Par Avion

Marked Chapter 2 (Part Two)

2011-12-26T21:13:00.001-08:00

“That is not a proper farthing, give me another.” I insisted, not wanting to take the shaved coin from the miller’s daughter. She held it out stubbornly.
“Here, here, here, just take 3 of my farthings and give me a penny back, will that suit? That flour looks more weevil than oats, it is not worth the 7 farthings you asked.”
I fell back into my custom of attending church morning and evening on Sunday. And I waited for the next call to the duty of my gift. When the knock came I dared to hope for a summons to a newborn, another voglie to be read, more silver for my purse. I opened my door to the heavy fisted pounding, and looked out to a beautiful evening of fiery sky after sunset across the valley. The shrouded henchmen of the Bishop could be mistaken for no one else. I suddenly felt icy underneath my cloak. They grabbed me out of my doorway. I counted four of them. I looked around for witnesses and saw that Sarah, my neighbor across the lane, was peeking out of the corner of her window, the curtain pulled ever so slightly to the side. Her eyes were wide and wild. Did she fear for herself, or for me? She let the sack cloth curtain fall into place after our eyes met. The men pushed me down on my knees into the flint shards of the garden path. I had no hope of standing let alone running, unless my captors willed it. A reeking, sticky, hood was pushed over my head. The smell of rotting vegetables and something coppery filled my nose and mouth. I struggled to keep calm. What were their plans? Why hadn’t they shackled me? The urge to run was strong. The men did not even bother to shackle me. I knew my surroundings even if I couldn’t see them, but I also knew there was nowhere to hide and none of my neighbors would take me in with the Bishop’s men after me. And it would not be fair to my neighbors to bring that sort of trouble to their door. Two of the men held me under my arms and dragged me away from my home, then threw me onto a flat surface about as high as my knees. My hands felt the damp wood. I sat up but was knocked down flat as my shoulder caught the blow of something unforgiving. There came a crashing sound around my ears. It sounded like iron on wood. I had seen carts used for transporting prisoners, first to prison, and then to gallows. I feared I was in such a cart. My shoulder throbbed as the contraption jerked forward. I heard a horse clopping at the front of the cart. I was certain those hollow sounds were the drums for the gallows. Dread fell over me. I felt a cold trickle of sweat from under my arms.
I reached up and felt the lid of the cart made from flat strips of iron, riveted at each overlapping joint into a lattice with 3 inch square openings, providing no protection from the weather. I thought for a moment of all the men who might have been taken away in this cart. I shuddered. I knew that my survival depended on keeping a cool head and gathering as much information as I could. The lattice left enough room for three fingers to grab each cold strip, which in its turn was the width of my thumb. That was the same width as the blade of the knife I often carried, but had left on the table when I answered the door. Between the iron lattice lid and the floor of the cart there was just enough room for me to turn over from my back to my belly, but I could not sit up. I breathed my gratitude to a kind God that I had my shoes and leggings on under my usual cloak and tunic. I prayed I would not be deprived of these. The hood over my face smelled vile, coppery, acrid. I knew better than to try to remove it. A few times the bile rose in my throat, but I focused on my breathing and the bile retreated.
The droning of the drumming hoofs, the creak of the wheels, the rubbing of the iron lid, sometimes felt like sleep to me. Each time the cart stopped, and the lid was lifted, I thought my time had come and I began to say my prayers, “Ave Maria, gratia plena. Dominus…” and received a sound cuff against my ear, “Be still!” commanded one of the guards. Six times the cart stopped, the iron lattice lid was lifted, and the hood pulled back just enough to throw water into my mouth. They allowed me to relieve myself so as not so soil my garments or perhaps the cart. Once someone held my head and shoved a pinch of bread between my lips with salty fingers that smelled of horse and something worse. Twice I saw daylight prying under the hood. Four times the stopping was but a few minutes, perhaps half an hour in all, but twice the cart stopped for a long enough time that is must have been night. I could hear rustling and low talk farther in front of the cart and assumed my captors were bedding down near the road. I was confused by their treatment of me, most likely I was meant to be. Nonetheless I was able to count three days travel from my home. Three days locked in a cage, with that vile hood over my face, felt like a year. But three days in a cart with one horse walking at a steady gait travels a predictable distance. My suspicions of our destination grew as strong as certainty.

"Marked" Chapter 2 (Part One)

2011-12-18T20:10:00.001-08:00

I pulled my cloak around me, secured the hood, and pinned the woman with all my authority. Her eyes were large with fear, but she looked at my face for an answer.
“A trick of the light, nothing more.” I felt I was boring the message into her, to convince her she had seen a shadow only.
Turning to her husband I continued “Now, our business is concluded. I must return home. Immediately. I trust I do not need to remind you of the importance of discretion.” He pulled a small pouch from his vest pocket and handed it to me. The dull clink of the coins and the weight felt right enough, I did not stop to count it. I left the merchant’s great hall to mount the horse he had waiting for me. The same stable boy rode with me. I was glad for his company as I paid little attention to the way home. I was too preoccupied with concern. I worried that the wife would say what she had seen. It would be interpreted as a sign of evil. What if she told her priest in confession? Somehow the news would get back to the Bishop of Lincoln. He would not stand for it, any of it. He would charge me with heresy, and more. Anyone caught using my services would be subject to the same. And the Bishop would get more than a small pouch of silver for his trouble.
I arrived home in the dead of night. I was relieved the stable boy could be so easily persuaded to bed down with the horses in a stable closer to town. I gave him two farthings to see him on his way. As soon as he was out of sight I squared my shoulders and walked across the lane to Sarah’s cottage. I knocked on her front door as loud as I dared, not wanting to wake any other neighbors. I stood in the shadow of a shadow. After a few minutes Sarah came to the door.
“I need your help.” I whispered. She opened the door to let me in.
“Tell me.”
“I may not be safe. And it may not be safe to be seen helping me.”
“I understand.”
“I will need food, I have nowhere else to go. If the Bishop’s men do not come for me I will resume my work and no one here will be any the wiser.” I watched her as she listened, hoping that the trust we had built since her husband’s death would be enough. She looked away and bit the side of her lip.
Finally she looked back at me and said, “I will leave pottage over the embers and bread in a cloth on the table for you every evening. You may enter in secrecy. We must never talk of this again.”
As I walked out her door, Sarah gripped my arm and said, “I could never have continued my life here after John’s death had you not spoken up for me. I would not be here making my own way. I owe you a great deal. I will help you any way I can.”
I patted her hand, and managed a smile. I had been surprised too, that our village had let her stay in her house when she was widowed. It helped that the clothes she made were better than most could get in the big city. She stood out without a husband, but she belonged. And that was enough.
Over the next few days I stayed out of sight. I did not speak with anyone, not even Sarah. I went back to work making arrows, but I kept my cottage shuttered. I used my oil lamps but I was afraid to light a fire. I ate what provisions I had stored. A week passed. No one came for me. I snuck into Sarah’s cottage across the lane, at night, for pottage and ale. I left her a silver penny. Once there was a sausage in a cloth with some oat cakes left out on the table. Two furtive weeks passed and still no sign that the Bishop would send for me. I dared to go to market to sell my arrows. I began to doubt they would ever come for me.

"Marked" Chapter One (Part Two)

2011-12-17T06:57:00.001-08:00

“You have nothing to worry about.” I reassured the mother. “I can see that you are inspired by your love of god.” Her eyes closed under heavy lids. She breathed deeply.
“I am ready to speak with your master.” I handed the baby back to her, stood, and secured my cloak around me, the hood still around my ears against the night air. The maid, holding the candle, went to unbolt the door and her shadow swallowed the three of us by the bed. A murmur and a rustle, within moments the father stood before me, his man holding an oil lamp between us. The room could barely hold the 6 of us, but no one suggested a different room. The great hall would echo our words for all to hear who might be in the house, or even perhaps standing just outside the shuttered window. No, the master bedroom was best.
I pressed my lips together, glad the father had sent his fastest horse to fetch me. Many who would not pay me would rather offer their bundle to God, at the church’s door. They were not always left at the door. And they were not always found right away. But the messenger who came for me was quite open about his master’s situation. There were no other children. This, being the first live birth, might be the only. He, though a lowly stable hand, was concerned for his master and mistress, hoped their babe was healthy, thought that no one else deserved a child more, the cook had told him how careful and pious the mistress had been, and how faithful and affectionate the master was. The cook had told the stable boy how the master and mistress took their prayers every morning together, and the stable hand, while fetching me, had repeated it proudly.
“Well?” the master asked at last, “What is the matter?”
“The matter is quite holy,” I tipped my head out of respect, “I have only seen this once before. It seems your wife has thought of nothing during her confinement but loving god. So the mark reveals her devotion.”
“Oh,” the father’s shoulders slacked, his head tilted slightly. He smiled. “She had wanted to be a nun before we married. This is a great unburdening for my soul today. We are truly blessed.”
“There is more…” I watched the father draw himself up. “The mark will fade. By the time he is 10 or 12 years of age, should you be so blessed, there may only be a shadow of what you see now.”
“That is good news indeed!” the father grabbed my arm, found my hand to shake it vigorously. The mother came from behind me to stand with her husband, brushing up against my shaking elbow, and dragging at my cloak. The hood came down and I heard her gasp. I turned to see her hand over her mouth. I knew what she had seen. Her eyes were wide, staring into mine. My own stain, my own mark, never faded, behind my ear: a round shape with two identical points on the top never failed to remind anyone who saw it of the Devil himself.

"Marked" Chapter One (Part One)

2011-12-14T20:48:00.000-08:00

I called for the candle to be brought closer. The chambermaid held the flame beside me as her shadow lurched against the wall behind her. The woman sitting in front of me looked down into the bundled blanket she was holding. I heard a tiny whine, almost like a hinge on a rainy day, but it had not rained for weeks, and the door was soundly bolted. The bundle seemed to shift, but it could have been the flickering candle. The woman sat on a bed, a plain frame, with a mattress, most likely feathers. Her husband, a successful merchant, could afford four posts with curtains, and more. Even so, the bed frame was plain, well-oiled pine, honey under the single flame. I turned my eyes back to the bundle. I reached to move the cloth aside. The woman’s shoulders started shaking, her head hung lower. Pulling the cloth back I could see something smooth, pale pink. I touched it with the side of my finger, the pale part rolled away, revealing a dark red cloud. I touched that too, soft, silky, yielding yet firm, like a ripe berry. I pulled the cloth aside to get a better look, and a tiny fist pushed up through the folds. The baby plugged his mouth with his fingers and rolled his eyes at me, cow-like. He was not more than two days old.

Our faces turned as we heard a swish of someone on the other side of the rough wooden door. But no one knocked. The baby mewled again. One of his fists rubbed up against the mark, the voglie as I had learned to call it. The surface of the mark was downy, plump and red like a raspberry flattened on the side of his face. I touched the infant carefully, turning his head from side to side to get a good look in what light we had.

“He is fortunate.” The chambermaid jumped as I spoke, almost dropped the candle. “Hish!” I reprimanded her immediately, before continuing. “This mark will fade with time.” The woman holding him let out a long breath. She began to rock him slightly. Our work had just begun. “But there is more.” Her movement stopped. I sat on the bed next to her.

“Will you take your cloak off then, sir?” The chambermaid reached with her free hand to take my cloak, but I slapped her wrist and she drew back.

“Stand just there with the candle so. I need the light to shine here.” It would not do to let the candle get too close. I took the baby from his mother. The bundling fell away, draping across my arms. Fully exposed, his face looked like any other infant’s face, on the left, but the right side was a dark, downy, tumescent map of desires and possibly betrayal. The mark started just below his right eye, next to the soft hollow above his ear, a bright red blotch down to his jaw, across half his cheek, and stopped just at the edge of his ear. The infant’s father had hired me to interpret the mark, to help him decide. I knew all that hung in the balance. Each of us in this room knew. Not all mothers were the same. And the marks always told the story. Once, I saw a mark of pure betrayal: a baby born with what looked to me like a shadow of the face of another man on the babe’s shoulder. The young mother had offered me the pleasure of her body in exchange for a favorable reading. I have never accepted a bribe to answer speciously, not then, not ever. This mother’s eyes were pools of prayer. I took pity on her. What little I knew of this household spoke of her virtue.

Looking at the voglie, I unfocused my eyes and turned the baby this way and that, despite his weak protests. As I centered my gaze into the puffy red blotch, careful to avoid focusing on the surface, the edges seemed to recede and shapes began to reveal themselves as if rolling over within the clouded skin. I was born with this ability, but it took years to hone it, and then to make my reputation and by that a living of sorts. In this babe’s mark I could see a hint of house and field, then of kitchen and hearth, perhaps a church’s nave. This was rare. Usually I saw a face or an expression, sometimes laughing, often angry. The way most people could see shapes in clouds, or stars, or bones, or tea leaves, I could see not prophesy, but history in the marks made on babes in the womb.

10 Minute Prompt: An impactful story from your childhood...

2011-04-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

As a child growing up in suburban Georgia my only window to urban life and values was Sesame Street. Then, in third grade, I read a book about a little boy who lived in an inner city housing project, or maybe it was a tenement in Harlem, and who found a little black and white cat in a vacant lot. This was the first sad story about a child I'd read. But also, the story as I am barely able to remember, didn't end so well for the little black and white cat. And the fate of the little boy, who had enjoyed so much emotional attachment with the cat, is lost to my selective memory.

I have often thought of that book and wondered what the name of it might be, and if anyone else read it and what they thought of it, and of course what happened to the little boy. I have heard similar stories through the years of people whose attachments to animals rivaled, surpassed, or supplanted their attachments to people. And in turn I reflect on my cat, Killer, whom I adopted before I could afford cat food. I fed him cheese and raw eggs for four days, and tore up newspaper for his litter box. I made time to sit quietly with him, 20 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening. He was old enough to spray inside the closet before found an affordable neuter clinic.

Killer always seemed to think something strange was going on when my roommates were on acid. He grew to enormous size, weighing nearly 20 pounds and retained his preference for lap over any other bed. He was named for a punk band, Killer Pussy From the Cult of Planet Playtex, which was written in blurring ink on his white flea collar.

10 Minute Prompt: Use a randomly selected colloquialism to write...

2011-04-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

"Man Up!"

In the fifteen foot skiff, rising and falling a good ten feet with every swell, waiting for the top of the next swell before grabbing the rope ladder, so as to climb to the deck of the ship I had traveled all day to get to, I hesitated.

"Man up!" the skiff's skipper stood beside me, a jolly laugh on his lips, hands on his hips, one foot against the gunnel like it weren't nothing. Resentment at his command balled a fist in my gut. The skiff rose, peaked and time slowed as I grabbed the closest rung of the rope ladder. In the next moment I was standing on the deck of the ship with no memory of climbing up two stories of swinging ladder.

"Woman on deck," I muttered to myself. The three men on deck nearby ignored me. Turning a circle I saw a woman coming toward me from a wall of indistinguishable metal features of pipes, valves, screw seals, and ladders. She held her arms open, smiled broadly and warmly, and said, "Go right through that hatch to the galley. There's hot chocolate and coffee to warm you up." I looked in the direction she gestured: all pipes, valves, and portholes.

"What hatch?"

Keep by your Bed

2011-04-09T08:20:00.000-07:00

Keep a glass of water by your bed.
I do this, though I rarely drink
and days later I find dust and cat hair
settling in, or I catch my cat dipping
a paw, as if the glass is by his bed.

Keep a book you read by your bed.
I have a stack of half-read books:
I know how the biography ends;
I never want the mystery to be solved;
I hope the lovers never find or fuck each other.

Keep an extra blanket by your bed.
Near the end of winter nights are piled
high with every extra blanket, sleeping
is a tropical vacation.
Then Spring pushes Winter aside.
I fold the blankets one by one,
reach them onto the top shelf,
extra again.

Seafair

2011-04-09T07:59:00.000-07:00

The second hand ticked up to the 12 as I poured another soda. I tried not to look at my watch too often, adult customers noticed and scowled resentfully. The minute hand dragged. 14 minutes before the end of my shift. I poured another soda for a sweaty eight-year-old in blue jeans and a striped tee-shirt. His crew-cut glistened in the mid-afternoon sun. I was grateful for the awning over the snack booth. In late August that sun would light the sky for hours after it sank behind the Olympic Mountains. I reached out, bending over the counter to hand the kid his drink and caught something dark out of the corner of my eye.

