I look back on where I started and can’t help cringe, but that’s a sign that I’ve improved, right?

In other writing news: taking advantage of not being employed or in school full time and going for the full FIFTY THOUSAND Words goal for National Novel Writing Month. I had fallen behind but managed to catch up on Sunday where I wrote seven thousand words in one day. 

I put off actually starting  the Luther Paradox reboot enough to use it for NaNoWriMo. And I’m 45k + along and enjoying myself.  Sure I’ll have a lot of editing to do once I finally finish the story (which won’t be on November 30th) but this is the first time in almost six months that I am enjoying writing again.

But once I have gone through the project and revised it, I’ll start posting at least segments of it  here. I’ll never “live-blog” my NaNo story like I did two years ago. That was a mistake looking back.

Well I found a replacement and though I know I’ve been absent on this blog, I’ve still been “blogging” over at Tumblr.

I quiet like what I found. I’ve been on the site just under a year and am currently following a mix of Doctor Who and Star Trek related blogs. There also other posts that come across my dashboard which lately have been about politics, either the shenanigans (pizza as a vegetable? really?) or the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon/movement. And I like to think that I’ve made internet friends there as well. Over the summer I met some local Whovians at a meetup I learned about through tumblr.

But I stopped linking it to my official about.me page, which is in my email signature that I’ve been using for job applications. I have my twitter, facebook, linkedin and this blog linked on that page, which is under walshcaitlin just like this blog and twitter is.

At the end of the day, if it weren’t for tumblr, I wouldn’t have found Doctor Who.  I’ve been a Whovian for six months and following this fandom made me finally realize that Star Trek is dead.  Yes there’s another movie coming out sometime, but it’s in the alternate timeline that the 2009 movie created. I don’t see the franchise ever going back to the original timeline that I grew up watching. I’ll still be a Trekkie at heart, even if I’ve moved on to become obsessed with Doctor Who.

If only tumblr wasn’t such a large time-suck, then I’d be happier.

Qu’ran Burning – 9/16/10

Adjusting the Political Parties – 9/30/10

On the spate of LGBT youth suicdes – 10/14/10

“School Pride” Extreme Makeover School Edition – 10/28/10

Keith OlbermannSuspension – 11/11/10 

“Christmas Column” 12/9/10

~Semester Break~

Obamacare in the Courts – 2/10/11

South Dakota’s law on justifiable murder – 2/24/11

Libya and Sheen’s destructions – 3/9/11

News Story: Catholic Students Push for New Chapel – 3/16/11

Homophobia at the NYC St. Patrick’s Parade – 3/24/11

Presidential Campaign Speculation Already – 4/7/11

I’m pretty sure that’s all of them. I know I missed out on an column right after Spring Break when I came back swamped with work and a deadline that I missed.

Or the story that finally breaks my writing drought after three months.

I was sitting in my History of Christian Churches classes last year, learning about the Reformation, when a story idea came to me. What if Martin Luther had been prevented from posting his 95 Thesis? What if there was a time travel element – if the person who stopped Luther was from the future… if he was a time traveling mercenary?  I played with the first draft during National Novel Writing Month in November and got to about 20,000 words before I realized my story wasn’t going anywhere plot wise. I had focused far too much on my protagonist, giving him a back story that was quickly turning him into a Mary Sue character. There is a reason why I never bothered posting anything I wrote back then.

I decided to reboot my own story and start again, playing around with the plot until I picked a starting point that would just jump right in. I don’t want to give too much away in case of spoilers but I’m hoping to weave a tale that combines religion – the Catholic Church specifically – and Time Travel.

