In effort to keep the mess at a minimum, the following plans are being entertained by Ruby O’Degee Glenfadden. By the way I am considering keeping the third name always. It is my theory that one can’t slough off knowledge or *names. It is forever with you (no matter how hard you try to deny it); all those experiences that make up a person for better or worse. This will be no different, because the truth is “you can’t go home again.” You can go physically back to the place you started, but you are at a butterfly’s mercy – a tad revised, especially when that revision comes through story, which is 12,000,457 times more affective than being told anything atal.

When Scout stood on the doorstep of Boo Radley’s house at the tale end of To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee told the metaverse, she’d learned what she needed to know. She didn’t have to live her character, Boo’s life. No, she only needed to absorb his experiences into every cell of her being. Lee did, and I did, when my storyteller of a father took me to the movies to soak in what Lee called the best adaptation of film to book, she’d ever seen. It is a rare happenstance when I can say a book is manna, and the film that goes after is manna too. When folks tell me they want to read minds, I hand them a book. “Here it is,” I say. “The origin of all thoughts are in these pages, and you will need to spend a lot of time reading them. Sit down by the fireplace over there,. Take your shoes off. Get comfy and bring some snacks. You will never come back from where you are going, always. And mind you, if you try to come back, you will require a prescription of an elixir more potent than hot triple chocolate cocoa. Caution. Caution.”

Footnote*A Little known aside is that Ruby absorbs almost everything through her thick bull head. No matter how much she protests the name Glenfadden will accompany her where ever she goes, but that isn’t what this chapter is about dear explorer. This chapter is dedicated to best laid plans that will never come about exactly in the way Ruby plans them. It doesn’t work that way, regardless of what bubble one lives in.

Plans 505
1. Check – find office space on desert. Check – set up office. Checkmate foiled – office partly laid across neighbors parcel, and needed to be moved 1 foot to the north (presumption here – no idea which way Eder D’Uru is pointed – but, I always place the door facing due north where my faith resides and makes a promise).

The moving of the office, requested by the resident engineer and manager, resulted in a major disaster of the Ruby sort. Now she will need to spend time with the tape measure, because she previously, without knowing, unlinked the boards, floor, roof top, juke box and sound control booth. “Oh for the love of Yahvo,” she screamed to the wind, now rustled by a thousand butterflies, “why now?! Just when I am finding my footing, and I’m clearing a path to my destiny.”

Making a mess is one thing. Allowing others to see your mess is an entirely other storytelling device. Devices have their place along and along, but LY words, dialogue that use other verbs than the word said, and obvious editing notations should be used sparingly. Talking to the reader is unseemly and untidy, if there are no mental images to draw out the relationship between the giver and the receiver. Before an author talks to the readers, an author should know the readers fairly well. Coming to a dig was one way Ruby got to know her readers. Teaching readers is another way to get to know the reader. Living in the confusing, overly advertised, not what it appears world with her readers is the best way Ruby got to know her readers. She is her reader, always.

2. Check – find a home in a quiet, craggy, mystic meadow on an island in the middle of the sea – A W.B. Yeats kind of place – an Innisfree that needs no further pontification. Check – done and in the midst of renovating and personalizing the beloved house with the garish purple door windows that can’t be changed, or the windows will stay forever open, or forever closed. Ruby notes, as do I dear reader, that we cannot every detail in any plot. That is the joy of lateral storytelling and the mystery of linear storytelling; what you can’t or wouldn’t change, if you could. Most of us, for example would like to be more attractive, but still “me.” Others of us would like to be rich, but not live in the glare of scrutiny and envy. The glare kills the most talented amongst us. At first it looks like a rainbow, but later it looks like death. I know that sounds harsh in ages where no one falls to a permanent end, nevertheless, glare is the final blow to many a survivor.

3. Check – revive the much beloved The Cavern Players. There is nothing I am more proud of in the D’niverse. Pulling together the players is having a party in your own backyard. It is the carnival, circus and theatrical production done as a child with sound effects, explorers rushing here and there, directions being called out by Veralun, the film producer, who tends to be charmingly gruff on cue. It is nirvana piecing the voices together. Even with every argument that ever came to light, it is a blessing to listen to the remnants of what I have left in the sound arsenal. Never did I see such a bunch of talented amateur actors and voices. Now I’ve laid down the stage, as I always envisioned it in the backyard behind my house. I did it early, before everything else came into focus. As the anthropologist, Margaret Mead, said, “get those pieces of art up on the wall. Forget about the forks, toilet seats, china, every explorer’s relto hut rug or Maytag washing machine. They’re not going to make a your find a home yours.”

Note: Dear explorer, strictly by serendipity and more than likely destiny, I took my anthropology, philosophy, alchemy and all other pertinent sophies from a professor, who studied with Margaret Mead in the flesh. I suspect, like adding a name to my other list of names, I can’t or don’t prefer to slough off any knowledge I absorbed during my professor’s rush to gold or rainbows.

