Posted July 18, 2011 2:31 pm
Splat.
Sent July 18, 2011 2:32 pm
Yo, that you, E? Or Austen?
M
Posted July 18, 2011 2:33 pm
Should I have said splat!? Splat. seemed right at the time without the extra emphasis.
Sent July 18, 2011 2:35 pm
You write E-like. What are you talking about? And, when you have time to focus on a few questions, what has been going on for the last couple months and where is Austen?
M
Posted July 18, 2011 2:36 pm
And if you are so interested in Austen, I bet the M stands for Marcus. Howdy, Marcus Dude. Do you always get this excited when somebody goes Splat.?
Sent July 18, 2011 2:37 pm
Do I want to hear about your splat? I’d rather get the big picture about what is going on with you and Austen.
M
Posted July 18, 2011 2:40 pm
What is going on is the post splat recovery. You see, I woke up from a state of unconsciousness somewhere outside. I think it could be Wyoming, by which name I could be referring to Montana, Idaho, Nebraska or even Utah, Colorado or Kansas or even Wyoming.
I mean I think I am lying around outside in Wyoming or thereabouts, not that Nebraska or Idaho or any of those places are states of unconsciousness in a strict sense, but they do have outsides to them.
I found myself not long ago returning to consciousness on what I have strongly hypothesized to be a slab of concrete. It is surrounded by grasses, and some grasses have sprung up where the slab is cracked.
The phone was in my left hand, so I discovered it even before I had fully formed my concrete slab theory. Once I was convinced I was sprawled on a concrete slab and had just returned to consciousness, it was easy to theorize that I had been arranged on the concrete and disposed in unconscious format in a process that could best be summarized: Splat.
Notice I am sticking with my earlier decision to use a period and not an exclamation point.
Sent July 18, 2011 2:41 pm
You have explained Splat but not squat about what’s been going on and where Austen is. Is she okay? Can you put her on?
M
Posted July 18, 2011 2:44 pm
The thing is, somebody or something has wiped most of the apps off my phone. I don’t have any incoming messages here that I didn’t already post to the blog back in May sometime before we got into Phase Two.
Oh, yeah, Austen has been slightly misplaced. I am pretty sure she did not go splat, she got out in time, no, I mean we inserted her into a sub-program, and there weren’t likely to be any splat sequences involved in the run.
I ought to go look her up, she if she’s done with that whole scene. I don’t think the phone knows how to find my vehicle anymore. I might have to stand up or something and look around. Maybe I will try sitting up slowly.
So, you know what’s been up lately–Phase Two, the sub-program, me going splat. Soon you’ll have a live report of me sitting up.
Sent July 18, 2011 2:45 pm
Austen is slightly misplaced? How slightly? I figure you are not in Montana at all, but are probably within 75 miles of a small town with the initials C.W. So how slightly or unslightly is Austen misplaced? What else can you tell me about her and Phase Two?
Posted July 18, 2011 2:51 pm
The real news is that I did sit up and take a gander around. There is a road nearby, not well travelled I guess, and it looks like I may be lying on the floor to some old shed that used to be built out here for some reason. It is pretty flat on my side of the road, but it looks like we got a slope going up on the other side of the road, maybe topping out about 1/5 of a mile away. Lot of grass growing around here.
I know not of this town of which you speak, this C.W. It sounds French to me and there were Frenchies in Wyoming back in the day imagining giant breasts everywhere. That’s the Frenchies for you, just like Coach Olgortnik said.
I hope you threw in C.W. as a diversion and that it was more diverting for you than for me. Still, I could probably find Austen in a few weeks if I put my mind to it and find my vehicle first and go someplace where I can get some cash. I figure I must have 8 or 10 thousand left, right?
M
Sent July 18, 2011 2:52 pm
Four paintings sold and your share is $3,000. Your balance in the main active account is $12,794.25. That should hold you if you don’t have to buy another vehicle.
Do you want to tell me anything more about what has been happening the past couple months?
M
Posted July 18, 2011 258 pm
A car finally did pass by, but I was lying down flat on my concrete slab in the grass, and I doubt if they suspected I was here. When they are a little further away, I’ll try whistling to call my vehicle here, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll climb up to the top of the slope and see if I see anything.
So excitement awaits me. I’ll log off after this one.
Well, M-man, what’s been happening for the past couple months is mostly just what I told you. Phase II. Austen doing her Phase II thing. You heard about the Blue Hole, the Cold Blue Hole, which is what sort of led to Phase II for both of us.
