Something you have put together
Although I'm not a worshiper of petroleum, the great dinosaur legacy -
burned out, mushed up, between layers, underground - the modern letting
of ancient blood, earth's core, black magma; there is a certain delight
in the stacks of brightly colored plastic blocks that lay strewn around
my house like a story. With each new set, a vision, a promise. My son
starts by following the directions. At eight he is a professional.
Although an accomplished reader, they require no words. Spacial
intelligence, yes. Linguistic, no. For me, the tiny drawings, arrows
and sequential steps brings about a desire to type, or clean or cook.
For him, a world opens up. As he stacks the tiny pieces, one on top of
the other, they become bigger, constructed, recognizable, and he becomes
smaller, shrinking down until he is inside them.
Children, I'm
convinced, don't simply put Legos together, they inhabit the Lego world.
This becomes all the more apparent when the first mishap occurs. Inevitably, and usually within a matter of hours, or now that he is
older, days, a wing falls off, a base comes undone, some core component
of the imitated object disintegrates. And that is when the magic
begins. Legos, like life, follow their own patterns. Once the mastered object
is no longer what it was, he is free to take it apart, mix it up with
the other long ago wrecked creations, and create something entirely new.
In
my house there are Legos strewn about, little people with mismatched
heads hanging from petroleum based chains. Weapons made from what were
once headlights; jails and gardens and improbable wars between strange
counterparts. I am often asked to guess, "Which one is the good guy,
Mama? Who do you think is the bad guy?" and it's never as clear as one
might think. My son creates elaborate worlds, sounds and scenes, all of
which I'm convinced he is a part, shrunken down to their size, inside
the tiny compartments, walking under the layered alien gardens of
plastic.
Friday, August 31, 2012
The Daily Write Archives: In the middle of the night (February 10, 2010)
In the middle of the night
The sheets, crumpled underneath you with crumbs, flakes of dry skin, hair. You will lay there, still, staring at the moonlight, wishing for a breeze. Your sweet sour skin, your moist flesh, your calm breaths, a country song.
A bug will skitter up the thin white curtain; you will not flinch. You will hold onto this moment as long as possible, hoping the dream does not dissipate.
Just hours before he pressed his body against yours. The air was still and dense. You listened to a train in the distance, mournfully wailing, and to your heart, beating inside you until you thought it might jump through and touch his rib cage.
"I heard a lullaby," he said, with a rich loamy voice like soil, like the inside of an abandoned mine. "It reminded me of you."
"Tell me again," you turned toward him, heat on heat. "Tell me what you heard."
Every fleck of color in his iris, every whisker, every pore you memorized. His voice reverberated into you, touch on touch.
"I heard a song," he said quietly. "It reminded me of you."
The sheets, crumpled underneath you with crumbs, flakes of dry skin, hair. You will lay there, still, staring at the moonlight, wishing for a breeze. Your sweet sour skin, your moist flesh, your calm breaths, a country song.
A bug will skitter up the thin white curtain; you will not flinch. You will hold onto this moment as long as possible, hoping the dream does not dissipate.
Just hours before he pressed his body against yours. The air was still and dense. You listened to a train in the distance, mournfully wailing, and to your heart, beating inside you until you thought it might jump through and touch his rib cage.
"I heard a lullaby," he said, with a rich loamy voice like soil, like the inside of an abandoned mine. "It reminded me of you."
"Tell me again," you turned toward him, heat on heat. "Tell me what you heard."
Every fleck of color in his iris, every whisker, every pore you memorized. His voice reverberated into you, touch on touch.
"I heard a song," he said quietly. "It reminded me of you."
Thursday, August 30, 2012
The Daily Write: Finally (August 30, 2012)
Finally
The kids were asleep. It took forever. Just getting the older one to brush his teeth and the younger one to stop chattering about anything that flew into her mind was an arduous task. Not to mention the jammie wars.
She felt utterly exhausted and bitter. The nights Imelda took off were the worst. She went from being a kind and loving mother to a crocodile ready to chomp down, hard. Yes, there was a tiny little piece of guilt lodged at the back of her head, but she couldn't help it if she weren't cut out for full time motherhood. It simply did not come naturally to her. And who could blame her?
She filled her imported Italian mosaic sink (all blues and soft greens, like a fountain) with cool but not freezing water, wrapped her head in a super thick Egyptian cotton towel and leaned over to lightly splash her face. She cupped her delicate hands together and pulled the water up quietly, face close to the basin, and listened to the soothing trickle that dripped from her palms back down into the sink. She did this every night, but some nights it meant more than others.
Her husband was gone on a business trip, thank god. Full time mothering certainly left nothing else for her to give. She couldn't stand to take care of his needs on top of theirs. Not to mention the kittens. Who on earth thought it was okay to give her household staff a night off once a week? Oh right, she did. A moment of weakness.
She slipped her feet into her Chanel slippers and padded past her elegant bed with the custom sized mattress (King plus) and silk comforter and walked down the long breezeway that separated the master suite from the rest of the house. During the day the huge plate glass windows that created the long walkway were lovely and architecturally stunning. At night she felt like a mouse in a maze, trapped and watched. She picked up her pace until she landed in the kitchen, in front of her custom cobalt triple wide refrigerator. Although the shelves were almost austere in their emptiness, she reached in behind the lemons and found what she sought - a fresh carton or organic heavy cream, produced by grass fed cows from New Zealand.
The kids were asleep. It took forever. Just getting the older one to brush his teeth and the younger one to stop chattering about anything that flew into her mind was an arduous task. Not to mention the jammie wars.
She felt utterly exhausted and bitter. The nights Imelda took off were the worst. She went from being a kind and loving mother to a crocodile ready to chomp down, hard. Yes, there was a tiny little piece of guilt lodged at the back of her head, but she couldn't help it if she weren't cut out for full time motherhood. It simply did not come naturally to her. And who could blame her?
She filled her imported Italian mosaic sink (all blues and soft greens, like a fountain) with cool but not freezing water, wrapped her head in a super thick Egyptian cotton towel and leaned over to lightly splash her face. She cupped her delicate hands together and pulled the water up quietly, face close to the basin, and listened to the soothing trickle that dripped from her palms back down into the sink. She did this every night, but some nights it meant more than others.
Her husband was gone on a business trip, thank god. Full time mothering certainly left nothing else for her to give. She couldn't stand to take care of his needs on top of theirs. Not to mention the kittens. Who on earth thought it was okay to give her household staff a night off once a week? Oh right, she did. A moment of weakness.
