Hula Girl

There was something a little off about the hula girl on Rick’s dashboard. If I could’ve just focused a little more, got everything to spin a little less, maybe I could’ve figured out what it was. The car smelled new or rented, but Rick sure didn’t look like the kind of guy that could afford something like that. He didn’t really seem like a person that’d have a car at all, much less a clean one. That’s probably part of why I left the bar with him.

“Where we goin’?” I asked, poking the hula girl in the belly, like that’d get her to spill.

“Dunno yet,” Rick replied. “South.”

“Fine.” I burrowed myself into the door and closed my eyes. “Wake me up when we hit the border.”

Rick laughed the coughing sort of laugh that chain-smokers have. “Si, señor.”

Now, I can tell you, I’m the sort of guy who could sleep through anything. Seriously. I went to the Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa with a buddy of mine, and missed the entire third quarter. In any event, I really wanted to get some shuteye while Rick drove us wherever. I was pretty well convinced that Rick meant “crazy” when he said it.

“Jake, you’re comin’ with me,” he had said in the bar, giving me Clint Eastwood’s awkward grin like it was something brand new, “And we’re gonna do something crazy.”

So I figured I’d need as much sleep as I could get before we went and set all the psychos free from the county asylum or broke into the police commissioner’s house or whatever other shenanigans Rick’d come up with. The trouble was, I could feel that hula girl watching me, staring at me without blinking with those painted-on eyes of blue.

I opened my eyes up, just a little bit, and stared right on back. But how the hell could I win a staring contest with something that couldn’t even blink? “It’s practically cheatin’,” I muttered.

“What?” Rick asked.

“Nothin’,” I said, “Just drunk.” I had to be a lot further gone than I’d thought. Which I guess was the point.

“Where’d you get this anyway?” I poked the hula girl’s hip and sent her dancing.

“Check the derriér.” Rick glanced over from the road to the tiny, black-haired figure. He wasn’t quite smiling but I got the feeling he felt like it.

Thinking myself a bit ungentlemanly, I lifted the hula girl’s grass skirt and read, printed across her anatomically-correct, nude behind,


Made in Honolulu
I got my EYE on you!!!


It would’ve made sense if the latter message’d been written in pen or something, but this was typed or stamped on in a curling, fancy font. I made sure to put every strip of grass back in place to cover the hula girl’s behind, and set her back on the dash.

“Who’s got their eye on you?”

“Some guy.” Rick chuckled, sending him into a short coughing fit. When he’d got back control he added, “Used it to get my attention. Cute, huh?”

“Creepy’s more like. ‘I got my eye on you’? What kinda pick up line is that?”

But it had obviously worked on Rick. He was smiling and seeing something before him that sure weren’t the road. “Pretty lame, huh? Waiter brought me a mojito and that doll, and smiled at me. Well, I’m more of a beer guy- you know- and it took me half the night to see that he’d written something’ on the napkin under the drink.” Rick paused and looked over at me, keeping quiet until finally I prompted him, “And? What did it say?”

Rick let out a little sigh. “It said ’11:30. Read the ass.’”

Now I can tell you, and with no doubt whatever, if I’d been Rick, I’d have never gone out with someone who couldn’t put two words together to ask me out outright, much less on paper. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t know Rick that well, but he was certainly strange and that was something I needed in my life at the time. Anything to break the pattern I was falling into, just like my daddy. I just didn’t realize quite how crazy he’d turn out to be.

“Did you meet him?” I asked, figuring I better humor Rick ‘cause he was getting really into this cockamamie pick up story.

Rick nodded. That sad sort of nod where you just kind of let your head drop and it bounces an inch back up. “We broke up last week.”

“Oh…” Obeying a strange urge, I turned the hula girl away, so she looked out the window instead of at me. “Sorry.”

“Yeah,” Rick replied. “Me too.”

