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I was a fat, chubby kid or more politely, husky. I was big-boned. I matured too early, or I just had too much baby fat, you know, left over. These descriptions came from my grandmother, an Italian woman who sewed underwear out of towels because wasting was almost as bad as being chubby. She never ceased telling me that poor children of the world would gladly finish my vegetables when I wouldn’t. I just hated stalks of broccoli, those monotone trees. Somehow my appetite for non-vegetables and my pudgy arms caused third world hunger in her eyes. But being a kid who’s chubbiness possibly killed hungry children was not the worst part of a rotund childhood, not by a long shot. The game of tag was by far the worst. When you grow up with a devilish older brother, the sibling who sets fires in the woods on thanksgiving, the kind of brother who stored farts in jars, tag was not a simple affair. Tag meant war. It involved every able-bodied child in the cul de sac, chubby or not. It meant wiffle balls, supersoakers, and even rocks. And I could never make it through a game. I just couldn’t run. I’d end up face first, smashed into the pavement or the scorched grass. Then I’d have to chase other kids around. The whole thing was just one big laughing game for the chubby girl. The stretch of pavement between the porches in our neighborhood burned with summer heat. That distance represented my death. I would be tagged. I would be shoved to the ground. But before a game one summer, I hatched a new plan. Instead of running, the girl with the crazy, untamed curls galloping like a maniac, I could simply fall down. I could just stop running away and give up. Never did such an idea feel more powerful. And when it came time, it worked. My brother was hot on my trail, my own stubby legs ambling along, but I just gave up rather than face the game. I fell down, cushioning my own fall with my comfy, padded backside. I stared upwards, proud in giving up, my lack of running. My brother cursed me. What a pussy, he echoed. The game went on. But I kept falling down instead. Eventually, I never had to play tag again.

#creative non fiction #free write #writing #personal #life #chubbiness #childhood

Watching you without sound is sweet and melancholic, like I'm underwater. I know your movement, I can still follow your path.

#write like a mofo #writer every day

untitled

Write quickly, while in between our comings and goings. Write while I'm walking, those furious steps. Talking to you, but writing the pauses of our speech, the words we use incorrectly. Write to notice those dogs like lions, panting at our feet. Write to capture the van carelessly swerving over to the wrong side of the street. Plummeting towards some unknown distance With dull fingers, writing on the the contents of the grocery aisle that we graze arms outstretched. parading through the neon light Writing in stealth, on a napkin, on the hemline of my skirt. Waiting at the deli counter but writing the room, the seats, the dusted glass, The stale air. Writing on our limbs, when we touch. Writing while asleep, Writing the quiet of our bodies at rest.

#write everyday #write like a motherfucker #poetry #writing #creative writing

So hard to want to be everything all at once and also nothing but a white wine drinking, lazy ass long dress wearing girl who lounges like nobodies business.

What I did on my day off from work

Calling out sick from work when you're really just eager to be alone is one of life's little pleasures. First, you wake up but decide not to leave your bed though you can't fall back asleep but you just can't get yourself to move. It's resistance to the work week routine, even if you are awake and browsing the curated lives of others on your smart phone. Next, you awake just as your lovable boyfriend leaves for his more enjoyable and helpful job than your low paid office work. This allows for maximum lazy time gone unnoticed You decide to only moderately tame your explosive bangs, baggy pajama pants, and questionable complexion in your pursuit of cereal and milk at the walking distance grocery. No, kindly shop worker, you don't need a bag for this. Yes, you plan on eating cereal even before you've had time to pee

The next leg of your out of work illegally journey comes from simultaneously reading two books at once, on the couch, in the warmth of the sun. This is related to your boyfriend via gchat which prompts him to say you remind him of a dog. That may be the truest characterization you've heard in your entire life.

There is something so cloying, so utterly insolent about the one and only Taylor Swift. She's all like, "I am so misunderstood" except that's just an image. And image of an image of an image of some girl with blonde hair and glasses who sings about boys. What gives, world? What is the point of that one?

#random writing #taylor swift

There is such perfection in having the exact amount of change for a cup of coffee in the morning.

Things I do in the evening instead of writing

Chew my nails because I hate when people notice but alone, I can chew them like it's nobodies business. Chomp!

Eat meals that consist of strange numbers, like six over-the-top salty triscuits with almost slimy sliced ham that I swear is fresh followed by eight honey twist pretzels twirled into hummus one apple and exactly two thirds of a dark chocolate bar eaten over the sink even though there aren't crumbs.

Facebook stalk former friends, the hidden girlfriends of coworkers. It is either incredibly sad or amazing how great I can be at locating people precisely online. I comb through multiple records, confirming details with searches within searches, just for the sanctification of identifying them online: a birth year, a college attended, a blurry photo. Then I forget them.

Refresh my email over and over and over and over. It's only ads, rats.

Consider that I actually just want to pop out three children and get fat.

Consider that I want to quit my job and life and run away to well, somewhere.(But aren't all somewheres sort of knowable now, thus absolving them of that runawau allure?)

