Type Faster

My name is R. Jurjevics, and I'm one of those writer-people. var sc_project=6569061; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_security="9d34a5c9"; var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-10053794-2']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

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PROMPT FIC: KENTUCKY - BOY GEORGE - CATHARSIS

Photo by Tyler

As soon as the plane touched down, Effie felt her heart sink. The woman next to her, an energetic senior with a drawl and bright orange lipstick, shifted in her sleep; forty minutes of solid jabber into the flight and she'd finally knocked out, much to Effie's relief. There was only so much a person should reasonably be expected to take, she thought, and her plate was full. No room could be made for pictures of a stranger's grandchild and a full review of low-toxicity crabgrass killers. Effie didn't even have a lawn.

The jet spent a few motionless moments on the tarmac before taxing slowly to the gate, during which time Effie checked her mobile phone to see if it had service (it did not), if she had lost her watch (she hadn't), and if the idea that she'd moved halfway across her own universe in the space of a few hours had managed to sink in (the jury remained out). Along with what seemed like hundreds of hairy-legged men in wraparounds and pastel polos (commuters of some sort, Effie supposed), Effie squeezed down the isle with her backpack and retrieved her bags from the carousel. She was wrestling with the retractable handle on her suitcase when she heard a loud cry and then her name, followed by the click-shuffle of her grandma June's low heels on the linoleum floor. June dressed for such occasions--trips to the airport, an important church meeting, or, inexplicably, a long drive--and, when she bearhugged Effie with every ounce of strength her small body could produce, Effie noticed she'd clipped on her good Chanel earrings. 

"Welcome to Kentucky!" Grandpa Kim, who had come up behind them, said, and clapped Effie on the shoulder.

"Thank you." Effie allowed her grandfather to take the suitcase and backpack from her, and they all made their way to the car. 

The air outside the airport was blisteringly hot and dry, and Effie was sticky with sweat in moments. She wondered, as Grandpa Kim took them down the scenic route, Grandma June narrating each significant landmark without stopping, if there would be a place to swim--a lake, maybe. But she couldn't imagine a natural body of water able to survive such heat, and Grandma June found above-ground pools tacky. Effie supposed she might just have to float in the bathtub.

For the first few days after her arrival, Grandma June and Grandpa Kim left Effie to her own devices. The house was big enough for them to give her a wide berth, which, thankfully, they did.

They were also good enough not to bring up the reason for Effie's visit; her father was, at any possible moment, unconscious in an operating theatre as a team of grudgingly optimistic doctors cut out the second large tumor from his right lung. After much discussion, it was decided (largely by Effie's stepmother) that Effie should stay with her grandparents while her dad underwent surgery. The country would be good for her, her father agreed. “Wandering around in all that nature,” he said. “It’ll be nice, relaxing. You could even start running again. You know, for catharsis.” It didn't matter that Kentucky was boring, that Effie was without a driver's license, and the fact that she hadn’t a friend in all of the south. Her fate had been decided.

She had been there almost a week when Grandma June poked her head into the guest bedroom and asked if she’d like any breakfast.

“I’m all right, thanks.” Effie rubbed her eyes. The sun was bright through the window.

“Just a bowl of cereal?” 

Grandma June looked so earnest that Effie couldn’t refuse. “Okay,” she said. “Just let me get dressed.”

Groaning to herself, Effie pulled on an old pair of shorts and her favorite shirt, a Boy George concert tee her best friend, Greg, had given her last year. The shirt was worn to perfection, thin and soft with a few small holes at the collar. She raked a travel comb through her hair and headed for the kitchen.

Her grandmother had already set out a bowl of shredded wheat when Effie joined her and Grandpa Kim at the table. Smiling, June handed her a carafe of milk. “Nice to see you,” she said. “Kim, say hi to your granddaughter, please.”

Grandpa Kim looked up at Effie from over his newspaper. He smiled thinly at her, and then sobered.

"Is that a man?" he asked gruffly. “On your shirt?”

Effie looked down. Boy George, hat dipping low over one eye, pouted slightly in the direction of Grandpa Kim.

“Yes, grandpa.”

"Huh." Kim studied the shirt, and scratched at a small patch of shaving rash on his cheek. "He looks like a clown," he said. "A girl clown.”

“It’s just makeup.”

“On a man?”

“Sure.” Effie shrugged. “Why not?”

Grandpa Kim shook his head. “Ridiculous.”

Effie said nothing. Men in makeup was about the least ridiculous thing she could think of at that moment. Heart disease, now that was ridiculous. Shredded wheat was ridiculous, too. She pushed the bowl aside, slowly enough so that her grandmother wouldn’t notice. The whole of Kentucky was ridiculous. Being a teenager was as well. Effie twisted in her seat to get a look at the entirety of the kitchen. Grandma June’s cow-shaped butter dish was ridiculous; Grandpa Kim’s golf club covers, the framed “home sweet home” needlepoint hanging over the doorway, the milk dribbling down Grandpa Kim’s chin… It all looked so completely silly to Effie that she couldn’t help but laugh, the sound breaking the silence of the breakfast table. Her grandparents snapped to attention, watching as Effie giggled into her hands.

“What is it, honey?”

But Effie didn’t answer. Her laughter was coming out in sob-like barks, and she jumped from the table, cackling madly.

