OOC notes
Russell Miller (the ghoul whose posts begin with a red bar) is now a PC. Reach him at jinnsluck_27@yahoo.com
On the subject of rides...Use this as a place to swap carpool information. Diplomatically. ;)
Eva

Just a little something for atmosphere...

10/11/04

So below I move what I put in LiveJournal to here. LJ, I can screen things according to audience. Here, the only protection is its location. That suits me fine. I've asked Cindy to make sure the page is maintained, especially if I don't make it home some night, and to post the 'book' here on that occasion. Meanwhile, this little diarist would bring you up to date.

Eva

12/22/03

26 widows.

I'm reminded, curiously enough, of an incident in Riverside a couple of years ago. Somehow the police were tipped off on a Court gathering, the details lost to me in the mists of time, but I do remember there being nearly five dozen of them, once things got going. The Keeper at the time saw them coming and the wiser members of society got the Hell out of there. The slower and less fortunate got caught in a massive firefight, ending in the deaths of 52 law enforcement officers. Now, playing numbers a little bit arbitrary here, for the sake of argument I'll say that half of those cops are married. Possibly more, maybe less. Now being good masquers the members of Riverside court at the time, various kindred made some phone calls and otherwise pulled their weight to convince the world that the whole massive firefight never happened.

26 widows.

Twenty six women whose husbands were killed in the line of duty. Twenty six women, some of them mothers, who will have to carry on without the man who, for various things, was her support. Some of those women would move on, forget, try to put it behind them. Most of them likely never got details of their husbands' deaths, don't suspect anything other than an ordinary death. But only some. 26 widows. Certainly some of them have not forgotten. But not all.

People don't forget dead loved ones, and it seems I'm cursed. It seems as though everyone I love suffers a violent death. Granted, statistically it's nothing personal. All vampires die violent deaths. It's the nature of so-called immortality. Still, there was the one Archon. 'Love' is a definite exaggeration here, it's true. He was as pants-wetting fearsome as any Archon, but for a man of his station and task he had a sense of humor, an appreciation for prank, an easy conversation skill, an approachability. Even for your average Tremere this is peculiar, yet weeks after I met him he was killed. In the line of duty.

So--I love you for your good intentions, for your attempts however imperfect at pleasant conversation, an academic's appreciation of humanity, for your hesitancy to kill even the most despotic members of our society short of damning evidence, for a serene holiday season. Sometimes these things failed me personally, but you understand as I do that I don't amount to much in the bigger plan, that even personal feelings don't mean much. I've never understood elders and perhaps never will, but you are a strong woman and my feelings there are well known. I love.

And I cry.

And while I could lock all this in passwords, I prefer to leave it open in a very tiny obscure corner of the web. Only those I trust even know it's here. If one of them circulates it, my trust is ill placed. But there's nothing new in that. 12/10/03

Died again, and being born again, and trying to do it fresh and raw this time, but still drawn to the same people, the same desire to connect with familiar faces and voices. Some of those lost, and the big hole left might explain.
Still, I must do this, must become new. The world is new and not what I left it, more radically not than I could have guessed.
The sound of peacocks--weird.
Habits, like ruts, and those who wait for them.
Haltu afó di e doló, pa awor.
(OOC obscure Creole language. Drop me a note if your character wants to try to read it.)

8/11/03

That's one of the best lies, you know. The Beast's. Love is a liability, it tells you. Love another and double the faults you suffer for. Stay aloof, and even in the Primogen hotseat you could rise above. Look, look, it says, the Camarilla is built on mutual accountability. Survival is to reduce the exposure, the ties of liability brought down to those strictly necessary.

Follow through on that thinking and you betray freely to cover your own ass. They'll understand. It's the rules of the game. It's either that or fatal heresy anarchy or worse. ---It lies.--- Accountability keeps even the most depraved to a minimum sense of decorum, a simulation of humanity, the habits behavior that molds the thinking. Idiocy and monstrosity is not tolerated in amounts too great because those who value humanity and civility don't, or shouldn't, allow it. Not all passion is Beastly. The jaded kill without feeling, and to kill is to risk Falling. To save lives raises up, and you must care to save...

