Nano Day 27 - Titled: The Pan Aspect

[joegoda]

For Capi and the Readers. Only 19 thousand words to go!


There is a moment, every time I step into the shower, that I fear for my life. The water hitting my face will almost send me into a panic. I don't know why. Maybe somewhere in my youth, someone pulled me under the water. Maybe somewhere I almost drowned because somebody splashed me at the pool. Whatever the reason is, water and I have never had a very good relationship.

That sort of panic gripped me as I felt claws pull at my consciousness and try to drag me under. My vision faded quickly and the last thing I saw was Angelina's face, her eyes big, her mouth a bigger O. I couldn't hear anything at all. My ears just simply stopped hearing.

I held onto my awareness until I could feel the van slide off the road, and bite gravel. Though I couldn't see, and I couldn't hear, I could feel. My feet found the brake pedal and pressed it, gently. My hands felt the vibration on on the steering wheel fade as the vehicle came to a stop. Considering I couldn't see the scenery, but knowing that we were near about a thousand drop offs, I had just a moment of concern before everything went away and I couldn't feel at all.

Panic is a stupid thing. It robs your sense of reason. It's why I have tried all my life to hold onto logic and reason. I'd like to think that I'm a fairly stable person. When I graduated high school, my uncle, an incredible man in his own right, gave me a congratulations card. It contained a Rudyard Kipling quote: "If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you. The world will be yours and everything in it, what's more, you'll be a man, my son."

Ever since then, I've striven to keep my wits about me. At that moment, right then and there, I just about lost them. If I could have sobbed, I would have. I was terrified.

The place I was in was not only dark, it was a place that dark wouldn't have gone into. No shades of half lit dark, no bits of anything reflecting anything that resembled anything other than black. They say that dark is the absence of light. I was in a spot where light hadn't even got to yet.

Though I had no lungs, I drew a shaky breath. Though I had no eye lids, I blinked away non-existent tears The world, such as it was, righted as such as it could right. I was ashamed of myself. Panic was not the answer, panic is never the answer. In fact, it could very well be that panic was why I was brought here.

When a person panics, they loose their mind. When a person's mind is lost it doesn't take much for someone else to find it, and do with it as they will. And that thought, even more than the panic, scared me very, very much.

The best way to fight panic is to do something. Do anything. Panic freezes the mind, the body, and the helplessness that accompanies it causes the panic to deepen. I needed to do something. I needed to keep my head when I had lost mine.

I reached out with my senses, now that I had calmed a bit. In this place there was no way to tell if I was upside down or right side up. I couldn't see or feel my hands or feet or body, and yet, I had the distinct impression that they were somewhere near by.

Since I was a little boy, I was able to extend myself, my awareness, so that I could feel every part of my body, simply by pushing my consciousness into it. I've seen movies where Kung Fu masters talked to their students about focusing their Chi into their fists or their feet and releasing it in one blow. The master would invariably demonstrate by breaking a brick or smashing boards or something. What I do is kind of like that. I can squish myself into the tip of my little toe.

Granted, I hadn't done that for a very long time. In fact, I had fallen completely out of the heavy meditation, feeling the universe around me sort of thing. I don't know why. Maybe it was an age thing. At 50, it just seemed there were other things to do. Not more important, you understand. Just... other things.

I took my mind and I focused on my right hand. See, in my world, the world where I use my hands to heal, I run by the phrase, "The right hand giveth, the left hand taketh away." I'm quite sure that I came up with this left-right separatism primarily because of some latent religious imagery. See, Jesus sits on the right hand of God. Lucifer, also known as Satan, sits on the left. The left side is also called the sinister side. It's supposed to be the side of evil, of taking.

I use my right hand to give live, to give energy, to supplement and to aid.

My left hand I use when I take away pain, take away illness, take away sickness, which is different than illness in degree and cause.

