First we couldn’t afford cigarettes and maybe it was convenient for us, laughable really. We figured eventually we would quit but for now we could just cut back. There were cigarettes out there, in the world, just waiting to be smoked by us specifically, and all we had to do was find them. I was better at this than you on account of my being a female, and sometimes at bars you would send me off to flirt with some other guy at the end of the bar for extra smokes. I always came back to you and you always knew that I would so you didn’t seem to mind my flirtations.
When there were no cigarettes to bum ff other people we would sit together on our balcony, picking through our ashtray together, finding anything smokable. We finally quit altogether when we ran out of money for beer and therefore could no longer troll the bars at night looking for drunks with a nicotine habit. It was amazing how much easier it was to let go of cigarettes when we weren’t drinking. Without anything else to do, we finally found time for all those board games we bought back when we thought we’d be one of those couples who hosted game nights.
After long nights playing Monopoly or Sorry, we pulled out the more complicated games. We played games that were meant for four or more with only two. I liked the way you drew in Pictionary. You liked the way I moved in Charades.
Then we couldn’t afford heat, but we were coming to the end of winter anyway. For the final few weeks of cold we snuggled together under the covers, rubbing our bodies into each other and making love every chance we got in a desperate attempt to keep warm. We looked ridiculous, for a while, roaming around our apartment in our winter coats, hats, and gloves. I laughed watching you cook while wearing mittens and a scarf. You laughed when I put my boots on to go to the bathroom at midnight.
It finally warmed up but by then we couldn’t afford electricity. When night came it immediately became dark in our apartment. At first we used flashlights but the batteries died. Then we used the scented candles I had kept around in better times. When those were gone we opened the pack of emergency candles you had insisted we keep in the kitchen drawer and I was relieved to have them finally come to good use.
Then we could not afford food. We worked our way through what we had. We went fishing even though neither one of us had a license for it. We joked that we would get caught and taken to jail and maybe we would be happier because at least in jail they would feed us. We laughed about it, but if the fish weren’t biting I think we both considered it a possibility, and tried to think of something we could do to go there. Maybe we were a little louder or more ostentatious at those times, secretly hoping to draw the attention of someone official. We never did get caught, but after a while we did get really sick of eating fish and a while after that we ran out of the good bait and rarely caught anything at all.
We thought of other options, maybe shoplifting. Maybe just walking into stores and asking. We settled on going to the food bank and seeing what was there. Hardly anything was but we got some bread and a can of meat and some powdered milk. The bread was the only thing we could take seriously. The canned meat reminded you of dog food and me of a nightmare and all this before we had even opened it up.
This little bit of writing came out of a very difficult period in my life and a very difficult experience. In my final few months of college I found myself without a job and without any money. I was fortunate enough to live in on campus apartments, which meant that my utilities were all included and my student loans had covered my rent until graduation. The problem was that I didn't have much of anything else. I would go to the bar across the street from where I lived and win free beers and hopefully gift certificates that would allow me to eat there for the week. If I didn't win, I would eat this little noodle things that I had had for over a year and popcorn. The noodle things only had about 200 calories each in them, but I felt that I had to spread them out so I tried not to eat too many.
Finally, I broke down, swallowed my pride and using the teeny amount of gas that was left in my car I went to the food bank. It really was rather barren (I discovered later that the best food went to various charities around town). They gave me this bag of food from the government that included some of the items listed above. It wasn't much, but I was desperate. When I got home, I opened the bag and discovered that the powdered milk was open. It was all over everything else and spilling out onto the floor.
I had never had powdered milk before, but something told me that it would be disgusting. I didn't have anything to mix it in. I didn't even really want it, but seeing it spilling out everywhere was the very thing that finally broke me. I sat down on my kitchen floor, next to the little pile of white powder and cried. I cried for a very long time.
I imagined that it would all be easier if someone would just come over and pick me up and put me to bed and maybe go out and get me some food. I needed someone to take care of me but I was too ashamed to ask for any help. I had done the ultimate thing that wasn't worth doing, I had cried over spilt milk.
Eventually my friends caught onto the fact that I was starving and I would find food in different places. Sometimes there just happened to be mistakes made in the kitchen at the bar I frequented. Sometimes someone just happened to be carrying a number of granola bars or some extra cereal. I felt like something to be pitied, but I didn't mind it in the least because I wasn't starving anymore.
This story is about what it's like to be losing the things that you have one by one. It's a little bit about losing your dignity to poverty. It's a little bit about losing what you love to poverty.
The story (in it's entirety) was actually very foreshadowing of my own life. In the story, the poverty pushes the couple apart. In my own life story, the fact that I couldn't get it together enough to remain where I was meant that I lost someone very close to me.
