My Life As A Stori

As someone that literally lives for details right now, I realized that while I’ve told you about my misadventures in inventing, I haven’t really told you much about me.  If every one of my readers was wearing my modified Dream Reader, you’d all have a different idea about what I looked like.  Let me clear up some things about me in general so ya’ll know me a little better.  You already know I’m Italian and live in Nebraska, have a mom and dad (obviously), and an annoying little brother.  I have the traditional dark hair but it’s not quite black; it’s so dark brown that it looks black except when I’m in the right light.  I keep it cut really short, too, so it doesn’t get in my face while I’m working and it has that kind-of cutesy punk look to it.  My eyes are dark, too, so no dazzling blue or anything to set off the dark hair.  I’m not super-model thin, either, though I don’t think most girls are nowadays!  I wear a size five, so not bad in my opinion, and I’m 5′5.  Wow, that’s a lot of five’s in a row, huh?  I’m not super-toned, which you probably should have assumed since I spend my days reading and working in a lab, but I don’t really consider myself out of shape at all.  I don’t tan very well and I have no real sense of fashion.  I don’t wear a lot of makeup…actually, I don’t really do makeup, period, unless I’m dressing up fancy to go somewhere.  Sorry any guys out there - people say I’m pretty but I’m no blue-eyed, blond haired, six foot tall, anorexically thin bombshell.  Hey, at least I don’t look like your typical “nerd” stereotype, right?  On second thought, right now I’m probably propped up in a bed or chair staring blankly at a piece of paper with this crazy sci-fi looking contraption on my head…yeah, not at my most attractive.  On top of that, I have no proof of how long I’ve actually been like this.  I’m told it’s only been a few months, but what if my parents are being nice?  I was seventeen when I put the darn thing on my head, so I still hold that mental image of my seventeen-year-old self.  What if it’s actually been years?   What if I’m like thirty right now and no one’s told me about it and I’ve gained about a million pounds since I’ve been stuck in a coma for all these years?  No, I wouldn’t have gained a bunch of weight because if I’m truly in a coma then I couldn’t eat properly.  Maybe I am anorexically thin, now?  Scary thought…nah, if I was thirty then I’d hope by now my little brother wouldn’t still be learning his colors.  I mean, he doesn’t appear to have the same genius mentality that I do, but he’s certainly not learning disabled.

Speaking of brothers, I actually have another brother.  He’s older than me and is your typical jock-type guy.  He didn’t pay much attention to me growing up because I think I embarrassed him.  Actually, I think I may even have made him feel a little inferior.  I mean, how would you feel if your little sister was a few grades ahead of you in school and your teachers were left wondering why you weren’t as smart?  It had to suck for him.  He seems to have held his grudge because I haven’t heard from him since my accident.  Everyone else that I’m even remotely close to has at least written me a little message.  Ah well, that’s Leo for ya - he’ll come around eventually I suppose.  Oh, Dino is my little brother, by the way.  Yes, that’s short for a crazy-long very Italian name that I won’t disclose for fear of embarrassing him, even though he’s too young to really be embarrassed by a lengthy name, yet.  Still, I’ll keep it under wraps for his sake.  He’ll thank me when he’s older.

Let’s see…what else?  My mom is a nurse at the retirement home and my dad’s a professional photographer.  Okay, so he hasn’t exactly earned a Pulitzer but he does okay.  We’ve grown up comfortably, even for growing up in Nowheresville, Nebraska.

Hmm…anything else?  I can’t think of anything right now that might be pertinent…yeah, that’s about who I am in a nutshell.  Maybe next post I’ll have something more exciting to share.

