Max's Journal

Hyphenated

Sat, 03 Dec 2005 08:32:48 GMT

I'm now having second thoughts about saddling my daughter with a hyphenated last name, the rather unwieldy "Comisky-West". And, if I'm honest with myself, I knew it all along -- I was just being insecure. "Brigid Comisky" is much more, umm, wieldy, but I was so afraid that if we didn't share (at least partially) the same last name, then I'd be somehow less connected to her, at least from the point of view of an external observer.

Anyway, I hope this doesn't turn out to be too much of an inconvenience for her.

Names

Sat, 17 Sep 2005 00:22:58 GMT

I'm having a really hard time coming up with names I like. Most of the Goddess-names that mean a lot to me are not exactly the sorts of names you can give to an actual person. For example, as fine as those names are, I'm not going to name my daughter Hecate, Minerva, or Arianrhod. For a while I was actually halfway considering Ceridwen (call her Carrie for short), but even that seems like borderline child abuse.

My current leading candidate, as a name that is both nicely mythological and that can be applied to an actual person, is Brigid, who is the Celtic goddess of pretty much everything: flames, war, healing, wisdom, and poetry. Not a bad namesake. Another name I kind of like, though not as much as Brigid, is Morgan/Morgana/Morgaine. Brigid Morgana Comisky-West? It's a thought...

Conversations With Dead People

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 21:02:56 GMT

The first one really freaked me out. For one thing, I had no idea I wasn't really speaking to Dot. It wasn't until later when Dot showed up and disavowed any knowledge of the conversation that I finally worked out that I had actually been speaking with the First. Dot was, of course, clinically dead briefly in 1998 (which, I now know, is what caused the Slayer line to pass to Faith), which is what allowed the First to assume her form.

Anyway, in retrospect it is stunning and more than a little demoralizing to realize how perfectly the Worst struck at my weak spot. During the actual conversation I just sort of reflexively parried every verbal assault, mainly because my mind couldn't quite come to grips with what Dot (or so I thought) was saying, but deep-down I was shattered. I had, and have had for some time, this huge tangle of conflicted emotions about Dot, the baby, saving the world, saving ourselves, etc. For example, with every day that passes my worries about Dot's safety become harder to control. I have to fight the urge to ask her to be more careful. It's crazy, right? Slayer = tough to kill. I get that. But that doesn't stop the feeling of panic I get every time she's in danger.

So, yeah, that one got to me in a major way, no question about it. It was the second encounter, though, that really has me thinking now. Oh sure, at the time, I just kind of shrugged it off: by that time I knew who/what I was really dealing with, and, truth be told, I honestly didn't feel all that guilty about incinerating those two Evil Minions. I mean, come on: there were five trained assassins who were in the process of murdering Uma and Kat. (And, I might add, they were using the outward trappings of Christianity to mask their evil intentions: how totally unprecedented -- not!) What was I supposed to do, ask them nicely to please stop pumping bullets into my friend?

I mean, if you were going to sit down and design a situation in which I would not feel particularly bad about killing people, it would be pretty hard to come up with something better than protecting an innocent college student and her faithful hound from five evil gun-wielding fundies.

But then I started thinking, yeah, you know what? It would be tough to design a better situation to make me feel okay about killing. Put another way, this could have been the perfect setup to get me comfortable with the idea to taking human life. I mean, it's always easier the next time, right? Now, I'm not saying the entire plot was designed with this outcome in mind but, based on the way the previous conversation (with pseudo-Dot) went, it certainly does not seem beyond the realm of possibility that the First was cunning enough to have forseen and planned on this eventuality. And, even if it isn't immediately obvious to me what short-term advantage it is going to gain from this -- I am unlikely to go over to the Dark Side and start murdering innocents all willy-nilly, for example -- at the very least I am going to be occupied with these very doubts and might very well a little gun-shy for the forseeable future.

Sigh, as usual, no answers, only doubts and questions. I just hope I can pull it together in time to be of some use in the seemingly inevitable and ever-more-rapidly approaching showdown with Evil.

Disenchanted

Tue, 15 Mar 2005 08:11:48 GMT

Another Friday night, another security breach at our (supposedly secure) HQ. Yeah, it sort of bugs me that anyone and everyone (from DotCom start-ups to Denizens of the Formless Void) seems to be able to waltz past the best security I can muster without breaking a sweat, but the really sobering part is that the aforementioned DFV was completely immune to magic. I guess I kid myself into thinking that I can take care of myself, but I felt nothing short of ridiculous flailing around with my stupid bat trying to hit that thing. It made me realize just how dependent I have become on my magic. And it kind of freaks me out, because I can't help wondering what I would do if it all just suddenly went away. I mean, there's no reason it should even work in the first place, so there's equally no reason that it won't simply vanish, right?

Anyway, the experience was a real wakeup call ("what does not kill me makes me stronger"), and I'm now resolved to make some changes. I'm going to stop neglecting the physical side of things (no, not that physical side -- I haven't been neglecting that, thankyouverymuch), and try to be a more confident fighter. I mean, I'm never going to be big or strong, but I've always been pretty quick, and with a little practice I think I can use that to my advantage. I can hit a tiny little softball, so I sure as heck ought to be able to hit a 10-foot Plasma Demon, right?