I don't want to be hungry again, but sometimes I think back on that person and how much I enjoyed his being in my life, and I realize that I had never felt like I had lost it all until I lost him. Now I have a place to live and plenty of food to eat, but still there's something missing. I don't feel one hundred percent because he's gone and sometimes, I'd rather be crying in my apartment and know that I would see him soon then living the life I live without him.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The End of the World 4/25/08
We went to the Mall of America. I wanted to. I needed to see it, this place I had always wanted to visit. The place I imagined was different than what I got, but I knew it was going to be this way. The mall, once known for its high amount of traffic, was completely empty. Miller and I were the only people there, as far as we can tell. The floors are covered in broken glass, remnants from the day when stuff was worth something. The shelves (when there are shelves) are bare. In some places we find mass quantities of random knick-knacks. A strange collection of dryer sheets, a group of rubber duckies, CDs scattered all over the ground. Things that we, human animals, don’t need any more.
From an old store dedicated entirely to a holiday (Christmas) Miller pulls out boxes of tree ornaments. We decorate trees around the shopping center with the ornaments that are not broken. When we are done we exchange gifts. Clothes we found in backrooms, completely impractical.
This is a disaster! I do, however, find it to be a very lovable disaster and I think about this little bit of writing from time to time with fondness. At the time that I wrote this, I think that I was feeling a very bleak sort of hopefulness. This was the result of reading far to many issues of "Adbusters" and becoming friends with a young woman who spent most of her time concerned with the end of the world. In her view, we were all heading towards some sort of disaster and there was going to be a revolution of sorts that would take down society as we know it. This was all going to happen within the next few months. Two and a half years later, though I have now fallen out of touch with this person, I'm sure that she is still convinced that it is going to happen within the next few months.
The truth is that there are a whole lot of people who think this way. In fact, you can look up a number of online community in which the main topic is the end of civilization. They are all very fascinating because though these people seem to almost be praying for a breakdown of some sort in our society, no one is doing a single thing to either start it or stop it. They are perfectly happy talking about how society is going to end very soon, leaving all of us to pick up the pieces where we can. I used to go to these websites nearly everyday and work myself up into a frenzy of worry and fear over whatever tiny thing they were saying was the indication that the end is near. I finally got over it when I realized just what whack jobs these people are.
I supposed I had to many warm feelings to ever be invited into their society in the first place. They were all very "each man for himself" which I could never get behind. They were also very reactionary. Every single little thing meant that the collapse was coming soon, whether it was a rice shortage or a butterfly flapping it's wings in Peru. It was all a sign. I also didn't like how much delight they seemed to be taking in other people's misery.
My interest in their strange society led to this story. Clearly post-apocalyptic, it's my own take on the end of the world. There will be survivors and they will be friendly people who aren't afraid to go out in public and fancy up a few Christmas trees in the Mall of America. I think that I could take this somewhere if I wanted to but, of course, I would have to clean it up. There are a lot of problems with switching tense. I think, however, that the biggest thing that would keep me from completing this story is the incredible amount of back story that would have to go into it in order for people to find it believable. While it's all well and good that my survivors are generally happy people who can joke about their situation, surely it wasn't all good times and that's what worries me.
If the end of the world is coming, it's not going to be fun and games. It would be extremely difficult. The people on doomsday websites are prepared for it and I am not. I don't even want to write it out.
From an old store dedicated entirely to a holiday (Christmas) Miller pulls out boxes of tree ornaments. We decorate trees around the shopping center with the ornaments that are not broken. When we are done we exchange gifts. Clothes we found in backrooms, completely impractical.
This is a disaster! I do, however, find it to be a very lovable disaster and I think about this little bit of writing from time to time with fondness. At the time that I wrote this, I think that I was feeling a very bleak sort of hopefulness. This was the result of reading far to many issues of "Adbusters" and becoming friends with a young woman who spent most of her time concerned with the end of the world. In her view, we were all heading towards some sort of disaster and there was going to be a revolution of sorts that would take down society as we know it. This was all going to happen within the next few months. Two and a half years later, though I have now fallen out of touch with this person, I'm sure that she is still convinced that it is going to happen within the next few months.
The truth is that there are a whole lot of people who think this way. In fact, you can look up a number of online community in which the main topic is the end of civilization. They are all very fascinating because though these people seem to almost be praying for a breakdown of some sort in our society, no one is doing a single thing to either start it or stop it. They are perfectly happy talking about how society is going to end very soon, leaving all of us to pick up the pieces where we can. I used to go to these websites nearly everyday and work myself up into a frenzy of worry and fear over whatever tiny thing they were saying was the indication that the end is near. I finally got over it when I realized just what whack jobs these people are.
I supposed I had to many warm feelings to ever be invited into their society in the first place. They were all very "each man for himself" which I could never get behind. They were also very reactionary. Every single little thing meant that the collapse was coming soon, whether it was a rice shortage or a butterfly flapping it's wings in Peru. It was all a sign. I also didn't like how much delight they seemed to be taking in other people's misery.
My interest in their strange society led to this story. Clearly post-apocalyptic, it's my own take on the end of the world. There will be survivors and they will be friendly people who aren't afraid to go out in public and fancy up a few Christmas trees in the Mall of America. I think that I could take this somewhere if I wanted to but, of course, I would have to clean it up. There are a lot of problems with switching tense. I think, however, that the biggest thing that would keep me from completing this story is the incredible amount of back story that would have to go into it in order for people to find it believable. While it's all well and good that my survivors are generally happy people who can joke about their situation, surely it wasn't all good times and that's what worries me.
