Blessed by the Potato

Han Solo, dastardly space pirate, rugged mercenary, and admittedly mediocre smuggler lost a cargo of contraband spice for Jabba the Hutt, notorious gangster and glutton. Our lovable rogue then had a bounty put on his head so large that every mercenary in the galaxy was looking for him. Having no rich relations to speak of, he couldn’t easily come up with the cash to pay Jabba back. Fortunately, he got a sweet milk run contract at the last minute: a pair of rich(?) upstanding-types wanted a fast ride to Alderaan, and were paying handsomly. Before they could leave, though, the bounty hunter Greedo found Han in Mos Eisley, and sat him down for a little chat. It was clear that Greedo wasn’t going to leave until Han went with him to Jabba so Greedo could get paid, or until Han paid Greedo to bugger off.

So, Han deftly drew his blaster out beneath the table, and shot Greedo in cold blood. Or did he? Long after the Emperor was killed and the second Death Star destroyed, the law caught up to Han Solo, and put him on trial. Fortunately, we’ve found footage of The Trial of Han Solo.

Even George Lucas appears as a witness; however a twist of fate puts him on trial. We get to see once and for all that the perversions of his once beloved accidental masterpieces mean that he truly is totally batshit fucking loco.

Well, I have some ambiguous news for a change. Talked with my supervisor, and he says that the grant he applied for was trimmed back a fair bit from the budget they asked for, but that’s to be expected usually. It’s still approved, so there’s money there for experiments when I go on to my PhD. I still haven’t heard from the rest of my committee about my thesis drafts, but he says that’s to be expected: they want me & my supervisors to do all the nitty gritty million draft revisions work, and won’t even look at it until my supervisors sign off on it as being done.

I’ve been walking for days, and I can still hear the commotion raised from the stinking pit behind me. I cast a fearful glance behind me, and still faintly see the orange glow diffused through the ever present fog. It’s the one source of direction I have, as the cloud roil so thick that it’s difficult to tell night from day, let alone which side of the sky the sun rises in.

Time for a break I decide. The dirt is less parched, almost like soil now, rather than gravelly sand. But still nothing grows for me to forrage. I check my stomach, and decide that I can do without a meal at this time. No sense using up what few consumables I carry, since breakfast might be growing just a few hours walk further forward.

An ambiguous high-pitched noise pierces the dull throbbing that fills the air. My hands reach for my knife, only to find that it’s already held tightly. I look down at my left arm, while my right holds the knife just above the skin. I slide it gently towards me, but don’t even leave a mark.

It’s amazing how many cuts and bruises I’ve accumulated all over my body, how easy it seems to tear the skin accidentally. Yet, when the morose mood takes me and I reflect on how I’ve left behind the constant tooth-and-nail struggle for survival of the pit for this slow, choking, wasting death on the plains, I can’t help but take out my best knife and just test the skin. It never breaks, even when the knife is freshly sharpened.

There’s a tradition, of sorts, amongst my people to perform such unsavory last rites on the wrists. Yet for me, there’s a spot on my left arm just below the elbow that practically cries out for the knife. Just a taste, just to see how sharp it really is.

How quickly the elation of the climb left me, here in this no-place. The slower pace and lack of conflict simply served to give me time to reflect, to regret, to despair. It’s at this moment that she returns to me, and whispers in my ear. I’m so overjoyed just to hear her voice that I almost miss what she says. More signs and portents: destined for good things, important part of the plan and all that. I dare not turn to face her, fearing and somehow knowing that I won’t see a thing.

I mumble “but I’ve done nothing of importance, and in this state seem ill-suited to perform any in the future.”

Softly, she whispers in my ear “Good deeds are not necessarily great; great works are not necessarily Good.” I think her lips brushed my ear. I know they did, it tingles.

“Do not despair, you’re doing so well. Be brave.” And with that, she’s gone.

I lie there a while longer, listening to my heartbeat and the indistinct thrums of the distant pit. I reach up to touch my ear, and the movement wakes me. I try to think about how long I managed to sleep. I can’t be sure, but there’s a wet pool of drool on my shoulder. Gross.

Did I dream her, or did she whisper sweet nothings in my ear until I fell asleep?

That high pitched noise again, closer this time. I snap to attention: time to move on again. No rest for the weary. I think I’m being followed.

I’ve been a busy little beaver this weekend. I’ve extended my thesis by 4 1.5-spaced pages, and written nearly 17 pages of blog posts, stories, and light-hearted emails. I went into my archives and pulled out three choice stories/rants from the old website. There’s still lots of gold to be mined there, but I’ll do it slowly so that it all seems like new content to you all. I’m going to have to reorganize it very soon (similar to how the recipes page is set up now), I’ll probably get to that later tonight.

For now, I really need to sleep. I’m feeling a lot better after my death flu/sore throat, but the last few days (weeks, really) I haven’t slept much at all. I got 3 hours yesterday, and haven’t managed to sleep at all tonight. I was planning on going in to the lab and doing some more work on calibrating my heat stress setup for my thesis (I don’t think it’s necessary, but it is a question that could be raised, so I was going to do it), but now I think that if I don’t sleep I’m going to go completely bananas. Enjoy the stories, leave feedback, keep reading.

And never lose faith.

Sorry about the outage there (almost 20 hours before I got it back up and running).

I don’t quite know what the problem was, as while the server was running slow as molassas when I got back, it was still functional and reset on its own. Anyway, we’re back.