Each week, you will need to post a small excerpt from your weekend writing so that the others in your writing group can give you some comment. Comments should be about the whole piece-- which they will have read in the packet-- but might focus on your excerpt or a question you pose about it. Feel free to comment on pieces outside your writing group as well.
Poasting my last 2 weekend writings so you can comment if you don't want the wrath of Harris.
The Festival (WR#8)
The odd thing is the lack of customers. I’ve never seen the festival from this point of view. It’s very uncanny valley. I feel out of place, so I follow the yellow signs leading me to the volunteer “lounge,” which I soon discover is nothing more than two coat racks and a table behind a makeshift curtain at the back of the right-side hallway. Mildly disappointed, I set down my messenger bag (decked out with pins from the previous year’s festival) and look for the proper nametag, which I affix to my volunteer pass. I rummage through the giant GILDAN cardboard boxes under the table until I find a medium volunteer shirt. Then, mildly flustered, I sit down at the top of the stairs and survey the vile, stained paisley-patterned carpeting. The “lounge” is dimly lit and the walls and floor are all dark red. There’s a creepy glass door in the back left corner that opens into an anonymous concrete corridor lit with a single fluorescent tube in the ceiling.
LAN Party (WR#9)
The LAN Party has been around since the late 1990s with the advent of networked video games. Though the history of LANs is largely unknown due to antisocial gaming nerds and the impermanence of the events, it is generally understood that all serious gamers have been to at least 4 or 5 (I will not deny the implication behind this statement that console addicts are not, in fact, legitimate gamers [while console owners can sometimes connect their consoles over a local network, these gatherings are considered amateurish by people of real value]) and they are usually casual affairs, barring the occasional nerd rage as the result of a well-placed nuclear missile on the part of the other team. A LAN party can, obviously, run the range of size from only two people to five or twenty or ten thousand. Larger LAN Parties are organized events that look suspiciously like cult gatherings to outsiders. Gaming culture generally warrants making it bigger, faster, and more awesome, and thus the humble suburban dining-room-table LAN party has been evolved into multi-day events filling up entire convention centers with live music, hired security, and as many as just over twelve thousand unique attendants.
A shock goes through my arm as the mesh of my racket swiftly collides with the bright green hollow sphere flying its way. His serve was solid, sure, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I narrow my gaze in on the ball as it soars over the net, back onto my opponent’s side. I take a quick glance downward, catching view of my stance. My brand new, all white Nikes instantly take dominance in the court. Glowing brighter than the court lines, they extend from my leg, creating quick flashes of light as I dart from one end of the court to the other. Cut to the left- flash. Cut to the right- flash. Flash, like lightning- fast, dominant, bright, and beautiful. They should nickname me Zeus. How fitting.
Before leaving, our group stood in the hallway waiting for a couple people to use the bathroom. As one student came back to my buddy and me smiling, he proclaimed with joy that, “the bathrooms just have a little dish of detergent to wash your hands!” So we had to check that out before we left. Sure enough, right below the mirror, on the small aluminum shelf there sat a small, clear, plastic dish with only a miniscule amount of blue, viscous, liquid soap. “This also looks like a bathroom that someone would be murdered in” one friend said. It was a statement that may or may not have been appropriate for the overall sketchiness of the bathroom itself. It was probably a good time to leave.
The motto life’s not fair is very appropriate for a man whose story you will have to try to imagine for yourself: You are detained as one of three suspects for the murder of a man whose body was found by a logger in a river. You have been leading a normal life until just two weeks ago. Today you stand in a court proclaiming your innocence. Although you may not know it, your prosecutors, including one of the other suspects who plead guilty and now stands as a witness, hold ten bits of information that would lead to your successful plea and the chance to go back to your family. You feel that your antiperspirant hasn’t worked and your light yellow dress shirt begins to soak up the sweat underneath your arms and on your back and neck. You wipe the top of your forehead and look at your glistening fingertips as you await a final decision. You have had the opportunity to control your own destiny and you have acted accordingly however, due to an unfortunate coincidence, your fate is in the hands of people who do not know you or what really happened. But someone was murdered and someone must pay.
What?I blink. No, I’m not staring at you.The smoky haze reverses in time, returning from sprawled, diffuse chaos back into tangible, solid objects.Huh? I don’t know why I’m sitting in the middle of the Pronto Room. I just am.I grab my face and rub the corners of my eyes with my middle and ring fingers, flattening and deforming my cheeks as my cold hands run harshly down my face.With contorted yawns I thrust my arms behind me, stretching my back, and stand up to greet the amused girl in front of me, my classmate once 4B starts in five minutes.What’s up?Nothing?That was enlightening and worthwhile, but I had expected no more. Well, then.
I don’t know where my backpack is.The same thing happens every day.I spin around looking for blue lining on black, and notice it sitting within five feet of me.Brilliant.Don’t judge me. I walk methodically.I climb the stairs two steps at a time, accelerating to a jog over the short stretch of stairs to ascend a half story, and stroll into the Writing Center, sweeping my attention over each sunlit face and each empty chair along the long table at the center of the room.I sit at its foot since Mr. Harris always claims the head, even though he hasn’t arrived yet.If it weren’t for arbitrary social customs, my side would be the head of the table, and I’d be in charge.Damn.
As I thrust my chopstick into the bowl, I capture a bunch of slimy noodles that are way too tempted to slide off of the stick. The juicy meat is a little more difficult to pick up—I either have to use two chopsticks to scoop up the piece, or stab the beef with the narrow end of my one stick. My whole table laughs and we are highly entertained by eating this meal in which we have a struggle to the finish to simply capture the smallest pieces of food. I move the chopstick covered with noodles to my mouth and slurp them all up. Eventually, my stick latches onto something that looks like a sea urchin or a tentacle of an octopus. I have no idea what this is. Scared because I’ve never seen something like it before, I place the tentacle noodle back on my napkin. I eat my noodles and converse with others at my table. But as much fun as it is eating it and as delicious the foreign Pho is, as soon as I’d ordered my meal I knew in my gut that I really shouldn’t be eating this.
“It’s a summer day in the year 1962. Myself and my sister, Wanda, are outside playing. We’re in a number 3 washtub. For those who know what is a number 3 washtub, that’s the closest thing we’d had to a swimming pool.” She just laughs and grins her wide grin with a little gap between the two front teeth and closes her eyes again.
