{"id":8291,"date":"2012-02-12T21:27:36","date_gmt":"2012-02-13T02:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=8291"},"modified":"2012-02-12T20:37:57","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T01:37:57","slug":"sunday-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=8291","title":{"rendered":"Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/81595350@N00\/6866608237\/in\/photostream\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7183\/6866608237_55d58cc5c8.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A quiet day, spent mostly watching some television and muddling through the Sunday crossword. And then there was my weekly writing group:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;This muscular depressed woman has unruly strawberry-blonde hair, light brown eyes, and a mild case of acne. She wears a forest green turtleneck.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Bloody hell. Well, we did fear the worst. I won&#8217;t call him then.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Her. It&#8217;s a woman. Weren&#8217;t you listening? She&#8217;s a little muscular, but &#8212; &#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;How muscular is he?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She. Look, it&#8217;s like you&#8217;re intentionally misunderstanding everything I say.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Could the muscles and the acne be related somehow? Is this miscreant some kind of habitual steroid abuser?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Miscre&#8211;what? Who even talks like that? No, look, it&#8217;s just a mild case of acne. It flairs up whenever she&#8217;s under stress. She&#8217;s a bit self-concious about it and &#8212; &#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I should bloody well expect so! What with the police investigating him and everything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Her. And the police? What police?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You said he was under arrest.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Stress. Under stress. She&#8217;s not &#8212; Look, I just wanted to let you know, so that when she comes in here for the interview you&#8217;re not surprised and don&#8217;t start&#8230;well, being you. We don&#8217;t need a repeat of what happened with the last applicant.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Bloody villain that was! He threatened to kidnap the mayor!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He said you had something in your hair. And you did. What was that anyway, dried squid?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Nobody kidnaps the mayor of this city on my watch! Just tell that to what&#8217;s left of Johnny Octopus!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yeah, I&#8217;m sure he and the whole Cephalopod Gang were a real menace to society. What was Johnny, like 87?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He was a wily old mollusk!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Maybe back in the nineteen-forties.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They led the Fuhrer to Atlantis!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Whatever. Look, the point is, you need a new sidekick, and you can&#8217;t go bad-mouthing, sucker-punching, or freeze-raying every last person who applies for the job.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Did I freeze-ray Mr. Forest Green Turtleneck here?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<i>Ms.<\/i> And no, but only because she hasn&#8217;t got here yet. And your freeze ray&#8217;s in the shop.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Bloody batteries.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Look, I&#8217;m just saying, don&#8217;t do anything crazy. Just be&#8230;job-interviewy. She comes highly recommended, the acne notwithstanding.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Refrerences?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Impeccable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Dr. <i>Charles<\/i> Impeccable? Really? Hmm&#8230;Powers?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Acrobatics, mostly. She trained with the Mystic Zafir in Nairobi. So basic combat skills: knife-throwing, hand-to-hand, killer robot. But there&#8217;s also a rumor that she&#8217;s secretly the crown princess of a telepathic alien kingdom from the Marqu&#8217;andic Galaxy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You made that up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s on her CV.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hmph. Turtleneck&#8217;s not much of a costume.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Look who&#8217;s talking, Mr. Sweatshirt and Blue Jeans.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I told you, woman! Casual Friday! Besides, the cape&#8217;s at the cleaners.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Look, I&#8217;m not saying you have to hire her. I&#8217;m just saying, keep an open mind. You have to hire someone. The agency isn&#8217;t going to keep insuring you with this lone wolf act you&#8217;ve had going since Benji died.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Allegedly died! The androids never found his body in the space vortex!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Fine, whatever. But for now he&#8217;s gone, and you need somebody out there with you, helping you to not be so&#8230;well, you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Fine! I&#8217;ll see this so-called sidekick! Send him in!&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The first two paragraphs were a pair of (yes, quite odd) writing prompts, but the rest is all me. Not quite sure if that&#8217;s a good thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A quiet day, spent mostly watching some television and muddling through the Sunday crossword. And then there was my weekly writing group: &#8220;This muscular depressed woman has unruly strawberry-blonde hair, light brown eyes, and a mild case of acne. She wears a forest green turtleneck.&#8221; &#8220;Bloody hell. Well, we did fear the worst. I won&#8217;t &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=8291\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,12],"class_list":["post-8291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-personal","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8291"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}