-26th of September. Ashton. Didn't completely finish, wasn't completely bought.

-9th of October. Habibi. Arabic for night? Lemon mint and mint and berry? Girl in a white coat, brown eyes, brown hair..I owe Zach one. Maybe.

Still haven't found her. Mildly distressing, mildly relieving. Journaled lately in a green notepad. Problem is I need to keep a pen, which can be problematic in some jeans.

Journaling. Whether it's jotting down bits of what I remember of a series of not-so-disturbing-just-illogical dreams on a pad or hacking together a somewhat readable account of the day, week, or whatever, mostly for my own benefit (and that of my dearest Miss Dissonance...and occasionally that of rare friends of mine who actually remember I have this) of practicing regular writing - if not of the quality-fiction nor news-worthy variety - it's generally the most frequent form of writing I do. There generally are no rules, even when it comes to public entries on, say, even here, Xanga. ('Sides the obvious, of course, general Internet safety measures: no terribly personal information, information that could legally incriminate me or anyone else, plans best kept between me and another person) I write what I want, how I will, and may whatever any reader - even perhaps a future, older version of myself, looking back on these - say or think whatever they will on it.

Then it's close to 4 in the morning here and I see this *lovely Xanga article, and for a moment I'm kinda pissed. But then, I've felt a gamut of emotions all..er..morning. And last night.

Past couple nights/wee early mornings I've had the same sort of mental episode that has me obsessed over a **girl I met on a cruise some months ago, whom (in this state) I've deemed the collective personification of all sorts of romantic muses. Should I actually speak to someone about it (random Omegle acquaintances who actually do have names, for instance), the episodes tend to peter out fairly safely, or sometimes of their own accord, generally if I let my rational side actually think it out (or have someone unknowingly act as a "bounce" to reaffirm this through a second source).

The late nights (for no real productive reason) and decaffeinated coffee (in a somewhat feeble attempt to shorten these late nights) likely have some hand in it all.

...but no mention of the upcoming college transition, you say? (Yes, I do talk to my imaginary audience, thanks) I figure that was a given.

To close, something more or less completely unrelated with anything above, an orchestrated (in that it all just came to mind and I happened to have WordPad up) conversation 'tween alternate parts of my personality (the romantic/introspective side generally more in charge of writing lately, and the goal-getter that I try to get to work in all aspects of my life)

---

"Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Why the fuck did you ever choose all this introspective shit over regular fiction?"
"Regular fiction?"
"The old fantasy, science-fiction, crime novels?"
"I still do that.."
"No, you don't. All you've shoveled out is scripture for the worship of women. It's not even vainglory or misplaced narcissism anymore, it's downright self-de-manning."
"Maybe."
"Can you answer me?"
"Talking about the sort of stuff I was considering to write at the time..the mafia, criminal organizations, weapons, violence? I was a teenager in a Catholic high school, a lovely little place with all its lovely little people spouting its lovely little nothings and I called myself a writer, talked like a writer. You're forced to tone it down just so people realize it's fiction. And then you realize, hey, I'm not actually putting time into my writing, so I'm just spouting this nonsense. Feh. Human nature was what I learned to put into anything I wrote."

---

*No offense meant to the author of the article, of course, it simply comes up.
**She, however, along with the film noir style/prior life experience with the human nature/et cetera, has some credit for inspiring the naming of a particular "theme" that's pervaded some of my recent works.