She slipped her feet into her Chanel slippers and padded past her elegant bed with the custom sized mattress (King plus) and silk comforter and walked down the long breezeway that separated the master suite from the rest of the house. During the day the huge plate glass windows that created the long walkway were lovely and architecturally stunning. At night she felt like a mouse in a maze, trapped and watched. She picked up her pace until she landed in the kitchen, in front of her custom cobalt triple wide refrigerator. Although the shelves were almost austere in their emptiness, she reached in behind the lemons and found what she sought - a fresh carton or organic heavy cream, produced by grass fed cows from New Zealand.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
The Daily Write: My friend (August 29, 2012)
My friend
I'm stumped. The prompt I wanted this to be is: "The horrible truth." But then I'd have to write to that prompt and that would be bad too. I mean, I know I could choose to do that right this very minute. Nothing at all is stopping me, except I can't write down the horrible truth for fear of it coming true. Or me being considered over an edge (there are so many in life, don't you think?)
Another prompt I could write to: The way it works. In that one I would admit to my habitual pattern of imagining the worst thing possible (see "The horrible truth" above) in order to keep it from actually happening. Extra points for saying it out loud in front of the goys. It's not for the shock value that I say things like, "see you tomorrow, if I don't die on the way home." It's more like an anxious Jewish incantation. I'm casting reverse psychology on myself. Or so I hope.
But now I need a prompt called, "The problem is," because, clearly, as you no doubt are aware, I've just spilled the proverbial beans. I'm no longer safe if I tell you how I do it. My magic isn't that strong. Or so I fear.
Which brings me to Shalom. Not the greeting. Not a kindness. No, I'm talking about an author. Shalom Auslander. He is the book version of a very edgy Woody Allen. Or, uh, any self-conscious, utterly fucked up, superstitious, tortured by god, Jew. And that is why I love him so. He wrote an entire book about his potential future baby's foreskin for christ's sake. Who does that?
I might. But like Shalom, I have a hard time writing down the full, real, cold, freaky, scary truth. I mean, I can attempt to write it, but I usually just hit backspace and erase what I said. It's a problem, but some things are just too hard to put down. I fear that by saying them out loud (on a screen, or paper if we're being colloquial) that I am bringing them to life. A kind of golem reanimation.
Golem. That would be a good prompt.
I'm stumped. The prompt I wanted this to be is: "The horrible truth." But then I'd have to write to that prompt and that would be bad too. I mean, I know I could choose to do that right this very minute. Nothing at all is stopping me, except I can't write down the horrible truth for fear of it coming true. Or me being considered over an edge (there are so many in life, don't you think?)
Another prompt I could write to: The way it works. In that one I would admit to my habitual pattern of imagining the worst thing possible (see "The horrible truth" above) in order to keep it from actually happening. Extra points for saying it out loud in front of the goys. It's not for the shock value that I say things like, "see you tomorrow, if I don't die on the way home." It's more like an anxious Jewish incantation. I'm casting reverse psychology on myself. Or so I hope.
But now I need a prompt called, "The problem is," because, clearly, as you no doubt are aware, I've just spilled the proverbial beans. I'm no longer safe if I tell you how I do it. My magic isn't that strong. Or so I fear.
Which brings me to Shalom. Not the greeting. Not a kindness. No, I'm talking about an author. Shalom Auslander. He is the book version of a very edgy Woody Allen. Or, uh, any self-conscious, utterly fucked up, superstitious, tortured by god, Jew. And that is why I love him so. He wrote an entire book about his potential future baby's foreskin for christ's sake. Who does that?
I might. But like Shalom, I have a hard time writing down the full, real, cold, freaky, scary truth. I mean, I can attempt to write it, but I usually just hit backspace and erase what I said. It's a problem, but some things are just too hard to put down. I fear that by saying them out loud (on a screen, or paper if we're being colloquial) that I am bringing them to life. A kind of golem reanimation.
Golem. That would be a good prompt.
The Daily Write: And the tension mounts (August 28, 2012)
And the tension mounts
A wall of metal coming down like a guillotine between the very back inside of your forehead and your eyes. It slices, then gets lodged there, a thick piece of Japanese cast fine metal, the kind that would be forged into a knife if it weren't stuck in your frontal cortex.
It's best to pick the descriptors ahead of time, feel them out - understand the weight and heft of each item. Metals are preferable to plastic. Steel and iron are better than aluminum. Precious metals need not apply, you've got no time for their fussiness and they can't stand to be used in any but the most spectacular of ways.
When you think of all the ways the metals can come down (fast and heavy, or worse, slow and light) you will want to hold onto that space between your eyes. Not the third eye. Not the eyeball. The more you try to ascertain just where that space is, the less likely you are to find it.
It's best if the pain and discomfort is in more than one place at a time. For instance, you are now acutely aware that you have a heavy gauge nail jammed into your heel and the thickest part of that over calloused appendage called the foot. And because you are the type to pick scabs, you are pressing on the most excruciating spot with your other foot. You are trying to see just how bad it is, while feeling frightened about what it means. The diabetes, is it getting worse? Do you have an under-skin MRSA?
Your throat, meanwhile, is coated with sticky and impossible to clear mucous. You clear your throat, when only your children and the dogs are listening, sounding like a machine grating against sand, and yet the viscous thickness will not come out. You swallow, clear, cough, hack and it's still there, a lump of wet cotton sealed into your inside neck with rubber cement. Perhaps it's an adhesion.
You had better get that checked.
A wall of metal coming down like a guillotine between the very back inside of your forehead and your eyes. It slices, then gets lodged there, a thick piece of Japanese cast fine metal, the kind that would be forged into a knife if it weren't stuck in your frontal cortex.
It's best to pick the descriptors ahead of time, feel them out - understand the weight and heft of each item. Metals are preferable to plastic. Steel and iron are better than aluminum. Precious metals need not apply, you've got no time for their fussiness and they can't stand to be used in any but the most spectacular of ways.
When you think of all the ways the metals can come down (fast and heavy, or worse, slow and light) you will want to hold onto that space between your eyes. Not the third eye. Not the eyeball. The more you try to ascertain just where that space is, the less likely you are to find it.
It's best if the pain and discomfort is in more than one place at a time. For instance, you are now acutely aware that you have a heavy gauge nail jammed into your heel and the thickest part of that over calloused appendage called the foot. And because you are the type to pick scabs, you are pressing on the most excruciating spot with your other foot. You are trying to see just how bad it is, while feeling frightened about what it means. The diabetes, is it getting worse? Do you have an under-skin MRSA?
Your throat, meanwhile, is coated with sticky and impossible to clear mucous. You clear your throat, when only your children and the dogs are listening, sounding like a machine grating against sand, and yet the viscous thickness will not come out. You swallow, clear, cough, hack and it's still there, a lump of wet cotton sealed into your inside neck with rubber cement. Perhaps it's an adhesion.
You had better get that checked.
