Lost in Space

Fred — that was the persona he had adopted on earth — floated in microgravity at the controls of his ship far above the blue planet. He knew he should shift back to his normal appearance and enter stasis for the long journey home. Instead, he adjusted his trajectory so that he hovered directly over a particular city in the southern United States. He hummed to himself and then softly sang, “Long distance information, give me Memphis, Tennessee….”

Observe and report. That was his mission. He didn’t even have to visit the surface of the planet. But he always did. Even the planets that were completely devoid of life, he thought, warranted at least a cursory personal appearance. Just so he could say he did. And he had a portfolio full of souvenir images for proof. The planets with life though, those were risky. He had to avoid interacting as much as possible and certainly wasn’t allowed to interfere. He had never counted on meeting Ginger.

While he knew that physics made it impossible, her eyes seemed to shine and twinkle with a light that came from within. Her voice was low and sweet with a musical quality to it. Music, human music, that was something else he had never counted on. He sought it out at every turn and that’s how he had met Ginger. There were musicians right out on the street here every day and night. He couldn’t believe how indifferent most of the humans were to what they were hearing. But some vocalized in tune with mechanical devices while others gyrated their bodies to the tempo. Ginger did both.

“Staring and slack-jawed” was the way she later told him he had appeared. She had said hello and reached out her hand for him to join her in the gyrations then laughed when she saw the look of panic on his face. She thought he was just too shy to dance with her. His first impulse was to turn away, get lost in the crowd and return immediately to his ship. But something kept him rooted to the spot. He had seen similar actions by humans so he tightened a couple face muscles that pulled the ends of his oral orifice upward and rotated his head laterally back and forth a couple times. And he kept staring, though he managed to tighten those jaw muscles.

Somehow, Ginger had found this endearing and when the band took a break she came over and talked to him. She used a lot of words he didn’t fully understand — they didn’t seem to match the dictionary definitions he had studied. But the sound of her voice mixed with the scent of jasmine that radiated from her body still hot from her recent activity. Fred was mesmerized. Even though his body wasn’t really human, he thought he felt an unmistakable attraction, a desire for his body to be close to hers. He had observed mating rituals across half the galaxy and he had never felt anything like this.

Fred suddenly realized he had gone way beyond just observing, that even this innocent interaction with Ginger might have far-reaching effects. Mumbling what he hoped was an acceptable excuse he left abruptly. “I hope I see you again,” she had called after him. “I’ll be here tomorrow night.” Nothing in what he knew about magnetism or gravity or nuclear forces could explain the drag he felt on his body as he forced himself away from her.

And now he hovered. How odd, he thought, that indecision stills weighs heavily even in microgravity. The longer he stayed in human form the more desperately he wanted to stay on earth and seek out more time with Ginger. If he returned home as he knew he should he certainly would never again be trusted to go off-world. He could not orbit here indefinitely, he had to make a choice. Then he realized… of course, there is only one choice….

So, dear readers, I am curious. What choice do you think “Fred” made? Did he stay on earth, return home, or realize that he had another option? Please leave a comment.

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[Note: Learn more about Fred and Ginger here. ~Tim]

Less is More

Less is more
when, like love,
it is

limitless
boundless
countless
shapeless
formless
harmless
breathless
nameless
shameless

Hot, Hot, Hot

There is an interesting little slideshow on the Scientific American website with a few examples of products marketed in the early 20th century that contained radioactive materials. From the home science kit to the beauty products to the supposed health products it is a cross-section of our curiosity and naivety. I suppose we can be glad that we didn’t receive radioactive water in our stockings this year, but the cynic in me wonders what products we will be shaking our heads over in dismay a hundred years from now. [And by "we" I mean humanity collectively, since I seriously doubt I will still be around in another hundred years. And, as much as I love you and wish you all great health, I doubt you will either. Maybe we should agree to check back in say... ten years and shake our heads then. I'm reasonably certain that ten years from now some of what we are doing today will seem extremely stupid in retrospect. I mean, just think about all the stupid stuff we were doing ten years ago.... Wow, I think that's the longest parenthetical tangent to which I've subjected you here!]

So, anyway, as I watched the slideshow [you remember, that's where I started this post] I was reminded of a recent post by Karen over at Miscellaneous Yammering. You should go read that one. There’s always something to make you smile over there! And if you have any brushes with radioactivity that you can share without violating national security, put them in the comments.

Excuse me now. There are men in white coats that seriously want a moment or two of my time….

Is That What the Kids are Calling It?

Ginger held her breath, put a hand on each leg and spread them gently. Tentatively, she explored between them with her fingers. Fred began with short, sharp thrusts but settled in to longer, slower, smoother strokes. He carefully gave equal attention to both breasts. Ginger breathed again. Together they were determined to serve the perfect turkey and dressing dinner to their family for the holiday.

Happy Christmas everyone!

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[Note: Learn more about Fred and Ginger here. ~Tim]

Whose Kid?

Recent events [with which I will not bore you now] have severely restricted my access to the interwebs. Please enjoy this little musical interlude until I can get back on track.

One Flew Over the Cuckold’s Nest

In her comment on last week’s post Aymiee asked whether I have considered a graphical interface for Ginger and Fred. While I’m not sure what she meant by that, it reminded me of xtranormal.com — a site that makes animated movies from your script. I dug up a draft I’ve had sitting around for a couple years. Originally, most of the story took place through instant messages between the two characters so it was already heavy on dialogue. Here then, is an update of that story and the resulting movie:

Ginger: Hi

Fred: Hi. Got time to talk?

