The Tale of Tor and the Briny Demon

Once upon a time, Tor the fisherman and his wife Twillabee lived happily at the edge of the forest. He would fill his little boat with fish day after day, and he was so skillful that one day he was seized by the Briny Demon, who said to him, “What gives you the right to take so many of my fish? From now on you will work for me to repay all that you have stolen!” With that, he dragged poor Tor down under the water.

Twillabee was worried when he didn’t come home that night, and was increasingly worried as the days went by. One day, one of Tor’s fellow fishermen was out catching fish, and looked down through the clear water. To his great surprise, he saw Tor scrambling around at the bottom of the sea, moving heavy clamshells hither and yon. Nearby lurked the terrible Briny Demon, watching all the while.

When Twillabee heard that her beloved Tor had been captured, she flew deep into the forest; miles and miles she ran to the tallest stand of cedar where the Forest Wraiths made their home. “Won’t you help us?” she cried, “For the Briny Demon has stolen my husband, and forces him to work night and day in a place contrary to his nature.” The Forest Wraiths, who had frequent cause to distrust their watery counterpart, rustled and creaked among themselves while Twillabee sat nervously nibbling a sweet thistle at their feet.

“It is not right that Tor be taken from his rightful sphere,” they finally said, as a heavy waxen seed rolled down from one of their trunks to rest at her feet. “Drop this seed in the ocean where he is working, and the tree that grows will allow him to climb to freedom.” As soon as it was light, Twillabee rowed out to place where Tor had been seen in captivity. She dropped the seed, and watched it sink until it reached the bottom. Immediately it sprang apart, piercing roots down amongst the rocks and shooting a mighty tree toward the surface of the water. Twillabee scurried to move the boat as the tremendous tree came bursting and splashing through.

Down below, Tor began to climb the tree towards safety, ignoring the futile thrashing of the Briny Demon, whose magic was powerless near the tree. But at the surface, Tor found that his lungs had lost their love of air, and he gasped in it as though he were drowning. Reluctantly, he slunk back into the water, clinging to the tree for safety, and Twillabee rowed away vowing to find help in making him whole again.

She climbed Mount Tillianpalam, where it was said that the Zephyr Spirits began their rushing races down its slopes. She climbed and climbed, till at last she dropped exhausted where the clouds first touched land at its peak. Soon the winds spoke to her, saying, “What brings a creature of the lowlands to these high places?” When they heard of the treachery of the Briny Demon, they were enraged. “It is not right that Tor should be made to fear the air he was made to breathe!” they whistled, and kissed Twillabee on the mouth with a sweetened puff of mountain air. “Take this kiss to him, so he may live again among his kind.”

She hurried out in her boat again, and indeed her kiss healed his lungs — he climbed into the boat and rowed them home. As Tor and Twillabee built the fire that night they were surprised by a visit from Incendius, whose hot whispers filled their little home. “We spirits have all been troubled by this Briny Demon, who has so selfishly interfered with the spheres of men and gods. Tomorrow you must set things right!” At this, a crackling ember, different from the others, rolled out of the fire to lay at Tor’s feet.

The next morning, Tor went out to fish as usual, and soon the Briny Demon boiled up in a rage, reaching into the boat so as to capture him again. Tor swiftly opened a little leather pouch, and flung the hot cinder at his foe, who was burned horribly as it passed through his slippery body. The Briny Demon fell wounded back into the sea, and the fisherman watched in horror as the fish bit off parts of the weakened demon as the body fell.

Tor returned to his fishing, and he and Twillabee lived happily ever after.

(Rough draft of my first fairy tale. I like some parts of it a lot, other parts are annoying. Lemme know what you think!)

Serialized haircuttin’

Sometimes I get these ideas that are tough to act on. Here’s the latest:

1. Wait until my hair grows out and gets pretty shaggy. (This is the hardest part of the idea for me. I hate having long hair. Anything longer than an inch and a half is horribly hot and cluttery.)
2. Go get a haircut at a really expensive place. Take a photo.
3. Immediately walk down the street to Supercuts, and get another haircut and another photo.
4. Go to another expensive place, get a haircut ‘n’ photo.
5. Etc…

See how that works? You could vary this project by giving the same directions to each hairstylist, or complaining about how much you disliked the previous haircut, or just say “make it look good” or whatever. Plus, the photos could be fun.

If you feel like doing this project, please let me know; I would love to come along.

Wherefore art thou Trigger?

I weighed 192.4 pounds this morning, a new record for me. I hit 190.6 a few days ago, that was a new record, too. “What gives?!”, you might be wondering, and you’d be right. Wasn’t it just a few months ago that I was pondering my rock-ribbed future? Indeed, that future has been nudged out a month or two, but it’s still coming.

You see, I’m signed up to start a circus class next week, and I’m gonna start ramping up the Pilates to a fever pitch next week, too. I might even start going to the gym again. The fattiness is just a phase, a dalliance, a dabbling in the ways of Lard.

That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.

Circus class should be awesome. I’m starting with “acrobatics”, which may include some tumbling. If I like that, I’ll try trampoline class, followed by aerialist classes. Or (more likely), I’ll get bored and flit off to some other thing. One of my trivia questions from Tuesday night was about the definition of “dilettante”; any quiz contestant could have easily just pointed at me…

Trivia was a little stressful on Tuesday. Usually the bar kinda clears out a bit by the 3rd round, so it gets quieter and easier to deal with. But pretty much everyone stayed through Round 5, and four teams were basically tied for first place throughout. Thus there was a lot of yelling and freaking out, which detracts from my mellow mood. I make mistakes now and then about answers, or giving points to people… and this understandably bewoeifies ‘em. But the arguing and such really brings me down, and it’s harder to sort out when the place is so noisy.

I can’t seem to write any questions that have less than 60 words, multiple dependent clauses and bonus “gravy” trivia stuffed in gratuitously. Sample: “Olivia de Havilland in ‘Robin Hood’ rode the same horse as the ‘King of the Cowboys’ did in his movies, a golden palomino. What was this horse’s name?” I could just ask: “What was Roy Rogers’ horse’s name?”, but that would bore the hell out of me. It’s far more fun to mention that Maid Marian rode Trigger, but the long questions are tougher for people to hear.

Anyhoo, I’m a little burnt out on trivia right now. I have plenty of other fun things to do, you know? Like gaining 15 pounds.

March 1, that is.

Are these little posts any more satisfying than 2 weeks of silence? I’d guess not.

HellOOOO?!

Jeez, no posts since March? Sorry.