The Daily Write: Fallen from the sky (August 26, 2012)
Fallen from the sky
When you have no control over what they think. When a crazy person decides to destroy you. Your stomach lurches splattering vomit on the sidewalk. You stand up, scream bile and grab either side of your own head, pulling the gray hair until your scalp bleeds. You drag your splintered body up a rocky hillside, cutting your flesh and ripping your clothes as one shoe falls away, then the other. Your soft inner arms are scraped with dirt, pebbles, sweat and blood. You pull yourself up from loose strangled roots, slick milkweed, abandoned creosote covered train ties.
You spit up bile again, watch it mix with the dirt, and try to stop breathing, to go unconscious, to make it stop.
A leaf idles down on a breeze far too gentle to be part of your nightmare and you wonder at its two tone green, shiny on one side, matte on the other. It does not notice the mess below. It does not need a violent wind to fall down. It dances while you crack. The leaf does not care about what's been done wrong. Does not care.
When you have no control over what they think. When a crazy person decides to destroy you. Your stomach lurches splattering vomit on the sidewalk. You stand up, scream bile and grab either side of your own head, pulling the gray hair until your scalp bleeds. You drag your splintered body up a rocky hillside, cutting your flesh and ripping your clothes as one shoe falls away, then the other. Your soft inner arms are scraped with dirt, pebbles, sweat and blood. You pull yourself up from loose strangled roots, slick milkweed, abandoned creosote covered train ties.
You spit up bile again, watch it mix with the dirt, and try to stop breathing, to go unconscious, to make it stop.
A leaf idles down on a breeze far too gentle to be part of your nightmare and you wonder at its two tone green, shiny on one side, matte on the other. It does not notice the mess below. It does not need a violent wind to fall down. It dances while you crack. The leaf does not care about what's been done wrong. Does not care.
The Daily Write: Photo #5 (August 25, 2012)
Photo #5
1. From under the earth came the creatures, frozen in time. They were as they had always been. Beastly. Giant. Famished.
2. Across the lawn he saw a bovine tread. Naturally, the sheriff assumed he had too much whiskey. But one thing does not invalidate the other, does it?
3. She heard that he barreled down the street with a butcher knife, trying to stab her mother. Only they used the word kill.
4. Once I babysat for a reporter. She stayed out all night when Mike Wallace came to town. Her kitchen was filthy.
5. There was a woman named Corrine who was married to a man named Terry. Their son, Jason, lived under the same roof. She was a belly dancer with snakes. All of us liked to listen to Pink Floyd.
6. Bruce had special needs. Only we just called him slow. He smashed a grey kitten by folding it up in the sleep away. It was an accident.
7. Django got his head smashed in by a car. We buried him in front of the shed we called a garage with cat toys and food. Almost Egyptian.
8. The twins had hair so curly it looked fake. Everyone asked me about it always.
9. The sound of rain is comforting. The sound of wind and rain is exciting. The sound of thunder along with wind and rain is frightening.
10. The creatures don't recognize the world which moved on without them. It is hard. Unnatural. The sound of heels clicking on the gravelly sidewalk confuses them.
11. I never learned to tap dance.
12. A perfectly centered spider waits in the arched entry way between two rooms.
13. In some circumstances mud can be inviting - clam digging on the Puget Sound, for instance. The sucking down of ones boot is hilarious. Other times, it's a reminder of disaster, dirty and foreboding.
14. I am waiting for my parents to die, one after the other. I imagine how I will feel when this happens.
15. Because they are used to illusions of all kinds, the people in the city don't notice the monsters; this is mistake.
16. One hopes that the earth will decompose and recompose herself someday.
17. He never saw a cow on the lawn again, much to the chagrin of his children.
1. From under the earth came the creatures, frozen in time. They were as they had always been. Beastly. Giant. Famished.
2. Across the lawn he saw a bovine tread. Naturally, the sheriff assumed he had too much whiskey. But one thing does not invalidate the other, does it?
3. She heard that he barreled down the street with a butcher knife, trying to stab her mother. Only they used the word kill.
4. Once I babysat for a reporter. She stayed out all night when Mike Wallace came to town. Her kitchen was filthy.
5. There was a woman named Corrine who was married to a man named Terry. Their son, Jason, lived under the same roof. She was a belly dancer with snakes. All of us liked to listen to Pink Floyd.
6. Bruce had special needs. Only we just called him slow. He smashed a grey kitten by folding it up in the sleep away. It was an accident.
7. Django got his head smashed in by a car. We buried him in front of the shed we called a garage with cat toys and food. Almost Egyptian.
8. The twins had hair so curly it looked fake. Everyone asked me about it always.
9. The sound of rain is comforting. The sound of wind and rain is exciting. The sound of thunder along with wind and rain is frightening.
10. The creatures don't recognize the world which moved on without them. It is hard. Unnatural. The sound of heels clicking on the gravelly sidewalk confuses them.
11. I never learned to tap dance.
12. A perfectly centered spider waits in the arched entry way between two rooms.
13. In some circumstances mud can be inviting - clam digging on the Puget Sound, for instance. The sucking down of ones boot is hilarious. Other times, it's a reminder of disaster, dirty and foreboding.
14. I am waiting for my parents to die, one after the other. I imagine how I will feel when this happens.
15. Because they are used to illusions of all kinds, the people in the city don't notice the monsters; this is mistake.
16. One hopes that the earth will decompose and recompose herself someday.
17. He never saw a cow on the lawn again, much to the chagrin of his children.
The Daily Write: Under my skin (August 24, 2012)
Under my skin
The rashes covered her body in patches. There was the festering patch above her ancient gall bladder surgery scar - the one that looked like she got into a knife fight, before they started doing the surgery through three holes. The bumpy red skin itched so badly that she made herself bleed nightly scratching for relief. The doctor didn't like that the rash and scabs were on the scar. She couldn't understand why. She'd had the surgery in the early 80s. It wasn't like there was a danger of the wound opening back up.
Then there were the rashes at her crotch, huge patches of grey red dry skin streaked by fingernail inflicted wounds. The itching was so intense when she removed her clothes that she might stand in the hallway at home just itching it, jaw slack, eyes focusing on nothing ahead of her. The scratching then felt as good as sex, but the high was mixed with pain, a stinging burn that rubbed raw and hurt. But nothing stopped the itching.
There was an article online, she remembered, about a woman who scratched her head so much and so hard that she dug a hole into her brain. Light green liquid leaked out. She imagined it looked like the goo from a spent glow stick, viscous and otherworldly. She imagined that while she scratched herself as quietly as possible in the bathroom stall at work, working at her rash vigorously whenever someone flushed or turned on the water, so they couldn't hear. She could only guess what they thought otherwise, listening to her dig into her flesh as she sat on the toilet, skirt falling to the floor around her legs.