If anything was truly ridiculous, it was going to be her.

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PROMPT FIC: MARS, MADONNA, MUSHROOMS

Photo by Reclaimed Home

“You know,” Clay said. “You know when…”

He stopped, looking off into the distance. I could see he was nervous; it was there on his face which, instead of all toothy grin and bright eyes, was pinched and drawn. “Having a think,” as Dad would have said. Clay turned and I could see Grandmother’s cheekbones, Dad’s wide nose, Mom’s dusting of freckles, right there in front of me. He looked like all and none of us at the same time.

It was getting dark out, and the street lamps had come on, glowing a dull orange. Clay was dressed in his usual athletic shorts and muscle shirt, long, ropy arms constantly in motion. He dribbled a basketball and it made a sound every time it hit the concrete - ping, ping, ping, ping. I liked the noise, especially in contrast to Clay’s antsy silence, an unusual thing for a smart-ass kid with a motormouth. Clay always had a ball with him that year, the advice of a coach or some show on ESPN or a book our cousin Ron had loaned him—one of the three. I think he might have even slept with it but I wasn’t certain.

“You know when what?” I asked.

Clay looked at me oddly, as though he hadn’t spoken. “Oh, I dunno. Nothing, really.” He tossed the ball idly from hand to hand.

“Come on and sit down,” I said. 

He shot me a look I couldn’t read. He’d changed since I’d been gone, and I wondered if he was angry at me for leaving. I hadn’t gone far, really, just to Philly, but in hindsight I may as well have moved to the other side of the world. Working at the children’s hospital had been my dream job, though, and Clay had been so involved with sports and friends and learning to drive that I didn’t think he’d have even noticed. 

“Come sit,” I repeated. He sat, propping the basketball on his knees. His shoulders were higher than mine, and I realized he’d grown—again. There’d been a time when I could hold a cookie high above his head and watch him jump for it, shrieking, before I’d finally relent and let him snatch it from my hand. Those days were over and then some.

“What if,” Clay said, holding his ball out to inspect it, “what if this basketball was a ghost. Or like there was some dude all up in here. A genie in a bottle and shit.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just listen, Cass! What if this ball was from Mars or wherever, like a big faraway planet or something? What if one day when I made a three pointer or dunked on a huge dude, the genie jumped out all Aladdin style?” Clay lowered his voice, speaking from his chest. “I am here to grant you three wishes.”

“I don’t think genies live in basketballs,” I said.

“But what if they did?”

“Okay, what if?”

“Then I’d get three wishes.” Clay hugged the ball, grinning. “I’d be all, ‘dang, three wishes! That’s kind of a lot, Mister Genie.’”

I hadn’t thought of it. “I guess that is a lot of wishes for one person.”

“Yeah,” Clay said, “but I’d use ‘em.”

“For what?”

“For…” he paused, thinking. “Okay, first one is for Dad to forget how to make that fucking mushroom pastrami… What is it, casserole? Whatever that shit is. It’s nasty!”

“Agreed,” I said. “What else?”

“Second one is… Mmmm, a Lamborghini.”

“A car? Really?”

“Yeah, really. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t want to drive around with me, cruising on down Myrtle Avenue.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “You wouldn’t want to bring that thing anywhere NEAR Myrtle Avenue.”

Clay grinned, nodding.

“Okay, last one,” I said. “Final wish.”

“Hm. Oh, oh. Me. A swank-ass hotel room, and Madonna. One night only.”

“Madonna?” I nearly fell off the stoop.

“Hell yeah, Madonna!” Clay’s voice cracked in the middle, and he cleared his throat. “She was fine back before all that Kabbalah shit. Cone bras and “Like a Virgin.” You remember that song?”

“Of course I remember that song. Everyone remembers that song.”

Clay tried to twirl the basketball on his finger, and winced. “Ow. Yeah, that song was like… I don’t know.”

“Epic?” I supplied.

“Epic?” Clay snickered behind his hand. “Damn, Cass, look at you with your internet words. Trying to be all cool.”

“Excuse me, but I am cool. I was cool back before you knew what cool even was.”

“I always knew what cool was,” Clay said. He smirked at me, that same old smile, and I pulled the top of his ear for old time’s sake, resurrecting our decade-long game.

“That’s ten points,” I said.

“No way, you—”

I shook my head at him, cocking an eyebrow. “Ten points.”

Clay looked like he was about to protest—mouth open, body tense— but broke off, waving me away. “Aw, shit,” he said, grinning despite himself. “Ten motherfucking points.”

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BABY - SEATTLE SPACE NEEDLE - BUNNIES

Photo by Tanya

“Do you remember The Experience Log?” Uncle Kirby asked.

He turned to Nula, eyes as pale blue as they’d ever been. It surprised Nula how unchanged he was, how she’d driven up to the house in her rental car to find him mowing the lawn in his cutoffs, as though she’d just gone around the corner for some milk and not come back for fifteen years. Nula did some quick math; Kirby would be about eighty-five, but didn’t look a day over sixty.

“Of course,” Nula said. “How could I forget that?”

