Lex Luthor Stole Forty Cakes!

Context: telyanofcelore and I were talking about the writing exercises we did today for our respective fiction writing classes. Mine (will post soon) was about stripper cake. This...rapidly veered off into odd directions. Starting with me introducing her to the Lex Luthor and the Forty Cakes meme.

masterofmidgets : ALL IS EXPLAINED
telyanofcelore : Looks like he lost one off the back
telyanofcelore : And yes, all is explained.
masterofmidgets : he's a bad cake thief
masterofmidgets : as evidenced by the fact that he hasn't noticed he is clearly stealing /pies/
telyanofcelore : He miscalculated the size of the cakes, though
telyanofcelore : And he stole pies
telyanofcelore : Plainly he just grabbed the first baker's wagon he saw
telyanofcelore : Because, you know, he's /Lex/. Stealing baked goods. Because he's too embarrassed to admit that he plans to jump out of a cake and strip for his boyfriend.
telyanofcelore : That's one thing I can actually imagine Lex feeling embarrassed about.
telyanofcelore :Not much else.
masterofmidgets : and because he's Lex, he feels the need to do it perfectly, so he PRACTICES. OBSESSIVELY
telyanofcelore : Yes
telyanofcelore : Not just any old jumping out of a cake and stripping will do
telyanofcelore : It has to be perfect. Graceful. Exactly the right spray of frosting. Like something from a movie.
masterofmidgets : YES. THIS.
telyanofcelore : Clark: ...
telyanofcelore : Lex: What? It makes perfect sense!
telyanofcelore : Clark: It's a cake, Lex. It will be different /every time/
telyanofcelore : Lex: *makes evil plans for cakes to be exactly the same*
telyanofcelore : Clark: *boggles*
masterofmidgets : Clark: I'm, no, you know what, I'm just going to be over here with the normal people. Who EAT cake.
telyanofcelore : Lex: You don't love me? *wibbly*
masterofmidgets : Clark: not enough to watch you embarrass your multinational corporation by stealing cake.
telyanofcelore : Lex: Fine, /you/ steal the cake.
masterofmidgets : Clark: NO ONE IS STEALING CAKE. Seriously, Lex, I know this may be a foreign concept to you. But there are bakeries. People will sell you cake. And pie!
telyanofcelore :
Lex: But they might ask why I wanted it!
telyanofcelore : Clark: It's a bakery. They sell cakes for a living. They usually assume people have /parties/. Where they /eat cake//
masterofmidgets : Lex: don't be ridiculous, Clark, parties are for shrimp cocktail and Ecstasy. Not /cake/.
telyanofcelore : Clark: Right. Hey, normal people! What's up?
masterofmidgets : Lex: fine. I'll be in my lab with the clones.
telyanofcelore : Clark: No! Um. Where do you eat cake, then?
masterofmidgets : Lex: *rolls eyes* Off of someone's stomach. Where do /you/ eat cake?
telyanofcelore : Clark: *eyes glazed over* Off... someone's... stomach...
*some time later*
Clark: You're right, we'd better not buy cakes from bakeries. They might ask what we do with them.
masterofmidgets : Lex: and that would be terrible.

Cue World's Tiniest Violin

Could today have been any more of a Monday? Seriously, universe, you don't need to try this hard!

*is dead*

I was up way late AND way early, trying to get my second CS assignment in on time (I did not succeed). I got very frustrated with my professor because one of the problems told us we had to use a method that a) he never explained, and b) wasn't in the book. WTF? On the other hand. My roommate noticed how stressed I was and made a suggestion that, after some talk with telyanofcelore , I decided to go through on: I switched my CS class to credit/no credit instead of being for a grade. I mean, it's not a class I need. I already earned my engineering GER from 105 last quarter, and this isn't even tangentially related to my major. It's just a class I'm taking because I kind of enjoy programming, because I thought it would be useful in the future to have at least a basic understanding of it, and because I want to make sure the math/science/analytic thinky parts of my brain don't get all withered and dead-ish while I'm writing papers about imperial sysmbolism in 19th century lit. Basically, I wanted this to be a challenging but still fun class, and it's just stressing me out way too much already. Hopefully this will take some of the weight off, so I can get back to stressing about classes that actually have to do with my degree!

Fiction class was...intense.

I'll lay this out here: I'm not comfortable talking about myself to people. Those of you who have met me in real life are laughing now, I'm sure, because I'm always telling crazy stories about my family and stuff. But it's true. What it is - I talked for quite a while with my mom about this today - is that I only share things about myself when I feel very much in control of how I'm sharing it. That's one of the reasons I tell so many stories about my family (also because they are fucking funny) - it puts things on my terms. If I present things as a joke, if I can make you laugh, then I know that you are seeing things the way I want you to.

I don't like looking weak in front of other people. I hate crying in public. I'd rather you be pissed off at me than feel sorry for me. I just can't deal with that. So I deflect with humor. I turn everything into a joke. You aren't allowed to feel sorry for me because I don't feel sorry for me.

So with a story like the one I wrote this weekend, I'm in a very uncomfortable place. I can't make this funny. I can't laugh it off. Who I am, whether or not that is a good thing, is on display in that story, and just reading it, knowing anyone who reads it will know a part of me in a way that I cannot control, makes me feel really exposed and vulnerable. It's scary.

But I still got up in class today and read that story to a roomful of students, and I'm glad I did. But damn, I was fucking drained after I got out of class.

Bright side: my teacher praised my story pretty strongly. She said it had great pacing and a really strong voice. And I'm pretty satisfied with it, too, which doesn't happen that often for me. It was a good piece of writing, if very, very painful.

To make up for it, I wrote this during our beginning of class free write. It is not a visceral, deeply personal piece of writing. But it does have a stripper cake!

( prompt was: a good deed goes badly awry )