Questions

Tue, 08 Mar 2005 09:39:21 GMT

I've been doing a lot of research and, though there's no definitive proof (i.e. absence of evidence is not evidence of absence), it's starting to look more and more like our daughter will be the first/only female child even born to a Slayer. Will she be the Kwisatz Haderach? You know, there was a time, back when I was focused on the technical and political aspects of this, that I wanted to Change The World. Now I just want my child to be happy. I mean, I guess I wouldn't mind if she were super strong or faster than a speeding bullet or whatever, but I'd much rather that she simply have a normal childhood.

Something else occurs to me: what am I going to tell my parents? They know I'm a dyke, of course, and they even seem to like Dot. They also know that "the occult" is my hobby. Still, I think it would be pretty hard to explain that, as the bumper sticker says, Magick Happens, and my "hobby" allowed me to impregnate my girlfriend. The daughter that Dot gives birth to will be my genetic offspring, and my parents' genetic grandchild. How can I lie about a thing like that? But how can I tell the truth? I guess I could have a big theatrical *scene* with them, tell them the whole truth, and then back it all up with evidence -- maybe turn something into a toad and/or levitate something and/or set something on fire (but preferably no flaming, flying toads). But somehow that's just not my style.

Oh, and yet another thing I've been thinking about. I don't know what the deal is with Chip/Carlos/Roberta's trip to an alternate universe -- did it really happen, or was it some sort of illusion? -- but either way, their collective description of the alternate "me" is kind of unsettling. I've never told anyone how close I came to reprogramming the "Phil Illuminant" virus to make people vote against the Governator. It would have been so easy. Just think of all the good I could have done! Even now I get an upset stomach just thinking about it. What's more, I honestly think the only reason I didn't do it, or at least push harder for it, is because I didn't want to disagree with Dot (who, you see, I had a secret crush on at the time). So did I do the right thing for the wrong reason? Did I even do the right thing? Argh. But even the election thing is small potatoes compared to what other-Max did. She assassinated the swift-boat veterans, and Kerry won the election! I admit I kind of wished those jerks would just stop with all the lies and go away, but I never seriously considered killing them. But maybe it's just a slippery slope -- today you fix an election with magical nanobots, tomorrow you flay your enemies alive and laugh as they die in puddles of blood, shit, and agony. And I'm not even going to go into the whole other-Ifurita slave thing.

But, hey, I won the Wesley Wyndham-Pryce Memorial Award, so things can't be all bad, right?

[Update: I corrected the date of this posting -- for some reason it was messed up.]

This is big

Sun, 09 Jan 2005 04:27:36 GMT

I can't really talk about it right now, but let's just say that the last time something even remotely similar to this happened, it ended up starting a major religion. Granted, times were different then, and M was obliged to come up with a pretty far-fetched cover story. But still.

The Interconnectedness Of All Things (Or The Lack Thereof)

Wed, 10 Nov 2004 08:37:50 GMT

Last night was weird.

I guess that, deep down, I must have some self-confidence issues to work through. At least that would be the pop-psych explanation. I mean, I've always been just a little bit insecure about my relationship with Dot, but I think that's understandable. Who wouldn't have at least a touch of "it's too good to be true" syndrome if they were lucky enough to be with someone like Dot?

No, the issue that's bugging me right now is my relationship with the rest of humanity. Actually -- and this is going to sound really strange -- everything was fine until last night. With Dot out of town, I decided to spend a quiet evening meditating at home. Without getting into too many gory details, there's this technique I use (and please pardon me if this sounds corny) when I want to feel at one with the universe. You might say it's equal parts Zen, Gaia (but on a Universal rather than merely planet-wide scale), "The Force" from Star Wars, and quantum entanglement, except that it's really none of those things. Anyway, I digress. The point is that I usually find my meditation sessions very satisfying: I feel like a child of the universe, I'm connected to the vast panoply of life, I am stardust, I am golden, and every other 60s folk song you can think of. In short, I come to understand, to know on a basic level, undiluted by reason, that I belong here in this place at this time.

Except that last night it all went horribly wrong. Instead of feeling connected, I felt completely and utterly alone, as if I were the only person in the universe. I was actually afraid to open the door of my apartment, for fear of discovering that there was nothing out there. Silly, I know, but that's how isolated I felt. I'm not psychic or anything, but I still found it incredibly disturbing to sense a complete lack of all mystical energies. It's as if everyone were red-shifted into another frame of reference, or I had become the only mind in my light cone. Or something. Okay, I give up -- it's really hard to describe. And it really doesn't make any sense.

Dot Complications

Sat, 30 Oct 2004 08:19:32 GMT

I'm kind of bummed that Dot's not going to be around for Samhain. I understand about her family emergency and all, but I wish she would have let me go with her. Why won't she let me get close? And I thought for sure she'd want to move in with me now that she no longer has to live at the office to keep it vampire-free, but she seems undecided about even that. I mean, come on, moving in together is what lesbians do. I guess I shouldn't over-react. They say the holiday season is the hardest time be alone, as the turning of the Wheel of the Year makes us acutely aware of the passage of time and the fleeting nature of life. But when I stop getting all maudlin and look at the situation rationally, it's clear that things are good. We're young, so there's no need to rush into anything. We have fun together. We make a great team when it comes to battling the forces of darkness -- and I'm even getting to the point where I feel like I'm starting to pull my own weight. In fact, I took out four Thuggees the other night with a single spell (although of course Dot wasn't there to see it... but, no, I'm not going to dwell on that). Oh, and of course it goes without saying that sex with a Slayer is.... transcendent and glorious. And also sweaty -- very sweaty. Ok, I don't think I should dwell on that either. At least not, um, not while I'm busy typing.

