New Poem - (Dis)comfort

(Dis)comfort

I say I want contentment

I lie

There’s no healing for the healed

No recovery for the sane

Flaw is required for repair

Resurrection’s for the slain

To find perfection is to die,

Immortality the grave

For it’s through humanity we grow

Temptation frees the slave

Wisdom and innocence cannot coexist

Which do you want to be?

There is no purpose without struggle

We need to lick our sores

For to be content is to seize up

And improve no more.

~Carolynn Staib, 2011~

Northern Lights

Heads up...I'm a space geek.

For anyone interested, the aurora is predicted to make an appearance tonight or tomorrow night. Earlier this week the largest sunspot in years was discovered, suggesting a mass-emission solar flare (yes, yes, "mass-emission," quit giggling you pervs!). To give you an idea of the volume of solar matter ejected; the sun spot is estimated at 50,000 miles long and 25,000 miles wide, and could easily fit the earth inside it eighteen times over. Whoa!

Auroral forecast is incredibly subjective and depends on a lot of factors so there's always the risk for disappointment, but if it decides to drop by it should be spectacular. If you happen to miss it this time there will be other chances. 2011/2012 marks the end of a typical eleven year solar cycle, the ends of which produce a lot of flares - and it's thought that this "cycle-finale" is particularly active. Look up.

Legitimate Fan!

So last night I went on omegle.com (chat roulette-esque anonymous chatting for those who are unfamiliar) as I sometimes do, to search through the piles of horny teen boys in hopes of finding a legitimate philosophical conversation/connection with a stranger. It happens. ANYway, omegle has this new function that links with your facebook and matches you with people who have similar interests (this is great for avoiding the pervy teens), and I was matched with someone who likes "Carolynn Staib." I'd never met this person before and he went on to say that he's not only read, but loved my stories. It was probably one of the more rewarding experiences of my life, and I just thought I should share. It means so much to me to know I'm heard. 

Bundy Jr. ...?

So, there's this house on my walking route. I pass it every day. A child lives there (little boy) who is nearly always outside poking at things in the grass, breaking toys or just straight up staring at me as I pass. I've always found him a tad creepy, but am also hyper-aware of the overactive tendencies of my imagination, and so dismissed it. But today as I walked past this house, there was a severed doll head by the sidewalk with its eyes gauged out. Just thought someone else should know that I live down the street from a potential future serial killer.

Sorry about the bad photo quality, I took it with my phone as I was walking past. The kid was in the yard staring at me, and I didn't want to slow down and run the risk of ending up like this little guy here. The mouth was all jacked up, too.

Specters

Specters

I wondered for a while after it happened, whether or not I could haunt you for haunting me. I would tip over your water glasses and breathe cryptic whispers into your ear, melting at the sight of tiny bumps upon your neck. I’d smile at your wide eyes and the crude smoke signals of your frightened breaths on the frozen air. It’s silly though, I suppose; ghosts haunting ghosts.

You were selfless that day, and I had been selfless too. We were two magnets repelled by twin poles. You were sorry. You were only thinking of my shot at normalcy. But I didn’t want normal. Not really. I wanted that night in the park.

That night our conversation turned into an embrace that lasted hours. My arms ached the next day. Do you remember how we sat, shivering on that bench in the dark? Our heads burrowed into each other, desperate for freedom from our fleshy cages. I wanted nothing less than being a part of you, or you a part of me. I had a watch but still lost track of time and we got locked in. I could have stayed there all night with you, listening to the chiming song of the night-wind through the manicured trees, but you were past curfew and I didn’t want to get you in trouble. Your tights snagged on the ornate wrought iron as we scaled the locked gate, your silvery thigh shining through like stars at dusk. I felt strong with your waist in my hands as I helped you from the low stone wall.

