Saturday, December 27, 2014

Little Dragon

Oh, you know, because today calls for a little jammy-jam. Little Dragon say:


Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Peela Potata

And Leah's prompts continue. Today we write for an entire page (*cough* an entire page? *cough*) about peeling a potato:

original link

Apple of the earth, right? And it does, it smells like earth. Even after I wash it, the skin, my skin, it smells like earth.

Rough under my fingertips. 

Careful not to cut my fingertips. Nine out of ten I do, I cut myself accidentally. Doesn’t matter if I use a knife or a peeler. I do it.

So generally I don’t do it. Peel the earth apples, I mean. I don’t peel them.

They say that’s where the good stuff is, anyway. That Russians kept the peels and gave their prisoners the insides. The soft, fleshy insides. 

Those Russians.

Anyway, back to peeling. If I peel them, I wash them and rub them first between my hands. Then I smell my fingers because I can’t help myself. The smell on my fingers is better than the smell on the potatoes. 

Next I pull the green garbage can halfway out from under the sink, balancing it against my knee. One slice at a time, the peels curl away. Cut away from myself. Hold the potato in my palm, gripping with the ends of my fingers. Pushing the knife down, the peels fall down, and finally the white inside is naked in my hand. Strange knobs in the flesh exposed. 

Set the exposed potato aside to start on the next. 

And then the next. 

Such a quick, casual affair. 

Next. 

I don’t like the way my fingers smell, all starchy and acrid, after peeling them. Much less intimate. Which is interesting since at that point the earth apple is laid bare. 


Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Evil Eye

Leah's prompt: Write about an ink stain, real or imagined.

original link

Garh turned toward her and spit. 

“Damn, dude,” Jess said, shuffling back on her haunches. She lifted her hands and tucked her hip to avoid his moist projectile. “What was that?”

Ducking his head was a feat in their confined space, but he managed. “Sorry.”

“No sorry. What was that?”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Too late. Why’d you spit at me?”

“Jess, can you just—“

She shoved him and he lurched forward from squatting on his heels to his knees. 

“Hey!” His voice pitched. 

They both dropped their heads as the steady treading above stopped. Garh poised with his hands and knees in the vile sludge making a slow stream downhill. Jess could just see his grimacing profile, pinched and angry. 

Dude was too pretty for his own good. A little piss on his pants wouldn’t hurt. 

The boots above resumed their heavy pacing. Garh rose up off his knees and wiped his hands on his thighs, scowling over his shoulder, but then he started forward again. Jess braced herself against the grimy walls and followed.

“Serves you right,” she said low. “Shouldn’t spit at girls. Didn’t think a guy of your elevation would need to be told that.”

“Ah, so now you’re claiming you’re a girl?”

She was at a loss for reply. Jess was never at loss for words. She muttered, “Jackal footed monkey ass man.”

“You sure you’re a girl? Most women of any elevation wouldn’t speak like that.”

So said only everyone. If it wasn't the way she spoke, it was the way she carried herself, or the way she didn't flinch when a man raised his fist. 

Garh's words hurt more than she'd ever let him know. “I should spit at you. See how you like it.” 

He sighed and gestured back the way they'd come. “I wasn’t spitting at you. There was an ink stain on the wall in the shape of the Horned One. I was spitting to avoid his evil eye.”

Snorting, Jess glanced around the graffitied walls. She didn’t even want to guess what dripped down the decaying boards. 

“Saw just one stain, did you?” She said to his back and heard him muffle a chuckle. "You know you just traded one evil eye for another, though, right?"

Garh snapped as straight as he could and shot an encompassing glance around them. "What?" 

Jess closed one eye and scowled at him through the other. He tilted his head. She winked and pushed him again. "Move, monkey ass. I won't take offense at your words if you don't take offense at mine."




 

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Outside Small, Inside Mondo

Leah's prompt:

My response:


Once I bought a little home,
It didn’t suit me well.

I felt I’d sold my freedom to roam.
My cottage I did sell.

I need to find a house for shell,
Blue shutters upon my back.
Poppies in my window well,
Then nothing shall I lack.

Outside small,
Fat black cat,
Inside mondo,
Shoes on mat.

Until I find a home like that,
I’m good just renting a condo.



Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Creeper Peepers

Leah's prompt today is another picture:



Initially I felt really ambiguous about this picture because my mind automatically went to peeping toms, which creep me out, but it’s an older gentleman paired with a younger boy and there’s nothing sinister about that, right? I don’t know. I’ve never had a good enough relationship with my grandparents to understand how a shared experience like this would play out. 

