Lies and/or other lies

[evilhippo]

I don't have the attention span for anything substantive tonight, so instead I'm nabbing a meme from zolac_no_miko and look_alive because... well... it's kind of awesome.

I would like all my LJ friends to comment about how you got to know me. But I want you to LIE. That's right. Just make it up. If you'd like, copy this to your journal so I can do the same.

Comments

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

First: OMG YOUR ICON! Do you have any idea how hard I tried to find a decent picture of that damned skull painting??? (For thegameison_sh; I am Sherlock's Skull.)

Second: Geez, I feel all this pressure now to come up with an entertaining lie! You'll have to give me time to 'remember' just how we met... More to come!

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

It's a nasty thing to try to get a shot of. The icon post I snagged it from is here (http://callmefoo.livejournal.com/58024.html), though.

Psh, there's no pressure! Sometimes it's hard to revisit those memories, so take your time. (-;

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

Ha ha! I have discovered your secret identity! (And I highly approve!)

Also, YAY, someone picked up an Amy/Rory prompt! Not one of mine, but still!

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

Hehe, I figured that would be sufficiently obvious for those in the know, and... not-obvious enough for those in the not. (-:

So, I'm feeling really odd about this fest, because I've already finished one of my stories. That never happens. It's in dire need of editing, though, and I may go back and tweak the tone/storyline a little, but if all else comes crashing down I could technically just post it. I feel... half-prepared. It's weird! And the prompt I'm pretending I'm not writing is actually giving me all sorts of interesting things to think about. Like whether I want to kill off the entire cast, or if just three or four will be enough. And whether it's worth changing my idea a little just so I can work in "The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism." (Though in that case I will need to steadfastly resolve from that point forward not to use Neko Case as a vocal muse because... really, this idea is bad enough to get me kicked out of fandom in general as it is. (-;)

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

Go you! Wow, you are so on top of things...it's kinda making me sick! I've written about 15 lines of my fairy tale poem, and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have to scrap about half of them. BUT, I still have more than a month to write it, so I figure at the rate of 3-4 lines/day, I should definitely reach the 500 word minimum in time.

I've also started my fic for thegameison_sh. I made it a goal as part of another challenge community I belong to to have this one day by the 20th, and I think I might make it! (However, the original characters detective story I'm supposed to be writing...is not being written. I am stuck! I wanna just scrap the whole thing and start over.)

Speaking of 'scrap', that reminds me of how we met! You were on my turf (I control the junkyard from the scrap metal heap clear to the trash compactor) and I threatened to cut you with a rusty tuna can lid. There was something about you, though: the way you just stared death in the face, without whining and begging for your life, and I thought--"this kid's got something!" So I took you under my wing, and together we built an empire of trash that spread clear out of the junkyard and into the ritzy downtown dumpsters of the city's finest restaurants.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

Shh... now that you've pointed out that I'm on top of things you know it's going to stop. (-; If you want me to read over what you have of the fairytale at any point, just let me know. I'm looking forward to it.

I've been really, really terrible with my thegameison_sh fics lately. I have a vague idea of what I'm doing for this prompt, but... eh. It's kind of just a re-work of an idea I had a while ago because I don't want to put the energy into properly subverting the prompt this round. But I know I can't drop out yet because I'm still holding out for the crossover month. (-;

See, I knew you'd remember. Though you can see now why I'm afraid we're forgetting our roots. You can't jump from Whole Foods dumpster to Whole Foods dumpster forever! When was the last time you visited the heap? It's gone all crooked without you, and the magnesium fires aren't anywhere near as artfully arranged.

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

You are NOT ALLOWED to drop out of that comm! And that's FINAL!

Just do what I do: keep turning in shite, and then bitch about the fact that your shite doesn't win anything. :D (Although, secret confession time: I didn't finish reading the fics from the last round. Not even close. I think I read, like: four. And I didn't vote. And I can't even remember what my story was about.)

(Oh yeah, it was about Moriarty. Again.)

I will send you some of my fairy tale verse nonsense once I get a little more finished. When I say I have about 15 lines done, they're not exactly...consecutive. :P (Likewise, if you need a pair of eyes to take a look at something, just let me know.)

I've been spoiled by all that rich, fancy produce! But you're right: I haven't cooked a rat over a burning tire in AGES!

Oh, and speaking of burning tires (random story time): when I was driving home from work tonight, there was some sort of horrific accident on the exit ramp I take home. I could smell it before I saw anything: burnt rubber and exhaust. The car was stopped off to the side, and just after I got onto the ramp a smoldering tire rolled across my path. It was...cinematic, almost. Crazy.

