Foreston - Factory Town

[JacksonMiracle]

[Jack's Bar]

CJ blushed at Robert's first comment, but the blush soon turned to an interested smile as the list of random facts spilled from his mouth. She was actually quite suprised that he was a cat person like herself. Logan had always prefered dogs. There was that stupid thought about Logan again. She had to stop taking everything back to him, making comparisons. Live in the now. She reminded herself, but the words she heard were in Robert's voice. "I suppose that it's my turn now. I rarely dream, my favorite flavor gum is Big Red, favorite cartoon was Tom and Jerry, I always wanted to go to Australia, but never got the chance, and I write poetry when I'm bored."

[Oranos]

"Round two." He sighed again. It was always harder to come up with facts and questions when you really did need them. "Truthfully, I never paid much attention in school. Um, had a habit of playing with legos when I was younger. The martial art of choice is ninjutsu and yes, I listen to classical music."

[JacksonMiracle]

[Jack's Bar]

An ex-football player that listened to classical music. Robert was suprising CJ more and more with each sentence. "I never played with Barbies, but I loved hot wheels cars, and I had a baby doll named Susan. I painted my bedroom a bright lime green to get even with my dad for forgetting my birthday one year. Oh, and I prefer yellow cake over white cake." CJ wasn't sure what had possessed her to admit her father's one weakness, but whatever it was, she was glad that it was Robert she had been talking to at the time and not someone else.

[Oranos]

Lime green. That was definitely a color that Robert would have never thought to paint his own room. He wondered just how his parents would have reacted to it. Probably like they always did when he did something 'wrong'. He shook his head, ready to dish out another set of facts for CJ. "My only two stuffed animals were Scooby Doo and a blue M&M. My board game of choice is Stratego and I prefer chess over checkers."

[JacksonMiracle]

[Jack's Bar]

CJ had to smile at the thought of Robert with a giant stuffed Blue M&M. Thinking quickly, she managed to come up with a few more things about herself that were worth sharing with Robert. "I once believed that the Thanksgiving holiday was a government conspiracy, the first movie that I ever saw in a public theater was Titanic, Daisies are my favorite flower, and I love chocolate covered strawberries." She was very curious how Robert would react to her Thanksgiving government conspiracy theory.

[Oranos]

Robert was forced to raise an eyebrow. Thanksgiving a government conspiracy? It was interesting, to say the least, though, not the holiday that he would have picked for that very thing. "My favorite chips are salt and vinegar. Oddly enough, one of my biggest interests was astronomy. I even had a telescope. And, I hate bugs." Robert shook his head, slightly surprised that he had mentioned the last fact. He had been trying to avoid it, but it just tumbled out.

[JacksonMiracle]

((Is anyone going to be a server, or should we just have some food and drink materailize out of nowhere? ))

[Jack's Bar]

CJ was a little suprised that the tough ex-football player had a problem with bugs. The creatures didn't bother her too much, she had slept enough on the ground that she had almost made friends with them. Oh well, she still loved him. "I like the Beach Boys, surfing was my hobby for the short time that Dad was stationed in Hawii, and I despise having to iron all my clothes."

[Oranos]

((Take the latter option. Plot hole. ))

Robert sighed. "I don't know about you, but I'm struggling to come up with more of these facts..." He let the sentence trail off. Nothing more needed to be said. She'd either agree, in which case he was saved, or she'd insist he come up with a few more facts, in which case he'd have to somehow come up with just a few more pieces of information.

((Need to restart my computer. Again. It's acting up, or I would have come up with more on this post. Yes, blame it all on the computer. ))

[JacksonMiracle]

[Jack's bar]

Taking a drink of her water, CJ smiled at Robert. "Without getting too obscure, I don't think I know of much else to say either." Setting the water glass back down on the table, she thought of another idea. "We could always pick a random topic and assert our opinions on it. But you'd have to do the picking, the last time I tried that with someone, I ended up saying something stupid, like a box of peanuts." CJ laughed remembering the look she had gotten from the person she had been talking to at the time.