A story.
---
"Why, hello there, sir!"
"Morning." It was afternoon.
"Here for a suit?" The shopkeeper was brisk. Or dull. Or not the funny sort when it came to considering other people's sense of humor. Maybe all three. Nathaniel Niles considered pointing this out to him, but thought better of it.
"Ah, just browsing for now." Nathan returned his gaze to the hat case. "Actually, 'case I need anything, I'd like your name.."
"Jabe."
"Jabe..?"
"Yes."
"No surname?"
"Roans. I own this store."
He flashed a look and a devil's smile Mr. Roans' way. "Ah, yes, I should've known."
Nathan reminisced as he considered the familiar store. Mr. Roans was never really a suit man, 'least not as much as his brother, Jim. Jabe handled more of the management and brokering side of things, which required a sort of personality that, while civilized, did not require the same amount of tact as a proper keeper had. You were dealing with businessmen, obviously, not teenagers looking to buy your suits for their entire high school and college careers and let alone guys simply in your place to play instruments. When Nathan lived here, he always preferred Jim, his personality, his penchant for actually not being outdressed by his wares, and his tolerance for a brief guitar/piano stint (on his guitar and their piano) he did here in this store. Jim himself brought to light several aspects of folk guitar Nathan hadn't known about, the finer points of finger-picking, the English folk styles, folk artists long dead but much worth remembering. 'Twas a while ago, several years. Nathaniel aged and left Bourbonnais frequently for college, Mr. Roans (Jabe) grayed. Jabe had little memory for nuisances on his storefront. Nathaniel (then) had little desire to perform where he could not be seen, a trait (or flaw) that carried over into his own maturity in rather subtle manners, a certain desire for greatness of some kind combined with a set of natural abilities that set him apart from most. You couldn't see it looking down, of course. Back then, Jabe just saw Nathaniel as a goddamn guitarist along with the piano he already had in his storefront (still as a display stand, Nathan noted) that, according to Jabe, got the security angsty, having it there. Though it was apparent to any person with half an ear that over the loud mallwalk music barely any guitar could be made out beyond thirty or so feet, let alone the (shut) piano barely holding on to life. No one ever really disposes of pianos quite properly. Instruments in general, really. At some point they were heirlooms, now (particularly pianos) they just take up space.
"Such a pity.."
"Excuse me?"
Fuck it, he may as well ask. "This piano, how old is it?"
"Oh. About ninety some years."
"Ninety..1930s, then."
"Would be about it."
"When was the last time anybody played it?"
"I couldn't tell you sir." Jabe laughed. Nathan didn't. "Do you play, sir?"
"Occasionally."
"Well, you're welcome to play a tune, if you like." Oh, that fucker. Mellowing with age. The briskness remains, certainly, but they all damn soften. He could've laughed. Maybe it was his age, now; when ten or so years have passed since you last saw most anyone, let alone a stray nuisance, you don't remember their face, particularly if you're in the graying remains.
Now the job wasn't just business coupled with a convenient revenge for a petty decade-old slight: it was fucking ironic hilarity in motion. Educational point-making.
Not to mention causing a ruckus in suburbia, which was always fun.

---

The job, as his partner, ("retainer," as she put it..."Either that or 'liege.'") Agent Crane outlined to him, was to capture the body of Jabe Roans for the purposes of Abstergo Corporation. Classified. It was sorta hard to figure to obey without question a woman who wouldn't even so much as tell him her first name, even as an alias, even though she knew practically every aspect of his life up to actually meeting him several months ago. He looked into her unsettlingly-serene blue eyes, the only part of her he saw (the opened trunk end of the Lambo Estoque obscured anything else), cocked his head to see her expression, and smiled when her eyes and petite face twisted slightly in alarm when she realized what he was about to do. Not what he was supposed to do, as if he couldn't make this operation any messier than it had been.

Didn't even bother with the silencer. Psychotic moron!