And, because she was raised by New Age Hippies, she wondered as she scratched herself bloody, what wounds of the flesh meant. The skin, they say, is the biggest organ. What terrible karma made her have an organ so damaged and uncomfortable? What would the acupuncturist say? Or the psychic on the corner of Telegraph and Durant who stared at her when she walked by as if he was reading her mind. Did he know he made her feel as if she couldn't escape? Was that part of his ploy for making money? Or was he like Whoopie Goldberg's character in Ghost as she spoke to Demi Moore with her perfectly smooth skin and the ability to throw on a man's shirt and look sexy?
Aging is not for the meek, she thought as she pulled her hand up away from her raw, red belly. Thank god no one had to see her like this.
The rashes covered her body in patches. There was the festering patch above her ancient gall bladder surgery scar - the one that looked like she got into a knife fight, before they started doing the surgery through three holes. The bumpy red skin itched so badly that she made herself bleed nightly scratching for relief. The doctor didn't like that the rash and scabs were on the scar. She couldn't understand why. She'd had the surgery in the early 80s. It wasn't like there was a danger of the wound opening back up.
Then there were the rashes at her crotch, huge patches of grey red dry skin streaked by fingernail inflicted wounds. The itching was so intense when she removed her clothes that she might stand in the hallway at home just itching it, jaw slack, eyes focusing on nothing ahead of her. The scratching then felt as good as sex, but the high was mixed with pain, a stinging burn that rubbed raw and hurt. But nothing stopped the itching.
There was an article online, she remembered, about a woman who scratched her head so much and so hard that she dug a hole into her brain. Light green liquid leaked out. She imagined it looked like the goo from a spent glow stick, viscous and otherworldly. She imagined that while she scratched herself as quietly as possible in the bathroom stall at work, working at her rash vigorously whenever someone flushed or turned on the water, so they couldn't hear. She could only guess what they thought otherwise, listening to her dig into her flesh as she sat on the toilet, skirt falling to the floor around her legs.
And, because she was raised by New Age Hippies, she wondered as she scratched herself bloody, what wounds of the flesh meant. The skin, they say, is the biggest organ. What terrible karma made her have an organ so damaged and uncomfortable? What would the acupuncturist say? Or the psychic on the corner of Telegraph and Durant who stared at her when she walked by as if he was reading her mind. Did he know he made her feel as if she couldn't escape? Was that part of his ploy for making money? Or was he like Whoopie Goldberg's character in Ghost as she spoke to Demi Moore with her perfectly smooth skin and the ability to throw on a man's shirt and look sexy?
Aging is not for the meek, she thought as she pulled her hand up away from her raw, red belly. Thank god no one had to see her like this.
The Daily Write: I'm in trouble now (August 23, 2012)
I'm in trouble now
I never did officially lose my virginity. The one time that one guy tried to poke it in, and it hurt, it also made me have to pee so bad that I ran to the toilet. That was the end of that awful adventure. I had fallen and hit my head so hard on the cement in a tunnel under a street earlier in the night that I could hear it echo. That was after probably 8 beers and some sloe gin; disgusting stuff, sweet and cloying like cough syrup but with a burning alcohol aftertaste in the back of the throat.
We met the guys at the pool hall down the street from the state capitol building. How something so seedy could be in the same neighborhood as something so nice mystified me. Or would have if I had stopped to think about it. But I didn't because I didn't care. I just wanted a hot guy to like me, some money for smokes, and a night without violence or fear. You could usually get two out of three, but not all of them, and I took my chances every time I left the house.
I preferred menthol lights and switched brands frequently, never being a purist. I was currently on Virginia Slims, soft packs, which meant I needed a big enough purse to carry them and my loose change around.
We met them bumming for change. Back when a few loose coins meant something. Now it's all binary code - no real money, invisible value. Back then it was a pack, maybe a side of extra crispy french fries with barbecue sauce, Ranch Dressing had not yet been invented, and a cup of coffee. If you found somewhere good, you could sit there all night getting refills without ever paying again.
After the drinking and the fall the four of us went down into the dark basement room. I was on a bed, my friend was on a couch and, although we didn't know it at the time, the guy I was with had a younger brother who was sleeping down there too, listening and watching while we made out and he felt me up.
I never did officially lose my virginity. The one time that one guy tried to poke it in, and it hurt, it also made me have to pee so bad that I ran to the toilet. That was the end of that awful adventure. I had fallen and hit my head so hard on the cement in a tunnel under a street earlier in the night that I could hear it echo. That was after probably 8 beers and some sloe gin; disgusting stuff, sweet and cloying like cough syrup but with a burning alcohol aftertaste in the back of the throat.
We met the guys at the pool hall down the street from the state capitol building. How something so seedy could be in the same neighborhood as something so nice mystified me. Or would have if I had stopped to think about it. But I didn't because I didn't care. I just wanted a hot guy to like me, some money for smokes, and a night without violence or fear. You could usually get two out of three, but not all of them, and I took my chances every time I left the house.
I preferred menthol lights and switched brands frequently, never being a purist. I was currently on Virginia Slims, soft packs, which meant I needed a big enough purse to carry them and my loose change around.
We met them bumming for change. Back when a few loose coins meant something. Now it's all binary code - no real money, invisible value. Back then it was a pack, maybe a side of extra crispy french fries with barbecue sauce, Ranch Dressing had not yet been invented, and a cup of coffee. If you found somewhere good, you could sit there all night getting refills without ever paying again.
After the drinking and the fall the four of us went down into the dark basement room. I was on a bed, my friend was on a couch and, although we didn't know it at the time, the guy I was with had a younger brother who was sleeping down there too, listening and watching while we made out and he felt me up.
The Daily Write: A little good news (August 22, 2012)
A little good news
I was thinking about snails the other day. What strange creatures. Slimy, trail tagging beings with shells. I realized I don't know much about them really. Like, do they live in one shell all their snaily lives or do they find new shells? If they go on a hunt, wouldn't it make sense simply to go to the escargot aisles and pick up a tube of them? There could be snail trades,
"I've got a tube of 10 gauge shells, trade you for a few eight gauges."
It's far more fun for me to anthropomorphize creatures than deal with them sans any human qualities. I mean, really, wouldn't you rather read this imagining an endearingly squeaky and high little tiny snail voice than accidentally step on one on your way to the car while avoiding the dog shit someone didn't pick up on your median strip (right by the passenger door where the kids get in).
The good news is that snails are rather inconsequential. The bad news is that they will eat up all your beautiful purple kohlrabi and decimate your cabbage.
Also, as I'm sure you've heard by now, the Mars rover has landed. It sent back some pictures of earth the other day - you know what stood out most? Glowing snail trails. Millions of them.
Let me just put it to you this way: It's not aliens we have to worry about.