I wasn’t ready for it when the car suddenly stopped. My whole body jerked forward and the seat belt dug deep into my stomach. The hula girl jumped up from the dash and hit the windshield. I set her back up in her place and checked outside to see where we’d ended up.

The house seemed normal enough. Pick-up parked in the driveway and all the lights off. Maybe a little early for bed on a Friday; it wasn’t even midnight. A nice red mat sat below the door with “WELCOME!” written across it, probably big enough to see from outer space.

“Come on.” Rick turned the headlights off, but left his car running, as he stepped outside.

“Where are we?” I asked in a whisper. I was starting to get a bad feeling, like I’d be better off staying in the car with the creepy hula girl. “Shouldn’t one of us watch the car?”

“Yeah, that’s smart. I’ll be right back, okay?” Rick started to close the door but stopped midway to reach back in and grab the hula girl, taking her with him to the house.

I’d expected Rick to break a window or jimmy the lock or, at the very least, ring the doorbell, but Rick just fished a key out from above the doorframe and let himself in without much to do. A few lights in the house went on not long after that. You couldn’t see anything though, from where I was, on account of the curtains being pulled, but I could hear some shouting. The lights went off in that room then on in another. This one didn’t have curtains, so I could see Rick talking with some young guy in his boxers. The young guy kept using his hands to do his shouting, while Rick just kept his arms crossed and used his mouth, the hula girl at his side. After throwing his hands up high like that was the end of it, the young guy went back to the room with the curtains, and Rick followed.

It seemed like the noise kept getting louder and louder and I figured, if I opened my window, I could tell exactly what they were saying. But I didn’t. I didn’t do much of anything for the next five minutes, the many hours that followed, or the days turned into weeks while the police were looking for Rick and me and the hula girl turned murder weapon.


Copyright 2009 Amanda Martin

© Amanda Martin, 2009

Twitter-ings

From the past month-ish, so you can see what I do? (You just update status- so this is what I've been up to/what I haven't done since I'm a woman of leisure):

BTWL RT, means someone else said most of the thing first (post "--" is what I responded). @ before a word/words means I'm replying to something someone else said. Get it?

1.
am attempting wit (how'm I doing so far?)7 minutes ago from web

2.
RT @Jeffrey_Donovan All fans: BURN NOTICE reclaimed #1 show lastnight[...] I promise to reward you. :-) -- Heated up 50 degrees at prospects8 minutes ago from web

3.
@sparklemonster Good luck!13 minutes ago from web in reply to sparklemonster

4.
is a little bit in love with American Gothic- wish it wasn't canceled 10+ years now...11:54 PM Jul 14th from web

5.
It's always a problem deciding whether your story should stay mostly sane or go jauntily off to meet the tyrannical faeries of Hell8:00 PM Jul 14th from web

6.
"I'm the karater and he's the karate"12:23 AM Jul 14th from web

7.
want to write a movie called "Ninja Zombies in Space" after seeing a review of "King Kung Fu" (King Kong/Kung Fu, get it?)12:20 AM Jul 14th from web

8.
Ow12:19 AM Jul 12th from web

9.
Santiago Cabrera and the Dog Whisperer make me proud to be Latina :)11:08 PM Jul 7th from web

10.
Is exhausted from running a half mile and five flights of stairs in heels to make it to an interview on time, but feels intensely skillful.11:01 PM Jul 6th from web

11.
Fireworks are a much more reasonable fear than spiders, ghosts, or clowns... unless they're poisonous, poltergeists, or John Wayne Gacy Jr.12:57 AM Jul 5th from web

12.
@sparklemonster Am scandalized beyond recognition.12:53 AM Jul 5th from web in reply to sparklemonster

13.
is reading New Moon because she will not be pop culturally alienated from her generation! Nay! (shaking fist... in case you couldn't tell)11:39 PM Jul 3rd from web

14.
@sparklemonster How dare you sexually harass me in this impertinent manner?11:35 PM Jul 3rd from web in reply to sparklemonster

