Okay. So. Paste-up this weekend. Everyone's back from Nashville. Things are swell. Editors should have all their photo and art order forms in already. Get that done today if it's not already.
There are probably gonna be a lot of stories from those who went to the convention.
Life Advice: Be nice to your bosses, so when you're applying for a new job, they'll only have nice things to say about you.
I woke up Sunday afternoon, unsure as to where I was. The air around me was still, quiet. A ringing in my ears was all that kept me company as I slowly slid out of bed and paced around the house for several moments. It was lifeless, and I looked out the window only to see a steel sky and the pale gray concrete below. Although trees still adorned the brush, they were brown. The sense of death clung heavily to the atmosphere. Leaves fluttered down the street, given flight by the cold wind. Only after watching these leaves bounce on the pavement did I realize what had happened.
The aftermath was astonishing. I ran to the car, trying to start it, only to no avail. The engine was fried, the computer inside having been hit by something akin to an EMP. Behind the wheel of the old Ford truck - created before the foul hand of computerized technology grasped automobiles - I slammed the gas to the floor and took off to school. The roads were empty, blank slates of black, cracked and torn under the weight of the world.
When I rounded the last of the curve before the spit, the view ahead of me made me gasp. A boom cracked the sky above, which looked similar to bark splayed upon gravel. The water that normally adorned both sides of the road had disappeared. In its place laid a much more deviant substance. It was not sand, scorched as it was; it resembled something more like ash. The remains of military jets covered the landscape, their heads ducked beneath the ash, their insides splattered across the plane of stillness. The normally erect towers that once stood proudly atop the water were now shattered into pieces, scraps of metal flung into the dirt. As I passed over the barren land in my truck, I noticed the buildings on the shore had been impaled by shrapnel from the once proud towers.
The school loomed above as I climbed the dark hill towards it. My truck had given out at the base, and thus I was forced to claw my way to the summit, cutting my fingers against the rocks and breaking my chapped lips as I struggled to breathe. The air was thick with something, but I couldn't place my finger on it. I coughed up something black, but trudged forward, each step more laborious than the last. At last I reached the dark structure, and blindly ran around it. Most of the bricks were black, and I avoided looking at the untouched silhouettes of what looked like people.
Panting, trying to suck in every ounce of poisounous air I could, I looked up, wondering what I had run to instinctively. A room. Everything inside was destroyed. Computer monitors were smashed in, tables turned over with broken legs. Nothing salvageable remained, save for one piece of technology. In the far corner of a room, a monitor glowed dimly, though the glass was cracked and covered in dust. I sprinted towards it, and whiped my hand over the screen to clean it. I cut my palm on the broken glass, smearing blood over the monitor, but I could see what was projected now.
A newspaper.
The front page of a newspaper shone brightly on the red screen, articles and pictures crawling outward in dim technicolor. I stepped back and coughed. My hand dripped blood and the black substance. Ink. I looked up again and saw papers coating the walls, red and black ink running down them in cascades. Then, I wept, knowing what had happened, and powerless to stop it. The one thing humankind couldn't handle, the one thing we should have avoided at all costs had destroyed all we held dear. The one thing destroyed it all. Paste-up.
The first day is over. Complete. We're one third of the way there. Yesterday there was joy, there was glee, there were no tears. But don't let that fool you. Tonight is Friday, the second most devastating day of Outlook. Like Christmas Eve, the anticipation is palpable and overwhelming, but the true joy doesn't come until the morning, when you jump out of your bed at five in the morning, squeeling as you trot through the house and run your hands over the gifts. But in Outlook, the gifts are made of ads, page layouts, and red ink.
In the comments section below, post:
1) One nice thing you've done for someone else this week.
2) How much money you owe people.
3) If you had $20,000, but you could only spend it on your friends and family, who would it be and what would you do?
This is it. The last day. The last day before paste-up. Today you'll walk out of class and go to your respective vehicular transports, speeding away to your next destination from this humble learning facility. Tomorrow, you might do the same. But come Friday, which will quite possibly rival all other Fridays in terms of excitement and anticipation, you will embark on the first of nine of the wildest journeys you will ever experience.
Although nothing will seem amiss or overwhelmingly altered at first, when the clock strikes two and the humans leave the building, the Outlookers within us all will escape into the most terrifying room in all of PHS. Because even if the blinds are up and the windows aren't covered in plywood, even if the sun is blazing at its finest despite the fact that it is October and the sun is most likely hibernating for the next six months, even if every star in the galaxy is aligned just right for maximum illumination potential, no light is shined into Room 530 during the sacred ritual of paste-up. Light doesn't come in, light doesn't go out. Not this weekend.
As the sun sets and the glorious light outside dissipates, destroying all hope of escaping from the charcoal black fingers of the cursed room, the Outlookers only continue to do their masters' bidding, the whips cracking violently against their spines, tearing the skin and setting their nerves on fire. But it is a good pain, a sensual pain that only one who has seen the darkness within the room can understand. With this sweet taste of succulent horror still sticky on the lips, the Outlookers will return the next day for another round of grueling, torturous pleasure until the sun has made a full cycle and is peeking over the trees, shining its splendid rays into the room and igniting the torches of humanity once again. Once again there is light. Until the next month, at least.
Find a sweet anagram for your name with this site: http://www.anagramsite.com/
Post it in the comments.
Mine's nicker pie tar.
Paste-Up is less than two weeks away!
Vets: In the comments below, write one or two things you look forward to this paste-up.
Newbies: In the comments below, write one or two rumors you've heard about paste-up, or generally what you expect.
Assignment today:
Post two of your favorite funny quotes from a book, TV show, movie, etc.
Check out http://en.wikiquote.org if you need help. Mine:
"I'm insane, you idiot. Remember the other day when you told me I had pit stains? Well I have cried every fifteen minutes on the half-hour since you told me that. I am racked with self-doubt. I have panic attacks. I'm claustrophobic, germaphobic, phobia-phobic. I talk to myself, I talk to my cats. I talk to three separate shrinks about the fact that often my cats respond to me in my mother's voice and yesterday, when that stupid, pretty surgical nurse handed you a pair of latex gloves I almost killed the guy whose leg I was stitching up because I couldn't stop thinking about the two of you having sex on a box of steaks. Why a box of steaks? Because my dad had an affair with a female butcher and, as I mentioned before, I am insane." - Dr. Elliot Reid, Scrubs
"Hey, you wanna go clubbing tonight? And I don't mean dancing, I mean going up to the roof and killing rats." - Janitor, Scrubs
I love that show.
