Wednesday, Apr. 30, 2003, 7:36 PM

The adverb saga




This is the story of the adverbs. The posts are below in their entirety. Explanations, or something like them, follow:


overwhelmingly, devastatingly, possessively, exorbitantly, submissively, incoherently, insatiably, passionately, desaparingly, coquettishly, flitatiously and frivolously.

from mud
date: 0:39 am - Saturday, March 8, 2003 - entry 97



He found himself drowning in adverbs. Knowing that they would attack at the slightest provocation, he moved carefully, slipping out between the misspellings where the adverbs were their weakest. He knew the adverbs had killed before and they would kill again...

from from my latest book gregory and the giant adverb
date: 1:28 pm - Monday, March 10, 2003 - entry 98



"I will expect you to compose a serious and heavy dirge devoid of adverbs and trombones to mark my passing." Terror gripped her heart when she read these words. She knew he had gone back to exact his revenge. Those damnable adverbs had taken his family and she knew that he was a man who would not rest until he had fulfilled his promise to avenge them, or died trying. The sadness settled in her bones and weighed her down. The man she loved was bravely or foolishly heading into a hell on earth, and possibly leaving her alone in a hell more personal without him."

from Excerpted from Stoically standing A man apart from adverbs
date: 5:28 pm - Monday, March 10, 2003 - entry 99



Someone was sitting in the poorly lit corner of the room as he entered, their face in shadow. He didn't need the light. He knew instantly it was an adverb. "So, we meet again..." but his words trailed off when he realized that the adverb was absorbed elsewhere, talking furtively on the phone. He could hardly hear the whispered one-sided conversation, but there was no need. The caller id said it all. He stumbled backwards out of the room unsteady from the revelation. The backlit display fairly screamed with deceit. The words, "mudgirl mobile" burned into his retinas. Just then the adverb stood up quickly and everything went black...

from the soon to be published work The Evolving Adverb
date: 0:07 am - Tuesday, March 11, 2003 - entry 100



He had come to the morass beyond the Sea of Desire that is known as the Marsh of Despair. The trail had finally led him here. To think that he once doubted. To think that he all at once lost his faith upon seeing only words on a screen and jumping to conclusions. When she had done the bravest thing imaginable by following him and causing a distraction. When the Adverb horde had descended upon her and finally overtaken her and had called the Chieftain on her very cell phone to inform him of their victory. The rage that had built up inside him upon seeing those illuminated words caused the world to swim away in a fit of rage. When he finally came to his senses his blade was bathed with the Chieftain's blood and the phone was in his hand. He held it to his ear, preparing for the worst, when the Adverb on the other end spoke of the transporting the prisoner to a secret safe house for harboring such precious booty. Thus his search began, and here he resolved it to end.

from the critically acclaimed Adverb Will Travel
date: 11:02 am - Wednesday, March 12, 2003 - entry 101



"Look at this fine booty, worth $1,973,842.00 on the open market" shouted the adverb. Adverbs are notorious flesh peddlers, but this group was especially heinous, and the slave market in mole hill was heinously notorious for its notorious heinosity. Even the past tense verbs stayed away, and everyone knows how desperate they are having seen their present tense evaporate before their eyes. It seemed the best place to hide someone who should not be found. The adverbs thought to use it only as a perfect cover, however in the mix-up that had caused the death of one of their own, the bargaining chip had been lost, sold actually, as it were. But to whom? If only there had been a receipt.

from the top of the bestsellers list at the dollar store A is for Adverb
date: 2:17 am - Friday, March 14, 2003 - entry 104



When the mistake was discovered an all points bulletin went out across the land to no avail. After a few days of fruitless searching one of the officers was in the local pub lamenting the loss and complaining about his recent demotion when he was overhead by the bookkeeper of mole hill. "Sir. Excuse me, sir. I couldn't help overhearing you say that there was no receipt, which is true. But then you went on to say that there was no paperwork of any kind and there you are wrong." The captain could not believe his ears. "Why didn't you tell me there was paperwork you scoundrel?" "Sir, you asked if there was a receipt and there is not, but I do have something. Hold on I have it in my pocket here." The bookkeeper dug into his vest pocket to pull out a warranty slip. The captain held the piece of paper up and read aloud, "I the undersigned understand that the following merchandise is being sold 'AS IS' and may be considered pre-owned and/or gently used. I further understand that that all sales are final and no returns or exchanges will be entertained." It was signed as 'Suddenly Susan' the most widely used nom de plume in all of adverbdom. But the captain noticed that he had the original white copy and the bookkeeping goldenrod copy and that the signer had kept the fuchsia copy. They sold their booty for much less than a king's ransom and the captain knew the difference would come out of his pay.

from the screen adaptation of Incrementally Yours
date: 3:36 pm - Monday, March 24, 2003 - entry 109