Oh, and I finally got around to uploading a picture of myself. I am so stylin' in my backwards baseball cap, no?

Success!

Wed, 11 Feb 2004 05:47:51 GMT

Turns out my spell really did work! I got a chance to test the amulet (or, as people insist on calling it, "Camille's Collar") with Kat last night, and it worked just as I had hoped! Not only can she choose not to change during a full moon, but she can also change any time she feels like it. And what's more, she's now in complete control of her actions while in wolf form.

A couple weeks ago I was feeling bad about the way I wasn't able to handle a vampire in one-on-one combat. Dot ended up having to save me, and I was worried she'd think less of me because of it, but that really doesn't seem to be the case. She pointed out that I'm more like the artillery than the infantry, and I think she's right. There's no way I can go toe to toe with vampires or other nocturnal nasties and hope to survive. They're just too strong and I'm too fragile. Speaking of which, now that I've been injured not once but twice by vampires, I think I have a pretty good idea how much damage they can do with a single punch, and it's really starting to sink in just how tough Dot is. She'll take multiple hits, any one of which would be enough to kill me, and she'll barely feel it. Wow! But anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I was talking about being the artillery. And it's true. I'm usually good for one or maybe two offensive spells in a battle, and I think that's a pretty good contribution, considering the fact that I'm not a Slayer, a werewolf, or even a kung fu expert.

Oh, and to bring myself back to the main point I was starting to make two paragraphs ago, I'm also starting to realize that my magic can come in handy in non-combat situations. I'm really pleased that I was able to take an evil (as much as a thing can be evil) artifact like the crown and transform it into something that should really make a difference in someone's life. So, basically, I'm not feeling quite so down on myself as I was two weeks ago. Life isn't bad:

1. I can help people with my magic;
2. I can usually come up with a spell to defend myself against vampires (even if I can't be of much help to Dot when it comes to actually fighting them);
3. the Technopagans seemed pretty impressed by my amulet;
4. I'm learning more about magic every day, and any contacts I make via the Technopagans will help that process even more;
5. and, last but not least, I can now move some of the responsibility for keeping our servers up to Ken, which means I can actually leave the office once in a while! Yeah!

Success?

Wed, 04 Feb 2004 22:55:27 GMT

It worked!

Or, umm, at least I think it did. I can't actually test the amulet until I can get a werewolf to try it on.

But at least nothing obvious went wrong. Nothing exploded, nothing got turned into a newt, and the fabric of spacetime seems to have returned to normal. So right now I'm feeling optimistic. Optimistic and tired, actually. I think I'll grab a nap before I try to tackle the Squid configuration problem.

Imbolc Ritual

Wed, 04 Feb 2004 04:02:37 GMT

I think I've now got everything set for my ritual. The exact halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox occurs tomorrow morning at 10:56, so that's when I'm going to try it.

I remembered reading in the Wolfstone Codex that Rowe's play The Fair Penitent was actually a fictionalization of real-life events. Evidently his Lothario character was based on a guy who had made some kind of shady deal with the notorious Blue Wizard of Devonshire in exchange for his superhuman powers of seduction. Of course, all the mystical stuff was left out of the play, but it's clear that the initial form of the mind-control spell that ended up powering the Lothario's Crown was around before 1703, which means it was developed before England switched to the Gregorian calendar. And the upshot of all of that is that I didn't feel like Feb 2 was a very significant date for a spell that was written while the Julian calendar was still in effect. And if the calendar was useless, I had no choice but to turn to astronomy. I'm just hoping my reasoning was correct -- otherwise this will all have been for nothing.

So, where does that leave things? I've structured the ritual so that's it got nothing to do with lycanthropy per se. Yes, I am invoking the healing aspect of Brigit, but what I'm hoping to heal is not lycanthropy -- it's the loss of self-control. Thus, if the ritual is successful, the transformed Crown -- which, by that point will be more like an amulet -- should allow the wearer to not only control herself when she is in wolf form, but also to actually choose when she changes, full moon or no!

The main idea of the ritual is that I'll burn a specific combination of various leaves and herbs to create a thick white smoke. (And yes, I've already disconnected the smoke alarm!) Since, as I mentioned, I'm not planning on doing anything anti-werewolf, I'm specifically leaving the monkshood (Aconitum vulparia aka wolfsbane) out of the mix, and I'll be using a traditional Imbolc mixture of dried winter flora. I'm going to burn my Yule holly and (new world) mistletoe (Phoradendron), and I've even spent some serious money -- and called in a big favor -- to get some of the good stuff: real European mistletoe (Loranthaceae Viscum album) from a Druid grove on Anglesey, harvested at midnight beneath a full moon, cut with a silver sickle, caught -- untouched by human hand -- in an oaken bowl carved with the sacred runes of Arianrhod and Cerridwen, and then Fedexed priority overnight to my doorstep.

