Michael Carnell

A Line Runs Round The World – Part II

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A couple of months ago a very kind person let me start a story for her. I thank Cameron Garriepy for that, and you can read about it back on my post titled Story Circles and Lines. Back then another kind and talented person, Kate Shrewsday, took up my story and continued it, and then others took up the call after her. You can read all those parts of the story circle on Cameron’s blog starting with Kate’s second part. All of that is great and I really admire those who followed up, but I felt empty. Empty because although others may have completed the story, I had not completed my story.

And that is where this Part II comes in. I really hesitate to do this because I don’t want to diminish in any way what Kate and the other folks did. But I feel that I need to complete my story, and there are either three or four more parts to that story. So what we have here is the second part. The other ones will hopefully be coming very soon, but for now you have Part I on Cameron’s site and Part II here. Oh, and when they are all done I will republish them all together. But that is later. For now, without further rambling …

A Line Runs Round The World – Part II

Fire In The SkyThere was smoke blowing in from the south west, and the smell of battle. I could tell that it was a battle and not just some other sort of fire because the smoke contained the distinct scent of blood and hot metal. Metal that was being used and push beyond its breaking point in a race for survival. The odor of exhausted metal, if there was such a thing. And that smoke blowing in brought no comfort.

This was around the middle of my fifth year walking, and I was more often than not overlooked by those not on the path whether they were looking directly at me or not. At first I was surprised that it didn’t matter if I walked past soldier or civilian, guard or gardener they reacted, or failed to react to me in exactly the same way. I never touched these outsiders for why should I? What did they have to offer me? Money did me no good for I just took what I wanted, which wasn’t much. And besides that, I had left my wallet behind me. So far back. How far? I took it out of my pocket while sitting on a bench, back when I still stopped to rest, took it out and left it sitting on that bench. My wallet with what little money I had, what little papers there were that said who I was and why I was. It may be there still.

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The Clock Winked

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The clocked winked. I swear it winked at me. Four in the morning, and I cannot fall asleep. On some days this would be fine – lying awake in bed in the small hours of the morning the cool sheets against my skin and no one to interrupt my thoughts. But those are days other than today. Today I am lying awake, legs twitching nervously, checking the clock every few minutes to see if it is any closer to morning. It is not. And I would testify in court that the clock winked at me in condescending acknowledgement that time is not passing. The clock and I are stuck here at 4am with nowhere else to go.

Roxy Road TripIt feels like Christmas, but no not Christmas. And I am too old for that, for the toys and the stockings and the candy. And being too old for those things there is no one who would give them to me anyway. Santa stopped coming when I was just a little kid, and there is not family to fill in like back in the tight times. No, this isn’t Christmas. Heck, it isn’t even winter. Nope this is early Autumn and the reason my nerves are so jangled and sleep evades me is because I am going on a trip. A road trip.  I love road trips.

There is something about the act of driving that just makes me happy. And calm. Driving has the opposite affect on my system that the anticipation of driving does, and the opposite affect on me that the sheer dread of driving inflicts on others. When I get behind the wheel and put the car in gear my blood pressure will drop, my anxieties will fade, my mind will clear, and I will become one with the road. Then, as the miles begin to slip smoothly away beneath the wheels of the car all my cares will slip away with them.  The mile after mile of white lines and asphalt will be, to my mind, like running a comb through tangled hair. The strands of thought will straighten out, the twisted knots will become undone, and a smooth stillness will take over.

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Fun Home at College – Literature or Pornography

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Incoming freshman to the College of Charleston, my alma mater, this fall are asked to Fun Home - A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdelread Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel as part of their freshman orientation. According to the College, “All faculty and incoming students are encouraged to read this selection as it will be included in the academic curriculum and in activities throughout the year.” Now even though my daughter is coming into the college as a higher level transfer student, the College still gave her a copy of the book so she would know what was going on.

I saw the book briefly when she got it, thought it was interesting because it was a graphic novel, and then thought nothing more about it. Until last week. It seems that a conservative action group and some parents are none too thrilled with the choice of Fun Home as freshman reading. In fact, Oran Smith, president and chief operating officer of Palmetto Family, went so far as to call the book pornographic. So with that kind of furor starting to brew in the papers and on TV, how could I resist reading the book to see what it was all about?

Do you want to know what I found? Well, what I found was a very well written story about a girl’s coming of age, how she dealt with finding her own identity, how she managed to love her father despite a difficult relationship with him that was only made more difficult by the discovery that he had a secret life, and then how all of this wraps around her father’s apparent suicide and the affect of that upon the entire family. Heavy, but pretty normal stuff for coming of age literature. The two things that set this work apart are that both the author / daughter and the father are gay, and that it is a graphic novel. Being a graphic novel means you get to actually see some of the situations that would just be verbally described in a regular literary work.

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My Blog, My Birthday and The End – Exercise #31

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We have finally arrived and the end – day 31. When I started this exercise I had no idea that I would get as tired of it as I have. Not tired of the writing itself, I still really enjoy that, but tired of the topics for the A Caboose at the Endexercises. Yup, totally my fault for not looking a little further down the line in terms of what would be asked – but it did force me to stretch a bit.

Well the exercise for today (is this the final exam?) is to tell you why I blog. Why does all this exist at all? In fact though, I have alluded to that answer more that once as the weeks wound on. My blog, this site, as it stands now is a way for me to flex my writing muscles while at the same time imparting some useful information occasionally. Not much of that useful stuff has happened over the past month, but then again nobody is perfect. If you do want one of my more useful posts recently, go back and read the one about professionalism – and then go fill in your Gravatar information! That is still driving me nuts.

Anyway … Long ago the purpose of this site was purely computer professional in nature. It is where I would write articles on things going on within the computer field, such as virus outbreaks or Microsoft Outlook email problems, or on the elements of web design, running a small office, or even book reviews.  What the site has morphed into over time is just more of my writing on whatever I want. All my more “technical” writing is over on other sites and blogs, so while there may be pointers to it here, there is no reason to repeat it all. I do still have my other sites, Michaels Trains, Charleston Rail, and Just British, for some of my other interests, but those are hobby sites and not updated anywhere near as often.

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