Folks here in 'America' will once again think me terribly naive, but they don't understand the cycle. They don't understand the aged soldier gone pacifist. They've still got bloody faces. I don't know that I could make you understand the rules, the chivalry, the familial passion of the place I come from.

6/11/03

Can't help but wonder who really reads this.

The Torso

What sign of the Black Zodiac are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

6/3/03

Ah, and the one question (the one left after the rage subsides and the scalp stops its infernal itch) I have always wondered-- (I would ask Spicy but he isn't around, and would probably give a cold Zen non-answer anyway)--

How…does one survive decades, centuries even
Losing all friends to suicide and homicide
Having no other friends to speak of because you have to hide the very basics of your 'life'
Having no funerals, or not enough of them (that was cathartic, I should do that again sometime, yearly maybe)
How does one survive not overcome by grief, or vendetta?, as rage is a natural progression of grief especially where there's a murderer to target it against.

Len makes more sense then, his hate, his fuck 'em if they can't figure it out…he's insulated himself. Humanitas. Insanity. And listening to the raves of a hundred minds anytime I'm not otherwise occupied, a hundred minds who cry in pain/grief/betrayal/why/why/why and even when I'm at peace with it all, which isn't often enough, and not stoned (and Tetsuo wonders why I do, and I don't wonder at all why he's waning), even when I'm okay I stop to think, and Think I remember deaths, and grief…

How? How do you handle that? How especially when you are Mad?

6/2/03

Sometimes I amaze even myself. Only a week? Hmmmm. Anyway, a rant I composed while driving in the car, with a few small additions when I went to type it. One should understand that it is essentially private in nature, not published in any meaningful way, and no doubt I'll take it down after a time when I feel my shouting to the sky has been enough. Funny how I miss the incessant voice of the old ghost.

Written by hand, Saturday night after San Bernardino gathering, with addendums Monday at typing.

Customs...
Story...
Badly presented--nerves. No matter how cordial, she is still an Archon, still ashed the Brujah Prince of San Diego in from of his childe and a large gathering of his clan without regard to the near-rebellion she had to anticipate, still a fearful thing she.

If the Tremere discovered I have any memory of what I am about to write, they would stop at nothing to destroy me.

My point was a tyrant can't always be taken from below. Esse is percipi as this will demonstrate.

(OOC the Brujah she refers to is no longer in game.)

Mayfair Chival as you know we knew what he was, or quickly discovered it. Terror outranked stability in the end. The Diamonds were bought off and made themselves his goon squad. The Tremere power structure was known, or whispered at, and the walls had ears. As usual, the Malkavians and Toreadors bore the brunt of terror taken with relative ease, put on pikes, figuratively most of the time, to intimidate others ....

Details I should not remember so will not recount. Simply four people of four clans willing to risk and give everything to take him down. An elder Brujah, an elder Gangrel, an insider, and myself. Months of planning, blood bonds and promises and secrets and lies.

Everything was in place, wills written at the last minute, the Brujah who had the largest and most personal stake in the whole affair, violence against his family aborted the plan at the last minute. Erased our minds, with all the subtlety and grace of a shotgun blast to the skull at close range. My ears ring when I think about it. And now?

The Gangrel: dead.
The insider: reprogrammed by the Tremere, a totally different person, and not seen in some time.
The Brujah: vanished that night and never seen again
Me: kidnapped, a heavy ransom paid, a false ransom demanded, major mental restructuring by the Tremere, taking weeks of intensive and invasive work by my own clan's elders to undo---weeks to restore my memory, a year to regain my 'soul', a few months more and a price negotiated to regain my voice. And terror, blood-sweating nightmarish terror at the very thought of trying for a tyrant like Dmitri, even as he cuts down family and friends like a latter-day Stalin.

Dmitri, who took out my bodyguard the night I was staked, kidnapped, starved, left alone with my Beast and my nightmares, in a rat-infested warren, for four months. Mercifully, I succumbed to torpor in a couple of weeks.

The group had been small to avoid betrayal.. Jon, a trusted friend, was used by the Diamond to bring me to my kidnappers. The then-Prince of San Bernardino blackmailed into looking the other way he turned on them, but moments too late. He was breaking down the door as the stake found its mark.

And then your Graces destroy Mayfair Chival with a single stroke.