15.
Need to stop rewatching Merlin tv show because it really can't be THAT good... or can it? (Double meaning...?)3:11 PM Jul 2nd from web

16.
(Public) Note to Self: Only fill gas tank at risk of fulfilling escapist fantasy and continuing southward until reaching Ushuaia.10:56 PM Jul 1st from web

17.
All of my ideas seem a lot more brilliant (and a lot less psychopathic) when I'm nearly asleep. ?1:40 PM Jun 30th from web

18.
Almost done with my third book ^.^ But am twittering instead of finishing it. Hrm..11:26 PM Jun 23rd from web

19.
I am too afraid to reply to my stalkees' tweets, on account of being a hack. Will instead reply with Shakespeare! Genius! Or not..2:13 PM Jun 17th from web

20.
Kitty, you shan't rob me of my sleep tonight! If you try, I shall make a beautiful kitty pillow case of you! Mwa ha!11:50 PM Jun 16th from web

21.
"Who am I anyway? Am I my resume?"5:55 PM Jun 15th from web

22.
http://twitpic.com/7g40y - Seeley-Booth, my new kitty-- be pierced by his baby greens ^.^10:27 PM Jun 14th from TwitPic

23.
Will be working to incorporate more ReBoot slang into my everyday language: "By the code!" "Over my deleted bitmap!" "What in the net?!"9:30 PM Jun 12th from web

24.
Is in awful love with Shemar Moore after seeing him do an impression of his mommy ^_____^5:12 PM Jun 11th from web

25.
Using a voice recording software to write poetry produces nicer results, but it sure makes me feel silly!6:37 PM Jun 10th from web

26.
The hallway is a lot comfier than I thought-- new gaming space! (except I'm kinda in the way...)11:33 AM Jun 10th from web

27.
@peacefyre You got in? Details?12:07 AM Jun 10th from web in reply to peacefyre

28.
Am done and thusly have achieved BA-ness, which, in my case, stands for bad ass (or not...)12:52 PM Jun 8th from web

29.
Maybe someone can lend me five pages of unpublished writing on the Kyoto School of Zen Buddhist philosophy? (Pleaaase?)3:48 PM Jun 7th from web

30.
Alas, crazy hair dresser tried to stab my eyes out, cut my ears off, succeeded in burning me, and (the horror!) convinced me to get bangs :(7:35 PM Jun 6th from web

31.
Nervous about haircut. Will undoubtedly end up looking like a Ferengi when want to look like a Troi- le sob.10:02 AM Jun 6th from web

32.
I'm nobody, who are you? Are you nobody too? Then there's a pair of us, don't tell! They'd advertise, you know!9:57 PM Jun 5th from web

Writing Class, Assignment One!

We were given a list of characters to choose from (only two), which included
o Frank, a cop or ex-cop
o Billy, a cartoonist
(among others)

Items, to choose one of:
oIpod
ostaplegun
oduct tape
olamp
etc....

Location:
Seattle
Chicago
New York
Basement
etc.. (to choose one of)

A genre to choose one of:
o mystery
o romance
o crime

and a line, that we HAD to use: "Where are my pants?"

Then we had to do a story 1200 words or less. Got it? Okay. Here is mine, tentatively entitled "Where are My Pants?"


“‘Where are my pants?’” Frank read, looking over Billy’s sketch of the suspect. The image of the suspect was so clearly depicted that, if it weren’t for the grey hue of the pencil, it could easily have passed for a photograph. Every nuance of the witness’ statement had made its way onto the page; even the suspect’s heroin addiction was apparent by Billy’s careful shading. There was one problem, however. Just beside the suspect’s mouth was a talk bubble, a circle that turned into an arrow at one end. The sort of thing you’d see in a comic.

Frank glanced up at Billy from over the top of his glasses. They were poorly fitted and continuously slid down the bridge of his nose. Frank usually ignored this until they threatened to fall off his face altogether. “What the hell is this?” he asked, dryly.