Sorry it took so long to get back on here, guys.  I’m sure you all were just shaking in anticipation about what happened to me - crying yourself to sleep and all, right?  Heh, sure.  Anyway, I actually just got really busy and wanted to keep my focus on my studies.  I know, you’ve gotten it figured out by now that I’m pretty much in a coma-like state, so you’re probably wondering how in the world I could be busy.  Well, Henry decided he needed more help from my end to figure this mess out so he actually went and ordered me a whole bunch of books pertaining to physics, brain wave functions, surgical procedures, and anything else that might give us that little bit of knowledge we were missing.  I gotta tell ya, being able to actually “see” how textbooks describe the way the world functions is incredibly fascinating.  It’s the first time since the incident that my parents really let me just read through entire books, and I gotta say, it’s been fun!  I’ve learned a lot and I managed not to overload, which is what I assume my parents thought might happen if I got to go through one whole book (a real  book, not my little brother’s kiddie stuff).  Now that they’ve seen it’s fine, perhaps I can read a novel once in a while?  What do ya say mom?  Give me a little adventure on a pirate ship or a space shuttle from time to time?

Okay, well back to the main point - looks like it’ll still be a while before Henry and I can pour through enough material to figure this out, so I might as well continue with my story.  So, anyway, I thought I had my process firgured out and snuck into Henry’s lab one night to try out my invention.  The Dream Reader, itself, is like a thin metal headpiece with sensors embedded all around the inside ring to read brain functions.  One band rests on top of your ears and wraps around the back of your head while another band goes over the top of your head.  When you’re wearing it, it sort of looks like you have on two different sets of headphones only without the speakers - really sleek, actually.  After all, no one would want it if it didn’t fit comfortably while they’re sleeping, not to mention looking ridiculous if the thing looked like a space alien helmet.  What I added to it was just as sleek, I’d say.  I had to make sure the thing could translate words on paper to visual images, so I added these little eye pieces to the Dream Reader.  They hook into the ear pieces and slide down in front of your eyes as easily as the microphone flips down on your basic X-box headphones.  The part that rests in front of your eyes is just a small, round circle that looks like nothing more than a clear glass lens.  Here’s the genius part (not to sound cocky, but I was pretty proud of it) - the lenses actually contain tiny microchips that process the words as your eyes pass over them, connecting what you see to the Dream Reader, then projecting the images the Dream Reader displays back into your eyes instead of on a screen.  Between the visual stimulus from the lenses and the tweaking I did to the Dream Reader’s programming to keep the imaginary audio internal, when you read anything you’re immediately placed within the setting of the book based on how you imagine it.  In other words, two people can read the exact same book but get a different experience out of it depending on how they interpret what they read or how active their imaginations are.  I have a very active imagination, by the way.

Sounds cool, right?  It so could have been.  The only problem was, I screwed up somewhere in the programming.  I don’t even know whether I messed up in the microchip technology in the lenses or if something else changed in the Dream Reader that wasn’t supposed to when I altered it.  Either way, something was obviously wrong because when I put it on and flipped that switch, I ended up getting stuck in imaginary mode for good.  I didn’t know it at the time, of course.  I chose a short story to test the machine with (The Tell-Tale Heart - love Poe!) and was thrilled to be playing out the part of the narrator.  It was creepy and suspensful and totally awesome!  I could not only see and hear everything as the character would, but could actually feel the emotions pass through me as they did the character.  It was great until I got to the end of the story.  I stopped reading, and then there was just nothing.  I have no memories of anything that happened after those last words until a few weeks later when Henry was able to rig the Dream Reader back up to a screen.  He figured out they could communicate with me by writing down messages for me to read and that all he had to do to get me to respond was to literally write “I respond however I see fit.”  It took a few times to figure out how to phrase things, because while it’s natural to want to write “you respond however you see fit” to instruct me to do something, I read it as “you” and not, well, me, so it didn’t work out quite the same.  My brain knew Henry was talking to me, but the machine translates sort of literally, so it created this trippy effect where I was outside of myself watching me trying to respond - gave me a headache.  Anyway, the whole thing sums up to the fact that I don’t do anything unless someone writes it down for me to read.  I said in the beginning that I can only write this blog because my dad writes down “I write my blog” or something to that effect.  I have free reign to write what I want at that point, but once I’m done, the slate goes blank for me until I read something else.  Every day, how I perceive my life to be is whatever someone makes up.  If someone was to write down, “I jump up ten feet in the air and then wiggle my nose,” that’s exactly what I would do.  Not in real life, of course, but it sure feels like it to me.  My life is quite literally a story and I am the main character, the puppet that the author controls unless he chooses to write that I can do what I want for a little while.  Really kind of sucks…unless I get to have at least a little fun with it (ahem - mom, dad).