So I focused myself on my right hand. I pushed my awareness down to the index finger, searching and seeing if it was even there. I felt, ever so vaguely, the comfortable glove feel of my finger, skin over muscle, gristle and bone. Not much of a feeling, but a feeling none the less.

This isn't even one of those circle caster tricks. This is just simple meditation practice. Some people count their breaths, in and out, to reach a Zazen state. Some focus on candle flames, becoming one with the flicker. Some get lost in music, melodious and soft.

I've done them all. I reached a bit of enlightenment once at a party, listening to Emerson, Lake and Palmer's album Tarkus. Something in they music just... took me away. No, there were not drugs involved. I was still in the room, still aware, but also I was somewhere else. Somewhere calm and open and very bright. I was fourteen.

I felt the ghost of my right index finger and I pushed. I pushed all of me that I could in that lightless, soundless abysmal place, and I pushed myself into that finger, as far as I could.

Once I felt I could not fill that finger up any further, I willed myself to heat up, just as if I was healing someone. Maybe I was. Maybe I was healing me.

Slowly, like a gentle yellowish ember, a light emerged from a spot far away from my non-existent eyes. Still, with eyes that were non-existent or real, I could see it, right there, dimly glowing. I willed my hand up, carrying my entire being into that thought, and the little glow went up. I willed it back down, and down it went. It looked like a half-dead glowstick in a cavern. But it was something.

Something, however, wasn't going to get me anywhere. I needed me, full and sound. What the half dot of glow showed me was more and more nothing. I tried to bring my finger over to where the rest of my body was, but there was only more of the blackness. If I had a body, it wasn't anything that I would recognize.

I opened my mouth to speak. I imagined I drew the breath, I imagined I pushed it back out. Nothing, not a sound came out. My tongue had apparently gotten left behind when I came here. I'm not sure if I could hear anything even if I could speak. I decided to test that theory.

I figured that if I could bring my left hand back from oblivion, I could clap my left and right together. At least I could tell if there was a sound, maybe. Of course, it was possible that all sound would be swallowed up, like my body. It was possible that even if there was a sound, I wouldn't hear it. If you don't take chances, if you don't make guesses, you never get any where.

Bringing my half of my consciousness from my right hand, I pushed the loose half down to my left hand, the sinister hand, the one that didn't work quite right since I tore my left rotator cuff. The little glow from my right index finger faded out.

I felt that left hand fill up, like an empty balloon. I felt that left hand, with all of its tendons and ligaments stretch and turn, flexing in having found itself. That surprised me. I was only hoping for the finger of the hand, and suddenly I had a hand back. From there, I imagined that my whole body was one large deflated Macy day parade float, and spent a bit of time reinflating myself. I felt my legs unravel and fill, I felt my chest blow up like an inflatable pillow.

It's an odd thing, rediscovering your own body. It felt good to have it back, even though it was only gone for a bit. I still couldn't see anything. I still couldn't speak.

After the surprise that I had a body again, I focused on my hands. I focused on bringing them together and seeing if two hands clap together, but no one sees them, do they make a noise.

Well, they didn't. Or rather, I could feel them hit, and I could feel what should have been a sound, but I didn't hear anything. I could feel the slap of skin against skin, but they were the same as one hand clapping. Nothing. To hell with my old master. One hand clapping makes no sound at all.

I stood there, or I perched there, or I lay there, or I sat there, it was too dark to tell, clapping away like an idiot, hoping to make some sort of sound. I strained what I thought were my ears and nothing, absolutely nothing came to them. It was the sound of deep black.

The companion of deep black is despair. I've seen it, a couple of times, leaking out of people I loved, and I was totally helpless to stop it. I was beginning to understand what despair was, then. Trapped in a place I couldn't see, couldn't feel, couldn't hear, yes, folks, I was beginning to despair.

I've been depressed, I've been angry, I've been incredibly sad, but I don't think I ever despaired. Ever. I'm the sort that believes every dark cloud eventually fades. Granted, there may be another dark cloud behind the first, but still, it's not the same dark cloud. And that difference in clouds can change your whole world. It's a matter of degrees.