If the end of the world is coming, it's not going to be fun and games. It would be extremely difficult. The people on doomsday websites are prepared for it and I am not. I don't even want to write it out.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
The Wreckage 2/21/04
You use to look at me all the time
I imagined I was beautiful
Then I realized
I am wreckage on the side of the road
You just can't turn away.
I haven't posted a new blog in almost a year now. There are a lot of reasons why. My life has gone through a major overhaul since the last time I posted and I don't feel like any of it has been very good. This little poem that I wrote when I was twenty-one and going through a "bad poetry" phase does a pretty good job of summing up what I've been feeling. I don't really know what it was originally about, but there seems to be a constant struggle with self-confidence in my life and this little bit of writing really showcases that.
The past year hasn't done anything to make me feel more secure about myself. I've gone through an extremely bad breakup that I still don't understand and that I'm still trying to heal from one year later. I've found that the college degree that everyone told me was some kind of necessity doesn't mean anything in this economy. I've lost a lot of friends that I thought would be there for me no matter what. I feel like I'm heading nowhere on a fast train and with no job, no boyfriend, and no real prospects for the future besides taking a few more classes in a desperate attempt to put off paying my student loans before trying for grad school again. I've officially given up.
To be perfectly honest, I've thought a lot about this blog over the past year. Mostly, I've thought about coming on here and deleting it. In the world of digital footprints, I didn't want any part of my life going online just in case a very thorough human resources agent came across my work and considered it too melancholy. Guess what I figured out? No one's looking for my digital footprint. No one's even considering me for a position at their company. In a way, it's really freeing. As movie Tyler Durden once said "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." Now I can focus on my writing without worrying about what some random person in some human resources office somewhere thinks of me. I'm not deleting my blog. I'm keeping this and I'm going to be posting more often because I love writing and I'm not going to give up on even one more thing that I love in order to make people I've never met happy.
I imagined I was beautiful
Then I realized
I am wreckage on the side of the road
You just can't turn away.
I haven't posted a new blog in almost a year now. There are a lot of reasons why. My life has gone through a major overhaul since the last time I posted and I don't feel like any of it has been very good. This little poem that I wrote when I was twenty-one and going through a "bad poetry" phase does a pretty good job of summing up what I've been feeling. I don't really know what it was originally about, but there seems to be a constant struggle with self-confidence in my life and this little bit of writing really showcases that.
The past year hasn't done anything to make me feel more secure about myself. I've gone through an extremely bad breakup that I still don't understand and that I'm still trying to heal from one year later. I've found that the college degree that everyone told me was some kind of necessity doesn't mean anything in this economy. I've lost a lot of friends that I thought would be there for me no matter what. I feel like I'm heading nowhere on a fast train and with no job, no boyfriend, and no real prospects for the future besides taking a few more classes in a desperate attempt to put off paying my student loans before trying for grad school again. I've officially given up.
To be perfectly honest, I've thought a lot about this blog over the past year. Mostly, I've thought about coming on here and deleting it. In the world of digital footprints, I didn't want any part of my life going online just in case a very thorough human resources agent came across my work and considered it too melancholy. Guess what I figured out? No one's looking for my digital footprint. No one's even considering me for a position at their company. In a way, it's really freeing. As movie Tyler Durden once said "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." Now I can focus on my writing without worrying about what some random person in some human resources office somewhere thinks of me. I'm not deleting my blog. I'm keeping this and I'm going to be posting more often because I love writing and I'm not going to give up on even one more thing that I love in order to make people I've never met happy.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Jealousy and Other Emotions 11/25/02
The last time I saw Selma Gray the hot noon sun was reflecting in her dreadlocked hair and the bright colors of her dress. The last time I saw Selma Gray she was standing barefoot on the cement in front of the passport building. The last time I saw Selma Gray she was smiling. I had noticed all of these things and I stopped to talk to her, imagining that she would have something interesting to say.
She was going to Panama. “I’m going to Panama,” she told me.
“Oh,” I responded.
Selma bent her leg up and dug her toes into the soil of a potted tree behind her. “Yeah,” she said as though I’d never even spoken. “We’re having a problem getting passports, though. They won’t let you in without shoes.”
She jerked her thumb towards a sign on the building next to her. I nodded. “Real bummer,” she said as she pulled her left foot out of the dirt and placed the right one in its place. “My boyfriend ran across the street to get me some flip-flops. I’m not allowed in there either.”
Selma lifted her chin and shook her head. “Things are going to be different in Panama. We’re going to live off the land be done with all this shoe-wearing commercialism.”
“How long will you be gone?” I asked.
Selma placed both her feet on the ground and brought her chin down so that she could look me directly in the eyes. “Forever, man. Forever.”