Once the room is sufficiently smokey I can start to take the Crown apart and break the circle. I can do this -- literally -- with my eyes closed, since I've practiced it so many times, including in the dark since I expect that visibility will be limited during the ritual. So far, so good. The next part gets a little tricky -- I've got to give the Crown a half-twist and put it back together which, unfortunately, is completely impossible in four-dimensional spacetime. But that's where the spell comes in. I think I've worked out a way to warp space in a controlled fashion. I'll use a carefully designed series of ritual motions and gestures (the somatic component of the spell) to cause the smoke to move just so, and I've got a computer set up to project a revised coordinate system (see Chapter 17 of Starhawk's Analytic Geometry and the Demon Dimensions) onto the swirling vapor. Once all of that is in place, I can start the incantation that will cause the shape of reality to conform to the shape of the gradient lines projected in the smoke. And if I get all of that to happen just right, so that it all comes into alignment at exactly 10:56 AM tomorrow, I should be able to invoke the power of Bridget and use it to give the Crown a half-twist and re-connect it.

Nothing could be simpler, right?

Anyway, if it all goes as planned the Crown will no longer actually be a crown, but an amulet. And geometrically it will be isomorphic to a Mobius strip, which means that the wearer should be able to focus the mind-control power inward instead of outward, thereby taking control of all aspects of her lycanthropy.

Wish me luck.

Ritual Confusion

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:05:46 GMT

I've been working on an idea to help a friend control her lycanthropy, and I've been making good, steady progress, but I just realized that I'm under time pressure. As part of my project, there's a ritual that I've absolutely got to perform during a High Sabbat, which means Imbolc, Beltaine, Lughnasadh, or Samhain. I was aware that Imbolc (otherwise known as Groundhog Day) was coming up soon, but I figured that if I wasn't ready by then I could always wait for Beltaine (in May).

Except, oops, not. I now realize that Imbolc might be the only day the ritual can succeed, and at the very least it's certainly the day on which the chances of success will be the greatest. Imbolc is Brigit's day, and she, in her three aspects, is the Goddess of Healing, Smithcraft, and Poetry. And -- not so coincidentally -- those are the three most important aspects of my ritual. I am attempting to heal a werewolf, at least insofar as such a thing is possible -- there is no cure, but if I'm successful she should be able to control herself while in wolf form, which is the next best thing. My task also involves a significant bit of smithcraft. I have a powerful magical artifact that I'll need to physically modify in order to re-channel its energies to suit my purposes. And, finally, poetry: I'll need to flawlessly recite a very difficult spell -- which is kind of a poetic thing to do -- for this whole thing to work, and I'll only have one shot at it. If I flub one syllable, the whole thing is ruined. And to make matters worse, I've got to time it so that I pronounce the final word of the spell at the "highest" moment of the High Sabbat. This I think I can (mostly) do, as I've counted the syllables and I've been practicing with a metronome and a stopwatch so I know exactly how long before the critical instant to start.

One of the big issues I'm still facing right now is that I'm not sure when the highest instant of Imbolc is. Imbolc, in recent centuries, has been celebrated on Feb 2, but if you go back a little farther it seems that that's only an approximation. Imbolc is "really" the quarter-crossing; that is, it is defined to be halfway between the Winter Solstice (Yule) and the Spring Equinox (Ostara). By that reckoning, the exact moment of the quarter-crossing would be Wednesday, Feb 4 at 10:56 AM PST. Thus, I see three real possibilities for the ritual. In order of increasing traditionalness, they are:

1. At high noon on Feb 2.
2. At 12:22 PM on Feb 2, which is the sun's transit (midway between sunrise and sunset) that day.
3. At 10:56 AM on Feb 4.

I better get into serious research mode this weekend, because if I don't figure out what time to do the ritual I've only got a one-in-three shot, and I don't like those odds.

Oh, and of course I'll have to remind Roberta not to schedule me for any meetings during any of those times. Hmm, and actually, that might be tough, especially on Monday (Feb 2), since Ken -- the new hire who'll be reporting to me -- starts that day. Somehow I'm not sure how he'll react if, on his first day at work, he learns that his boss is unavailable because she's busy invoking the power of Brigit to make a magical amulet to help a werewolf. On second thought maybe I'll just say I've got a dentist appointment.

I suck

Tue, 27 Jan 2004 06:39:26 GMT

Last night Dot and I went to a graveyard in Colma to intercept and dust a vamp before he could engage in "fangs of mass destruction program related activity". Tiff wasn't available (off doing the whole rehab thing, no doubt), but I figured that between a Slayer and a witch we wouldn't have any trouble. Even when we saw that the vamp had brought along his sidekick, it didn't seem like there was anything to worry about. Unfortunately, we didn't count on the fact that vamp #1 would be all but indestructible due to magical nanotech. And we didn't count on the fact that, evidently, I suddenly suck at fighting vampires.

