2023-02-12

homepage/blog

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+2023-02-12
+
+PREM X BELLA: AN UNLIKELY ROMANCE
+Chapter One
+	Bella woke up before the sun to her alarm, threw it against the wall,
+and went back to sleep.
+	The next time she woke up the sun was blinding in her window and she
+realized she was either late for school or about to be. She threw her bedsheets
+to the floor, put a piece of toast in her Hello Kitty x Evangelion toaster,
+went to the bathroom and quickly brushed her teeth, put on her school uniform,
+grabbed the toast as it popped out of the toaster, put it in her mouth, and ran
+out the door.
+	The sun beat down on the Shibuya streets. The cicadas sang and the
+birds tweeted, but it irritated Bella, who really needed to get to school. She
+ran to the bus stop but saw the bus drive off and decided she could run the
+distance, and broke into a sprint towards school.
+	Prem, a student at the same school, meanwhile was leisurely riding its
+bike on a different street. It checked its Casio and knew it had enough time to
+get there, so it wasn't worried. Prem had pulled an all nighter making speed in
+its parents garage while they were out of town. Prem met an intersection,
+waited for the traffic signal, and then crossed.
+	Meanwhile Bella was running as fast as she could towards her high
+school. At the same intersection she figured she could make it and ran across.
+Then she got to the corner past the street and ran straight into Prem on its
+bicycle. They both fell over onto the ground.
+	"What the fuck?" Prem cried.
+	Bella's toast was knocked to the ground and she caught sight of it.
+"Noo."
+	Prem's bicycle chain had come undone. It took its repair kit out from
+under the seat and started to repair it.
+	"I'm so sorry. I'm late for school-"
+	"So am I, now!"
+	Bella sniffed and tried not to cry. Not only was she late for school
+but in her rush had inflicted the same fate on another. "Is there anything I
+can do to help?"
+	"No. Go away." Now Prem was the one that was irritated.
+	Bella started walking and then broke into a run and ended up at school
+a couple minutes later. The teacher made her stand in the hall holding pails of
+water as punishment. Some time after that Prem arrived late too and, to Bella's
+surprise, ended up next to her. She whispered to Prem. "You go here too?"
+	Prem whispered back. "Same class, moron."
+	Bella had never noticed Prem. It had black hair pulled into a ponytail
+and was usually silent in the back of the classroom, either sleeping or writing
+down chemical formulas it had thought of. Meanwhile Bella was usually in the
+front of the class participating with the current discussion. Bella realized
+Prem was really handsome, too, but tried to ignore that.
+	Prem had always noticed Bella. Bella was the pretty person in the front
+of the classroom with all the energy, occasionally interrupting Prem's thought
+with pointless interjections regarding the weather or school sports.
+	They both were quiet for a beat or two before Bella whispered again.
+"Can I make it up to you? I'll buy you matcha after school."
+	Prem replied. "I guess. But it better be good."
+	And it would be a date.
+
+	You can request chapter 2 through my Patreon, two months' of requests
+equals one chapter so if two people request in one month then I'll write it a
+month from now or if one person requests twice I'll write it two months from
+now. I need money.
+
+[10:17 AM] bella: the grindset lmfao. i respect it
+
+	Theodore Castleberry woke up in bed next to his wife, Minerva. The sun
+shone into the sparse room through the curtains. Minerva still lay sleeping so
+before waking her Theodore silently slid out of bed and into the bathroom to
+pee and wash his mouth out. The clock said it was seven AM.
+	After Minerva was awoken and the couple had breakfast that Theodore,
+known to his friends as Ted, had cooked - two eggs, some bacon, and some toast
+for each of them - and the newspaper had been read, and Minerva had showered,
+and the makeup and the deodorant and the day's plan had been discussed, Ted
+drove himself and his wife to their work, a small accounting firm that took
+contracts from bigger businesses when they needed more resources than they had.
+Minerva was filling out papers for a lawn mowing company that didn't expect an
+audit from the tax man. Ted was balancing out performance and paychecks for
+Johnson Corporate Networking, a computer company in the mid-21st century that
+grew into a laboratory and then left the computer field when that dried up. It
+wasn't interesting work but it paid the both of them enough to afford a house
+together and work breaks too, so an observer might say the two were happy.
+	Ted, however, felt nothing. He stared at his books and penciled in
+number after number, and felt nothing about it. He felt nothing for his wife.
+He felt nothing for himself when he looked in the mirror. And he didn't
+remember when this started. Nor when he started working for JCN. Nor when he
+met Minerva or proposed or even the day before the current day. He knew how to
+push a pencil and he remembered how to do his math and he was content, for now.
+And when the bell rang and he went to lunch and he ate his soup in peace and
+looked at his wife who looked back with a love he couldn't reciprocate he knew
+he was lucky. And the bell rang again and he walked back to his desk.
+	Today something was wrong. Ted didn't know what was wrong. But he
+didn't feel right. He felt really, really wrong. The lights, the paper, it was
+all wrong. He jerked his legs just to feel his muscle flex and felt his shoe
+hit a piece of plastic.
+
+Metatango
+	"I wanna learn the metatango." Olive and Shepherd were walking the
+halls looking for something to do.
+	Shepherd observed Olive. "The metatango? Where did you see that?"
+	Olive pointed at a program she'd kept in her pocket. Learn the
+Metatango, with Señora Discorda.
+	"I don't think that's such a good idea."
+	"Why not?"
+	"						One
+						does not simply
+					do the meta
+		tango." said Shepherd.
+	"How did you do that?"
+	"						You
+						must go now ponder
+					the     very
+		tango." said Shepherd.
+	"Are you singing?"
+	"						And
+						if you must know
+					   the meta
+		tango," said Shepherd, "		you
+						will have to discuss
+					the     very	meta
+		tango."
+	"I don't quite understand."
+	"I'll take you over to Discorda, but don't tell her you're with me,
+okay?"
+	"But I figured the metatango would be, like, a dance. You just sang a
+couple bars about the metatango and the weird structure made me think it had
+something to do with what the metatango is. But I don't know what it is."
+
+
 2023-02-11
 
 	Alliteration in news headlines is so corny. "Panic at the pump" is a