He was perceived as invulnerable, but given what we faced he fairly well was invulnerable, at that place and that time, with the adversaries left. He was crafty, ruthless, and longsighted. His lack of humanitas meant he could do things he knew his opponents would not do.

The hard compromise I understand too well, you may assure Mme. Iscariot. To murder is to lose humanity, under most circumstances, yet to stand by idly while others are murdered is painful and will cost you that humanity, albeit a little more slowly.

As for Dmitri my friends and I advised those of kind hearts to leave his domain, hoping to denude Prince of his Court and leave him alone with his mercenaries and monsters. Not an idiot, whatever his other faults, he rallied 'fight the Sabbat!' and accused any who didn't of disloyalty to the sect: move, countermove. Sadly, it worked, and repopulated his court with the naive and mercenary and... hawkish.

Reminds me of the days of Sen. McCarthy.

Being who I am, I am more concerned of fighting the inhumane within than finding combatants on the war field but then, I am not a soldier of that kind. I am a politician my sire, a spy. We fight with the talents we have.

That...is Third World talking too. We were in the middle of their turf, holding on to our values and traditions. A martial attack would have been a quick and pointless suicide.

A note then, while I am thinking of Sophia and the world she knows. Third World tradition, among mortals at the very least, is to exile all but the worst and most dangerous of your enemies. All others can be persuaded, eventually, or utilised discreetly. The equivalent of a Bloodhunt there would be a de facto invitation to leave town until the Prince has moved on or the crime forgotten. Bounty hunters or whatnot were sent in a real hunt if the crime was gave enough and a quiet assassination impractical.

Calling her out is rude, childe teaching sire offensive yet I have to reconcile these affronts to her custom for her own good. I managed to make light of the calling, to delegate the training to a Toreador because Toreadors, after all, are experts at custom and etiquette and certainly, certainly, the only failing of this wise and well-travelled woman is that her customs and etiquette are foreign. Family or not, an insult will cost me her ear, and I cannot afford that, we cannot.

...Outspoken, demonstrative, histrionic at times...all of these the marks of Latin culture, nevermind Latin American. It is a stark contrast to the European nobility norms, closer in spirit to Corsican or street-level Italian. She will soon learn which norms are best understood here, but she will occasionally slip. Forty plus years in a culture will do that. I slip sometimes, and sometimes clear my words with others that they may catch my faux pas ahead of time. Remember at least as she understands the world, and I agree in principle that genocide is the greater evil than any public talk, even talk that seems seditious. She lacks credibility at this point, has no status of any consequence, and whatever her family's esteem she is, I believe, written off as a nut for much of what she says. It's sad, and something I've devoted my life's work to within the clan, shelling the nuts as it were. That is the meaning of the color title be it Maroon or Green. But such retraining takes time and delicacy. I beg your indulgence, and promise you my very best efforts.

5/24/03

Getting all anxious last night--happily it came to naught. But last night...

Jeanne--
The familiarity--you shouldn't read too much into it. My memory is flawed, and won't let me remember your last name. Absurd, isn't it?
I've been sad lately, full of cares. I'd say the sadness is inexplicable but that's not exactly true. I have a theory--maybe it explains it all and maybe it doesn't. I'd intended to post this to my online diary but worried it might compromise the negotiations I am on my way this very moment. Maybe some coffee...it might even be worth what my dead digestion would do with it.
At first I thought it was death--death unmourned, funerals unthrown, too many killed or kidnapped and blown off and blown away like day to day, which it is. No human psyche could seriously bear this and still remain businesslike, let alone cheery or even balanced. Then...trying to consult my increasingly fickle oracles (seems they don't like orisha'n competition), it occurred to me Whose loss is hurting and why so badly. Green's. Yes, Mr. Green as we knew him, Ethan in more intimate and very very rare moments, he was a friend, I owed him dearly, he knew the kind of intimacy only extensive telepathy can give you. His death--2nd death, a piece of my mind reminds me--was suddenish but clear. We knew he was gone. Now Tetsuo insinuates that Spicy may be dead even lacking any evidence of it, and that Kender may not be despite a crowd of witnesses. It is confusing, and the uncertainty is angst. Because if they are all dead, then there are no elders left here, and when Tetsuo hides in his shell it is me, or Sophia who is still stuck in the Third World mind. But it comes to Green....
... Why won't he be there tonight, sending only warnings to Be Careful! Careful?! I'd hire a bodyguard but the only damned bodyguard worth any damned thing at all has twice brought me catastrophic bad luck! Maybe if I make him carry my deck of unlucky cards...