He leaned in his crackerjack uniform against the high fence enclosing the roller coaster. A car full of screaming teens flew by behind him. His white neckerchief ruffled briefly. His right leg was crossed over his left, right foot balanced on the toe edge of his spit polished black shoes. I sucked a breath in through my teeth. His wide bell bottoms lightly grazed the midway pavement. Each hip bone sported its own short vertical row of anchor-embossed buttons which were joined at the top by a horizontal row just below his waist. Crisp, clean lines of his uniform curved to his casual balance.

Sweat dripped a cool track down my back. His arms crossed, hands flat under his biceps, the flaring collar lay flat across his shoulders. The round sailor's hat, tipped forward on his head, looked almost ready to fall over his face. He was my height, and wiry. Under the dixie-cup cap his face was stone and his eyes burned into me hotter than the pitched pavement. He was staring so hard I couldn't tell what color his eyes were. Despite his relaxed pose, I expected him to pounce. I looked down at my plush flesh pushed up in a ping and red polka dot sweetheart neckline.

....

I can't remember the prompt that spawned these words...

2011-04-06T22:06:00.000-07:00

They had long hair, but even at 75 mph I could tell they were men. They were dressed in bright red, yellow, blue, green, and purple baggy tee-shirts and cutoff shorts. And leather sandals. In as much time as it took to whiz past them on the freeway I saw them. Three men stood on the concrete rail at the edge of the freeway. One lept into the air and pulled one knee up to his chest and disappeared beyond the rail. Past them I could see the coffee waters of the cypress steeped Echeconee Creek. "What about the sharp stumps?" my mind screamed, "There are cotton mouths hiding in there!" My mouth hung open, my eyes bulged. By the time we passed the VW Microbus I asked my dad "Who are those people?"
We were driving along I75 in our Rambler station wagon. As usual I was in the back, flat, surrounded by windows.
"Those," drawled my father, "are hippies."

10 Minute Prompt: What is on your walls?

2011-04-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

Every event in my life now is memorialized by a photograph. This was not always so. Before digital photography I spent many years between cameras, unwilling to spend money on film and developing. During those years other people would come up to me during Gay Pride or at the Wild Rose on a crowded night, or on Broadway on a Sunday afternoon, and say to me, "I have this picture of you in your fringe jacket!" or "I have this picture of me leaning back on you at Denny Blaine, my crew cut head between your bare breasts. I'll sell it when you run for office." Then they wink.
In the photographed days I always imagined I would fill a wall with the images, the faces, the fancies, the places I had lived. Those photos are still in stacks, zipped in a portfolio. One photo made it into a frame and onto a wall. One poem, a gift from a much older, lascivious step-poet. A 4"x6" black and white photo of my father's family taken when my Aunt Corene was away in the city. A framed piece of wrapping paper adorned with the snow queen and her fire snorting stallions spraying snow and winter ptarmigan at the runners of her sled.

10 Minute Prompt: Rewrite a story that was influential early in your life.

2011-04-06T20:50:00.000-07:00

"Fiddle dee dee!" Scarlet flipped her ringlets in the hallway mirror before running upstairs to Melanie.
In her room, as always, Melanie reclined on the chaise, her forearm shading her eyes, hands hanging listlessly. "Do you think Ashley will write me today?"
"Well I do declare," Scarlet hitched her hoop skirts as she walked across to sit on the embroidered foot stool next to Melanie's chaise. "I don't know what you see in him." Scarlet leaned against the chaise so that her arm touched, elbow to wrist, Melanie's hip.
"He is so handsome and gentle..." Melanie started
"Milquetoast!" interjected Scarlet. "Melanie," Scarlet pouted, "Let's go for a walk in the cherry orchard. Come along, it will invigorate you."
"But I don't want to be invigorated." And what if a letter arrives from Ashley? I don't want to miss it!"
"It will wait. I want to walk with you in the evening light. It's so nice this time of day."
"That does sound nice," Melanie lifted her arm to look at Scarlet whose lashes batted prettily in front of her sparkling eyes. Melanie felt her heart flop ever so gently.

10 Minute Prompt: side effects

2011-02-21T15:13:00.000-08:00

I often use things for their side effect. Benadryl for sleep, cheese for comfort, drinks for camaraderie. Knowing that the thing itself does something I don't care about. Every now and then I drive to feel the steering wheel under my hand, the G-force of getting there, the rough road loud under the wheels. But those times are very rare. Usually I drive to get there, using the time to relax or to laugh, or to get into the mood with some music. Behind the wheel, driving to visit a friend, I get in the car before I have spoken a word to another person that day. My thoughts are crammed in my head, jostling for attention. They start to bicker. I can let them bicker, I can let their conflict set the tone of the day. Or I can listen to music, a throbbing beat with a weaving brook of gentle melody trickling over rocks of tympani, bringing the hum in my mind to a sine wave of harmony. Finally, we are all going to the same place, no one is pulling the other way.

10 Minute Prompt: Wishful Lie

2011-02-12T19:03:00.000-08:00

Her green eyes look at me, blink, look, blink. Droplets of water in her hair glitter in the quintuplet bathroom light. Her skin, ripening with fine lines, shifting pores, and eroded chicken pox scars, glows after the scrubbing in the shower. Her clavicles are drifted between shoulder and breast. I look away. She looks away. A Q-tip smooths and coaxes the wax from her ears. Another Q-tip disappears down the lint trap belly button, deeper than any she’s encountered. She brushes her teeth, always, before applying and spreading a dollop of lotion to her face. With the clean and tidy of this wiping routine she steps out of biology for a few minutes. If she does it right she can go a half day without looking like a living, growing, aging, sloughing, flowing, excreting creature.

The start of something good (I hope)

2011-01-13T17:08:00.001-08:00

Her yellow hair held itself in tight curls against her head. No ash fell as Jen tapped her cigarette for the third time. She rolled her eyes slightly at the cries of a lost child echoing in the vaulted ceiling, On the bench in the bus station Jen tucked her legs under her. She pulled her skirt down over her knees with one hand while taking a long drag off her cigarette with the other. Her eyes swiveled left under lowered lashes and caught sight of Toolie just coming through the double doors. Toolie held her stetson with both hands in front of her rodeo buckle. As she looked around the station waiting area her right hand flattened the little curl behind her ear. She wiped the pomade off on her stiff new jeans. Jen raised her hand with the cigarette between her first and second fingers and bent her hot-pink nails forward, catching Toolie’s eye. Toolie stifled a grin that beamed in her eyes, tilted her head back in greeting and stepped to stand in front of Jen.

Uncurling her legs Jen shrugged toward the floor and said “Make yourself useful, grab my bags.” She took Toolie’s hand to stand and Toolie stooped slightly to get Jen’s kiss on the cheek before leveling her hat on her head and gathering the three pink and orange paisley suitcases under her arms.

Grandmother's Pinking Sheers

2010-12-27T17:17:00.000-08:00

My grandmother came into the T.V. room waving her pinking sheers, brightly proclaiming "It's time to cut my toenails!"

I sat up fast, shoving aside the Parade section of the Sunday paper, scattering it on the floor beside me. "You mean with the pinking sheers?" I leaned forward, leg muscles both ready to launch and holding me down.

"My toenails are so tough only these will do." She thunked her right foot onto the small black vinyl ottoman, grabbed her big toe with her left hand, and swung at it with the sheers.

With a scissoring sound, the tip of her toe was open and blood trickled down the side of her foot, tracing the arch, hooking under her heel and dripping down the side of the shiny ottoman. Blood quickly soaked into the acrylic brown shag carpet underneath. I had been mere inches away, but my hand reached out so slowly I was afraid she'd cut her toe off before I had a chance to stop her. I finally got my hand on hers, and gently closed the pinking sheers. "Now you're bleeding," I pointed out. "Let me bandage it for you." She did not resist as I slid the sheers out of her hand

"Oh, it's just a scratch," she p'shawed, dismissing it with a wave of her empty hand.

Blood continued to drip into the brown shag rug. I looked at the glossy fibers in their long pointy clumps and blinked at the distant decade it must have come from. "Stay there. I'll be right back with a band-aid. Don't move." I ran to get the bandages, knowing that whether she stayed or walked away was entirely a matter of her whim.

After my car was stolen

2010-12-27T15:33:00.000-08:00

When my car wasn't where I'd left it, all I knew was it had been stolen. I imagined some junkie driving to his dealer's house, maybe passing out in my car later, pissing himself all over the front seat. This had happened to my friend's car. Or perhaps some crack dealer needed it to transport product across state lines. I'd read about that in the news. Or maybe some thoughtless kids had taken it for a joy ride, whipping over curbs and leaving a burned out hull of a Honda Civic in the woods. That's what happened to my mother's Karmen Ghia 35 years before. No doubt they were laughing as they warmed their hands on the toxic fire.

When the police called a week later to tell me my car had been recovered all I knew was that three juveniles had been arrested while driving it around south Seattle. They had been pulled over in an orderly traffic stop and arrested without incident. So it was the kids, only they hadn't had time to take my car out in the woods to burn it. I imagined three white boys with blond crew cuts and letter jackets high-fiving each other as they drove off in my car. Driving away from the 7-11 after using fake ID to buy a case of beer. I imagined three black kids wearing watch caps, fist-bumping each other as they drove away in my car, driving away from the 7-11 after ditching class in favor of finding someone over 21 to buy them a case of beer.

When I called six months later to find out where the prosecution was I found out the case had been lost in transition on its way to juvenile court. I also found out the two passengers had been 13 and the driver was 12 at the time of the theft. He had needed to sit on a phone book to see over the steering wheel, the officer told me. It was also explained to me that these particular kids had been caught and charged several times with "taking a motor vehicle without permission." That they were too young to be considered full fledged gang members but they worked for the gang by stealing cars since the punishment for juvenile car thieves is so much lighter than for adults.

When I picked my car up from impound The steering column has been stripped of casing to allow easier access to the ignition wires. A hole gaped where the stereo had lived. All of my belongings had been thrown from the car, except for one postcard with an areal photo of the impossibly yellow and blue Grand Prismatic hot spring in Yellowstone. There was no phone book.

When I attended the sentencing hearing of the boy who had been the backseat passenger I found out he was Laotian, as were all three boys. His mother was there, in tears. Through her interpreter she pleaded for us all to see the good in her son, lamented that he had fallen in with a bad crowd of young Laotian immigrants. When the judge allowed me to present my impact statement, I found the sweat from my down-turned palm had puddled on the table.

All three boys pleaded guilty to their charges. The clerk at the Victims' Advocate office told me it was very rare for juvenile car thieves to plead guilty because it was so easy for them to get off. Curious, I looked them up. I found the front seat passenger had recently gotten detention at his junior high school for turning in his homework late. His school was one I drove past occasionally. The driver, twelve years old when he had taken my car, had pleaded guilty as he was waiting trial for another crime. While the charging papers from my car theft had gotten lost in the shuffle, the alleged driver had been involved in a snowball fight--just two months after he had been arrested for stealing my car. The snowball fight turned ugly when the opponents used snowballs weighted with rocks to break a window of the boy's house. The boy took his father's rifle and shot at the kids in the street. One of those kids, seventeen years old, died of a gunshot wound to the head.

Prompt:: Washing the Sins from Under My Skin

2010-12-27T15:16:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the day I will wash the sins from under my skin. I said that yesterday, but when today got here I found I had too much laundry. Three loads and the time it takes to hang it all out to dry in the treeless back yard, flapping over gray grass too tired to fight the wind lays down before I even step on it. And the dishes, with caked on cheese from the lasagna I made last night. And it seems the kids were even messier than usual, perhaps conspiring to keep me busy pulling sheets and blankest out of vents and fluffing pillows out of the toy box. And how is it so much dust has landed on surfaces overnight? All this must be finished first. And in front of the house there is a small bed of tulips that had never quite kept the bright yellow promise of the packages. These need watering. And further down the walk is the mailbox full of ciculars and one bill with red all capital letters stamped across the face of the envelope: FINAL. NOTICE. Peeling the bill from its folds obligates me to find the checkbook, which takes a little rooting around in the desk drawers, and the sitting and sighing, and resting my chin in my palm as a tear leaves home, and runs away down my face to drop onto the signature line. My sins will have to wait until tomorrow.

10 Minute Prompt: What anticipation has haunted you?

2010-12-15T22:10:00.000-08:00

I hadn't seen
Aunt Arly and Uncle Leck
in three years.
During that time I had
moved to Europe,
grown six inches,
and lost my Southern accent.
Also in that time
Arly's arteries
had hardened
and Leck's vein
had seeped so much
blood into his brain
that he lost the ability
to speak and to walk.
Before going to the nursing home
I heard my grandmother telling my mother
in another room
that Uncle Leck had asked
someone to bring him
a gun
so he could shoot
Arly and himself.
I remembered Uncle Leck
as a strong man of the earth,
in a white tee shirt;
a man just past his prime,
but the idea hadn't
quite caught up to him.
His house was in good repair.
The fig tree out back
grew huge leaves and
gave bushels of figs.
Arly in her bright white apron
swung open the screen door and
called all the kids in
for peach pie and ice cream.
Time had been cruel to them.
I couldn't imagine what
could have happened
in the last three years
to bring them so low
that Arly recognised me
as my mother
and Leck dreamed only
of the smell of gunsmoke.

10 Minute Prompt: What is Your Super Power?

2010-12-10T11:27:00.001-08:00

Everyone has a Super Power. Not everyone knows it. Some people spend their whole lifetime without discovering what their Super Power is. Conversely, not everyone can tell when people are using their Super Powers. Sometimes their Super Power is being able sit quietly and look interested while they are really making grocery lists in their heads, or planning keggers, or reliving their last Hawaiian vacation. And some people’s Super Power is super annoying, like when they can remember every singe thing you’ve ever said to them and they remind you of it later when you contradict yourself, or change your mind. But that’s another story for another day. My Super Power is the Laugh Ray. I can shoot the Laugh Ray out of my mouth anytime I feel bored, or stressed, or when things are just getting too serious for no good reason, and whoever I aim at just falls over laughing. I have made robbers drop their loot in a fit of hilarity. But I wasn’t born knowing how to use my Super Power. I have had to learn to use my Laugh Ray judiciously, over time.

Before I was old enough to go to school I would use the Laugh Ray on my mom when she looked harried while trying to get dinner cooked. She would look at me and laugh so hard, doubling over, eyes closed, gripping the spatula to her chest, the food would burn and she would have to start all over again from scratch. So that wasn’t as helpful as I had hoped.

When I was in High School I would use it when I was bored in Mr. Nelson’s history class. While Mr. Nelson was describing the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland he would double over laughing, trailing a chalk line across the green chalk board from the last R in ”Storm Trooper.” Sitting in detention is not the outcome I had in mind.

As an adult I find it useful to whip out the Laugh Ray when others around me stray into social territory that is dangerous to me. Like when I’m on a bus, minding my own business, and some guy sits down next to me and starts telling me how his next door neighbor is using remote viewing to follow him around his apartment, and is shooting rays through the wall into his apartment to burn his linoleum tiles and release asbestos into the air, and how the aliens are abducting people and engineering a whole new race of human beings. I whip out my Laugh Ray and before you know it, he is laughing his way all the way up the aisle to a seat near the driver.

Once I was at a party and the host says “You know if gays are allowed to marry the next thing you know people will be trying to marry their dogs...” When no one was looking I turned on my Laugh Ray and before you knew it everyone was laughing so hard, pointing their fingers at one another, holding their sides, and all intentions to hate on gays was forgotten.

It can come in handy in more personal situations too, like when I’m hanging out with someone new, and I like her, say on a second date, and she starts talking about her feelings, and that she really wants kids but would rather get a dog first to see how we parent together. I open my mouth as if to say “I think that’s a great idea,” but instead I turn on the Laugh Ray. Pretty soon we’re having a good time again.

All in all, my Super Power has allowed me to dodge many bullets.

10 Minute Prompt: Sometimes You Just Gotta

2010-12-10T10:03:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you just gotta say “NO!” When you’re tired, or you’re hungry, or you’re angry, or you’re lonely. When your friend calls to complain that the love of their life who they simply cannot imagine themselves without has broken up with them, for the fifteenth time and isn’t that just horrible, only you haven’t heard from your friend since the 12th time and that was 8 months ago? That’s a good time to say “no.”

Sometimes you just gotta scream. When you work day in and week out to make a better world, a place for yourself that is warm, safe, cushioned, furnished and then one night someone breaks the window and climbs in, uninvited, to help themselves to your last beer, that’s a good time to scream.

Sometimes you just gotta eat the whole pint of ice cream. Like when you’ve tried so hard to make it work and you’ve compromised and you’ve gone to couples counseling and she still breaks up with you for the 15th time, that’s a good time to eat the whole pint of ice cream.