Selma’s boyfriend ran up then, toting a pair of seafoam green flip-flops. As Selma put them on her feet I made an excuse and turned to leave. At the street corner I looked back. The last time I saw Selma Gray she was putting her foot into a seafoam green flip-flop with one hand, and balancing herself against her boyfriend with the other.
That was the last time. This time, a mere three months later, Selma is standing so the doorway surrounds her like a box. Sunlight does not reflect in her dreads. They have been chopped off. Sunlight does not reflect off her bright clothing, her clothing is all gray. She is not smiling. “I heard you were sick,” she says. An odd remark coming from someone who I was never particularly close to.
This story is one that I was really focused on for a long time and I actually did finish it, but I don’t think that it came out the way that I wanted it. The final product was taken down by my own perfectionism. It was a long time ago and I’m sure that if I went through my notebooks I would be able to find the whole story, but I don’t have it all typed up and written down somewhere.
One of the main characters in this story, Selma, was based on someone that I knew. She had a different kind of life than I did and I was really jealous of it. I was also bitter about the fact that she could live in a different way than I could. I didn’t understand why she could live her life with so much freedom when I felt so completely trapped by the things around me. I wrote her into this story and made her a rather pathetic character.
I wanted to point out that even though she was free in some ways it was all bullshit. In my mind at the time, she was living in a way that just wasn’t sustainable. I thought that no one could live life in that way forever. I made her character rude and presumptuous. I wanted her to be unlikeable.
I’ve changed a lot since I wrote this story. I still know the girl that Selma was based on. She’s still living the kind of life that I could be jealous of, though she has calmed down quite a bit since the time when she was running off to live in a South American country. The truth is that she was always a really nice person and she still is. I was simply bitter and jealous that I couldn’t live the life that she could live. I didn’t feel as free as she felt.
The point is, when you’re jealous as a writer, you can make horrible things happen to the people that you are jealous of. I made something horrible happen to her in this story. I had all her illusions shattered. I have other stories that I’ve written where I let my jealousy take over and some of them are actually pretty good. All emotions are helpful when it comes to writing.
I don’t really worry about letting jealousy affect me in this way, because it’s not like I’m acting with blatant bitterness towards the people I’m jealous of. It’s more secondary and I find that it is helpful. It lets me work through a lot of different things that I’m trying to work through and it makes me feel better. It’s not just jealousy that comes through in my writing. If I really don’t like someone, I’ll write them into a story and make their life end up horribly or have them lose a limb or have everyone hate them or see them for what they truly are.
When I get my feelings out in my writing, it doesn’t hurt anyone and I end up coming out with some really good stories. That’s using emotions in a positive way.
She was going to Panama. “I’m going to Panama,” she told me.
“Oh,” I responded.
Selma bent her leg up and dug her toes into the soil of a potted tree behind her. “Yeah,” she said as though I’d never even spoken. “We’re having a problem getting passports, though. They won’t let you in without shoes.”
She jerked her thumb towards a sign on the building next to her. I nodded. “Real bummer,” she said as she pulled her left foot out of the dirt and placed the right one in its place. “My boyfriend ran across the street to get me some flip-flops. I’m not allowed in there either.”
Selma lifted her chin and shook her head. “Things are going to be different in Panama. We’re going to live off the land be done with all this shoe-wearing commercialism.”
“How long will you be gone?” I asked.
Selma placed both her feet on the ground and brought her chin down so that she could look me directly in the eyes. “Forever, man. Forever.”
Selma’s boyfriend ran up then, toting a pair of seafoam green flip-flops. As Selma put them on her feet I made an excuse and turned to leave. At the street corner I looked back. The last time I saw Selma Gray she was putting her foot into a seafoam green flip-flop with one hand, and balancing herself against her boyfriend with the other.
That was the last time. This time, a mere three months later, Selma is standing so the doorway surrounds her like a box. Sunlight does not reflect in her dreads. They have been chopped off. Sunlight does not reflect off her bright clothing, her clothing is all gray. She is not smiling. “I heard you were sick,” she says. An odd remark coming from someone who I was never particularly close to.
This story is one that I was really focused on for a long time and I actually did finish it, but I don’t think that it came out the way that I wanted it. The final product was taken down by my own perfectionism. It was a long time ago and I’m sure that if I went through my notebooks I would be able to find the whole story, but I don’t have it all typed up and written down somewhere.
One of the main characters in this story, Selma, was based on someone that I knew. She had a different kind of life than I did and I was really jealous of it. I was also bitter about the fact that she could live in a different way than I could. I didn’t understand why she could live her life with so much freedom when I felt so completely trapped by the things around me. I wrote her into this story and made her a rather pathetic character.
I wanted to point out that even though she was free in some ways it was all bullshit. In my mind at the time, she was living in a way that just wasn’t sustainable. I thought that no one could live life in that way forever. I made her character rude and presumptuous. I wanted her to be unlikeable.
I’ve changed a lot since I wrote this story. I still know the girl that Selma was based on. She’s still living the kind of life that I could be jealous of, though she has calmed down quite a bit since the time when she was running off to live in a South American country. The truth is that she was always a really nice person and she still is. I was simply bitter and jealous that I couldn’t live the life that she could live. I didn’t feel as free as she felt.