---

"Was that really necessary?"
"The speech? Yeah, I guess it wasn't..tried to keep it short, though."
"Yes, but I mean the whole shooting bit."
"Oh, that."
"Yes."
"I never liked the fuck."
"So I heard."
"Aye, so y'heard, so y'read. But it is kinda hard to extract cranial tissue without opening his head in the first place..."
"Cranial tissue?"
"You of all people, don't play dumb."
"Who told you anything about cranial tissue?"
"Nobody. Just some guessing."
...
"Just a bet that that's what they're up to. Something to do with it, brains and all."
"And you could be clinically insane."
"I could. What exactly with the brains though...I don't know."
...
"You're usually a bit chattier. Usually when you don't speak I did something wrong. What'd I do? Didn't follow procedure? I just figured I'd save them some trouble."
...
...
"How far are we from Chicago? ...nothing? Ah, yeah, I should look. ...er...twenty or so miles? I think that's right. I don't know. Bit sleepy. I'd take a kip but that smell is slightly off-putting."
...
...
"Can we stop for coffee? ...no? Fine. Can I put on the radio? I'll stay on one channel, I swear. Just one scan-through. Huh...haven't heard that song in a while..good driving music, don't you think, Crane? ...do you like being called Crane, honestly? Is that even your real name? Probably not.."
...
"Miss, what is your favorite song?"
Everyone has a coping mechanism for dealing with death, particularly murder done by their own hands or that of their associates. Some break down and swear to or have their associate swear to never do it again, and for the most part they don't. Others end up doing it again for some reason or another and eventually the coping mechanism becomes much more practiced, numbed up, like a gag reflex for food most wouldn't eat that goes away after starving for weeks. But for every person, that coping mechanism is slightly different, and like people's other idiosyncrasies and quirks, some coping mechanisms don't go along well with each other. Crane, the consummate professional most all her professional life, understood this, and took it stoically. Still, the smell reeking from the front trunk and Nathan's own garrulous "get-by" was slowly eroding away a long-practiced patience mile after mile after mile. It wasn't the favorite song comment - itself bringing to mind some nostalgia for precious moments of...well, something else - that set it off moreso than the next, sopping-sarcasm-wet monosyllabic Nathan uttered after she gave him a withering glare.
"What?"
She gunned the Estoque to get ahead of the semi in the right lane enough to spin into a quick U-turn (causing much alarm from both the truck driver and Nathan) ending with Crane facing up the merge ramp from a rest stop, again not slowing a hair as they barrelled past a car preparing to merge into the rest stop parking lot. The Estoque pulled to the right, barely avoiding broadsiding a lone mini-van pulling out of its parking space on this side of the lot, decelerated, swung to its left and around almost 135 degrees and forward, barely slowing into a perfect park between a red van and a cobalt station wagon.
Nathan was catching his breath when Crane backhanded him across the face.
"You do not go by guessing in this business. You do not chat things up, not with your targets, not with your superiors, no one 'sides who I tell you to. You shut up when you know when to shut up. Very simple. I might not kill you, but someone will."
"Didn't know you were so concerned about my livelihood."
Another back-hand. "Of more immediate note, there is a dead body spilling brains on my trunk floor and likely all over the fucking space. I did not wake up this morning figuring a simple snatch would be so hard to clean."
"Well, with your driving.." he caught the backhand this time and glared straight into her unsettlingly-blue eyes. "..I really doubt he would've survived the stunt you just pulled. And why you give a damn about this car as much as you do is still beyond me. But more to the point, you knew he and I had a fucking history and you had me in there, anyways. Why?"
She pulled her hand back, seeming poised to strike again but chose after a breath to glare to her left at the red van. High-top, could've sat seven or eight with comfortable breathing room. Provided they didn't have a dead body in the back. A child's seat in the middle row, left seat, lent an unexpected softness to her thoughts. Just a bit of nostalgia.
Meanwhile Nathan rolled his eyes and scoffed. He knew why she put him up to it. 'Twas testing. Teaching. Something of that kind, he could never take well to matronly ways after living with his mother. When they'd first met some months ago it did not seem like that sort of relationship. Maybe he was foolish then, saw more things as he saw 'em rather than as they were. You can change your opinions but some things aren't changed by anything, like other people's opinions. And here he was now.
Not that he really regretted killing the fuck, just that any sort of kill was unsettling. It seemed wonderfully natural yet terribly unnatural at the same time, a cocktail of a feeling both shocking and exhilirating in its ease and the subsequent adrenaline rush, the reward of the deviant mindset that dominated a decent part of Nathan's mental processings.