Finally writing again after the summer drought feels good, but my confidence is shaky (actually, that’s nothing new). I have decided to post the first two thousand words for feedback.

~~~~

Sim awoke to find himself lying on his back looking up at a dark alleyway. The sky was full of clouds that reflected an eerie glow from the lights of the city. He was dimly aware of a crowd surrounding him but he couldn’t tell how many or who they were. A voice called out simply “He’s stirring.”

A hand shot out and almost roughly grasped him on his shoulder. “Take it easy,” another, deeper voice said. “Don’t get up too quickly.”

The hand shifted to underneath Sim as its owner helped him sit up. He fought off a wave of dizziness before he managed to get a look at his surroundings.

The alleyway was virtually indistinguishable from the all the other alleys that Sim had seen in his lifetime. Puddles dotted about reflected the scene above. The group of men who had circled him respectively kept their distance, except for the one who had helped Sim sit up. He crouched in front of him, his face highlighted by the sickly yellow light. “I’m Octavian, and these are my disciples,” he offered a wallet. “We needed to find out who you were.”

Sim took the item, surprised at its heaviness. “Find anything good?”

“Not much – it seems you don’t have a lot of info on file, but we did get your name at least, Father Peters. Could you tell us what happened?”

Sim’s eyes widened. He hoped Octavian didn’t catch it in the spotty light. When did he become a Father? He could only remember a group of very angry, very German faces looking at him as they pinned him down. He had been found out, something that had never happened before.

“Honestly, everything is a bit hazy, you know? I can barely remember an angry group attacking me.” Sim decided for now at least to leave out certain details, such as the German catcalls of witchcraft that he still heard.

Octavian stood straight and paced around in between his men and Sim. “We couldn’t find anyone, we even looked in a two block radius or so. The area’s pretty clean.” He stopped and looked down at Sim. “If you don’t mind me asking, Father, what are you wearing?”

Sim looked down. It was a long black cassock, obviously clerical, but ancient looking. He had know idea what exactly it was or why he was wearing it, but he had to give an answer. “It was for a costume party.” He kept his voice even.

“Really? Hate to ask this, but were you drinking?”

“No.”

Octavian’s eyebrows rose. Sim shook his head, “It was party for the children of the parish,” he pulled out of thin air.

The man who stood in front of him began to shuffle his feet, but held out his hand. “Well since we can’t figure out what happened, and you can’t remember much yet, we might as well return you to your parish.”

Sim took the hand and hoisted himself up. “Right.” For a moment the alleyway and men doubled and blurred before righting themselves. He stood in place slowly getting his bearings.

“You do remember where your parish is right?”

“Uh-huh.” Sim faced one end of the alleyway, peering down to the end. Abruptly, before Octavian could say anything, he turned around and faced the other direction. “It’s this way,” he said more to himself than Octavian.

“Christopher, take Father Peters to his rectory. Make sure there is someone to look after him.” Before Sim could protest, he said “Father, you probably have a head injury, with the memory loss, you shouldn’t be alone. We’ll let you know if we find anything else, but if you could give us a call once your memory returns.”

Sim simply nodded his farewell and allowed Christopher to escort him to a car. “Do I have to sit in the back?” he asked, trying to infuse a little levity into this bizarre experience.

Christopher unlocked the vehicle and locked around, startled. “What? Oh, I suppose not,” he said finally.

The streets did not look familiar at all and at several points, Sim was convinced that they were either lost or at least driving in circles. Yet Christopher did not look worried, finally stopping in front of a church that was tucked in between several mis-matched buildings of similar height. A sight posted on the church itself gave the name of St. Thomas as well as mass times in three separate languages. Sim squinted in the streetlight and spotted characters of some sort of aisan language.

“Chinese?” he mused out loud. “Who gives mass in Chinese?”

Christopher looked at him sharply as he joined him on the sidewalk. “You do, Father,” he said. The young disciple led the priest to the rectory, which was latched onto the left side of the church.

Sim knew enough to fake some recognition, “Oh of course. Are there- Are there other priests here at St. Thomas?”

“One other, but he is retired for the most part.” Christopher answered as he rang the doorbell.

“Great.” Sim said under his breath.

From the stoop, he couldn’t hear the doorbell from inside the rectory, yet too quickly for the late hour of the night, the door opened, and a tall, thin woman appeared. Her face was almost as narrow as her body but she looked to be pushing sixty. “Father Peters! Oh thank goodness you’re okay.” She noticed Christopher standing awkwardly behind Sim. “Thank you for bringing him home. Would you like to come in and have some tea?”

Christopher smiled slightly. “I’m afraid I can’t ma’am, my superior needs me.” He nodded at the two of them. “You take care of yourself, Father.”

“Don’t worry! I will!” The woman called out as Christopher returned to his car. “Let’s get you inside. Are you hungry? Thirsty? Tired? Oh I can’t let you sleep too long, if they think you have a concussion.” She closed the door behind them and ferried Sim into the kitchen with out letting him answer.

The rectory was very narrow but extremely deep, it probably spanned the length of the church itself. Sim was led past several dark rooms, most of which looked like they were offices, as they walked down the long hallway.

“How about a cuppa tea, Father? It’ll be decaf of course. Just sit yourself down.”