The Experience Log had been her uncle’s (somewhat successful) attempt to rid her of some of her childhood phobias—of which there were a considerable amount. When she was around ten years old, Nula had confessed to Uncle Kirby that she was deathly afraid of spiders. He was the kind of person one could tell that sort of information to and not worry about receiving an earful of terrible advice. Uncle Kirby didn’t go in for lecturing—or nudging, nagging, or cajoling, either. “You’ll do it or you won’t” was his philosophy, but he always asked good questions, the kind that made a person stop and really think. It was motivation—reason, really—that interested Kirby most.

“Is it their legs that frighten you?” He asked Nula then. “The way they move? Or maybe the threat of venom?”

Nula had not had an answer, so Kirby moved on: were there any spiders she was not afraid of? No. Had she ever been harmed by a spider? Once—a bite on the hand that puffed up and hurt and oozed before her father drained and dressed it. Did she want to be afraid of spiders? No, but what choice did she have?

“Aha!” said Kirby. “Choice! That, kid, is exactly what you have. Allow me to introduce to you the Experience Log.”

The log was more of a list, really, one that Kirby drew up on a notepad stamped with the logo for an auto parts company. Kirby had Nula rattle off what scared her the most—spiders, heights, flying, doctors, and being home alone at night—and he jotted them all down in a row. Then, under spiders, he wrote, “touch a tarantula.”

“Wait, no!” Nula protested. “That’s an awful idea.”

“Hang on.” Kirby skipped a few lines down. “Hold a daddy long legs?” He looked over at Nula for approval.

“Okay,” Nula agreed hesitantly. “Yeah. I think I can do that one.”

“What did we get up to?” Kirby asked, pulling Nula back to the present. They were sitting side-by-side in Kirby’s pickup truck, the same one he’d had since his old Dodge died when Nula was in middle school.

“Um, heights, I think,” Nula said.

“Heights,” Kirby murmured. “Heights, heights.” He rested his big hands on the steering wheel in front of him, even though the truck was parked. Nula’s mother, his sister, did this, too; “phantom driving” they called it, as a joke. 

“Oh, and doctors,” Nula added. “I’m not terrified of doctors anymore. But that just kind of happened.”

“Nothing just kind of happens,” said Kirby. “Remember the scientific questions?”

Nula did. “What happened and why did it happen.”

Kirby smiled. “Good! So, why did it happen?”

“Well…” Nula trailed off. “Exposure, I guess? Experience.” 

“Experience.”

“Yes. And observation, too. When my son was born, I thought I was going to just completely lose it. That I’d be useless to Arielle, wouldn’t be able to hold her hand or do anything helpful while she was in labor. And that Dylan himself would be this screaming mess of goo and I don’t even know what. But the OB was just great. There were no horrible surprises, really.”

“An honest doctor. Imagine that!”

“Uh-huh.”

“And at the end, you got a baby out of the deal.”

“I did!” said Nula.  “A wonderful baby.”

Nula suspected that all new parents thought their babies were wonderful—either that or terrible, that the whole thing was a bad idea, rewind tape—but nonetheless, she was convinced Dylan was exceptional. He smelled good. His wails were as loud as hell, which meant his lungs were good, too. There were his fingers—long—and his eyes—dark. He could already move his nose, like a little bunny. That’s what they called him: Bunny. It fit almost instantly, and without announcement; Nula and Arielle found themselves flooded with rabbit-themed toys and books and clothing, as though everyone knew. A sign, Arielle claimed. Nula humored her, even half believed it herself because really, why not?

Why the hell not? Her uncle’s own phrase, etched in her mind. Why the hell not?

In the pickup, Kirby reached forward and turned the ignition key. “It’s your last day here, kid,” he said to Nula. “What would you like to do?”

“Hmm…” Nula thought a moment. “You said we were on heights?”

“Eh?”

“The Experience Log. We were on heights.”

“Oh! Oh, yes. We were. The easiest was to climb my eighty-foot roofing ladder.”

“And the hardest?” Nula asked.

“Go to the top of the space needle.”

“Isn’t that in Seattle?”

“It is indeed.”

“But we’re in Connecticut.”

“Right.” Uncle Kirby considered this a moment, then grinned. He pulled his sunglasses from the cup holder and slid them on, turning the key in the truck’s ignition. “To the ladder, then!” he cried.

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PROMPT FICTION: Samantha, Minsk, Potato

Photo by Gudmunder D. Haraldsson

“Whose idea was this?” Samantha asked. She was shaking her legs a bit, even though Amiel had asked her, quietly, to please stop, it was making him seasick. But it’s cold, she’d told him. I’m trying to stay warm. This was a lie; Amiel knew it, but kept his mouth shut. Samantha wasn’t cold. Samantha was never cold, it seemed. It was some kind of miracle, Amiel thought, that they both hadn’t frozen to death. 

“Um, yours, I think,” he said. 

Samantha looked at him darkly. “Right. Yes, Ami. I said, ‘let’s take a fucking train with no heat or vegetarian food around the coldest place in the known universe. Without cell phone service.’ Of course. Of course I would say that.”

“I think Antarctica is colder than here,” Amiel said. 