We walked in silence then, remember? A dreamy, drunken stroll through the near-barren streets? I noticed others by shadows cast across the cobblestone. None of them had faces, just amorphous blurs and charcoal shadows where light and life should be. Your eyes were turquoise under the incandescent lamps and danced when you broke the hush, telling me smiley stories of your lonely childhood. You’d had a teddy bear once, a common object of unfathomable power that kept monsters away. Long before we met you had given it my name, and were certain it was proof that we were supposed to be together. I laughed, shaming you for being young and naive, but I didn’t disagree.

You asked me to kiss you that night. I said no. You thought you had done something wrong, or had imagined the strength of our connection, but I didn’t deserve your lips against mine. That’s my only real consolation now, that I don’t deserve you. Maybe I deserve normal.

Still, you only wanted me. We were on different paths, I told you that, but you left yours and walked blind in the woods to find mine. You ripped your still beating heart from your chest and dangled it in the trees as bait, hoping that I would accompany the wolves possessed by the scent of your blood. I didn’t come for it. I pushed you away, like the night in the darkened room. I’d finally kissed you and couldn’t stop. I pulled you to me, in rapture of your soft body against mine, and the unexpected sweetness of your pillowy pink tongue. That night you offered yourself to me. Again I rejected you. Your pale breast heaved in the half-light as you awaited my response, and your bottom lip disappeared behind your teeth. You laid back, reaching to me in invitation, anticipation of feeling secure beneath my weight. I didn’t deserve your virtue.

That night in the café I told you I loved you, but it was too reluctant and too late. You’d told me countless times before, but I could never respond. I didn’t deserve your love.

Then one night I got what I deserved, or at least what I had coming. The cruel cyclone of our insecurity ripped through our cardboard keep. You thought you didn’t deserve someone who thought they didn’t deserve you, and when he asked you to marry him, you said yes. I had been the only thing keeping you from doing it before, and I hadn’t told you not to.

That night I tore my heart from my chest. I hung it in the tree outside my bedroom window but it was too late. Drops of crimson fell to the snowy ground as it beat, dangling from the branch. But I had not ventured from my path to save yours before. I let you bleed, drain cold on the dark forest floor and become the enchanting ghost you are; unable to save me from becoming the same.

You haunt me now. I’ve found the normal you wanted me to have, but you still taint it, whispering of velvety nights too perfect to be real. Your smile boasts on the back of my eyelids and denies me sleep. Every soft pink mouth is yours, but still somehow not the same. She’s not you, and I want to believe that he’s not me.

Carolynn Staib, 2011 

cfstaib@gmail.com

Wide is the Path

Rewrite.

Wide Is the Path

Danny couldn’t face the wrinkled man before him, whose unsteady breath cut through the sounds of settling from the building’s bones. He knew he should never have come here.

“Sit.”

Danny swallowed, sitting upon the torn red vinyl stool.

“So, what do you want?”

Danny couldn’t find his voice.

“Look, kid, it’s not a difficult question. You can have anything. The ones your age tend to go with being a rock god of some sort. Money, fame, and if you’re so inclined, drugs and pussy till you’re sick of it. That interest you?”

Danny shook his head, glancing once at the sunken black eyes that roved his features. His stomach lurched.

“How about respect? It’s typically the older fellows that choose this route, but I can see that you’re mature.”

Danny swallowed and shook his head again.

“Then what is it, kid?”

 “There’s this girl…”

“Wouldn’t have pegged you as a romantic. You want love…”

“Not exactly,” Danny interrupted.

“Then what the hell is it?”

Danny looked to the window and remembered the day they’d met. He remembered how beautiful she was, and how sad. “The girl. I want her to have what she wants.”

“…This is for her?” The man’s shock pulled at papery folds of his skin.

Danny’s thoughts wandered again to that day. They were ten and she had just moved in next door. Each night he’d laid in bed, listening to her screams through the wall. “Yeah,” he replied.

“Guess the customer’s always right.” The man flashed a perverse, knowing grin and pulled a tiny scroll from his coat pocket. It shone gold in the half-light. “All that’s left to do is sign.”

Danny could not allow himself to regret the act he was to commit. He would rather reconcile with the loss of himself than her unhappiness.