4. Check broadcast CCNE Find a Home Companion. Unchecked the same. The program continues to haunt me, but there are technical glitches and costs that need to be considered. The good outcome is the live stream, and it works well to telecast from any point. The problem is the sound and the limitations of the Linden transportation and property management system. Their bandwidth issues are of great concern. When other matters are addressed Ruby will get back to working out the details, even it means a small outlay of Linden $. Up to this point, she has managed to carefully consider every dime spent. She has a locked in budget to keep.

5. Partially checked the Seanachai Book Publishing Business. This business is set up in the Eder D’Uru mall, and will be partly done in the studio at home. It is planned that books of an appropriate size will be distributed, once this enterprise is completely learned by curve and practice. The kits are in my hands. There is no limitation on how many books can be produced, given away or sold, depending on the sort of book published. Other items “sold” by the seanachai include scrolls, story weavings, illuminated journals, children’s picture books and replicated ancient texts.

6. Partially checked the Ruby’s Sewing and Design Studio. This came about, because laterally story needs a few directions to take. Since I like designing my own garments, and I’ve learned some sewing for dummies tips along the Gimp way, I thought it might be nice to share my learning with others. It seems like there has been Much Ado made about Nothing. It’s not that I am denigrating the wonderful designs I’ve seen, while shopping for garments and costumes until I drop my clicking fingers. It is that basic items are not difficult to make, once the lens is wiped clear of the jargon and hyperbole. In other words, I am embarking on a learning to make clothes myself, and plan to offer my help to others struggling through the mire, mist or myst like I am – always.

7. Checked joining other groups that relates to my ilk. It is my opinion, and this is a strong opinion that I’ve only recently made concrete: explorers, like myself don’t get out much. If we are to bring explorers to the dig, we must get out more! Who will know what wonder yonder lurks. Word of mouth is the viral way net communities are recognized. Advertising in a subscription, pull me, technical metaverse is only effective when the populations, who click are aware of the use for it. It is why I am “sold” on net activities and not television that blares at me, when I flicking channels for something interesting to watch and learn from. 57,045 channels and nothing on continues. It is getting worse.

8. Checked writing my book – working title: Violet’s How to Tell Your Own Story Adventure. Purpose to teach third graders what a story looks like, and to encourage them to write their own along with me. The process of teaching in this way is much like teaching explorers how to sew, while I learn with them. It is the best and only way to teach. It is present, and by that I mean I don’t teach in the past tense or the future tense (which is not accessible or assured). I teach in the present tense, always.

Of course I can talk about the past, and the future, but I am sure to call both notions dreams. Yes, it is a wee bit wacky, like slipping through celtic thin space stones, or falling down a crack when the earth shakes, but it so far effective. In the Violet story, she (an eight year old girl with snarly hair and odd timing) loses her words to fairies, after the death of her seanachai father. Violet inherits the mantel of storyteller, but has no idea of how to complete the mission, until she meets Fergus and they go on a wild romp through a camping trailer park’s hiking trail. As is true of many a Donegal traveller tale, the children can’t access the trail or trial, until they find the fireplace in the cart. Without a fire to look into and through, there is no transparent viewer to be found.** Like Scout and Jem, who found the figures in Boo Radley’s tree, it requires careful reading of a text to find ancient and true fireplaces, but once found the ride that comes after is scary, thrilling and flies through universes unknown without any limitation forever and always.

**Footnote, Dear reader the rest is for reading, and will not be addressed here, (copyrighted and legal such), but I did want to explain the fireplace metaphor for those of you, who are partial to wardrobes.

9 and 10. Check, partially check and discovering the check mark to get all of these initiatives done, before there is a plot development I am not aware is coming. Lateral storytelling is the sort of storytelling we all fear, Josh, but it is the sort we live out, and work around with our limited amounts of time, no matter what the written end (or not). Harper Lee did this when she was a young woman, never required herself to water down another word that diminished her masterpiece, and continues to live on into the age of wisdom, mercifully for me!.:whistle: Mercy. Mercy Me!

**A last author’s note to Dear Explorer: There is no such thing as scarcity in the story world. When there is no scarcity, there is no end. It is not possible to end a story always. Every story is a story within a story, or bits and pieces of an author’s journey added to another soul’s story, or an interpretation of a story, or a new age of the same story, or tribute to another story. There are twists to stories that require copyright and good “no trespassing” sense without credit, but there is no blank page, no completely original work by a writer. It is a soup, one big Desperaux (a classic that should be front and center of anyone’s bookcase) soup, period and without end, always.

Oh dear one more note to readers: bullheaded I am, and what you’ve read herein is only the tip of the ice pile. There is more. Another one of Ruby’s mores is that there is no original invention, only discovery of what is out there for us to plunder. Plunder we will. It is the apple we bit into, but in rare instances out of the plundering comes a thing of beauty and stability. It is the age I am interested most in; The Age of Reason.

