The Doorway: a panfandom game

It's nice to have employment again, and I'll be officially starting tomorrow. It's appropriate, as tomorrow is the youth night, so it'll be like jumping into the deepest end of a swimming hole. It's arts and crafts night, too. The younger children will be making Mother's Day cards, and the older ones will have the option of doing that an art project that I know nothing about: tie-dye? In any case, I've got a lot to look forward to. Next week I'll be mining for ideas from everyone -- themes, activities, everything that might be needed at the center. I do think that it would be wonderful to cultivate a library of our own, too.

Filter to Steve Rogers (EMH)

Hello.

Filter to Walter Blythe

Mrs. Lynde always guilts her children really badly when she doesn't hear from them every day. As much as I admire Rachel, I really have no wish to be like her, but I do admit that I'm wondering why I haven't heard from my son in several days.

Filter to Janine

I feel like I'm alone in a city completely full of people. I don't suppose you'd care to join me for dinner?

Yesterday was May the first. Plenty of celebrations swirling around. Walpurgisnacht & Beltane. The feast of St. Joseph, for the workers. As he is the Patron Saint of Workers.

But then I suppose I'm with Francois Georgin, and would much rather celebrate St. Faineante, the patron saint of idleness.

[Howard Stark]

Proposition.

This place is BORING!

To whomever sent me the lilies and tulips this morning, thank you. They are just what I needed to brighten my week.

Filter to Stephen

Sully informed me last night that Colin was sent home. He wasn't happy here, but I know he is there.

Filter to Stephen Dedalus

May we talk?

( trigger warning: author suicide )

I do suppose it's time for the annualpionta do Phádraig....

A Bhaile Locha Riach, is fada 'bheas trácht ort
ón lá úd a tharla mé ann,
Nó gur dhruid mé go dlúth leis na cárta
's gur thógadar ríl in mo cheann.

Ar maidin ag dul tríd an tsráid dom
shíl mé nach ndéanfainn aon mhoill,
Nó gur rug John Joyce ar bharr láimhe mé
go dtí teach pléaráca agus grinn.

Chas Dia aon scilling amháin chugam
agus a shíl mé go raibh mo dhíol ann,
Nuair a shíl mé nár ghlaos ach dhá chárta
bhí ag Conúr im aghaidh trí is bonn

Bhuail mise an bord leis an gcárt
is Maolamhnaigh 'se tháinig go teann,
D'fhiafraíos cén chiall an cás seo
is a ghiorracht ó thangamar ann.

A FULL BEARD?

This is not what was intended.

... and being of a sound mind, I can tell you that everything looks different. The smells and the sounds are different. There is no sun, but if there was sun I am sure it would be hot. I am told it is February, that winter is nearly done and Spring (like Orpheus' bloody stump upon a lyre) will come back to us.

It was June. And I didn't want to go. It was June and we were laughing, until

We are sure there is no veil, we are sure this veil is not rent to pieces? We are sure that these two feet are my feet and this very large flat is my flat? Because I couldn't be sure of anything.

While stiIl I may, I write for you
The love I lived, the dream I knew.

[Filtered to: Angel]

Under the fruit of evil and of good:
And of the embattled flaming multitude
Who rise, wing above wing, flame above flame,
And, like a storm, cry the Ineffable Name,
And with the clashing of their sword-blades make
A rapturous music, till the morning break
And the white hush end all but the loud beat
Of their long wings, the flash of their white feet.

Last night, when I came home, I took a detour through the park & I found a fox, and I sat on the bench for a little bit of time and fed him from my leftover salmon dinner. Or rather, the fox found me.

[Stephen Dedalus]

I'm re-reading Dubliners. Tell me about the Araby bazaar.

[Howard Stark]

We need to talk. SHIELD + personal business. I don't want to be seen.

[Tony Stark MCU]

Wouldn't you know, I didn't get a yea or a nay regarding Friday's findings.

That Valentine's Day sucked especially hard.


So, now that we're over the less fun part of February, we can move on and look forward to... what's next, St. Patrick's Day? That sounds great.

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

[Tony Stark (MCU)]

Thank you.

[Howard Stark]

I love you, you know. You old cock.