I was thinking about snails the other day. What strange creatures. Slimy, trail tagging beings with shells. I realized I don't know much about them really. Like, do they live in one shell all their snaily lives or do they find new shells? If they go on a hunt, wouldn't it make sense simply to go to the escargot aisles and pick up a tube of them? There could be snail trades,
"I've got a tube of 10 gauge shells, trade you for a few eight gauges."
It's far more fun for me to anthropomorphize creatures than deal with them sans any human qualities. I mean, really, wouldn't you rather read this imagining an endearingly squeaky and high little tiny snail voice than accidentally step on one on your way to the car while avoiding the dog shit someone didn't pick up on your median strip (right by the passenger door where the kids get in).
The good news is that snails are rather inconsequential. The bad news is that they will eat up all your beautiful purple kohlrabi and decimate your cabbage.
Also, as I'm sure you've heard by now, the Mars rover has landed. It sent back some pictures of earth the other day - you know what stood out most? Glowing snail trails. Millions of them.
Let me just put it to you this way: It's not aliens we have to worry about.
The Daily Write: In the mood (August 21, 2012)
In the mood
"If the mood strikes, I'll be at the bar at 10:30," Jackie said to Rhonda, who looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
"I know, I know," said Jackie, responding to Rhonda's very clear message. They had known each other for 25 years and not much passed between them that wasn't immediately understood by the other. This made Rhonda feel claustrophobic and Jackie feel secure.
Rhonda at 5'9" was a stunner. Auburn hair, dramatically arched eyebrows, legs as long as the state of Florida.
Jackie was tall too, but about twice as heavy as lithe Rhonda, and her hair was a shorn mess. At least, as she often consoled herself, she had a lovely egg-shaped head, slightly higher at the crown than at her forehead. Any more dramatic and she would have been mistaken for an alien. But then, what would be so bad about that?
Jackie waved goodbye to Rhonda at the door with her goofy face on - squinting eyes, a little smile and silent jazz fingers waving as she shut the door, almost tripping on a cord when she turned around to get to the bathroom, fast. It's not that she didn't want to go to the bar. It wasn't that she was of monstrous proportions compared to her friend. It was that she had and unpredictable and urgent need to use the toilet which ruined almost every social occasion. Rhonda knew and understood, so although she often missed Jackie, she cut her best friend a lot of slack.
Jackie couldn't tell other people, so she lived with the fear of The Pain and tried to plot her life so as never to be too far from a private, or semi-private bathroom. If she had a big job interview or important meeting, she avoided food until after it was over, trying to stave off that horrible chemical reaction in which her tongue seemed to trigger her intestines.
"If the mood strikes, I'll be at the bar at 10:30," Jackie said to Rhonda, who looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
"I know, I know," said Jackie, responding to Rhonda's very clear message. They had known each other for 25 years and not much passed between them that wasn't immediately understood by the other. This made Rhonda feel claustrophobic and Jackie feel secure.
Rhonda at 5'9" was a stunner. Auburn hair, dramatically arched eyebrows, legs as long as the state of Florida.
Jackie was tall too, but about twice as heavy as lithe Rhonda, and her hair was a shorn mess. At least, as she often consoled herself, she had a lovely egg-shaped head, slightly higher at the crown than at her forehead. Any more dramatic and she would have been mistaken for an alien. But then, what would be so bad about that?
Jackie waved goodbye to Rhonda at the door with her goofy face on - squinting eyes, a little smile and silent jazz fingers waving as she shut the door, almost tripping on a cord when she turned around to get to the bathroom, fast. It's not that she didn't want to go to the bar. It wasn't that she was of monstrous proportions compared to her friend. It was that she had and unpredictable and urgent need to use the toilet which ruined almost every social occasion. Rhonda knew and understood, so although she often missed Jackie, she cut her best friend a lot of slack.
Jackie couldn't tell other people, so she lived with the fear of The Pain and tried to plot her life so as never to be too far from a private, or semi-private bathroom. If she had a big job interview or important meeting, she avoided food until after it was over, trying to stave off that horrible chemical reaction in which her tongue seemed to trigger her intestines.
The Daily Write: It's spreading (August 20, 2012)
It's spreading
The apartment is very clean. Not much color. Big glass doors that slide in front of one another to open at the back. Doesn't matter how blah everything is inside because outside of those doors is a pool that shimmers like a handful of precious tourmaline in the changing light from early dawn until past sunset.
The sides of the pool are like rough white sand, a newly cleaned floor, a delicate egg shell or the shockingly bright white of a house on a cliff in Greece. Anything that reminds her of Greece is good. She is better in that olive-rich climate of hot bright and two thousand blues. Sky. Sea. Windows. Flowers. His eyes.
Languid. Liquid. Luminescent.
They bumped into each other at a tourist stop. One of the million little stores carrying Flokati rugs, postcards, the two headed labyris and shot glasses. She was looking at the bottom of one such glass up close, having forgotten about the glasses hanging around her neck. He was, apparently, focused on a postcard scene from Santorini.
Startled, she gasped gently and he grunted (a perfect metaphor for what would come), and they turned to see who was on the other end of the annoyance. That's when she remembered her glasses. She reached down to her chest without looking to find the chain and pull them onto her nose, and he stood there, proverbially frozen.
Later luscious lips locked.
But that was a long time ago and now she stands on the other side of the glass, looking at the clean, clear ripples on the artificial ocean outside her apartment feeling totally alone.
The apartment is very clean. Not much color. Big glass doors that slide in front of one another to open at the back. Doesn't matter how blah everything is inside because outside of those doors is a pool that shimmers like a handful of precious tourmaline in the changing light from early dawn until past sunset.
The sides of the pool are like rough white sand, a newly cleaned floor, a delicate egg shell or the shockingly bright white of a house on a cliff in Greece. Anything that reminds her of Greece is good. She is better in that olive-rich climate of hot bright and two thousand blues. Sky. Sea. Windows. Flowers. His eyes.
Languid. Liquid. Luminescent.
They bumped into each other at a tourist stop. One of the million little stores carrying Flokati rugs, postcards, the two headed labyris and shot glasses. She was looking at the bottom of one such glass up close, having forgotten about the glasses hanging around her neck. He was, apparently, focused on a postcard scene from Santorini.
Startled, she gasped gently and he grunted (a perfect metaphor for what would come), and they turned to see who was on the other end of the annoyance. That's when she remembered her glasses. She reached down to her chest without looking to find the chain and pull them onto her nose, and he stood there, proverbially frozen.
Later luscious lips locked.