“Wanda is 2 years old. I’m 4. We live on a plantation called Clifford’s place.” Debbie looks up towards the ceiling. I imagine the inside of her head resembles something as if she’s searching through her file cabinet of memories.
“We lived in the center of a cotton field.” She looks down and smacks her plump, chapped lips. “The house, mind you, was airy. And when I say airy, I mean airy.” Her voice’s volume increases as she says “airy.” “We had wallpaper to cover the holes in the walls, but even in the summer it was cold in the house. So it was a hot summer day outside, and we were playing in this number 3 washtub.”
The first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem.
Start game with ace of spades.Double click on ace of spades and move to upper right corner.Move king of spades to empty space and queen of diamonds on top of him to reveal the eight of spades beneath her.There is no problem here.
The illuminated sign sent a stinging sensation through my eyes as I looked up to read it. The words “House of Blues” radiated in a white, red, and yellow blur through the piercing cold, Cleveland winter air. I chill made its way down my spine as I stood waiting for my group of friends to finish their cigarettes so that we could all enter the warm refuge of the venue. Kevin, the only other friend in our group who is not victim to cigarettes, turned to me, the tip of his nose and cheeks glowing almost as red and bright as the front-entrance sign. “Dude, never again will I be spending a winter here. No more of these cold shindigs.” I let out a little laugh, watching a stream of white flow out of my mouth. My conscious then returned to the misery of the situation. “Oh, I know. Trust me, I’m with you on that. It’s California for me.” He nodded in approval.
aw jeez, i forgot to post last week's. I'm posting both here so as not to spam the blag. feel free to do them separately.
last week: (#6)
The low, droning buzz of the ClearComm system in my right ear is omnipresent and extremely annoying. I remove the headset because I don’t get cues anyway, opting to control the goings-on backstage under my own power. The actors have already begun to annoy me. They have left plastic water bottles and costumes all over my scenery, like they always do. In vain have I demanded that they find other venues on which to store their sundries, so I toss their belongings into the back hallway with impunity. I need to clear the scenery off for the next shift, anyways. It’s the church. The benches are ready. I give my run crew the signal, and they begin rolling the choir loft into the wings. We direct it carefully so we don’t run into any other scenery. All of the scenery is under my control. Back here, my word is law. The humble scenery is my domain. The curtain falls.
This week: (#7)
In my 4th grade math class at Gilmour Academy, we would often boot up the antique Apple III computers in the back of the room to distract us from the evil Mrs. Pelot’s attempts to teach us our four mathematical operations. They were standard early-nineties fare—beige bodies, gray 76-key keyboards and 4-bit graphics with attached 5 ¼ inch floppy drives. We would sit in the back of the room, crowding around the 3 cathode-ray tube monitors, gleefully playing Number Munchers. Even as 9-year olds in 2001, it seemed ridiculous and comical to us to try and use these 16-color behemoths that went obsolete before we were even imagined. Even then, we mostly had access to computers that were 256 times as powerful. Windows XP Had just been released, a key moment in the computer industry, and walking into our math room was like taking a step back in time to the early 1980s.
The average person must have hundreds of scars on their body by the time they are a teenager, some of which, we probably aren’t aware of.They are small and round dots from a lost battle against the itch of Chicken Pox or hives or scars of puberty taking it’s toll, they are straight, perfect lines from encounters with metal, wire, and glass, or jagged from stepping on a pair of open scissors that had been left on the ground after cutting a happy Mother’s Day card out of construction paper.
We, as humans are susceptible to these sorts of injuries, even the most calloused flesh is unable to meet a sharpened object unharmed.Scars are our only way of fighting back, even if it is after the battle.And even when we heal, no matter how many flecks or outer layers of skin fall off, we are never rid of the proof that the wound was once there.
I have heard that average humans spend about 1/3 of their lives sleeping. In other words, that means that the average human is only 2/3 as successful as they could be with my superpower of not needing sleep. People like Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso would have had a much bigger impact on humanity. Sleeping is an outlet for me, a way to recharge. But unlike most things that need recharging, sleeping does not require energy.
The piano stared at me when I opened the door. I looked to my right and saw that at the far end of the room sat the judges, members of the orchestra, at a long fold-out table. I walked up to them, introduced myself and handed them my music. I walked the long walk back to the piano at the other side of the room and sat. A middle-aged woman with brown hair put in a bun and a sweet, melodious voice told me to start whenever I was ready. I took a deep breath, thought for a moment about the things my teacher had told me at my last lesson, and set my hands on the keys.
As soon as I started playing I knew what my mom had been talking about. The keys had an awful feel – difficult to press down and slippery, a sign of real ivory. It didn’t matter though, because I played the piece without fault.
Walking on a path beside the road, covered by a canopy of outstretched evergreen branches the yellow scooter zooms by. My mom and I wave at him, but he races past us in a blur without even glancing in our direction. Turns out, the seventy year old was racing away from the police. In an attempt to help a woman with a flat tire on her bike, he tied the bike on a long rope to tow behind his scooter. She fell, hit the pavement with a crash and broke her arm. Debate ensued over which police department should handle this situation as the woman fell right on a county border. Police also soon discovered that the illustrious scooter man didn’t have legal license plates. When he zoomed past us without thought, without any other goal but to get home, he was fleeing from the scene. Goggles strapped tight, white helmet shoved over his round head, leather jacket and all he raced at top speed. The milk crate hanging off the back, bounced against its supportive bungee cords, jostled its belongings before hitting the home stretch.
Ecstatic at the sight of the campground, we quickly jumped out of our car the moment it stopped. A full day of driving, and our destination had finally been met. As we made our way down the entrance pathway, we realized the abrupt transition from driving for miles and miles, surrounded by dull, dirt-roads, with the occasional trailer park along the side, to walking through a sandy paradise, complete with hundreds of brightly colored tents and stands, accompanied with thousands of people adorned in tie-dye. We had finally made it. Squinting in order to make out the words on the vibrant red and yellow entrance sign, I read aloud “Franklin Lakes Music Festival, July 6-9, 1970.” Our excitement renewed from just saying the words, John and I hurried into the main venue, sand kicking up behind our feet as we made our way towards the main three stages. Tapestries displaying the festival’s main attractions- the Grateful Dead, Arlo Guthrie, and Janis Joplin- along with spatters of eclectic artwork encompassed the stage area.