[Dum Dum]

Sweetheart.

Stephen Dedalus

Love is weird.

Nobody loves the light like the blind man.

I have evolved as a species, I eat from boxes, not tins, my food is prepared in front of me, not canned in a factory. However what I'm eating has not been featured in an art exhibition by Andy Warhol, thus perhaps my cultural evolution has taken a dive. I have reached Stephen Dedalus' Middle Ages, wherein everything is just a little bit dark, with a few more rats.

Which makes sense, considering I have acquired means of both self-sustenance, sustainability and destruction: Employment. Oh joyous day. I can eat fried pits of poultry and rice from a box with two sticks, I can afford the drink I need for self-sustenance, sustainability and destruction -- and, and most important. I can stack boxes in the back rooms of a grocery.

I have arrived.

There are those in the world who live to work. They love their jobs and it's a joy to get up in the morning and strive and ache and accomplish. These are the people we're meant to admire. To emulate, to get close to or aspire towards. I can tell you that I've never admired them. I can tell you that the closest I've ever gotten to them is when they step over me and my puddle which I've claimed for a bed. For there are those. There are them that. There is me that only. Works to live. Because life is for me what happens in the moments, and the glimpses, and the tarnished coppers. Money that changes hands is only worth it's journey. It's stories, like the inscriptions on books.

To Jennifer, on her 11th Birthday, love Dad

A book. Tails with a Twist: Animal Nonsense Verse by an animal with a twist. By an author with a story of ill-spent youth that's given to a little girl on her 11th Birthday by a father, one can only assume, who doesn't know which end is up or how his own tail twitches.

I wish you the very best, Jennifer, on your 11th birthday, but you're probably in your eighties now if you're alive at all. Perhaps this book ended up in a shop that sells spent dreams because your children's children didn't give a damn about you, Jennifer. Or the work that you did. That you lived for or that you earned your living with.

It cost me three dollars.

Which is more than I spent on my dinner. A tin of soup. Prime rib, first rib, initial rib, cut into pieces and served with carrots. And it makes me think about -- existence. And what we do to feed ourselves from tins. From books. From our relationships with others. A meal condensed in a can and sold for two dollars, or a child's 11th birthday, reduced to the mildew and dust of a bookstore that wouldn't hire me. But it's just as well. I'm already present in volumes on the shelves, it would be too much to have me as forgotten and overlooked and mishandled behind the cash register as well.

But hello -- you -- you. I know you're reading this. No one else is but you are. And you're your own tin of soup too, aren't you. Flavours and bittersweet memories all chopped into bits. The prime, the water, the diluted soggy vegetables, it's all there. Appealing, pleasant when warmed up. Consumed by those who don't have a second thought about soup. Or dinner. Or two dollars.

[Ichabod Crane]

I know who you are now.
But I didn't look it up, I remembered. Or I suppose I remembered the legend of you that someone handed down to someone else and then someone else who was Washington Irving wrote it down, either that or Oscar Wilde happened to this daguerrotype.

So. Hello Ichabod Crane. I know who you are and you don't bleed as much dust as I thought you might.

[Howard Stark]

I need your help. I need to find a dress.

I don't wish to be a bother to anyone, but please I need help. The charming woman who brought me here told me that most everyone here is quite nice and helpful, but I'm afraid that my capacity for remembering how to operate this box in the kitchen is rather beyond me, at the moment.

I told you so, you all scoffed and I The longer I'm here, the more I grow accustomed to seeing people every day and living in a City that probably influenced our Capitol. I don't really like getting used to anything -- I don't like the word, don't like the thought.

I don't like the thought of people dying on the street because of the cold, I don't like the idea of 5th Avenue and I really hate Wall Street. Just in case you were wondering.

But I really like the way that everybody came together this week to make sure people stayed warm with the power being off. And I like the way that some people give of themselves to make sure everybody has a little. And there's nothing redeeming about Wall Street.

I keep talking about taking some of you up into the mountains. I got the cold weather gear, got the Jeep all fired up and am proud to say I'm no longer driving it illegally. I've got four spots in my vehicle, if anybody else wants to caravan. There aren't any mints on pillows or WiFi where we're going.