Sometimes you just gotta reach out and grab what you want. When you’ve walked past that store every day, twice, and seen that diamond encrusted Rolex, and that ruby ring, and that adorable shih tzu puppy, and your piss-poor job hasn’t paid you enough though you’ve worked yourself sick and compromised all your values, that’s a good time to walk in, distract the sales person, and take it.

A Girl Is A Dangerous Thing (10 Minute Free Write)

2010-11-10T22:12:00.000-08:00

I knocked on his door to see if he was OK. The apartment manager had sent me, suspecting the tenant was having trouble, maybe his health was failing, maybe his mind was going. It was my job to identify needs and offer resources. I thought I heard a rustle behind the door, but no answer. I rang the bell. His bell was the first I had rung all day that worked perfectly as it was designed. It made an off-key bing-bong triggered by the push and release of a black button just underneath the peep hole. The tenant opened the door as wide as his own body and leaned out into the hall. I introduced myself with a smile, patting my chest as I said my name. He remembered me perfectly from his visit to my office a year ago.

He opened his door wider and invited me in. I realized how warm the hallway was as the cold threw its arm around me in his apartment. He was wearing a scarf that looked hand knitted. But his bald head was bare. I wasn't sure how he could feel warm, it had to be under 50 degrees in his one-bedroom apartment. And bird-thin 80 somethings are notoriously cold blooded. My goal was to see if he was having any problems keeping up with his housekeeping or personal hygiene. So far so good, though his apartment was cluttered there was no odor. And clutter was about all he had.

I saw only 4 pieces of furniture in the living room area: three wooden folding chairs and a wooden TV tray aspiring to a desk. On the wall above the make-shift desk was a sizable collection of clippings from newspaper and magazine stories featuring aliens. They were all the short, gray-skinned variety with the large egg-shaped head and black eyes. On another wall were several pictures of a dark-haired man with dark skin and an infectious smile.

I asked him about his income, his recent troubles, and his options for assistance. He talked to me about UFOs, abductees, the Baba who gave him the gift of fragrance, how he'd lived most of his adult life in sexual abstinence, and parthenogenesis. He had studied Hinduism at the Theosophical Society. He had served in the Army. His eyes shone as he told me that one in every 100 women was parthenogenic. I was a blue-gill hooked on his line. Who are those women and how could we tell them apart? For him it was enough that they existed.

They are the perfect essence of humanity, women born of woman without sperm -- the ovum splitting into itself, imploding into an embryo. The perfect being. Was it possible Jesus was really a parthenogenic woman? I kept that question to myself. I remembered reading about a woman who had been knocked unconscious during a bombing in London during WWII and who later found herself to be pregnant. The only explanation for her pregnancy, since she claimed she hadn't had sex and no one could prove her wrong, was that her ovum had spontaneously fertilized itself. This theory was supported by the baby herself when she grew into a tiny carbon copy of her mother. Her conception was at once a rejection of millions of years of reproduction and a leap into immortality and divinity. That little girl represented a world without men.

The man tapped a one inch square baggie that was pinned to the wall under a photo of the dark haired man. That's the last little bit of the fragrance, condensed from what's left over after incense is burned....

Bent Showcase Spoken Word (in writing)

2010-11-10T22:11:00.001-08:00

Our fingers touched as we both reached for the last strawberry.

“Oh, please, you take it.” I said turning my hand over to a palm.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t. You take it.” She said, mimicking my palm.

I am the hostess. My mother would turn in her grave if she caught me taking the last of anything while entertaining a guest.

“I’m not really hungry for more. I was just going to finish the last lonely strawberry. It looks juicy. You should take it.” I insisted.

“No, really, I was only taking it to seem nice.” she said, her smile turned down coyly

“Well, I’m not going to eat it now. You might as well. It will go to waste. You know you want it” I said, and pushed the dish towards her.

She pushed it back, “I’m pretty sure you want it.” Her smile got bigger and warmer.

I took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure whether I was losing my patience or ready to find a new way. I picked up the strawberry, carefully pinching the green cap to keep from touching the succulent fruit. I waved it slowly under her nose so she could smell how ripe and ready the fruit was.

She pushed my hand away. I was so surprised and distracted by her touch that the strawberry was almost pushed into my mouth before I realized what she was doing. She laughed when I ducked my hand under hers.

I took a deep breath. I knew what I had to do. I looked her right in the eye and thrust my hand forward so that the strawberry opened up on her face, dripping red juice on her lips.

A Conversation about Poverty

2010-10-05T12:17:00.000-07:00

A while back I had this really wonderful discussion about poverty, politics, culture, and economics. D. got the ball rolling and she had some interesting thoughts. I am also thinking about using my responses as writing samples for my applications to academic programs.

D. WROTE: Hi Caren! Since you are a social worker and a woman, I knew you would be just the person I needed to ask this question of: how certain are you that the cure for poverty is the liberation of women? I have heard Oprah say this for years now (in addition to promoting education for women), and her reasons do make sense. I have also heard Hitchens speak of this, but he is referring more to women in Islamic countries. Do you think this is true of US women? Are we not liberated already??

Anyway, just wondering what your thoughts are since you are working in the field and dealing with all walks of life. Brad and I talked about this subject last night, but since he is a MAN he also thinks like a man. :-) Thank you so much for any insight you can provide.

Caren REPLIED:
Wow, what a great way to start my day! To answer your first question, Yes, I agree with Oprah and Hitchens (on this point) that one of the major factors in curing poverty is the liberation of women. I also think this is an oversimplification of a very manifold approach. I see poverty in our country as a function of despotic capitalism. It is a means of maintaining a cheap workforce for menial labor. As a society we are only as well off as our least affluent members. In general, yes, I think that women are fairly liberated here, but I also think that depends on what you mean by liberated. It is within our lifetime, Dawn, that married women have been able to legally open a bank account on their own, without their husband's signature. Women still make approx 75 cents to every dollar a man makes for the same job. Considering that women are not equally compensated, I would have to say that our liberation is still in process.

There are other factors at play on the stage of curing poverty. Women are by far the largest group of significantly disadvantaged people in our society, but class and the perception of race also play a large roll in access to resources. The two most essential resources in building a strong society being education and health care. Not everyone has equal access to these resources. That is my specific experience as a social worker, I see this ALL THE TIME. I believe liberation means equal access. Unfortunately, equal access means cost-sharing. And we do not live in a very sharing culture. Our roots in "rugged individualism" are revealed in every argument in which the words "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" are used. As a society we value the ideals of liberation and equality, but we do not invest in the practice. That is why I believe in funding education and health care, as an investment in the success of our society. I will be comfortable saying that women are fully liberated in our country when it's not news that a woman is being nominated to the Supreme Court, and when we get equal pay for equal work, and when we have equal access to the highest ranking positions in commerce and government. And, no, I don't think having Sarah Palin on the ticket as VP qualifies as equal access. That was the worst example of tokenism I've seen in a long time.

Thank you for asking! Also, I may want to post our correspondence on my blog. Would that be OK with you? I can omit your name.

D. WROTE: You bring up a very valid point regarding women’s rights pertaining to monetary compensation and equal pay for equal work. Perhaps I have been connected with the military too long because, of course, the military is probably one of the few employers providing pay based exclusively on rank and not gender. The question begging to be asked is “why are we allowing ourselves to be paid less for the same work?” How can we force change?

I suppose I subscribe to the “rugged individualism” ideals. Yes, “I” did it myself, so why can’t “they?” I think the majority of society has no problem with offering someone a hand up, but a perpetual handout is much harder to swallow. I use my own family as a very anecdotal example: Someone given hundreds of thousands of dollars to live on over the course of their lifetime, never worked a day in their life, never went to school, and spent their days driving around in an expensive car, using drugs, going to the tanning beds, and essentially doing nothing useful for more than 40 years and completely unmotivated. After all, why bother trying to achieve something on your own when daddy’s wallet is perpetually open? I look at countries operating liberal social medicine programs (England and Germany come to mind) and see the enormous tax burden it places on the masses of working people. Yet, and maybe this would not be the case here, both countries have an entire generation of people who draw pension benefits and receive basically free healthcare, while they themselves have never worked a day in their lives. Are Americans better than that? I cannot adequately address funding education, but I thought we already did to some degree?

Are societies with more social programs more successful as a whole? I suppose one would first have to define success. Wow, I would have to spend a considerable amount of time thinking about that one. I like to think helping someone out for a time would make society a better place, but the unknown outcome is pretty unsettling. I don’t think people don’t care about others or are unyieldingly selfish, but I do believe fear of the unknown leaves most people content to simply go about their business. I also believe most people, at least the ones I know, recoil at the idea that our government would oversee this enormous task.

Have you read, by chance, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood? I was able to see the author (Janise Ray) speak at my university. She offered some amazing insight into various pressing social issues. You might also enjoy her because she hails from Georgia.

Care REPLIED: Here is what I think:

In order to end poverty we need to change our frame of reference from us and them, haves and have nots (I'm not giving up what I've worked so hard for, I will work so hard and never have what that person has) to an attitude of partners. We need to become partners in our combined success, and in doing so hold ourselves and others accountable. We are accountable for the country we live in. Becoming more accountable as people will help us feel more empowered so that the "burden" gets transformed into a contribution. I don't actually hope that our country as a whole will do that, but I know that there are a lot of people out there who work for partnerships to create a better quality of life and more opportunity for everyone. When we are a nation of partners we will see an end to poverty and inequity.

"Handouts" versus "support to succeed." Handouts are a complete waste of resources. Absolutely. But in order to learn children need to be well-nourished. Poverty is a self-perpetuating problem: no money, no food, desperation, crime, health problems without treatment, no education, fewer employment opportunities, no money, and so on. A child who is not fed properly will not learn well and will not succeed academically. Interventions that happen early are shown to work. Headstart. WIC programs. But many of our best programs struggle to be more than a series of handouts. Welfare as we know it should be tied to higher education and employment support. It seems to be moving in that direction. Yes, there are people who will take advantage of any system and not pull their own weight, but I'd be willing to bet that, like most human behavior, there is a bell curve with the vast majority of people doing the best they can and showing up with what they've got, which of course varies from person to person.

I think it is a mistake to withhold services that would improve the quality of life of the whole country just to keep a few people from taking advantage. Plus, the same analogy holds true for corporations, the most egregious examples being the bailouts we've seen in the last 4 years. But I'm not arguing against those bailouts as long as the loans are tied to outcomes and is repaid. Whatever happened to those guys in the 80s, Milken and that lot, did they ever repay their bailout?

Also, a lot of where we are now is still tied to our recent history. Through the practice of Red Lining
in real estate Black families were denied the kind of accumulation of wealth that white families benefited from. I think the banks that participated and profited from Red Lining owe a huge debt to people of color who were cheated. Red Lining was outlawed in 1968, but it's practice devastated entire neighborhoods, and the poverty it created can still be seen today.

I agree with you about growing up in the military, I didn't realize until I was 16 that there was so much inequity. One of the ministers at the church on RAF Lakenheath was the 4th female military chaplain in the entire DOD. 4th! in 1980! I'm not sure how any chaplains there were, but I'm sure it was in the 100s if not the 1000s. And I never saw so many racially and religiously mixed marriages per capita as on base at RAFL. But I didn't keep any statistics... ;)

And yes, the question is why do we undervalue ourselves? But look around, traditionally women's work is undervalued throughout our society. Caregiving, home-making, even teaching are all undervalued in their own way as far as social status and compensation is concerned. I read an article recently that pointed out that businesses and corporations, when polled, indicated that women were paid less because they tend to ask for raises less. Does that mean it's the women's fault for not asking? Or does the employer bear some ethical responsibility to pay everyone at equal levels based on productivity and evaluation/audit results? It certainly goes against my sense of fair play that we, as women, are taught to put our needs last from a very early age, and then it's used it against us to avoid paying us what we are worth. (this is why I like accountability so much: an employer who is accountable to the employees wouldn't tolerate that kind of inequity. And indeed, the government I work for, for better or worse, holds itself accountable to some degree and pay scales are equal among like job titles. I am not arguing that the government is the highest arbiter of fairness, it's just an example of an attempt at equity in pay.

As to the question of how to measure the success of a society, there are a couple of well-accepted standards that point to the over-all health and well-being of a country. GDP is one, and the US is the richest country in the world. Infant mortality is another, and the US is one of the poorest countries in the developed nations. The World Health Organization ranked the US 36th out of all the nations in the world for overall health provisions to its citizens. That's 36th, behind nearly every European nation. Another measure of success could be the overall happiness of a country's citizens. I'm not even sure how this is measured, other than by asking people a series of questions about how happy each individual thinks she or he is. There have been some studies on this, which show that Sweden's people consider themselves very happy. But doesn't Sweden have one of the highest suicide rates? Apparently, what makes the people unhappy enough to kill themselves is the darkness of winter, Vit. D deficiency if you will, not the amount of taxes they pay. So, of course, I prefer the health related measures of success.

As to tax burden: Healthcare, education, and nutrition cost money. We all pay one way or another--either through supporting unemployed people, or by footing the bill for sick people, or by housing criminals in jails and prisons. Taking a meta view of our economy, the cost of doing business is pretty much going to be the same whether we pay out of pocket, our employers pay for us, or whether we pay through taxes. We have an opportunity to build a partnership between individual, groups, communities, and governments, to invest in a richer, stronger, healthier, better educated nation. Our practice of providing the basic necessities to people doesn't have to mimic those that operate in other countries (even though they work pretty well in most cases). We can create our own model for success. I want to know why, if we have a government that is by the people for the people, so many folks feel the government can't be accountable to the people? If folks really feel that way, why don't they participate more and get involved? The voter turnout rate in this country is appallingly low. Accountability starts with the individuals exercising their responsibility to participate. I have always thought that rights come with responsibilities.

Food for thought here are two approaches to making national change from a federal initiative:

the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibited discrimination based on physical or mental ability, and thus mandated access to people with disabilities to all public spaces, with few exceptions. There was no funding attached to the program, no taxes. Yet it worked and we now have curb cuts, accessible bathrooms, tweeting intersections, and lots of other amenities that makes the world accessible to all of us, and doesn't hurt able bodied people.

the Medicare Part D program: carefully crafted program for spending federal money on providing medication coverage to people who qualify for Medicare. It was micromanaged to death and comes to us as an overly complicated behemoth that blatantly benefits pharmacorporations. I interpret that as a subsidy for corporations that are already making astronomical profits.

(just as a fun fact, the ADA was signed into law by Bush the 1st, and Part D was signed into law by Bush the 2nd)

OK, I know some of what I've written here has been disjointed, and even unsupportable since I don't have all my sources sited, but to my knowledge it's all true.

Did you see this video when I linked it on my FB page? It's got some great information on a global scale. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html

Oh, I almost forgot, about Christopher Hitchens, I haven't actually spent a lot of time listening to him or reading anything he's written, so I don't have much of an opinion either way. For some reason he hasn't made much of an impression on me. That in itself is a mystery. I think I've heard him on NPR, but it's such a foggy memory. Of course I'll go look him up now.

D. WROTE: I did, however, want to tell you YES, YES, YES---what you say makes perfect sense! Some of what you mentioned (i.e., WIC, Head Start, etc.) has been shown to work wonderfully and are indeed fantastic programs. We need to start with the children. No child anywhere, but especially in America, should go hungry. Ever. We have also got to improve our literacy rates. Yes, you are right in that it is about changing the mindset and feeling we are working toward a common good for the whole. I need to read up on Red Lining…I saw an Oprah episode last year where one of her crew went to either Sweden or Denmark to illustrate how their society lives. As you mentioned, they are heavily taxed to fund numerous social programs. I saw that they were amazingly happy. The extent of their happiness was mind boggling! New mothers received something like either 6 months or a year of paid maternity leave and were guaranteed the same job when they returned to work. They felt safe in their communities. Amazing stuff.

Gosh, I wish I felt there was some way to make a difference somewhere. Look where we live, though. The heart of the Bible Belt, where the mindset of the old south is still very much alive and kicking. I regularly hear the dreaded “n” word in conversations, people participate in prayer circles, church services are held 2 days a week or more, you cannot buy alcohol on sacred Sunday, sex stores cannot sell their goods on Sunday, and if you aren’t white, heterosexual, male, and believe in the same God they do you don’t belong. It is SO discouraging. We are closet atheists, so we really don’t fit. We have found a nonreligious group and joined up to meet for lunches, talks on specific subjects, etc., but I am really worried about being discovered. We are just one level above pedophiles in their eyes.