Unwillingly wandering through the woods with a group of strangers is a strange thing. “Wilderness.” The program named itself for inambiguity, clearly. Intended to help troubled and/or drug-addicted teens, the program holds true to its name. By thrusting said teen into the real, unforgiving natural world, they truly learn the truth in every interpretation of the word. Tommy arrived early one April morning. Taken by force from his house at 4:00 am, as a “surprise intervention,” he was little short of tossed into a van and sent on his way. Accompanied only by the few belongings he managed to grab on his way out and a counselor who would soon be labeled as cause for his demise, the long drive commenced. That was back in Ohio, though. He was in Utah now. He had to keep reminding himself.
The moment I stepped into the main entrance of The Cloud Water Zendo Center, a small Buddhist worship center located in Cleveland, I instantly felt a serene sense of calm surround me. The walls were painted deep colors of yellow and red, decorated with many framed pictures and paintings of bamboo, monks, lilies- just about anything to do with nature. I looked down and noticed small stands that held figurines and sculptures of the lotus flower and meditating Buddha. There were two rectangular tables in the center of the room, surrounded by chairs, and in the corner a small, round table held an assortment of teas. Incense poured freely through the air, its scent filling the entire building, as the greeting from the monks broke the silence in the room. After introducing ourselves, the head monk proceeded to escort me into the meditation room to begin the morning service.
As we entered the room, I saw three of the center’s members meditating on one side of the room. On the opposite side, there was a group of visitors sitting in chairs, whom I joined. Directly in the center was the head monk, and at either side of him sat two other monks. In front of the them rested an enormous, elaborate, gold rupa of a Buddha in the lotus meditation position, surrounded by offerings and additional rupas. The service began with one long chant that proclaimed the general Buddhist beliefs on how to live life, and then proceeded into the Sanskrit mantras. These were led by the head monk and chanted by each follower and monk. These chants rang through the room, accompanied with drums, gongs, and bells being hit by the monks to the rhythmic tempo pulsing through the room. The long Sanskrit mantras carried on for about twenty minutes. Once they had finished these four main mantras, they began a chant, which was created specifically for Cloud Water Zendo, written in English, but chopped up into broken-sounding syllables.Five minutes of silence, and then a thirty-minute meditation session followed this. During this session, we all moved into the back of the room where there was another altar-like setup with the Buddha rupas, and cushions for meditation lined up on the floor. This thirty minutes of silent meditation took me aback at first. How was I supposed to feel comfortable sitting cross-legged, staring at the back of my eyelids in a room full of people I have never met before?I reluctantly took my place on the floor and forced my legs to form the shape of a pretzel. I looked up and saw that everyone around me had already assumed their “silence” modes. It comforted that no one else had their eyes open, which would allow them to gawk at me without my knowing. So I closed my eyes, felt the creases in my forehead cease, and joined the blinded silence.
This span of silence proved to be very calming, and even interesting. There was only one interruption during this entire session. After we were about three-fourths of the way through the thirty minutes, the head monk steadily stood up, holding a large, solid wooden paddle in hand. He began to walk around with the paddle, reached the end of the line of monks, and then turned back around to face the way he came. He started back down the aisle, hitting each monk and center member on the back along the way. Any speculation to how hard he was hitting was put to rest by the loud thud it made against each practicing Buddhists’ shoulder blades.
Once the meditation ended, we all went back into the main room, found a place at one of the tables, and helped ourselves to some tea, if desired. The head monk then proceeded to teach their weekly lesson. After he finished, we had time for conversation. I started off by asking one of the female monks what made her choose Buddhism as her religion. With no hesitation, she replied, “I came to it gradually over time. It was something that just made sense. Looking back, I was raised with Buddhist principles without even knowing it.” This related to, and well defined the basic beliefs about Buddhism. Not only is Buddhism a religion, but also a philosophy; a way of life, in which one can freely express his or herself. It was not necessary to alter any other beliefs that one may have had in life prior to coming to Buddhism, because it is believed that Buddhism can be “added on” to your ways of life, and did not even conflict with or restrict you from other religions. She continued, “It’s like a process of improving yourself. It doesn’t shut you off from anything else.”
I thought back on my experience with other religions, namely Catholicism. Out of all the masses I had been forced to attend at church, had I ever seen someone get hit over the back with a wooden paddle? No. But had I seen everyone in the parish accept wine and bread as literal blood and flesh? Yes. Had I seen perfectly respectable people get rejected from the parish because of their personalities or appearances? Yes. Had I seen other religions and alternative ways of life be openly ridiculed in front of the entire audience of five hundred people? Yes. Was the church seemingly wealthier and of a better reputation and social standing than the Buddhist center? Yes. Would I ever want to go back to the Buddhist center? Possibly. Would I ever want to attend a Catholic mass again? No.
I do remember being afraid of the large windows of their house after once seeing a coyote pass by one of the bedrooms.My grandma had built up a real fear of coyotes in us, telling us never to play outside past dark.My brother had told me that it was because coyotes liked to eat little girls, ones about my age.I wouldn’t go outside without him or someone else until I was eight or nine from fear of being dragged into the woods and eaten.
There was never a real fear of people, however. My grandparents rarely lock their doors and never had any sort of alarm system or protection against people breaking in other than the false-advising ‘Beware of Dog’ sign.And the sign didn’t even work.
Around six months ago, my grandparent’s house was robbed.The robbers took very little, a handful of my grandma’s jewelry, a pillowcase, random, semi-valuable trinkets, and a safe with held copies of their birth certificates and the birth certificates of all of their nine kids as well as the deeds to their pieces of land but no money.Among the things left were the flat screen TV, the numerous carefully crafted WWII plane models and watercolor paintings, and the unloaded rifle that my grandpa keeps in their closet. By all accounts, it was obvious that the robbers didn’t spend too much time in their home and probably didn’t really know too much about what they were doing.My grandpa told me that the police thought it might have been a group of young people, just getting started in the robbing business.It could have been a lot worse, he says.