"Come here!" "This way!" She had been following the woman in the trench coat for miles, at least she thought it was a woman...Far away from the market place by now, the bindings had been loosened quickly only a few feet from the original purchase. Questions had been quickly stifled with an admonishment to follow. In the dim light she had been able to make out the huge sunglasses beneath the black hat and obvious blonde wig, the fuchsia piece of paper signed suddenly susan that was hastily stuck in the left pocket, the flick of what appeared to be a gray tail? sometimes peaking out over the collar. The leather work gloves, atlases, and flashlight spilling out of the other pocket made no sense at all. My god it's a trench coat not a truck, she thought. She hoped that the odd sense of foreboding and acute withdrawal symptoms were due wholly to the gathering storm clouds and the prediction of snow....

from the unpublished screen play Bed of Adverbs
date: 1:51 pm - Monday, April 7, 2003 - entry 116



"What's the grey tail, you ask? Why do I carry so much in my trench coat?" Our heroine had asked these things of her questionably female savior as the first snowflakes fell to earth. And this mystery woman said, "Apparently you are too young to recall what it was like before, so I will tell you. Before we lived underground. There was no sunshine. There were volcanoes that spewed noxious sulphurous emissions into the air. Sentinel robots tried to infiltrate our ranks by mingling amongst us, asking for dates pretending to have feelings. And our only form of communication was by cat messenger. You can imagine how well we faired with that. Those were dark days, and not because of the lack of sunshine. But you have seen this tail before, have you not?" This person said as it removed from beneath the trench coat a grey cat with a tube tied round its neck, similar to the kind a St. Bernard dog would have filled with brandy. "And you should also recognize me," this woman/man said as it removed the blonde wig, revealing the true identity of this mysterious person heretofore unbeknownst to our harrowed heroine. She let out a gasp, pointed and said, "You! I never�I can't believe�Oh," before she fell to the ground like so many snowflakes.

from the recently discovered scrolls entitled Adverb Subtractverb Enumerous Santci
date: 6:32 pm - Monday, April 14, 2003 - entry 119



She awoke in the bright sunlight to find him looking down at her. "Good morning sunshine! Looked like you were having a bad dream." She scanned the room but there was no hint of adverbs or snow. "Oh my god, I can't believe it was a dream. It seemed so real! You were there." He smiled. "And you were there," she said in the direction of the grey cat at the end of the bed. The cat blinked and yawned. "And that trench coat was there....and there were killer adverbs and..." "Now that's just silly," he said as he kissed her forehead. "Adverbs are modifiers. The most they can do is maim a sentence with bad grammar. They could never kill anyone. It was just a dream. Now come on it's almost 2pm and you haven't eaten. I bet it's low blood sugar. Let's go get some Chinese." "I guess you're right," she said. "It was just a dream and I sure could use a fortune cookie with a really good fortune," They both smiled longingly as she reached up and kissed the person sitting next to her in bed.

from the lesser known work The Wizard of Pittsburgh
date: 1:10 pm - Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - entry 122




********************************



Now for the timeline. I'm not sure that I will remember everything, but here is the synopsis, or synapses, since it will require much leaping from one neuron to the other in order to follow this train of thought. I'm not even sure that I will be able to follow it, but I'm sure that if I forget something or get it wrong that I will receive aid from Mudgirl since she was my partner in this crime. Actually, this is more for her and I than any of you, and I am not going to go out of my way to describe what it is that led to these seemingly erratic entries, but I will leave it as a post for all the world to see.

Let's see, where to start. It all began on Saturday, March 8 when mudgirl posted entry number 97 in my guestbook which is nothing more than a list of adverbs describing how she loves me. When I talked to her next I commented on the list and pointed out that they were all adverbs and that she must love me adverbly. She said that I should not jest. And then, on Sunday, March 9 at around 11:30 at night, mudgirl and I were IMing one another, and the snippet of the conversation that I will share (for certain portions are naughty and happy and for my delight alone) looked like this:

mobius_life: My heart would burst from my chest from happiness if I did not need it to live
mobius_life: I love you
mobius_life: madly
mobius_life: deeply
mobius_life: with a truckful of adverbs
mobius_life: go finish your work and call me back...I can't wait much longer
mudgirlz2000: see? don't mock the adverbs man, they will exact their revenge if you do
mudgirlz2000: ok finish work, work finishing will do. call you then you call back? is that best?
mobius_life: And they will do it deftly and silently and efficiently and ahhhggghhhgrrrrghhhh...
mobius_life: They got me
mudgirlz2000: killer adverbs
mudgirlz2000: with sharp little adverb teeth
mobius_life: You bastards, you killed Gregory
mudgirlz2000: and razor sharp adverb claws
mobius_life: Yes that plan will do...only seeing you and living the rest of my life with you would ever be best, but calling and me calling back will do for now.
mudgirlz2000: I will never use an adverb again. I will boycott. I will abstain. for adverbs killed the man I love
mobius_life: I will expect you to compose a serious and heavy dirge devoid of adverbs and trombones to mark my passing.
mobius_life: And daisies. Lots of daisies and black-eyed susans and lilacs. No lillies. Lillies are for pussies.
mobius_life: I'll be waiting
mudgirlz2000: I'll punch as many susan's as need be to make your passing a success