10 Minute Prompt: Letter to the Moon

2010-09-01T21:08:00.000-07:00

Dear Moon,
I was thinking the other day, Oh, wait, first let me say How are you? I am fine. So, yes, I was thinking the other day about you and wondering why you never got dermabrasion on those pock marks? I know a really good cosmetic surgeon who could smooth out those rough crags with a little botox. And even out those dark seas with some skin bleach, or darken the lighter areas to make your face more even toned. And how about a little tuck? You look so great in your slender crescent phase. Just perfect even with those pock marks around the edge. I would love to hang a flapper dress, all fringe and long bead necklace, on you when you are crescent. But that fullness just makes me feel sad for you. A little tuck here and there would fix that.

I do enjoy the way I can cup my hand around you, from down here, right hand for waxing, left hand or waning. That's pretty useful if, for any reason, I need to know when you'll be fat again. For me, I just want to avoid you when you're so engorged. Frankly, I'm afraid one of these months you're going to get so bloated you'll break open on us, drenching us with whatever you've been gorging yourself on to get so round in the first place. Although, if you've been filling up on stars and comets, maybe that would be a pretty show. But if you've been eating like me it's not going to be pretty. So I usually avoid you when your biggest.

Dear moon, I want you to remember I say these things to you not because you are a bad moon, but because I love you and I want you to be the best moon you can possibly be.

Love,
Me.

10 Minute Prompt: Write about Categories of Something

2010-08-25T21:13:00.000-07:00

The 5 Categories of Water

Water of the House, that we drink in the middle of the night,
up from an anxious dream of piles of paper
that grow no matter how quickly we sort and work;
that we bathe in to wash away the stink of life;
that we use to cook pasta and beans and quinoa;
that we use to brush our teeth and prevent decay.

Water of the Land that greens the blades of grass
which thrust and parry with the sun;
that fills each tree with sap for spring rapture;
that, in excess, makes our tomatoes split their sides
and spill unripened seeds on the ground.

Water of the River that’s got no time
to say hello, good-bye it’s on its way,
cutting into the land,
shouldering aside sand,
rocks, and boulders, mountains even.

Water of the Lake that breathes with seasons;
shelters blue gill and trout;
offers itself to deer and cougar lapping
with eyes straight ahead,
fuzzy ears swiveling side to side.

Water of the Ocean that hides and reveals
a universe of toothy fish, alien string jellies,
inky octopus, and super hot jets of gas and lava,
entire mountain ranges;
reveals and hides the beach while rearranging
drift wood in a thousand year long game of dominoes.

Weighing in on the Target Boycott

2010-08-19T17:38:00.000-07:00

OK, I haven't shopped at Target since this thing hit the fan a few weeks ago. I wanted to make sure I had more facts before I flouted a popular boycott. That's right, I don't support the boycott against Target. But hear me out. As far as I can tell, this boycott is a response from progressives to protest a political donation made by the company to help elect an anti-gay governor in Minnesota, right? But how many corporations have donated to that campaign, or the campaigns of any other anti-gay, right-wing,socially regressive politician in this country? Do we even know? According to the Chamber of Commerce corporate support of political campaigns is at an all time high in 2010: $75 Million, contrasted with the $35 Million in2008. So the $150K that Target spent is but a grain of sand on the bleak beach of donations to conservative causes. This increase in political funding is primarily thanks to two recent Supreme Court decisions that unleashed corporate spending in political campaigns. The first in 2007 "lifted the ban on political issue advertising close to an election, allowing corporations and unions to spend unlimited sums on these ads at the last minute."(1) The second in 2010 found "that corporations and unions could spend directly on elections, overturning a century of laws limiting such spending." (1)

Furthermore, it is well known in financial circles that gay people have money and, by and large, they want to invest and spend it wisely with corporations and companies that support progressive politics and social justice to some extent. The Human Rights Campaign fund keeps a list of the top 100 companies who support both their LGBT employees as well as the community at large. Target is one of those companies.
http://www.hrc.org/issues/best-places-to-work-2010.htm

Certainly no ranking system is uncomplicated by broader standards of human rights. The clothes we buy at Target (and pretty much everywhere else, unless otherwise labeled) are still made by underpaid, possibly under-age, workers in poor, underrepresented areas of the world. And, as we've seen, companies who support mostly progressive causes may also on occasion give to a conservative one.

So, in my view, the problem is not donations from an individual corporation (Target) as it is the overall campaign finance system that allows corporations to use unlimited funds to support campaigns. Target is not the only, nor the worst, culprit here. How many of you who are boycotting Target still order pizza from Dominos? Or shopped at Nordstrom, Best Buy, Krispy Kreme, McDonald's? According to BuyBlue.org, these corporations donate to ONLY conservative causes and campaigns. That's 100% of their donations going to anti-gay campaigns. Boycott them! You better believe the conservatives and religious right are supporting those companies. (http://rightwingtroll.blogspot.com/2005/07/support-conservative-companies.html)

The Huffington Post brings us a list of the 10 worst companies for LGBT worker which includes Auto Zone and Cracker Barrel. Don't spend your money there, folks! (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/09/the-least-lgbt-worst-plac_n_454745.html)

While it may be true that the money you don't spend at any of the companies you boycott won't amount to much, the Target Boycott promotion has shown us that simply putting media pressure on these companies, and threatening their bottom line, has an impact. So buy wisely, vote with every dollar, and,most importantly, tell your friends.

(1) Corporate Campaign Cash Floods US Elections

Conservative fundraising commitment has stunned Democrats

by Tom Hamburger

For more reading on the subject:

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46426http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloggingstocks.com%2F2008%2F05%2F17%2Fgay-investors-support-gay-friendly-corporations%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fmoney.cnn.com%2F2006%2F04%2F25%2Fmagazines%2Ffortune%2Fpluggedin_fortune%2Findex.htmhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fheadline%2F2010%2F08%2F02-0

10 Minute Prompt: What your body refuses to forget

2010-08-12T06:44:00.000-07:00

My body refuses to forget the day I went skiing, cross country, with my friend who I'd tried to woo as a lover, but who toyed with me, holding me all night on July 4th, neither watching nor making fireworks. That day was bright and cold and full of people on the graded slope access. My breath in the air was crystalline, my body was warm with hauling myself uphill. My body doesn't care much about how my friend became annoyed with me or how she left me behind. What my body refuses to forget is the first minute of the not-quite free fall of downhill -- my feet sliding, sliding forward, sliding out from under me, my right foot following the ski and my ankle bending and pulling things that would rather not be bent or pulled. How can my body forget being broken? Though it only took 6 weeks to heal the fine cracks in the bone, my ankle has never forgotten. When it rains, when I step just a little wrong off the edge, when I sit too long in one position, my ankle whines a little, winces, creaks, and spends a moment pining for the time before that day on the cold snowy slopes of Stevens Pass.

To Write Regret

2010-08-07T06:09:00.000-07:00

I saw my muse today
and she filled me with regret.
She appeared in the bar
where I sat reading
and drinking alone.
I stared, I admit.
I know she knew I was there
though she never glanced at me
I watched her as she whispered
to her companion
who looked right at me then
(I met my muse a week ago
She filled me with regret
When I asked about her life
and talked about myself instead.
Had I listened to her then
would she have filled me up
with a smokey sky that turns the sun
a burnished bronze?)
Had I sat, uninvited at her table today
and asked to talk about herself
would she have thought of me
as worthy to inspire
with warblers, lapping waves, silhouette
or would she fill me
with derision and regret.

10 Minute Prompt: What do you never say?/Why do you write?

2010-08-04T21:16:00.001-07:00

I never say what I want
I never tell you how I want you to love me
I never ask you to make me your queen
I never speak the bottom of my heart
I can’t bring myself to tell you
That our connection is more important to me
than breathing
I won’t ever say that, to you, not ever
What I will say is that I want family
I will tell you I love you sooner than you expect
I will ask you to touch me right there
I will speak about plans for the future
I can bring myself to tell you that how
I feel with you is damn good
I will always say that, to you, always
But I will never say what I want.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I write so that I can feel connected to as many people as possible without actually meeting them. I write because words clamor inside me and ask to be let out. I write because I get a huge kick out of making people laugh. I write to amuse myself. I write to pose problems and answer questions. I write to let you know that I am here.

10 Minute Prompt: Write about the "who" that your love can ignite (write-a-thon edition)

2010-07-31T19:21:00.000-07:00

The Gardener’s Girl

Your rough hands softened on knots of pulled ivy
Your face the shade of a freshly unwrapped
horse-chestnut, those
Flirtatious crinkles near your nose
smile when you look up from your task,
Sunrise in the corner of your eyes.
Your ear nudges your hair aside
to get a better look at me.
You stare me in the face while I
try to be earnest
I watch your chest rise and stop.
You are waiting for the words
you want to hear.
You lick your lips and the sun dances
on the tip of your tongue.
You are the patience of February
waiting for April.
Your hands stay busy
cutting and plucking ivy
but every nerve is a well-tuned string
to be plucked, a song to be played
waiting, wanting to be touched.

10 Minute Prompt: Write about your "only real" (write-a-thon edition)

2010-07-31T19:19:00.000-07:00

Real is the breath I take
the eye that blinks
the itch on the back of my hand
the song of the robin on a wire at dusk
the ripple on a still evening pond
the rustling and jostling murder of crows
in the tree murmuring excuse me
as they settle in for sleep
warm dry air brushes my cheek
as it heads into night
excited for the change
watches the world roll over and snore
warm dry air holds its breath
to see who flinches, who cries out
against the coming night
against what’s next
warm dry air anticipates
delights, enjoys the slow walk home
in buzzing night
the closing door
the turned off lights
creak of springs
repose

10 Minute Prompt: A Simple Obsession (write-a-thon edition)

2010-07-24T20:54:00.000-07:00

One Kiss

Those lips, smiling, wrapped around
A laugh at life,
Those lips making words that sound like a language
Unspoken for three thousands years
Those lips lightly casting sibilance to the wind
Those lips moving against each other the way I wish
Those lips would move against me
Those lips glistening after the lip gloss
Brush is put away
Those lips must taste better than ripe cherries
Fresh strawberries, slick slices of mango
Those lips hold a pose to make a point
Those lips say my name and I snap to attention
Those lips are licked with anticipation
Wet with liquor, the corner of your mouth,
a drop that needs catching.

10 Minute Prompt: Cat You Know Well (write-a-thon edition)

2010-07-24T20:45:00.000-07:00

Propped up, spreading furry between the top of the cushion and the arm rest
Elliot's sleepy long blinks make siesta eyes.
As I walk past, brisk task intent
Elliot's paw casually lifts and perfectly snags
My clothes or my skin
A red line emerges like lemon juice on onion paper
An angry exclamation on my arm

Elliot rolls in the morning. He rolls on the bed
to make way for a stroking sleepy hand
that rubs his belly, buried in fur so soft
it feels like powder

He rolls on my body and settles upside down
in the crook of my arm
for another round of sleeping in

He rolls on the carpet stretching front legs
over his head, and back legs
away like a leaping gazelle.

I have never resisted this temptation of belly
and scratching, rubbing, rewarded
with a squeek at the end of the stretch.

Elliot asks for a lot, loudly, often, from a distance.
When I'm sitting he enforces unlimited lap access.
He tells me about his day when I've been away
He yells at me for leaving him alone
He orders me to never do it again
He asks me every morning as I'm getting out of the shower
if I really have to go to work.
"I have to pay for your roof, and your food,"
And he walks away.

The Stepmother's Story (super rough draft, write-a-thon edition)

2010-07-21T21:37:00.000-07:00

Bright morning sun, softened by sheers shifting gently in the breeze, played on the floor at Cilla's feet. As she smoothed down the flounces with the flat of her hands Cilla's brows knitted, she muttered "This dress makes me look so wide. When did I get so wide?" Stepping back she took the full length into view. Her face flushed at the thought of what this day held for her. "Pish! There's no reason to act like a June bride." She fanned her face and picked up her short train and walked out of the cloak closet that was doubling as her dressing room. There was no one to give her away. She had arrived at the registrar's by coach. She had called ahead to make sure they would have a room for her dress in. Taking one last deep breath, squaring her shoulders, Cilla opened the door that separated the foyer from the registrar's office and stepped through. The registrar's wife, smiling through rheumy eyes, met her with a pat on the arm. A moment later two rough-looking men in what must have been their finest cambric and corduroy came through the door, pinstriped denim hats in their hands, rumbled through the door. A moment after that Mr. White arrived, his hair oiled, face raw from shaving, his head ducked down, his eyes looked--could it be hopeful?--darkened under his thatched eyebrows. Behind him was the most beautiful girl Cilla had ever seen, in a lovely simple dress that must have looked much better on the girl wearing it than it did on display at the shop. Cilla knew this was Mr. White's daughter, Snow. She realized she continued to think of Snow as a girl even though she was clearly marrying age. At the same time she knew it was simplest and safest to continue thinking of her as a child. As everyone shuffled into place for the ceremony, Cilla couldn't help but recall her first wedding, lush with lilies, organdy, and taffeta, beaming with pride and love, overflowing with youth and beauty. Cilla sighed and turned to Mr. White, who took her hand in his. She could tell he'd taken an emery board to his callouses earlier that day. The vows were exchanged so quickly it was over before Cilla thought it had really begun. When Snow came forward to sign on the witness line, Cilla was struck again by her beauty. At once reminded of her own smooth skin lustrous eyes that had made her the talk of the town when she was about that age. The sight of Snow stirred a flutter in Cilla's chest that she recognised from long ago. Cilla forced her eyes up to meet Mr. White's own warming face. Snow had his eyes, Cilla couldn't help but notice.

10 Minute Prompt: Covering your shame with praise. (write-a-thon edition)

2010-07-21T21:17:00.000-07:00

Shame is every way I do not fit
Too big too loud too mouthy
too flashy too enthusiastic
Shame stains my face bright red
Praise refreshes a healthy glow
Shame shrinks my idea of myself
Praise shows me a better view
Shame robs me of my love
Praise pays it back with interest
Shame shackles me in a windowless basement
Praise takes me for a hike in the green
woods that smell of honeysuckle
Shame holds my head underwater
Praise shows me how to surf the towering waves
Shame tells me to shut the fuck up
Praise asks me to sing louder.

10 Minute Prompt: How to love me enough (write-a-thon edition)

2010-07-21T21:16:00.000-07:00

Do you love me enough to leave me
locked in a car on a hot day?
Do you love me enough to throw me
to the bullies when they grab at your lunch money?
Do you love me enough to throw
me at the kidnappers who came for you?
Do you love me enough to punch me
and fracture the bones in my face
the face that earns my fame and fortune?
Do you love me enough to carve your sign
on my back while you sit on my ass
pinning me on the bed with a pillow for my screams?
Do you love me enough to take all my money
knowing I’ll be homeless when you do?
Do you love me enough to starve me
just to let me know who’s boss?
Do you love me enough to lock me
in the basement and give me 5 babies
to love even more?
Do you love me enough to shave my head
so the world knows the shame I am to you?
Do you love me enough to let me love you back
in all those ways?

10 Minute Prompt: Treating the World Like an Object (write-a-thon edition)

2010-07-11T20:54:00.000-07:00

My footfalls, bare, tender, tanned
sink into sand, or thud on sun heated boulders
Everywhere I step is a road
Simply for having stepped
My footfalls take me over gravel, over grass
The earth is my road
She lies ahead of my feet
No matter where I turn
She places herself before me
No matter where I look
She reinvents herself for my travels
She begs me to take the next step
As if her existence relies
On each footfall.

The Conversation (write-a-thon edition poem)

2010-07-11T20:45:00.000-07:00

Your eyes looked, your head turned
Your lips smacked, your back leaned
into me
Your chin held your face
Your hair claimed your shoulders
Your hands hold it all in
Your feet step out,
Your knees buckle under
Your ass takes a seat,
Your hips roll like thunder
Your face a mask of discontent,
then interest, then indecision
then impatience
like watching TV
Your stomach grumbles under your breasts
your knuckles pop, grind
your fingers fiddle with the air
Your nose wrinkles under bountiful cheeks
that shine like pavement after a shower
Your ears are ready to run away--
diamond studs twinkle,
giving away their hiding place.

Letter to the Editor 1990

2010-07-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

[In 1989 and 1990 I was an activist with ACT UP/Seattle, the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power. During that time I advocated for people with AIDS and other minorities disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS.]

