Monday, June 28th, 1999

My fellow Clarionite Fred Ollinger has an unusual worldview, which we have dubbed, "the Fredverse." The Fredverse is some alternate reality where everything that Fred says and does makes sense. As a sample of the Fredverse, I requested the permission of both Fred and John to reproduce a conversation that took place in John's room around 1:00am on Sunday morning.

Fred: Three o'clock!

John: [looks at clock] No, it's not that late yet. Are you getting time-dilated, Fred?

Fred: It's not three now. But it will be.

John: Okay... Fred, why is this important?

Fred: Three o'clock is when we need to go out. [Looks at me] I mean, not Hilary, but John and me. Yeah.

John: Why do we need to go out at three?

Fred: That's when the women who want to have sex wander the halls.

John: [incredulously] The women who want to have sex wander the halls then, but not the women who don't want to have sex?

Fred: Yeah.

John: Ah, now I understand! It's not that there aren't women out there, it's that I've been looking for them at the wrong time!

Fred: Yeah!

John: What type of women are we talking about, anyway?

Fred: Loose asian women.

John: I can live with that.

Me: Fred, how do you know this?

Fred: It's logical. If you were a loose asian woman and you wanted to have sex, wouldn't you wander the halls looking for it?

I left after extracting a promise from both of them to report on their progress next day. It sounded like their quest vaguely resembled the plot of "Waiting for Godot." Nothing happened, but the dialogue was interesting.

More Clarion Burnout?

Well, today was a first. No one turned in manuscripts to critique. In some ways, though, I'm grateful for the break. We've critiqued forty manuscripts so far, and it will be nice to have one night off from critiquing to work on my own stuff. I'm still trying to finish up my humor story, but I keep running into snags. Humor is so difficult. Not only do all the gags have to work, but the story must follow its own internal logic. I honestly don't know if I'll manage to pull this one off.

Hmm