And then tonight, earlier...

Madame
I am pleased to assure you I survived the night with my skin intact and my humor at least partially restored. I had a cordial if functional transaction with Big Daddy Diamond, who I am assured is a man of his own mind and no threat to me. All the same, it was over the phone and he had bigger fish to fry than this little parrotfish.
I met and spoke to one Callisto, a minor celebrity in Haitian transplanted lately to New Orleans. Her looks are radiantly peculiar, and she and I had some fun at the elder Tempus' expense, baffling him with the odd outlook of our homeland hers, yours, and mine, the Caribbean. He was a good sport. ...
And so I remain with houseguests, having failed to contact their next teacher (elders can be odd that way) through no fault of my own. I have survived my first trek back to Riverside and seen a glimmer of an old twice-dead friend, negotiated in truth with some, in jest with others, and indulged pure play with a Malkavian Prince. Sometimes, only sometimes, things go well.
I was quite amused at someone warning me to mind ghouls they have no idea...
Eva

4/18/03

I'd intended to send this directly to our list, but I find my ire rises even now and it is unlikely to gain me any kind of respect at all. Noting this, I added back some things my mind had edited, and post it here in relative privacy. ---Eva

First, thank you for the quote below, clarifying what you had said. I uphold Tradition with a fanatic zeal and a modern temperament, which are sometimes at odds with the more measured pace of the ancients. I have gambled my very skin on the Protocols, and look in frustration and anger at others getting away with diablerie, which I feel is the elders' place to punish. And they do, with frightening selectivity. What calculus lets them ash one publicly while another walks in front of the same crowd?

I am in fact quite young, but not stupid, and well-educated for my years. I am neonate, Oubliette's proclamation notwithstanding, and wonder if I should retain that as an example to others of an age. To do so too loudly, however, compromises Tetsuo and Len, who are known to be of an age and who make good use of their ancilla status.

As for negligent sires, I have nothing but sympathy for their hatched childer, and have been known to take one or two under my wing. Some turned out well; some did not. I am fatigued of it, but will take it up again sometime.

As for the matter of Primogens' power, you are correct. However, the thing that struck me most passionately is the notion that a Prince can disband a council and still expect to function as a full Prince, with a full Harpy. Should this council refuse to meet for the Prince, whether they meet elsewhere or no, does he not then lack a Court? He may appoint Sheriff and Scourge and Seneschal, but none of those may loan the Harpy the status you need to function effectively in your office (which, BTW, I feel is most effectively filled by our own clan, but that is a personal observation). You are, in effect, a Herald, a rather different animal from a Harpy.

And if a Prince makes a proclamation in an empty courthouse, does it mean anything at all? He might as well be the Emperor Norton.

I was once 'appointed Harpy' and, finding that circumstance scandalous, courted the favor and status of the Primogen after the fact. Two were too far scandalized by the Prince's heavy hand, one unreachable, but I gained the status of all others. Of this I am proud.

Now, were your situation more like what I have seen in this region--and I understand we are quite different here--I would in your shoes seek out these rogue Primogen and learn why they sought such a measure. I would convey that concern to the Prince so that he might at least appear to remedy it. A united Court is a better protection against the forces against the Camarilla than one that bickers amongst itself. But that is truism, isn't it?

Then again, your Prince is an elder, and one I know almost nothing about, and thus is quite inscrutable to me. I am making a great many assumptions, and offering advice on the picture those create.

(I miss Ian already. An elder, if in fact he was, whose thinking was sufficiently modern to relate to. I mourn, in tears and rage, and wish for another funeral.)