To the Editor,

And to the gentleman from Renton who speaks of the fascism of ACT UP (12/14), the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power. I get the feeling that he, like many others, gets his information from a biased or uninformed press. Action taken by ACT UP may be viewed at fascist, but its politics are more socialist. I'd like to remind the gentleman, and other readers that if it weren't for the fascism of ACT UP locally, there would be no AIDS Housing of Washington in Madison Valley. And if it weren't for the fascism of ACT UP nationally the price of AZT (still the only marketed medication specifically for HIV) would not have been reduced to the still exorbitant $90 a dose. If it weren't for the fascism of ACT UP internationally, there would be almighty few, if any, persons with AIDS involved with policy making at Clinical Trials Units, on city councils, foundations, medical associations, and other places where important decisions are made which directly affect the lives and treatment of people with AIDS.

The ultimate aim of ACT UP is to end the AIDS crisis. Many radical changes must occur around how we perceive HIV/AIDS and the different groups who have vested interests -- PWAs, whose lives are at stake, and Boroughs-Welcome, whose livelihood is enhanced by that $90 a dose chemical, to name just two of those groups. I am heartened by the fact that there are people like the gentleman from Renton who keep their eyes open and their brains in gear. These people will get the message when it is clear enough to be gotten: that AIDS is not a gay white male disease, that there are no "innocent victims" which implies a punishment for the "guilty," and that the industry which has sprung up around AIDS belies the worst evils of our society-- racial and sexual bigotry, which inform the course of action taken against this disease.

Sincerely,
Caren Corley,
Seattle

Haiku (write-a-thon edition)

2010-07-06T19:25:00.000-07:00

Nesting terns raucous
rise crying skyward, heads turn
waterward, eye fish.

Yards (Part Four) (write-a-thon edition)

2010-06-29T21:31:00.000-07:00

My third yard was a tiny square, called a garden locally, but a patch of grass bordered by a hawthorn hedge. The small house we lived in opened right onto the garden from the dining room through double-glazed french doors. The yard was just big enough for the trampoline and a few kids. It always smelled of rain and ivy. When you jumped on the trampoline the neighbors came into view. Again and again you could see the granite grave stones of the the church yard next door. Hundreds of tombstones, the color of a cloudy winter sky, covered in gray-green moss and lichen, crowded the cemetery. Bashful angels and earthly sentiments long forgotten waited for fresh flowers.

This was the year I outgrew my back yard, now too tiny for much fun. I was old enough to roam around the neighborhood. My real back yard was an abandoned estate next door the the semi-detached development where I lived. The estate was accessed formally by the long drive from the main street which led to a loop in front of the house. My friends and I usually found our way to the house through a broken down fence, carefully tip-toeing over barbed wire.

The surrounding woods and the overgrown, long-untended gardens were scraggly and difficult to distinguish from one another, though the gardens had been perfectly regimented at one time. Now they are drooping and forlorn.

The house was unlocked. There was no furniture in the rooms or art on the walls, but the peeling wallpaper and old-fashioned light fixtures spoke to us of better days with boisterous children, cocktail parties, and formal dinners. The kitchen was bright and airy. Its huge Aga brand cooker, with 6 smaller ovens and 6 burners on the stove, bragged of its capacity to prepare huge meals. Behind the house was a mostly full tank of kerosene.

At some point, probably at my instigation, my friends and I decided to play at camping in the woods around the house. There was plenty of twigs and dry plants for small fires, and matches were easily pilfered from my home where my mother's More's never burned down to the filter. We would clear a little area just to be safe, and make a pile of dead bracken, weeds, and small limbs. Those fires lit something in me. My heart raced, my face flushed, my legs twitched. I could never just sit and enjoy the heat and crackle. I knew what we were doing was wrong.

Our first fires were in the front of the house, where the trees were relatively sparse, and daytime was always bright. Soon, though, we decided to move our clandestine activities into the woods behind the house that were thicker, darker, harder to get into. About that time we also discovered the kerosene. A crisp bag served as a bottle for some of the pink liquid. One of us would carefully carry the bulging bag to the fire circle.

I was not too surprised when I got home from playing in the old estate to find both my parents with grim faces. My father told me my friend's parents had said we were making fires in the woods. Swallowing hard, I said we were, hoping to be rewarded for my honesty. I wasn't disappointed. There was a stern admonishment, a shaking finger, and a few tut tuts. Contrition flushed my face, and I wondered if I would be able to resist the seduction of the flames.

I suppose I held out as long as I possibly could, but the draw was too powerful. After about 3 weeks of abstention, we were back at it in the dark woods. Crisp bag full of kerosene carefully carried from the back of the house into the woods, a circle cleared in the underbrush to keep our fire tame. But none of our safeguards were appreciated in the long run. After only three or four of these cherished adventures I looked up from a freshly smoking campfire to see my father, stomping through the underbrush with about as much purpose as a soldier entering a battle. I froze, though I wanted to run. I knew this time there would be no wagging finger, no stern words. My father grabbed me by the arm and took me home at a pace just a little faster than I could walk.

That was the last spanking I ever remember getting from my father. And I never lit another fire in the woods around the abandoned estate.

10 minute prompt: Dear Pride Fairy (write-a-thon edition)

2010-06-29T21:20:00.000-07:00

Dear Pride Fairy,

Please bring me all your radical friends to decorate the streets and buildings with glitter and tinsel and feathers and sequins and paint the nails of everyone who passes by.

Please bring me a gaggle of cute women to flatter me and play with my hair.

Please bring me a warm sunny day in Volunteer Park with squirrels who know that crumbs taste the same from queers as from straights.

Please bring me hugs and kisses from every queer I've ever known.

Please bring me dykes on bikes and fags on scooters and people so happy to see them they pee their pants.

Please bring me a passle of people who look like a man and a woman mashed together in unpredictable ways by a big queer super-collider.

Please bring me drinks al fresco, because everyone needs refreshment.

Please bring me into a future where no one asks me if I have a man, but just looks at my life, knows me, is open to who I am before I get there and force the issue.

Please bring me an ocean of love to wash my queer people, present and past, to absolve them of the wrongs done to them.

Thank you,
yours queerly,
Caren

10 minute prompt: I am more than _

2010-06-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

I am smarter than I am pretty
I often think of this and sometimes say it
and see the taken aback in someone's face

I am more student than woman
But no one sees student when they look at me

I am more thinker than player
But people just want to play

I am more memoir than fiction,
But I don't want you to know that

I am more poetry than prose,
but prose is more appealing

I am more rain than sunshine
But there is nothing I love more
than raising my face to the heat
and blinding light on a late summer afternoon.

I am more water than land
but often feel at sea,
desperate for an atoll.

I am more cold than hot,
but the waters that run deep
in me are magma

I am more big than small
but sometimes cannot find my voice
and shrink to a pinpoint.

I am more gray than technicolor
but I can see someone catch the emerald and sapphire
of my eye and sway mesmerized.

I am more flesh than bone,
but yearn to shed the flesh
and live sharp, bare, hard, and brittle.

Snow White Redux, Part 2 (part one is in May 2010)

2010-06-13T20:56:00.000-07:00

"It's quite pleasing, Cilla." Snow looked at her father, who was smiling for the first time in years. This must be good, thought Snow. This must be good.

Over the next few months Cilla taught Snow all her favorite recipes. Snow became adept at cooking large quantities of food to reheat in smaller meals later. But somehow she always managed to burn what she was cooking on even the lowest heat. "Nevermind," sympathized Cilla, "You can take the food off the top without disturbing the char, no one will ever know." While Cilla talked about her thoughts fo the day, Snow never noticed the sour look that came over her father's face when she had cooked dinner, as his tongue sorted out the sharp tang of singed rice.

Snow learned from Cilla how to sew and crochet and tat, though she thought her lace looked more like rags that had lost their nap. She couldn't figure out ow the thread could look stained when she was so careful about washing her hands. "Nevermind," Cilla would cluck, "You can wash it clean when you are done." But no matter how she washed, Snow's lace never came out clean.

Snow learned how to craft her thank-you notes and invitations with a fountain pen. She never understood why, no matter how careful she was with the nib, the ink could drip between the letters. "Nevermind," winked Cilla, "Drip a little more around and make a flower out of it." Over time Snow's acquaintances and neighbors began to pity her for her obviously poor attempts to hider her lack of skill.

Snow learned how to plant herbs to use in cooking. Cilla's herbs always grew fast and flavorful while Snow's herbs would grow a few inches then wither and wilt without ever amounting to much. "Nevermind," Cilla sighed, "I'm sure the slugs like yours better than mine."

10 Minute Prompt: Write about where you "hurry, half-dressed and barefoot"

2010-06-13T20:29:00.000-07:00

This morning I found myself feeling ready to head off to work and woke to the fact I needed to put on a shirt first. At least I had my pants on. Isn't that the dream cliche? Being at work without your pants on? Yet I was more worried about driving without a shirt on. Being seen by other drivers who might lose control of their car, who would most certainly gawk. I hadn't, in my imagination, even gotten to the point in my journey where I'd be at the elevators, bare shoulders shining honestly yet shyly under my chin. Riding elevators with people too polite to stare or ask. How could you not ask the half-naked person if she was OK? Why would you want to scuttle off to the safety and privacy of your cube in the hive, when something far more interesting was happening? How could I get all the way to work, let alone out of my front door, without a shirt on? Certainly embarrassment would slow my stride and turn my feet back to the house, back to the closet for a shirt. Clothes are just drones from the closet, doing the work of hiding when the closet can no longer do that work.

10 Minute Prompt: Write a Detailed Description of a Childhood Photograph

2010-06-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

Scalloped edges frame a black and white moment. There are three people in the photo, but only one faces the camera. A small child in a high chair, right arm outstretched, hand high like a cheerleader at the end of a routine. The highchair is in front of a rough wooden picnic table. On the table is a round cake encased in white frosting, a numeral 2 in wax on top, waiting to be lit. An older woman, grandmother or great-aunt, shoulders slightly hunched by early osteoporosis, is walking away. Her hair is short, tightly curled, the fading tint of her last color rinse like a veil. Behind the child in the highchair is the house. Coming out of the house is a pair of legs. The rest of the person is beyond the edge of the picture. Legs in black pants, maybe a man, father or uncle, someone who is carrying a load of wrapped gifts.

Ghost Writer: A Review

2010-06-10T06:13:00.000-07:00

Is it possible that Roman Polanski was channeling Alfred Hitchcock when he directed The Ghost Writer? Not a chance. Well, maybe, after all, they are both known to be or rumored to be perverts. But Roman made this movie every bit as suspenseful, every bit as lyrical, every bit as atmospheric as The Birds, or The 39 Steps.

The wind, rain, and island isolation are not the only Hitchcockian touches at play here. There are lots of delicious shots where important action is happening on the other side of the door, and sometimes we can see through a crack or a window in the door. The music is very tense string action, like in the best Hitchcock films. There is a tight closeup of a note being passed, seemingly endlessly, through a crowd. The final shot is a fixed medium shot that delivers a devastating, inexorable ending. In short, the camera work and editing are superbly suspenseful.

I'll be honest, I did not like this movie for the first 10-20 minutes. I thought it was ponderous and ham fisted. But before long it hit its stride and I was enthralled. Part of my initial response was about the pacing. The progression of this film was measured and deliberate. Sometimes this comes across as slow. But I also find that political movies sometimes benefit from being a little slow. I'm not sure why, other than it reinforces the perception of deliberateness in the political characters.

Ghost Writer seemed to be its own ghost in many ways. Not only the strong echos of Hitchcock, but the actors looked vaguely like themselves. Was that Kim Cattrall with an English accent? I swear I have never looked so intently at her face and still not been certain it was her. And Pierce Brosnin appeared to be a caricature of himself. Than again, Pierce Brosnin often looks like a caricature of himself. There was also a lot of echoing in the scenes, as characters positioned themselves near each other, striking similar poses. It was quite odd sometimes, but interesting.

I spent the whole movie wondering where I'd seen I Olivia Williams, who played Ruth, the former Prime Minister's wife, before. Here's a weird thing: There is a scene in Professor Emmett's (Tom Wilkinson) house. For some reason the house reminded me of the Philadelphia home of the psychiatrist in Sixth Sense. Really, it was just the wall under the banister of the stairs, and the door to the space under the stairs. I was reminded of the rattling of the doorknob as Dr. Malcolm Crowe looked for his key to open the door under the stairs. When I finally looked the actress up in IMDB, turns out she played Anna Crowe, the psychiatrist's grieving wife. Cue eerie Twilight Zone music.

Here's the strangest thing: Why haven't I heard of this film? Where's the fanfare? Where's the hype? It's not like I've been on a media blackout. I simply had not heard of this movie before I looked to see what was playing at The Crest. My theory is that the film was released after the widely publicized arrest of Polanski in Switzerland. The sordid details of his crime have been rehashed ad nauseum in the press. It could be that the distributing company simply did not want any backlash. Or maybe I just wasn't paying attention. At any rate, I'm not sure this is Polanski's best film. I'm still favoring Knife in the Water, or Death and the Maiden. Nevertheless, it is definitely one of his finest moments as a director. As a political suspense film, it ranks right up there with The Contender for me.

Yards (Part Three)

2010-06-05T16:33:00.000-07:00

The back lot was my portal to the woods. The woods surrounding this yard were lush, green, deciduous, purring woods, full of crickets, katy-dids, snakes, turtles, lizards, skunks, raccoons, and stray cats. I slipped away into the downstream side of these woods as often as time and weather allowed. I played long hours following the creek as far as I dared. I was often distracted by a deep pool, not quite big enough to be a swimming hole, around which turtles sometimes gathered to bathe in the filtered light. Turtles were the first animals I ever saw mating. As often as I followed the creek, I took new steps inches at a time. It was years before I finally saw the confluence with Savage Creek. I usually played in the woods alone, but when I was about 9 my father and brother and I walked through the woods further than I had ever gone before. For most of the walk we seemed to be deep in woods, far from the developed world, though we were probably no more than a quarter mile from the nearest house. At one point we could hear the rattle and diesel of bulldozers, through the trees I could see their bright yellow pushing around piles of red dirt. The smell of fresh sap and earth was overpowering.

As we skirted past the encroachment we came upon something I wonder about to this day. The poles were covered in fluffy dark green moss, the kind that grows on the ground, they leaned against each other in stolid opposition to time and bulldozers. 5 points of a star were the ends of the poles on the ground, the high ends met and crossed near the top. I was caught up in wonder about who would have left a teepee frame in the woods. I grabbed my dad's hand and asked him who had lived there. "I don't know," was all I got. I could see the shadow of an old Indian, a craggy faced, gray haired Creek warrior, living out his days in peaceful resistance, alone, the last of his kind, all the rest having been marched off to Oklahoma. Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee was thick in the air at that time. Billie Jack was demanding respect one roundhouse kick at a time. They could not escape the romantic mind of a 9 year old in love with the living world and the mysteries of hidden history.

10 Minute Prompt: Get Really Serious about something we usually dismiss as ridiculous

2010-06-05T16:30:00.000-07:00

Whistling
Whistle me up. I was talking the other day with someone who said he never learned to whistle. I felt it was unfair that I had learned to whistle in 3 different ways. I immediately wanted to give him one of my whistles. But I couldn't quite figure it out. Instead I shared with him my self honed skills and how I had learned each. He said whistling would come in handy and that he thought he would like to be able to whistle just in case he needed it someday. I stepped close to him and told him about my cute little bird imitation that I use sometimes just to get people to look around for the bird in the theater. Even as I whistled the little bird up, his eyes darted to catch it's corporeal counterpart. Then the childhood whistle with puckered lips that makes people laugh at the sight. Then the loud, obnoxious sport game whistle, really only 2 tones that deafens anyone standing withing arm's length. Then he told me of the whistle he used to talk to his aunt's cockatoo. He whistled a soft, airy sound, like a fairy beckoning you into a circle of magic.

Yards (Part Two)

2010-05-23T19:33:00.000-07:00

My second backyard was a rectangular patch like the first, but it was two or three times the size. When I was old enough to judge area I pressured my dad into conceding that it might be a quarter acre. The yard sloped down from the house. The first half of the backyard was terraced into three roughly even levels. Each section was held in place by a wall made from old railroad ties laid lengthwise, stacked 3 high. On the hottest summer days the smell of creosote reminded us of the their former life under steel tracks. The top terrace was home to the garbage cans, the dog dishes, and a pecan tree so old and tired it gave up making nuts. There was also a jungle gym, with its dull aluminum alloy pipes in a perfect symmetry of stacked cubes. We also called them “monkey bars” which was far more apt, especially when my brother was climbing on them. I rarely played on the monkey bars. I never liked the way my hands smelled after climbing on them. Also, once you’d climbed to the top and hung upside down by your knees, you’d done pretty much everything worth doing there. My brother, 7 years my senior, found the view through the window of the door to the garage especially useful when he sat on top with his friends, passing a joint between them, the sweet smoke drifting around the corner of the house. I had great disdain for that particular activity, and would give them wide berth, which further limited my use of the monkey bars.