“That is so not the point.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Look, I’m freezing, too. I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”

Samantha said nothing in reply, but rested her head against the back of her seat. She and Amiel had managed to park themselves in their train car’s only suite-seater, a table between them, the latter of which served as a dumping ground for their (useless) electronics. Not only was there no cell reception, but there appeared to be no outlets, either. Amiel’s netbook was dead, and Samantha was attempting to save the remaining 19% of her iPad battery to Skype her ex-boyfriend, Bryan. Why this was so important Amiel didn’t know; he’d hated Bryan, and was secretly happy when they had split. At least he wouldn’t have to marry into the family that way.

Amiel busied himself by reviewing his pages and pages of notes. Some of them were neat, composed in the relative sanctuary of (cheap) hotel rooms, and others barely legible, having been written (literally) in the field with near-frostbitten hands. They were in a mixture of Belarussian and English, Cyrillic overtaking the Roman alphabet and vice versa, a few sketches of farming equipment thrown in here and there.

When he’d first received his assignment, Amiel was less than enthused. Potato farmers in Belarus? Was that even a story, he wondered. But, as the fresh blood at the paper — and the only one with any knowledge of Russian languages — he knew he couldn’t object. Plus, the travel stipend was considerable, enough so that he could convince Samantha to come with him as the assigned photographer. His boss liked her, had even taken Amiel aside to get his “permission” to ask her out. 

“You’re not a thing, are you?” Ed had asked.

“No. Definitely not. Ugh. She’s my cousin.”

“Never stopped the British royalty,” Ed pointed out. 

“They also eat a dessert called Spotted Dick,” Amiel replied.

 “Touche.”

But the trip was coming apart, fast. After interviewing the last round of farmers, who told Amiel harrowing stories of corrupt goings-on in the vodka trade and bared their gummy smiles for Samantha’s camera, the two had decided to take a detour. A scenic jaunt through Minsk, why the hell not? The tickets were cheap, and they would end up across the Russian border at the end. In a week, they were due to fly from Moscow back to Chicago. Samantha had booked a shoot with Revlon, and Amiel needed to get cracking on his story. 

“Hey,” Amiel said, uncurling himself from his chair. Something had jogged his memory. “I forgot…” He grabbed his backpack from the floor and fished around inside it. “Look.”

He thrust a plastic baggie at Samantha. She took it from him, opened it, and pulled out its contents: a raw potato, intricately carved to reveal a woman’s profile.

“My god!” Samantha put a gloved hand to her mouth. “Is that me?”

“Yes.”

“It’s amazing.” She turned the potato over in her hands. The likeness was unmistakable. “From the guy in the plaid hat?”

“Amos? Yes. He said, ‘give it to your flower of a cousin.’”

“Wow.” Samantha looked from the carving to the window. An icy landscape was passing them by, a blur of white punctuated every now and then by a clot of fir trees.

“You know,” she said slowly. “I think I might like this country after all.”

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PROMPT FICTION: itsy-bitsy teeny-weenie yellow polka-dot bikini, sunflower, chocolate milk dairy farm

Photo by Lammyman

There had been a time when Velma had regarded herself as somewhat of an intellectual. Her father took a picture of her once with his Voigtlander, a simple, chrome-and-black-bodied camera that had captured Velma just as she tilted her head toward the sky in contemplation. In the photo, her eyes appeared large and soulful under long, dark lashes. The light was perfect, diffuse enough to make her look a bit ethereal—and, she thought, almost pretty. Like someone she would want to know.

But there had been a series of things that made Velma put such thoughts away, like so many clothes into a steamer trunk: immigration, manual labor, the birth of her wholly American daughter, the descent of her marriage into lovelessness (though she’d known this long ago—who was she kidding?), and old age. None of these things touched the girl in that photograph. She was blissfully unaware, unfettered in comparison, yet Velma could not hate her old self. No, perhaps she adored that girl more, the girl that was her-not-her.

Velma had named her daughter Katharine, after Katharine Hepburn, but the girl had shirked the name just as soon as she could. Everyone called her Kitty, and Kitty was everything Velma was not. She had her father’s sweet, upturned nose, hair with a curl. She put gloss on her pouty lips and read fashion magazines in the living room, her legs crossed like a proper young lady. She had no bowed knees, or receding gums due to lack of vitamin C. She’d never seen the wrong end of an SVT-40 (or the right one, for that matter), opened a tin of evaporated milk with a rock and a nail, or had to travel for any length of time in steerage. 

The fact of this pleased Velma, but also baffled her. The things that Kitty knew and did not know were astounding in contrast to her own experience. So when Kitty grew older and, eventually, married the tall, dark stranger her her Cosmopolitan quizzes always pointed her to, Velma was relieved. Finally, she and her daughter would have something grounding to talk about.

Kitty, however, had other ideas. She and her husband, Steven, who was from a place called Manitowac, Wisconsin, were sick of the city, and announced soon after their wedding that they had purchased 12 acres of land and a full, working dairy farm, and were moving the day after their honeymoon. The farm was special because it generated only chocolate milk, mixing it in huge silo vats—“fresh from the source!” This seemed particularly exciting to the young couple. Oh, and they were pregnant— that’s how Kitty had put it: “we’re pregnant!” Velma, still recovering from the bellinis she’d consumed during a bewildering brunch with Steven’s parents, merely nodded and smiled. And off they went.