But my grandma still brings the incident up in regular conversation, declaring it to be an intrusion of privacy and a moment that made her question their safety living in a largely Hispanic town in rural Illinois.My grandpa only complains about the mess the robbers had made.He usually just sits and comforts my grandma as she talks about the event, rubbing her back with his hand, up and then down, with his leathery, liver-spotted hands.
The family sits around the white dinner table enjoying the dry chicken without sauce, the noodle casserole with the hard noodles, and the strawberry rhubarb pie filling served in a bowl for its juices would slosh off a plate. The boy is still swinging his feet back and forth, brushing his toes against the underside of the table. He grabs the steak knife off of the plate to his right and hurls it towards his grandfather. His mom sees the knife fly across the table and begins to crack up, laughing so hard that her eyes water.
That is, unless they were talking about the clearly Italian man with a twirled mustache, sitting on a bench alone and pretending to read a newspaper, which was upside down and had English headlines. Yes, he kept giving them very inconspicuous glances as they hurried past. When they turned the corner, his eyes roamed the crowd as mine had a moment before, searching for a new object of interest. Naturally.
Ali and I prayed to Idina, the stuffed rabbit that sits on the rail that controls the curtains from offstage right. “Idina, give me strength. Amen.” We said. The previous year, our junior year, Ali and I both had starting places offstage right in the musical “RENT: School Edition,” and for some reason we started praying to the bunny who sat condescendingly on the rail above our heads. We named this seemingly god-like figure after Idina Menzel, the god-like actress who shaped the role of “Maureen” into what thousands of people perceive it as today in “RENT.” This year, as a member of the teen dance ensemble, I didn’t start the show onstage with Ali, an adult lead. Even though we were at opposite spectrums of the cast, we still bonded over this new tradition.
Oh, silly Asian dorks at Case, why must you always be in such a hurry? I witnessed your kind at the very first day of the school year, charging across the Quad ten minutes before classes began to get to your advanced science classes in the Rockefeller physics building. My wonder was compounded by the fact that the first week of the semester is the shopping period, when students are not bound to stay in the classes they attend, and when most professors give cursory information about the course and don’t even expect consistent attendance. I watched you run alongside the Circle Link buses—which come every ten minutes—to catch rides to dorms that are a mere five minute walk away. I saw you jog up the stairs of the library only to sit at a table, pant heavily, and, reddened, sigh and fixate on your untranslated manga. Perhaps I will never understand you, for you are a black box: impenetrable, contextless, and socially isolated.
The entrance of the church is on the far side from our point of view. I know I have it in the bag. I slow to a leisurely jog as I round the final corner, exulting in my success. I turn and look, and he hasn’t even made it around yet. I let out a joyful whoop and trot into the yard of the church. He is standing there. Knuckles collide with mouth, teeth fly, saliva mixes with blood in a cacophony of noise that would have made Bizet proud. My fingers form a lasting depression in his cheek, dislodging tendons and muscles and forming a new crater in his face. I open my eyes.
For some reason, it wont let my paste anything into this box. I don't want to re-type an entire section, so my piece is the one called "The Incredible Sam I Am"
About the ending, I cut off a couple paragraphs about whats happend with riding since Sam died. I don't know if its stronger without them or if I should have some follow up.
We had made it, our fellow travelers nowhere in sight, and saw now that the island’s painted white appearance had nothing to do with it being burned down. In fact, the island probably would have preferred a fate that saw it charred to a cinder, but its trees suffered a more humiliating fate.
Were we still getting out? Hell yeah, hell yeah we were. -------
Comment on the writing for what it is: half of a larger piece that I haven't finished yet. How is the setup working? I have a fear that the setup for these pieces where we are paddling to wherever and I narrate about our troubles is boring or otherwise un-necessary.
I have my hands crossed against my stomach, close my eyes and feel the cool almost winter breeze against my face. Just as I begin to talk to some of my other friends waiting for their rides, Kaylynn’s dad’s car pulls into the school parking lot. Dr. Ruf has a large robust figure, has a shiny bald head, and wears wire glasses that are too small for his face. His personality shines through every time we get into the car—it makes the ride interesting at least. He asked my 11-year old sister the other week, “You seem like you’re afraid of me. Why is that?” to which my sister didn’t know how to reply other than an awkward, mouse-like, “No I’m not…” He is a doctor, and knows you have to be somewhat smart to be one. So with that, combined with the fact that he is an older man who is well off and controls the money in the house, he enjoys revealing his opinions.
I emerged, with the urge to take a shower as soon as we arrived at our destination, to find my mother wedged in between two hillbillies in the McDonalds line. It would be another three hours before we got to any decent food, so we figured another Diet Coke and chicken sandwich could hold us over. The woman working at the register was the largest woman I’ve seen. There was no way if my mom and I linked our hands together that we would have been able to reach all the way around this woman. She wore a skirt with an elastic waistband (obviously it was the only thing that would fit her) with some supportive shoes and thick glasses. On one leg was a bandage, I told my mother that I thought it was for support because what else would be able to fit around her leg? My mother leaned over and whispered to me, “She looks like a turtle.” Shaking her head she continued, “No, actually, just the inside of a turtle.”
It was almost a calm summer’s day. Through the open window I could hear those especially noisy neighbors racing down the street on their bright pink and green bikes, their towels draped around their shoulders and their swim suits still dripping wet. A few minutes later I could hear the slapping of bare feet on the street as their little brother raced to catch up, yelling louder than the rest combined. “Kelsey, come on, I. Am. Coming!” He repeated it over and over until it became a bizarre sort of motto encouraging him to keep going. As if the already tangible, edible scent of his upcoming cookout weren’t enticing enough on its own.
Traffic cameras watched my SUV crawl ten miles per hour under the speed limit down Chester Avenue, lit intermittently by streetlights and the colored tint of traffic lights.I pulled into the gas station, a square just large enough to house four gas pumps and a convenience store, hanging at the edge of a precipice into I-90, surrounded by conifers, grass, and tar.
After twisting the knob to turn off the headlights, I hastily donned my hoodie and my heavy coat, making sure the doors remain locked until I was ready to get out.Hurriedly, I slipped the credit card into the pump and deftly shoved it back into my wallet, which I tucked beneath my layers, and immediately started pumping.I rested my back against the white car door, my feet pivoted on the raised concrete of the pump.