And thus the killer adverbs were born. You might say, "Hey, now that I think about it, how is it that you have a copy of the IM conversation?" And I will tell you that it is because I knew from the very first time we exchanged emails that I would want to remember everything about this enchanting person, so I saved every IM in which we have been engaged. I know--how sappy. And my response will be no, how happy!

So the next day she wrote entry number 98 because she pointed out that she misspelled a few of the adverbs (and you should know that she absolutely hates it when she misspells anything). My response in entry 99 followed.

During the next few days as we talked on the phone, because we talk on the phone daily, it was brought up that her cell phone number comes up on my cell phone display as "Mudgirl Mobile" because that is how I listed her name. It was the seed of the next entry, number 100.

Then on Thursday, March 14th I posted from this entry about a site that I found that tells you how much you are worth on the open market, and it was incorporated into entry 104. And there is another thing in this entry--a receipt. Things are a little hazy around this now, but I distinctly remember her and I joking about the fact that she owned me, but that she did not have a receipt. I told her that I would manufacture one for her to prove that I am hers and hers alone. Anyway, that's how the whole being sold and owned thing comes into play. My response was in entry 109.

Entry 116 is a little bit odd. Let me explain. She wrote this on a Monday, and the following Saturday mudgirl was coming to visit me for the first time. It was our second meeting, but the first at my location. I was lamenting that fact that I had so much to do in order to prepare for her arrival. I was complaining about the state of my apartment and especially the state of my truck. You see, I regard vehicles as tools to transport me from point A to point B and not much more. My truck gets washed about twice a year, give or take a time or two. So as I was on the cell phone talking to mudgirl she asked what could possibly be in my truck that would take a while to clean, so I rattled off a list that included many of the items found in the character's trench coat. Oh yeah, the trench coat. Hmmm, I can not say for certain what her intent was on this, but I think it is an allusion to a certain fantasy I shared about her meeting me at the airport wearing a trench coat and not much else. The acute withdrawal symptoms we were both suffering at that time because it had been a week since our first meeting and was yet a week until our next. The snow was in reference to the fact that I was about to embark on a trip to New York City, 400 miles away, during a freakishly late and terrible snow and ice storm. Wow, that was a bunch of real stuff all wrapped up in a little entry. And to think that you had no idea any of this was going on.

The next entry, number 119, was written the following Monday, which just happened to be the day that she boarded an airplane to take her leave of me after spending a most delightful weekend together. While we were together on that weekend, laying my bed, I commented that I could hardly remember what it was like before we knew each other. That I could not remember how it felt to date another or feel for other people. She responded by telling me that she remembered, and that it was terrible. That we lived underground and there was no sunshine. And I added that volcanoes spewed noxious chemicals into the air. And she said that there were robots and that we needed to communicate via cat messenger. This was a reference to the fact that between the two of us we will have a house with three cats. And I was happy to remember how terrible it was because it made me appreciate having her in my arms at that moment so much more.

And then the final entry. I was not expecting this. I did not anticipate that mudgirl would bring this saga to an end, and do it so eloquently. This entry makes reference to the fact that the Sunday morning of her visit we stayed in bed until 2PM after keeping each other up late the night before. I made her french toast, although she makes no reference to that. We always joke about being tired and that it must just be low blood sugar and can't possible have anything to do with the fact that we talk for many many hours late into the night on a regular basis. I am not normally awake early enough to hear the birds singing in the morning, but I have stayed on the phone long enough with her to have them serenade me to sleep as the sun was rising. And then the fortune cookie comment. A long time ago in my distant past I used to collect fortune cookie fortunes. I got into the habit of saving them for a special occasion or person. Now everyone should have heard the bit about reading your fortune out loud and adding "in bed" to the end. Well, when mudgirl was here I gave to her a fortune that I had held onto for a very long time because I had never before found someone worthy of receiving it. The fortune said "Kiss the person sitting next to you" and in the entry my love added the in bed part to end our tale on such a sweet note.

That is the story of the adverbs. That is the story of our budding love affair. This is only a prelude to the romance we have and the love we share and the rest of our days that will be spent together in happiness. And all I have to say is this:


Dearest N-

This has been wonderful. Let's do it again sometime. Soon.

-G