After Veralun had looked carefully into the hole down which staff members were certain the office had fallen, the group realized it was part of a large ravine they had seen but failed to notice during their search near the hole.  This ravine had appeared in the New Mexico desert some time during winter of 2008.  It was odd that the closing of the Cavern Public Gate in early 2008 should have such a seismic effect on the North American tectonic plate, but apparently it caused quite a number of minor tremors that caused more chaos than anyone had imagined.  And these tremors continued for months after the great silent crashing of the gates as they swung closed.  Unbeknownst to these stalwart Cavern Communicating Networking types, the tremors were still tremoring beneath the temporary desert office abode (shack) that was to serve while construction of a new, temporary office space was built.

It was these tremors, not Madge, that caused the Great CCN Temporary Office Loss of 2009.

This, the staff realized as the joined Veralun at the hole down which they surmised the office had fallen.  Tyion made a comment about holding a memorial service and after some of the same type of avoidance that the staff had decided on earlier regarding the danger of the hole, the staff decided a memorial was a very Explorer-like thing to hold when something was unrecoverable.  As Veralun began a rather long-winded objection-yet-acceptance in regard to the memorial, Alty shouted to him to be careful because, standing some distance away, she felt the tremoring of a tremor and feared it would make the hole and ravine even larger.  The staff as a whole realized the tremors were still tremoring as Veralun turned toward Alty just in time to see Ruby walk quickly past him toward the hole.  She was quite intending to look into it — of course she did –  and she pitched forward as the patch of rock she stepped on shook just enough to change the pitch of the ground on which she placed her weight.  Her other foot came down onto part of a board laying close to the edge of the hole, and as she shifted her weight to compensate for pitching forward, the outer edge of her foot slipped off the board.  Arms flailing, she fell forward and down off the edge.

Shouting loudly (and definitely in Dutch), Veralun reached out, grabbed her by her belt and pulled mightily to keep her from falling into the hole.  He managed to stop her descent, but her belt snapped, whipping her around to face up and away from the hole, and as her belt slid through the belt-loops of her pants, her Relto book caught against one of the belt loops and the velcro she’d used gave way under the force.  Tyion lunged forward to grab her arm, reaching out in vain to catch her Relto book with the other hand.  He nearly lost his own balance, but recovered in time to pull Ruby back from the edge.

Ghaelen and Alty grabbed her waist and the other arm (such was the force of her pitch forward) and betwinxt them all they managed to prevent her sojourn into the deep recesses of the new office abode.  She squirmed just a little as they watched her Relto book descend, but since no one was having any part of her sudden notion to follow it, she cried for a while instead.  Ghaelen began to cry, too, then Tyion groaned out loud, and soon all of the staff were indeed conducting the very memorial they had begun to discuss some time earlier.

After much ado, Alty convinced Ruby to come back to the crate, and to make her feel better Tyion called a meeting.   He told her she didn’t really need to attend, but called it anyway as he was at a loss for anything else that might help. Ghaelen kept herself busy attempting not to plan future agendas, but her to-do list kept getting longer and longer.  Veralun and Alty did what they could to mitigate the shock of the fall, the loss, the other loss, and the tears.  Alty complimented the organized manner in which the non-meeting had grown out of the memorial.

Everyone did feel a little better since they knew now that Madge hadn’t actually done anything to the office,  but they did not feel at all better knowing all those boxes and crates of video was still down there in a buried basement somewhere.  “Ruby,” Alty said sternly, “you don’t need that Relto book now, anyway.  When the Cavern opens again, you can surely get another one.”  Ghaelen nodded and suggested that maybe they could just keep using the crate for the time being.  Ruby nodded and agreed as she always did, which made everyone breathe a sign of relief.

Well for me it will be the wondrous and beautiful mansion of K’veer.

During Live it was the one of two places I really enjoyed going to, and it was even better since they converted it from “Myst5-End of Ages”.  K’veer is one of those places that makes you feel like your really part of the whole overall “lore” surrounding Uru.

I thought to myself, wow, somewhere in this mansion is “Gehn’s office” and the remains of Atrus’s first successful Age.  Hear is where Atrus was trapped.  I could go on.

To me, this is what makes Uru an amazing game,  I could just imagine the “Myst 5” journey as it was meant to be.  I can see myself linking in and seeing “Yeesha” once again speak of “The Least;  the encounter with “Esher”;  “The Tablet”, etc.  Granted, it would not take place in the same fashion, but still….

Now we have Open Source Uru, the chance for us to create what we could only write about, the chance for us to give others that feeling of “I am in a world of wonder.”  The chance to make our own histories in a universe we all have come to love.

It is a time to dream, it is a time to imagine, it is a time to smile.  Why?  Because come that day when the link opens up once again… we will be home.

“Tyion”
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