The man rolled through shining paper, revealing countless names before a blank space emerged. “Just your signature.”

Danny closed his eyes and pressed his finger to the scroll. When his eyes opened it was finished.

“It’s been a pleasure, kid.” The old man reached out for Danny’s hand, touching its back with a single fingertip. It sent him spiraling in a second’s agony before he pulled away and left Danny examining the curious burn where the old man’s finger had been.

“Till next time, Danny.”

Danny woke to the ringing phone. He sat up, his neck sore from his awkward sleep on the couch. “Hello?”

“Danny, I’m going to Princeton. I can finally get away from here!”

Danny swallowed, confused. “I thought they turned you down?”

“I was wait-listed, but not anymore.”

He tried his best to sound enthusiastic. “Oh. Well…congratulations.”

“Anyway I can’t talk, I’ve got to call Scott.”

“I thought you broke up?”

“Only because we couldn’t go to school together, but now...Anyway, I’ll talk to you later.”

Releasing his breath he hung up the phone, and noticed a curious mocking scar on the back of his right hand.

I am writer, hear me whine

People are judgmental. I guess it’s just how it is. I’m not sure how I became so easily affected by this but I have. Most people have a shield of achievements to deflect an attack of judgment. They have degrees, or you know, respectable incomes. So when some obscure, well-meaning relative says to them “you’re not doing anything with your life!” they can say; “on the contrary Uncle Milton (not sure why I chose Milton, just roll with it), I have a degree in whosewhatsit from the University of Hell and I make thirty-trillion dollars a year.” Though, I don’t think it would take quite so much to impress Uncle Milton, I suppose all it really takes is not trying to become recognized for something that he deems trivial.

I know I’ve got kindreds out there but I feel alone. It’s like most people are living on Earth, comfortable beneath a protective atmosphere that springs into action to incinerate the meteorites of others’ judgment. I feel like I’m on the Moon, with no atmosphere of conventional achievements to protect me, huddling beneath a manuscript while a rain of asteroids hammers down on my head. Ouch.

People only see me when they want to tell me I’m wrong. I want to be visible. I want my efforts to matter.

::whine, whine, whine::

Flash

I recently challenged myself to write a story under 140 words. This is what I came up with.

In the Beginning

The hydraulic door sealed with a hiss. Ten. I submitted to the memory of Earth, a place I would never see again, a place that would live only in my mind. Nine. The ship shook, and I heard her terrified breaths beside me. She was still a stranger. Eight. Why couldn’t it have been my wife? She was outside now, watching me flee with the one woman left able to procreate. Seven. Soon our planet would expire along with everyone we loved, and there was no guarantee we’d reach Eden before we died ourselves. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. There was an intense pressure like I’d never felt, softened only by the fearful fingers now grasping my own. What could I do but embrace my fate? Eve was my last hope, mankind’s last hope. Liftoff.

Just

It's a curious thing that I keep journals; fill books with personal thoughts that I never intend to share. I think part of me is afraid that people would find my thoughts inadequate or inconsequential, but what should it matter to me? What is life if the precious time I have is spent fretting over potential failure? So cuss it! I’m just going to be honest. My thoughts are random and may feign disarray, but they are mine to give to anyone who wants them. I may not change the world, but I can be a part of it, however small.

It’s strange how proud evil is while beauty is so coy. Evil boasts. It makes spectacle and feeds on attention. It’s splashed in our eyes like water from an over-chlorinated pool. It’s on the news; it’s in people’s minds. We buckle under the weight of its omnipresence and are so oppressed that we cannot see the good.

Good is humble, it hides in the crumpled shells of people we pay no attention to. It flows from the smallest things, like meals prepared in sympathy for a family that’s just faced loss. There is profound beauty in a green bean casserole at a potluck wake. Good exists. We need to remember that.

