Temporary Insanity...aka Creativity

Tinturn Abbey Poem
This is a poem based on William Wordsworth's Tinturn Abbey, on my favorite place and why it's so special. In case you can't figure it out, I'll give you a hint: it's Taipei.

The Real Deal
Hot sun tickles my senses as I stand, acutely aware
On the threshold of a familiar yet exotic landscape.
People, people everywhere speaking a language
That I know as well as this one
As I step over the threshold into
A new heart.
The city life greets me, tantalizing me with
A glittering microcosm of original possibilities.
This city - a pixel on the map where
The island itself is but a dot
Fills me
With a new freedom, like a
Dragonfly that has struggled its way
Out of Venus.
The hot air clinging to my skin is
Liberating and the cacophony of traffic
Plays like a sweet symphony
To my soul.
Stores with windows of glass,
And I peer in through the glass
At the images reflected in the glass
While the glass part of myself breaks
Away and hides temporarily, frightened
By the loud noise and the
Bright night lights.
Unlike the imitation, the
Chinatown, dingy and dirty,
This place is the real deal.
It feels like the home I would have had
But for circumstances.
Later I will try to recapture these memories
In dreams before they slip away through
The hourglass.
But for now, I visit the place that I fly to
On wings that only grow stronger with
Use and age.

Descriptive Writing Exercise for English
For this assignment we just had to write two paragraphs, one of a place and another of a person related to that place, and let the reader get an idea of what kind of person/place it is using pure description.

• Midnight Gazebo
  All around the gazebo, the trees rustled gently as though waking from a dream or dipping deeper into a nightmare. The silver orb high in the midnight sky shone benevolently through the trellised walls, so that moonlight trickled smoothly onto the floor in a stream of liquid luminescence. Silence pervaded the still night, disturbed only by the harmonies of nature: a frog croaking, a fly buzzing, a flower exhaling scent while closing its petals. The gazebo nestled close by a sleeping lake, its surface shimmering with reflected fumes of light. Two gazebos could be seen in the night, one sturdy, solid, stagnant; the other, almost a mirror, yet constantly stretching and rippling with the movements above and around it. Even a mirror image, a reflection of reality, did not and could not mimic the original and its solidarity. Artificial lights gleamed in the distance, faint laughter heard as only a whisper on the careless breeze, before wafting away to join the wind shaking the foundations of the mirror-gazebo. Near the worn-down steps of the open-air alcove lay a single red rose, its petals still fresh with scent, yet already forgotten and left behind, its owner apparently gone in search of that which the midnight gazebo could not offer.

• The Lady of the Gazebo
  Gradually, so that no one else noticed, so that she herself barely even noticed, Laurel drifted away from the tinkling bells and monotonous rhythms of society, leaving the old manor behind as she faded into the dark woods. The stiff smile and posture dropped from her face and body. She became aware of her surroundings as she walked and, realizing the extent of her concealment from the other party-goers, proceeded to release her heavy mane of hair from its constricting ribbons and dance a few steps as she continued forward alone. The crown of roses she had been holding fell from her hand, unheeded. Finally, she came in sight of what she had been heading toward all along. A faint smile touched the corners of her mouth as her eyes rested upon the familiar trellised walls of her haven, a dilapidated, long-forgotten, yet still beautiful white gazebo. Laurel closed her eyes as she stood on the old steps. Slowly, the music that could never be heard elsewhere rose inside her chest and her feet began moving on their own, her arms wrapped around an imaginary partner as she swayed and twirled around the restricting circle of space. Memories tugged at her mind and heart, causing her to open her eyes, and sit, and gaze across to the other side of the lake, where a tiny speck appeared to be moving nearer and nearer, forming ripples that shook the reflection of the gazebo in which Laurel rested, and waited.

Short Short Story
This was just a silly little story I wrote for a group assignment where we each had to write a chapter in a "superhero" epic...our hero happened to be Alex Trebek.