I got caught up in some goodwill gestures and karmic debt payments which used up a few tens of thousands of dollars but everything is pretty squared away except for the splat. And the apps being missing from the phone.
But first things first. I got to go find my trusty vehicle.
Posted July 19, 2011 3:56 pm
Yo, M-man. Everything is copacetic in its own way although perhaps not quite as Wyominglike as yesterday. It turned out that 1/5 mile slope on the other side of the road led up to another hidden slope behind it and that led up to another slope a little higher and then I could see where I was and where I thought I needed to go. I set out walkin and just before sundown I was back at my vehicle.
Elves or somebody had loaded it all up, gassed it all up, tuned it all up, even cleaned some of the filth off the windshield. A nice package of road food–grapes, cold chicken, green beans–was all set up for me as though the elves wanted there to be no delay in my taking my fugitive self elsewhere.
I am happy to oblige such helpful elves. I drove straight through to about 7 this morning, happily nibbling chicken and green beans.
Sent July 19, 2011 3:57 pm
Yo, E. Are the elves related to Phase II and Austen’s whereabouts or misplacedness? Are you on your way to find her? Did you spend all those thousands on Phase II? Do we owe you for that? Do I have any idea what Phase II is about???
M
Posted July 19, 2011 4:00 pm
I drove in some direction(s) last night and this morning. In a certain number of days, I’ll get me to the right place at the right time to unmisplace Austen, assuming this story is coming with a happy ending.
And why shouldn’t it? After all, we are out of the Cold Blue Hole. Or so I have come to understand.
Perhaps this is a bold thing to admit, but there was a family of raccoons living in my vehicle around the time of the Splat. That’s another thing the elves took care of so considerately. I hope and trust they were as considerate toward the displaced raccoons. If you know what I mean.
The elves are related to Phase II in much the way winter is related to tides, as in something else that happens at the same time some of the time sometimes.
E
Sent July 19, 2011 4:02 pm
So what can you tell me about Phase II and about getting Austen back?
M
Posted July 19, 2011 4:05 pm
Phase II happened. Elves happened. Karmic debt got paid down. I am out about $40 grand but the elves are happy and you are not on the line for any of the 40 Gs.
I want to make some headway today and tonight and get to sleep before daylight, so I am going to booger off now. After all, Phase III is afoot.
Say, maybe you can tell my Mom I’m still alive and that we are hoping as much for Austen, too, who, it should be understood, was not expected to have any splat-sequences stastistically indicated in her outcomes profile. Really.
I’ll post again tomorrow.
E
Posted July 20, 2011 3:11 pm
Yo, M-man. I got to an ATM and found plenty of money, which is good because I ran out of elf food yesterday and have to spend money at non-elf groceries and cafes. It is easy to think after an elfen visitation that an elf-based rather than dollar based economy would go down smoother, but there may be abstruse mathematical equations that explain why we, as a nation, didn’t go the elf route.
Elves or not, someone or something got my vehicle ready for the road.
So today is even less Wyomingacious than yesterday. I’m all widening my gyre kind of stuff so that I can swoop in from an unexpected direction and retrieve Austen, if that is in the cards. I’ll give it a shot anyway. Not only is she my sister and my Mom’s daughter, she’s your wife and Nikki’s and Sayers’ Mom, so it’s worth taking a shot at finding her.
I mean how misplaced can she be? Knowing Austen, not that misplaced. So don’t worry M-man, I’m on the case.
Sent July 20, 2011 3:13 pm
Something about the elves helping you gives me some hope that you haven’t lost Austen permanently, but the “I’m on the case” part was somehow non-reassuring. What can you say to swing the balance back toward reassuring?
M
Sent July 20, 2011 3:24 pm
I take it from your non-asnwering that you are done sending for a while. Unless silence is the most reassuring thing you can come up with right now.
M
Sent July 21, 2011 3:20 pm
Hello, E. Are you out there? You’ve been posting about this time of day, and I’d like you to give me another couple hints about Austen and the chances of getting her back this year. I’ll wait for an hour.
M
Posted July 23, 2011 4:52 pm
Hi, Marcus. I had a lot of driving to do the last couple days and stuff, so I didn’t post. I saw yours a little while ago, so I will show you a little mercy and explain more about what is going on.
Yes, Austen moved to Phase II. But be aware that a Phase can have sub-phases. So maybe we say for Austen, Phase II consisted of 3 main sub-phases, and Phase II, sub-phase 2 would have both parts of the story that would interest you and Austen most–the preamble and the follow-up to the preamble, which I guess is either the amble or maybe the post-amble, but more likely the post-amble would be in sub-phase 3 of Phase II if not in sub-phase 1 of Phase III. I have to admit not being an expert in how to use words like post-amble in a strict technical sense, but I think the amble has already happened.