Ours is a society saturated by fear, evil’s old college roommate. They perpetuate each other, and those who claim to want to protect us shove fear down our throats. The government uses fear, so do churches, and businesses. Fear makes people compliant, submissive, vacant. It keeps us out of the way. What is there but failure if we continue to submit to fear? How can we heal the present if we’re so afraid of the future – and how can we heal ourselves if we’re so afraid of one another? 

The Weirdest Day of My Life

On September eleventh 2001, I was barely fourteen. My birthday had been just over a month before that day. I was only recently a high-schooler, having been a freshman for only a couple of weeks. I was already afraid; afraid of being judged, afraid of interacting with the vastly more mature and cultured "high school elite." I fretted too much over sounding cool and looking good, though that was rarely an effect I achieved. If my memory serves me correctly (and I'm sure it is), on 9-11-01 I was wearing a shirt with "princess" written on the front in rhinestones. I was a baby. 

Just before the first tower was hit I was in art class, intrigued to no end by the older boys in the room. I watched a select few sketch lazily over their color wheels and ignored my own assignment in attempt to commit their names to memory. Such things seem important when you're an eccentric “journaler” like myself. National tragedy was the last thing on my mind when another of these  boys burst through the art room door. He had a wild look about him and a girl riding on his back. I remember thinking how strange and cool it was to finally be in a school with such an obviously laid back atmosphere. Of course, that was before he spoke. "The World Trade Center was hit by a plane!" To my sheltered fourteen year old mind, he might as well have been speaking Icelandic. I had never heard of the World Trade Center. "Twin towers" was a phrase I only mildly associated with a Tolkien novel. I didn't understand why the classroom erupted, or why everyone but myself shot from their seats.

I followed into the impenetrable chaos of the hallways, scared more by my confusion than anything else. Everyone was there, people from every group, every grade. Teachers where visibly panicked, pushing their ways toward the cafeteria with wide eyes. When I arrived at the cafeteria, they were all standing with heads upturned, watching the high, mounted TVs on the walls with horrified looks on their faces. The screens showed a single skyscraper, smoldering from the ground. I knew from the frightened mutterings in the hallways that there had been two, and suddenly understood the gravity of the situation. The World Trade Center, a place that I had only moments before heard of, had been packed with people. I remember wondering how the plane had hit - the sky was blue that day. Surely the pilot would have been able to see. That was before the second tower fell.

I can't imagine the horror of being there in person, but when the second tower was hit, and the room exploded with screams, I felt more scared and helpless than I ever had. Seeing that what had happened, what was happening, was intentional made me feel instantly sick. The day changed for me then. Everything was foggy. Looking back it's strange to see the stark contrast between the vividness of my memories from that morning, and the murkiness of those from later in the day. 

I was released early to choir where we prepared a medley of patriotic songs for a special assembly that afternoon. We sang "God Bless America" with shaky voices on the lawn of the school. Hundreds of tiny American flags flapped from the ground. To this day I don't know where they came from. The marching band was there too, playing along in true high school band fashion. People were kneeling on the grass and crying. I wasn't yet mature enough to understand why anyone would cry over people they didn't know.

After school I walked home from the bus stop with a friend. I had never before been to her house, and her mom yelled at me for not taking off my shoes to walk on the carpet. Any other day that might have scared me, but on that day, the weirdest day of my life, it was a comforting reminder that in some ways life was still the same. Surely there was no real threat of all of our houses imploding if adults were still protective of their carpet. It sounds silly, but I relaxed a bit after that. 

Sometimes I wish I had been older on that day so I could truly understand the severity of what happened. Now in my adulthood I stand in awe of people's ability to heal. Our world will never be void of fear, but the human capacity to to be brave, to not lose sight of the "everyday" (like carpet), to pick oneself up and keep moving despite the threat of the unredictable, is truly remarkable. On this day I'm not just proud to be an American, but am prouder still to be something much bigger than that; I'm proud to be human. I hope some day in the future we all can come together as fellow humans, fellow people, put our differences aside and marvel at the beautiful simplicities that make us the same.

Same three pages - back to third.