So I added another element by randomly selecting a feeling out of the Emotion Thesauruses: Impatience. Which I have a lot of experience with.

And this is where my 10 minute free-write meandered from there:

I am a creeper. I am a peeping tom. So many times I’ve looked through the fence of life and watched someone else doing something, being something, and I’ve thought, “Ooo! I want that!”

People old and young join me at this fence, which helps me justify my peeping, because it’s okay if our individuality is swallowed up in the mass and everyone’s doing it. It’s really cathartic to get swallowed up in that unthinking mass. We ogle others and want. And want. And crave. And become impatient for the outcome without really processing all the work it takes to get there. 

Patience is a virtue. Thus quoteth the mass. But the difference is that patience is something that has to be shaped by the individual, regardless of who’s toting the most up-to-date proverb. I’ve never known a patient mob. 

Mobs crush in their rush.

Patience is a really hard virtue to develop. 

I know this more as a mom than I did as a…whatever I was before. (Don’t get stuck in that loop of thought. Redirect.)

A mom. Yes. My kids ask for things and I see there is a process to attaining that thing but they must have milk NOW! They don’t even begin to understand the process, and how many individuals are involved in that work. 

Which all means something, I’m sure, but in this moment all I hear is crying and so I putter off without anything being resolved. Or perhaps it is? I’m not impatient to find out. 


Sunday, September 21, 2014

Heart Space

Leah is continuing the prompts through the weekend. What? I know! So I'm running behind on this one, and so many others, just don't think about it! Here's the prompt:

Make a list of places you don't go anymore

And here's my 10 minute list:
original link

dark room
the greenbelt
jungle run
table rock cross
simplot’s hill
bogus basin
orchestra practice
mandarin garden
basement of the business building
laundromat
the quad
beaver mountain
swing café
mike hams
the raven
security office at the theater
employee lounge
on the bart
the underworld
the gym
path by the canal
green studio
the owl
the loop drive
secret orchard at Red Butte Garden
that one greek restaurant
Bryant Middleschool
smoke shops

And just because, here's a song place I used to visit frequently but don't much anymore:

 

What unvisited places fill up your heart spaces? 



Thursday, September 18, 2014

Head and Hart

Today's prompt from Leah is a picture that lead to a mighty argument in my head:

Writer Deb: [pensive look with nose close to picture, then sits back in chair] Yep, so, I’ve got nothing.

Reader Deb: Wait, what? You can’t do that.

WD: Actually I can. I’m in charge.

RD: [snorts] Yeah. And my name is Ozymandias, otherwise known as Awesomeface: the mighty look on my works with despair.

WD: Nice reference Stumpy.

RD: [shrugs] Reading rocks.

WD: I’ll leave you to that, then. I have this other thing I’m working on.

RD: [in whiny voice] But you promised me something to read. You mentioned shapeshifters earlier. What about that?

WD: [looks back at picture; long pause, then shakes head] Yep. Nope. I just keep thinking about this other thing.

RD: No.

WD: No?

RD: [wriggles deeper into chair and folds arms firmly] No.

WD: I’m in charge, remember?

RD: No.

WD: [moves to edge of seat and thumbs toward kitchen] Okay, well I’m just going to go over here and warm up some water for tea and…

RD: No.

WD: That’s what I do to prep…

RD: Shapeshifters, shapeshifters, shapeshifters, shapeshifters.

WD: Stop it.

RD: SHAPESHIFTERS, SHAPESHIFTERS, SHAPESHIFTERS!

WD: Oh my gosh fine! 

RD: [smug grin]

WD: Once upon a time there was a man who was in love with a shapeshifter but then she broke his heart and left in the form of a deer but then he tracked her down which was easy enough because he was a hunter and he shot her and bled her out and ripped her heart from her chest and ate it which was only fair because a heart for a heart. 

RD: Um.

WD: And she was a hart! Ha! See my wittiness?

RD: [dark frown] That was not okay.

WD: What?

RD: Now I’m going to have that stuck in my head all day.

WD: [huge sigh] Well if you’d just let me…

RD: I know, I know, the other thing. But now I’m going to have that image stuck in my head all day. 

WD: Go away.

RD: But I want a good story.

WD: Go away.

RD: You’re rude.

WD: Go away.

RD: You smell.

WD: I am in charge now go away!


RD: You are not Awesomeface.

WD: [primal roar] MY NAME IS WRITER DEB, QUEEN OF QUEENS: LOOK ON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR! 

RD: Well at least you have the despair part right [gets up to find something else to read]

WD: [smug grin] Now for some tea.



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