Worry my response to boredom and procrastination are so just, well, every day. Then I worry about my worry. The anxiety sets in that well, I might be two anxious or am I just not anxious enough?

Turn the TV on only to find I honestly can't find anything to watch except whatever it is I've turned the TV on to. Find a way to watch that show why paying absolutely no attention for a few hours.

Relish in the feel of warm socks, an oversized t shirt the smell of the evening air coming through the window, the art of a good hug on the couch, the pleasure of absolutely nothing and everything all at once.

#today I wrote #writing #evening writing #nonfiction #stream of consciousness #creative writing #thoughts #memories #feels #this is what writing feels like #not writing

landslide

Fleetwood mac or what you said used to be, (I couldn’t sort it out) was on the radio. A new recording of that song about a mountain, and the loneliness of looking down. I visualized quiet homes swallowed in mud in the California, the land of news reports. You turned the radio up. I tapped my fingers to pretend rhythm I was tiny riding in the front seat of the skin colored Volvo the one without air bags and a twisty dialed radio that I’d turn all the way up too when the car was off, silent in the garage a surprise for dad. The song came in well enough, though reverberating inside as we drove on. The pale and grey winter streets stared back at us, and we sang about the landslide.

#poetry #childhood #fleetwood mac #song writing #memories #creative nonfiction #creative writing

Dear Boston

I wish you had either a bookstore bar or a library bar. I could use one on Sunday evenings.

#Boston #writing #books #bars #I love books

To Julia Child

Dead grandmother, were you secretly Julia Child? I remember her talking on the television in your back room, the one with the large tv tube and the chair that wasn’t a chair because no one could sit in it. I sat there, though. I bet you knew. She became you. I’ve lodged her vibrant hair, her strange voice,and her thick hands and pats of butter into memory as if they are you, because I never knew you. All I knew was the you of soups of bones, the you who made sandwiches of cold chicken and butter. The you who painted with bright plastic looking acrylics and who drove all over the cape and islands meandering into other people’s live with your quick witted tongue The you who called me chubby so I couldn’t reach for the ginger ale in the fridge or one of the frozen donuts in the cellar freezer, but I did eat whole tins of mints, when you thought it wasn't me. It made me sick to my stomach. I used to gorge myself on the grisly pieces of meat you served on Sunday dinner when you thought I would just push them away. The pot roast, dripping blood, was always the best of the best.

#creative nonfiction #food writing #grandmothers #memories #writing #creative writing

what a wednesday that feels like a thursday feels like

Sometimes you're out of work, into the street, walking home and you feel like complete and utter shit. So you're just like, I need to call my mom. Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom. Over and over, just like that, you know what to do. And you're calling you're mom, being an utter shit and complaining about things like "wah wah wah I have a job wah wah wah I have to wear tights to work." It's raining too, a real simple but drenching rain. Not to mention the wind tunnel vortex that forms in between the skyscrapers you need to traverse for your train. Then your umbrella, that convenience store beauty of neon purple decides to break above your head, flapping like a dead bird twisted the wrong way. As the suit and ties stream past your careful dance, your bag is soaked, your shoes have a hole so water is streaming in. But you're still like, mom, mom, mom, mom, So the phone goes into your pocket, you hope she waits quietly there,. You toss the umbrella. You walk in the rain. You talk to your mom.

Envy keeps you going in circles.

The fog horns in downtown Portland Maine at first sound like a phone, buzzing distantly in some other pocket. But then your remember your phone is nothing in the grand narrative of New England history, the fog horn is king. We're just sitting here shore the Casco bay, the horns call rattling our bones in the snow of February. Everything else diminishes as the day ends.

#creative nonfiction #maine #writing

I love walking and eating and sitting and eating and finding new things to eat while reading and eating.

oranges

I like the taste of orange peels, pith and all. After expertly peeling an orange and eating each piece, I steal a tiny bite of the peel. It's a hidden ritual. It reminds me of Thanksgiving stuffing with flecks orange, or candied orange slices covered in dark chocolate, or even the smell of something strong and solvent like pine sol on the kitchen floor as a little kid.

#what childhood taste like #orange #food writing #habitts #creative nonfiction #creative writing

Airplane Communion

Please, hand me the chicken plate. Or do I want the beef, that mystery meat, broken down animal parts filled with another meat-like filler produced somewhere faraway, like, Elizabeth, new jersey Unappealing but delectable it's safety in a meal, in a microwaveable dish. Either will be brought to me by that man with the toupee, the smiling steward of the air, the high priest of our flying time capsule. I will take whatever he offers. I will sop up the rubbery juices with that hard roll slathered in the neat packaged Irish butter. I am so hungry flinging through time zones. I would even steal the food of the kid next to me. He clearly doesn’t appreciate the offerings before him the pleasing symmetry of a tossed salad and miniature dijon dressing. I would eat the entire contents of the rolling cart, that altar of the airplane. I am awakened each time it rings by, signifying a snack, maybe beverage if we are lucky, but always the promise of some shrink wrapped, horrible tasting part of our communal meal, the kind where we all eat in silence.

#poetry #writing #creative writing #flying #travel writing #writing about food

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write like a mother f*cker.