I'm at a place in my life where I'm seeing my loved ones die. I'm at a place in my life where my brother tells me he's starting to get cataracts. He doesn't have the money to pay for any sort of operation. My wife, in Eureka Springs, is suffering from incredibly loneliness and isolation. Her choice, but that does not make me feel any better. I live by myself, have a few close friends, but I don't have any visitors to come over and cuddle.

See what I mean? Put even the happiest person in a dark hell not of their making where there is no sound and they don't know which way is up and dammitall, they will become depressed and despair. I'm not even sure what despair really is, but I could tell that, then and there, I was starting to get the hang of it. I started to say goodbye to everyone and everything I knew.

A bud of light flashed in my brain. Not on the outside, though. Not where my eyes could see it. But in my head, in my mind. A bright light flickered and I heard a voice which sounded oddly like mine say rather unkindly, "What the hell is this?"

I pulled myself out of my self imposed miasma and muttered back, "Excuse me?"

"Who the hell do you think you are?" grumbled the voice in my head. "You sure as hell aren't Chester By God Beebe."

"I don't know who I am." came the sad little response.

"I can sure tell that, chum! There is no way that Chester By God Beebe would find himself in any spot and just cry about it. Chester By God Beebe would find a way out!" The voice was roaring in my head, yelling at me.

"Stop yelling at me," I whined. "There's nothing I can do."

"Nothing you can do?" There erupted a nasty laugh from my other voice. "Nothing? You sure as hell aren't Chester By God Beebe, that's for sure. Why, there were stories that there wasn't anything he couldn't do! If it was impossible, he would be come impossible himself and then do it! If it were improbable, he would make it probable! There were rumors that he...."

"Stop it!" I protested. "Stop it! Can't you see that there is NOTHING here? There's nothing to work with!"

The other voice came back gruffly, quietly. "Whata weenie. Whata homo. If there is NOTHING here, then you better figure out SOMETHING quick! You got people that are depending on you, moron!" There was a silence in my head, but it didn't last. "Come on! THINK of something! You have your brain, don't you? Who the hell do you think is yelling at you? Think, think, think!"

Despair, whatever it is, only needs one thing to dissipate. Hope. It's been said, where there is hope, there is life. Maybe I didn't have a prayer, maybe I didn't have a voice, but by god, I was Chester By God Beebe, and I haven't been in a fix yet I couldn't get through, life through or fight past. Maybe, just maybe, I could think my way out of this. I had my body back, right? Right? And I had a brain, right? That should be enough.

The voice, a smiling sound in its tone, said, "That'll do, pig. That'll do."

I opened my mouth and laughed soundlessly. My grandfather, Joe Goda, looked at me once on a very bad day, a day when nothing seemed to go right, and said, "Chet. As long as you don't lose your sense of humor, you'll do okay." My wife, God love her, once told me after hours of argument that ended when I had to told a joke that cracked her up, "You know, if it wasn't for your sense of humor, you'd already be dead."

I once walked into a McDonalds with my friend Tim, and I was greeted by the counter staff by them calling out "Look! It's the funny man!" Tim never let me forget it, either.

Friends and neighbors, I'm here to tell you that laughter can save your life. Every single moment of every single laugh I had came bubbling up to memory, and if my tear ducts had been real, I would have flooded the place. If I could have doubled over and gasped from the soundless whoops of laughter, I would have broken in half.

I laughed. Oh, how I laughed. There were jokes and limericks and scenes from movies and stories my brothers told me and things that we did together. Good times, let me tell you.

Every single Marx brothers and Three Stooges routine that my brothers and I ever did was right there, on the stage of my mind. I remembered sitting with my chums, Tim and Sherry at the pub, laughing till our eyes spilled over and we couldn't breath.