>> (the quote) I do agree that the Primogen of a city can vote out a Prince based upon their reputation and standing within our sect. However, I have personally seen many a Prince refute such an act, often responding by immediately calling in boons or the Prince or court officers taking physical action.
Political power and recognition is something that allows the Primogen to attempt this type of coup. They had better have more up their sleeves than just the respect of the Camarilla if they wish their plan to succeed.
Indeed you hit the head of the nail of elaboration whereas I did not. Neonates often think that if they gain a majority vote then their majority should rule. That is the point I was attempting to poorly illustrate.
Too often in these dark nights the Primogen *are* young, which is half the problem. The other half is negligent sires releasing their childer before they are fully cognizant and respectful of the status quo in the Camarilla, the way things are done and the way things are not done. 3/12/03

"Killing me softly with his song, killing me softly..." In the silence of a quasi-familiar place, away from my calming atrium, the song comes to me unbidden in a black girl's voice.
Rereading Tetsuo's resignation letter. We are a "stupid and degenerate bunch". The Clan of the Moon is better to act as a "human shield for those who are worth more to the Camarilla." My personal favorite..."Malks - I don't know whether to beat them or use them." These words were referred to about members of my clan within Orange County and sadly the surrounding areas.
I attribute this, right or wrong, to Mikhailovich. Add to this the 'quiet' bounty placed on our heads, and I have to wonder at the arrogance of anyone who thinks they can hide anything at all from our clan of Seers, particularly one as gifted as he. We have more ghosts than the Giovanni, sometimes. Certainly there are some among us who aren't too bright, and some who pretend to be idiots the better to exploit those around them. I've made a mission of guiding the former, and being mirror to the latter the better to judge their performance.
Yet I have to wonder if I've failed. Certainly with Lenore, maybe, if she is ever released...no. She has shown what she is. Four Colors, four elders, and she ignored them all and walked unhesitant into a trap, nearly taking a fine ally down with her. I have failed. Did this cost us Ian? It certainly contributed.
Ian has not Screamed, but he was never really inclined to Talk. It is hard to accept his death without it.
I dare any of them, any of Dmitri's 'loyal' court, to buy a ticket to Venezuela and survive half a night there! I could do it; most of my family could. His would be taken by mortals, mere mortals. People sorely underestimate the living. The Sabbat here are petty and stupid by comparison. Then again, people here can be so blind.
Thinking dangerously outside The Box...

2/25/03

So much, so much...

Must return to Orange County domain to Moses-like get my people the hell out of there. What an ego. Kender in his elderliness felt he had nothing to hear from me. Should I tell him different? That Dmitri has already answered to one clan representative for what's gone on and doesn't need a second knocking down his door. Len really should get ancilla for this, except that the world it seems already thinks that or higher of him. At least the way he describes it.
But I hold onto humanity with both hands. I am still appalled, still have waking nightmares of watching Dmitri level a gun at Tetsuo's head, dear childlike Tetsuo, with his wide almond eyes imploring peace while the monster lay ready with claws and feline fangs to tear one apart at a simple word. Poor Tetsuo, who asked me to stay back, not hurt Dmitri, he is a friend who has made enough apologies. Then to see that betrayal, to watch the Toreador's 'questioning' turn into a slaughterhouse---it's like the water still rains down from the sprinklers in my head.
Yet I must not forget it. Process, sure, take the sting off it in time. But to forget is to be vulnerable to that again, and nothing says it won't hurt worse the next time.
Like the memory of that fine sword levelled at Jubei's neck, while Tommy lay the wood into me. Staking, always a trauma of the worst sort and a reminder that you aren't in fact human, has unintended consequences on a deranged mind.
Lenore has failed. She has devolved beyond my ability to restore her. Hoping to make us all look better by bringing up a new powerful Malkavian, I have only undercut us all and myself in particular. I am reminded--Len, thank you again--that some of Dmitri's atrocities are quite understandable given his position. I have never been a Prince, unless you count the island, and don't intend I ever will be. Certainly shooting Tetsuo was horrific, and giving instructions to the Tremere not to wake him seemed a cruel jest, but he did let him go. To me. Tetsuo saw that and spoke to him one on one, even though I was terrified this would mean his demise. I don't think he knew if he was walking out of there.

