A few days ago I was contacted by the Modern Furniture for Home company through PayPerPost, and curious, I followed their link with half roused curiosity. These days, PayPerPost’s offers have been dubious or strange at best. In all honesty, I approached the link with the same lackadaisical expectancy.

I was more than pleasantly surprised by not only the web site, but the amazing furniture and home furnishings being offered. Modern Furniture For Home’s collection of contemporary furniture is really a delight to browse through.

Immediately I delved into the bathroom fixtures because in my dream world where I have the time and patience to do my hair every morning and look like Betty Page on Tuesdays for no reasons other than I can–I’ve always dreamed of having an amazing bathroom. The first thing that drew my eye was the cube vanity set–mirror with black granite top in dark walnut. Not only is the sink the perfect round shape for a sleepy-cat but, the amount of space this design saves while looking fantastic is amazing.

I know, I know–we should be saving our money… But there’s no harm in pilfering through a website such as Modern Furniture 4 Home’s and drooling all over the key board now, is there? It started with just the bathroom and now I’m into the living room sets, the bedroom and finally landed on the curios.

Now I’m addicted, Modern Furniture 4 Home’s owes me a new, dry keyboard, and some of the home fixtures really are truly stunning. Why not click and take a peek with me?

Oh and–if you do?….Make sure a towel is handy.

DISCLOSER: THIS POST IS SPONSORED BY PAYPERPOST.COM

Related posts:

1. They’re paying me–and they’re sane!
2. When sparks fly.
3. Paying out the eyes.

When I say that word, what do you picture?

Do you see the fat kid from fourth grade stuffing his face full of cake? Do you see an overweight woman struggling up and down steps or do you see an obese man with stomach hanging over his jeans?

When I hear the word, Diabetes, I see neither.

I see my mother.

My mother is not overweight. She was (contrary to what she will say as she has a habit of looking at her older pictures and pointing out the half-pound of fat some where I can’t see and rolling her eyes saying how ‘fat’ she used to be) a slim woman with long arm and leg bones. She was never too skinny either, my mother was always just right. She enjoyed her food, she enjoyed cooking the dishes her mother often made and was never ‘lazy’. In fact, I cannot remember a point in my life where my mother ever stopped doing something when I was a child–Dad and I used to call her The Lone Re-Arranger due to her perpetual fits of taking all the furniture in the living room and changing it about, by herself!

But Diabetes has changed all of this with a slow hand that I can only call cruel.

Diabetes has changed my mother. It is inevitable that it would, for it is a disease and in the case of Type 1 diabetes and most cases of Type 2, it cannot be cured. It can be controlled and reigned in with diet and exercise  for some, for others, it runs rampant through the body causing havoc with every major organ: from kidneys, to eye sight to the heart. It takes a toll on the body after so many years.

My mother’s body is very tired of fighting this disease.

These past few months she has been in and out of the hospital, fighting. Her arteries have been weakened, her kidneys have shut down and her heart has suffered through a handful of major and minor heart attacks. For my mother, it is a never ending cycle now–they can treat her heart, but it bothers her kidneys, they can treat her kidneys but it bothers her heart–and mixed with all of this is the lurking Diabetes; the beginning of it all and the original cause of almost every major issue she’s had to date.

Despite all of this I am hopeful.

Despite the fact that my mother will now absolutely require kidney dialysis for the rest of her life to help her shutting down kidneys to flush out the toxins ours do everyday without fail–I believe that this is a disease we can find a cure for, a disease we can easily beat.

And while weight can be an issue with diabetes, it isn’t always so! Diabetes isn’t a “fat persons” disease. This isn’t a “fat kids” disease. It’s a Your Mother, Your Father, Your Son, Your Sister, Your Uncle, Your Aunt, Your Cousin, Your Friend, Your Grandmother and Your Grandfather disease.   It’s a disease that is deceptive with its severity: it can start out as something so easily manageable we are often complacent to the damage this disease can do to a human being. It is no less of a disease than any other–it is still robbing us, slowly but surely, of those we love and adore.

