Sunday, February 27, 2005

The Good Old Days

My Dearest Corwynne,

All of the recent troubles in the settlement and the White City have gotten me thinking about the time before this, dare I say, obsession over took us. Remember our first fantasy world? I miss Little Miss Cranky Pants and her Bitter bus. I still thinking this is defintitely a marketable doll idea, but maybe it's just me. After all I did have a set of dolls that were farm animals dressed up like hookers in the old west, so maybe I am not the best judge.

Anyway I just wanted to take a moment and remember.
I will Write went there is any news about the Flagstaff boy and the troubles he has brought upon us.

Your affectionate friend,
Kendrah

Friday, February 25, 2005

Disturbing Development

My Dearest Kendrah,

I must say I was terribly disturbed by your last post, and Aragorn is furious!

When he first read your letter he paced around shouting stuff about "Servant of the Shadow" and "Sounds like something Dolores Umbridge would invent" and "This is the kind of thing that made me want to butcher those singing pigs!" When he tired of that, he slumped enigmatically in the corner, smoking his pipe and muttering in in that quiet but deadly way of his "You have drawn far too much attention to yourself, Mr. Dalton!"

I tried to explain to him that human male teenagers were often troublemakers and he probably didn't mean any harm and maybe it was a cry for help. I was then treated to Mr. Serious's account of how he spent his teenage years. Unfortunately for Mr. Dalton, Aragorn decided the boy should be taught a lesson and sent a few bored ex-Rangers to have a "chat" with him. I can't wait to see the headlines on that!

Aragorn also plans to visit the settlement and have a "chat" of his own with the Elders. He is quite an advocate of free speech (which seems a bit strange coming from a Divine Right Monarch, but he's a bit of a rebel).

He is also reconsidering Sam's suggestion that we institute some sort of Gondorian National ID card. In a kingdom where the majority of the populace is illiterate, I don't see that will do much good. I imagine he'll calm down eventually. But I see that my idea of a census is more imperative than ever. Perhaps we will need to issue some sort of Visitor's Visa for those wishing to spend more than a few hours in our fantasy world.(That Artemis Fowl book is giving all sorts of ideas!) Honestly! If you want to cause trouble start your own fantasy!

Sadly, I must be off. We have three shows still to come today and I promised Aragorn I'd have dinner with him. I'll talk to you soon!

Your Affectionate Friend,
Corwynne

Monday, February 21, 2005

The ESSF

My Dearest Corwynne,

It has been such a long time since I have been able to write, and I am sorry, but this time it was not my fault in the least. You see several weeks ago,while Leggs was on a hunting trip, the elders of the settlement had a meeting in which they formed the ESSF-the Elvish Settlement Security Force.

The main job of the ESSF was to make sure that none of the settlement's secrets were leaked to the outside world. They took great interest in these writings. You may ask how they knew about these writings. I will admit that it took some time for me to understand exactly what was going on.

About two months ago an new elf named Billindalt arrived in the settlement. His story about where he was born and had spent all of this time since the Elvish exodus didn't make much sense to me, but no one else seemed concerned. I didn't give it much thought until the forming of the ESSF.

The day it was formed I came home and wrote to you. The next morning my post was gone and there was a letter on my desk stating that my letter had been deemed a risk to the community, signed by the ESSF. This happened several times. In frustration, I wrote you again and posted the letter and waited. Around 2 am who should appear at my computer but Billindalt! There he was erasing my post!

Leggs returned the next day and we uncovered what was really going on. The forming of the ESSF was just the normal rebellion of the Elves in this camp, but it was greatly influence by this Billindalt. Apparently, he told the elders that he had a way, that he would not explain to them, to stop the correspondence between the settlement and the White City. They actually started off on our side, saying that they saw no danger in these two particular humans writing to one another. But Billindalt said that he was from a race of Elves which could not only see possible futures, but were given the power to change the most likely outcome. They bought it, and told him to do whatever was needed short of killing us. (how nice of them)

So after I explained the situation to Leggs he came home with me, putting aside his fear of the palantir box to use it to research this elf......or should we say 15 year old boy named Billy Dalton from Flagstaff!

It seems that young Bill, a computer geek of the highest order, had read our musings and decided that he would join in. But like many young men, once he gained some imaginary power he thought he would see what damage he could do.

He has been banned from the settlement and the members of the ESSF have agreed to disband. But you should keep a close eye on your borders for people who are unknown, he is a very clever boy and who knows what he might be planning next.

Your affectionate friend,
Kendrah

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Valentines

My Dearest Kendrah,

Sorry it's been so long since I've written. I've been sending a great deal of time with Aragorn in Minas Tirith recently, and as we've learned, that doesn't help at all when real world work interferes.

BTW...I just read the Live Journal of someone who is truly mad as a hatter. We are SOOO fine!

Anyway...I had been thinking I would do something nice for Aragorn on Valentine's Day. (I so infrequently have a boyfriend, real or invisible, to do nice things for!) He was making it a bit difficult, though. For weeks he'd been all mopey and quiet, more melancholy than usual. I gave him literature about Valentine's Day and he was actually quite offended by the concept. "This is stupid...if you love someone, be kind ALL the time, not one day a year! And it's not REALLY a holiday...it doesn't commemorate a great victory, or the turning of a season or an age or anything! All it does is make people feel bad about not getting a damn box of cheap chocolate!"