Two gallons.The air evaporated out of my mouth like exhaust. Hearing a squeak, my arms tensed, and I jerked my head aside.A man with a black hood lifted from the down puffs of his red coat scrubbed my windshield using the bright red squeegee affixed to the side of each gas pump.Lit by the streetlights looming above the gas station, his six-foot frame seemed faceless.
My gas light blinks. Pale and yellow. Pathetic. There’s a BP about five hundred yards down the road, so I shouldn’t be worried about running dry. But I am. I’m always worried about running dry.
SOM Center Road at 7:50 AM. Mothers sit all high and holy in the thrones of their SUVS, which are even less sexy when caked in thin layers of sidewalk salt residue. I generalize. They are eager to drop off the kids. Ready to get rid of them. Hair appointments, private workouts, and coffee with friends add volume to their schedules, and everything’s unavoidable when it’s written in a planner. Suburban congestion is a byproduct of mom’s obligations. I’m all too familiar.
Baseball was a good way for my dad and me to bond. We used to go to the batting cages and afterwards get ice cream. We used to go see the Cleveland Indians play at Jacobs Field. We used to play catch on cool summer nights on the front lawn. We did it all so I could hone my baseball skills. He helped me develop lightning fast reflexes. I liked to think that I could snatch a fly with my thumb and index finger like those karate gurus. I remember during one game when I was the pitcher, a batter hit my pitch straight at me and I automatically lifted up my arm to catch it. Everything happened so fast, but somehow the ball landed in my glove. The batter was so mad that he kicked up dirt. The dirt in the air was enough to make someone cough.
We were on a road trip looking at colleges in New York when my mom and I thought it might be a good idea to visit Hullie. We were not too far from the dilapidated city of Troy, and Hullie would be one hundred and two years old that May. If anyone would live to be one hundred and fifty we figured it would be Hullie, but we figured visiting might be a good idea just in case. The nursing home, maybe two minutes from the brick house we so missed, looked out over top of the city that, if possible, seemed even more run down. The color of the sky was grey, the buildings were grey, and grey smoke billowed from a factory below. As we entered the nursing home, the smell of old people hit us, the smell everyone dreads. The smell doesn’t carry the same significance as cuddling up in grandma’s house with the smell of vanilla and fresh baked cookies. It’s the smell of sanitized hospital rooms, over baked food, and old furniture that carries the smell of everyone that has ever sat in that chair over the years with a musty odor. We found Hullie lying in her bed, glasses askew with their fake pearl chain holding them on her face, white curly hair spread across her forehead, and knobby knuckled hands lying across her matching sweat pant outfit. She looked at us, eyes widening and crooked smile spreading across her face. Her hearing had been long gone, it had faded when she still lived in the brick house, but hearing aids seemed to allow her relatively normal hearing. It seemed silly, but the hearing aids didn’t work on hundred percent of the time so people had to shout at her. Often she didn’t catch anything anyone said, so it seemed people were having conversations with themselves.
One of Muse’s best, MOTP does a stellar job of melding their heavy Euro-rock tendencies with a fast-paced, dancehall-sounding electro. Playing this song where I can hear it is like flipping a switch. In the nanoseconds it takes for my brain to process the incoming information, I become a different, more exciting, animated person for those four minutes and eighteen seconds. When I’m listening to a truly great song, I am overflowing with energy, unable to contain myself. I become totally unaware of the people around me. The music overtakes my brain completely and for about four minutes, I don’t have anything in the world to worry about. It’s just me and the sounds in a state of mutual appreciation, totally blissful and alone. If the world as we know it was to disintegrate completely and all that got left behind was me, a decent sound system, and a sufficiently massive collection of music, I honestly don’t think I would notice. Okay, I might miss my guitar.
Best There Is: Superpowers are soooo badass, I wish I could teleport...that’s right above being able to blow stuff up with my mind and a close third is stretchy body.
We’re supposed to be like fucking superheroes or something. I’m twenty. How the hell am I supposed to be a superhero? Especially when I’m sitting here doing shit for my country. Hell, I wish I were a superhero. Then maybe I could actually do something for America. I’d take those terrorist bastards out in fourteen seconds if I could get my hands on them. Fuck protocol, fuck strategy, and fuck reality. I’m a goddamn superhero, damn it.
Best There Is: Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase Hakuna Matata! Ain't no passing craze It means no worries for the rest of your days It's our problem-free philosophy
Hell yeah I’m a Disney kid. And there’s still nothing better than Disney wisdom. Hakuna Matata? Truest thing I ever heard. Nothing better.
I thought five minutes was incredibly early, but we still had to stand in the back.Well, I sat against the wall, my legs tucked in sort of an awkward half-Indian style as to preserve some sense of dignity in my skirt while keeping the aisle unobstructed.The seats were taken up by the 2,300 other high school students tapping the toes of their western-business appropriate shoes and fidgeting with the buttons on their borrowed blazers and suit-coats.Everyone’s chest (except for my friend who staunchly defended that her outfit was “not a nametag wearing” one) was emblazoned with a laminated card declaring their name and school, and the country and committee they would be representing.Eyes darted around the room, scoping out competition.And the opposite sex.Ok, so, mostly the opposite sex.And it was disappointing.
A full pitcher of water sat in front of each of the eight people behind the dark brown dais.It seemed like a waste. My feet hurt already and it was the first hour of three whole days in heels.I poked my standing, non-nametagged friend and asked her for the time.They were late in starting.
-The tenses are kind of all over the place. I'm not sure if some parts should be in present or past tense... -I want to start more in the present time then go to the past and have some flash backs but I am not sure whether or not they're in the order that makes the most sense/is the most effective. Advice?...
