Tangerine: A Book of Hours

Well. Feeling very cyber and fairly disconnected, I'm updating, chatting, watching and writing -- all online, all at once. While eating ice cream...

Listening to the highway. Feeling the window breeze.

There's an old Gary Numan song looping, fragmentary, inside my head. It's dark. That cool breeze is rustling.

I remember sitting on a bench, under green rustling trees, reading an Andre Norton novel about a green world. Andre Norton hyperlinks to another novel, Breed to Come, found and checked out of my grade school library. Jump-cut to me-as-a-child walking home from school in the late Spring, thinking of Summer vacation. Morph it so that I flow older, the setting shifting from sidewalk to sand. Walking on the beach, the waves thump-whispering -- almost like the sounds of cars swishing by on the highway, but --

I'm in a cottage by the sea, at night, skin warm from the set sun.

Eating ice cream from John's, on the Outer Banks -- and thinking how still the world is. How deep.

And connected.

Posted by The Allurium at 9:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So.

Things have been a bit chaotic recently. Blurred. Breathing time, now.

The outside is inky black, dotted with streetlights. The breeze is cool but nice. I'm playing Spacehog on the stereo. Just got out of the shower.

Feeling kinda...shiny.

I'm thinking.

About driving. And the ocean. Feet in the sand, water on my skin.

Also.

Of some new clothes, perhaps -- for Summer. A refresh in a few other items. Got a little renewal buzz shimmering in my head. I still haven't read, Coraline, but I mean to soon. Altered Carbon was good. I gotta catch The Matrix Reloaded at some point here, too.

And get a haircut.

I think tomorrow I'll dust.

"But in the meantime..."

Posted by The Allurium at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Someone turned up the dimmer on today, just now. For the most part, things have been cool, wet, and rainy-gray this Monday. As the sun dips into the horizon trees, however, things have become clean and bright...and warmth is filling up the air.

It's pretty again, now. And the evening skies are blue.

I've been rather ghostly, today -- having very little impact on things. My plan (such as it is) is to get to bed a bit early tonight, so that I can be more productive tomorrow. There is a fair amount of stuff I'd like to get done in the first part of this week...

At the moment, a bird is randomly tweeting outside. I'm kind of stubbly and need a shave. It's early May, and I can still smell the lavender.

I'm thinking of a chair in the sand at the beach. The view of the ocean. And heat...

Tonight is going to be slow and meandering, maybe some reading. (I picked up Neil Gaiman's, Coraline, as well as, Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan, over the weekend.)

I'm a battery in need of recharging, today. Heh.

Posted by The Allurium at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Unwinding to the sound of the fan in my computer. The tapping of keys. Further out, the highway -- whispery sounds from there. My neck is kind of tight, but is slowly unkinking. Took my contacts out and cleaned them. My eyes feel a little worn. The sandcastle that caffeine built is sinking down to sleep, smoothed by a tide of hours.

I came back a while ago, from seeing a movie with Kelli. It was nice to be with her -- chatting before the show, holding hands in the dark. We saw X-Men 2, which was cool and fun. During the drive back, I glimpsed a band of clouds glowing against the dark sky. The night is cool...but gentle.

And oh so quiet, now.

I'm rolling my head from side to side, stretching out my neck. Eye-lids heavier than before. Thinking of tomorrow, and the rest of the weekend.

I hope things are sunny, bright. The hours, long.

Unwound.

Posted by The Allurium at 2:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A breeze moved over and tightened my skin, made me chill. There was a time, on a deck at the beach, that memory-doubled that feeling...

I had been out in the sun and surf all day and my skin was heated, verging on a burn. At that moment, however, the day was sinking down. Sea water drying on my flesh, air moving my longish hair. It felt good. Warm. Then the light dipped a little bit more toward orange and violet, and a curl of wind smoothed over me. My skin tightened and goose-bumped and I shivered.

But only for a moment.

Years from that, now. In a bright May that is cooling in the shade but warming in full sun. Still hints of flowers in the air -- and the greening, all around.

On top of that, it is a Friday, too. The weekend just a few hours away. On my stereo? 3 Doors Down. Almost perfect coffee in my Outer Banks mug. I'm feeling light and alert, accelerated-but-relaxed.

Cool.

Press on the remote and it's Joan Osborne singing, "Pensacola".

May second, and the memory of a delicious tightening of the skin...

Posted by The Allurium at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The bird said, "Tweet, tweet -- go!" And the day swerved, big and bright. A flutter of falling flower petals, and sun. Saturating.

It is warm, verging on hot. May first. I was outside for a while but it's back to writing, now. Pearl Jam on the stereo, a breeze moving lazilly through the opened window.

Last night I finished the newest version of The Allurium. The site is up to 4.0 now. This rewrite included teaching myself xhtml. (I use the term "teach" lightly, though -- it was a sort of scattered approach, picking up stuff here and there -- and I hardly have it down to a science, even now.) Still, I like the way it has turned out. I also went and validated the entire site (and associated stylesheets). That took a while. If you are of a mind, take a look and let me know how it is working (or not working) for you.

I feel smooth and low-key happy that it is May, and the days are bright. I want to do some new stuff with my writing and intend to focus on that, as the Spring glides into Summer.

Ah, Immortality just came on. I love that song...

Happy May Day.

Posted by The Allurium at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)