But that was a long time ago and now she stands on the other side of the glass, looking at the clean, clear ripples on the artificial ocean outside her apartment feeling totally alone.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
The Daily Write: Photo #4 (August 18, 2012. 12 mins more or less)
Photo #4
Datebook
Sunday, January 5
While some artists spend years mastering their techniques with oils or acrylics, Myan Ludwig, a painter of realistic life portraits, has spent the last 10 years working on her breakthrough taste paintings. A typical painting is nothing short of colossal in size, and her controversial "The New Last Supper" is no exception. Not only does she bring an irreverent heuristic sensibility to her subjects, she tackles sacred images with the iconoclasm of the post post-modern Occupy era.
In The New Last Supper, Myan has chosen to focus not on the faces of the apostles, but rather on the meal. Whereas the original painting shows a meal of bread, Myan's revisioning is a grotesque scene of gluttony, American-style. Turkeys (just slaughtered, in a state of defeathering, stuffed and trussed but not baked, roasted crisp and brown and sliced on an overflowing plate) are depicted next to boxes of Hostess snack cakes, McDonald's meals and burritos. The apostles themselves are, perhaps too literally, corporate CEOs, Ben Bernanke and the Saudi royal family.
But what makes Myan's work so extraordinary is not her controversial pop-media subjects, but her use of edible paints. Attend any of her openings, and with the right ticket, you will be assigned a 2"x2" square for tasting. Lest you worry about germs, all paintings are correlated to an electronically-controlled grid. Once a square has been licked by a patron, the pinpoint light goes dark and that square is no longer available.
Datebook
Sunday, January 5
While some artists spend years mastering their techniques with oils or acrylics, Myan Ludwig, a painter of realistic life portraits, has spent the last 10 years working on her breakthrough taste paintings. A typical painting is nothing short of colossal in size, and her controversial "The New Last Supper" is no exception. Not only does she bring an irreverent heuristic sensibility to her subjects, she tackles sacred images with the iconoclasm of the post post-modern Occupy era.
In The New Last Supper, Myan has chosen to focus not on the faces of the apostles, but rather on the meal. Whereas the original painting shows a meal of bread, Myan's revisioning is a grotesque scene of gluttony, American-style. Turkeys (just slaughtered, in a state of defeathering, stuffed and trussed but not baked, roasted crisp and brown and sliced on an overflowing plate) are depicted next to boxes of Hostess snack cakes, McDonald's meals and burritos. The apostles themselves are, perhaps too literally, corporate CEOs, Ben Bernanke and the Saudi royal family.
But what makes Myan's work so extraordinary is not her controversial pop-media subjects, but her use of edible paints. Attend any of her openings, and with the right ticket, you will be assigned a 2"x2" square for tasting. Lest you worry about germs, all paintings are correlated to an electronically-controlled grid. Once a square has been licked by a patron, the pinpoint light goes dark and that square is no longer available.
Friday, August 17, 2012
The Daily Write: A bottle of pills (August 17, 2012. 12 mins)
A bottle of pills
The house up on a hillside in a nondescript neighborhood contained two bottles of pills behind two front doors. The master bedroom also had two doors. The bathroom only one. The kitchen seemed to be an afterthought, cramped and hard to use to make a meal. She didn't need much though. She wasn't accustomed to eating. A purse full of gum and mints, a cupboard with cookies and marshmallow cream she kept just to remind herself that she could eat if she wanted to, and a fridge containing cold Tang, a stick of margarine and an empty egg carton stuck to the bottom Plexiglas shelf on some ancient sticky strawberry jam, the remnants of a disgusting old boyfriend she guessed, staring at it with anger.
She couldn't touch it, of course. Couldn't risk bending down and putting her head next to that rotten old fruit and sugar pulp. She would pay a price too high if some part of her hand touched it. So she stood there, glaring, breathing, then trying to breathe, then losing breath until she fell down in a nauseous haze of dizzy.
Sometimes the only way out was the most grueling and painful. Her head hit the edge of the open broiler drawer and got cut, an oozing sweet gash of red. After she came to she just lay there, feeling the wetness dripping through her tangled hair and staring at the bumpy ceiling, textured like an orange peel, peeling and yellowed paint curling like clouds.
One leg bent, her hips flat and hands by her sides, she wondered what god would think, looking down on her in this position. Chewing the inside of her lip until the urge to puke overcame her desire to stay still for the next 7 hours, she turned her throbbing and wet head toward the rubber molding under the sink cabinet and felt the bile spill out.
Milo walked in the left front door just then. Some part of her was happy to hear his shuffle toward the side table with the day's mail, keys chiming as they got dropped down onto the wood (how many times had she told him to watch it so the table didn't get scratched?) She thought about calling out to him, but decided it would be far better to simply be found, in a fog. He hated her "dramas" as he called them, acting as if she had nothing to do with the scene she made, in a pool of her own blood on the floor between the stove and the sink, seemed the better choice.
The house up on a hillside in a nondescript neighborhood contained two bottles of pills behind two front doors. The master bedroom also had two doors. The bathroom only one. The kitchen seemed to be an afterthought, cramped and hard to use to make a meal. She didn't need much though. She wasn't accustomed to eating. A purse full of gum and mints, a cupboard with cookies and marshmallow cream she kept just to remind herself that she could eat if she wanted to, and a fridge containing cold Tang, a stick of margarine and an empty egg carton stuck to the bottom Plexiglas shelf on some ancient sticky strawberry jam, the remnants of a disgusting old boyfriend she guessed, staring at it with anger.
She couldn't touch it, of course. Couldn't risk bending down and putting her head next to that rotten old fruit and sugar pulp. She would pay a price too high if some part of her hand touched it. So she stood there, glaring, breathing, then trying to breathe, then losing breath until she fell down in a nauseous haze of dizzy.
Sometimes the only way out was the most grueling and painful. Her head hit the edge of the open broiler drawer and got cut, an oozing sweet gash of red. After she came to she just lay there, feeling the wetness dripping through her tangled hair and staring at the bumpy ceiling, textured like an orange peel, peeling and yellowed paint curling like clouds.
One leg bent, her hips flat and hands by her sides, she wondered what god would think, looking down on her in this position. Chewing the inside of her lip until the urge to puke overcame her desire to stay still for the next 7 hours, she turned her throbbing and wet head toward the rubber molding under the sink cabinet and felt the bile spill out.
Milo walked in the left front door just then. Some part of her was happy to hear his shuffle toward the side table with the day's mail, keys chiming as they got dropped down onto the wood (how many times had she told him to watch it so the table didn't get scratched?) She thought about calling out to him, but decided it would be far better to simply be found, in a fog. He hated her "dramas" as he called them, acting as if she had nothing to do with the scene she made, in a pool of her own blood on the floor between the stove and the sink, seemed the better choice.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
The Daily Write: I walked out (August 16, 2012. 12 mins)
I walked out
My M.O. was always the same: pick 'em up, fuck 'em, kick 'em out or walk out on 'em. I didn't need no fancy proclamations of "oh baby you have the sweetest pussy I ever tasted," or "your titties are like buttercups." I knew just how it was - an animal thing, brought on by senseless chemicals coursing through under my skin and some kind of stupid scented, no one could smell it, thing the man brought out of the woman when they got near enough to walk in each other's waft.