This is my mother and Diabetes.

Please help my mother. Please help the thousands dealing with this disease. Please help us keep those we love. Consider donating to the American Diabetes Association, the Canadian Diabetes Association, or help in any way you can. A single dollar from you is one dollar closer to ending this disease–a single step closer for mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers.

This is for my mother.

The American Association for Diabetes
The Canadian Association for Diabetes
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
Cure 4 Diabetes
Diabetes Research & Wellness Foundation

Related posts:

1. Shawn, Mel? What’s with the ad spots?
2. Aging with grace and style.
3. Baking soda, baking soda.

What is Aion?

Aion is a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) being distributed in the USA by NCSoft. Originally, a Korean MMORPG, it has been released and played in Korea approximately a year before being tweaked for North American audiences and re-released here.

General Lore?

Loosely retold, the story is that you are an ascended being–a Daeva, who has forgotten his or her memories of the past and so you must journey to recover your powers and your memories. As proof of your ascension from humanity to Daeva-hood, you proudly boast a pair of white or black wings (depending on which side you choose, Asmodae have black wings, Eylos have white) and can fly wherever there are large amounts of aether.

The Eylos and the Asmodae have been at war with one another since the destruction of Aion’s tower, blaming one another on the cataclysm that sundered their planet in two–leaving the Asmodae occupying the colder, sunless half and the Eylos in the warm, bright other. To add further conflict, when the world sundered and created a great Abyss, a race called the Balur began occupying the Abyss attacking Asmodae and Eylos alike.

Graphics?

Graphics are a mix of breath-taking textures and details, bright colors or dreary settings to create the mood–to a biiiiit outdated pixel-ated spots and places and flat texture wraps designed to trick the eye into thinking it’s 3-D. In some areas, such as the capital cities for the two main races? Aion’s detail and attention truly shows. The main cities and player details are really eye catching.

Character customization is okay.  You can truly make some unique and different looking avatars to represent yourself in the game. However, it’s not quiet enough to make them stop blurring in my head. There are far too many pretty, oh-so-pretty boys running around with teeny tiny delicate ladies. (Yes, including myself–guilty of making a short female avatar!)

The armor sets are not as unique as I’d like, and while you can dye your armor different colors, it’s not quite the same.

There are vendors in the main cities which sell actual no-benefit-clothing. They are so ridiculously overpriced however, in my opinion, you are better left to worrying about extras such as this when you can afford to rake in the several hundred thousand kina needed to own one piece or two.

What’s the questing like?

Repetitive.

And I do mean that in the grindy-oh-god-just-drop-my-god-damn-shit-already-jesus-been-at-this-for-two-days-way. Those of you familiar with the grind of Lineage might find this game (while not specifically as bad) familiar and like a second home.

And yet, I don’t mean the grindy either.

Aion’s quests are good for those who seek the lore of the land or like a good little laugh. They range from: steeped in history, to: find my pet pig. The rewards for the quests aren’t often the end goal but the amount of things you kill. NCSoft has attempted to make the outright grind-fest which was the original Korean game (which 1 or 2 repeatable quests–so I hear–for every five levels have turned into a butt-ton of quests every level or two) into something a little more appealing to North American Audiences. And in a sense, they succeed here, marginally.

What’s the game play like?

The game play itself against PVE is pleasant if, again, repetitive.  As I am not the sort to get into super depth about armor, crit rate, percentages and what not–I’ll be passing over this with my usual generalities.

I do feel that Aion is a gear-centric game. The better your gear and the better your manastones/Godstones slotted into your gear (mana stones are little, well, stones with + bonus to stats. Such as +8 to Evasion to +14 to Parry. Godstones are Proc stones, such as: 10% chance to stun on hit, etc) the easier time of it you’re going to have with your class.