           I've decided that VESSEL should be told in third-person, but also that I liked the writing of my first-person experiment better. Here's a mash-up of the two (same three pages as before) which I'm really liking. Looks like I'm going to be doing some rewrites, ::cracks knuckles::.

Vessel, First to third sample

           Isaac heaved a sigh as his father’s old Honda station wagon hummed along the village street. He watched the familiar houses and too-short lawns filter past his car window. Every window shutter was painted crisp the same color as in his childhood, and the same neighbors waved as fellow townsfolk walked the sidewalks with their dogs or strollers. There, in Glen Arbor, Michigan, everything was the same. But despite the familiarity, Isaac reeled in worry 

He looked from the corner of his eye at his father in the driver’s seat. Carl Hill sat erect, whistling with the muffled radio as some dads do, and drummed his thumbs against the worn steering wheel. Isaac took in his sunny demeanor, pleated khakis and plaid button down shirt and couldn’t help but be a bit irritated by his obvious enthusiasm to be rid of him. Though he supposed that day would mark the first time in seventeen years that his eternal presence wouldn’t prevent his dad from stopping home on his lunch break to put the moves on his mom. He could tell that was the plan, too. His father’s insistence to keep the car window rolled down, despite it being forty degrees outside, had him sputtering in a surging storm of aftershave for the length of their ride.

            But perhaps he was projecting. He swilled his tongue against his cheeks, trying to wet his mouth, which had been dry as the Sahara since the night before. He blinked his dusty eyes, feeling as though washers had been super-glued to their lids. He hadn’t slept at all that night, and so reasoned perhaps that’s why his dad’s pep seemed so irritating.

            The engine clicking outside Isaac’s car window wasn’t distraction enough from the fact that they’d stopped. The brick building mocked him from across the crowded yard, where groups of students stood in packs, like herded sheep. Only a month had passed since the beginning of the semester, but they were all clearly adjusted. They stood talking, or throwing fistfuls of colorful, fallen leaves at each other with playful screams.

            “Ready, Sport?”

            Isaac’s dad had called him “sport” since the day he was born, funny given that he was six-three and only weighed one hundred and thirty-five pounds. He stared at his unusually pointy knees as he sat. They were poking through the holes in his jeans and had him questioning (again) his father’s choice of nickname, and his decision to wear that particular pair of pants. “I guess.”

He gave Isaac one of those all-knowing, sympathetic “dad smiles” before launching into a pep-talk. “Don’t be nervous. Who wouldn’t want to hang out with such a cool kid?”

He is talking about me, right?

Throughout the years of his sheltered existence, he hadn’t had the opportunity to learn what “cool” was. He began mulling it over in his mind, now fearful, not only over his choice of pants, but whether or not he was, or would be considered “cool.” This was about the point he discovered how close he was to chewing off his bottom lip. “Sure.”

Isaac opened the door, the squeak of which was so loud that he was certain the crowd would stop and stare. His legs felt like rubber as he placed them upon the sidewalk, and closed the door again behind him.

“Hey, Sport?” Isaac craned his neck to view his dad through the still-open window. “Really, you’ll be fine. Remember, this is what you wanted. I’m sure you’re ready. Your mom, well, she may not have been so prepared, but you know her, she’ll be okay.”

Isaac stared, imagining his father’s voice as one of those parodies where the speaker’s drone is replaced by a trombone, or static. He couldn’t understand what he was saying with the school’s evil eyes on his back. “Uh huh. I hear they have a pretty rigid schedule at these places, Dad, I should probably go.”

His dad just hit him me with another of those encouraging grins before igniting the engine and leaving him gaping alone on the sidewalk. He had instantly regretted telling him to leave.

Resilience

Good morning, readers! Below you'll find another short story for your reading pleasure. Enjoy.

ⓒ 2011 Carolynn Staib, All Rights Reserved

Resilience

“You wanna play superheroes?”

Doug sat in the toasted grass, picking a scab upon his arm. “I am a superhero, Todd.”