"Baby you're a long, tall drink of water" was nothing more than senseless gibberish to me. Didn't have no power, didn't need to be taken no account of neither.
"Cut the crap, Luther (or Harold, or Johnny, or Jimmy, or Luscious, or Tim), I don't need to hear you talking and you shore as hell don't need to hear yourself. Now come over here and get busy." I spread my legs out wide like a display, lift up my silk and satin 100% like real nightie and let him take me. At least, in his mind, that's what he be doin. In my mind, course, I be takin' him. For all he's worth. I got what he needs. I know how to use him to my advantage.
Then little Lilly Jo came along, changed everything. For the first time I could remember since before my mama left me when I was five, I felt like I couldn't live without another person. Frankly, if I'm being truthful here, this was more than I could take. I didn't count on feeling worried and loving about another person and I sure didn't want to think her life was in my hands. Naturally, though, it was.
Lilly Jo was pudgy and rolly, like soft bread dough. She had the biggest little cheeks I ever saw, and her hair was curly and soft, unusual cause it was red, gold and brown, all together. People used to ask me "did you color your baby's hair?" as if I had the time or inclination. Sometimes, just for the heck of it, I said "why yes, I did, just last Sunday, do you like it?"
Lilly grew faster than I liked - going from being a soft ball of laughter and stink to something lanky and slim, like me sort of - only she glided across the floor where I just sort of pounded across it, taking what I wanted. Lilly had wiles and ways. She could make you do anything just by smiling and blinking and this worried me. But not enough I guess. Cause I still let Bobby move in with us, even though every hair standing up on the back of my arm told me not to.
The night he finally came to stay the wind bit at my skin coming through the cracks between the logs in our homemade little cabin. I shoulda known then something wasn't right. It was late summer. Hot. Burnt. But I felt shivers running down my back and across my calves. And Lilly Jo, she didn't make one sound at all. Not one.
My M.O. was always the same: pick 'em up, fuck 'em, kick 'em out or walk out on 'em. I didn't need no fancy proclamations of "oh baby you have the sweetest pussy I ever tasted," or "your titties are like buttercups." I knew just how it was - an animal thing, brought on by senseless chemicals coursing through under my skin and some kind of stupid scented, no one could smell it, thing the man brought out of the woman when they got near enough to walk in each other's waft.
"Baby you're a long, tall drink of water" was nothing more than senseless gibberish to me. Didn't have no power, didn't need to be taken no account of neither.
"Cut the crap, Luther (or Harold, or Johnny, or Jimmy, or Luscious, or Tim), I don't need to hear you talking and you shore as hell don't need to hear yourself. Now come over here and get busy." I spread my legs out wide like a display, lift up my silk and satin 100% like real nightie and let him take me. At least, in his mind, that's what he be doin. In my mind, course, I be takin' him. For all he's worth. I got what he needs. I know how to use him to my advantage.
Then little Lilly Jo came along, changed everything. For the first time I could remember since before my mama left me when I was five, I felt like I couldn't live without another person. Frankly, if I'm being truthful here, this was more than I could take. I didn't count on feeling worried and loving about another person and I sure didn't want to think her life was in my hands. Naturally, though, it was.
Lilly Jo was pudgy and rolly, like soft bread dough. She had the biggest little cheeks I ever saw, and her hair was curly and soft, unusual cause it was red, gold and brown, all together. People used to ask me "did you color your baby's hair?" as if I had the time or inclination. Sometimes, just for the heck of it, I said "why yes, I did, just last Sunday, do you like it?"
Lilly grew faster than I liked - going from being a soft ball of laughter and stink to something lanky and slim, like me sort of - only she glided across the floor where I just sort of pounded across it, taking what I wanted. Lilly had wiles and ways. She could make you do anything just by smiling and blinking and this worried me. But not enough I guess. Cause I still let Bobby move in with us, even though every hair standing up on the back of my arm told me not to.
The night he finally came to stay the wind bit at my skin coming through the cracks between the logs in our homemade little cabin. I shoulda known then something wasn't right. It was late summer. Hot. Burnt. But I felt shivers running down my back and across my calves. And Lilly Jo, she didn't make one sound at all. Not one.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
The Daily Write: Paper Towels (August 15, 2012. 10 or 12 mins)
Paper Towels
She didn't believe in them. Never had. Well, not since the hippie moved in with her mother back in the late 70s. He labeled every bottle in the house, got rid of all the bad detergents and toxic producing cleaners and replaced the paper towels with cloth rags. Being a rather beautiful man with precious taste, he didn't simply put up some dirty old terry-cloth numbers, but instead he cut up old saris his mother had brought from India when she came in the 40s.
Along with beautiful fabrics used as rags, he brought a new sensibility to the dinner table. Curries. Stir fry with deep purple eggplant the size of a civilized zucchini before the summer turned long and they grew into giant unwieldy things, sweet corn fresh from the cob and Zachariah's farm on Hood River.
Before he moved into their house, he had been living in a warehouse with a giant rolling door and wooden beams. The rain leaked down through the roof and onto the hay spread on the floor in the big open space that held an old cider press. She didn't want to admit that the almost rotten apples which came in on the back of a rusty 1950s Chevy tasted so good as juice, but one couldn't avoid the sour sweet goodness that tasted the way autumn smelled, wet and loamy.
Everything seemed to sparkle after he came into their lives - ordinary objects were named, extraordinary textures lined the towel bars and walls and ceilings. Stars were painted on walls and a moon was carved into the dark wood of the bathroom door. Plants were suddenly crawling across the bare walls, creating the feeling of being in Max's jungle with the Wild Things.
She didn't believe in them. Never had. Well, not since the hippie moved in with her mother back in the late 70s. He labeled every bottle in the house, got rid of all the bad detergents and toxic producing cleaners and replaced the paper towels with cloth rags. Being a rather beautiful man with precious taste, he didn't simply put up some dirty old terry-cloth numbers, but instead he cut up old saris his mother had brought from India when she came in the 40s.
Along with beautiful fabrics used as rags, he brought a new sensibility to the dinner table. Curries. Stir fry with deep purple eggplant the size of a civilized zucchini before the summer turned long and they grew into giant unwieldy things, sweet corn fresh from the cob and Zachariah's farm on Hood River.
Before he moved into their house, he had been living in a warehouse with a giant rolling door and wooden beams. The rain leaked down through the roof and onto the hay spread on the floor in the big open space that held an old cider press. She didn't want to admit that the almost rotten apples which came in on the back of a rusty 1950s Chevy tasted so good as juice, but one couldn't avoid the sour sweet goodness that tasted the way autumn smelled, wet and loamy.