As you level, you are eligible for skills to purchase from your class trainer. There are the normal, subset skills for your class and then a triggered, special ability connected to the original skill which can also be triggered. This depends either on a percentage, a stat, or in some cases can be triggered each time by just hitting your regular skill. Whether or not you succeed against PVE or a PVP will depend a lot on timing and your gear.

It sounds Grind-ey. Am I really going to have to Grind?

Eventually, yes. There is no real way to avoid having to spend an hour or two, three, or more grinding for mob drops either to sell on the Auction house or gray (useless) drops to sell at a merchant just to afford your skill-up books, or your crafting/gathering skill ups. Or travel. Or paying for Soul Healing to remove XP debt after death. The game is designed to be an enormous money sink–and this is where at the very least Aion shines perfectly. They did a great job. It seems like every time you turn your head in this game some NPC some where wants you to pay them or buy something for them for several thousand kinah (the monetary system) which you likely do not have.

Don’t be fooled by people who shrug and say it’s eeeeeassssy to get several 100k in an hour or so below level 25. These are people who are either grinding for hours straight, or people who have more time than the general crowd to play the market. The average gamer with responsibilities elsewhere (jobs, time away, etc) generally does not have time to do either very well.  If you want $ in this game you will have to set aside time to grind and sell. Period.

Crafting?

I’d only recommend the crafting if a) you are willing to grind for either the parts and pieces you need, as half the crafting materials you need can be collected, the other half can only be found from mob drops or purchased from players from the AH, b) grind for the money needed to get these pieces off the AH, as eventually you’ll out level the things you need and they will no longer drop, or c) you like never having any money. Seriously. No matter what you do, crafting wise, it will cost you money to make something. Even if you just grind the work orders blessedly placed by your crafting instructor to help you grind levels up without using materials you will desperately need to make your own Staff of Awesomeness.

Work orders, however, still require you to purchase components to finish the work order. While the main “materials” are supplied to you by the crafting trainer a player picks their work order up from, the cost for extras is still steep enough that in the beginning levels you’ll find yourself running out of money just for a few points.

And the PVP?

Can I absolutely avoid PVP?

No. Due to the rifting system and the zones these happen in, you’ll be forced at the very least to run from–or observe PVP from a distant happy safe place. I’ll explain more when I get to rifts.

PVP from my point of view: It’s fantastically frustratingly awesomely awful. All at once.

PVP happens in two ways in Aion:

The Abyss, which is the space created between when the tower of Aion was torn asunder. Occupied by the Balur who will attack Eylos and Asmodae alike, it’s a collection of floating islands in the sky a player must use their wings to fly to in order to travel. When in the Abyss and away from your factions NPC or fortress, you are attack-able to the opposing faction.

Within the Abyss are powerful artifacts and fortress’ controlled by the Balur. Artifacts can be taken with great effort and reward by either Eylos or Asmodae; but since this is the Abyss, either side may also hamper either side in their attempts to take over an artifact or Fortress. For example, say the Asmodae were attempting to take over a fortress for their own. Not only is a fortress difficult to clear and the end boss legendary to take down–Eylos may also pour in while the Asmodae are in the fortress. The Eylos can kill the Asmodae whilst they are trying to take over the fortress and should their numbers and strategy be strong enough, they may be able to take over the fortress themselves.

Designated Zones where rifts occur:

Rifts are tears in the ‘fabric’ of the Abyss, connecting the two sundered sides of the planet. They can be traveled through either from the Eylos side to the Asmodae side or vice versa. Rifts appear every few hours and in random places at random times all over the map of certain zones. They are level restricted and population restricted. For example, Rift A connecting to Asmodae will only allow 20 Eylos of level 20 to pass through before closing.

As I have only played Asmodae, I can only attest to the Rift PVP from that stand point. When you reach level 20 several of your quests will span in two different zones. One of them, Morheim, has the largest amount of quests for the 20-29 level range and a player will no doubt be spending time there. While the PVP is nothing like the Abyss, roving packs of the opposite side randomly appearing while you are trying to collect 20 mushrooms are an average occurrence in Rift appearing zones.