It was hard enough explaining most anything to Mother. How would this uptown bitch know anything 'sides what was "for the greater good," philosophy and ethics and the many ways to think yourself into a brick-wall? Psychology to her was something she read in a book.
"I'm gonna get a coffee." She glanced at him, "much like a annoyed hunter considers her wayward hound returning with nothing," to use the expression she was so fond of using. Fucking Virginian. "Usual?" She blinked. "Yes, then."
She watched him go, pulling on a black blazer sweater over his (inexplicably, only-slightly) bloodstained shirt, jabbing his hands in his pockets, looking down slightly only for moments before raising his head, shivering slightly in the crisp late autumn breeze. She recognized that walk. 'Twas genetic, she supposed; though almost born a decade apart, Nathaniel Niles was practically the spitting image of his older brother Jonathan, discounting the time and personality differences. The common in-family joke was that Nathan was a test tube baby, amongst friends that they were proof that all related Asians looked the same; unlike middle siblings Emily, Abigail, and Anthony, who received a larger portion of genes from their English-born father, Jonathan and Nathaniel were Filipino-Spaniard of their mother's maiden Pablo bloodline through and through. In appearance, anyways. One was the only slightly-disturbed yet dutiful and responsible eldest and the other the alternatively laissez-faire and psychotic almost stereotypical youngest brat. Crane generally didn't judge so harsh of people, particularly immediate relatives of close friends and former partners, but people she was around for an indefinite time took some getting used to. Cursed sentimentalities.
But what was living if not for sentimentality?
The brief lapse in her thoughts brought her attention back to the smell of ichor effusing throughout the car. She coughed, opened the door and stepped out into the fresh air. It hadn't yet taken up the biting quality that made Chicago winters famous, but then they weren't lakeside proper. Nonetheless, she shivered and drew her black overcoat closer around her. She could do without the cold, having grown up having to weather it out yearly in similar conditions but in Virginia; in college she had figured to become a marine biologist, go someplace warm; prior to that, she had taken classes in high school to achieve credit enough for an Associate's in Gen Ed. She was (and is) described as an ambitious, driven woman who stood out. Perhaps not in a crowd, necessarily, but where a crowd passed she would remain. Such was the odd analogies Jonathan used to describe her, at least. Vaguely she wondered how her younger self would have reacted had she known this was how she would turn out. She had heard the histories and half-legends of the Templars all her life, known her great-great grandfather on her mother's side had a position in the similarly-named Masonic branch, and the vague concept of some age-old connection between the medieval Templars and the Masonics. At the time (and if the Censure Priors are doing their jobs right, to this day) there was no clarity as to what that connection was or whether it even existed beyond name and traditions, even to very-high-ranking Masonic Knights Templar.
As she came to find out, it was startlingly simple: like most entities in a hierarchy, they were far from the top, and loosening Masonic tenants gave way to ancient Templar bloodlines that survived the purges in deathly secret and returned later to quietly assert control of certain regional lodges around the world; few and small at first, but growing until almost any lodge and branch of any power or reach was managed by a regional Grandmaster who also supplemented these fairly still-legitimate lodges and branches (referred to amongst the Templars as Masons) with holdings and assets the Grandmasters and their families had acquired over the years, most prominent those (through a considerable, centuries-old and ever-growing layer of shell businesses and dummy companies) in the centuries-old corporate, scientific, and medical giant known in recent as Abstergo Industries (whose Templar managers were known as Absterges, incidentally, the "Cleansers"). There were other divisions besides the Masons and Absterges, obviously: the Priory, an Intelligence and Communication division (members of which supposedly responsible along with Abstergo or a predecessor for the creation of such marvels such as the telephone, the radio, the Internet, amongst others), and the Knights, the Templars' ode to its own early history as a military order, consisting of both (insulated) private military companies, security, and personal bodyguards and assassins of Masters and Grandmasters (whose authorities overruled that of their respective employers' subordinates), all bound to similar codes of conduct and close to utter obedience lest they fall prey to traitors and turncoats, worst of all, those of the almost mythical, dogged Eagle Orders...
"Crane?" She had not made it far away from the car physically, taking a cold seat on a bench as she had watched the passengers of the red van, two parents and four young children, pile in, smiling slightly at the youngest, a blonde wisp of a girl perhaps five or so. Hoping at least that one would not see the blood stains on the Estoque's front. Time was sort of busy catching up to her.