The point is, when you’re jealous as a writer, you can make horrible things happen to the people that you are jealous of. I made something horrible happen to her in this story. I had all her illusions shattered. I have other stories that I’ve written where I let my jealousy take over and some of them are actually pretty good. All emotions are helpful when it comes to writing.
I don’t really worry about letting jealousy affect me in this way, because it’s not like I’m acting with blatant bitterness towards the people I’m jealous of. It’s more secondary and I find that it is helpful. It lets me work through a lot of different things that I’m trying to work through and it makes me feel better. It’s not just jealousy that comes through in my writing. If I really don’t like someone, I’ll write them into a story and make their life end up horribly or have them lose a limb or have everyone hate them or see them for what they truly are.
When I get my feelings out in my writing, it doesn’t hurt anyone and I end up coming out with some really good stories. That’s using emotions in a positive way.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Interruptions 11/25/08
He did not mean for it to happen. No one means for things like this to happen, but they do. It was a mistake, Fletcher would try to tell himself. Mistakes happen and this is just the way things are. He would not feel guilty and yet he did. He felt guilty. He felt guilt pressing outward against his rib cage. Guilt wanting to rip him apart. Guilt making him explode. It was a beautiful day. Winter was threatening but had not some yet. The streets were cluttered with the gold of recently fallen leaves. It was cold. Cold enough for her to be wearing a woolen cap. He did not know her, did not know her name, but he could tell you about that cap if you asked. He hopes that no one asks. It was blue, a dark blue nearer to indigo and it had a yellow trim. All over, in random spots, there were yellow stars. She was wearing the night sky right there on her head.
Fletcher liked it and he was in such a good mood and she was so pretty, coming towards him on her bit, smiling. As she approached him, and it seemed like she was so far away, he yelled out, “I like your hat.” She teeters with laughter as she came towards him. “Thanks!” she shouted as she passed him smiling, and she kept her eyes on him, so Fletcher did the same to her. She must have seen the smile disappear from his face. She must have seen him turn white because her own face became serious and she turned her head to look forward, but it was too late. She could not be saved.
Did she yell out? Fletcher could not remember, but he is certain that there must have been some noise other than the sound of metal against skin, metal, cloth, the ground. And there must be something other than the sound of spokes clanging against the pavement. The sound of a tire spinning endlessly into the air. There must have been something else? Was it him? Fletcher could not remember. Did he let out a strangled, high pitched sound reflective of the fear he felt. She was on the ground, her limbs askew, the cap still on her head. Maybe you could imagine her as simply sleeping, as though people always fell asleep in the middle of the roads.
It was the driver’s fault, making a left hand turn into a girl on a bike. The driver is out of her car now, her hand still holding her phone up to her ear. She is saying, “I hit something. Oh, God. Oh, God. I hit someone. I hit someone. Oh, God.”
Fletcher asks her, “Is that 911? Did you call the police?”
The driver, on her phone looks at him, bewildered. “What? Oh, God, I hit someone.”
“Is that the police?” Fletcher asks and he points at the phone.
The driver shakes her head. “I have to call the police. The police. Is she dead? Oh, God, I hit someone. I killed someone.”
The thought did not cross Fletcher’s mind until this moment. The girl in the hat could be dead. She could be dead even if it looks like she is sleeping, with limbs spread out, on the pavement. “Call the police,” he tells the driver before going to the woman on the pavement.
There is blood on her hat. That is the first thing that he notices. It is seeping from the inside out, blacking out stars. The night sky in a certain area is dark. He knows he should not try to move her. He leans into her and puts two fingers up to her neck, checking her pulse. It is light, but it is there.
I like this story. It is crammed into a notebook that was full of two other major projects. One comes before it and the other comes after it. The truth about this story is that it got forgotten because the day after I wrote it something very serious and very big happened in my life. It was something that I couldn’t ignore. It was something that I couldn’t even understand and when things that big happen to me I have to write them out in a way that makes sense to me.
So this story got pushed to the side because of a big event that I needed to understand. The story that came out of that event was actually pretty good, but very personal, and so it’s not something that I like exploring or looking over. This story, this little moment before the other event, really is something that I should look into again. I like it.
The story came out of an experience that I had one day. I live in a town where it’s really easy to get around on my bike and so because of this, I ride it a lot. I’ve also learned that there are a number of people who want to kill me because I am on a bike. Actually, I think I’ve only had one run in with someone who seemed to actually want to kill me. The other people were all just really bad drivers. There are a lot of people who need to pay a little more attention when they are on the road. People on bikes actually do have the right of way which means that you shouldn’t make left hand turns into them. However, there have been a lot of times where I’ve almost been killed by someone making a left hand turn. Once, it was so close that about four people who were on the sidewalks around me actually screamed in fear. The driver that almost hit me was on the phone. Typically, if I almost get hit, the drivers are on the phone.