The farm was gorgeous. Velma could tell from the photos Kitty sent her, and when she visited, she marveled at the huge house, the miles of land, and how happy her daughter looked. Hair in a ponytail, clad in jeans and boots and Steven’s red hunting jacket, Kitty beamed as she shoveled cow manure, cleaned the milkers, and helped Steven cook up huge breakfasts and dinners. 

And Elise, her granddaughter, stopped Velma’s heart. Little Elise, hair as white and fine as cornsilk, the liveliest baby that ever lived. Velma was enchanted with her, carrying her onto the porch to sit in the hammock and sing the same songs she’d taught Kitty as a tiny girl. Elise clapped her tiny hands together, laughing and laughing into the neckline of Velma’s sweater. “You two are a pair!” Kitty would say, handing Velma a mug of camomile tea. Elise got a sippy cup of milk with just a dash of the farm’s famous chocolate.

The years began to blend together for Velma then. There were doctor’s appointments and retirement parties, the same meals made and eaten and cleaned up after. Velma found it was hard to keep track of the time, of years passing, until the loss of her husband. Then, it seemed, everything stopped and began again.

Velma went to see Kitty after Edvard died, flew back with her on the plane after the modest funeral service. Steven met them at the airport and drove them out to the farm. He chattered merrily, as was his way; Elise was doing well in school and would be starting 9th grade in the fall. It was the middle of summer, then, and hot, so hot that they drove with the air conditioner on full blast and all the windows down.

When they got to the farmhouse, Velma emerged from the car a bit dizzy. She leaned heavily on one of the Adirondack chairs Steven had placed in the front yard, taking a moment to gather herself. As she did so, the porch door banged, and out came Elise. Velma’s breath caught, for the girl was clad in nothing more than a pair of cut-off dungaree shorts and the smallest, brightest bikini top she’d ever seen in her life. It was as yellow as a sunflower, and patterned with bold, green dots, an assault of color to Velma, who was used to muted grays and browns. Velma didn’t know what to think.

A breeze kicked up, one that rustled the leaves of the huge sycamore tree high above them. Velma watched as her granddaughter lifted her head and tilted her chin to the heavens to catch the sun on her face. In an instant, Velma felt herself transported across time and space, oceans and mountains, without moving an inch. There was that girl again, that bold, smart girl, right in front of her. Elise, her treasure, her little one. Her very own her-not-her. And this time, Velma knew, this girl would get it just right.

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PROMPT FICTION: Nun, burlesque, peanut butter

Photo by Podnox/Wapster

“I’m nervous about this,” Maddy said. She looked it, too; her forehead was creased in the center, just like our father’s, and she’d chewed her way around the rim of the red plastic cup on her vanity counter.

“Why?” I asked—a stupid question. Yet that’s how it was with Maddy. If you didn’t ask the obvious, you’d never get an answer. At all.

Still, she glared at me over her mascara wand. “Seriously, Simon?”

I shrugged.

“Ugh.” Maddy fluttered her eyelids, which were thick with false lashes at the ends, and surveyed her reflection in the vanity mirror. “This is the first time I’ll have seen Mom since, well, you know.”

I did know. At first we’d been shocked at the news, once the laughing had stopped. Then, on the back porch, passing a joint between us, Maddy and I figured she was serious. 

“I wonder if she’s having a late-life crisis,” I wondered aloud.

“Maybe.” Maddy dragged on the joint. “Do you think she’ll make us call her—” She choked, smoke jetting from her mouth. “—Sister Bridgette?”

But, sitting there on the couch in that dressing room, which was finally and thankfully empty, neither of us were laughing. Maddy did a final swipe with her mascara wand, sighed, and sat down heavily next to me.

“Remember that time,” she said in a wistful voice, “that I ripped up your favorite Ricky Henderson baseball card and you put gum in my hair to get back at me?”

“Of course,” I said, without hesitation. “I didn’t forgive you for like a year.”

“I know, but that’s not the point. Do you remember when I went crying to Mom, all afraid she’d have to cut all my hair off or shave my head or something?”

I shook my head. “Not really.”

“Well, I did. And you know what? Mom didn’t even flinch. She just sat me down at the kitchen counter, went into the cabinet, and got out a huge jar of peanut butter, that big Costco kind Grams used to bring us.”

“I remember those.”

“Yeah.” Maddy picked at a loose sequin on her garter. “And she just lathered my head with it. For over an hour. Would you believe she got all that gum out, no problem?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “It was a miracle, and took fucking forever. She never complained, not once. So I guess if anyone’s going to be a nun, it’s Mom.”

A knock came at the door, and a short fellow with a pencil mustache stuck his head into the room.

“You’re on in 5, Daisy Fluke,” he said to Maddy. “And Charlie told me to tell you your mother’s here. Middle row, aisle seat.”

Maddy waved in thanks, gathered her skirt, and stood. “See you after, Simon.” she said. “I can’t believe Mom agreed to come to this.”

“I know.” I gave Maddy our old good-luck signal, the Scout Sign behind an A-OK.’ “Break a leg. Imagine the audience in their underwear—except for Mom. I mean, duh. And hey, you know, she’s always been pretty cool, so I bet she still is. For a nun.”

Maddy smiled, weakly. “Forget nun,” she said. “Try saint!”