I remembered the first time I met Tim, in college. Mouth, the cat, who belonged to the house, was eating pretzels. I looked at Tim, a long and tall drink of water, red headed like a mop on legs, and I mentioned to him that it looked like the cat had eaten all the pretzels.

Tim looked up at me from his Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic book and said to me, absolutely deadpan, "He already drank all the beer." Priceless, I tell you. The very stuff and staff of life.

And in the midst of my pending insanity, I felt a hand on my arm, and a voice in my hear.

Angelina was asking me if I was all right.

My voiceless laughter cut off in mid stream and I stopped. The feeing on my arm went away, and all was dark. There wasn't an Angelina near by. There wasn't anybody near by. And I ain't got nobody, and nobody, nobody, got me! New laughter rang, or rather, didn't ring out.

The feel of a hand on my arm again. "Chester! What are you laughing at?" I could feel, but I couldn't see, Angelina shaking my arm. "Wake up! Wake up!"

I willed all my strength to my mouth, to my vocal cords, to my lungs. My ears, which weren't here, heard me say, "Angelina?"

I heard her cry out, "You almost crashed the van! What are you doing? Sleeping?"

"No, I'm not sleeping, Angelina." I told her. "I'm in a place that I think your father, or maybe one or all of your brothers put me. It's all dark here. I can't see anything, and I couldn't hear anything until you yelled at me. I can't tell if I can feel anything, Angelina. There's just nothing here. Absolutely nothing."

"Then why were you laughing?" she asked.

I was never so glad to hear another human being in my life. I may have still been trapped, I may have still been blind, but I wasn't alone. I would get out of this, or my name wasn't Chester By God Beebe.

"I'm ..." How do you explain spontaneous laughter to anyone? "I just think funny thoughts," I said. Which, of course, started me chuckling all over again.

"Well," she said to me, "get out of there! Your laughter is starting to creep me out." I felt the hand on my arm again, shaking me. "It's just not right you looking like you're dead, and laughing!"

"Maybe I'm only mostly dead!" I couldn't stop laughing.

"You're going to be all dead if you don't find a way out." Angelina was, of course, right. If I didn't get out of here, then it would be curtains for me. Coitens, even. Heaven to Murgatroid!

Even though I was quietly laughing in here, I was still chuckling out there, in the real world. I could hear myself like a disembodied voice. It's curious to be laughing and talking and to hear your voice from somewhere else, echoing exactly the movements you are making. It was as bad as the best dubbed movie. Japanese, especially Godzilla movies. "Better Run!"

"Stop that!" Angelina yelled. I felt a sudden hit on my arm. I guess she must have slugged me.

"Okay, okay," I said, trying to reach some form of sanity, "Give me a minute, just a second."

I could hear myself, even though I was half out there. That was a plus. I still couldn't see. I still couldn't feel, unless it was Angelina punching me or touching me. From what I could tell, I was just a ghost of myself.

"Can you walk?" she asked.

"What?" What an absurd question. I couldn't feel anything. How could I walk?

"Can you walk?" she repeated. "I mean, maybe it's just a thing that's happening here. What if you moved away from it. You know... like the Vortex. If you aren't there, maybe you'll be here."

"Well of course if I wasn't here, I'd be the..." That Angelina. She's a pretty bright girl. "I don't know if I can walk. Let me see."

I felt for my feet, my legs and my hips. I pushed myself down into them, and I felt my connection with Angelina fade. I had some sensation that she was pulling on my arm, but it was that, just a sensation, like touching your leg when its asleep. I didn't want to lose that connection, but it was the only way.

I willed my legs to move, just like I willed my finger to light up, like I willed my hands to clap together. Nothing. I doubled the push. Sounds like a blackjack player, doesn't it? Anyway, I doubled the push to my legs. Again, nothing. Not quite defeated, but pert near plumb, I crawled back into my head.

"Nope. I can't walk or even move my legs." I told her. "There's nothing there. I can feel them, I just can't get them to do anything." I muttered something else, but low, hoping she wouldn't hear me.