This isn’t necessarily as bad as you think it sounds like.  Most often, those who come through the rift are individuals, groups of three or four or opposing factions just trying to finish quests–as the game some how feels the need to give you quests to do on the opposite faction. (As in: Eylos are sent to Asmodae territory to finish quests and Asmodae must go to Eylos territory to finish a few of theirs) Depending on the server, time of day, level range of the rifts–it’s currently rarer for me to see large, organized groups of Eylos terrorizing the country side. Usually it’s one or two hopefuls just trying to finish a quest being zerg-rushed by happy Asmodae.

The PVP system in Aion is…actually…fun.

You are rewarded each time you kill a mob in the Abyss, or each time you kill a player in the Abyss, or each time you kill a player in PVP regardless of where it is with Abyss points. You may accumulate these points for rank and to use Abyss points to purchase unique, orange gear which cannot be found anywhere else in the game.

I have been playing MMORPG’s for a modest seven years now. There are others out there that have been doing it far longer, but I’d like to point out that in seven years I have never participated in, nor wished to have anything to do with PVP.

In Aion I have actively put myself in the Abyss, joined a guild, followed them on fortress raids and taken great joy in stabbing at the opposing side. I’ll let you be the judge as to whether or not the above is a positive or a negative toward Aion itself.

So in a nutshell: is Aion worth your money?

Yes if:

• You are bored of everything else and have nothing else to play.
• Like PVP, or at the very least, don’t mind it or don’t mind having to grind extra in controlled PVP-areas (non Abyss)
• You like pretty, pretty, pretty characters.
• You played Lineage II or Guild Wars. Aion is NOT WoW, despite the similarities in some areas.
• Realm Verses Realm works for you
• You don’t mind the grind
• Pretty, pretty characters with wings!

No if:

• You have ONLY played WoW and no other MMORPG.
• You don’t want to ever PVP or be near it.
• You want to quest all the time, all day, every day/want to have a quest to do every time
• Want uber rewards for quests
• Dislike gold spammers
• Dislike having to grind out a level or few, or grind for drops, etc
• Pretty, pretty characters with wings make you do EW faces at your monitor

I’m thoroughly enjoying Aion at the moment, and I will readily admit half of that is because there’s just nothing else out there that I either haven’t already played (free or paid) or nothing on the horizon for a good long time and I need my MMO fix. The other half–is because I am actually liking the game despite the money sink, the gold spammers, the idiots (which come with any game) and the grind. There’s something about it, possibly because I AM a girl and I DO like pretty things–that keeps me signing in. And that’s all a game really has to do at the end of the day to work, doesn’t it–keep me signing in.

Related posts:

1. Dear Gaming World
2. Mel’s list of fun free games you don’t have to sell yourself once a month to pay for.
3. Mel’s Top Ten Ways to Seem like a Douche bag in any Game.

Yes, Ayoub, I have become one of those douchebags that claim whatever it is they’re doing is the best thing evar omg and cannot stop trying to convince people to at least, try it.

What the hell am I going on about, anyway?

Clay.

That’s right, bitches. I’ll say it again.

Polymer clay.

I have been eyeballs deep in polymer clay since last Sunday, August 30th and I haven’t looked back since. For the longest time I watched sites like Etsy or Deviant Art and other trendy hip-cute factories envying and wishing I could have a pair of cupcake earrings or even maybe some sushi charms–and couldn’t really afford it. I always thought too, that it took a special kind of talent to work with clay like that, to make such small things.

Boy, was I ever wrong.

On Sunday, I came home with 12 packages of polymer clay, sat down to make a pair of cup-cake earrings and haven’t stopped since.

If you’ve been remotely considering picking up clay to make yourself a pair of earrings, beads, charms, figures what have you–do it. Do it right now. Try it. Buy a color or two and just what you need to make a few sets of things (if you are so inclined) and sit down one afternoon to tool about. You may think I’m far more off my rocker than usual, but I tell yas, internbutts, it’s the best fun I’ve had creating something in a while.