So one day, I was riding my bike to work and what happened in the beginning of this story happened to me. Someone complemented me on my hat and I was distracted and I turned to find someone trying to make a left hand turn into me. Fortunately, I was able to stop in time and make the appropriate WTF face at the driver. This story was born out of the simple idea that if I didn’t that poor nice guy who was just trying to complement my hat would probably feel really guilty but it would have been the driver’s fault completely. The driver wouldn’t feel guilty, of course, because people on their phones are too distracted to feel guilty. Plus, the guilt of the innocent bystander is much more interesting of a topic.
It’s too bad that my life got interrupted right after this. I would have liked to have seen where this story went. I might come back to it but now I’m at a different place in my life and my writing. Maybe later.
Fletcher liked it and he was in such a good mood and she was so pretty, coming towards him on her bit, smiling. As she approached him, and it seemed like she was so far away, he yelled out, “I like your hat.” She teeters with laughter as she came towards him. “Thanks!” she shouted as she passed him smiling, and she kept her eyes on him, so Fletcher did the same to her. She must have seen the smile disappear from his face. She must have seen him turn white because her own face became serious and she turned her head to look forward, but it was too late. She could not be saved.
Did she yell out? Fletcher could not remember, but he is certain that there must have been some noise other than the sound of metal against skin, metal, cloth, the ground. And there must be something other than the sound of spokes clanging against the pavement. The sound of a tire spinning endlessly into the air. There must have been something else? Was it him? Fletcher could not remember. Did he let out a strangled, high pitched sound reflective of the fear he felt. She was on the ground, her limbs askew, the cap still on her head. Maybe you could imagine her as simply sleeping, as though people always fell asleep in the middle of the roads.
It was the driver’s fault, making a left hand turn into a girl on a bike. The driver is out of her car now, her hand still holding her phone up to her ear. She is saying, “I hit something. Oh, God. Oh, God. I hit someone. I hit someone. Oh, God.”
Fletcher asks her, “Is that 911? Did you call the police?”
The driver, on her phone looks at him, bewildered. “What? Oh, God, I hit someone.”
“Is that the police?” Fletcher asks and he points at the phone.
The driver shakes her head. “I have to call the police. The police. Is she dead? Oh, God, I hit someone. I killed someone.”
The thought did not cross Fletcher’s mind until this moment. The girl in the hat could be dead. She could be dead even if it looks like she is sleeping, with limbs spread out, on the pavement. “Call the police,” he tells the driver before going to the woman on the pavement.
There is blood on her hat. That is the first thing that he notices. It is seeping from the inside out, blacking out stars. The night sky in a certain area is dark. He knows he should not try to move her. He leans into her and puts two fingers up to her neck, checking her pulse. It is light, but it is there.
I like this story. It is crammed into a notebook that was full of two other major projects. One comes before it and the other comes after it. The truth about this story is that it got forgotten because the day after I wrote it something very serious and very big happened in my life. It was something that I couldn’t ignore. It was something that I couldn’t even understand and when things that big happen to me I have to write them out in a way that makes sense to me.
So this story got pushed to the side because of a big event that I needed to understand. The story that came out of that event was actually pretty good, but very personal, and so it’s not something that I like exploring or looking over. This story, this little moment before the other event, really is something that I should look into again. I like it.
The story came out of an experience that I had one day. I live in a town where it’s really easy to get around on my bike and so because of this, I ride it a lot. I’ve also learned that there are a number of people who want to kill me because I am on a bike. Actually, I think I’ve only had one run in with someone who seemed to actually want to kill me. The other people were all just really bad drivers. There are a lot of people who need to pay a little more attention when they are on the road. People on bikes actually do have the right of way which means that you shouldn’t make left hand turns into them. However, there have been a lot of times where I’ve almost been killed by someone making a left hand turn. Once, it was so close that about four people who were on the sidewalks around me actually screamed in fear. The driver that almost hit me was on the phone. Typically, if I almost get hit, the drivers are on the phone.
So one day, I was riding my bike to work and what happened in the beginning of this story happened to me. Someone complemented me on my hat and I was distracted and I turned to find someone trying to make a left hand turn into me. Fortunately, I was able to stop in time and make the appropriate WTF face at the driver. This story was born out of the simple idea that if I didn’t that poor nice guy who was just trying to complement my hat would probably feel really guilty but it would have been the driver’s fault completely. The driver wouldn’t feel guilty, of course, because people on their phones are too distracted to feel guilty. Plus, the guilt of the innocent bystander is much more interesting of a topic.
It’s too bad that my life got interrupted right after this. I would have liked to have seen where this story went. I might come back to it but now I’m at a different place in my life and my writing. Maybe later.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Changing One Word 1/25/08
I left the letter on the kitchen counter. I had covered it in flour and was tracing new letters over it with my finger. Odd behavior, I know, but my own logic was twisted up in my actions. Maybe it is something I could explain to you, if I ever get the chance. I am all out of chances.