The second level of the terrace, for years, was a grassy space with nothing but a metal chair at the base of a towering pine tree. One Christmas Eve, a few years after moving in, three men in white lab coats with “Sears and Roebuck” patches on the breast walked brazenly into the backyard. My indignation at the trespass changed to unadulterated delight and hopping up and down excitement, and much triumphant strutting as they assembled a trampoline. That trampoline provided many years of harmless entertainment punctuated by a few ephemerally tragic gonadal incidents. I quickly learned the sit, the swivel hips, and the somersault, both backward and forward, in that order. But by far my favorite trick was, when jumping with a partner, to syncopate my jump just ahead of theirs so that they lost their impetus and their knees would buckle.

The third level of the yard had a rusty two-swing swingset that leaned and rocked under the weight of adults who invariably sat on it, usually with a cigarette in one hand and a cocktail in the other, during the infrequent cast parties hosted by my mother. I spent very little time in this area. At the bottom of this terrace was a drop off to a creek that split the yard in half. I usually ran to get to the bridge which crossed the creek to the back lot.
The creek had coursed a small canyon into the yard. On maps the creek has no name, but my mother called it Savage Creek. In fact, our creek emptied into Savage Creek a few hundred yards past our property line. Savage Creek, in turn, empties into Echeconee Creek a few miles down. The canyon in our back yard was about 4 feet deep and 5 feet across. The bridge was made with two lengths of telephone pole crossing the creek; two-by-sixes provided a sturdy bridge deck. A branch or baby aspen trunk, weathered and silky smooth, provided the handrail along the upstream side. The handrail always smelled wet even on the driest day in August. The downstream side of the bridge had no rail. The creek itself was a shallow narrow stream with a tang of iron from the red Georgia clay it cut through upstream.
As carefully cared for as the first half of the back yard was, the second half was barely managed. My dad would mow it about once a year, mostly to keep the poison oak and ivy down. In summer every breeze carried the fragrance of honeysuckle and wild mint, in the winter it was moss and mud and moldering leaves. There were more haphazard trees, but it was not exactly wooded. The back lot is where the craw dads built their battlements: spitballs of mud in a tower around their own little hole in the ground. The back lot is where the lightening bugs paraded their private neon "open" signs. So if you were lucky enough to be in that back yard after a summer sunset, perhaps with a drink in your hand, the swings were the best seats in the house.

Snow White Redux, Part One (from a 10 minute free write: rewrite a fairy tale)

2010-05-20T07:05:00.000-07:00

Snow White missed her mother desperately. The house was so empty without her, meals were so quiet. Snow's father was an excellent provider, but he did not like to talk and had never been affectionate.

One day at dinner, Snow startled to hear her father's voice, "I have found a new wife. We will be married in a month. You will meet her at the wedding. I want you to be a witness at the registrar's." And that was that. Nothing more was said, the arrangements had all been made.

When the day came, Snow White took the dress from the hanger over the door, slipped it out of the plastic protective cover and put it on, smoothing the taffeta and lace. Off the the registrar's they went.

She was beautiful, Snow thought, she might be a bit old for her dad, or maybe too severe... but she decided she shouldn't be judgmental. The wedding was short, the vows taken from the the marriage text, with 3 attendees, not including Snow White and the registrar. There were two men that Snow White's father worked with, and there was the registrar's wife, who rarely got to attend the weddings her husband officiated. She looked on with a smile and a tear. Snow signed the certificate of marriage as the first witness. One of the work men signed in the other place.

And so they returned home a family. Snow's stepmother's first act as the lady of the house was to paint the kitchen and rearrange the pots and pans. Her father showed more interest in the new look than he had showed in anything in the home in over 2 years. "Snow White" he called, "Come see. What do you think of the color?"

"It's very pleasant, ma'am."

Snow White's stepmother chuckled and stared Snow White in the face, "Call me Cilla."

Everything You Need To Know About Unicorns

2010-05-19T08:22:00.000-07:00

Chapter One

Perhaps there are a few ignorant persons that aren't yet acquainted with what a Unicorn is. This chapter is for them. A unicorn has very many distinctive marks, not the least of which is the single horn protruding from the middle of the forehead.

This horn is most often a tight spiral leading to a point sharp enough to pierce a man. The horns can be anywhere from one to three feet in length and are often used in self defense. But rarely for unprovoked attacks.

In color, a unicorn is almost invariably a startling white. Although a few brown or beige ones have been recorded, they are very rare.

Another distinctive feature of the unicorn is his cloven hooves. Most breeds have cloven hooves which contrast dramatically with their horse-like bodies.

There is one breed of unicorn known to be different from all the rest in that they resemble donkeys rather than horses. With long ears, short stature, and a mule face, these unicorns lack the cloven hooves and twisted horn. Their horns are straight, short, and upturned. This breed is particularly defensive and vengeful, stopping at little if nothing to avenge the death of one of them. An injured unicorn of this kind is extremely dangerous and should be avoided at all times.

The size of a unicorn ranges from about the size of a Great Dane to that of a Wild Elephant, or so says Marco Polo. Most attain the average size of a horse though. The mane of the unicorn is usually long thick and wildly unkempt, having a teased appearance, giving the animal somewhat of an air of hysteria or madness, often striking fear into the hearts of those that do not know the true nature of a unicorn.

The unicorn is as unmanageable and as hard to tame as the African buffalo. There are very few ways of capturing a unicorn. However, the most efficient way is to use a beautiful virgin to entice the unicorn into submission. The unicorn sees the virgin and is attracted by her fidelity, it cannot resist the temptation to lay its head in her lap and offer its services. From this point the unicorn is easily captured or killed.

(I found this "chapter" amongst some other writing from High School. I was about 17 when I wrote this)

Yards (Part One)

2010-05-15T22:56:00.000-07:00

Yards

As a child, my first back yard was a large rectangle of grass kept short each year by earlier mowing and later drought. A swingset sat perfectly perpendicular to the house. A peeling red wooden picnic table with matching benches sat similarly perpendicular but closer to the house about halfway between the swingset and the far end of the house. There was only one tree in the yard, an old crippled apple tree that never bore fruit. A permanently shadowed Georgia pine forest bordered the back yard on three sides. A brown margin of fallen needles framed the yard. I rarely ventured into or beyond that margin. A stray ball was retrieved speedily. No one ever told stories about those woods, and I never saw anyone going into or coming out of them. I just knew I didn’t want to go in there. I imagined wolves lowering their heads to look at the house from between the trees as they loped past on their hunt. There are no wolves in Georgia. I often heard dogs barking in the distance.

I once returned, as a teenager, on summer break visiting my grandmother who lived across the street. The yard was the same rectangle, though the swingset and picnic table were gone. There were no chairs or even brown spots in the grass to indicate that anyone ever used the backyard. I walked to the pine needle margin, stepped into the woods. and was not immediately swallowed up. I was surprised at how sparse the trees were. As dark and as cool as it felt, the pine trees were so far apart that I could not touch two at a time. And there was very little in the way of underbrush growing between them. The ground was covered with long brown needles. The upper story of branches blocked out most of the light, but the lowest branches were 20 feet high. I walked a few steps in and turned to look at the house, the view the wolves would have had. The house sat quietly, brightest white in the midday sun, unbothered by my betrayal.

My earliest memory is of lying on a blanket in that yard. You may not believe me; I was too young to sit up on my own. Our dog stood over me, smiling, licking my face, smothering me in the love for which most people spend a lifetime yearning and searching. I remember looking to the house for help, unable to call out, knowing my mother was scrubbing and drying and putting away the breakfast dishes.

10 MInute Prompt: Start with a word you love....

2010-05-13T21:27:00.000-07:00

I know there's a word I love, but I can't think of it just now. Nothing much comes to mind, mostly fog and wind. I can hear the dull boom of a fog horn, the seeking cry of a seagull, asking for scraps, asking for a friend, asking the way home. I can hear a distant highway shushing in the still light evening, white lights on the left, red lights on the right. A wise ship travels the middle channel. I hear a barking dog in the distance, everything is in the distance. The dog doesn't know why he's barking. I hear my breath running the gauntlet into my head before settling into my lungs, and leaving by a quieter rout.

I'm still trying to think of my favorite word. I think of things I like to look at. But rainbow is not among my favorite words. And bird doesn't sound particularly nice. For a while black-tailed gull was my favorite word. Crashing is a good one too, like the waves on the beach, pushing the tiny pebbles to rub and grind against each other so that they sound like that distant highway.

Ocean could be my favorite word, with its intimation of unexplored depths and deceptive surface where whitecaps can look like a table top before they bowl themselves over into whitecaps again. Ocean is the vastness, with an assumption of boundaries, in the center of which we are completely vulnerable, completely dependent, completely at the shim of the thing itself which feels like infinity. Ocean bears us up, buoys us. Ocean feels like the home we knew before we were borne into the arms of the world. Ocean is my favorite word today.

Tricycle

2010-05-01T21:42:00.000-07:00

We looked like sisters. We were the same height. We had the same silky hair the same warm chestnut, worn the same length below our shoulders. Our skin was the same shade of Pale Late Spring Tan with Olive Undertones. Only her eyes were brown and mine were green. Kim and I had been sent outside to play while the grownups stayed inside to talk about grownup things.

My family was moving to another town. Her family wanted to buy our house, the only home I’d ever known, the house across the street from my grandmother. I had become used to finishing breakfast and running across the quiet street to visit with my grandmother until lunch time. There had been other families come to look at the house, but none with children to play with, and none had come back, and they were never mentioned again. I had felt secure that we wouldn’t really leave until Kim’s family showed up. Now I was trusted with the job of entertaining Kim like a good hostess, like the good hostess my mother was to Kim's parents.

Outside, the yard was surrounded by pine woods which sighed softly in the breeze. We roamed around the back yard for a while. We tried out the swings. Kim swung her legs and sent the swing into overdrive quickly pushing up over my head. But my legs and arms were desultory, limp, dissatisfied. We headed to the driveway, where my red tricycle winked at us. Without sitting I grabbed the handle bars and put my left foot on the step behind the seat. I pushed off with my right foot and rode the trike down the driveway, standing behind the seat. Kim ran along behind me while I used the wind in my face and the screeching jay birds to forget she was there.

At the bottom of the driveway, down a slope, at the edge of the quiet street, I stopped the trike and got off, ready to push it back up the slope for another ride down. Kim caught up with me there, and reached for the handlebars. I jerked it away from her. What was she thinking? This is my tricycle. I’m not sure what I said to her, but she ran crying all the way back up the driveway to the house. At least now I would get to play by myself, I thought, kind of knowing this wasn’t the end of it.

Sure enough, no sooner had she gone inside than my mother came out, walking straight toward me, with a hard look in her face, Kim in tow by her hand, running to keep up, trying not to trip. My mother shook her finger at me, ordered me to share my toys and play nice. I glared at Kim, trying to make her disappear in the heat of my stare. I scuffed the ground with my shoe. I felt my eyebrows knit together and my lips set hard and tight. Why should I share my tricycle with her? She’s getting the house.

Shutter Island in Review: Eh, So-So...

2010-05-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

No, this isn't your typical Martin Scorsese movie. Though there are some moments of sublime beauty and violence, take for instance the beauty of Dinah Washington singing "This Bitter Earth" over the closing credits... Wowsa. And the violence of the raining ash in the dream of Edward's burnt wife. These are peaks in an otherwise flat terrain. Overall I'd say the dreams were the best part of this film. The dreams are a window onto a tortured soul that has seen too much innocence lost, and has stared into the empty eyes of man's inhumanity to man. The dreams and memories of Edward twist the thread of the film beautifully. So the dreams were my favorite, and the cast. Patricia Clarkson! What a treat.

As movies about sinister alternate realities go, this is no Fight Club. And it's only barely better than Gothika. Despite the legendary cast, for all the decent writing, as hard as the menacing and moody set tries, this film does not live up to the Scorsese genius we all know and love. But you know what? Who cares! He's got laurels, let him rest on them.

Shutter Island has a fairly intact arc, but it changes tone too often. Sometimes it's Kafka-esque surrealism, sometimes it's a Hitchcock psychological thriller, sometimes it's a war movie, sometimes it's a horror movie. The sad part is, in a better movie all these tones could compliment each other and make the movie stronger, but in this case they hang too loosely apart from one another, and seem disjointed. It's one thing for the characters to seem disjointed, but we shouldn't necessarily notice it in the movie as a whole.

What really kills Shutter Island for me is the awkward transition from the dark world of paranoia to the brighter world of the awakened psyche. These transitions work best when the intrinsic awkwardness is exploited for it's disorienting quality. Unless I missed something, it wasn't ambiguous enough (I love to be left wondering) and it was too thoroughly explained, as refined as white sugar. This is one of those endings that gets narrated to death by the characters.

And so, regretfully, I file Shutter Island away, perhaps never to be seen again, certainly not to be rhapsodically reminisced about. Next up: The Hurt Locker.

10 Minute Prompt: Overdoing it, or Doing it over

2010-04-24T15:23:00.000-07:00

The first thing I feel is a throb at the back of my head. Lifting heavy lids, my eyes ache precariously and shut again. Throbs move around my scalp, slowly at first, back to front, then back again. I turn over in my bed, sotted sheets askew, blanket nowhere to be found. A dry martini insinuates itself between my ears. That was drink 1-3. Rum and coke sloshes around the top of my neck where my skull comes to rest. Drinks 4-7. This routine turns out the same. Last time the sheets were just as hot as this time. Lather, rinse, repeat. Drink, drunk, repeat. Next weekend is the do-over. Next week a whole new chance to change the score. 1 point for each puffy eye, 5 points for sour stomach, 2 points for pain in my forehead, 2 points for pain in the back of my head, 2 points for an aching neck. 4 points for difficulty breathing. Each drink drunk repeat promises to outshine the last, but it never does. They are all one long line of dull, creaking, blurry, mash-ups of each other. There is always laughter, there is always tears, there is sometimes vomit. There is often shame.

10 Minute Prompt: Write about Loving Loneliness

2010-04-24T15:11:00.000-07:00

My emotions are scoured from my bones like the flash-flood run-off of a desert squall. Sadness drips into the sand, joy and bliss melt away on the rocks, gratitude steams up from the pavement, frustration trickles down a pane of glass. I am left with emptiness, no thin rope holds me safe, no one is herding me back to the fold, no hug awaits me, no spoken word reminds me that I'm human. Alone is all I feel, no hope of reconnection.

I would pay to feel this, I would revisit this spot as often as I can get away. I throw myself into an emptiness that doesn't catch me. Pure freedom, relinquished from responsibility of communication, adrift in indifference. I become inconsequential. Nothingness begins to feel like a pillow-top mattress. Nothingness is its own room, decorated by everyone who's ever been there. This room is more comfortable than any room I own. Abandon all hope ye who enter, free yourself from expectations. Loneliness is a four letter word. Loneliness is a place where I can't exist. Loneliness is my only solace. Loneliness is where I'm at my best.

Grunt Sculpin

2010-04-24T14:46:00.000-07:00

Unh, unh. My coffee can cave, left here by the fan-footed barnacle that made it, fits my body like a tube dress. I wait for food to float by. It always does. Food is so stupid. I guess that's why it's called food. And that's why I eat it, because I am so smart. Unh, unh. I am so smart. My head looks just like the hard-hat on top of the barnacle that built this can. I am very convincing. Hunkered down in here, watching Big and Small with teeth swim by, no one ever mistakes me for their dinner. Unh, unh, slurp! Yep, that's what happens when food floats by. I just slurp it up. Food is so dumb. But tasty!

Unh, unh. Here comes Tony. Tony's been sniffing around my can for days. He's not fooling anyone with those laid back stripes rippling up and down his sides. This is how smart we are, we can talk by flashing dots and stripes on our skin. We don't have to say a word. But since I know you don't understand, I'll translate. My skin changes color to warn him, "I see you. Get outta here. This can is taken buddy." Tony's skin lightens up too, he's still mad from before. So I flash more warnings. "I don't care if you were here last week. You left. It's mine now. I know it's a prime spot. And it was cheap too!" I can say so much with a surge of color.