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Small Victories

If you're like me, your writing is both work and fun. And when the typing-for-pay (or for what you hope is *eventual* pay) becomes a slog, a race to the next step or phase or revision or rejection, facing the computer/notebook/manuscript (and yourself) can feel like... Well, failure. Or at least a marked lack of success.

To combat this, I've embarked upon an experiment: flash fiction. To keep a loose structure to it, I've been soliciting three prompts for each - a person (specific or general), a place, and a single word. This is wholly for fun. No glory, no money, just words flowing on out. From start to finish, in one or two sittings. Minimal editing. 

And I love it. I recommend doing it. At the end, you have a complete, tiny story, a snow globe of a tale, something to put on the digital shelf and admire. Each and every one is a small victory and hey, these days, I'll take 'em.

So read on! Write on. Right on. 

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Restarting

Type Faster, meet 2013 - soon to be 2014. A brutal year that seems to be softening on its way out, knock wood.

And what better way to relaunch than a sweet mug shot of my newest editor:

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Under the Bed: What Makes Us Not Write

I know, I know.

It’s been forever and a day since I’ve updated this thing. Let’s just say life and work took over, and I’m just now getting my head right, as the expression goes.

But a conversation I had last night has gotten me thinking. I was chatting with my dear friend Allegra,* who is an ace of a writer with a fierce wit and quirky sense of humor to match. To read Allegra’s work is to be pulled into the page; that is the kind of, albeit subtle, command she has. As I’ve told her, she structures her stories with a grace people shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars on higher education in the hopes of achieving. She, however, comes by it naturally.

In the wee hours of the morning, Allegra explained to me her recent bout of… Well, not writer’s block, per se, but something akin to it. “I can’t write,” she told me, and recounted the reasons why. I won’t go into detail, but they all related to situations and circumstances that have left Allegra feeling despair, frustration, anger, and sadness. But something else was there, too, something I’m only now putting my finger on. What Allegra was describing to me, what was really hindering her ability to write, was a sort of mental claustrophobia. The trials of life had come down upon her cumulatively and in a way that had simply crowded her brain, sapping it of energy and the will to prep herself for work.

This isn’t to say that all nastiness leads to blocks. In fact, unfortunate events often spawn fonts of genius – loss of jobs, death of loved ones, divorce, natural disasters, etc – but some are less than inspiring. I find that there are definitely certain types of woe that actively act against any kind of creativity, the sort that sneakily and steadily invade one’s life and headspace until there is nothing to do but mentally cower under the bed and wait for the awfulness to pass. Allegra was under the bed last night. I’ve certainly been under the bed, over and over and over again. I’m sure you have been under the bed your fair share of times.

But “under the bed” – and not writing – is not a permanent state, as I said to Allegra. I’ll confess here that, during my hiatus from blogging and hacking at my book, I often found myself on the floor, staring up at my proverbial mattress. Overwhelmed by a string of complicated matters, I panicked every time I picked up a pen or sat down at the computer. No matter what I did, no matter how calm or comfortable or soothed I attempted to be, nothing would come out of me. This paralysis is just now stopping, or at least slowing down enough for me to get a word in edgewise, and I know it will fade for Allegra, too.

She is, after all, simply too good.

*Name changed  

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Occupy

Today, which is a Sunday, is usually my writing day.

This Sunday is no exception... But I am using it to write about something else.

I have just watched several videos of the police brutalizing peaceful protesters at the University of California: Davis campus. They stand in a clot, rolling on the back of their heels, casual but alert as students prepare for what they know is coming. The cops, as though in slow motion, ready their weapon of choice: Military-grade pepper spray, hot and searing and, at times, lethal. One stout fellow, who we later learn is Lieutenant John Pike, shakes his can, displaying it to the gathered students, who cluster on the ground, unmoving.

Then the madness. Pike, with astounding calm, steps over protesters and begins to shoot them directly in the face with his spray. The students begin to roll and scream, covering their faces, coughing and gagging. They are pushed to the ground, forced onto their stomachs, and are cuffed behind their backs with riot zip-ties.

But these are not rioters. These are students.

*

I was once a protester. I had just turned sixteen years old. I was doing it for the wrong reasons, with the wrong people, and at the wrong time, but I was there. Caught up in a movement I did not fully understand, I took a week-long leave from my beloved arts camp to go to something called Philly Freedom Summer, a protest against the Republican National Convention put on by the now-largely defunct group Refuse and Resist and their sister group, the “formerly” homophobic and paranoid Revolutionary Communist Party. I was part of a cadre of about fifteen men and women occupying one room of an apartment on the west side of Philadelphia, sleeping on the floor, and – at the urging of our group leaders – using an assumed name. We were cautioned to be careful of large trucks and vans because they could contain listening devices. Signs adorned the walls of our crash pad: “Pigs have ears.” FBI files were mentioned. I was terrified.

During my time there, in addition to being terrorized by the delusions of the group leaders (I doubt to this day that any of the cube trucks parked outside contained a single officer with a microphone) and listening to endless meetings, I had a choice to make: To participate in direct action – a type of peaceful protest that can often lead to police intervention  – or not. After much agonizing, I stood down, content to shout slogans on the fringe. “The whole world is watching!” we screamed.

When all was said and done, most everyone came back unscathed. There was one woman who sustained an arm injury, so there was some discussion of what to do, but her situation was unique. I returned to camp with many stories but not a scratch on me.