I was standing over your letter, tracing you a new one when it happened. I had the perfect view, from where I was, of the door as it swung open. It wasn’t as dramatic as I always imagined it would be. I had left the door unlocked, a completely accidental error in my judgment. It meant that there was no kicking down of the door. Nor was there a clever scheme that involved a lost child or some other made up thing designed to make me open the door. I heard an odd bump and looked up to see my door swinging open.
He was scrawny, not strong or thick in any way. I had always imagined that if this sort of thing happened, he would be strong. He would be the kind of big man who could overtake me with a look. The man in front of me was not the man that I imagined. He looked young. Younger than me. He could not grow a real moustache, though it was apparent that he had tried. I saw him and I wasn’t even scared. I was surprised. There is a difference, or maybe there was right then. I almost opened my mouth to speak, maybe to ask him if I could help him in some way. Then I saw the gun.
My palm fell flat onto the flour. No more letters over letters. Just a handprint surrounded by scribbles. A gun. A gun. He had it pointed at my head. I didn’t really even know what to do. My thoughts swam in desperation. Then I went blank. There was nothing left to think. Nothing to think about.
This is the beginning of a story I wrote that was basically all about how much I love my words and how much I love writing. It was a strange story and I wrote it at the very beginning of this period where I started writing a lot more than I had been writing before. I think that because I was out of practice it didn’t turn out very good. It certainly didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped that it would.
The story centers around this main character, the first person narrator. She is desperately in love with someone that she can’t have or who perhaps doesn’t want her, so she wrote him a letter. What happens in the story is that these guys come into her house, tie her up, and deposit her in the bathroom. Then they start looking around and they find the letter. Instead of just leaving it where it is, one of the guys takes it and makes her read it aloud as if she wrote it for him. He makes her write a new version of the letter, replacing only her former lover’s name with his. After she has done this he points the gun at her and makes her tell him that she loves him. These two acts take away all the power of the letter.
The thief leaves without taking any of the things that thieves are known to take, such as televisions and DVD players. The only thing he takes from her is this new letter, the one that he had her write his name into. She doesn’t want the old one anymore. It has been tainted. After she calls the police she sits down to have a cigarette. It is her first cigarette since the letter’s original intended recipient told her that he could never date a smoker. When the thief took the letter, he took away all hope of her ever getting her ex-lover back as well.
That explanation makes it seems very complicated and maybe it is. Like I said, I wrote this after a period when I hadn’t been doing very much writing, so I was out of practice. Anyway, this piece meant two things for me. First, it taught me that I need to write on a regular basis or else my stories come out all mushy. Second, it made me really think about the power that I give to my words and how crappy I feel when other people take them and switch all the meanings around. When she writes the new letter for the thief she only changes one thing, but that one thing is the one thing that makes all the difference. I think that I will always worry about people changing my words around. It won’t be the same as it is in this story. I don’t think that anyone is going to break into my house and steal my notebooks and make me change words so that things are all about them. I think that my fear is that people won’t understand what it is that I am trying to say and will take things to mean something other than what they are.
I guess that’s just one of the risks that come with my chosen profession. It’s just a hard one for me to swallow.
I was standing over your letter, tracing you a new one when it happened. I had the perfect view, from where I was, of the door as it swung open. It wasn’t as dramatic as I always imagined it would be. I had left the door unlocked, a completely accidental error in my judgment. It meant that there was no kicking down of the door. Nor was there a clever scheme that involved a lost child or some other made up thing designed to make me open the door. I heard an odd bump and looked up to see my door swinging open.
He was scrawny, not strong or thick in any way. I had always imagined that if this sort of thing happened, he would be strong. He would be the kind of big man who could overtake me with a look. The man in front of me was not the man that I imagined. He looked young. Younger than me. He could not grow a real moustache, though it was apparent that he had tried. I saw him and I wasn’t even scared. I was surprised. There is a difference, or maybe there was right then. I almost opened my mouth to speak, maybe to ask him if I could help him in some way. Then I saw the gun.
My palm fell flat onto the flour. No more letters over letters. Just a handprint surrounded by scribbles. A gun. A gun. He had it pointed at my head. I didn’t really even know what to do. My thoughts swam in desperation. Then I went blank. There was nothing left to think. Nothing to think about.
This is the beginning of a story I wrote that was basically all about how much I love my words and how much I love writing. It was a strange story and I wrote it at the very beginning of this period where I started writing a lot more than I had been writing before. I think that because I was out of practice it didn’t turn out very good. It certainly didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped that it would.
The story centers around this main character, the first person narrator. She is desperately in love with someone that she can’t have or who perhaps doesn’t want her, so she wrote him a letter. What happens in the story is that these guys come into her house, tie her up, and deposit her in the bathroom. Then they start looking around and they find the letter. Instead of just leaving it where it is, one of the guys takes it and makes her read it aloud as if she wrote it for him. He makes her write a new version of the letter, replacing only her former lover’s name with his. After she has done this he points the gun at her and makes her tell him that she loves him. These two acts take away all the power of the letter.
