stacks

[thene]

amongst many other things, i am an art.

A few months back (it was freezing fucking cold, is all I remember, so it could have been any time through middle of April) I passed a girl with a mic on Winter Street who was asking strangers about time travel because apparently the City of Boston had paid her to do this. I stopped and unloaded all the shit in my head about the future, technological determinism and the Pill and exactly how we are going to fuck everything up next. The past couple of weeks, she's been back in the alleyway painting murals and setting up her sound installation and she told me that yeah, my voice is going to be in it a couple of times. I HUGGED HER IN GREAT AGITATION. I walk past this shit on my way to work every damn day. Maximal public embarrassment next few months oh god I can't wait. I added her on twitter and everything.



I'm busy applying for a federal contract that would, if we get it, maybe treble the revenue of Zombies, Inc; none of us have done anything remotely like this before but if you have something big, wordy and governmenty to do damn right you throw it at me. Stressed to hell and nothing has ever been so easy and it can only get easier. Hang on for three more weeks, and it gets easier.

Two weeks ago, My Friend was hanging his head in his hands and declaring that it was 'like playing poker from a short stack for two years'; I would like him to be able to sleep again soon. This month's buzzword, which I caught shortly afterwards, is full-stack startup and it works in the sense of clambering up the ladder and seeking progressively more rent off of higher and higher rungs of it.

I need to sleep, because tomorrow morning I have to go drop off some gift taxes for Mr Slime. He really hates gift taxes so I told him I'd do it for $100 a pop and he said yes? This took me under an hour. It is so almost easy that I am figuring the next step down will be total societal meltdown because my life has to cycle down sometime (law of the desert) and given how much else is going right I am not seeing any other way.



Worse than not writing; I'm not finishing stuff. Up to my tits in shit AUs and trying to just not worry about the fact I have nothing remotely likely to ever see daylight; just let it roll, because eventually something will surface in monstrous fashion and I should at least feed it up first. And then I went back to frags, shitpoetry and 750words logs from years ago and there's things there I needed to say? Things where I am trying to get to grips with what is happening around me? Daylight doesn't have to matter; the flow is worth it.

Comments

[pennie_dreadful]

How do I get a job like that? Also, only you.

[thene]

ONLY ME. The artist told me that p much everyone else who stopped to talk to her wanted to talk about the past, not the future. Which I said I don't understand because THE PAST IS A BAD PLACE. IT'S LIKE THE PRESENT BUT EVEN SHITTIER.

I am a little baffled myself as to how you get a job like that because the tax code is a completely open system that anyone can examine the workings of, that you need no special qualifications to operate, and where the 'correct' result will be the same every time. This is not like cooking where you can pay a better person more money to acquire better ingredients for you and cook them better and then get a better end product. There ARE a lot of curveballs that some people don't know how to handle but if you have any level of curiosity it's possible to say 'Sure, I'll handle it' and then go figure it out. Totally open system.

However, both the very poor and the very rich believe that taxation is fucking magical and will pay absurd amounts of money to get the exact same result they could get themselves on https://www.olt.com/main/OLTFree/ for no more than $7. It is the weirdest cottage industry. I can only assume that the rich will pay a lot because some people (like Mr Slime) charge a lot and have nice shiny offices and therefore they think they're accessing magic that doesn't exist. It is, however, less ethically dodgy than the situation that the IRS have bestowed upon the very poor.

Do you want some shit AUs? Because I have like 25,000 words of unposted complete shit and I have no idea how any of it is ever going to become presentable ever. I am feeling more inept at fiction than usual; also getting dazed by how much money rests on writing outside of prose; sat here writing a $2 million+ contract bid, and years of churning out porn is amazing training for this kind of work, but all the money is always going to be in not prose. You would be an ace at writing grants and contracts, I bet.

[pennie_dreadful]

But you've got it all wrong! Don't you know that back in the day kids had more respect, gas was cheaper, women knew their fucking place and queers had to decency to stay in the closet?

HA, ngl money and taxes all seem pretty magical to me (mythical is maybe a better way of putting it?) as I have never had enough to matter. Don't know if I ever told you but my dad was a tax preparer in another life so he does my taxes for me for free. Every year he says he is going to show me how to do it myself, every year I say, sure. XD

I ASSUME THAT IS A RHETORICAL QUESTION, BECAUSE THE ANSWER TO THAT IS YES, ALWAYS. Also I might be an ace at it but I would probably die of boredom, lol. But, wow, I wonder if learning to write porn has earned me other fringe skills?

[thene]

(just fyi the reason I haven't sent you anything yet is because every time I try to tidy anything up, it doubles in size in my head. I may have another monster on my hands. It sure would be great if I had time to write any of this shit properly.)

[pennie_dreadful]

NP. Lol the things I have had bouncing around in my head. But every time I try to write them down my brain stalls. Prob for the best as most of my ideas are either inspired by the tv shows I watch or full on crossovers. Things with an audience of none. :(

[thene]

Aw. I would read them anyway because mindless ship junkie, hi.

I now have 7000+ words of this and pirates? Why the fuck do I have pirates.

[pennie_dreadful]

I AM MOTHERFUCKING EXCITE FOR THIS. Pirates! I am trying to do something with a couple ideas I had about post-canon Sorrows (as opposed to finishing shit I already started ;_;) One of them is a Doctor Who crossover :( (oh come on, a sentient forest, that is so the kind of thing i used to watch who for. Wtf Victorian era.) But it would have Vastra in it, at least?