“John ‘J.J.’ Markenston,” Billy replied, capping his pencil and appearing more than a little satisfied with himself. The breeze that somehow continuously blew through Homicide, though in the basement of the station, seemed to grow twenty degrees cooler instantaneously.

Pushing up his glasses, Frank crossed to the other side of his desk, where Billy proudly sat with both his arms and legs crossed, and set the paper down in front of the new sketch artist. “And why the hell is he saying ‘Where are my pants?,’ Billy.” It was the voice Frank usually reserved for interrogations.

Billy began fiddling with the desk lamp, switching it on and off, unscrewing the light bulb and dusting it with a sleeve, and twirling the long cord between his fingers. “The report said Markenston was last seen fleeing a building naked.” Billy emphasized the last word as though it was the most amusing thing in the world. “If I saw someone running down the street in the nude,” he drew the word out, “I think him being naked’s the only thing I’d remember.”

With a quick, almost violent motion, Frank grabbed the lamp away and set it beside his trash bin. “This bastard,” Frank continued in his cop voice, “raped, murdered, and disemboweled six women. Nice women, most of them mothers. It isn’t some joke, Billy. Show these ladies some respect.”

“Fine!” Billy replied, exasperated. “Do you want me to redo it?”

Frank picked up the sketch and examined it again. Calming himself as he walked, Frank returned to his side of the desk. “Nah. We’ll just erase your dumb ass comments.” He then noticed something written small, almost illegibly so, at the bottom of the page. He leaned into the document to check it up close. “Is that your signature?”

Billy spent the next half-minute rolling his chair slowly to Frank’s side of the desk, before glancing down at the drawing. “Why, so it is.”

“Are you out of your damn mind?” Frank snapped, causing him to receive a number of irritated glances from his colleagues. “He’s still out there. This would lead Markenston straight to you.” Frank took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if to imply that Billy’s idiocy was giving him a migraine. “Billy, I don’t know if this is gonna work out. You can’t seem to take anything seriously.”

A pitiful expression covered Billy’s face as he looked up at his old friend. “I’m a cartoonist, Frank.”

Frank sighed, deep and loudly, before cracking his back, shaking out an old on-the-job injury. “That isn’t enough anymore. You’re gonna have to try harder. I’m trying to help you out, but both our asses are on the line if the chief ever sees the likes of this,” Frank slapped the sketch with the back of his hand, “Think of Marianne and the baby.”

“The baby!” Billy groaned. He let his head drop into his hands, melodramatically, comically.

“Let’s try it again,” Frank said. He got out a blank page and set it in front of Billy. “Just try to get in the mind that he’s after your wife, alright. He’s nothing to be laughed at.”

“This is creatively stifling,” Billy muttered under his breath.

“Amen, brother.” Frank stood and pat Billy on the shoulder. “I’ll go get the witness.”

Billy held up his coffee and attempted a weak smile. “Anything to pay the bills, eh?” He toasted.

Frank tipped an imaginary hat. “Anything to pay the bills,” he repeated.
It occurred to Frank, hours later, that he had never spoken truer words. When the sound of his cell phone woke him the next morning, presumably someone calling him to the scene of yet another homicide, Frank muttered to himself, “Anything to pay the bills.”

Project <3

I think I mentioned a long while back that I was thinking of doing Greek myth rewrites for Nanowrimo next year (in one big book... "big" is a relative concept). Well, I've rethought and will be doing myths, legends, and folktales from around the world, including the previously mentioned Greek myths.... oh, reread the post and will not do some of the less-interesting ones.

Anyway, I'm planning on doing THESE ones, so far. Send me additional stories that are lesser-known and fascinating. Huzzah? (I'll link/post/summarize the stories later so you know what they're more about than just the titles ^^*)

Greek Myth-
Selene and Endymion
Calypso

Latino Fairytale/Ghost Story-
La Llorona

Japanese Fairytale-
Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (竹取物語）(Yes, there are indeed two source materials for the mythology of Sailor Moon on this list, but I cannot help if my interests coincide with those of Naoko Takeuchi.)