I am terrified easily, maybe. Comes with a complete inability in a fistfight. Yet I am only slightly worried by Russell's compromise, even though he physically could take me when he wanted to. As a ghoul, daylights....he could do anything. He won't, but I have to see that he never regrets his decision not to betray. Because right now, it is his *decision.*
But that I could give that decision to Sophia. Somehow I don't think they'd let an old monster like that to their little bar (somehow I doubt it was the movies) even if she could walk by day.
Sure he bound her, but he could easily have killed her. Scary--someone who could take her *easily*. That old assassin should be unstoppable. Maybe, ironically, time spent with the Sabbat made her soft! But what do I know? I didn't even know that's where she was. It explains the in absentia of her modus operandi.

Next gathering had best be Elysium--not that it matters really. If he's setting up a discreet little bounty on a whole clan using folks who definitely have no right to be here, nothing says those individuals will give a rat pack about Elysium. It's war for the sect, yes. But it's not the fox outside the henhouse you have to worry about. It's the farmer.

1/26/03

God-damned fucking inconvenient spirits...

I was...meditating, trying to contact my oracles in time for tomorrow night's gathering. I could have used their counsel, though they usually speak to me when they desire and not on call. I had to try.

Halfway through, I get a knock on the back door. Not many people know of the back door, and fewer knock. It's Tetsuo. We're going. To the courthouse. Now. He's insane. Does he want us both killed? My spirits are calm. Now I know it was okay, but at that point it could easily have meant they wanted company.

I found myself overseeing an intimate conversation, it seemed. It's still hazy, most of it, like a dream. Tetsuo explaining how the Toreador had manipulated him. Calm. Dmitri listening, no Sheriff in sight. A couple of people hiding like spirits, but I would think him a stupid Prince if, even in his fortress (I hate that place! I had to be out of my mind, transcendent or stoned or drunk or something, to go back there), he negotiated alone. I advising Tetsuo, he mistranslating my words. Growing increasingly upset because, despite the infernal contract that I conceded to as easily only because I wanted, felt I needed, my voice for this particular transaction, despite this I could not be heard and had to know the indignity of mistranslation.

We are fine. His oracles, or perhaps his insight, showed him the right way. Risky as hell and I won't let him forget it, but the right way in hindsight. An intimate conversation, nonthreatening to a temperamental Prince, not the war I was girding for. Now I have to explain this to the people I contacted, and asked for backup from. Len, I know how you feel. Setting up a careful plan to have it blown up by opportunity. Damn.

Any day now, Mr. Chival...

1/03/03

Night falls but day breaks
Land, soft as on feathers
White satin, built for comfort
White night? Not for me
Ambers and blues and blacks and greens
Sounds of waves breaking…
breaking…
breaking…
Like day, and as deadly in their time
What must Timothy have felt?
When did he and Sara awake?
Wrapped in each others' arms
Cold comfort against hot hurricane
Fearing not the water but the waves
Would they dash their strange boat open on the shore?
Or would it only crack, sink to the bottom of the dark sea, eternal night like a vast womb?
But I know--they were born
I am sorry, and I am glad
Night falls, and the sound of waves is only illusion of cars rushing by on the overpass, cutting through air at hurricane speeds
Movement is constant
Life is short
Eternity long
Immortality a lie
And so I feel, and inflict feeling
And remember how to prepare my loved one for strange boats.

11/0100

So much to say, so much to think. Harpy. Can hardly fathom it. A hundred billion things going 'round in my head, a head accustomed to taking two glass shards and making a picture. Now I've got windows and windows and my mind is filling in the blanks and it's all a little overwhelming. Yet I must not shut it off.
So very much I have to say, but to say it here is to give it away cheaply. And I am Harpy, and can get things for what I know. If only the edges weren't so sharp...

9/16/00

What the hell was that about?
He's so sweet. He cares so much. I'm gone overnight and I come home to Mr. Worried, not even angry. Sure, not happy about the ride situation, but not angry. Indulge the fetish a little and it amazes me what I can get.
Seems almost wrong.

9/8/00

We're at home, okay? We aren't bothering any of you! Isn't it bad enough we've survived an earthquake? Leave her alone!!

8/29/00

Damn it, what was I thinking? I've got a girlfriend who's hung up on dead people, and I go and rent that ghost movie. Stupid stupid stupid.
Why couldn't I just get a crack whore like normal people?