That’s why I am in my Phase III. I think my Phase III started with the Splat. As a direct result of the Splat. and the elves preparing my vehicle for the road, here I am putting vast miles on the O’Dometer in my widening and then narrowing gyre which is intended to a) de-misplace Austen and b) get her well along in her Phase III.
I suppose the big mystery is whether the elves caused the Splat. or whether they just worked with it, or perhaps there is some larger cause that produced both the elves and the Splat.
But I don’t think it will do you a lot of good to worry about that cosmological kind of stuff. You just need a little patience and faith and trust that we should retrieve your wife in a fairly intact state before the end of the year, quite possibly before November 14. And I just need to not run out of money before I do retrieve her if retrieving is in the cards.
And why shouldn’t it be in the cards? Elves packed my lunch. That’s got to say something.
E
Sent July 23, 2011 4:56 pm
Roger N Copy. You have returned to Montana, the way I see it, but that aint no excuse for keeping Austen until November 7 or 28. I say get the amble on the road!!!!! Your elves don’t make better chicken than Austen or I do. So no more foolin around.
M
Posted July 23, 2011 5:00 pm
That’s easy for you to say. I have a new wrinkle that will make everything more complicated and simple–at least the part about the amble. There are other parts that will just be more complicated without being more simple.
It is only fair to tell you that there is a new wrinkle but it is fair not to say more. In fact, I have to stop posting and reading today. Bye.
E
P.S. I hope you phoned up my Mom and told her I am alive and Austen’s a definite maybe.
Sent July 23, 2011 5:01 pm
Who was that masked man and why does he act so tonto sometimes?
M
Posted July 26, 2011 1:41 pm
Everything is going well in the current Phase, M-man. My patternless route of clandestine flight and rendezvous with Austen the Misplaced unfolds in its mysterious way with no hang-ups or hassles, just that one wrinkle I mentioned earlier, but even the wrinkle might help deal with the money worries.
So rest assured, the plot thickens like a good spaghetti sauce, so you might as well have a glass of red wine with it.
Strange things happen sometimes. Some people like to say things happen for a reason, but I think those folks must not have been fully tested by the strange department. It is funny how you can set off on a project thinking you are doing one thing and then it turns out it is something else and you wonder, wait, what was it I really wanted to do with this thing and if it wasn’t this how did this happen?
Did you ever wonder: How did this happen? It is funny how you can get into trouble with folks like relatives and whatnot over something that is not really bad, just culturally condeumned.
At least the weather is pleasant.
E
Sent July 26, 2011 1:46 pm
E,
Old business: No, I am not calling your Mother to tell her you are alive and Austen is a definite maybe. You call her and tell her. If your damn phone dont work for that, find a damn pay phone.
I didn’t like the way you went from spaghetti sauce to doing things that are culturally condemned. If something is strange by your standards, enough that you fret you’ll be condemned by the culture of your relatives, the bats are probably heading back to hell to whimper and cower in fear.
WTF???
M
Posted July 26, 2011 1:53 pm
Sheesh, you’re kind of touchy. All I’m saying is that even with the wrinkle being as wrinkly as the wrinkle seems to be, still, I am setting myself up to do the big swoop-and-collect thing vis a vis Austen. It will happen relatively soon, all things being relative except Rush Limbaugh, because we certainly don’t want to admit being a relative of his.
There is another relative wrinkle we don’t want to bandy about online nor neither.
You’ve got to admit that the culture we are surrounded by embraces weirdly bad stuff, so it is not illogical to expect that some of what it condemns would be okay–or at least not as bad as the word “condemn” makes it sound, sort of like a whiter shade of pale thing. Again, except for Sarah Palin, Rupert Murdoch and Migraine Michee, we’re all relatives relatively.
E
Sent July 26, 2011 1:57 pm
You still haven’t given me the reassurance you owed me as soon as you said you were on the case. When has you being on the case ever been a cause for reassurance. You are being more evasive about the wrinkle and how it leads to cultural condemnation than you are about half the geographic clues to your whereabouts you drop routinely.
Listen–you can’t get caught until we have a way worked out for retrieving Austen from whatever godforsaken spot you left her stranded in.
M
Posted July 26, 2011 2:02 pm
Oh, M-man, now you’ve hurt my feelings. If anyone should know that things can work out even if I am involved with them, it should be you. That whole plan to help Austen move to California worked in part because I didn’t screw any of it up that badly. And because she moved to California, you met her and married up with her and had the two kids. And both of the kids are still alive and neither are in jail, and I’ve had something to do with both of them, so give me credit for not killing or losing either of your kids.