Ginger: If it’s quick. I have to get home to the kids.

Fred: OK. Did you have a good day?

Ginger: Not really. Big fight this morning.

Fred: Sorry… Any progress on the divorce?

Ginger: No. He won’t discuss it. And you know I won’t leave my kids with him.

Fred: I know.

Ginger: I’m still sleeping in the guest room. We spend almost no time together.

Fred: You told me. It’s just…

Ginger: What?

Fred: I had a strange thought recently.

Ginger: You have a lot of strange thoughts. It’s one of the things I like about you… What?

Fred: A coworker wants to set me up on a blind date.

Ginger: Do you want to go?

Fred: No. Even if I weren’t involved with you, I hate blind dates.

Ginger: Waiting for the strange part…

Fred: Well, It occurred to me that I’m being faithful to another man’s wife.

Ginger: I told you I’m not sleeping with him. I’m being faithful to you too.

Fred: But you’re not leaving him.

Ginger: I can’t right now. I told you.

Fred: I know. What am I supposed to do? Talk to you only when no one’s home? See you only when he is out of town and your kids are with friends? And… what?

Ginger: You sound angry.

Fred: I feel stupid.

Ginger: You are the smartest person I know.

Fred: Smart people do stupid things all the time.

Ginger: And wanting to be with me is a stupid thing?

Fred: Now you’re getting angry.

Ginger: Frustrated. What do you want me to do?

Fred: I want us to be together. I just don’t see it happening. I can’t afford to support you. You don’t have a job to support yourself. It will be three more years before your kids might be out on their own….

Ginger: And…?

Fred: I don’t know where I fit into your life.

Ginger: I guess you don’t. Fit, that is.

Fred: Go home to your family. I can’t do this any more….

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[Note: Learn more about Fred and Ginger here. ~Tim]

Reach

You reach, this time… it’s three
Touch the key, that’s touching me
The key, the type, the touch, the tone
We are sitting all alone
A thousand miles in between
Far too far to be seen
You are there, I am here
But we are closer than we appear

RRR: My Extremely Brief, Unintentional, and Unprofitable Ownership of a Pornographic Website

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
This is an update of a post originally published on 21 November 2006.

I garnered three new followers on Twitter this weekend. I have blocked two of them because they link directly to porn sites. [I am not philosophically opposed to porn. It's just not what I publish in this space nor will I promote it here.] I’m guessing I picked them up because I had the word “erotica” in my Friday Flash title and the tweets promoting it. And I’m guessing I’ll have to block a couple more when I publish this post. ~Tim 14 December 2009

Here’s the old post with updates:

Let me tell you about the time my website was labeled “pornography”. [And it was not last month when I got all crude and rude on a couple posts. In fact, it predates my blog by a few years.]

The school district where I work has only been hosting websites for teachers for about a year or two. Those of us that were ahead of that curve were on our own. So for a while I used some of the space provided for personal pages by my ISP to post information for my classes. I registered a domain name and had the URL forward to my pages.

That worked well… until one day the filtering software the district used blocked access to my site. It was classified as pornography. Hmm. Well, I was angered a little and amused a lot. But URL forwarding was a trick often used by pornographic sites so you could have a link for PureAsTheDrivenSnow.com that actually links to RaunchyDebauchery.com. And since it wasn’t really practical for them to, you know, actually have a person look at every website that passes through our servers, the filtering software just blocked every site that was forwarded. And labeled it pornography.

[I just made up those domain names and figured I better check whether there are websites attached to them. As of this writing PureAsTheDrivenSnow.com is registered but does not have a site up and RaunchyDebauchery.com is not yet registered. Wow! Same as three years ago! ~TVS So if you're looking for the Christmas gift for the person that seems to have everything....]

I copied the section of the agreement with my ISP that expressly prohibits posting obscene material and emailed our district network administrator. The reply shocked me more than having my students see the big stop sign when they tried to get to my site. It was district policy not to unblock sites owned by teachers. I think they adopted the policy because a lot of people were using services like Geocities [remember Geocities?] that were full of banner ads over which you had very little control. But I wasn’t using Geocities for my class pages and I had no ads (or pornography) anywhere on my site. And shouldn’t we expect a site owned by a teacher to be among the most relevant of the sites we want our students to access?

Fortuitously, I also emailed the publisher of the software the district was using and they unblocked my site. The argument with district policy was moot for me then and it was a battle I was not inclined to fight just on principle. Eventually web hosting prices dropped low enough that I was willing to have a site devoted just to my classes so I don’t have to forward the URL any more. And thus ended My Extremely Brief, Unintentional, and Unprofitable [dammit] Ownership of a Pornographic Website.

By the Frozen Foods

I saw a ghost today
in the grocery store
by the frozen foods –
that figures… cold as ice –
you stood there
staring at me
in that tone of voice
But you can’t haunt me
any more
the next aisle is fresh produce
I have moved on

Fred Writes Erotica

“Miranda’s breath caught in her throat. The stranger’s eyes blazed. With one hand he held her wrist. With the other he tugged at her skirt and ran roughly along her –” Sigh.

Ginger closed the manuscript and tossed it on the reject pile.

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[Note: Learn more about Fred and Ginger here. ~Tim]