*

I never returned to organized politics again – for various reasons, which are another story entirely – but recently felt the heat and pull of Occupy Wall Street as I stood on the sidelines a few nights ago. Microphones bleated out garbled messages to thousands of people assembled in and near Zuccotti Park. Police stood in throngs outside barricades. Signs waved and people cheered and cheered into the dark night.

 Do I understand completely what the movement is about? No. Do I agree one hundred percent with what they are standing for, or think that there is a concrete statement they are making? Also no. But do I want them to be safe? Do I think they have a right to do what they are doing?

 YES.

As the students writhe in pain on my computer screen, tears fall down my face. The cops step on a young man’s lower back. Batons fly. The Chancellor of UC Davis walks to her car in eerie silence, her path lined with students who do not speak a word. These are brave young men and women, far braver than I was then and I am now. They may not have a concrete handle on what they wish to accomplish, but who does? And does it matter?

Something needs to be done to stop this, and in my heart of hearts, I believe that it will.

Because, this time, the whole world is watching.

CRITICAL LINKS: 

Police PEPPER SPRAY UC DAVIS STUDENT PROTESTERS (youTube video)

UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walks to her car (youTube video)

Assistant English Professor Nathan Brown's open letter to Chancellor Katehi

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iPod Nano... WriMo

Original photograph by Andrew*

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Storysongs: Hagar

Today on the train, an old favorite comes through my (new) headphones, and all else is blotted out.

The song is by a friend, one I have known for over ten years. Her name is Basya Schechter, her band is called Pharaoh's Daughter, and she has one of the truest, most natural voices I have ever heard.

The song is called 'Hagar,' and is the story of Hagar and Sarai (Sara). From an interview with Basya conducted some time ago:

Hagar. This text is Biblical from the book of Genesis. Hagar was hired to be the concubine of Abraham. Sarah gets jealous when Hagar gets pregnant. Hagar taunts Sarah about this. This led Hagar to run away from the family and go to the desert. She goes to a well and has conversation with an angel of God. The angel says she has to go back to the house and resubmit herself under Sara and have this child, which is going to be called Yishmael, which means “God is listening.” This is the beginning of everything; this is the family where Christianity, Islam, and Judaism came from. This is the first time an angel of God has ever spoken to anyone. And it is to Hagar, the mother of Yishamel, the father of the Muslim nation.

What is interesting to me is that this is possibly the only text in the Jewish tradition that is not Hebraic. This is not a story that we focused on in school. You don’t get the sense that the voice of the Arabic nation is given respect or attention in the Bible or by commentators. Hagar’s voice is very underrepresented in Jewish music. So I am giving her voice.

This explanation is straightforward, yet the song is anything but. It's a complex ribbon of sounds and instruments and, of course, Basya's strong voice, which commands you to listen simply in its skill alone. And it is, somehow, just about the most heartwrenching melody one could imagine.

Not that I understand much of what is being said; the song is all in Hebrew. The basic gist I can get (Basya's commentary helps), but why is it that tears well suddenly in my eyes on a traincar full of people? How is it that they persist as I ride the elevator to my floor of the office? In my cube, insulated from the world by four semi-walls?

Am I crying for manipulated Hagar (mean though she was to Sarai), for jealous and conflicted Sarai, or for myself and my own rocks/hard places?

That I couldn't tell you.

HAGAR - Pharaoh's Daughter (www.pharaohsdaughter.com)

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Cute books I found at work. From Houghton Mifflin, 1976!

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If You Wanna Sing Out, Sing Out...?

If I close my eyes and squint a little, I can sing like Patty Griffin.

Okay, well, if I close my eyes as tightly as I can, squint a lot, and am under the influence of a LOT of alcohol, I *think* I can sing like Patty Griffin. Fact is, I really can't.

The problem is, Patty Griffin-a-like or not, I never actually sing -- in front of people, that is. The secret truth is that I love it like nothing else, maybe even more than playing my beloved drums. For a few years in middle school, I was a member of an (albeit compulsory) chorus, one headed by an inimitable woman named Jane Smith. She made magic of an often out of tune grand piano and, under her command, we sang Greek songs, Latin songs, protest songs, and ballads. My voice, blending with thirty or so others, was indistinguishable from the pack, and I could belt as loud as I dared.

Then, much later, I sang in the car as I drove down the California freeways in search of either adventure, a newsworthy story, or both. In my three years as a San Diegoan, I sang so much that my voice was loose enough to hit both the high harmonies and the low, low notes.

So yes, I love to sing. But hand me a microphone and turn up an instrumental track and I freeze, no matter how familiar the lyrics may be, no matter how much I am itching to come in right at the chorus. What if I suck, I can't help but wonder. Equally terrifying is the opposite question: what if I'm good?

My friend Tilly* can sing like Annie Lennox. Really. It's kind of scary. Anyway, I discovered this a few nights ago at her karaoke birthday party when gamely ponied up to do a lovely rendition of -- if I remember correctly -- "Love is a Stranger" in front of... Well, strangers. Later, in our rented booth, her friends alternately belted, rapped, screamed, and warbled their way through a series of classics from a variety of decades while I alternately listened and laughed along with them.