"Crane," he said, a little more insistently this time. Nathan held her cup of coffee forward in his left hand and tried not to make much of how comfortingly warm her hands seemed to be as they took it from him. Two sugars, no cream: "Black as the devil and sweet as a stolen kiss." Supposedly his older brother Jonathan was fond of it, as well, a Polish saying and tendency he'd picked up somewhen and nowhere near Poland for no real reason. He vaguely remembered when Jonathan started drinking coffee, at fifteen or so. Nathan himself was told he started drinking a little at around the same time, when he was about five. Three sugars, two cream. No clever saying to go with it, unfortunately, but he was working on it. It was one quirk of his Crane didn't bother to question. At least they had that much in common.
Nathan took a breath and was about to offer cleaning up the Estoque's trunk himself once this was over when Crane's phone rang.
Several monotone beeps in a rhythm she once danced to, long ago. No way the kid would know, of course. She bent her left hand towards her at the wrist then brought her five fingers together in a sort of awkward flower, activating the neural implants and answering the call, a tiny microphone on her voicebox and a miniscule speaker implanted on her ear drum. "Crane."
"Evening, Lady. I trust our friend Jabe is well and on his way here?"
"We ran into some complications, unfortunately-" she simply glanced at Nathaniel, who simply shrugged and sipped his coffee, noting his breath in the growing cold- "he had a little motion sickness."
"No doubt. What of your ward?"
"He's...well." 'Ward,' indeed.
"Lovely. Well. His impulsiveness has changed things, obviously, no doubt the state of your car the least of your worries-" For the hundredth time the sentimentality of this Estoque was undervalued, even in casual jest- "But the ultimate objective of the processing was unlikely to leave Mr. Roans alive, anyways."
"Excuse me?"
"We need his tissue. Cranial tissue, to be exact."
"I see."
"Fairly hard to remove unless the head has been opened to begin with, yes."
"And supposing it was opened prematurely?"
"Accurate impulsiveness on his part, I see..well, no matter. I believe we'll have a team sent over, and have it towed to the nearest outpost for immediate analysis...the entrails in the trunk, that is."
"And of my car?"
The Templar Grandmaster of the Great Lakes Region had an odd tendency to click his tongue when most people would've sighed in a vaguely sympathetic way. "Unfortunately, m'Lady, I cannot guarantee whether your vehicle will remain as untouched as you'd like, this analysis may take some time."
"Very well. And of I and my Ward?"
"You are to remain in Chicago until further notice." Further notice could be a minute. Three days. Three months. Just in time for the Chicago winter.
"Aye, my liege."
"Good evening, Lady."
Crane repeated the motion to disconnect the call.
"Well?"
"Well." Crane took a long sip of her coffee, swallowed, exhaled through her nose and noted the air appearing as steam in the cold. "We wait for our team to show up, tow away the Estoque, and bring us up to outpost.
"You don't sound too enthused."
"I'm not particularly fond of losing mementos for any amount of time."
"You don't strike me as the type to keep mementos."
"No, I don't. Call it strange, but ten or so years ago the Estoque wasn't going to be made public, let alone affordable on account of the economy."
"And then what happened? Templars?"
"Who knows. About five years ago your older brother bought me that car. Or rather, he didn't figure a real need to own it, he didn't appreciate driving as much as he knew I did. Yes, Templars paid for it. It was technically his as a sort of gift from the Master for ascending to the Prior Knights..."
"Prior Knights?"
"Priors with Knight training. Some of the greatest authority, responsibility, and power over the Templars save that of the regional Masters, the Grandmasters, and their bodyguards. Because of that, most any teenage daughter of a Knight or Prior can get started in training now and can actually expect to join when they're of age."
"And you-?"
"Were the first. Yes, fairly late at 29. He made odd plans when we first fell in love, many failed, some succeeded.." she smiled rather wistfully.
"Oh, did you..?"
"Did we plan to marry? It didn't seem feasible. About as feasible as convincing the Grandmasters into allowing women into what had been all-male orders for centuries. Surely you understand by now why we chose the latter?"
"It had to be one or the other?"
"Hardly the time. Much to be done."
"Oh, but surely-"
Crane breathed a sharp exhale of breath through her nostrils. "He was a fair traditionalist to the end." She glanced at Nathan ,smiling briefly and slightly. "There was always going to be time, when all other grand schemes would either come to fruition or give what could be given, when the Grandmasters would finally broker some form of peace for all, at least politically..." She craned her head, stretching her neck. "Well. There was one time we came fairly-"
"Ach, no, no thanks. I'm betting it was in this car..ah, fuck."
There was no denying the slight smirk on her face as she sipped the last of her coffee. "He wasn't all that much into mementos, either. Photographs got lost in the fire, not that they would do much good. It and you are all I have left of him. Always used to speak of you, if ever I asked of family."
"What of you?"
"That you needn't know."