Todd was skeptical. Even at the young and gullible age of seven, he knew demigods like the Hulk and Spiderman probably didn’t exist. He peered through the slits of his eyelids and scrunched his nose in protest of the dazzling sun. “Are not,” he disputed.

“Am so!” Doug succeeded in removing the bothersome clot, and flicked it across the yard. It disappeared somewhere among the blades of browning grass to be consumed by some bug or another.

“Then why are you bleeding?” Todd crossed his arms with pride, clearly on the winning end of the argument.

“I’m not,” Doug spat, “it’s acid! It’ll melt the skin off of all of my nemesisesez’…” He brought the freshly opened wound to his mouth, and sucked the blood from his arm.

Todd watched, letting his posture slacken and scratched at a mosquito bite on his shin. “Nuh uh,” he said with wavering confidence. He diverted his gaze to study the tiny ants marching in a perfect line through the lawn, which scattered when he cut a stripe in the earth through their path. He watched them scramble, avoiding the line he’d drawn as though it were a force field. It made him feel like a bit of a superhero himself. “Then what powers do you have?” he demanded.

Doug stretched out upon his stomach, ripping clumps of grass from the ground and tossing them to his sides. “I’m not supposta’ tell. I wasn’t even supposta tell ya that I am one.”

Todd scrunched his face in thought; that was typically the way of the superhero. “I promise I won’t tell.”

Doug sat back up, brushing the larger bits of the lawn from the front of his shirt, and began biting his nails. He scrutinized his friend, could he be trusted, or was he to be an unexpected foe like Lex Luther to Superman? After all, they had been close, too. But then, Todd had split his lunch with him the time he forgot to pack one, and he couldn’t imagine Lex Luther doing something as nice as that. “You swear?” he asked.

Todd sat rigid, nodding with eyes the size of saucers. “I swear!”

He looked sincere. “Good!” Doug glanced around the yard, searching for any intruders or spies. The grass was barren but for the bugs, and the sidewalk was clear. “I’m invisible.”

Todd didn’t respond. He released the breath he’d been holding, and felt disappointment smack him in the face like the baseball his brother had thrown the week before. He probed at the area, sore from the memory, and shot a nasty glare Doug’s way. “You are not! I can see you.”

“It only works for bad guys,” Doug said with a roll of his eyes. He stood, grabbing a stick from the lawn and tossed it toward a tree. “And grownups,” he concluded.

Todd stood, too, still resentful from the fresh letdown. “Nuh uh,” he began, “Miss Collins at school talks to you all the time. She can see you and she’s a grownup.”

“It doesn’t work for all grownups. Besides Miss Collins is old, and I don’t think it works for old people neither. My grampa’ and gramma’ can see me all the time, too.”

Todd dug the toe of his shoe into the dirt. “Fibber,” he accused.

Doug frowned, wiping his nose along the length of his arm. He hadn’t expected his friend’s disbelief. “Fine!” he snapped, turning his back and marching toward his house. The grass crunched beneath his feet as he left Todd behind, and he could feel his blood boiling as he stomped up the steps to his front door.

The room beyond was sterile. Its white walls enveloped tidy furniture, which matched too well the pillows and decorative vases on the coffee table. The air hosted an artificial, fragrant stench, which if smelled too closely or too long would make one’s eyes water. There was no sound in the room besides the muffled sounds of his mother’s phone conversation in the kitchen, and a bubbling pot on the stove.

Doug slammed the front door behind him, making the vases in the living room jingle. He waited a moment for any reaction, and then removed his shoes upon the tiny rug by the door. His socks were dirt-stained from the ankles up and were the only thing within the house that displayed any signs of use. They muted his steps upon the hardwood on his journey to the kitchen, where he entered unnoticed. Only the top of his head was visible above the kitchen island where his mother was preparing dinner. She held the phone to her ear with her shoulder as she worked.

“Hi, mom.” Doug scaled one of the barstools and sat without response. “Todd thinks I’m a fibber.”