As she filled the brass looking kettle and put it on the range, Sim noticed it wasn’t the most mordern kitchen appliance. Though he hadn’t seen many stoves, he was surprised to see a burner with flames tickling the underside of the kettle.

“Is that gas?” he found himself asking.

She spun around from the cupboard to face him. “Of course it is, Father. You know we can’t afford an electric stove.” Before she could continute the hiss of the kettle signaled that the water had boiled. She deftly poured two cups with the teabags waiting before carrying them over to the table.

Sim mumbled an apology, feeling stupid as he dunked his teabag. But she shrugged his mistake off. “Don’t worry about it. I knew you hit your head, lost some memories, just didn’t realize how much.” She paused as she added milk and sugar to her tea. “So do you remember my name?”

The questioned startled him for some reason. Slowly he shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

It took longer for her to shrug this one off. But after a few sips of her tea, she smiled. “My name is Mrs. Humphrey and I’ve been working here for the last ten years.”

“As housekeeper?”

“Business Manager, Secretry, Housekeeper, you name it I’ve probably done it. I’ve even been known to cook every once in a while.”

A chuckle escaped from Sim’s mouth as he felt the corners tug into his own smile. It was his first real smile of the evening. However, even that felt slightly uncomfortable and ingenuine. He finished the rest of his tea in silence. “Thanks.”

“No problem Father.” Mrs. Humphrey slowly got to her feet and collected both tea cups. “Why don’t I show you to your room?” She quickly stashed the empty cups in the deep sink, leaving them for the morning.

They walked back down the length of the hallway and accended the staircase that was tucked near the front of the rectory. The building only had two floors, and the second one was almost as long as the first. However the room at the end that the hallway opened up into was not nearly as large as the kitchen downstairs. Sim could make out a few couches and large recliners in the little light that came through from outside.

Instead of walking the entire length, Mrs. Humphrey stopped infront of an old door whose wood nearly matched that in the stair case. She took out a ring of keys and carefully examined them until she saw the correct key which she inserted into the lock and struggled to turn. “It’s always been finicky. Sometimes you have to jostle it and try again.”

With a loud squeak, the door opened and Mrs. Humphrey quickly turned on the lights.

Sim walked further into his room and slowly looked around. He had a small desk that was crammed with several books, Bibles, dictionaries as well as loose papers strewn about. Even his chair was covered with stuff. On the other side of the room was a small kneeler that looked upon a cruicifix. He walked up to it and saw another book lay open on the kneeler. The only other things in his were a small bureau and a bed.

Mrs. Humphrey pointed to a door that was open beyond Sim’s bed. “You’re lucky you have a bathroom, Father. It isn’t much, but it’s all yours. There should be a clean towel in there if you would like to wash up. Do you need anything else?”

Sim shook his head. He suddenly want nothing more than to change out of his costume and into whatever form of pajamas he had.

“I’ll check in a few hours though – can’t let you sleep too long I’m ‘fraid.”

“Where will you sleep?”

“There’s a cot downstairs in one of the offices. And one of the couches in the living room is a pullout as well.” She flashed her smile agian. “Just holler if you need me. Good night Father.”

Sim nodded goodnight as the older woman closed the door behind him. Thankful for the peace and quiet at long last, he slowly stripped before fishing out some old school pajamas from the top drawer. He didn’t know where to leave his clothes, so he just put them in the bathroom.

Before plopping into bed, Sim inspected the books in his room. It didn’t quite make sense that he would need three different Bibles. Besides a traditional English dictionary, he also discovered one manadarin to english and one cantonese to english as well. So much for using the internet. He stood there hovering in front of his desk for a moment, trying to recall any chinese. Not a single word came to his mind, unless he counted a feeble nihao. he might be in more trouble than he originally thought.

The book on the kneeler turned out to be a well worn prayer book, or Breviary as it said on the cover. There were several ribbons, and prayer cards saving places spread throughout the book. Sim didn’t bother flipping through it, worried he might disturb the haphazard organizational system.

There was only one item left in the room that Sim had not noticed right away. Hanging on the walk above his desk, was a diploma. From the Pontifical College in Rome with a Bachelors in Theology and a concentration in Pastoral Studies. As Sim stared at the italian script, he couldn’t help but rub his eyes, incase he misread something. He did not remember studying in Rome at all. Maybe it was a local satelite campus but the diploma was from the main school in Rome. All he could remember from college was several science labs complete with graphing calculators and computer programs. It didn’t make sense.

Finally after making a few more circuits of his room to make sure nothing else was out of place, Sim jumped into bed. As he made himself comfortable, he took care not to be facing the wall with the cruicifix. The height it was at made it a perfect line of sight into the figureine’s eyes if he propped his head up a little. Knowing there was someone in the room, even if he were only made out of plastic or wood, freaked him out almost as much as the diploma he didn’t remember earning.

It wasn’t until he had turned out the light and was nearly asleep when he realized something had gone horribly wrong and he was missing his Vortex bracelet.

All it took was an idea from a class on Christian History, focusing on the reformation. For now I’m calling it The Luther Paradox.