But Tony is insistent, and he's getting closer. This will not do. Unh, unh. All my skin turns the darkest shade of gray I can muster. I charge out of my can and nip at Tony's pectoral fin. He takes the hint, turns wimpy shades of white and gray
and jets off to sulk in the corner. I turn to strut back to my can. Unh UNH! "NO WAY!" Cynthia is just settling in to my can, her head's a perfect mimic of the barnacle. Her spots are a shrugging shoulder, "You leave it, you lose it." Dang!

I put on a contrite shade of purple with frilly stripes as I scoot over to where Tony is sitting. Tony is looking around like he doesn't notice me. He's spotty, orange and black. "Oh, hey," he says. Unh, unh, I scuff my fin on a rock, "Hi. How's the buffet here?"

"Oh, you know, a little food drifted by a minute ago. It was pretty tasty. A little salty though."

10 Minute Prompt: Write about your favorite time of day

2010-04-03T18:53:00.000-07:00

The sun slips larger and redder by the moment, closer and closer to the horizon until it kisses, lips flaring to touch the edge of the earth, and redder still begins to sink into the place that I can't follow just yet. The sky is molten lead around the line of the land, a slow fade into impossibly purple sky where Venus and Arcturus show us the way into the darkness. All of the land seems sucked, pulled toward the edge, where the last of the light is slipping away like the finger tips of the drowning man slipping underwater for the third time. Cicadas change into crickets. Hummingbirds trade places with moths, raccoons take over for squirrels, deer run across the road, coyotes yip their greetings to the new night.

Recurring Dream

2010-03-25T21:26:00.001-07:00

I stand on the chair
I reach up
for the calendar to turn its page
I stand on the chair
I reach up
to pin my finger painting on the wall
I stand on the chair
I reach up
to get a cup off the shelf
I stand on the chair
I reach too far
I always reach too far
My arms arc and cartwheel
off to the left
Over my head to the left
Fingers reaching into space
My feet float up from under me
My feet float to the right
I always see my arms cartwheeling
And my feet floating
I fall
I fall into a sudden hard darkness
I jerk
I wake
I wake up in the recliner
I wake up on the couch
I wake up in the hot car with the windows rolled down
"Are we there yet?"

10 Minute Prompt: Write without using punctuation

2010-03-25T21:10:00.000-07:00

In the end there is only more of the same which continues on to the next
and leaves us breathless in its relentless flow into new
this life excites and enthralls me into awareness of my own shelf-life
both sad and satisfying happy to know the cycle of you
then you then you
then out
then me
we merry go round each other into the next room
waltz into the outside where wind wipes off the grime of travel
and rain removes the hairspray and makeup of putting on our daily lives
in ordinary actions
filing paper making coffee stapling stacks of letters carrying orders
for objects which mean nothing to me
except a job to be done from which I come home to you
and we dance to dinner
then bow and curtsy our intention to stay hand in hand
in quiet space unmoved by obligations that yell at us from outside
until it is time again to warm our hands on mugs of tea
and smooth our brows on sleeves of work shirts clean and starched
against a wrinkling world that pulls us out
and out
and out

Precious gets the treatment

2010-03-25T21:09:00.001-07:00

Precious, Based on The Novel Push By Sapphire. I actually like saying the whole thing. There is a sense of respect in it. And this movie commands my respect. It is as fine a movie in all respects of film-making that I have seen in a long time.

THE ACTORS: Every actor hit her/his mark pitch perfect. Gabourey Sidibe deserves all the attention she’s getting. She nailed the dull affect of a severely abused child. I know she was acting because I saw her at the Oscars ™, and she is anything but dull. As Precious, Gabourey embodies the sparkle of obstinate hope as easily as the desperation and consternation of her predicament. But in the end, I believe Gabourey is too much for American Cinema, I fear she will be forever offered roles as the abused fat girl who defies oppression. She has so much more than that to offer. Someone said Mariah Carey was in this movie. Really? I didn’t see her. I have no use for Mariah Carey as a singer or a celebrity crazy. Has it really taken her this long to make it to acting? (OK, she’s been in a handful of screen roles, but did anyone here see “Wisegirls?” I didn’t think so.) I could not believe my eyes. I thought maybe they found a social worker and barred her from the makeup trailer. (btw, there’s a special heaven for social workers who work with kids. They often see the worst the world has to offer and they keep getting up and going to work anyway.) I was floored by her performance. And Mo’Nique, blah blah blah Oscar worthy, blah blah blah. Is there anything she can’t do?

THE CINEMATOGRAPHY. The sets, the shots, the editing, all of the art of this film created poetry. Everything we need to know about disassociative coping mechanisms is in the filming: jagged moments of jumpy time, off balance vertigo, 3rd person perspective of the horror we live through. There was so much poetry in the film. The shot on Precious’ first day at the alternative school, she’s sitting on the chair, her teacher is leaning against the wall in the hallway, waiting, each is in focus, neither can see the other… poetry.

THE PLOT. The best thing about the movie was the overall treatment of the characters and the abuse. This movie does not dwell, does not drip, does not linger in the pain, nor does it over-elevate the joy. The best thing about this movie is what it lacks: sentimentality. Precious is honest, a bare bones story about all the factors that come into play to create the culture of a family in pain. I was nowhere near as devastated as I thought I was going to be leaving the theater. I never once felt manipulated. Sure, I flinched. Sure, I gaped in horror. Sure, I cried. But those emotions didn’t rule me. Precious has more dignity than that.

The scene that has stayed with me, was the most chilling to watch, was the scene when the school counselor is ringing the bell, and Precious has to answer the squawk box, and all the while her mother is hiss/whispering “Make that bitch go away.” The quiet hostility of her mother gave me shivers. Watching Precious being forced to be the adult angered me. Watching Precious become complicit in her own isolation and helplessness made me cry. And yet, that scene was the pivot point of the film, it was out of that interaction over the squawk box, while her mother hissed at her, that Precious got the information that led her into a new appreciation for herself.

The last thing I want to mention is the role of race in this film. Yes, this film is about a black family, in a black neighborhood. Also, it is about women. Do not be fooled. This movie is about the universal themes of love, loss, pain, desperation, hope, redemption, and transformation. These themes are found in all great literature, from Antigone to Moby Dick to The Color Purple to The God of Small Things. The experiences, attitudes, and crimes of this film are not limited to any race, class, or gender. Nor are the redeeming qualities of hope and transformation. Race is the context for this film, not the major story. I take this as a sign of recovery. The mainstream (read: white culture) can begin to receive stories about black people without having to exaggerate the importance of race to the exclusion of all else. Certainly our individual experiences in this world are informed and impacted by attitudes about race, class and gender, but our individual identities are not limited to those experiences or biases. This is the difference between context and content. I am happy to see our focus firmly set on content.

Health Care Payment System Discussion

2010-03-24T11:01:00.000-07:00

Recently I posted a list of 10 Things Every American should Know About Health Care Reform from moveon.org. I included this note:

This is a good start to true reform. Does anyone remember that health insurance companies used to operate under a cap on profits? If I recall, that went away in the late 80s early 90s. Insurers went from paying 95% of every premium dollar to direct services to paying 81% of premium dollars to direct services. (http:/.../dangerousintersection.org/2009/12/13/cap-the-profits-of-health-care-insurers/
) Guess where the other 14% is going? Kaiser EDU states that 2.3 trillion dollars a year are spent on health care. Using very rough math, if even half of that 2.3 trillion comes from insurance premiums paid out that means that more than 15 BILLION dollars a year go to straight into the pockets of investors. Sounds more like wealth care to me. (http://www.kaiseredu.org/topics_im.asp?imID=1&parentID=61&id=358)

Carl Wilson responded:
I don't agree that it all goes to investors at all. Insurance companies need large stockpiles of money to pay for catastophic events. In the case of healthcare that could be an emerging disease like AIDs, Swine flue, or any number of predicted emerging plagues.
I'm not saying the Ins co's are angels, far from it. I'm just saying don't malign them ... See morefor having large profits ... thats how they pay the big bills when they arrive.
Also when a stock price goes up because the earnings per share is higher its the investing market wishing to buy that stock from another investor that is footing the bill. The company is not forking out a dime unless they are buying stock back for strategic reasons.
Only when there are dividends paid is the co paying out the bucks.

To Which I responded:
you make some interesting points Carl. I always thought profits were what was left over after business operating expenses were accounted for, and I would assume reserves would be considered an operating expense, at least that's what I learned in HS accounting. Also, the jump from 5% to 19% not-for-direct-services happened after the caps were ... See morelifted on health insurance profits. So I do assume that insurance companies had reserves when they were operating at 95% for-services. But mainly the point I'm poorly making here is that I think health care for profit is immoral. And IMHO it's an unacceptable conflict of interest for a health care provider to also answer to investors who expect profit. We are each and every one of us investing in our health care system when we pay premiums (or when our employers pay premiums on our behalf), but we don't get to share in the profits. I support a single payer system, even if that payer is a private not-for-profit. I am happy to see any change to our sad system that provides more health services to people who formerly didn't have access to it.

To Which Carl Responded:

Just in the last hour on NPR they had a rep from CIGNA that said their profit margin was only 2%. That said he said the reserves would only pay for a few days of the health Insurance annual claims. CIGNA provides the Health Care for NPR. Dial in and give a listen. What he says mirrors what I have heard other Ins Co reps and CEO's state.
I think where many people get misled is that they think a billion dollar profit is a big thing. If they looked at the whole accounting of the system they would see it is perhaps not all that much.
I don't like Health Care for profit either but 2% is hardly profit in my opinion. If I don't bring in at least 10-15% profit on my jobs I would be let go, and its the retained earnings on that profit that quite literally have kept me employed the last few months while the construction industry digs out of that other mess.
Even in a not for profit scenario they would still be working to achieve retained earnings and carrying them over from year to year if they are so lucky. If they didn't have retained earnings, and that would go for a single payer plan also, the end result could likely be either higher premiums or higher taxes.
In other words there is no free lunch......... See more
Thanks for the feedback Caren....

At which point Julia P. jumped in:

Hey how about forcing insurance companies to be non profit so consumers are their first priority. For profits have to keep their shareholders as first priority. And the only way to make profits on insurance is to take in more premiums than you pay out in benefits. US is the only industrialized country that allows health insurance companies to be for profit.

And I had to answer as well:
Carl, I get what you say about your own job and the construction industry. I don't think they are comparable industries, however. I just don't think our health-care payment system should be private for-profit. Health care, like education, fire protection, and law enforcement, is essential to a healthy thriving society.

I would expect an insurance company rep or CEO to defend their status as a for-profit entity. And I have read and heard a lot of those same stories. I am leery of taking their word for it that the system they benefit from works all that well for us. The WHO rates us at 36th, behind pretty much every other developed country, for health care.

A multitude of sins can be hidden in statistics. Just ask the Enron employees. What mystifies me the most is that the fiscally conservative lawmakers don't seem to realize that the billions of dollars that go to investors pockets could pay for so many much needed services nationally. Wouldn't the truly conservative approach would be to apply those dollars to services instead of distributing them to shareholders? It seems very wasteful to me.... See more

I can't reconcile the financial reality of for-profit health insurance with my political convictions. They are just incompatible.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to rant some more.

Carl adds a little something:
I just remembered another chat on NPR yesterday where the person bei ng interviewed was a Brit that had been living herre with his family and his son was diagnosed with Type1 Diabetes. He said that while the cost here was high his son had access to state of the art technology. When they later went back to the UK he said the cost was lower but they ... See moreno longer had access to to the technology (his insulin pump specifically).
There was a direct correlation in his opinion to access to newer technologies in for profit systems versus not for profit/single payer systems.
Something to think about...perhaps research some more. There may be unintended consequences we don't understand enough to see with changing a system so abruptly.
I am clearly a change in moderation person. I would have been thrilled to have them address the anti-trust issue and pre-existing conditions to start with, see the outcomes, and then take on some more.

To which I reply:
Again, I am skeptical of arguments about other systems' failure to meet the health needs of the majority just because they are not always getting state-of-the-art technology. Anyone with a chronic disease is at risk and deserves the best treatment available. But are we supposed to settle for a system that completely excludes millions of people ... See morejust so a few can have the best? We have an opportunity NOW to make a payment system that is both affordable and includes everyone. Our system doesn't have to be a duplicate of any other country's system. We have the ability to create our own system that allows access for everyone AND state of the art insulin pumps AND doesn't waste money on dividends to shareholders. Is that so preposterous? We are the richest freaking nation on the planet! I think the problem comes down to pure greed and selfishness. "I've got mine, it's up to you to get yours" is the underlying message I'm hearing all the time in the media. I think that's a fine business model, but an extremely poor model for health care delivery. Maybe what we need is a good old fashioned class war.

write about being tied to something -- 10 minute free-write

2010-03-06T15:20:00.000-08:00

They started as 2. Two boxes of papers, journals, magazines, tchatchkes, keepsakes, each one a suitcase of memories packed into a box that made the move with me from Bremerton to Bellevue Ave, from Bellevue Ave to Harrison, from Harrison to 11th. Every time I packed my life into boxes a little of it stayed in a box so that after several moves, the 2 had become 5. Now there are 10, and each box holds a piece of me that is still tied to me. The cables disappear in the film of my life-- watching that movie, the boxes look like cardboard, but they follow me, of their on volition, mysteriously motorized. Keeping the boxes, I keep my life. I am tied, by the boxes to all the events, and people who have passed into the sunsets. The people are gone, the parties are over, the boxes remain. I keep them close, without them my past might drift away, my idea of myself, my sureness of my history might float aimlessly if the boxes didn't sit on top of them. Picking at the knots that hold the boxes tied firmly breaks my nails, bloodies my fingertips. But the pain makes it all the more important to finish. I've tried this hard, I've hurt this much I can't give up now. Does anyone have a pair of scissors? A book of matches?

write about a story that lives in your joints or bones--10 minute free-write

2010-03-06T15:09:00.000-08:00

Through winter, the summer sun slowly leaches out of my bones. Sun soaked up over months of perfect sunny days, hikes in the sere desert, where my bones are parched and caked. In the snow my bones remind me that heat exists somewhere, and my store of sunshine dwindles, dwindles over sleety days, foggy weeks, and overcast months. The story of long carefree days with no jacket, impromptu trips to the beach, climbing on the warm rock to nap after lunch, all the stories spin themselves out of my bones when they are most needed. As the tales are told each bone grows dim and shrinks, until rib by rib, metatarsal by radius, femur by iliac crest, my bones become Winter waiting to be warmed by Spring.

Advocating for the underserved

2010-03-05T11:25:00.001-08:00

This letter was submitted with an application for Energy Assistance (a federal program) on behalf of a tenant in Seattle Housing Authority. The Energy Assistance Program administrator asked that thee tenant, who claimed to have no income, make a special appointment to meet with him and explain her circumstances. For many other programs, federal and otherwise, an affidavit signed by the applicant is adequate to "prove" no income. No other applicant was asked or required to make a special appointment.

Dear Energy Assistance Program administrator,

I am submitting this application without proof of income because this SHA tenant claims to have no income. She has proved to the satisfaction of SHA to have no regular income and her rent reflects this. I understand that you require proof to your own standards and when I explained this to the applicant, she declined to follow up with you saying “If they don’t believe me then it’s not worth my time.”

Most of the tenants I work with in SHA have physical and/or mental conditions that prevent them from participating in the activities of daily living that you and I might take for granted. I do not believe that this should also prevent them from benefiting from programs designed to relieve them from the burden of poverty.

Please consider contacting this applicant to ascertain for yourself her income status.

Sincerely,

Social Worker

Red Suzuki 500

2010-03-04T21:47:00.000-08:00

I paid $600 for that cute red Suzuki 500 and a helmet in August 1985. Don't, don't... don't you, forget about me. That $600 bought me a lot of getting around from August through April of 1986. Just 9 short months. 9 months of riding my first real girlfriend back to her group home after spending the night with me, getting me back home just in time to watch coverage of the Challenger exploding over Florida, white plumes billowing over and over again all day. 9 months of riding through the roughest weather to my job at the bar on Thursday evenings. Nearly blown over on Pine Street by a cross wind wailing down 3rd Avenue. I laid it down on black ice with a cute girl on the back and I still have two marks on my shin all these years later. That bike was just big enough to take on the freeway, but the wheels wobbling on the bridge decks made me think that longer alternate routs weren't that bad after all.

