud of it!

Hopefully, it will not stop here and it’ll be the start of a positive trend in my W.I.P (Writer lingo for “Work In Progress”) so I earlier mentioned I was aiming for the 500 words challenge as set forth by @InkyElbows and I actually graduated to the 1000 words challenge, so I will wear this badge with honor and pride!

It all started with some help from Bach and Motzart on the classics channel!

Thank you all for your help and support!

Lisa (@Lisa107b)

Oh My Goodness! (1000 Apologies Oh, Patient Ones!)

Fully expecting the world to pass by and ignore this little corner of the blogsphere, but seems my expactations are about to be sorely rebuked – I’ve had traffic spikes, oh my!

Okay, so I haven’t written anything in ages but I don’t want to completely sacrifice myself to the Writing gods and godesses. Why? because I feel it best to move on and improve my future performance. If I spend time wallowing about how much I didn’t write, I’ll likely still be wallowing in a months time because I still hadn’t written anything!

“It takes an awful long time to NOT write a book!” – Douglas Adams

So right after this blogpost I’m going back into my story and hopefully come back out with some semblance of wordage, I wont aim high, not right now – smaller goals are more easily attainable, @InkyElbows (Owner of http://www.inkygirl.com) has the 500 word challenge, I think that would suit me well for the moment – so let it be so I aim for 500 words each time until I can improve my abilities. Aparantly, its like training your brain for something new and the more you do it, the better you get at it.

During the last session of writing I managed to hammer out 300 words of plot outline all done freewriting style. That’s the kind of writing you just do from the top of your head without thinking about it, and a very useful tool if ever you feel blocked. I think I should start to work on the structure some more and put together some sort of writing outline, maybe seperate out the chapters then individually outline those, if anything it’ll help me start again if -, no, WHEN I get stuck down the line.

I’m very much grateful for Merrilee’s(@MerrileeFaber) help in this, she says I’m a writer to watch and that is something I will try hard to live up to, plus if I’m getting more eyes on my progress, there’s more chance I’ll get more focussed.

That’s it for the ficiton writing, its not the only area I’m trying to break in on – I have a chance now to write an article for a car owner’s club about the progress of a car my husband is working on, an old Reliant Fox – quite a gemstone it seems, there is only 5 in Scotland and only a few hundred ever made!

My husband is trying to get it up and running again, and the progress of that gives me a chance to write something voluntarily for the owner’s club magazine now and hopefully that’ll give me some edge to gaining some paid work in the not-too-distant future!

So, on that positive note, I’m off to get a cuppa and have a look at my story again! 475 words in this blog post, but I wont count that to the target!

Lisa (@Lisa107b)

Oh oh, almost missed my deadline

Its been over a week since my last blog post *slaps own hand* sorry about that, not sure if anyone actually reads it – but sorry anyway!
I’ve been under a lot of stress lately and it has almost caused some health issues. Let me explain, I’d like to talk a little about ‘Stress Biology’ now it is directly related to the world we live in today. Where we move less and have easy ways of getting almost anything we need, I’m not talking fat lazy couch potatoes here, that’s the extremes of an easy life. I’m talking just the regular people, not overweight just a little more idle than we would have been say in the stone age.

Stress is a natural human cycle, its been around since we started walking on the earth, it’s the thing that gives us the ‘fight or flight’ strength and speed to respond to life/death situations. In today’s world however, there are relatively few ‘life/death’ situations and our bodies don’t know the difference. Society’s expectations on each of us is enough to evoke the same feelings though, we must reach a deadline, our work will be under a magnifying glass, our money can’t meet the bills etc. our body’s response to the worry and anxiety following any similar feelings however is the same as it was when we were running away from that big animal that wanted us for dinner, and releases the Adrenaline needed for that extra strength and speed.

The sharp end of the sword however, is that we are not in a situation in today’s world where we need the Adrenaline very often and a side-effect of the stuff if it sits too long in the muscles is that it will cause the muscles to stiffen, like a board. The result of that is that our heart then has difficulty pumping the blood to where it needs to be and that, in turn causes the heart to beat faster pumping more blood under higher pressure and the build up in the already-stiff muscles causes pain.

It’s a rather scary feeling, and I can tell you that from experience – I felt that something was wrong that my heart was in trouble for some reason. If it happens, the best thing to do is exercise to get rid of the Adrenaline and do some deep relaxing(meditate) to ease the pain and the stress. I did that and it helped, I also slept an inordinate amount of time at the weekend, which put my writing attempts to the back wing again.