"What?" She heard anyway. "What did you say?"

"I said, 'oil can.'"

"Oh. Like the Wizard of Oz." She paused. "Ha ha. Very funny."

"Angelina," I said, "just because I can't walk, doesn't mean we can't move." Dorothy and the Scare Crow could have picked up the Tin Man.

"What?" she asked. "How?"

"Um." I thought. Between funny cartoons flashing through my mind, I thought. Yes, I think I may have been going slightly nuts. "Um. Can you pick me up?"

"You are kidding, right?" she asked. "You weigh, what? Two hundred pounds?"

Ouch. "One eighty five, thank you very much." Thinking, thinking, thinking. Tom and Jerry, during their incredibly violent period, pre-Chuck Jones with his cutesy big round eyes and Tom and Jerry's really creepy friendship. Chuck Jones just ruined a perfectly good comic duo in my mind. Bastard.

"Hey," I asked Angelina. "You sure you can't drive?"

"No," she said. "I was never taught. I always got rides."

"Do you think you can?" Where there is hope, there is life.

"I don't know how." Adamantly.

"I think you're just chicken." I jeered.

"No I'm not!" I felt her hit me again. I was going to have get quite a bruise. "I just don't know how."

"Angelina?" Very gently now, very, very gently. "Angelina?" I said again.

"Yes?" She was quiet too. Probably crying. I hurt her feelings.

"Can I talk to the Countess?" Gentle, bud. She's as scared as you are.

"The Countess? Why?" She was less quiet, and more curious. She still sounded snuffly, though.

"I was just thinking, you know." Trying to be charming, while unable to look at someone is almost... well, no it's not. I can be incredibly charming on the phone to people that will never see me. "I know you are doing your very best, Angel. I really do. And I think you have a wonderful idea about moving from this place."

There is such a thing as localization. There are power points all over the world. Ley lines, crystalline veins that run through the earth. During earthquakes, there are lightning storms that erupt from the ground because the movement puts stress on areas of quartz crystals and they generate electricity from the pressure. The electricity shoots upwards, and can become ball lightning. It's fascinating, really.

"This may be a localized trap that was set for me. Not you, Angel. Me. I find that curious." I laughed again, but much less like a crazy man. "I think that you are absolutely correct. We need to move out of this place. Away from it. Can you tell me where we are? On the map? It's in the glove box."

The pressure of her hand on my arm went away, and the sounds faded again. The incredibly oppressive black pressed back in, but somehow knowing that there may just be away out changed everything. The black was no longer scary. In fact, it was just a bit... comforting, in an odd way.

I started to think of something else. Something akin to revenge. It's all fine and good to trap someones consciousness in pure black, but it suddenly stops being funny someone puts their eye out. I remembered a little bit of red magic. Not black magic. That's the stuff that is just not right. Besides, I had enough of black for a while. It didn't take very long. I built something like my old demon killer, right straight from my mind.

No, I didn't have any hands, per se. No, I didn't have any ears or eyes or a mouth to mouth the words. But I did have a mind, and that mind remembered things that I had no reason to remember, things taught to me by a little golden globe before it left for better places.

Yeah, you bastard, I thought really strongly, aiming it James Thomas. You can take my hands, you can take my eyes, you can even take my ears and mouth, but unless you take my mind, you ain't got jack. You just do not know who you are dealing with.

I made a few modifications to my old demon killer. Something I call a whistleto. You know how to whistle don't you? You just pucker and blow. And a whistleto will come when you whistle. Screw with me will you? Ha! I'm Chester By God Beebe!

I felt Angelina's hand on my arm again. "We're near the Sprague River, I think," she told me. "There's a curve to the left up ahead about a half mile I can see, and we just passed the town of Sprague River." She was quiet, but she left her hand on my arm. "I can see a big sink hole out of the passenger window. There's a field of something out the drivers side window."