8/25/00

Oh, you know the Rules. Trust no one. Malks get ignored. Everybody wants to kill the big bad Mayfair, damn the consequences, except the ones who work for him and them you just don't know. Nobody knows who's on what side, but everybody has theories. Boons and dominations complicate the issue all the way around. And if nobody shows up for the Great Plan meeting, see rules # 1 and 2.
grumble
Maybe the Ball will be a pleasant diversion.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAHAAA!
I'd say nobody understands, but that's not necessarily true. Maybe everybody does, but just isn't saying...

8/1//\00

Fuck. Cristof says my return will have to wait, that the time isn't right. C'mon man, things aren't gettng any safer around here!!!

7/29//\00

Meddling ghoul.

Quick note--I hereby declare (pomp and fanfaire) that one Michael Shrek is bestowed the Malkavian status "Braveheart". May he wear it well.

7/23/00

Oh dear.

First of all, Eva shouldn't leave her passwords lying around, unless of course she did that on purpose for me to find them. That's always possible, but in the state of mind she's been in lately it's just as possibly a mistake.
Hi. My name is Russell and I'm Eva's boyfriend/roommate. Just thought I'd make a note of something here in case anyone's reading and wondering why she hasn't answered her mail. I know she's pretty diligent about that usually. Her old computer broke or more to the point she broke it. Just the monitor, sure, but it was an excuse to upgrade.
The other night she was watching the monitor with the power off--does that sometimes--when she started talking to herself. Does that sometimes too. Then she moaned, and I don't mean happy moans. "Stop! Behind you! On the right! Two of them at three o'clock!" Weird shit like that like. Weird's kind of relative, I know, and maybe it only seems weird looking back. Then I looked in the room and her hands were on the screen. She beat on the screen, screaming louder, and before I knew it she had broken through the screen and was beating up the insides of the monitor. Good thing she heals fast, because I don't know how she'd stand having her hands bandaged up for days.
She's pitiful when she cries anyway, but this would've broken your heart to watch. I hope you people are nice to her tonight.

Anyway, if you want to reach me, use theheretik@earthlink.net (OOC he gives a slightly different address. Just note IC to Russell in the subject line).

7\18\00

...maybe the rest of you should run and hide, or better yet stay close, where I can see you.
Zachery Poitos?
Lord Janx?
the swirly thing
Zero?
Lucky Maloy?
Nameless One's companion
Demitrius Van H---
Octavian Doverspike?
Bun-Bun?
Ben White?
Ted
Terrance
Tragedy
Trevor
Nosey?
Match
Roger Kelly? (doesn't seem right not to mention him)

Wonder Eye.

6/14?/00

I am consistently amazed at how down-the-rabbit-hole this whole thing seems. I've set a date--okay, 'sometime in August' is hardly a date--to return to Santo Paolo. I've actually sat down and read some of the Protocols (my profs would have been shocked). I'm going to great lengths to get Prince Mayfair's nod, and not just because I think he'll kill me if I don't (because he'll likely kill me if I *do*). In renewed insanity, in hallucination comes strange clarity. Or maybe it is simply in hope, in making new friends who may knock down the walls of this labyrinth.
Who knows?

6/5/00

And it all falls down
And the shadows run from themselves

5/26/00

This unlife is so strange.
I have this sense of impending...transition...unable to stop it I instead become its conspirator. I have this fantasy of walking it through, directing it invisibly through a tense but utterly false scene, fooling all in an illusion worthy of a gypsy but with methods purely mundane. Saving who I need to save, fooling even her.
Taking her back to some secret haven, setting her staked form in a corner, hoping her temper has subsided enough and the climate has cooled enough to let her go. Feeding her the best my connections have to offer, sustenance, enlightenment, diversion. Singing softly, to engrain in her memory the love of one who seems betrayer:

"Think of me everyday
Hold tight to what I say
And I'll be close to you
Even from faraway
Know that wherever you are
It is never too far
If you think of me
I'll be with you
(© Veggie Tales)

But even immortality is rarely so pure, so I harbor this fantasy as shield against the vagaries of night.