Once the tough-looking one went for Dot and I was left with the understudy, I figured the battle would last about 3 seconds -- just long enough for me to set him on fire. Oh sure, my fire spell worked as planned, but the jerk didn't have the good manners to go up in a cloud of fiery dust. He actually managed to put the fire out and continue attacking me! What is the world coming to when vampires know about "stop, drop, and roll"? It looks like I may have to broaden my arsenal. Anyway, so Rasputin the freaking Undead Monk puts himself out, gets up, ignores his third-degree burns, and knocks the crap out of me. Geez he was strong. One punch and I felt like I was half dead. At that point I should have cast my Air Become Fist spell at him, which, his resourcefulness aside, would have smashed him into a million tiny, dusty pieces. The problem was that I completely chickened out. My Fist spell it right at the very limit of my abilities. Actually, it might be just beyond my limit, but I figure that if conditions are perfect I've got a decent shot at success. But of course conditions were not perfect. Casting the fire spell took some of my mojo reserves, not to mention the fact that I was in serious physical pain from the beating the vamp had just handed me. Anyway, the upshot of all of that is that everything (the weakness, the pain, the fear) all got to me and I essentially gave up. I cast a defensive spell to keep the vamp off of me, and just stood there waiting for Dot to come rescue me. So instead of being a warrior, I became a victim. Just great.

But none of the above would have even mattered if Dot's vamp had not been rendered all but undustable by (what turned out to be) demonic little nanobots he got from Ifurita via Dr Evil. Dot can often dust a vamp on her first try, but this guy put up a fight for close to five minutes. Unreal! In the end, though, even new technology combined with Old Magick was no match for the Slayer, and she dusted his sorry ass and came to save mine.

Overall, this was a major step backward for my vampire-fighting street cred, and I've seriously got to find some new spells if I want to stay in the game.

Technopagans and Werewolves and Venture Capitalists -- Oh My!

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 05:29:31 GMT

So, there's a lot going on in my life right now. We're having serious growing pains at Vampster, and if we don't get a cash infusion soon our infrastructure could collapse. I'm not looking forward to ceding control to a bunch of VCs, but what else can we do? And I guess in some ways it would be nice for us to have a few more resources at our disposal. We could definitely use some new hardware, and it would be nice to maybe hire one or two more technical people so that I'm not stuck at the office 24/7 trying to keep our servers running. (Although, hmm, I guess spending nights at the office isn't the worst thing in the world -- Dot and Sam seem to like it -- but there are certainly things I'd rather be doing with all that time.)

Went to SF the other day to meet with a representative of the Technopagan Alliance. Cool guy, and pretty interesting. And the Alliance itself sounds like it has possibilities. I was a little worried that they'd be too stuffy and hierarchical for my taste, but they don't seem that way at all. If anything, they have the opposite problem: there is so little structure that they seem to have cliques, internal factions, and shifting alliances. They've evidently chosen sides in an internal struggle reminiscent of The Diamond Age, which is kind of weird in a life-imitates-art sort of way. It all sounded rather complicated, actually, and I didn't feel like it would have been appropriate for me to keep pestering him with questions, so I just let it go. It's too bad they didn't pick a simpler book -- like, say, Zodiac -- to satisfy their collective urge to act out a Neil Stephenson novel, but at least they didn't do Snow Crash.

On another note, I just had a random thought about Ifurita. We've always just assumed that her complete memory loss was a natural consequence of the process that re-animated her. But what if Dr Evil did it on purpose, maybe to make it easier to control her? If that's the case, then he probably did it with a spell. I mean, nanotech can do a lot of things, but I don't see how you could use it to selectively wipe out certain kinds of memories (e.g. what her name was) but leave others in place (e.g. how to tie her shoes). But anyway, yeah, if it was a spell, then maybe we can do something about it. I'll definitely need to do some further research along these lines.

Finally, I may have made some real progress on the werewolf issue! I don't want to get too far ahead of myself here, because there are still a number of details to be worked out -- not to mention the pure mojo I'll need to actually cast the spell which is the cornerstone of the whole thing -- but I think I've finally got my mind wrapped around all the issues involved. The coolest thing is that -- in theory -- I may have worked out a way for a werewolf to actually control when she transforms! How awesome would that be? No longer a slave to the lunar cycle.

And, as an added bonus, I bet if I can pull off the werewolf thing it'll impress the heck out of the Technopagans, and it just might be my ticket to membership.

Bast's Evergreen Box

Sat, 17 Jan 2004 05:01:47 GMT

I think I've discovered a powerful new spell! Well, ok, it's not all that powerful. It's called Bast's Evergreen Box, and evidently you can use it to enchant a cat's litter box so that, no matter how often a cat uses it, there's never actually any cat poop in it. Bast is the Goddess of Cats, so it's not surprising that this sort of spell would have been a high priority for her followers. The enchanted boxes are evidently called "evergreen" not only because they're eternally fresh and clean, but also because of the aromatic pine scent that gently wafts forth.

[Edit: updated to fix the error Roberta pointed out, in hopes of minimizing the offense I may have given to the Lady of Cats.]

On the other hand...

Fri, 16 Jan 2004 01:05:29 GMT

OOC: private

Dot wrote this in her blog:

...it was Max who destroyed it. And boy did she ever. There was this huge explosion and parts of it were thrown into orbit!! Did I mention that Max kicks ass?

And maybe she's right -- maybe I do kick ass. Dot's pretty smart, and she usually knows what she's talking about. And it was kind of an awesome explosion. I don't know why I got so freaked out in my previous post about losing control of my magic and maybe hurting people. It's not like the spell failed or anything. My spell worked. I killed the demon. I blasted it into orbit. I'm sure any doubts I had about the spell at the time were just first-time jitters, due to the fact that I'd never tried anything so powerful before. But now that I'm used to it, I'm sure I'll have nothing to worry about in the future. No one'll get hurt. Well, no one except for those I mean to hurt, naturally -- they'll get blasted into orbit. But innocents have nothing to worry about. I can handle myself -- Dot knows it, and now I know it.