So that’s it in a nutshell.  Just bear with me here and I’ll keep you posted on my progress.  Oh, I haven’t forgotten about that lemonade stand thing, either, just been busy.  I’ll get to that one next time, too, so read on loyal followers if you will.  After all, my adventure is really just beginning…

Bet you guys have been wondering what happened to me, huh?  Well, guess where I’ve been these past several days?  I’ve been dead - well, mostly dead.  No, not like in The Princess Bride sort of way, though I do highly recommend that movie!  See, Henry thought he had figured out a way to get me out of my mess and he tweaked with the machinery a little bit.  Unfortunately, the outcome was not what he expected and not only did his attempt not wake me up, but it shut down my ability to interact with anyone.  I pretty much had no brainwaves running except for the ones that control my normal bodily functions.  Needless to say, that created a huge panic in my house (or so I hear) since Henry wasn’t quite sure he could put things back to the way they were before he attempted his experiment.  It took him a few days, but he managed to pull it off (thanks, Henry!).  If I had had access to conscious thought, I would have had faith in him.  Next time, mom and dad, don’t panic so much - let Henry do his thing and if he screws up, he can fix it. 

Okay, moving on to my next topic: I heard I got an award for this blog while I was dead!  A lemonade stand, right?  I’ve informed my dad that he needs to post it on my blog page and I’ll be sure to follow the instructions that came with it.  In fact, that should be very interesting since I see words in motion picture.  I just hope dad picks some interesting blogs for me to read and add to the link list - you see this, dad?  Interesting blogs, none of that boring how-to-solve-a-math-problem stuff.  Braniac kid, remember?  I already know that stuff.

I guess I should give you a little more of my story as was promised before I vanished without a trace.  I was always curious what it would look like to actually be able to see what I was reading.  I mean, of course I could see it in my head, but to actually see it and experience it is every reader’s dream.  That’s why we always go to see the movies based on the books even though we know we’ll probably be disappointed - we just want that chance to put the mental images into, well, real vision.  Anyway, I had thought that accomplishing that goal was a fantasy until Henry finally created an invention that was sure to make him rich and famous (actually, it still could once he undoes what I did to it - so sorry Henry!!!).  He calls it the Dream Reader and it does just that - reads dreams.  To put it simply so everyone can understand, it reads the brainwaves that we use when we dream and interprets them into images.  It puts those images up on a screen exactly how the dreamer sees them in his or her head so others can view the dreams; and so the dreamer can see them, too, once he or she wakes up.  It was genius, really, and it could be used not only for recreational purposes (for those rich people that could afford it once it goes to market!) but especially for psychologists/psychiatrists in dealing with patients or just further study of how the human mind works.  It was in its final stages of testing when I got the dumb idea to fart around with it a little.  See, when Henry first showed me the plans to build this thing and went over the mechanics of it with me, my brain immediately sparked onto the idea of using it for my reading viewer goal.  Dreams are really just imaginery images, after all, so I thought I could use the same idea to process images that we see while we’re awake - namely the stronger imaginary images we produce either while pretending as children or, for those of us that don’t play pretend anymore, the ones we create while reading.  Henry didn’t actually know I was working on my little project on the side while helping him with the Dream Reader.  I had wanted to surprise him, to show him how else his invention could be used.  That was where my cockiness screwed me - I actually thought I could do this thing by myself.  Had I asked Henry for help in the first place, it probably would have been fine…

And this is getting too long, once again.  Readers, tune in next time for Stori’s Wacky World of Stories!  I should be able to finish this recount of my screw-up tomorrow, granted nothing else bad happens…  

I know, I know, I was supposed to finish up the story of how I got this way but I had such a weird morning that I felt the need to share.  Deal with it.