3/12/00

Hey folks--anyone who's reading this little diary page anyway. Last night my car broke down. Tonight I was supposed to meet you all at Court. No doubt with my absence our dear Prince and the Keeper have written me off as Deputy Keeper, and I wouldn't blame them. Much. I tried, I really did, but it just wasn't happening. My "roommate" Russell had to work, but he was a sweet and sent a girl who'd just got off shift to keep me company. He assures me she's completely discreet, so I've been fed as well as entertained.
You see, I didn't sit by the phone. I *never* sit by the phone. (I suppose I should have used my own rideshare page tonight, eh?) This girl took me out to a Beatles re-creation band. I had such fun. I felt so alive, surrounded by real live people. It's hard to describe, having been set apart for over forty years and then being part of a thing. "With a Little Help From My Friends" I sang along with Lisa (the newfound friend) and almost meant it. "When I'm Sixty-Four" was bittersweet--while being, er, twenty-nine forever is a nice age to be stuck at, I'll never be the sweet old wrinkled thing the song talks about. And then "Imagine". Far cry from Court, what a seductive thought.
I will be back, car allowing. There's something compelling about keeping your own kind. Still it's strange how I understand Cristof better every day, his preference for kingmaker over king. I wonder if he's getting the letters? The island's going to seem awfully dull after tonight. I'll have to get satellite radio, and start demanding live music for bribes. When I get back. If I go back.
Can you ever go back?
Eva

2/22/00

What a delight to find a Net connect along my journey! A welcome convenience to take the hassle off of travelling undead.
Reading "Antigone" and doing too much thinking along the way. Hopefully I can find the Prince of the cities I'll be passing through--it would be terribly rude not to at least say hello.
Much advice to give to many, but it will wait until I get back. Can't wait until the pictures come in--I think I still show up on film...?
Eva
2/01/00

watching our doorsteps for each other This is no way to exist

1/16/00

San Diego--a profound disappointment for this little Malk. I go to fight a war I barely understand, for a place I've never been, against an enemy whose forces are a complete unknown to me. I went anyway, mind you. I sought out some of the usual folk I take leadership from and --poof!-- they were nowhere to be found. Bad sign. No LMdS Malks and very few familiar faces. I hooked up with the four other clanmates who were there and while we had some fun...Ben got into a dick-waving contest with one Lucky Devil and neither could let it go. I tried to talk some sense and all I got from Lucky was being Silenced after an unsuccessful attempt to brand me a traitor. I'm naive, Lucky, I'm not stupid.

Anyway, I left, figuring if it was this bad with the most cohesive clan in the Cam it couldn't be any worse. This evening I woke up with a headache and Lucy wouldn't approach me. It's taken me months to get that dog acclimated to me! Bad omens all.

Would somone please tell me what happened after I left? I'm sorry I did leave, but I'm not ready to be buried just yet. Tell me my fears were for nothing, and that you all kicked Sabbat ass.

Eva

12/26/99

Ah, the Net. Great place for saying something rash, hitting the 'send' button, and getting in hot water. Oh well, can't take it back, but I'd like to explain a little, all the same.

Those of you in the LMdS (IC) list might have noticed me saying I was too busy to deal with domain issues. I wasn't being sarcastic! The fact is while we may be 'special' we still have some very mundane issues to deal with. Myself, I'm trying to make a living working at nights, with no paper trail and a car that works when it feels like it. I get so frustrated, trying to explain to the IRS why I have neither a birth certificate nor a passport. I try to explain that the smaller nations in the Caribbean don't issue them, and certainly not to exiles! The office ladies have started calling me "Princess Caribou" and while I don't know the term I sense it is not a compliment.

But enough whining. I'm working hard just to stay afloat financially (and keeping Cristof out of jail, but that is a whole other story). Constant vigilance is difficult enough dealing with mundanes--I don't think we should waste our energies watching our doorsteps for each other.

When this all cools down, I'll be asking for a ride to the San Diego get-together.

Eva

Besides the radio favorites we like to bond with, may I pass along a few songs I've learned traveling around the Malkavian community:

Malkavian 'Folk' Songs

This is the song that sticks in your head
Sticks in your head
Sticks in your head
This is the song that sticks in your head
You have to sing it again

One piece of fruit in the jar
One piece of fruit
Take one out, slice it in half
Two pieces of fruit in the jar

My banana
Whoa-oh whoa whoa whoa
My banana

Alas, I don't know how to write music. More notes to follow. In the meanwhile, here's a place where we can exchange notes. Just make sure the Brujah don't find the address...