And I'm going to do whatever it takes to keep showing Dot that I do, in fact, kick ass.

Playing softball, and playing hardball

Tue, 13 Jan 2004 02:25:54 GMT

The Woolfs had a resounding victory over the SCUM yesterday! Well, ok, it wasn't all that resounding. It was a 1-0 victory. By forfeit. In a game we probably would have lost due to the SCUM's unhittable post-human demon goddess pitcher. But, hey, a win is a win, so I'll take it. Barring any unexpected losses to teams we're supposed to beat, we should win the league championship this season.

Let's see, did anything else happen? Certainly nothing as interesting or important as beating the SCUM, but there was the little incident where we were all ATTACKED BY A GIANT SOFTBALL DEMON! Evidently one or two of the SCUM players (Clarice and Julie, I think -- ha, I should have known!) decided Dot was too much for them to handle fairly, so they summoned a demon. Bad idea. Not only because they probably would have won the game courtesy of their own ringer, but because, you know, the demon tried to freaking kill everyone. Luckily Jane realized it was vulnerable to attacks with wooden bats, so we were able to hurt it at least a little. Unluckily we had mostly aluminum bats on hand, so only a few people could actually join in the fight.

Dot was great as usual. She was the first one to actually hurt it. She knocked a bunch of its constituent balls away, and then she literally ripped two of its "bases" (which formed its hands and feet -- yeah it was weird) apart. I tried to set it on fire with a spell at one point, which was not my brightest move ever. Instead of a giant, crazed, rampaging, murderous demon, we were suddenly faced with a giant, crazed, rampaging, murderous FLAMING demon. Oops. Eventually it did dawn on me that this would be an ideal time to try out that new spell I've been working on. The good news is that it worked! I was able to focus my power into a fist of air that slammed into the demon and finished it off. It was reduced to a pile of softballs. Not bad!

Now, the bad news. Or at least the pause-to-reflect news. Up until yesterday, the main limitation on my magic had always been knowledge. Any spell I could learn, I could do -- which is one reason I've been so obsessed with trying to obtain more magic books. But this time, even though the spell itself was relatively straightforward, I very, very nearly failed to cast it correctly. There was so much raw power flowing through me that I didn't think I had the strength to contain it. It was pure luck -- pointedly dramatic luck -- that I was able to keep my wits about me and avert disaster. I just keep thinking to myself, what if I hadn't been so lucky? My mystical Fist could have flailed out of control and smashed into a bunch of innocent bystanders. I mean, suppose I had struck the dugout where the SCUM were cowering. It's not like I'm best friends with them or anything, but I certainly don't want to kill them (or anyone else, for that matter) and I so easily could have become a mass murderer.

So, now I basically don't know what to do. I know this spell, and it's not like I can unlearn it. But I also know deep down that it's more than I can handle, and that I don't dare try to cast it again. Well, maybe as a last resort, like if I'm about to be eaten by a vampire or something. And maybe someday I'll have the mojo needed to focus energy like that. But until then, even though I should be overjoyed about beating the SCUM and casting a kick-ass spell that saved the day, I'm actually feeling strangely powerless and defeated. I wonder if people realize how close I came to killing everyone?

Booked

Tue, 06 Jan 2004 02:20:38 GMT

You would think I would've learned my lesson after ending up in near-poverty when i-BS went down in flames, but no. I'm pretty much immune to lesson-learning. I still pour every cent I earn into my library. Many of the books I buy (at hefty prices, mind you) turn out to be worthless fakes, but I'm finally starting to get pretty good at figuring out what's real and what isn't, and I'm also learning which of my contacts actually deliver the goods, and which are just out to make a quick buck. As a result, I've now got my hands on some pretty interesting information.

For one thing, I've just added a new spell to my arsenal. I'm almost (I said almost) eager to face something dark, scary, and evil so I can try it out. The problem is that this is such a powerful spell that I'm not 100% sure I've got the mojo to do it. I guess I'll find out soon enough. And, hey, you learn by doing, right?

Also, after learning from from HM that my old friend JC (who I lost touch with in '99) was murdered by Angelus, I did some research. Turns out Angelus is, like, the biggest, baddest vampire in history. And what's even more creepy is that the LA Lawyer who helped us out during the Illuminent fiasco looks exactly like Angelus. Incredibly disturbing. Someone should warn him or something.

I've also found out tons of stuff about lycanthropy, including a thing or two that might be of use to some Woolfs I know. Need to do more research before I get anyone's hopes up, but what I've seen so far seems promising.

State of the Wiccan

Sat, 03 Jan 2004 06:33:07 GMT

Putting aside my Ifurita-related (and other) angst, there are actually a number of things in my life that are heading in the right direction, such as...