So I woke up this morning…or afternoon…maybe evening - I don’t really have any sense of time here so we’ll just call it morning.  Anyway, I woke up to see nothing but blackness and a big red fire truck sitting in the middle of all that blackness.  Then, I watched the fire truck start rolling and it stopped in front of a red fire hydrant that appeared out of nowhere.  After that, a red hose started unraveling from the fire truck and connected to the fire hydrant.  The next second, all that just vanished and I found myself staring at an orange just sort of floating in the blackness, followed by an orange plate that popped up under the orange, and ending that round with an orange table conveniently appearing to support the orange on the plate.

Are we sensing a theme here, yet?

That stuff faded into nothing as quickly as the first and I was then looking at a yellow bee.  I followed the bee’s flight pattern through the darkness until it landed on a yellow flower which suddenly decided it needed to be growing in a yellow pot.  Next, of course, came the greens.  There was a green snake slithering through some green grass beneath a green road sign.  The blues started with a blue egg that then got sat on by a blue bird (though isn’t it robins that are supposed to lay blue eggs???) beneath a blue sky, which, I might add, was a nice change from the black background I had previously been staring at.  Of course,  it went back to black as soon as the purples started, skipping indigo entirely.  I watched as a purple crown was placed on a purple pillow and presented to a king wearing purple robes.  At least there was a person in this scenario!

Wanna know what happened next?  The whole darn thing started all over again, then again, and again.  I believe I learned the colors of the rainbow (minus indigo because little kids don’t learn that one right away) twelve times before the madness finally stopped.  Wanna know why?  Yeah, ya do - it’s because my idiot little brother managed to sneak into my room, or hospital room, or secret lab, or maybe I have my own little viewing room somewhere in the middle of town (I can see it now: “Come see your favorite book turned into a movie!  No rewrites, no alterations, no cheezy effects - just the way it’s written! Only $29.99!”), wherever I am, and put one of his stupid little kid books in front of me.  I mean, I get tortured enough as it is without his help.  Besides that, shouldn’t he be actually reading his own books?  If he just puts it in front of me so he can see it on a screen then he’s not really learning.  My parents really need to keep a better eye on him (no offense, mom and dad, but it’s true).

Ugh, see, now I’ve already used up my blogging time.  I’m sure you’re starting to get the idea by now about my situation.  I promise tomorrow I’ll finish up the history lesson about my life.  After that, I’ll really let you see I live…

Wow, so I got a whole reader already, or so I’m told.  It’s not like I can see it for myself to verify.  Maybe my dad’s just being nice…but I guess I’m getting ahead of myself again.  I did promise I’d explain how I got myself into this situation, after all.

So you already know that I go by the name “Stori” because I like to read so much.  Well, one of the reasons I’ve always liked to read is because there’s not much else to do in the town I live in.  I revealed it’s in Nebraska, but I don’t want to say where because I already have enough problems with people treating me like their own personal movie theater - oops, getting ahead again.  Anyway, my town is very small, one of those where you have to drive an hour to get to the nearest decent shopping center.  Now, most kids that grow up here learn to cope by hanging at the burger joint or the skating rink, but those types of activities were never very satisfying for me.  I, unfortunately, had the bad luck of being born with what you might call a “higher than average” IQ.  That might have been a good thing had I been born in a big city where schools know how to handle advanced students, but here, there was only so much they could do for me to keep me from being too bored.  I got skipped ahead a few grades and still ended up finishing homework assignments during lectures and spending the rest of my time reading.  I kind of ended up like Belle from the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast where I read everything in the local library at least twice and had no real friends because everyone thought I was weird.  By the way, if you’re one of those people that thinks is so great to be different, try being the only one in a whole town full of people that gets the stink eye.  There’s a reason the term, “blissfully ignorant” exists - I probably would have been perfectly happy not knowing half the things I have stored in my head.  In fact, if I was a normal person, I never would have gotten myself into the mess I’m in now.

Then again, if I was a normal person, then poor Henry would still be lonely.  I guess I lied earlier - I wasn’t the only person in town who got the stink eye.  Nobody in town liked Henry.  He was that typical weirdo that every town has, the one that lives in the big creepy house and almost never comes out, and when he does, everyone notices but tries their best to pretend they didn’t.  His house was way out on the edge of the south end of town and there were always strange noises coming from it.  He was always building something and his lawn was always littered with odd pieces of machinery….Heh, listen to me, talking all in the past tense.  I’m sure his lawn is still buried somewhere under a bunch of junk.  In fact, knowing Henry, his house is probably more of a mess because I’m sure he’s been doing nothing but trying to find a way to get me back to normal since my accident.