Just realized it's down to four. Four weeks. From three weeks and three (or so?) months to four weeks. And, technically, a week or so of a family trip. But basically as soon as I'm back it's up to Loyola.

So really, getting all my affairs in order. Some point, pack the equivalent of two or so full weeks' worth of clothing, toiletries, whatever miscellaneous electronics I choose to bring (unlikely, since I'm trying to leave that addiction while it seems actually latent), say g'byes..

...yipe, good-byes? Nah...never have been the type for good-byes, conversations never really end until one of us is dead...

'Sides, not like any'll really miss me discounting the people stuck here, the family and the couple of friends I have not going to college and whatnot..'sides there's Facebook and whatnot..

Nah..it's been a long time coming. Forget everything that's come before and charge on in. Histories prior have no bearing on this.

...but to be closed or resolved or whatever verb y'choose to give...a couple of loose-ends.

1. Whatever happened to Hannah Jurica?
2. Where's Platonic and everything going?
3. Am I gonna least try to (semi-)formally ask a girl out prior to college?
4. Is Mark still expecting a damn apology?
5. Is this nocturnal thing gonna kill me or what?

...answers I'll likely never bother to know. In other news, I recently read a business blog's "profile" on acclaimed (and dead) author Ayn Rand and her influence on the modern business world...of more interest, however, was the commentary it generated, both bashing the blogger's (mis)interpretation of Ayn Rand and presentation, often within logical reasoning. Though I of course hardly know what they're talking about, given my rather small scope of things, continued ignorance of the exact details of the world at large, and overall minimal life experience (discluding, of course, the fact that I have never actually read Ayn Rand beyond Night of January 16th).

Interesting nonetheless. Oh yes, I also stayed up again. Though I did take a nap from around 7:30-10 PM yesterday. ...following me walking out on an aforementioned possible conversation..

...bloody overthought.

Irony Epitomized.
-Jonathan

It's kind of an odd day. Only if I think too much into it, really.

Today's a good day for a drive. Or a walk. It's sunny, barely a cloud in the sky, and there's a breeze. I'm 'sitting the siblings, as always. It's not so bad, even with the A/C broken, all the windows are open so I catch the breeze every two minutes or so.

The job remains in management oblivion.

The girl is non-existent, the only one I think coming anywhere close to such a status being miles away in Indiana, with a beau I don't have a problem with, and is turning seventeen. And a couple nights ago I was thinking out conversations with a girl who reminded me somewhat of another girl I fairly fell in love with several months ago, wrote a short story over and evermore mention her as Cinderella. Maybe this one's Cinderella II. Don't know her too much and I only see her maybe twice a week.

Game addiction isn't so bad. The Valentine Forums are still interesting, if not as crazy as they've always been. Lore-spinning is slow, but steady. My own writing I've neglected, but what's to tell? Whole lotta waiting. Same with the music. Though I recently reconnected the electric guitar and have been having a little amusement with it.

The gnat was supposed to die. What gives?

Hope the 'rents are enjoying themselves.