The Man Who Sang to Ghosts (based on title alone, so far...)

Taira no Tadanori's story (poet-warrior from 平家物語）(Tale of the Heike)

German Fairy Tale-
Goose Girl (Bros. Grimm)

Danish Short Story (doesn't really qualify...)-
Little Match Girl (Hans Christian Andersen)
Brave Tin Soldier (HCA)

English Poem-
Enoch Arden (Tennyson)

American Tall Tale-
John Henry

Suggest more! Please! If you can, steer clear of Andersen and the Grimm bros, because they are simply plum tuckered out from all the rewrites.

<3

Also, really want to do this story, but app. came from a Pokemon episode. Here is the episode:

Iranian Bloggers

Saw this vid and though of YOU <3



This one in particular, a photo blog, is pretty amazing and interesting. I especially like this photo of a plastic bottle:



I've been reading a lot of articles about the Iranian election that offer very different perspectives from one another. Some people say that the US just supports that the election is rigged because we are anti-Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who, in turn, is anti-US (us?). By the way, does anyone else think that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is amazingly attractive? I know it might not be PC and I'm sure he's a terrible man (Holocaust denial is a big no-no but I do understand what he was saying about freedom of speech... though it was v. hypocritical @.@ this is all very confusing, don't you think?).

Picture of him from Wikipedia:



Another newspaper was focusing on interviews with "normal" Iranians and how they felt about the pres. But I think that that can be easily altered to fit the newspaper's view. But it would be nice to see a more moderate fellow in semi-charge (though the pres. doesn't have as much power as the "Supreme Leader of Iran," Ali Kamenei, who is old and not attractive enough to have his picture reprinted here (printed, really?)).

If anyone else is reading an Iranian blog that gives cultural insight, please comment ^_^ Or, comment for no reason, because I would very much love to hear from you.

Clover Rewrite like... seventeen

Keep trying to find a good way to start this sci fi book. I've written like three different "chapter one"s (one in screenplay format), but I'm unhappy with the results (le gr.) Usually, I have it start with the main guy waking in the hospital, but another version had the main guy as a kid get in a terrible bike accident. This one's more intense.

Still a ROUGH DRAFT so forgive the crappiness that such a ness entails (ah, my writing is genius this morning.)

“Getting a little too chilly out there?” He asked, intently watching the blinking red dot on his screen that was the woman. Even inside the base, the man was bundled in every scrap of clothing he could fit layered over each other and sat directly atop a heater. His coffee, too slowly consumed, had frozen both in his cup and on his chin. As he spoke, tiny clouds escaped from between his lips.

The man turned his radio down quickly, smiling, as the woman responded with a loud string of profanities, some creative but most simply ugly words.

“Am I almost there?” The woman asked, huffing asthmatically between words. The chattering of her teeth echoed from his speakers.

“Maybe a quarter mile,” he replied, provoking another round of invectives. “You get to be the hero, at least.”

The other people working in the base typed loudly as they collected data, and spoke in technical jargon that was far beyond the understanding of the man. His job was simple, though, perhaps, the most ridden with disquietude of all. In his mind, the man could see the tiny dot fade from the screen, the steady beat of her heartbeat become a single, prolonged screech.

“If this even works,” she said.

“Of course it will,” he spoke matter-of-factly, as though he could understand any part of their undertaking beyond the simple reality that it was an attempt at a cure. She had explained the science a thousand times but it seemed that his brain was incapable of holding more than one scientific theory at a time. “I have it on good authority that SRX-6-1 has a 99% likelihood of success. How do you like them apples?”

She simultaneously laughed and coughed. “It’s 29%, you idiot.”

“Could be worse.”

“Could be a lot better.” She inhaled sharply. “Jesus, it’s cold.”