Everything seemed to sparkle after he came into their lives - ordinary objects were named, extraordinary textures lined the towel bars and walls and ceilings. Stars were painted on walls and a moon was carved into the dark wood of the bathroom door. Plants were suddenly crawling across the bare walls, creating the feeling of being in Max's jungle with the Wild Things.
The Daily Write: Burnt (August 14, 2012. 10 mins)
Burnt
Some things aren't worth mentioning. The betrayals. The authorities. The resulting sorrow.
Trauma, on the other hand, that might be worth exploring. The way it builds up like a question inside your gullet. A sick, light helium feeling of dread and wrong been done. It builds up into an unimpressive weight of mucous-thick grey, a viscous mud clogging up the system. Trauma is five trips to the toilet in two hours, bleeding diarrhea like water, festering pain so low in the gut it feels dangerous.
You eat at yourself from the inside, close your eyes and take three tiny pills hoping to forget. Grinding your teeth together until jaws are aching, turning on the couch, ungainly and huge, your nightgown bunched up underneath your side until it pulls at your throat. Choking on accusations and misguided assumptions, no hope to redeem oneself. No hope.
It's one thing to choose deception as a path in life. Almost honorable. The grifter's code. It's another to believe you are doing everything right only to be misinterpreted until you believe you may have been doing it all wrong. No amount of crazy outside can help you deal with the doubt inside.
You burn sage and candles, cough in the smoke of herbs and incantations, and pray for release. All the while, you wonder what karma brought this misery to your doorstep, and how much more you will have to repay before it is over.
In the distance, the train whistle screeches into a dense fog. Summer cold. Icy isolation. Some things take time. You hope. You hope time is the answer. You hope it's all over. Heal now. Heal.
Demand it.
Some things aren't worth mentioning. The betrayals. The authorities. The resulting sorrow.
Trauma, on the other hand, that might be worth exploring. The way it builds up like a question inside your gullet. A sick, light helium feeling of dread and wrong been done. It builds up into an unimpressive weight of mucous-thick grey, a viscous mud clogging up the system. Trauma is five trips to the toilet in two hours, bleeding diarrhea like water, festering pain so low in the gut it feels dangerous.
You eat at yourself from the inside, close your eyes and take three tiny pills hoping to forget. Grinding your teeth together until jaws are aching, turning on the couch, ungainly and huge, your nightgown bunched up underneath your side until it pulls at your throat. Choking on accusations and misguided assumptions, no hope to redeem oneself. No hope.
It's one thing to choose deception as a path in life. Almost honorable. The grifter's code. It's another to believe you are doing everything right only to be misinterpreted until you believe you may have been doing it all wrong. No amount of crazy outside can help you deal with the doubt inside.
You burn sage and candles, cough in the smoke of herbs and incantations, and pray for release. All the while, you wonder what karma brought this misery to your doorstep, and how much more you will have to repay before it is over.
In the distance, the train whistle screeches into a dense fog. Summer cold. Icy isolation. Some things take time. You hope. You hope time is the answer. You hope it's all over. Heal now. Heal.
Demand it.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
The Daily Write: Happy Birthday! (January 27, 2012. 12 minutes)
Happy Birthday!
"One hates to be maudlin, but it's oh so much easier to remember the difficulties," said the long necked woman, too thin to have come by it naturally, as she linhaled leisurely on her unfashionable cigarette and looked above the head of her companion.
She exuded old money and class, you could see it in the way she looked distantly at the person closest to her, as if erecting an invisible barrier - "your class...mine." It was hard for anyone to imagine her young, although few even tried. See, women like that were difficult to humanize, with their taut, controlled elegance and withering yet graceful demands.
She tapped her tea cup ever so slightly, and the waiter standing by poured her tea, refilling the porcelain cup only three quarters so as not to be garish. Nothing in excess.
"The problem with the scenario," she said, exhaling over her left shoulder which was ornamented with a cloisonne clasp on cinching together an umber raw silk scarf, "is that if I tell you the truth about my childhood, you simply won't believe it."
She raised one eyebrow and looked directly at the befuddled man sitting across from her at the small cloth covered tea table. He seemed tongue tied and instead of speaking, looked at her like a curious Basset hound might eye a stranger with a piece of raw liver in her hand.
"Oh, all right - if you insist." She crushed her cigarette gently into a leaded crystal ashtray which was taken away and replaced with a clean one before she finished exhaling. "I suppose you could say, it all started at midnight on terribly hot August on The Cape."
Just then the Basset's cell phone rang, a horrible tropical horn blurting in a space that was not used to such a banal and inappropriate interruption.
"Uh. Oh. Dear - I'm so sorry," he managed to say while trying to turn off the phone, which of course, as one would expect in such a situation, was accidentally dropped into his tea, causing the cup to overflow onto the tiny plate beneath it. They both looked at the golden brown liquid as if it were urine or poison, yet neither said anything more.
"One hates to be maudlin, but it's oh so much easier to remember the difficulties," said the long necked woman, too thin to have come by it naturally, as she linhaled leisurely on her unfashionable cigarette and looked above the head of her companion.
She exuded old money and class, you could see it in the way she looked distantly at the person closest to her, as if erecting an invisible barrier - "your class...mine." It was hard for anyone to imagine her young, although few even tried. See, women like that were difficult to humanize, with their taut, controlled elegance and withering yet graceful demands.
She tapped her tea cup ever so slightly, and the waiter standing by poured her tea, refilling the porcelain cup only three quarters so as not to be garish. Nothing in excess.
"The problem with the scenario," she said, exhaling over her left shoulder which was ornamented with a cloisonne clasp on cinching together an umber raw silk scarf, "is that if I tell you the truth about my childhood, you simply won't believe it."
She raised one eyebrow and looked directly at the befuddled man sitting across from her at the small cloth covered tea table. He seemed tongue tied and instead of speaking, looked at her like a curious Basset hound might eye a stranger with a piece of raw liver in her hand.
"Oh, all right - if you insist." She crushed her cigarette gently into a leaded crystal ashtray which was taken away and replaced with a clean one before she finished exhaling. "I suppose you could say, it all started at midnight on terribly hot August on The Cape."
Just then the Basset's cell phone rang, a horrible tropical horn blurting in a space that was not used to such a banal and inappropriate interruption.
"Uh. Oh. Dear - I'm so sorry," he managed to say while trying to turn off the phone, which of course, as one would expect in such a situation, was accidentally dropped into his tea, causing the cup to overflow onto the tiny plate beneath it. They both looked at the golden brown liquid as if it were urine or poison, yet neither said anything more.
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