So much so that I’ve made a huge surplus of extra things and have decided to sell a bit on Etsy! Also–can I gush enough about Etsy and wonder why I didn’t take a friends advice in trying it out before hand? I mean, hello?! Slow Mel is Slow! If you’d like to check out my Etsy and see what I’ve got, you can do so via a new side bar widget here at 2phat geeks —>

Or you can visit my Etsy shop directly here: elffu.etsy.com.

If you’ve been hesitating picking up clay, let me urge you to stop hesitating and go get some now.

I SAID DO IT. NOW.

You’ll thank me whenever I see you again next year!

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This may surprise you. You might think, “Gosh Mel. I would have never known you own any animal, let alone birds.” But its true. Not one, but two! Two birds, ah, ah, ah.

And while we had the cages, the right food, the toys and the time to spoil them what we didn’t have was the $ for an awesome perch where the two of them could totally climb all over and fling more seeds and bird poop all over our house.

So we went to Home Depot and came out with enough supplies to confuse and frighten the Home Depot people and built this:

Related posts:

1. Ten reasons why I think you might not be ready for a cockatiel.
2. A Bird Called Guppy
3. Dearest cats.

Champions Online

You are in the comic book.

From the launcher, to the log in, to the options and what screen resolution you’re going to choose–everything reeks classic comic book. Bright eye catching colors that don’t hurt but still catch your attention, that font which screams COMIC littered every where along headers and options.

Blue and deep gold is the UI’s chosen default color.

Blue backgrounds, deep gold for trim and eye catching parts and pieces, with the standard comic book font in readable sizes. I like it. It doesn’t hurt the eye and it screams POW.

Character customization choices are damn near OVERWHELMING.

The choices and color customizations are insane. I literally spent thirty minutes deciding what to make this morning. The choices are endless; head pieces, horns, hair, no hair, normal skin, metallic skin, cats eyes, normal eyes, pupil-less eyes, crests, capes, stances, human, not-human, robot, elves, beasts/bestial features, monster features–I can’t or could not list them all.

Character customizations ARE horrifically cliche, especially on the female side.

The boobs. Oh my god, the boobs. Yes, you can choose to have a super heroine with smaller breasts that do not classify as a weapon of mass cleavage like the DEFAULT size–but it is like they didn’t put half the amount of effort in making the rest of the body or super hero costume scale with the rest of the itty bitty titties. I tried making a character that wouldn’t poke eyes out at fifty yards when cold and it just did NOT work. It looks awful, like her lungs had caved in and were trying to suck the front of her body in through her spine.

If first impressions are correct: EVERYTHING is instanced.

From the get-go you have a long, huge list of ’shards’ to choose from. If I am guessing correctly (and feel free to correct me if I am wrong), and I believe the largest amount of people in a shard/instance is 30.

Shawn says it’s one of the smoothest running in-game play for a beta yet.

I’ll let you know what I think when I can, y’know, PLAY. ::Stares at Shawn.::

Graphics are an amazing balance.

A balance between the heavy handed black-inked lines of the paper comic books we all know and love, and the amazing textures, effects and realistic graphics to pull you in. I’m not sure how to say it–they’ve balanced fantasy with realism and come up with fantarealisay I guess. (Screen shots forthcoming when I can play. >.>)

Summary of Champions Online at a glance:

Tentatively optimistic. Shawn says it’s a blast, it is definitely something different in the market to tinker with and he’s having fun. Character customization IS huge, and well done. I’m going to go out on a limb and state the game is something you should keep at the back of your mind if you like MMORPG gaming and want something different. This may or may not be subject to change at the end of Open Beta and extensive playing of the game is had. We’ll let you know then.

Related posts:

1. Top Ten ways to make sure no one ever role plays with you again.
2. Mel’s Top Ten Ways to Seem like a Douche bag in any Game.
3. Gaming Sadness

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There comes a time in every geeks life when you just want to show off, and teach people of your nerdling ways. A time when you wake up in the morning and think: you know? I haven’t yet branded everything I own with something monstrously obvious that I love me some geeky stuff. And that’s when it hits you like a frothing at the mouth reaver looking to chew on your innards and make ‘em outards.