Then Tilly turned to the magic machine(tm) that spooled out our music and accompanying lyrics and punched in a song by my favorite band, The Tragically Hip. The mic was mine, and I swallowed, hard. This is it, I thought. Now I'll know. But alas, it was not to be that night. Fear set in and I had Tilly skip the song which was, ironically enough, a track called "Courage."

Maybe someday I will get over my paralysis and find out the truth. But until then, I leave the rocking to those like Tilly and her pals who, really and truly, killed it -- in the good way.

*name changed to protect the "innocent" :)

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Accidental Gardens: An Essay for WVD

My mother loved the country.

Though she was and considered herself to be a New Yorker through-and-through, there was a part of her that yearned to hole up in a wooded cottage somewhere and nest. I don't know what it was in particular that inspired this in her, and I guess I never will.

Each summer, we packed a rental car with our belongings and cat and headed south to our little corner of the wilderness, a small rural town in northwest Connecticut. The cottage was actually more of a cabin, if I am to be precise, with walls stained a dark brown from years of exposure to pipe smoke.

Though the cabin didn't belong to us, my mother took it upon herself to put in a garden. It started quite by accident. We were whipping down one of the numerous back roads, Mom driving too fast (as she was apt to do) with all the windows rolled down, when she stopped the car abruptly. She never said a word, just bounded out of the car and stooped low, hands in the underbrush. Scrabbling there a minute, she remained crouched like a frog until finally she rose, triumphant, with an unruly bunch of greenery in her hand.

"It's a fern!" she shouted to me. 

The fern, a soft flag of a plant with impossibly intricate leaves, was the first of many to be uprooted at the roadside and placed firmly and with confidence outside the cabin's door. I remained my mother's faithful assistant, walking by her side as we scoured the hills and ditches for flowers and pleasant weeds, hair wet from a midday swim in the lake. Sometimes we explored in our nightgowns as the sun began to sink, thick and golden, behind the protective trees that surrounded us.

As we went, my mother called each plant out by common name, which I imagine she learned either as a child herself, from a book, or both. I absorbed this information with an ease I no longer possess: Queen Anne's Lace. Black-Eyed Susan. Wild Rose. Phlox. Jewelweed. Bladderwort. I was the sort of child who read field guides cover-to-cover, pouring over pictures of gems and trees and plants and birds, inhaling the faint tang of 1970s printing ink for hours at a time. But this was the real deal. Something unlocked in me there, amidst the graceful wilds of the town we stayed in, and I stepped boldly, barefoot, into adventure.

The garden expanded. My mother enrolled me in a day camp at a flower and herb farm not far from the cabin. It was a delicious place with a two-story "barn" filled with dried flowers. There I pressed leaf samples onto index cards, cementing them in place with sheets of contact paper. Our counselor, a sweet woman with a long brunette ponytail, took us through the neat flowerbeds and introduced us to the friendly goat, Jezebel, who ruled the small animal pen. We read Peter Rabbit aloud and ate our lunch on mossy rocks, handing our leftovers to Jezebel, who nibbled them away and nuzzled our palms with her soft nose. 

At the farm, and with my mother at the local nursery, I began to learn the names of the less wild, more domesticated plants: Laurel, Yarrow, Rue and Lamb's Ear. There were Geraniums, which smelled like damp dust, and Alyssum, which filled the air with the scent of fresh honey. Crates of these plants went into my mother's garden, blossoms heavy on their stalks. We surrounded them with stones and weeded with gusto, my mother in a floppy straw had and I in a yellow sun visor. 

Those days were long and filled with swimming, reading, and planting. I slept hard at night, the buoyancy of the lake water still cradling my little body, dreaming of vines and earthworms, dense soil and smooth rocks, of pulling myself under the surface of the lake and looking up at the floating sunshine above.

Today, I am not much of a gardener, and have not visited the cabin in almost fifteen years. My mother has been gone for nineteen now, but, miraculously, the names of the plants she loved remain firmly in my memory. They are as a part of me as my childhood home, as my oldest friends, as anything else my mother gave or told to me. I like to think of her there, kneeling in front of the cabin with her hands in the soil, fostering life from the earth she has returned to. 

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My fave cafe writingspace

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How NOT To Pitch Your Book: An Adventure in Voicemail

My coworker received the following unsolicited voicemail pitch this morning. The caller was male and, other than some discussion of him possibly sporting an unironic mustache, nothing about him is known other than he wants his book published so damn bad!

He said:

"COWORKER NAME, my name is REDACTED and I called a few minutes ago to find out who I should speak to regarding the new book I wrote for kids. I spoke to a very snippy gentleman who gave me your email address and I’d like to introduce myself, but the person in charge of the magazine hangs up on me! Is that how you do business, COWORKER? I mean, I wasn’t raised that way. But he hangs up! COWORKER, I’d like to know if you’re the right property for me to entrust my book to see if you’d like to review it, to see if you’d like to advertise, you know, my book. But to hang up on me, I can’t believe it. I’d know the name if I heard it, but I couldn’t believe it! In the middle of a PHONE NUMBER. I don’t know your title, I don’t know anything about you, if you’re the right person, nothing, he just hung up! PHONE NUMBER. Please get back to me and let me know if you’re the right person I should speak to. Bye-bye!"

What. A. Nightmare.