I don’t think this is a good time to talk more about the wrinkle. It is sort of distracting anyway. Maybe tomorrow or the next day you will be more receptive.
If you want me to announce a date when I will actually accomplish the de-misplacementification of Austen, you should know that is NOT how clandestine rendezvousing works, as you will recall from your own days as a clandestinian.
E
Sent July 26, 2011 2:07 pm
See, saying clandestine rendezvousing is much more reassuring than saying Austen still being alive is a definite maybe. If you could only sustain that sort of positive theme for 2 paragraphs without putting wrinkles in your spaghetti sauce. Look, I know there are plenty of times you did things without screwing them up too badly. I have faith that you can make your rendezvous, but just don’t change it away from a rendezvous into something more nebulous or fatal.
Okay?
M
Sent July 26, 2011 2:19 pm
You are not answering. Is that because you are writing a long answer, or are you gone?
M
Sent July 26, 2011 2:33 pm
Gone it looks like.
M
Posted July 28, 2011 12:43 pm
Hi, Marcus old chap. Well, I am 2 days closer to closing in on Austen’s whereabouts, so that should please you. Progress continues to be smooth and hassle free with no sign of being tailed by you know who or their counterparts. I have a list of about 3 states that I narrowed down as being likely whereabouts for Austen the Misplaced. Of course, the 3 states are states you know who or the counteparts are probably listing as likely, too.
It would be kind of interesting to know who among the you know who and who among the counterparts are sure its one of those 3 or so states and who just thinks its probably. One of the apps that didn’t get wiped off my phone at the time of the Splat was a cool one Ramon’s team developed so you could answer questions like that. You could get pretty precise read-outs on whether the old hands were more likely to be certain of a hunch or whether that was a trait of the newbees, and whether the newbee/old hand patterns were the same or different for the you know who and all the major counterparts.
Probably the main reason it didn’t get wiped off my phone is that I never bought that app–it was one of the many optional upgrades to the service contract Ramon offered and that I mostly turned down as being superfluously fluffy.
Anyway, I think you should call my Mom and tell her I am alive. First off, you are not clandestine and don’t have a weirded out phone to contend with. Whoops, that was both first and second off. Third off, you are more diplomatic than me. Fourth off, I have a wrinkle that just having would throw me off my game with Mom. Seriously, I got into a really excellent stash of illicit drugs, good for everything in the land, creme de la crop kind of all-purpose technology and a wrinkle happening at the same time, so you can see how I would be off my game.
E
Sent July 28, 2011 12:46 pm
Call your own Mom. I will write more in a few minutes, but I want to check out a couple of your posts from last week. Forget the wrinkle and find Austen–try narrowing her whereabouts down to just one state at first.
M
Posted July 28, 2011 12:47 pm
Don’t go looking at my back pages, Marcus, whatever you have to say to me today you should say to today’s me. I have this strange feeling you are going to use something I said in the past to expose me in some unflattering way.
E
Sent July 28, 2011 12:50 pm
Yes, E, as near as I can figure you picked up a hitchhiker about 5 days ago. I figure she is female, she would make an obscenely inappropriate sex partner for you and therefore you are either having sex with her or, more likely, scheming and fantasizing about having sex with her or, more likely, fantasizing about scheming to have sex with her.
All this scheming must be distracting you from your main tasks, such as remaining clandestine and returning Austen to verifiable whereabouts. You really can’t afford to get sloppy, and Austen can’t afford to have you get arrested now before you rescue her, assuming that is what this whole thing is about. How does having a hitchhiker help?
M
Posted July 28, 2011 12:54 pm
I don’t have all day to discuss this with you, amigo. I am on the run and closing in on Austen, so I have to do things besides type on this little bitty keyboard that doesn’t really have keys and is scarcely related to a board..
You are living in a distant past if you think it is all feasible to find a hitch-hiker such as you described, i.e., a female one who would stay with me for days and who would drive me into a fit of sexual frenzy. I haven’t picked up a hitchhiker like that since the early 1980s.
Dream on, dude, but do call my Mom. Think how hurt she’d be if she was to learn how much of a fuss you put up to avoid calling her up with good news. She’s way used to me not making expected phone calls., but she expects more from you because you are polite and attentive.
I have an ignition that needs igniting, so talk to you again in a few days.
E
Sent July 30, 2011 5:17 pm
Yo, M-Man.
