Writings--Mine and Others'

Stuff I've written, and stuff by others that I've liked enough to type in.

Poetry by me

Manners

by Pam Alexander

Sit, she said. The wolf sat. Shake, she said.
He held his face and tail still 
and shook everything in between. His fur
stood out in all directions. Sparks flew.
Dear sister, she wrote. His yellow eyes
followed the words discreetly. I have imagined 
a wolf. He smells bad. He pants, and his long tongue 
drips on to the rug, my favorite rug. It has arrows 
and urns and diamonds on it. The wolf sits 
where I've stared all morning hoping 
for a heron: statuesque, aloof, 
enigmatic. Be that way, the wolf said. 
There are other poets.

Well, that one was by Pam Alexander. These are by me. They are in approximately chronological order.

Denver
Storms, airplanes, engineers, and sex. What better topics are there? And it's a true story, too.
The Other Woman
For a while when I was in college, I went through this period of thinking that cheating (that is, me getting cheated on) was completely inevitable. Isn't college fun?
Used Paperbacks
Books, falling, the flow of life and the charm of the old and used. This is probably my best poem by most literary standards...don't ask me why I haven't tried to get it published. Lazy, I guess.
Acceptance
The best love poem. Ever. By anyone. Concise, too.
Untitled
A different love poem, dedicated to the otak in A Wizard of Earthsea. and what do you mean i was reading too much e.e. cummings like angry bells falling over (the deadly moon ? at the time
Winter Poem
It's about morning, and it's short.
Boundaries
An absurdist lament based on Alan's untitled poem on his bad poetry page, which I think is excellent. So good, in fact, that my meddling probably hasn't improved it at all.
Near Logan, One Week After
Another airplane poem, which satisfied that craving to say something in the wake of 9/11. It's a sonnet, and if only the last line is screamingly good, well, a lot of sonnets have that problem. And some have worse.
Tessellation
Two friends of mine went through an especially sad breakup, and I was in a mathematical mood.
Far from the bright city
Psssst.... it's about drugs. Not sure how much I like this one yet. But I'm getting more experimental and less autobiographical all the time, and that's good.
Creators in the Long Now
Do you hear tick tock? The sound of the long clock! The idea of the long now, and a clock that ticks once each year, are quite alive in the world; check out longnow.com to see.
When I Grow Up (or, Untitled)
Any resemblance to I Shall Wear Purple should be ignored, because that didn't cross my mind until days after I'd written this (grrrr).
Ligation, of the Tubal Sort
This is funny, but I like to believe it has a bite.
Subway Smut II
Yes, I do ride the subway too much. As for the title, Subway Smut I is the vignette The Perfect Dance, so this is Subway Smut II. Watch out for III any year now.
Vocabulary
On being attracted to a woman for the first time.
The Third Coming
A reversal or inversion of The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats, which came out weirdly good.

Stories by me

Most of these are short-shorts, because that's what I do best.

Vanishing Point
This is my first short-short ever, written when I was 15. My poetry professor told me it has a presumptuous ending, but he admits that I managed to pull it off. This was published by sffworld.com under the name Jade Cantrell, at some point in 2001 when I was still deciding what to change my name to.
Color of Innocence
A story about growing up... and feminine products. Written for a CCAE short-short story writing class in late 2005.
Ripple Effect
This one tends to disturb people, more than I meant it to. Also written for a CCAE short-short story writing class in late 2005.
Sorry I'm not Home Right Now
It was fun (and easy) to write a narrator who hates spiderwebs. Also written for a CCAE short-short story writing class in late 2005.
The Perfect Dance
This is short even by my definition of a story, but I hate to call it a poem. It's about trains, dancing, and... subway smut.
Biomechanics
A much longer story, named after the H.R. Giger book. Not many people even like the premise much... but I do. I wrote these notes/disclaimers to explain myself a bit.

Nonfiction by me

The Zero Net Worth Fribble
Here's a Fribble (defined as a short, joyous essay about personal finance) I wrote for the Motley Fool right about the time I hit zero net worth; I also have a copy of the text here if that link doesn't work. I always meant to write a "nyah, nyah, totally out of debt" companion Fribble the next year, but didn't because I never thought of an interesting angle on it.
How To Scr
And here's a tutorial I wrote on how to write Windows screensavers... I don't want other people to have to reinvent the wheel as much as I did when I was writing my gear screensaver (see my art page).
OpenGL Textures
A companion tutorial to the one above. This one covers texture mapping in OpenGL using bitmaps in the Visual Studio environment.
Business Card Fun
Origami directions (in PowerPoint format) on how to fold a cuboctahedron out of 24 business cards. You know you want to try it.