...Softball, which is going really well. We've got an excellent team this season. If Dot plays with us there's no team in the league who could touch us (umm, unless they had, say, to pick an example completely at random, a post-human demon goddess), but even without Dot we'd still be damn good. As for my personal level of play, it's never been better -- I feel stronger and quicker than I've ever been, and I'm really playing up to my potential. When I was growing up I thought that maybe someday I might be good enough to play in the Olympics, but now I realize and accept that that's never going to happen. I'm a good recreational player, but I'll never have the bat-speed or arm-strength to be anything more. But, hey, I'm fine with that. There are now plenty of things in my life more important than softball. Which brings me to...

...Vampster. The company actually seems to be surviving, which feels really good after the i-BS fiasco. Our business model seems sound, and now that the government is (or seems to be?) off our collective back, our prospects seem decent. Also, I feel pretty good about my technical contributions. What I'm doing is not rocket science, and I'm not going to change the world, but I think the Vampster infrastructure is in pretty good shape, and a good part of that is due to code I wrote. Of course, Vampster is a pretty unusual high-tech company in that the high-tech part plays second fiddle to the...

...Slaying. Yes, the slaying side of our endeavor seems to be going great guns. Dot is fierce and seemingly invincible, Tiff seems to be slowly getting her act together, and everyone else seems willing and able to contribute to the cause. I even got into the slaying action a few weeks ago (during the Coffee Now! affair), when I faced down four vamps. I toasted two and managed to hold off the other two until help (Dot, naturally) arrived. So what's my slaying secret? Improved technique with a wooden stake? Nifty kung fu moves? Nope, turns out it's...

...Magic. This has really been a pivotal year in my career as a witch. I've been interested in the occult for as long as I can remember, but it's only recently that I've been able to take some of that "fancy book-larnin'" and apply it in the real world. In addition to the aforementioned vampire-toasting, I also set fire to an innocent dessert (I needed a diversion), cast multiple glamour spells (one improvised to use a camera phone rather than an old-fashioned brass bowl -- ain't technology grand?), a protection spell (don't want you-know-who to get her key back), transmogrified some hair into a working GPS transmitter (so the bad guys didn't get away), and invoked the power of Tyr to raise a barrier between me and the vamps (hey, I wanted to keep myself alive -- go figure). Not bad, if I do say so myself. And it keeps getting better. I thought I had a good occult library before, but I've been upgrading it lately and now I'd say it's better than good -- it's downright impressive. My goal now is to make use of my new codices, grimoires, tomes, compendiums, and other magical volumes and find some cool new spells to add to my repertoire. I'd like to come up with at least two spells (one offensive, one defensive) to use in combat, and maybe one or two miscellaneous spells to use in other situations as necessary. Here are some examples:

Expectations Fulfilled -- create the illusion that you gave someone what they expected you to give them. Useful if you need a fake ID or a backstage pass.

Fog of Protection -- create a fog that confuses monsters and allows you to run away. Could come in handy. :)

Levitation -- self-explanatory. Cool on general principles.

Teleportation -- also self-explanatory. No way I have the mojo to manage this one right now, but it's something to work towards eventually.

Air Become Fist -- strike at your enemy with a magical fist. Even Ifurita might feel this one! This spell is currently #1 on my priority list, since I'm going to need something along these lines if I'm ever going to be able to help out Dot and Tiff in a real battle. Of course, the fact that I could only do this about once a day, whereas they can wail on the bad guys about 17 times per minute kind of puts my contribution into perspective.

In summary, life isn't bad. I somehow never imagined my life would turn out like it has, but I can't say I'm disappointed.

Loose Lips

Fri, 02 Jan 2004 23:12:10 GMT

I may have said too much to Ifurita about the Lothario's Crown I took from Asaba. I didn't mention it by name, but I did give more details than I should have, and it's not beyond the realm of possibility that she'll figure out what it is.

Not, of course, that that's necessarily a bad thing if she can be trusted. Between her mad nanotech skillz, my magic, and the power of the Crown, it's just possible that we could do something to her to get her out from under Dr Evil's thumb. The big problem with all of that is that in the mean time she's still very much under that thumb.

Hmm, now that I think about it, maybe it would not be the end of the world if I just told her we've got the Crown -- after all it's well hidden, and it's guarded with the same mojo that's keeping her away from her key. Still, I was warned that if Dr Evil learned that I was becoming friendly with Ifurita he would show no hesitation in exploiting that weakness.

Idiot!!

Fri, 02 Jan 2004 08:43:51 GMT

OOC: private

Yes, I am the biggest fscking idiot in the world.

I made up that stupid story about Sam being in the bathroom in an idiotic attempt to keep Dot from figuring out the real reason why I was so flustered when I walked into the bathroom, but moron that I am I forgot that the implication of my story was that I had not read Dot's blog recently. Little does she know that I've got a software agent set up to continuously monitor her blog, call my cell phone, and read me a speech-synthesized version of what she wrote. (Speech synthesis done with samples of her own voice, naturally.) So, yeah, now she thinks I don't care about her enough to read her blog! Have I mentioned that I am a complete idiot?

Also, she thinks I'm being nonchalant about my magic. I guess that was my intention, but I certainly don't want to overplay that card, especially now that I screwed up with making her think I don't care enough to read her blog. I think I need to act a little bit less nonchalant. Hold on.... Ok, 3 hours later, I've written a Scheme program to model the situation, and it looks like the optimal solution would be for me to still act somewhat nonchalant, but not completely nonchalant. Specifically, if I increase my chalance quotient by 37.2%, that ought to do the trick.