This past summer I go to Bridget’s graduation party. Her father was a child of twelve, so relatives are completely scattered throughout her lawn that lies beneath the cheap tent that’s set up. Conversations between Bridget and I usually consist of her telling me that we should hang out soon—but we never do. Or one of us will say, “we should hang out in the summer every day and play outside like we used to”—but it never happens. After a few months after Kevin’s death, my dad didn’t want my sister and I calling her constantly anymore to play. He figured it was silly for us to always invite her over when she was only inviting her other friends—ones who don’t remind her or her mother of the years her brother was sick, to her house. Bridget glides out of her back door into her deep green lawn, wearing a bright yellow dress. She politely greets my family and proceeds to find her friends from school. From behind me I hear a squeal: “Sweetheart! You look beautiful!” Mrs. Neff greets me with a hug and wide smile. A few of Bridget’s aunts are clumped around her. “This is [author], Bridget’s friend.” She rests her hand on my back, tilts her head towards mind. The edges of her eyes wrinkle upwards and she gives me a gentle expression. “They grew up together.”
6. Make an egregious mistake in the culture she is based on. If your movie is based on a true story, change the facts in irrevocable ways that would seem unacceptable to anyone who understands even an inkling of the true story. Assume your audience has no such knowledge.
7. A major point of the plot should be that the attributes addressed in number 5 will cause the girl to disappoint her father.
8. Create a touching moment between father and daughter involving the girl’s dead mother. For example, have the father give his daughter some sort of trinket that belonged to her mother or have him say “she would have been very proud of you.” Under no circumstances should this be a major point in the plot, it should be a short scene that you assume your audience will not remember at the end of the movie. You will put this in the movie under a heartfelt obligation to put it in and for no other reason.
“Connecting…” It was a picture of a book I bought her when we were in middle school.It had girly-curly font on the front and she told me it sucked.It was the worst book she ever read.She still makes fun of me for it sometimes.In the message she wrote, “And the Holy grail of our friendship…”
That was a good one.I didn’t have good ones.I really wished I did.I really wished I could find that stupid bookmark with the stupid salt and peppershakers on it but I had been stupid and careless and I lost it. Now I was looking through things that I haven’t looked at since I stuffed them in the pockets I was currently pulling them out of.
I found a note she’d written on my class schedule signed with a peace sign + a heart.I took a picture and sent it, no message.
She texted back, “Damn, girl. Clean your room!”
I didn’t respond.I took a picture of a collection of post-its she’d wrote notes on to me and sent it, no message.I shook my head feeling stupid and careless. I rushed to find something else to send.
My heart pounded and my mind raced as I filed through names of famous, “interesting” people. The edges of my mouth twitched as I thought about how I wished I could meet “The Most Interesting Man In the World.” The gray-haired, bearded man whose accent is unplaceable. The man I’d seen on a television commercial. Who wouldn’t want to meet the man who “never says something tastes like chicken… not even chicken?” But I thought better of using this man, a man who was promoting dos equis beer. I thought of my first answer but I stalled a few seconds longer to try and carefully chose my next two people. No one came to me band I had observed the empty breakfast bar in the hotel lobby behind my interviewer long enough. The first person I could think of would certainly be the number one answer if I were asked this question on the family feud game show. “I would really like to meet Barack Obama,” I said.
It’s not that he enjoys torturing me in this fashion, nor that he likes basking in the radiant glow that comes off my face every time he mentions a sports team when the sweat is starting to bead off my forehead onto the piano keys. No, he merely enjoys showing me that there’s a way. Two quoted studies later (both about the impact shooting 10 free throws a day at the same time rather than 50 every five days will drastically improve your percentage with less effort) and we’re sitting on top of the elephant in the room. To categorize it as such might be a disservice to my inability (or unwillingness) to practice piano because it happens on such a frequent basis. Perhaps we are now sitting on top of the malnourished cat in the room.
We climbed onto the pitiful excuse for an island, taking turns to hold the canoe from drifting away since a ring of irregular rocks prevented us from hauling it onshore without likely sustaining several dreaded "gel-coat" scratches. The island, circular with a diameter of approximately twenty five yards housed no human occupants, though a flock of seagulls had taken residency in the islands three trees. Specs and splotches of white excrement decorated the ground and shrubbery of the island, a vague premonition of events to transpire in the near future5. The seagulls circled overhead, barking at us as we took turns trodding over their land6.
5 Read Claiming the White Forest who's events occur approximately thirteen hours after those of Conditioning. 6 Unlike the invasion of Native American lands where pioneers sought to rip gold from the bosom of the earth, we were making a deposit. They should have been happy. ----
Sunday morning.My dad ordered me outside to clear the snow.I stepped barefoot into green rubber boots with soft fur lining on the inside that sat beside the garage door.I danced on my toes swiftly, making my way toward the boots, and deftly leaped into the shoes to minimize the transfer of heat with the frigid concrete garage floor.I wiggled my toes in the empty space within.With the green plastic shaft of a snow shovel pressed against the rubber grip of my bright red nylon-shelled gloves, I stepped out of the garage and squinted, assaulted by the pure, natural light reflecting off the fresh, glittery snowfall, just as I had as a child defiantly gazing into the sun against the advice of elders, seeing the shape of the landscape and the position of the horizon in scarlet streaks during each blink.Those light patterns were more precise than my blurred vision without contacts.I spent a half hour shoveling and relocating snow until I reformed the psychedelic outlines into a channel that cars could pass through.
When I stepped back into the shade of the garage, instantly, the entire world filtered into two tones.The window emitted a red glow, while the dark corner of the garage appeared green.I kept myself from blinking to maximize the duration of the phenomenon.After slipping the boots off, I stepped back inside, and started to take off some layers of clothes.My eyes began to sting.The entire room shifted slowly from red to green.A cloud must have shaded the sun.I walked into the family room, looking at the emerald piano in front of the large, ruby windows, forming a gradient of colors that blurred the outline of the piano.My eyes were bitterly dry by the time I stepped into the dark green basement.I blinked a few times, and the dichromatic world faded into the full spectrum.The two colors were divorced.