Henry, if you’re reading this, don’t push yourself too hard.  This was my fault, not yours.

Anyway, when I was eight years old, I was of course one of those really smart and yet really dumb kids that cracked under peer pressure easily.  I did all kinds of stupid things like being the one to put super glue on the teacher’s chair (because I wouldn’t get in as much trouble since I was younger than the other kids - yeah right) and trying to jump the creek with my bike even though I knew in about half a second that the angle of the ramp wasn’t right (guess who went home soaked and with a busted up bike).  Hey, you can’t judge my stupidity too harshly - I was just trying to make friends, after all.  Anyway, one of those dares was to go knock on Henry’s door.  Of course, I did, and when Henry opened the door he was wearing these huge green goggles, bright blue rubber gloves that looked about three sizes too big for his hands, and he was holding up a blow torch.  Naturally, my first instinct as an eight year old kid was to scream and run, but my I-have-to-know-everything curious side kicked in and instead of running, I cocked my head to one side and asked what Henry was doing.  He stared at me for a second, looked up at the gate where the other kids where watching (who promptly scurried away when they saw him noticing them), and smiled down at me.  I remember his exact words: “I’m inventing something that’s sure to be fantastic.”

That was it for me.  I became instantly enamored with Henry and made special trips to his house after school every day after that to see what new invention he was working on.  Over the years, our relationship went from lonely old guy entertaining a lonely little kid, to a more formal teacher/student mentoring-type relationship, to a kind of father-daughter closeness.  We just understood each other and I became just as involved with helping Henry invent things (that never really hit it big) as I was with reading.  I never thought those two hobbies of mine would lead me to the biggest mistake I’d ever make.

And, I’ll leave it with that for the day.  Until tomorrow, just know that being super intelligent does not make you a smart person.  I know this first hand.  All you geniuses out there, don’t get too cocky or you could wind up like me…

Okay, so for all you spelling Nazis, I did not misspell the title of my blog.  I’m actually using a rather clever double-meaning by playing on the word, “story.” (See, I know how to spell it right!)  Allow me to explain:

First of all, I was born with the rather lengthy name of Victoria Franchesca Pertenelli.  Yes, my family is Italian, and no, we’re not associated with the mob in any way.  In fact, I couldn’t be any further from mob activity even if I wanted to be, being as how I live in Nebraska.  Anyway, back to my point - since my name is so long, people around town just started calling me Tori.  Now, since I live in a rather small town where everyone knows everyone else, pretty much the entire population got to know me as the type who’d rather keep her face buried in a book than socialize.  Hence, they decided to turn my nickname into a sort of pun and added an “S” to the beginning, calling me Stori, appropriately.  There you go - now you know why I spelled the word that way.

Moving on to reason number two, where I think pretty much anyone can appreciate the irony of the situation compared to my nickname.  You’ve all read The Neverending Story, right?  Wait, most of you probably haven’t, but I’m sure pretty much everyone has seen the movie - you know, the one where the kid buys this book, starts reading it, and becomes intertwined with the story by the time it ends?  It turned out he was an important character to the story the whole time, right?  He got to call the shots, save the story world, blah, blah, blah.  Well, I’m not as lucky as Bastian got to be.  I don’t get to call the shots, I don’t get to save the world, I can’t come and go into the story as I please.  Me, I’m just stuck, day in and day out, living my life how other people write it.  In fact, I’m only writing this blog right now because someone shoved a piece of paper in front of my face saying “I’m writing my daily blog about my life.”  Basically, my life as it stands, literally is a story where I act out the parts that other people created for me… and that pretty much sums up the second reason for my blog title.

Have I lost you yet?  I guess I really should start from the beginning, though that doesn’t really fall into the “introduction” category so much.  I’ll start it tomorrow.  For now, just know that my name is Stori and that this blog will be a telling of how my life plays out as, well, a story.