Two weeks after I bought it, in the middle of August, an early morning rain shower had slicked the road just right. In that short time it had become my habit to take my helmet off once I'd left the navy base where I was living. But looking at the morning sun glinting off the wet road, rainbows of summer oil pooling in the pock marked asphalt, this time I had second thoughts and kept going. Driving on in the humid morning, a half mile down the road I came around a bend to find 3 cars stopped on an overpass where there was no light or stop sign. A driver had stopped, perhaps confused by the on and off ramps of the freeway below. To avoid a collision I stomped my right foot onto the brake, which on a motorcycle, is the rear brake, the brake on the wheel with the least traction. The last thing I remember is falling backwards, arms outstretched, sky swinging into view. For that split second of eternity I was weightless.

I woke to find someone pulling on my arm. I was flat on my back but my arm was being pulled with such force that my shoulder shrugged off the road in rhythm to the tugging. At first I thought, "what day is it?" Maybe it was Friday, but maybe it was Sunday, Friday? Sunday? Friday? Sunday? Panic! Amnesia? What's my name? Tons of information about me, my name, my address, my whole life, rushed into the void that time had left, but I still didn't know what day it was. But that didn't matter so much. After all, that's what they make calendars for. Finally I focused on the man still pulling on my arm. I let him pull me to my feet, and looking around, I saw several cars had pulled over, drivers staring at me. My face became a furnace, glowing down my neck. Shame sered my cheeks, weighed on my eyelids, I had lost control. Helplessness is a bed of broken glass for me. Someone called out "Are you OK?" Seriously. Are you going to take the word of the person who was knocked out? "Uh, yeah, I'm fine." I gave a half hearted wave, the reluctant celebrity. I had no idea how long I'd been unconcsious on the road. And I was too ashamed to ask. No one had cell phones, no one had called for help. The man who'd pulled me up helped me put my bike back on its wheels. It wouldn't start of course, no gas in the carburator. I walked it home, couldn't get away from the scene of my ignominy quickly enough.

I slowly pushed my bike the mile back to my house, dizzy, mind racing, heart pumping the whole way. The rest of that day I was scared to death I would die in my sleep. I knew just about that much about concussion. For two weeks I woke up with the spins, no matter where I slept. About a week after, I was changing the oil in the motorcycle with the help of a friend in his back yard. He showed me where the plug unscrewed so I could do it by myself next time. I bent over to look and the grass flew up and hit me in the face. It took a bit to realize I had fallen over as soon as I my head and heart had aligned. 2 weeks after, I went to a party at a friend's and 1/2 a glass of wine did horrible, unspeakable things to me.

Before the concussion I had a nearly photographic memory. The injury shaved a point or two off my average. To this day I have regular word finding problems. I attribute this to the injury, though most people don't notice and it could be the stress of having a brain too full of the come and go of daily life and work.

Over time the cost of maintenance--oil changes, front forks, tires, new tabs, not to mention the motorcycle endorsement I never bought--all of this added up to a charge I could not afford to pay. $600 bought a lot of good times and getting around, wind in my hair, bugs in my teeth, riding friends around Volunteer Park. It also bought a ride to the end of the road I was ready to take.

5 Word Prompt Poem for Claire

2010-02-27T15:29:00.000-08:00

Spa Love Pineapples Chocolate Hugh

When Hugh said "We need to talk,"
In his thoughtful voice
The one he uses when
He thinks I might argue with him.
I stopped cutting the pineapple,
Put the knife down carefully,
Pushing the edge away,
Thinking about the three other
Pineapples patiently waiting
On the washboard,
And the people arriving soon
That Hugh had wanted to invite
And the chocolate still not sauced.
"Honey," he juts his chin as he pulls
his words out of his gut
"I'm not sure I love you anymore."
I'm not sure if her hears my sigh
"Of course you love me, dear. You've
Just forgotten how it feels."
I kiss his cheek and ruffle his hair.
He is so proud of his hair at his age.
I put the knife in his hand,
Holding his hand over the handle.
"Now chop the fruit for your friends,
They'll be here any minute."
Already I'm thinking
about the spa tomorrow,
To relieve his guilt with my pleasure.

Moon: a review

2010-02-13T10:39:00.000-08:00

Well, this is more of a psalm than a review. I loved Moon. I loved everything about it. I loved it's mystery. I loved the pacing of the plot. I loved the low-tech special effects. Models and sets still got it, baby! CGI not required. I loved the music. I loved watching this movie after spending loads of time alone over the past few weeks. I loved the details of dirty entropy pock marking the sterile pristine space station, the coffee stained Gerty. I especially loved when a bloodied, feverish Sam was being carried, while he was not quite in his space suit and it looked like he had 4 arms and 4 legs...

This movie is what I've been waiting for. It's beautiful. Space, the moon, the station where Sam lives, it's all so beautiful. The funny thing is, we, the audience, have seen enough of space in movies to know how utterly silent it is. How would we deal with being alone in space for 3 years? How much effort does it take to maintain your humanity when you are alone in space? Clearly we measure our humanity by our relationships, even the most basic relationship of perceiving and being perceived gives us a sense of self. What interaction we can program into a computer is by definition limited. Watching Sam lose his humanity and regain it is a beautiful process.

Everything about this movie is what I yearn for in a film. It is so lovingly, meticulously crafted that it looks effortless.

Did I mention the music? I love the music. I love how the moon rocks being mindlessly digested by the Helium 3 mining machines cause the surface dust to billow.

I want to cuddle this movie. I want to hold it close, like a couple of highschool sweet hearts at their locker between classes. And when the bully Avatar walks by, we'll snicker and cut our eyes, and whisper, all the while knowing that what we have is so much better than anything Avatar has to offer, with all it's bling and gusto.

Winter Sun

2010-02-02T15:45:00.000-08:00

Winter sun smirks
low across a mean sky
glints hard against the water
like glass on ice
reflects a fake, dancing warmth
off hard-edged buildings
marching along the bay.

10 Minute Free Write: What Did Someone Kill?

2009-12-15T22:05:00.000-08:00

My father killed the muskrat. The muskrat had been cornered by our dog Butchie. Butchie was barking, looking up at us, barking more, smiling at us. The raised shovel above my father's head threatened to fall on Butchie, but fell instead on the muskrat. I had no idea what a muskrat was. It came up from the creek, said my father. It was hiding behind the garbage cans, but it was only hiding. It was not trying to get into the garbage, it never had the chance. What does a muskrat do? Why did this one travel so far from home? What if it was friendly? I thought something so easily cornered and killed must have been friendly really. How afraid it must have felt, cowering in the corner behind the cans. It never stood a chance. My father picked it up by its tail and carried it to the communal burial pit in the back across the creek, the very pit Butchie would be laid to rest in years later. I looked away, averting my eyes from the gore I expected, averting my mind from the nothingness where once a muskrat had lived. I went back inside, sad and afraid, not knowing why the muskrat had to die. I went inside to find Gilligan and his friends waiting for me. The day my father killed the muskrat was the day I saw the depth of coldness in my father, the emptiness that kept him from appreciating the life of a small water-rodent that couldn't have harmed any of us, and wouldn't have stuck around to make mischief of our order. That was a bad day for the muskrat. The last thing he saw was the cold empty eyes of my father, shovel raised and ready for the death blow, killing without a thought for the young in the den, the errand unfinished, the mate left alone.

10 Minute Free Write: No One Asked

2009-12-15T21:53:00.000-08:00

No one asked me how I felt about moving. My mother hopped up and down with glee when the call came from my father at work. We were leaving for a new country on a far continent. I was too young to know what any of it meant. I jumped up up down with my mother, caught in the net of her joy, a minnow. Swept in the emotion of the moment until I realized in one fast frown moving, going, means leaving, away from, I would be leaving all the I knew, my grandmother, my friends, my school, my back yard, my creek, my dog, leaving suddenly felt empty and as I landed from a hop I started to cry. The universe was opening up and swallowing me whole in its limitless emptiness. My mother stopped to hug me and reassure me that we would love it, that we would have a great life. This was my first experience of not knowing what to expect. That moment that hard wired me for all the next moments of newness -- now I always feel and fear the universe yawning and swallowing me, empty space pulls me apart in zero gravity, all that is large becomes tiny, all that is minuscule overwhelms. No one asked what I was thinking, no one asked what I felt. No one asked what I wanted or what might help me get through this. No one asked me if I needed a space ship for my journey, What I have striven to build for myself since that moment is a self-contained pod that can travel untouched through the vast reaches beyond what little I know, the small room that is my life into the hall of mirrors that always waits for me.

Halloween 2009, poem for the kids

2009-11-05T19:12:00.001-08:00

Dark Shadow

Before the darkness came
my life was very usual
I went to school, I read my books,
I did what my parents told me.

But then one night, not long ago
My mother tucked me in
and kissed my cheek,
as many nights before.

She left the room, turned out the light
and waved, "See you in the morn!"

Just then I heard a muffled snap
and saw the closet door ajar.
I shook my head and blinked my eyes,
I swear a shadow moved inside.

The shadow slid across the floor
And out into the room
I heard my beat faster
my blood rushed through my veins.

The shadow reached across my bed
and covered up my feet.
My eyes got big, I couldn't blink,
as I watched it slowly creep.

I couldn't move, I watched instead
as the shadow crept up, crept up upon the bed
The darkness crept across my andles
up my shins, across my knees,
I felt it hold me down.

I felt the sweat upon my brow
the rest of me was cold
I knew that if I called my mom
she'd be there quick as that.
But I couldn't make a sound

The shadow now across my chest
was gripping at my heart.
I knew that if it reached my head
There'd be no me no more.

Against the fear I struggled.
Against the dark I fought.
Finally out of my mouth,
the tiniest of squawks.

Immediatly, it seemed,
as if she'd been there all along,
my mother popper into my room
and flipped the light switch on.

To my relief that moment
the shadow disappeared.
My legs could move, my arms were free
The danger, it seemed, had cleared.

My mother sat upon my bed,
her eyes were all concern.
She touched my face and rubbed my head
"You had a nightmare, son..."

No nightmare this, I thought,
no dream at all, but real.
And now I cannot go to sleep
Unless the closet door is sealed.

The Nestled Ear 11-5-09

2009-11-05T08:59:00.000-08:00

The Nestled Ear

Finally in bed I wait for sleep.
Turning on my side my up hear: alert
My nestled ear is cozy, muffled
my nestled ear wants to dream,
meander into the haze between worlds.
My up ear perks to the presumed prowler
prying the front door
then, when the door never opens,
soothes and purrs to the drop and patter
of the cat jumping off his perch
and trotting up the stairs
soon all sounds spread to a buzzing silence
my nestled ear beckons to my watchful ear
"Relax.. it's all good... the bolt is shot,
the alarm is set."
Sleep whispers from across the room.

Untouched

2009-08-01T08:22:00.000-07:00

Untouched

from here, under this tree, I watch the world

watching and wanting the world I see

leaning on this tree, feeling it under me

papery bark softens under my hand

peels away to bring in the newest of itself,

falls away to smooth.

Branches hug in lowering circles

snatch at the world they cannot hold

I am in it, I am in it, I am in it

the world holds me too

I fall away to smooth

am softened to belong

I am butter under the tree

melted from endless circles around

I am soaking into the ground.

the limbs lower their circles to clutch

I am held in my place

but not touched.

One of my favorite experiences

2009-07-31T22:35:00.000-07:00

I went to a party tonight. Yes, that is one of my favorite things to do. I love people, and I love talking, and I love eating. That, my friends, is an excellent recipe for a party. I got to the party early, bringing ice and ready to lend a hand to the organizers. The house is near my previous abode, in one of my favorite neighborhoods in the world.

At one point I left behind the bustle of preparations to sit alone on the front step. The evening was warm, the air was still but not stagnant. the sun was down behind the trees, the air buzzed with fading light and last minute bees. Trees line the street, businesses and houses mingle on either side. A coffee shop, a clinic, 3 year old townhouses, 100 year old craftsman houses. A block away blues music sauntered out of a restaurant where diners were enjoying al fresco. Wait staff waltzed around with dishes and pitchers. Cars came and went on their busy secret missions. Bicycles peddle past.

There were no loud noises, just a constant hum of evening activity. People walked up and down the street. On one hand, I have lived in this area on and off for 20 years. On the other hand, there was something unfamiliar, almost foreign about this moment, as if I was in another city, another country, another life. It reminded me of life in the South, being an activist in Atlanta. It reminded me of Oakland. It reminded me of someplace I've never been. It felt so good.

One Hundred and Four

2009-07-31T16:48:00.000-07:00

White cotton fixes on my heated skin
Holding itself to my damp shape
Sun arcs the sere sky
Moving from hot to hotter and back to hot
Splitting into the over and under of summer
Later days indistinguishable
Morning from evening
Sky the color of unwatered lawns

Cool is only found at the bottom
...of the pool, the deep end
...of the glass of iced tea
...of the dream in fitful sleep
...of the sheets under the ice packs
...of the freezer section in the store
Where no one looks alarmed as I bend
My ear to the icy edemame
The bag at the bottom of the freezer
is telling me how to stay cool.

Par Avion

Marked Chapter 2 (Part Two)

"Marked" Chapter 2 (Part One)

"Marked" Chapter One (Part Two)

"Marked" Chapter One (Part One)

10 Minute Prompt: An impactful story from your childhood...

10 Minute Prompt: Use a randomly selected colloquialism to write...

Keep by your Bed

Seafair

I can't remember the prompt that spawned these words...

10 Minute Prompt: What is on your walls?

10 Minute Prompt: Rewrite a story that was influential early in your life.

10 Minute Prompt: side effects

10 Minute Prompt: Wishful Lie

The start of something good (I hope)

Grandmother's Pinking Sheers

After my car was stolen

Prompt:: Washing the Sins from Under My Skin

10 Minute Prompt: What anticipation has haunted you?

10 Minute Prompt: What is Your Super Power?

10 Minute Prompt: Sometimes You Just Gotta

A Girl Is A Dangerous Thing (10 Minute Free Write)

Bent Showcase Spoken Word (in writing)

A Conversation about Poverty

10 Minute Prompt: Letter to the Moon

10 Minute Prompt: Write about Categories of Something

Weighing in on the Target Boycott

10 Minute Prompt: What your body refuses to forget

To Write Regret

10 Minute Prompt: What do you never say?/Why do you write?

10 Minute Prompt: Write about the "who" that your love can ignite (write-a-thon edition)

10 Minute Prompt: Write about your "only real" (write-a-thon edition)

10 Minute Prompt: A Simple Obsession (write-a-thon edition)

10 Minute Prompt: Cat You Know Well (write-a-thon edition)

The Stepmother's Story (super rough draft, write-a-thon edition)

10 Minute Prompt: Covering your shame with praise. (write-a-thon edition)

10 Minute Prompt: How to love me enough (write-a-thon edition)

10 Minute Prompt: Treating the World Like an Object (write-a-thon edition)

The Conversation (write-a-thon edition poem)

Letter to the Editor 1990

Haiku (write-a-thon edition)

Yards (Part Four) (write-a-thon edition)

10 minute prompt: Dear Pride Fairy (write-a-thon edition)

10 minute prompt: I am more ____ than _____

Snow White Redux, Part 2 (part one is in May 2010)

10 Minute Prompt: Write about where you "hurry, half-dressed and barefoot"

10 Minute Prompt: Write a Detailed Description of a Childhood Photograph

Ghost Writer: A Review

Yards (Part Three)

10 Minute Prompt: Get Really Serious about something we usually dismiss as ridiculous

Yards (Part Two)

Snow White Redux, Part One (from a 10 minute free write: rewrite a fairy tale)

Everything You Need To Know About Unicorns

Yards (Part One)

10 MInute Prompt: Start with a word you love....

Tricycle

Shutter Island in Review: Eh, So-So...

10 Minute Prompt: Overdoing it, or Doing it over

10 Minute Prompt: Write about Loving Loneliness

Grunt Sculpin

10 Minute Prompt: Write about your favorite time of day

Recurring Dream

10 Minute Prompt: Write without using punctuation

Precious gets the treatment

Health Care Payment System Discussion

Recently I posted a list of 10 Things Every American should Know About Health Care Reform from moveon.org. I included this note:

write about being tied to something -- 10 minute free-write

write about a story that lives in your joints or bones--10 minute free-write

Advocating for the underserved

Red Suzuki 500

5 Word Prompt Poem for Claire

Moon: a review

Winter Sun

10 Minute Free Write: What Did Someone Kill?

10 Minute Free Write: No One Asked

Halloween 2009, poem for the kids

The Nestled Ear 11-5-09

Untouched

One of my favorite experiences

One Hundred and Four

10 minute prompt: I am more than _