You need moar T-Shirts.

Or at the very least? This is what I think when I crawl out of bed at the crack of noon and blearily wonder if I truly did roll a one or if I really exclaimed out loud in mid conversation, ‘lawl!’.  I’ve got my grubby little geekling hands on a few t-shirts that properly tout myself as someone who quotes all the correct tired internet memes, but I would love some more. I mean, who wouldn’t? (Only the souless. Or those not yet Initiated into the Nerdling ways.)

And Ultimate T-Shirts is willing to step up and help you out with this level 9 Elite Quest. Touring about their web site, which has some shiny, shiny flash reveals a plethora of T-shirts worthy of any geek or fan of geek-like things. The T-shirts, of course which caught my eye the most are those dedicate to Serenity.

I’ve not yet had any business run ins with the company but from what I can tell it’s looking pretty sweet. I know where I’ll be splurging a few bucks on more dork apparell when I get a chance, starting with the shirt in this post!

¹The Litany against fear used by the Bene Gesserit, from the novel Dune
This post is sponsored by payperpost & ultimate t-shirts.

Related posts:

1. “And that’s how they found them; dead and still strangling one another.”
2. I wanna know what love is. I want Clog to show me.
3. We are full of Win?

Purchasing a $2 avatar || Commissioning me for a tiny piece of art that only costs $5-$10 (I will totally adjust my prices so long as the image isn’t HUGE AND COMPLICATED. Srsly, d00ds.) || Purchasing a Print from my D.A. Gallery! (Did you know that if you choose the smallest sizes available, some of them are no more than THIRTY CENTS right now! THEY’RE ON SALE RIGHT NOW!11!
Why?
Every piece of art or print sold = money for the lawyer fee, groceries, unexpected bills, health, power, cable, car (everything most of us all need) and every day expenses. Also, it’s supporting a beginner artist and encouraging me to learn more and do better :3

Deviant Art Premium Print Account – $24.95 for 12 months
Why?
First, it would be supporting a website that I like and want to support. Some may not agree with D.A. or even like it, but obviously this is my personal preference and D.A. has been the provider of my art gallery for 6 years. 4 as elf_fu, 2 before that as LilLostPixie. In addition to supporting a site I love, Deviant Art Premium Print Accounts allow the artist to upload files upward to 80 MB in size, allows the artist to keep a greater percentage of sales for any piece of art sold (meaning, more money for me in the long run and less begging and scrambling on my end, rofl), additional payment options such as paypal (currently the only payment method I believe to order one of my prints? Credit card.), and additionally it will give me a boost to my D.A. subscription by three extra months.

OIO Publisher Pro (v2.20) $47 -
Why?
User friendly, easy to use Word Press plug in for 2phatgeeks.com, which allows advertisers to buy space (125×125 ads) without me having to figure out how to place the ad, rotation, how long it stays, when to replace it with the next ad etc. OIO publisher has no middle man. Once the plug in has been purchased, thus ends OIO meddling–no monies are funnelled into OIO past initial purchase; several sites like Text Ad Links skim off the top or take a percentage, while OIO earns their pay via the sale of the plug in. Some of the features include, now: Offline payment, filtering zones by wordpress category and a butt-ton more. I don’t think I really need to point out why I want this (and have been for a year or more now) but if you’re curious, since I am not yet able to work–my income pretty much comes from the ‘net. Any means I can make 2phatgeeks a great place to read, less annoying on the eyes with the ads, easy to use AND still make a bit of extra $ at the end of the month? Definitely a bonus. I have an account at OIO, as M.Pence, if you’re crazy and curious.