His mother continued to talk about grownup things on the phone. Not even her eyes greeted her son, who allowed his dirt-caked chin to rest upon the counter until he heard another entrance at the front door. The heavy footsteps and jingling keys identified his father before he entered the kitchen, where the suit-clad man set a briefcase upon the counter. Immediately he loosened his tie and greeted his wife with a kiss, and she stumbled upon an excuse to end her conversation. Hanging up the phone she embraced her husband, asking smiley, redundant questions about his day at the office. “So how was work, honey? Did the meeting have a catered lunch? Who catered?”

Doug watched the interaction with a moment’s disdain before smirking to himself, and clung to the feeling until he’d tucked himself into bed that night. “Goodnight, Mom!” he called down the hall. He listened to the pause in her conversation with his dad, too smart to think he’d be receiving a response. The muffled pop of a bottle of wine echoed through his room as he settled upon his bed in thought.

He knew his life was lonely, but that was a battle every superhero must face. And while parents are expected to tell their children how special they are, Doug didn’t need to hear it – for what other kid in the world could claim to be a real invisible boy?

A life of poetic irony

It's kind of funny. Those who know me well know that I was (well, let's not kid ourselves, am) an incredibly impatient person. I'm a very goal oriented and driven worker bee, who becomes even more so when circumstances don't immediately bend to my will. Looking back over the course of my life, the paths I've taken and the choices I've made have to make me chuckle - because it's so painfully apparent just how hard my subconscious has been trying to teach me patience.

When I was fourteen, I officially met my (now) husband, Jeffrey. He had been our paper boy for years before, but at that age, I "caught up" to him. For the first time we attended the same school, and sang in the same choir. He was quiet, awkward, and three years older than me, and for reasons my adolescent mind couldn't yet understand, I was unconditionally smitten with him. So smitten, in fact, that I paid him to teach me to play the guitar despite having already been taught by my father. This only lasted a few months, but it's a testament to how baldy I wanted to spend time with him. Over time we became close friends. We never dated, never had any form of physical contact until one day, seven years later, he proposed. That's a whole other story that should be saved for another time. But isn't it strange? Did I choose someone, without even realizing it myself, who would challenge my impatience and make me a better person?

Another example is my career path. I love writing; it's a drug with no adverse effects. But pursuing the life of a published author demands quite a lot of patience as well. I finished my first novel in October of 2010, and have been actively querying and seeking representation since. And according to every article I've read on the subject, this is absolutely to be expected. I would always love writing, there's no escaping it, but did I subconsciously choose to pursue publication, not only to share my work, but to further learn how to wait?

Even before I took the plunge, and committed to pursuing what I really wanted in life, I was studying to become a doctor. I had chosen a program that would take at minimum eight years to complete, not including internships. And I wasn't content to become just any doctor, I wanted to be a neurosurgeon. Granted, I didn't submerge myself for terribly long into this world, but it's still curious. Was I forming goals that, though I wasn't terribly passionate about, would still teach me patience?

Or perhaps great things in life require patience of us all. I suppose such things are worth waiting for, in fact, I'm certain they are. Maybe I've learned something after all.

Fork In The Road

Friends, fans, and cherished readers,

I must woefully inform you that further chapters of VESSEL will no longer be released on this forum. Tragic, I know ::wipes tear::. For those who have read since the beginning, which wasn't all that long ago (all your support and "likes" on facebook had me releasing chapters quicker than I had first anticipated, thank you again for that), you have now read the first seventy pages of my manuscript. This is the average number of pages offered in a preview of most purchasable digital books. And as any concerned mother across this fair land might say, "no one's gonna' wanna' buy the cow if you're handin' out the milk for free..." or what have you. So I'm afraid we must now bid adieu to our new friends, Isaac, Theo, and Spencer, and hope for a time (not so far in the future) when their full story is available for you all to read to your hearts' content!

Until then, I will do what I can to continue to keep you entertained. I like to think I'm a creative gal, so stay tuned! There will surely be more ramblings, antics, and perhaps some short stories for your reading pleasure.

(All you need is) Love,
Carolynn Staib