In recent years city officials have debated the budget and considered getting rid to two Suffolk county holidays that celebrate important moments during the early revolution war. It would be an attempt to save money as employers get the day off for these holidays which are extremely local. The first day is March 17th, known as Evacuation Day, when the British left Boston. People not in the know have joked Boston gave itself Saint Patrick’s Day off so people could drink the whole day. The second is June 17th, the date of the Battle itself. (The parade is  always celebrated on the Sunday before the 17th, while the actual day is saved for an exercise at the Bunker Hill Monument.)

Politicians with local ties to the neighborhood come to the annual breakfast held before the parade and hosted by the Bunker Hill Associates. While the debate has waxed and waned on Beacon Hill, these politicians have picked up a sentiment stating that we couldn’t have had July 4th without June 17th.

Interestingly the holiday and parade celebrate a military defeat rather than a victory. The rag-tag Continental (or just Massachusetts) militia  held Breed’s Hill through three separate advances by the larger, better trained British Army. When they finally gave up, it wasn’t for lack of trying, but because they ran out of ammo. The British, in taking what turned out to be a rather in consequential hill, suffered heavy loses and learned an important lesson. These patriots were serious and would not roll over.

Perhaps I’m biased as I have lived in Charlestown and experienced these celebrates my entire life, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to get rid of this holiday. However I disagree that the battle of Bunker Hill lead to Independence Day just over a year later. Considering the path the Colonial powers and the British were taking both before June 17th and after, the fourth of July and the Declaration of Independence would have happened in some way sooner or later.

But I took 15 credits, including a thesis project for one last honors college requirement, and a journalism class to see how the “other side” wrote. Even though I was the only senior in the class, it was still a rewarding experience. I have a flair for journalism and I kind of regret not taking more classes. My GPA this semester is the highest I’ve ever gotten, with 3 A’s and two A- ‘s.

Outside of the classroom, I strove to live my life to the fullest. I worked part time, assembling a book of world records. I also worked to get a discussion group started for gay and spiritual topics  and restarted the honors college blog (huhc.wordpress.com) I also got closer to friends I had met the semester before, close enough that saying good bye was not fun. I’m glad we can stay in touch thanks to the internet… 

It turned out I saved the best for last as this was easily my best semester ever. I’m sad school is over; I really did love it. 

And well, I let the quote speak for itself.

But a group of military veterans, normally given preference for the jobs, has challenged the decision. Alleging in legal documents that the bilingual requirement is being used to “recruit people of color into the uniformed ranks,’’ the veterans have asked the state Civil Service Commission to investigate.

(emphasis is my own)

So when did knowledge of a language determine your skin color? I’m sure this wasn’t the only line of reasoning the veterans put in their legal documents, but this quote makes them seem very racist. Later on in the article, the lawyer for them complains about how they came back from serving in Iraq/Afghanistan to find the rules have changed on them.

And there’s even more background, like how the BFD was legally bound to hire/diversify at a one to one ratio meaning for every white candidate they hired, they needed a black or Hispanic one as well. That rule was disbanded less than ten years ago and since then the department has hired a group that is 88 per cent white.

I don’t really understand why the veterans are so angry. The department finally realized they need more staff who speaks Spanish when they respond to calls from Spanish speaking people. Boston has a huge Hispanic population in one neighborhood, and significant populations in other neighborhoods that are on the other side of the city. In other words the Hispanics are basically all over. It’s time the department should diversify again.

The veterans can always apply again next year, right?

So who has filed? New York’s own Jimmy McMillan who represented the Rent is Too Damn High party in the Gubernatorial race last year. He’ll be on the GOP side, even though he is not a Republican because he doesn’t want to directly challenge Obama. The bizarre thing is McMillan wasn’t the craziest candidates during the race for Governor. There even was an ex-stripper.

The election is only 19 months away – literally! I guess potential candidates should start forming those exploratory committees and file their papers. Time’s a wasting for precious campaigning!

I’m just thankful the mudslinging hasn’t started yet. That’s the second worse part of election season after it’s length. Excuse me for not wanting to watch grown men and women, one of whom will be our future leader, degrade themselves by getting dirty for the whole country and world to see.

But… can’t help thinking here we go again!

Nov. 6, 2012 is still 19 months away. That is 580 days.For every one of those days from this point onward, politicians will be strategizing and spreading their message in preparation for Election Day. It doesn’t matter whether they are Obama, or are one of his numerous potential Republican opponents. They will form exploratory committees, amass signatures, generate press coverage and build websites.

(When asked just to picture my thoughts and feelings, I immediately call up the fight in Deathly Hallows as Harry is trying to escape: everyone is hidden inside a thundercloud, but they’re flying so fast it’s even more chaotic than a thunderstorm.)

Anyway I got an A on my story. I revised it and sent it to the Chronicle which published it this week. You can read the (hard news) piece here.