Of course, I didn't have time to take in the moment: the idiot in front of me, instead of steering around it, slammed on his brakes, forcing me to slam on my brakes and veer to the left to avoid hitting him.

[zolac-no-miko.livejournal.com]

It was in the foreign legion; we were both assigned to the Windmill Lancers division. You were nothing more than a name and a face to me until, one night in the trenches, you happened to be passing by where I sat huddled around the warm glow of my last cigarette. Without warning you pulled a knife and rushed toward me; I thought you'd been taken with papaya fever, but you plunged the knife into the sandy trench wall mere inches from my right eye socket, neatly cutting a deadly mamba scorpion in two. I pledged a blood oath right then and there to return the favor someday, but you just laughed and asked if I'd managed to get ahold of some black market kippers, and if so if I would share them with you. I pulled a tin out of the hidden compartment I'd dug into the sole of my boot (I'm sure you remember that it was no good keeping anything valuable in your kit; Jenkins was sure to get his suckers on it, the dirty, thieving squid) and we ate it together. Sarge caught us at it and put us on triple watch duty that night as punishment, although mostly I think he was peeved that we hadn't saved any kipper for him. You passed the night whistling Peruvian folk tunes off-key while I looked for animal shapes in the shifting gases of the Nebula.

The next day a company of torenmolens came out of nowhere, sweeping over us like a tsunami over an Okinawan fishing village. I can still remember the screams of our fallen comrades and the bloodcurdling sound of canvas fluttering in the wind. In the chaos of battle we got separated from our unit and before we knew it the enemy stood between us and the rest of our division. We escaped into the dunes and spent weeks wandering the desert, surviving only on palm cherries and a jar of pickled onions we found in an abandoned prawnherd's hut. Eventually we came upon an Estonian elk-mounted scouting party and traveled with them back to allied territory. After two months' leave we were assigned separately, but I wrote you more frequently than my own mother, and every two weeks with the zepellin mail drop I got a fat stack from you in return.

I named all five of my children after you.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh, the WLD! Those were the days. How badly I wanted one of those elks after we got back! I nearly stole one--were you there for that? I can only assume you weren't, since you would've seen to it that we succeeded, but I can't imagine trying it without. Four days in the brig so hot on the heels of our otherwise-triumphant return has made the best of my memories hazy (though wasn't that part of the legion's appeal? I can't remember that, either). Ah well, I can still mangle a Peruvian folk tune with the best of 'em.

[flutingfrenzy.livejournal.com]

The first time we met, we were both competing in the National Spelling Bee. We were seated on opposite ends of the middle row, and you had the idea to start a game of Telephone. By the time your message got to me, you had already been eliminated - brought down by "myrmecophilous." Secretly, I was glad your word hadn't been mine. After my own elimination, I ran into you backstage. I asked whether you had really told me that "costume shows blue can't bring tag stops." You looked confused and said that your message had been, "The judge on the right needs to zip his fly." We giggled hysterically like the middle-schoolers we were and you complimented my earrings. That's when my dad came to whisk me away. I was mad at him for the rest of the evening.

The second time we met, we were studying abroad in Greece. I had seen your name on the orientation materials, but was sure you couldn't be the same person - until I literally ran into you outside the program center. We recognized each other instantly, even though you had gotten contacts and I had shaved my head. Soon we discovered that, by sheer coincidence, we had just registered for all the same classes. After that, we were inseparable. When you contracted pneumonia three weeks before finals, I almost never left your bedside, and when you were eventually sent home early, I was devastated, even more so when my phone died and deleted my address book and I realized that that had been the only piece of your contact information that I had.

Years passed, and eventually I stopped thinking of you every day. I married, bought a house, had a child, divorced, bought a different house, and threw myself into my amateur woodworking. I was putting the finishing touches on a nature-themed chess set one day when my daughter came home from school and announced breathlessly that she wanted to learn to knit. I was surprised and a little amused at this, until she showed me the letter from her teacher informing parents of the textile demonstration the class had just seen, which mentioned the name of the person who had given it. Your enthusiasm always was contagious.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

(Ahh, this is so bittersweet.) And to think I'd nearly forgotten our turn in Greece! A little-known fact is that my love for textiles came from that bout with pneumonia. I was shuttled through so many different hospitals and hotels on the trip home and came to know each place by its sheets and blankets. Naturally it followed that I would learn to make them. Just don't let your daughter take on a microknitted tapestry project. It's the entire reason I haven't come to visit in the last few years. (-;