You know, sometimes I think it would be easier to just, you know, tell her how I feel! Nah, that's crazy.

Resolution #9

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 22:36:35 GMT

One day a couple weeks ago, I arrived at the office a few minutes early so I could spend some time playing with Sam before work. She wasn't in her little kitty bed or her cube, so I walked around the office calling her. She usually responds to the sound of my voice, so I was beginning to get a little worried when I couldn't find her. Then it occurred to me to check the bathroom. I could hear the shower running, so it was possible she followed someone in there and couldn't hear my calls. I went in to look for her, and sure enough, there she was! She had been trapped inside, and she raced out as soon as I opened the door. I was so startled I didn't know what to do for a second, but then I turned around and raced after her. (I think someone was getting out of the shower at this time, but I didn't really notice who.)

Anyway, I've been replaying that whole incident over and over in my mind ever since, and I just can't stop thinking about it. I guess I must be feeling guilty for the way I've been neglecting Sam. So, I hereby resolve to spend more time with her this year. I'm going to arrive early at work every day to play with her, and I'm always going to check to make sure she isn't trapped in the bathroom. Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but I'm already getting a warm feeling inside just thinking about how good it'll make her feel.

Connecting the Dots

Mon, 29 Dec 2003 08:51:45 GMT

OOC: this entry is totally private

A lot happened last night, but I'm too tired to write about all of it now. I guess that can happen when you're awake for 36 hours without sleeping. Anyway, there is one thing that I just have to write about tonight, tired or not:

I may have hope with Dot!!!

Finally found the right situation to ask Chip if Dot has always been exclusively straight. Tried to make it sound like I was just asking out of curiosity. Hopefully he couldn't tell my heart was racing and I was holding my breath waiting for an answer. He said that while Dot never exactly went out and joined Lesbian Avengers, there was this one girl in high school with whom the situation was, at least from Chip's point of view, somewhat ambiguous. So, that's encouraging. But it gets better. As I said I don't have time for all the details now, but at one point we were talking with this Bad Guy who had some sort of magic mind-control device that he was -- naturally (sigh) -- using to pick up chicks. Anyway, later on when this guy -- who, remember, seems to have had magically-enhanced gaydar -- was picking out potential straight victims, he labeled most of the women as "yes", me as a "no", and Dot as a "maybe". I'm hoping that means Dot is bi!

Now all I have to do is impress her. I've got to appear super-competent and super-cool. But I think it would turn her off if she thought I was trying to impress her, so I have to be careful there. Must appear to be acting completely natural. Will spend two hours every night painstakingly perfecting my air of effortless nonchalance.

Also need to show her that I can kick vampire/demon/monster butt. Smacked the crap out a vampire with a softball bat last night, and that felt pretty good, but I'm realistic enough to know that the only way I'm going to be in remotely the same league as a slayer is to learn new, more powerful spells. Have got to start taking more risks if I want the big payoff. Must devote more time to spell R&D.

Ifurita

Sun, 28 Dec 2003 20:53:11 GMT

What is her deal? Can I trust her? Is this whole "manipulated woman" thing an elaborate con to get at my weak spot? If it is, she's doing a very good job. I've got to keep my wits and not get carried away. It's just...

When a strong, powerful woman is controlled and manipulated like that, it seems like such a tragedy of nature. It's like despoiling the pristine Alaskan wildlife preserve for oil, logging the ancient redwoods, or capturing a predatory cat as it runs wild and free across the veldt and locking it in a tiny metal cage to be gawked at by slobbering, glassy-eyed, inbred hicks, taunted by the powerless and the ineffectual in their sublimated fury at their own impotence, spat at, poked with sticks, and subjected to the thousand casual cruelties of spoiled schoolboys on field-trips to the zoo.

But anyway, yeah, it gets to me.

Posting-Up by Stephanie Grant

Wed, 24 Dec 2003 04:57:34 GMT

This quote from a short story by Stephanie Grant is one of my favorites, even though it's about basketball rather than softball.

It wasn't really a conscious decision, my right elbow just bent, all by itself, and let the ball go. It cleared Kate's fingers, smacked the backboard a little too hard, and fell into the hoop. This time we both landed on our butts.

From the ground everything finally made sense. I knew what Kate meant by being in one's body: I was in mine. I looked up at the calves and thighs surrounding me. These women were in every inch of theirs. They seemed completely without fear: of their bodies, of each other, of their desires. I could see that they even liked their bodies, which is what at first seemed so peculiar. I had never met a woman who liked her own body.

I stayed on the ground, not wanting to get up. I knew that being in my body meant choosing myself. And choosing desire. So few women I knew had chosen themselves: Sr. Bernadette, Kate, and in her own evil way, Irene.

Sr. Bernadette walked over to Kate, who was still flat on her back, and extended both of her hands. Kate grabbed hold and Sr. Bernadette yanked her to her feet. Kate seemed about eight feet tall standing so close to Sr. Bernadette. They just looked at each other, and I could tell that they were, indeed, friends. But somehow it didn't bother me so much now.

Kate let go of Sr. Bernadette's hands and stepped over to me. She reached out one hand and pulled me up. She dusted my behind and shrugged, indifferent: "Nice move.... Who taught you that?"

"No one," I said. "No one taught me that." And she nodded.