On the desk sits my Hewlett-Packard Laptop, a stack of Bass Player magazines, a Burton snowboard catalog, a porcelain piggy bank in the shape of a small immigrant boy given to me by my great-grandfather, a miniature basketball hoop, three pieces of Cleveland Indians memorabilia, not to mention the odd trinkets that don’t belong in my room, period.This would include the glass dolphin with chameleon eyes and filled with water, the glass elephant filled with wood chips, and the dancing cactus.Especially the dancing cactus.This toy cactus wears a purple and orange sombrero, aviator sunglasses, and has orange feet.When poked, the cactus gyrates back and forth while singing, “I am a cactus!I am a cactus!I like nothing very much! I am a cactus!I am a cactus!HAHA!Be careful if you touch!” in a hopelessly poor recreation of an Hispanic accent.Why this cactus is the centerpiece of my desk is a good and slightly disturbing question, but, nevertheless, there it sits, exerting its dominion over the wood chip elephant, chameleon/dolphin, and immigrant boy.
We almost die in a median strip in rural Indiana, less than an hour away from Chicago. Not a single cloud disturbs the sky. The sun’s free to torment me. I bring my hands to my head, searching for feeling. To know I’m still alive could prove relieving. My left hand hurts. I’ve registered pain. Cool, but fuck. Orientation’s gone, and I’m not comfortable with anything. Everything? Nothing. Not a thing. And Brueghel’s farmer continues to plow.
Halloween brings out the craziness in everyone, especially kids. First, a kid has to decide what they’re going to dress up as. This is the day that they can transform into a growling, eye patch wearing pirate, drive the Batmobile, or be the princess waiting for their knight in shining armor. To read Pippi Longstocking and have a day dedicated to putting pipe cleaners in braided pigtails, twisting them until they stick out from each side of your head is something kids count on. Halloween can’t be beat. A day to escape school, escape normality, it’s a day to venture into imaginary worlds. Just to put a little sugar on top, literally, kids get boatloads of candy. Plastic bags filled to the brim with chocolate and sugar, or in my case a pillow case full (it allows for a lot more candy). House to house kids walk in bunches with their parents dragging their feet behind them. The kids are running down the driveways, pushing and shoving to get to the neighbors’ front door first. The October nights are usually brisk but the kids don’t even feel their cheeks getting pinker and pinker by the minute. All that matters is shouting “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat.” Of course, when the hours set by the community for trick or treating are up, the old people, relieved that the young balls of energy are tucked away in their homes, go to bed exhausted to have stayed up past nine thirty. The kids, however, have their work cut out for them. The groups of friends go back a house, dump their treats on the tan carpeting and begin the business deals. Reese’s cups are high priority, along with Kit Kats and M&Ms, but the Almond Joys are low on the wish list. The trading begins, with ten year olds haggling over their favorites, with brows furrowed in concentration, stopping to debate the offers thrown their way. The joys of Halloween continue to amaze kids throughout the years.
Taking my first step outside of the bus, my eyes immediately stung from the glare of the sun. The scorching 110-degree weather made the air feel like a thick quilt, with humidity heavy enough to sweat for me. Nonetheless, we had made it. After a grueling two-hour bus ride, my group had finally arrived in Suzhou, a popular art city in China. As we gathered outside of the bus, our program director announced, “We will now be entering the ‘Venice of China.’” I saw a canal- 100 meters long at most- with crowds of people standing beside it, anxiously waiting for their turn to take a boat ride. After seeing this, I walked further down the canal and found that either side of it was packed with vibrantly colored souvenir shops, selling anything from traditional Chinese fans to painted caricatures of President Obama. This was clearly a tourist attraction, and while it was very appealing to the eye, I had the urge to explore the genuine village outside of it. I made my way down an alley between two of the souvenir shops and then around a large wall along the main road. I exited the canal area, and I was astonished. The village was living in devastating poverty. The people lived in crammed, run-down shacks, constructed of garbage, mud, and scrap wood. These homes were lined up along a dirt road, with no running water and scarcely found electricity. This sudden transition was nothing short of shocking. I had walked no more than a few minutes outside of the thriving, energetic tourist attraction, and saw the polar opposite: over-populated, crowded shacks in extremely poor conditions.
...Frankly, I didn't like this piece all that much. Too disorganized. Ah, whatever.
The campers are somewhere in the middle of a 25-day canoeing expedition down the Riviere de Rupert, which begins at Lac Mistassini and ends in the Baie de Rupert, which empties into James Bay, and indirectly, the Hudson Bay. The Rupert is a businesslike river. It moves very quickly and doesn’t bother with complicated meanders or sharp turns, flowing nearly straight westward. It has gained fame for having some of the most deadly and intimidating sets of rapids in the world. The campers, of course, portage around these most dangerous sets, balancing their canoes on their heads and trudging over rain-slick rocks and roots. Getting around the sets can be a commitment of two miles or more and the overland hiking is especially exhausting. Before seeking refuge from the storm, the campers had just completed a particularly arduous portage around the last of four sets of rapids. It was around these rapids that the sheer power of the Rupert came into view for them. The sets dominate the senses so completely that it is impossible to focus on anything but not falling in. Whitewater akin to what is found on the Rupert is the stuff of legends—the kind of water that will grab hold of travelers and never let them go. It inspires terror, and yet, the campers have ridden 18 hours in a van just to get as close to the river as they can, and maybe “shoot” some of them—they say “shoot” because it’s easier to say than “barely maintain control of the boat while hurtling down the set at unhealthy speeds”—if they can manage it.
But first she has to show me a picture of her brand new puppy, which she actually showed me the last time I watched her pacemaker procedure. She loves to talk, which is surprising since her profession doesn’t exactly require people skills. Donna whips her phone out of her back pocket. The puppy is a cocka-poo, which is about the size of a beanie baby and looks like a little ball of golden fluff.
“Isn’t she adorable? Her name is Cosette; my husband and I named her after a character from Les Miserables, our favorite book.”
She smiles triumphantly and slides the phone back into her pocket. Now she is ready to begin.
Dr. Waite begins the incision into the patient’s pale skin. Each cut is delicate, as she pauses before making her next move. My stomach tightens and I glance over at Nate and ask him if he thinks it’s gross so far. He just shrugs his shoulders, as he’s seen it all before. After Dr. Waite slices the patient’s chest open, she goes on about the puppy:
“…and as soon as I held him it was love at first sight. But my husband will be the type that will tell our little darling ‘Well, I would let you do this, but mommy said no…’ We’ve figured out a schedule for when to walk the dogs. He will in the mornings, and…”
“It's easier to make eye contact with people who don't intimidate you vs. people who do. Like most people, I get more flustered looking an attractive or high-status person in the eye compared to chatting to my parents or my friends. You could tell yourself that it's okay if you can't make eye contact with more intimidating people right off the bat, and that you'll work on that later.”