ANY second-hand, working, camera lenses which fit a Canon Rebel Xti and or filters
Why?
A good eye, I think, only goes so far when a photographer is limited to what lenses, filters and other things he or she can do. I have the standard lens which comes with the Canon Rebel Xti and I have a portrait lens. I would dearly like to have more–the more interesting, neat, colorful, close-up (and so on) pictures I can take, the better I think I’ll become and yes, the more pics I can take. My intention isn’t to get rich, but any hobby deserves the right tools to go some where…And we just can’t afford that either right now.

A custom 2phatgeeks theme designed by my all time favorite Wordpress Theme dude: Jai.
Why?
While it doesn’t seem like it right now (as we’re using a Premium Theme we won), Shawn and I love Jai’s designs. A lot. One of the things I wanted to do this year was brand 2phatgeeks.com as unique by purchasing an entirely original, geeky, nerdling design by Blog Oh Blog’s Jai for 2phatgeeks, 125×125 ad friendly– so we’d push ourselves out of the cookie cutter WordPress mold and into our own. Unfortunately, a good design costs money. More money that we have–money that probably should be spent on groceries xD. Branding your own blog/website is an important step for those wishing to somewhat monetize, or at least, present a website attractive to potential advertisers. That, and, dude–having your own shit is cool. This would be so awesome right now I couldn’t tell you.

So that’s it, that’s my current Wishlist pretty much for this year–things I wish I had the money for and things I wish I could sell!

Related posts:

1. Artist Whoring–Great, cheap prints!
2. You see what we did thar?
3. We are full of Win?

She made the piano weep. Pretty melodramatic of me, I know. Ever since the day I heard her play Pathetique, second movement in A flat minor, certain things inside me began to move, to change. All because of her crooked little, freckle spotted, chewed nailed hands that coaxed my mother’s piano to make noises I’d never heard of in my life.

I’d been chasing a ball tossed by Jack, my inseparable best friend back then. We were your typical, pain-in-the ass ten year old boys populating every cookie cutter neighborhood at that time. Smashed windows due to baseballs, ridiculous pranks, toads in our pencil cases at school and tugging the pony tails of little girl’s everywhere just to make ‘em cry. That was us, and we were pretty proud of being the typical snots. That was my life then, dirt, bugs, toads, making my mother wish she’d had a girl and maybe a lot of trucks with a side of guns and destruction. Music or the arts didn’t interest me in the slightest despite my mother, the neighborhood piano teacher, trying her damnedest to sit me down and god, Robert, would you at least try chopsticks without pulling the cat’s tail?

And then there was Lisa.

Lisa had the unfortunate fate of being born with prominent front teeth and parents too poor to do anything about it yet. Lisa kept her mouth shut firmly, creating the sour impression that she never broke the thin, nervous line of her lips to smile at all. To make matters worse, she was freckled in painter’s fine-smatter, enthusiastically might I add, from head to toe and pale as paper. Her hair wasn’t even very red, a smidgen of strawberry gold her mother strictly wove into a severe braid right down her back and the tip of it was generally stained blue.

Because I always grabbed it in class and dipped it into the teachers ink pots. Lisa always cried.

Here she was, bent over my mother’s piano in our living room, strewn with family photos, drawings from when I was four and couldn’t tell the difference between one end of a crayon and the next playing that damn thing like it was built for her fingertips alone. It wept for Lisa, that ancient piano. It wept and then it rejoiced to be played by someone who finally understood it and wouldn’t try to chase the cat across its keys just to hear the awful cacophony such a thing caused. I thought she had sixteen fingers, the way she hit notes and crawled along ivory? I couldn’t do it.

I forgot entirely about my ball. I’d been standing for I don’t-know-how long staring gap jawed at this scraggly little buck-toothed, stick shaped, freckle spattered girl move heaven and earth for my ears. And she became the most beautiful thing in the entire world. I was going to ma—

Someone elbowed me in the ribs and I turned around to immediately cuff Jack, whom I knew had done it, upside the head.

“Ow!” He was grinning when he said it and he shoved me. His mock cry of pain startled Lisa into silence and I refused to look her in the eye ever since then.