Well, then. He usually humors me about our wacky festivals so I was convinced something else was wrong. After all, it couldn't be me! And it wasn't. I did some hasty research into RotK Appendix B and discovered the trouble. The end of January-beginning of February was a bad time for the Fellowship: they had lost Gandalf in Moria, Frodo (on the 14th coincidentally) was peeking into the Mirror of Gladders, and Boromir was getting really twitchy. I think he was just feeling kinda down about that whole period.

So, instead of a quiet romantic dinner for two, I ordered a few pizzas, bought a case of Yuengling Porter and invited Gandalf and the Hobbits over. Sam brought Rosie so we could amuse each other while the guys watched Excalibur and poked fun at Arthur and Merlin. It turned out to be a lovely evening. And Aragorn did get me a bunch of roses (OK...I saw Sam give him the roses and tell him to give them to me...but still...it was sweet). Merry brought me a box of chocolate (but half of the candies had mysteriously vanished before I got to me.) Frodo gave me a lovely little book of poetry that he written himself (not very cheerful poetry, I might add.) Pippin just looked confused and asked for another beer.

Aragorn seemed to enjoy himself and has been quite cheerful recently. Who ever would have thought that even imaginary relationships require work and compromise! You learn something new every day...

I must get back to work. Don't forget, it's Thursday!

Talk to you soon.
Your Affectionate Friend,
Corwynne

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Research

My Dearest Kendrah,

So it seems that my time thoery is correct! That was very clever of Legolas to test the theory and report his findings. I had a new thought, related to the time difference, that must be investigated...and I could use your help.

With the amount of drinking that goes on, I think we need to get some concrete notion of how the drunkeness tranfers between worlds. For example-if I sit up all night drinking with Aragorn and the Sons, then pop back, and only a few minutes have elapsed in the real world, am I still drunk? Along the same lines, if I get wasted with Deana watching horror movies on a Friday night, and have to be back in the White City for a Diplomatic Reception on Saturday morning, will I be hung over?

I'd like you and Legolas to assist, if you would. We'll get drunk in Minas Tirith and pop back to Pgh and record our findings. We'll sleep it off, get drunk here, and then...you get the picture. I thought you could be designated driver. If Legg's is willing we can test the effect on Man and Elf at the same time, saving us thousands in valuble research dollars (pounds, gold coins, whatever!) I think this money could be much better spent on our census project. I'd hate to have to reapply for additional grant funding. The paperwork required by the Gondorian Agency for Alchemical Research (GAAR) is a pain in my ass.

Eowyn plans to send Gregor an imaginary email. She loves what he's done with the royal residence and wants to talk with him doing several public buildings in the newly rebuilt Ithilien. She's also hoping that he can reccomend someone to design the city's "green space." Elrohir has been hinting that he's interested in te contract, but she's still a bit inimidated by Elves in general. He'd walk all over her and we'd end up with a city full of flowers and gulls and no roads! I know you've been dealing with simliar issues. Fortunately, Aragorn insists the White Tree remain the center attraction in the War of the Ring Memorial Park, so there's only so much you can do around that.

Well, dinner break is almost over and we have a show starting soon, so I should go and do something contructive.

I'll talk to you soon!
Your Affectionate Friend,
Corwynne

Sunday, February 06, 2005

Time

My dearest Corwynne,

I have seen the strangeness of the time correlations between our two worlds as well. It is very weird. The day that I wrote about most recently had time bizarreness because Leggs thirty second visit to my car used up his entire 15 minute break from the counsel meeting he was at. He wasn't even in the car long enough for me to tell him that the name of the band performing was 10,000 Maniacs, which I think he would have found amusing as well.

I have not spent much time in the settlement lately. Currently there are a lot of meetings and counsels going on there trying to determine the exact placement of trees and shrubs......I tried to go to one meeting and my brain started melting out of my ear....So I have decided to pass on the rest of them. They plan to have all of these issues resolved by the end of this week so I am sure I will have more stories to report then.

Your affectionate friend,
Kendrah

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Congratulations

My Dearest Kendrah,

I am so pleased the imaginary writer's block has begun to resolve itself! It's so frustrating when memories of imagined event begin to fade before you can get them on paper!

The lobby is full of clowns!!! Like 16 of them! I'm scared! When I'm Queen I will banish clowns!

Anyway...I have made a discovery. It seems our fantasy world runs on the Narnia Principle (you're there for years but only a few minutes pass in the real world), rather than on the more traditional Faery Principle (you're there for days but years pass in the real world). I made this rather unfortunate discovery while trying to avoid the Opera this past weekend.

I had spent a lovely evening with Aragorn, the Sons, Faramir and assorted other guests, drinking and laughing and of course, lament singing until dawn. Imagine my horror at returning to discover the Opera had not yet reached intermission! Grrrr...I now must engage in numerous other experiments to determine if this phenomenon is consistant. Perhaps I can enlist Mithrandir's aid...though time probably works differently for a Maiar.

On to more pleasant topics. I did have Eowyn over to watch King Arthur. We quite enjoyed it. We also developed new movie crushes. Nothing serious, I think, just harmless crushes. She immediately fell for Arthur (No suprise there, is it?) and I was quite taken with Sir Gawain. Eowyn says it's because Gawain reminded me of her brother. What is it with me and dirty, blonde horselords??

Well, I must be off. We should get together sometime soon. It's been ages since I've travelled to the Settlement. I'll stop by, if you aren't to busy...

Your Affectionate Friend,
Corwynne