[Oranos]

((Four words: I hate my computer. ))

{Jack's Bar}

"A box of peanuts?" Robert couldn't help but laugh. "I don't even want to know how you came up with that one." He paused. "Just give me a second. I'm sure I can come up with something." Puzzling over this, he finally came up with a topic that seemed like it could be suitable. "How about poetry?" He grinned. "You said you wrote some, so let's hear from the expert. Should provide some interesting insight." He debated going first, providing his views, but eventually decided to let CJ have that honor. "You get to go first..." Obviously, nothing would be complete without some form of teasing from him, but he wasn't able to think up something that fit the situation, so he just patiently waited to hear CJ's opinions on the subject, wondering whether she would take a more general approach or delve into actual works.

[JacksonMiracle]

((Three Words: I hate Wi-fi ))

[Jack's Bar]

Poetry. It was a subject that CJ knew very well. It shouldn't be too hard for her to talk about. "Well, I've always thought that the first rule of poetry should be that it should come from the heart, it should be something that really means something to someone. It can't just be words on a page. It doesn't always have to be serious, but it does need depth. Shel Silverstein is the perfect example. Humorus, but meaningful. Like Smart. 'My dad gave me one dollar bill, 'Cause I'm his smartest son, And I swapped it for two shiny quarters, 'Cause two is more than one!......And then I went and showed my dad, and he go red in the cheeks And closed his eyes and shook his head-Too proud of me to speak!'" CJ quoted the entire poem from memory. "Just as importantly, it doesn't take any special talent to write, or read and understand poetry. It's just like a book, only shorter. Oh, and when reading it out loud, you follow the rules of punctuation. If there's not a period at the end of the line, don't pause. And if it's not written in iambic pentameter, don't force it. I guess I should let you have a turn, before I get too carried away." CJ made a mental note to let Robert read some of her poetry. She had left her notebook back at the base, but she thought that if he was really interested enough to allow her to talk about her own passion for it, then she thought that he deserved to be allowed to read at least some of her less serious pieces. Some poems were too personal be shared with even the one you love.

((For complete poem click here.))

[Oranos]

{Jack's Bar}

Writing in any form was not something that Robert was into. Football tended to suck time. There was, however, writing assignments, something he had never really enjoyed, mainly due to its forced nature. "I always imagined writing in the sense of the subject having to be something you enjoy and know about. If you fail to embody that, I think it tends to show in the writing. Trust me when I say, I have plenty of experience with that. I always hated the writing assignments that got forced on you in school. You almost never got to choose the subject, and it seemed, to me, at least, that it was always something boring. If you're not allowed to express yourself and what you want to, I think the effort is doomed to failure. While I think that is most important, I'd imagine it needs to flow, and like you said, come from the heart. I'm not familiar enough with specific works to quote them as you did, though."

((Five words: I want my laptop. Now.))

[JacksonMiracle]

[Jack's Bar]

CJ nodded her head in agreement. "Yeah, writing when you have to is never as good as the genuine thing about something that you enjoy." She took a bie of her food, and smiled at Robert. "You at least have a favorite poet, don't you? Or at least someone you've read before. I'll tell you, mine's always been Emily Dickenson. Or Maya Angelou, depending on what mood I'm in. Then there's always Robert Frost, and Robert and Elizabeth Browning. My senior English class spent half the semester on just poetry. Guess that's why I like it so much. But I only wrote one poem in that class that I really liked. I called the Unknown Soldier. It was in honor of one of my Dad's friends that had just been KIA. He couldn't tell me how, but I overheard him on the phone saying that the body was so beat up and burned, that he wouldn't have recognized him if wasn't for the dog tags." CJ took a sip of her water and banished the thought from her mind, before it could drift to her Father's own closed-casket funeral, and the mangaled condition his CO had found his body.

[Oranos]

Robert thought over CJ's question. He'd never really thought about a favorite poet, but there were a couple he had deemed as decent. "I guess I always considered Robert Frost and William Shakespeare as being pretty good." Looking down at his plate, he realized he hadn't actually eaten any of the food on it, despite having used his fork to play with it. Taking a bite of his food, he took a few minutes to ponder anything further on the subject. "So, while we're on the whole poetry angle, would you mind me asking about what exactly you write? Just whatever you feel, or...?"

[JacksonMiracle]

[Jack's Bar]

CJ looked down at her own plate of food, considering what she would say about her own poetry. "I guess I just write whatever comes to my mind at the time. I have several about my dad, even one about Mom. I even wrote one about a dirty red jacket once. I don't have any with me, but remind me later and I'll let you read some when we get back to base." She took a sip of her water and waited to see how Robert would react to the list of topics she had given him.