"Okay," I heard my voice tell her. "We're going to have to move from this spot, and we need to get across the river. How far do you think it is until we're across it?"

"Well... there's a bridge about a thousand, maybe two thousand feet up ahead?" She sounded uncertain. "I don't know. I'm horrible with distance."

"If you can see it, it's close enough," I told her. "Now, I am in no condition to drive. I can't see, I can't feel, I can't move." I paused to let the truth set in. "You're going to have to, Angelina."

"I can't," she protested. "I already told you that."

"I know, Angel," I told her gently. "And I know that the thought terrifies you. It's okay." I counted to three. "But the Countess, though. You told me that when you are the Countess, you feel like there's nothing you can't do, right?"

Uncertainty in her voice she said, "Yes... but she's just me, Chester."

"No, Angelina." I let my certainty override her. "The Countess is an aspect. She's you, yes, but she's you PLUS something more."

"I don't know..." her voice faded out.

"Just... let me talk to her, pleease?" I stretched the word please out to about three syllables, because done right, it's too cute to refuse. Really. Try it on anyone during an friendly argument when you want something.

You can also say the word fast, about 5 times. Like please,please,please,please,pleeeease, stretching out the last please. Now, keep in mind, that tends to irritate as much as anything else. I prefer to get it on the first take.

The pressure of Angelina's hand changed. I can't quite describe it, but somehow it became more gentle and more firm at the same time. And somehow... more mature.

"And what is it you wish me to do, mister Chester?" The distinctive accent of the Countess purred at me. "You wish me to attempt to drive this vehicle?"

"Yes, Countess. I do."

"And why would I wish to do this thing?" I could feel the negative shake of her lovely face. "I always have someone drive for me, you know."

"I know, I know you do, Countess. But unfortunately, I am unable to at this moment." I knew I was going to win the moment Angelina took on the Aspect of the Countess. It was just a matter of putting up with the teasing. "All I need is for you to drive my van across the bridge up ahead of us, and I'll take over. You'll not have to drive again, unless you want to."

Silence from Angelina, but I could feel her hand never left my arm. In fact, there was the uncomfortable and yet pleasing sensation that the hand was stroking my arm. I hoped that this wouldn't create something I was going to regret.

Oddly, this got my own Aspect awake and at attention. Since it's an automatic function of the body to sometimes follow the ego, and since my Aspect is strongly tied into my ego, I couldn't tell if I was embarrassed at something which absolutely must be happening in the outside world.

"Oh my, mister Chester!" came the Countesses Romanian purr. "I can see I have your attention." There was more silence, and I hoped that Angelina, as The Countess, was thinking about something other than me.

"Very well, I will drive this vehicle across the bridge," she said, finally. "But no further, you understand. And then we must have a chat, you and I." I felt her squeeze my arm. "How do we begin?"

The first thing I had to have happen was to have my happy butt moved out of the drivers seat and into the passenger seat. Angelina, as the Countess, actually did it fairly simply. She slid behind the two seats to the back compartment of the van. Then she unbuckled my seat belt and manhandled, or rather womanhandled me over to the other seat. I believe she had fun doing it, too, considering some of the remarks she made. No, I will not repeat them here.

She strapped me in to the passenger seat, reached over and placed her hand on my arm again. "All right. Now we are in our proper places, yes? I am in the drivers seat, and not just metaphorically. And what shall we do next?"

I have to tell you that if I was able, I definitely would have started to sweat. Still, I was able to explain to her that she needed to turn the key forward until the engine sounded like it had started, and then to let the key go. I explained that the key would return to where it to be, and to leave it alone after that.

Though I couldn't see it, I know that the first time someone starts an engine, it's going to scream at them. They are going to over-start it, and the engine's starter will not be happy. I know. Sometimes when I'm tired, I still do it.

I was surprised, though, when I heard Angelina's voice saying confidently, "All right. The engine is running." Huh. I love it when I'm wrong.