I thought of stuff to call you down and get you all re-assured. Like I have zoomed 2 days closer to making the connection that will lead to the completetion of the task that will lead to a certain person being back in the land of communicado. Doesn’t that make you feel better?
E
P.S. Have you called my Mom yet?
Sent July 30, 2011 5:19 pm
I’m not going to call your Mom. That’s your job.
I am not reassured by any of your nonsense. Let me know when you’ve found her.
M
Posted July 30, 2011 5:21 pm
Boy, M-man, I don’t need you to be crabby with me now. Here I am with a confounding wrinkle and I am working non-stop on a plan to rendezvous with your wife and get her back to you in a reasonable time frame and in reasonable condition for a lady who is in her late 50s. I think you’ll find she’s lost a few pounds that she can spare.
E
Sent July 30, 2011 5:22 pm
You’re not reassuring me.
M
Posted July 30, 2011 5:23 pm
Okay, then I’ll stop. You sound whiney.
E
Posted August 3, 2011 10:54 am
M-man,
I hope you are still not pissed off with me. I definitely am on Austen’s trail now, so that should definitely provide what you’ve been craving–reassurance.
What I’m craving is someone who would understand about the wrinkle without me having to go to the trouble of putting it into typed words that could come back to haunt me or, maybe more likely, haunt the wrinkle. You would think people today would have better things to do than worry about someone getting into a wrinkle, even if it seems okay to the wrinklees. I guess there are just some taboos that persist no matter how much reality TV gets watched.
E
Sent August 3, 2011 10:57 am
E, all your reassurance is given in 7 words–that you are on her trail. You were on her trail 2 weeks ago, so the lack of progress makes it hard to draw the reassurance you reassure me is in your post. Meanwhile, you give a whole paragraph to a wrinkle–and I have horrible feelings that I know more or less what your wrinkle entails.
I’d much rather you just rescued Austen and bring her home. I did call your Mom, by the way. She did deserve to hear that you are still alive. I let on that Austen is equally alive and not just a definitely possible. I am glad I didn’t understand the wrinkle when I talked to her.
Please return Austen ASAP, or I might have to get pushy.
Marcus
Posted August 3, 2011 11:01 am
I am a little weirded out by you being so impatient. You know these things take time. I already told you that back in sub-phase 2 of Phase II Austen got something you will value, too. I told you that I am on her trail.
And you get all hissy and threaten to get pushy, which I assume means cutting off my money supply. Well, I already spent a lot of it in the last couple of days, with no thanks to you for advice.
You doubt that I am definitely on the trail. I guess the time for words is over, and the time for actions has gotten here this week.
E
Posted August 3, 2011 11:18 am
Egads! I think you just boogered off the connection without even saying goodbye. How rude!!!
Well, goodbye to you then. I got actions to pre-form.
E
Posted August 4, 2011 2:15 pm
Yo, M-man. I got news of interest to you. I drew a bead right on Austen last night, and for lunch today we went out for beer and quesadillas. She sends her regards.
Actually, she didn’t send her regards so much as wax mushy about how badly she wants to see you. There was a lot of stuff about being held in your arms which I have to discount to some degree because she usually said it as a not very flattering (to me) contrast between what that will be like and what her adventure with me has been like.
It’s odd the way Austen didn’t seem to inherit any gratitude genes, while I inherited so many, presumably from Dad, since Mom is a lot more achievement oriented than gratitude oriented. I wonder if Austen was really adopted, and Mom just wore a pillow under her blouse all those months when I was three.
Anyway, I thought you’d like to know that Austen is over at her local hide-out, packing up her gear now. Later in the day I’ll drive her over to the Am-trak and let her catch a train that will let her catch a train that will get her to San Jose tomorrow evening around 8:30 or so from LA.
E
Sent August 4, 2011 2:18 pm
Yo, E, that is good news. It almost makes me regret being so disgusted by what I understand your wrinkle to be. I hope I am wrong, but the clues are all there. Have you become a predator? Have you asked yourself that? In what way can you have this wrinkle and not be a predator?
Thanks for getting my wife back.
M
Posted August 4, 2011 2:20 pm
Maybe I’m not going to answer you because I’m too rude to say goodbye, like some people we know. Anyway, now is the time for actions, not words, right? And returning dis-misplaced wives is not the only way I bring people face to face with their aspirations, so if you’ll escuse me, I got other actions to take care of today.
E
Sent August 4, 2011 2:21 pm
If you are still there, I would apologize for just clicking you off my internet, except you’ve been doing it to me regularly.
M
