A Rain of Frogs

2006 was a fairly prolific year for me, despite some inconsistencies in my publishing schedule. I’ve written a lot this year, some short stories, some short stories that are part of larger plots. I don’t know what I attribute this increase in storytelling to, but some people say I’m good at it. I don’t know about that, but I certainly am enjoying it.

Because I’ve been added to the 9rules network, and because I feel obliged to give my loyal and supportive readers something to enjoy for the holiday season, I’ve compiled a list of some of my past stories. Comments are off on many of them, as an anti-spam measure, but if you have something to say about any of them, feel free to comment on this post.

Enjoy!

The butterfly and the lamp

http://www.a-rain-of-frogs.com/101/the-butterfly-and-the-lamp

“With your mind”

http://www.a-rain-of-frogs.com/209/with-your-mind

Golden boy

http://www.a-rain-of-frogs.com/220/golden-boy

Empty and broken

http://www.a-rain-of-frogs.com/224/empty-and-broken

Grey death

http://www.a-rain-of-frogs.com/238/grey-death

Free willy

http://www.a-rain-of-frogs.com/241/free-willy

Sally

http://www.a-rain-of-frogs.com/244/sally

Doll

http://www.a-rain-of-frogs.com/255/doll

übercouch

http://www.a-rain-of-frogs.com/276/uebercouch

Hallowe’en Horror

http://www.a-rain-of-frogs.com/278/a-halloween-horror

Loose Wheel

http://www.a-rain-of-frogs.com/279/loose-wheel

The ticket

http://www.a-rain-of-frogs.com/296/the-ticket

I call it a redesign.

Of course, I don’t call it a blog, either. I know its not perfect in Internet Explorer, but it should look fine in Firefox, Camino and Safari. If you’re using Explorer, I recommend you switch to a more standards compliant browser, but that’s your business, not mine. Not where this site is concerned, anyway.

For my official 300th post on Rain, I decided it was time for a change. I think it’s a relatively minor redesign. Not a lot is different, despite appearances. Most everything is in the same place it was before.

I just needed to add a bit more weight, a bit more heft to the site. The creamcicle was awesome, but it was time for me to add some maturity to the design.

Much of it is in the details, and more of it is coming.

I’m happy. What do you think?

I told her not to cry.

That crying wouldn’t solve anything, that these things had to be done. But she just sat there, cradling his bloody head in her lap as the police marched by, as the screams in the distance announced our failure – announced our eventual bittersweet success – in the fire lit darkness.

It was George who had lit the torches first, before they had beat him down with their sticks and their insults, before he’d given his life so that the rest could flee. We had, all of us, been chanting songs, songs of freedom and protest, against the government. How brave we’d been, to dare to sing right there in their own courtyard!

But we were young, and innocent, before we’d seen George go down. Immortal. We’d been cooking cornmeal on the fire, sharing with one another as we sang the songs around the bonfire he’d lit. He’d been so proud, so full of life and hope.

They came with their sticks and their hate and their anger. They came with their malice and their fear and their greed, and they beat us down and beat us down, none more than George. I remember – I remember so well – the sound of that stick against his head.

And he just stood there, with a look of peace on his face before he slumped down to the cobblestones. Just stood there. And in that second I realized what it was he was trying to teach us, what it was we needed to learn.

I held her back as she tried to rush into the wall of uniforms. I held her against my chest and felt the sobs wrack her body. And I whispered words of comfort in her ear.

Don’t cry, I told her. Don’t shed no tears, woman. I was glad she couldn’t see the hypocrite tears running down my cheeks in the fire lit darkness. But I told her, over and over before she ran to him and held his lifeless body in her arms and cradled his broken head against her bosom.

No cry.

“Why is your professional site so much the same as it was three years ago?” I was recently asked.

To which I answered “Because it was good then, and it’s still good.”

And it is. I am very happy with it. But it’s not the same site. Sure, it looks the same, but its a LOT different. Not just design, but major changes in content, layout, and notably purpose.

The purpose of my professional site is obviously to further my professional life, but its also a reflection of my professional personality online. As such, it is a lot different (and a a lot prettier!) than Rain is. But Rain looks the way it does because that works well for the sort of content it’s meant for. Rain is a place to empty my mind, a dust-bin for thought.

The other site has some enviable attributes that I notice for their absence here. Hanging quotes, a non-standard typeface (if you’re using a Mac, that is). Whitespace. Actual typography, for crying out loud! The more things I list, the worse I feel about the way Rain looks.

There’s a redesign of this site in the works, but I refuse to feel obligated to it. And I refuse to do a super-trendy “undesign” thing to it. Undesign. You know, when people dump their style sheets and redesign their sites in the production environment. I did that with this iteration of the site ages ago. It was fun, but I don’t need to do it again.

This time I’ll do it in one fell swoop this time, and I’ll think through more carefully what I need in terms of design and what’s simply fluff. I bet it won’t feature fancy archive systems or automated color selection techniques that could be construed as the web design equivalent of wanking on guitar.Think Wayne’s World. No Stairway!

But all that’s an aside. If you’re adventurous and want to look at my professional site, it’s linked to in the sidebar of this site.

If you’re lazy like me, it’s here.

Much to my surprise, A Rain of Frogs has been accepted to the 9rules network. I am very pleased.

At a time when so much has seemed to go wrong, it is a pleasant surprise to have my site selected to join the 9rules ranks.

It’s been a bit of a slow go for me lately, I am usually much more prolific on this site than I have been of recent. Much of this has to do with my mindset, but also because I’ve refrained from writing about most of the crappy things that have been going on.

Not that its all bad – oh no, not at all. Some very good things are going on as well, and at length I will get into these, but not today. Maybe after Christmas.

Today, I would like to thank the 9rules network folks for accepting Rain into the fold. For those new readers coming from 9Rules, welcome. May this site prove worthy of your time.