I didn’t dip her braid in ink pots anymore.

____________________________________________

I graduated top honors that year in high school. Damn, but the world wasn’t ready for me—so I thought—but I was sure ready for it. Football, track, cheerleaders, beer and glory; that’s what it was all about then, and Jesus wasn’t I foolish to think that’s all there was…but isn’t that the way of being a kid?

Engaged to a ridiculously gorgeous cheerleader named Melinda, I was celebrating after graduation down at old Milton’s, a dive of a bar if there ever was one but the drinks were cheap and Milton didn’t care much for what you did so long as you paid at the end of the night. So here we were, Jack, Melinda, the entire class it seemed, hooting and spilling draft everywhere when I hear it…

Milton’s old beat up piano in the far corner past the pool tables. It was out of tune and it was always out of tune. Notes struck on Milton’s old piano were akin to the dinky notes of jewelry box’s being opened or wind up jack-in-the-boxes. And yet I heard it over all of the noise we were making and it sounded like magic.

Pathetique, second movement in A flat minor.

By the time I had rushed across the room, through the pool tables and toward the piano there was no one there.

For eight years I’d forgotten about her. I’d forgotten about the girl with sixteen fingers and how she made me feel that day in my living room.

She wasn’t there when I finally made it. Melinda curled a hand around my elbow and gave me a curious smile.

“Everything alright?”

“Yeah,” I lied to her. Because you just don’t tell your wife to be about little freckled piano girls bathed in sunlight you thought might be magic.

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It’s alright here. I get food, they keep me clean when they can, the kids come once every two weeks with the grand kids. They’re scared though. I can see it in their eyes. The youngest, Marissa, has Melinda’s jet-black hair and big gray eyes. Every time she looks at me I keep seeing Melinda and I’m not sure how to explain to her that it isn’t her that makes Grandpa look so sad…

They keep wheeling me out in this baby-blue, plastic chair and sticking me in the shade outdoors. Like I need some sunlight and every yellow pill they give me is a little sprinkle of water.

And this is what I am thinking when I hear it.

The first strains of it coming from across the field. You know something? I seriously thought I had finally succumbed to dementia, because as I looked out over green grass drenched in summer afternoon sun, I saw nothing. The tall blue spruces donated in memory of the other poor schmucks like me living here are still all in the same place. White housing buildings dot the horizon but that doesn’t change the fact that I hear it.

Pathetique, second movement in A flat minor. Clear as the day is bright…I tell myself that I’m not going to miss this, this time. So I’m pushing myself up out of this gods forsaken chair and fumbling with my walker across the lawn to follow it. Every step I take wobbles as I imagine a newborns might (here I HA! To myself at this, take a break, take a deep breath, then continue on) and it grows louder with every step.

There. There she is under the bowing, dancing strings of a weeping willow, playing my mother’s piano as she did years ago when I was a little boy.

She’s beautiful.

Her hair is a riot of copper sunshine down her back, she’s in a printed sundress that leaves her shoulders bare. That’s my girl with sixteen fingers! Just the very thought of it makes my eyes fill with tears…I’ve gotten emotional in my years on I guess but all of that doesn’t matter! There she is!

She’s stopping to twist about to look over her shoulder and Jesus if she isn’t the most enchanting woman I have ever seen. I’m literally struck silent.

“Robert,” she smiles. Her whole face does this lighting up business when she smiles that I think is a woman’s secret—a weapon devised to bring men fumbling idiotically to their knees and bobbing their heads along dumbly to anything they say just to see them do that. Smile like that, at them.

So I nod.

“Come, Robert. I’ve been waiting.”

I nod some more but don’t wait for a second invitation as she pats the piano bench beside her and begins to play again.

Now?

Now I have lived my life without regret. Now is when everything falls into place and I am content, truly content. I turn aside to give her a tremulous smile and exhale one long, deep breath that I feel like I have been holding in since the moment I saw her. With it, I whisper her name and the willow, the spruce, the grass and the sky whisper it back to me.

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