coolant toobs inclooded

My computer's dead, I'll get it back in a week. Probably won't update before then. They're replacing literally everything except the monitor. The most exciting part is this: because of the sinister machine's overheating, some of the silver paint on the part where my wrist sits had rubbed off. I didn't think that was a big deal. Turns out, there is no paint on that part of the laptop, and the heat actually caused the aluminum to oxidize into my skin. I don't think that will have any ill effects, except apparently an overenthusiastic use of italics.

Also, I've added something to the "Collaborative Fiction Project" Tim started a few weeks ago. The theory here is to use a line from a poem Karen wrote as the first line and jumping-off-point for a poem of your own. So here is my offering, double-posted because I am too lazy to write something else here today. I think the poem works better in the semi-ironic context of everything else up on the other blog so far... but it is what it is. Not like we're getting paid for this shite. Mayhap I shall illustrate when I have my tablet back.

I've sewed my butterfly chest all together
with straps made entirely of soup-stewed shoe leather
butterfly patches and butterfly stitches
the scars are still burning, the rotten flesh itches

To creak my neck forward sends head-spinning pain
through cold coils of copper I've hooked in my brain
I look down my body through eyes dried and wired
and electrically flex muscles long since expired

One leg's from a dead man; one leg is a wheel.
I've a cranial disc made of thrice-folded steel.
I've no nose to speak of, but that's just as well,
since I'm made of cadavers I've no wish to smell.

A mortal no longer, I've shed my old skin
passed through death and returned, transcending my sins
the police, when they killed me, my spirit unfettered
and thus I return, all the stronger and better.

I lurch down the stairs, my sucking chest heaving
to wish all the village a... memorable evening.