In about third grade I started to make a sincere effort to look my teachers in the eye, mainly, my math teacher.She didn’t like me.She told my mom that I never looked her in the eye and that it was rude.Her, with her big magnifying lenses that made her eyes look abnormally large for her wrinkly head, and with her dull red scraggly hair with the grey just pushing out in chunks from her scalp, clumping like balls of string to the sides of her face.Sometimes she wore lipstick that went above her lips and I’d watch them move when she yelled at me for not looking at her.
My mom said it was easy, look people right between the eyes, at that patch of skin above the bridge of their nose and below the forehead.
I tried, I honestly did, but it was hard when I had been in the habit of turning my desk sideways so it was facing the wall instead of the board. She yelled at me for that too.I didn’t really see anything wrong with it.
The purpose of this message is to evaluate your recent performance in the workplace.
Sanford, I am unimpressed with how you’ve been performing. When you bag groceries, you tend to help a customer who already has someone bagging for them instead of helping a customer who doesn’t have one. This is not okay, especially because you like to chat with the bagger you’re helping. I would like to remind you of the rule we have about bagging: there should be no conversation going on between you and a cashier and/or bagger unless it involves the customer. This is so the customer doesn’t feel left out. I also heard about the incident that involved you sleeping in a motorized shopping cart while on the clock. It was an embarrassment to the store when a customer who needed the cart found you in it. This is something that should never happen again. You must be working at all times during your shift, and if you finish one task you must find another. Laziness is frowned upon and can quickly lead to termination of your employment. Please take some time before you go to work again to think about how you can improve as a professional.
“WOAH!” I tend to scream or yell when I see him make one of his “LeBron plays.” I turn back to my dad who is usually sleeping at this point to see if his eyes were open. “Did you see that!?” This time he was watching. “Yeaah, it was a ‘LeBron play’” he says calmy. He does his best impersonation of Austin Carr, “The L-Train THROOOOWS the Hamma Down” of course I wouln’t forget the goofy laugh.
The noise died and a soft breeze picked up, flinging the sand of the desert and the dirt of the trees into the air, creating tiny imperfections in the white light streaming down from the sun, causing the green light on the forest floor to twinkle quietly until the wind had moved on and the dust had settled back down. The prickly pear continued to grow and the world refused to listen.
Maybe that night they talked to each other as young ladies hung on their arms, giggling, batting their eyelashes. He gave the girl in the yellow dress his number and told her which run-down hotel he was staying in but knew that really, it wasn’t her he was telling the room number to. And the next day, when he had that satisfied smirk on his face, he let his friends talk about that pretty brunette he must have nailed that night.
Still, it was too late, I shouldn’t have left. It doesn’t matter.In my glass and metal box I am invincible.Untouchable.Careening down the road, I am safe. Careening through the universe, your axis on a tilt, you’re guiltless and free.I am not.If I had an axis, it would be straight up and down.Predictable.But I do like that song.Maybe I’ll listen to it next. Shit, what’s it called? The road disappears as I near the top of a hill. The day’s mid-July heat is long gone and a spectral mist hovers above the street.
The girl shuts her eyes tight and tilts her head toward the sky. She breathes in and snaps her eyes open, focusing to make sure she can tell which star is the first star she sees tonight. She watches it until she can no longer tell if it is actually there or if she only wants to believe it is there. And she wishes.
But how could stars grant wishes? They do not understand their own mystery. They do not know enough to grant wishes and they can only guess what she is wishing for tonight. They know what it is. But they have learned from watching the world what it is to be too afraid to say what is truest. And so they will never know.
hunk! One sandaled foot plants itself firmly on the patio. Thunk! Two sandaled feet planted firmly on the patio. Who da man?! I da man. I shrug my shirt to realign my long-sleeved shirt. Yeah, its 90 degrees out. Yeah, I’m wearing a long-sleeved shirt. I wish I had a ring on the end of my car keys. So I could twirl them impetuously. I twirl the car keys impetuously on my chain, in my head. My shorts, if one had to give them a name (hint: they need none) would be best described as Bermuda-“Esque”. They draw attention to me like a violently yellow male handbag does to a man. A man in a mall. I am not a man in a mall, I am a man on a mission. It was handed to me via “text” “message”. Move the car to the garage she said. Move the VW to the garage, she said. Move that Stick Shift to the garage, she said. I said “yeah, sure, no problem.” It’s all in a days work, taking out the trash, doing the dishes, vacuuming, and yeah, moving the car. I approach the car. That's my car. My mode of transportation. My Bitch. I click the unlock button. Twice. That opens the entire car, even though I only need the driver side door open. I get in the car and switch on the stereo. I have my iPod in one pocket of my checkered shorts. I pull it out. I put on the song for driving. (Strum Strum Strum Strum Strum Strum Strum LISTEN ALL OF Y’ALL THIS IS SABOTAAAAAAAAAAGE Strum Strum Strum Strum Strum Strum Strum.) I put on sunglasses. Armani sunglasses. I glance down the length of the driveway. Maureen is taking out the trash and she glances over across the strip of asphalt separating our houses and the expanse of grey concrete that is our driveway. I click the little button at the top of my key that pops the key out of its holding socket and brandish it like a miniature saber. I stick the key into the ignition with a satisfying “slick” and turn the key. My car purrs to life. It purrs to life like a giant cat. A giant cat with attitude. Maureen looks across the strip of asphalt that is our street. She looks across the expanse of concrete that is our driveway. She looks at me. She looks at me because I’m revving this engine like its my job. If this were 11pm at night, the old people to my left would have totally woken up. I gently back the car in a fierce curve to make it face the garage. The right garage. The garage for smaller cars, because the Honda odyssey is in the left garage. The garage for big cars. I’m facing the garage and I adjust my sunglasses to better catch the glare. I look to my left and my right. Like I need to. Theres a red fischer price ridey mobile insolently pointed towards me. I rev the engine again. I shift the car into first gear. This is kind of like my crowning moment of awesome. You know, when a character so defines himself that he will be forever remembered for this. Yeah. This is it.