“You keep cursing like that, you’ll end up somewhere that’s never cold,” he joked. A few desks away, two men began arguing with one another frantically, one tapping the screen repeatedly. The man tried to ignore them, even as they began to raise their voices before one man raced across the room to the CO.

“Can you decrease the sensitivity of your mic?” The woman asked, “I swear to God, I can hear the whole choir singing.”

The man quickly switched over to a headset, plugging it into his computer in such a hurry that he nearly broke the plug. When he glanced over at the CO, he noticed an expression on the man’s face that he had never seen before, something that suggested a mix of sheer panic and hopeless resignation. “Always ruining my fun. I was trying to get in some weights while you blabbed on. Now when will I get in my workout?”

“Don’t you dare start exercising! That skin and bones look is very appealing on you. Warms me up ten degrees just thinking of your nonexistent tush.”

“Thanks…”

The CO had moved to the front of the room, before the giant but, sadly, broken large screen. It had frozen on an image with the morning’s weather report, predicting the now current temperatures in the low negative seventies and eighties. Everyone looked up from their work to see what he would say, except for the man, who continued speaking with the woman.

“Okay, stop. You’re right on top of it.”

“Excellent. Can I drop the SRX-6-1 and get the hell back now? I can’t feel my brain.”

“Of course not,” he replied.

“-should be here in less than a minute,” the CO explained, with a very serious expression on his face.

“-that would imply that there was something in that thick skull of yours besides piss and vinegar,” he finished. A 2x2 inch warning message flashed red in the upper left corner of his screen, with a timer counting down forebodingly.

“-nothing we can do. I’m sorry,” the CO looked down. People all around the man and his mic and the blinking red dot began speaking loudly, some crying or shouting, a few urgently typing or placing phone calls. The woman at the desk beside the man seemed to fall into hysterics, pulling herself beneath her desk as though there was an earthquake, and sliding the chair in to hide that she was there. A few people ran for the exit without preparing any gear to fight against the cold, and snow began wafting through the room with a violent wind. The CO simply sat in his chair in the center of the room and rested his head in his hands.

“Is that Lesher?” the woman asked, the sound of her rubbing her face with her hands also coming across the radio waves. “Will you ask him if I can drop this already? I really have to pee, you know, and I can’t very well do it out here. Should’ve put on a diaper.”

“I tell myself the same thing every morning,” the man replied, though his voice didn’t hold any of the amusement he had intended.

“Everything okay?” She asked, noting the change.

The counter slid down to thirty seconds. A few desks down, a man was sobbing and telling someone that he loved them. “I’ll-I….I’ll always, always be with you,” he said. The snow was scattering over everything and those who maintained enough sense covered their computers to finish their essential conversations.

“Think I have carpal tunnel,” the man explained to the woman, stretching his right hand so that it cracked loudly for her to hear. “You think I’m eligible for disability.”

“I’ve always thought that,” she joked, before groaning. “How much longer?”

He bit his lip and brought his hands to his eyes, closing them tightly. “Fifteen seconds,” he whispered.

She was silent for a moment. Five seconds, to be exact. “Well, aren’t we precise today?”

There was no time. He opened his eyes and watched the counter, the numbers decreasing so quickly. “I have to tell you something,” he said, serious but trying not to sound too panicked.

“Oh?” She replied, cheerful. Wonderfully cheerful.

“I love you.”

“You wha-?”

The timer read 0:00.01 and then, nothing.


© Amanda Martin 2009

Edited 12 July 2009 :)

Ah, Merlin

My favorite scene (huzzah for idioms all lined up prettily in a row)-

Uther: I expressly ordered Arthur not to go.

Morgana: I'd say it worked like a charm too.

Uther: Not another word.

Morgana: My lips are sealed.

Uther: I should have put him under lock and key.

etc.

Am amused. Silly Merlin and the modern slang and idioms. If you get a chance, watch an episode (and get hooked.) It's a lot better than this post suggests....