"All right, you did excellent." I was, truly, very proud of her. "Now, put your right foot on the middle pedal and press down. That's the brake. Tell me when you're done."

She did.

"Okay then. Grab the shift arm on the right side of the steering column and pull it just a bit toward you, and pull down at the same time. There's a little indicator on the top of the steering column that should move from P to D. D stands for drive, P stands for Park. Watch out for R, though. That's reverse, not race." I giggled just a bit. It was not a very funny joke.

"All right, mister Chester. The little red line is on the D for Drive."

"Great!" I was excited. This had every chance of working. "Now, remove your foot from the brake. The van may move, but it won't move very fast, until you put your foot on that pedal to the far right, the long skinny one. Do you see it?"

She said she did, and yes, the van was moving, slowly.

"Good." I was so proud of her, and told her so. "Now, place your foot on the long skinny one. That's the accelerator. While you drive, don't worry about it. You'll feel like you may be pressing to hard, but you won't be. The pedal just presses back, and that's okay. That's the way it should be."

"The main thing is steering. Just as you press the accelerator, you will need to steer onto the road, so we can get off of this shoulder. You will need to keep an eye out for traffic." I hadn't thought about traffic. "Is there any?"

"A little," she said. "Not much."

"How much is not much?" I asked.

"There are only a few automobiles on the road right now, mister Chester." Angelina's Countess certainly sounded sure of herself. "This driving thing seems so easy, I wonder why I never tried it myself. I just have to keep from hitting anything, yes?"

"Uh," I said, "yes. But it's a bit more complex than that."

"Well, I'm sure it seems that way to you," she said, "but it seems so easy to me." She was quiet a bit, and I was about to go on about checking her mirrors and making sure that the coast was clear; everything my father had taught me when she asked, "How fast should we be going?"

"Why do you ask?" I really don't like that question.

"Because the little needle on the dash is pointing at the number fifty."

"Holy Crap!" I asked, sitting up. "You're going fifty?" I looked out the window and watched the bridge zoom underneath us. I looked over at Angelina, who was driving with a confidence of someone who had been doing it for ever. "Angelina!" I cried. "You're driving!"

She looked over at me, smiled her catbird smile, winked and said, "Why yes, mister Chester, I am. And you are back with me." She took her right hand off of the wheel, patted my thigh and said, gently, "Welcome back."

Comments

[joegoda.livejournal.com]

And thank you, little one, for reading it! HUGS... hope you feel better.

[capi.livejournal.com]

Haven't read it yet, but your meter-thingy should otter say 200%!! YAY YOU!!!!!!!

(i'll be back to read this shortly!! YAY!!!!)

[capi.livejournal.com]

*heartfailure*

Wow, that was SCARY.... No. Wait. IS scary!!

*whew* Well done!!

[joegoda.livejournal.com]

It's gonna get rockier. I'm just about to run into the Lion's den, find out the nature of the Aspects, and the limitations. I'm excited! The only down side is I'm not sure I'll make my goal of 120 thousand words by midnight, friday. Aw well, it was a valiant run!

[capi.livejournal.com]

Valiant?? *L* Compare this year's productivity with last years!! DOOD!!

[shackrlu.livejournal.com]

WoW! That one had me breathless. I am SO proud of you! You have already accomplished what we thought was improbable and you are closing in on the impossible! :-)

[joegoda.livejournal.com]

Thank you, honey! Hope you're getting better, you were missed last night! And you know that if what I'm closing in on is the impossible, then it never was really impossible, right?

Love you!

[shackrlu.livejournal.com]

Of course I know it! :-) But it is so much more rewarding watching you prove it isn't! I'm feeling much better tonight. I don't know what hit me last night, I was fine all day, then all of a sudden I was dizzy and nauseous that progressed to a horrible sinus headache and face ache.. but today, much better but I'm taking my decongestants regularly today. Can't get sick, I have a show opening a week from tomorrow!