• Alex Trebek and the Musk Ox Thief
  Alex Trebek whistled to himself on the way to the television studio. Some of his best hand-picked contestants would be competing today. With categories like Orangutans and Condiments, it was sure to be one of the most captivating JEOPARDY! shows in a while. Absentmindedly, he patted at his mane of bushy gray hair and smoothed out his familiar mustache. Things had been quiet lately. Not only had the show been below par, nothing evil was wandering the streets these days either. It had been so exciting a month or so ago when the postal worker had turned out to be a warlock set on switching all the questions with statements. Destroying him had been the last stimulating use of his powers.

  Steering the car with one hand, Alex felt in his pocket with the other to make sure his 24K gold-plated notecard case was still there. One couldn't be too safe these days. Especially since those notecards were his lifeblood. Without them, he'd be no more than your average game show host. God forbid he become like Pat Sajak; now that was boring if he ever saw it. At least he had the answers on his trusty notecards. Pat always seemed just as clueless as most of his confused contestants. Besides, that wheel of his was definitely rigged to stop at "Bankrupt." Alex promised himself he would expose those hypocrites sometime in the near future. Just not right now - he was too tired from feeding the musk oxen every night, and the present traffic was making him incredibly irritable.

  Beep-beep!!!

  The obnoxious ranting of the car behind him disrupted his thoughts. Annoyed, he pressed a button on the dashboard, smiling to himself when he saw the smoke billowing out behind his car. All's fair on the roads of life, Alex thought. Finally, finally, he reached the front gate of the studio. His radar sense went on alert immediately. Something wasn't quite right, he noted to himself. The guard wasn't in his normal spot in the booth, and the valet didn't come around to get his car. After parking the car himself, Alex decided to check on the musk oxen that had been brought over especially for this week's shows. The theme of the week was "Strange Things: Prehistory to the Present." Opening the door to the main studio, he walked in on complete chaos.

  Everyone was there, including the missing guard and valet.

  "What's going on here?" he asked no one in particular.

  A frazzled cameraman stopped to respond. "Don't you know, Alex? I don't know how you possibly don't know, but since you don't I might as well tell you now so you know. The musk oxen have been stolen!"

  "What?" Alex started in shock. Things like this weren't supposed to happen on the set of his show. Or rather, they did but he always stopped them in time. "I think I know where they might be. Tell everyone I'll be back soon." And before the cameraman could utter a peep, Alex was gone.

  After exiting the main studio, an instinct made Alex turn and head toward the back lot with its many dilapidated old buildings. Seeing nothing, he was about to turn back.

  "Well, well, well, if it isn't Mr. Rinky-dinky Question Man himself. Too bad you're alone. It would've been more fun to kill you if there were more of you," the slithery voice came from behind him.

  Alex spun quickly on his heel to face his unexpected opponent. Looking around wildly, he finally glanced down and saw the hissing snake at his feet. "You stole the musk oxen?"

  To his surprise, the form of the snake wavered, becoming a collie the next instant. "Now do you see?" the creature asked of him.

  "A shapeshifter!" Alex exclaimed. "I've heard about your kind. You're nothing but trouble. And I'm going to destroy you once and for all!" With that, he whipped out his notecard case and removed the notecards.

  "Ooooo, I'm so scared of big bad Alex and his cards," the now-tiger growled.

  Alex just smiled and started reading from his cards. "What is basketball? Who are the leprechauns? What is the Leaning Tower of Pisa? What is currency? What is the UPS?" With each word, blue light shooting out of his mouth like bullets became stronger and brighter.

  "What? Noooooooo!!! What're you doing? You're just a game show host. You're all stupid. Stop!" the shapeshifter moaned as it was enveloped in the bright blue light.

  "Too late," Alex declared triumphantly. "The process has already begun." And indeed it had. The shapeshifter was fast losing its lion shape and flattening and shrinking its way to becoming...a notecard!

  Alex yawned as he turned toward the dilapidated buildings after hearing a rustling noise. As he had expected, there were the musk oxen, right behind the studio the entire time. He let them out, picking up the newly formed notecard on his way into the studio. It read, "Who is Linda Tripp?"

  Note: I wrote this story a few months ago, so it might seem kinda weird now.

  

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