The thief leaves without taking any of the things that thieves are known to take, such as televisions and DVD players. The only thing he takes from her is this new letter, the one that he had her write his name into. She doesn’t want the old one anymore. It has been tainted. After she calls the police she sits down to have a cigarette. It is her first cigarette since the letter’s original intended recipient told her that he could never date a smoker. When the thief took the letter, he took away all hope of her ever getting her ex-lover back as well.
That explanation makes it seems very complicated and maybe it is. Like I said, I wrote this after a period when I hadn’t been doing very much writing, so I was out of practice. Anyway, this piece meant two things for me. First, it taught me that I need to write on a regular basis or else my stories come out all mushy. Second, it made me really think about the power that I give to my words and how crappy I feel when other people take them and switch all the meanings around. When she writes the new letter for the thief she only changes one thing, but that one thing is the one thing that makes all the difference. I think that I will always worry about people changing my words around. It won’t be the same as it is in this story. I don’t think that anyone is going to break into my house and steal my notebooks and make me change words so that things are all about them. I think that my fear is that people won’t understand what it is that I am trying to say and will take things to mean something other than what they are.
I guess that’s just one of the risks that come with my chosen profession. It’s just a hard one for me to swallow.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Numbers and Exercises 2/21/06
Someone’s playing the radio on the twenty seventh floor. I have the misfortune of hearing it one the twenty sixth floor. I imagine turning into one of those old cranks who bangs on the ceiling with a broom handle. At twenty five, I am too young to play those games. Instead, I decide to leave. The elevator stops at the twenty fourth floor where I am joined by a pair of elderly women wearing tract suits and weights on their wrists. They chatter aimlessly as we descend. Twenty three floors later we are in the lobby. The women begin speed-walking out of the building as I slowly follow. “Twenty two years of marriage and he just up and leaves her for a younger woman,” one of the ladies says. I hear the other clucking at this comment before I am unable to hear anything else from them.
I wonder about that situation as I walk away. My husband and I were married when we were merely twenty-one. “So young,” my mother had said at the time. “It will never last.” I thanked her for her unwavering support and went ahead with my wedding plans. Mike and I were married on the twentieth of June. The date was convenient because it was the only day the church was free that month. Things have been fairly uneventful since then but these old women had me wondering about the next nineteen years. Would Mike leave me for a younger woman? I found this unlikely as he hadn’t married me for my youth or beauty in the first place, or so I liked to think.
I ponder this for eighteen blocks at which point I relies that I have been walking aimlessly, doing nothing but avoiding the noise that was formerly coming from above me. Seeing as that is not far behind me I take the next few blocks much slower. I have no destination, just a seemingly endless supply of street before me. There is a bookstore at the corner of 17th street and Miller Avenue. I walk inside in hope of sitting down and resting for a while.
Sixteen minutes later I am back on the street. In the bookstore I found a book on the statistics for people who marry young. I grew morose as I flipped through it and quickly left.
Back on the streets I wonder if Mike has the same doubts as I do. It was unlikely seeing as he hadn’t heard the conversation that I had earlier. If he had been there would he have grabbed my hand and given it a light squeeze to reassure me that it would never happen to us?
Us. We. We had met on our fifteenth day of our freshman year at college. He thought it was magic that led me to him. I knew that earlier that night I had had too much to drink and wandered up to the wrong dorm room. When my key didn’t work for the obvious reasons I banged on the door yelling for my roommate to open it. Instead, I got Mike. Half asleep and barely dressed he agreed to let me sleep n his couch in the hopes that I would better recognize my surroundings in the morning.
Ah, numbers. I remember this story coming from a prompt which makes up the first sentence. I think that after that I just started counting down because it was happening fairly naturally after I had come up with the character’s age. I think that I was doing a lot of work out of a book of prompts at this time because I wasn’t writing all that much. I felt very stifled and when I feel stifled I have a difficult time expressing myself. I knew that I needed to write and so I was turning to prompts to help me through it. I still use prompts sometimes because they help me get ideas going when I think that I have none left.
I particularly liked this prompt because it gave me the chance to mix letters and numbers. It was a very interesting idea for me and I thought about expanding it, but I figured that if I were going at the rate that I was going I would have to start at something like 10,000 to get a novel and I couldn’t think of what I would use for 9998 or really any other number before I got down below one hundred. I also don’t like having to rely on devices like this. It would be one thing if I could write a story like this and make it work and make the characters compelling, but I’m not sure that I could. I think I would be too distracted by the act of counting down.
This brings me to an important point. There are a lot of times when I think it would be easier to rely on something other than my characters to move the story forward. I know that there are times when there are things other than my characters involved in the story. While I think that plot is important, I don’t want it to move forward simply for the sake of moving forward. Maybe this is why I don’t write mystery novels. I wouldn’t want the characters to suffer just so that they can solve the mystery. I think sometimes when writers rely on devices and plot they miss out on creating a character arc. I wouldn’t write a story without a plot but I also wouldn’t want to write a story where someone didn’t change something about themselves from the beginning to the end. To me that’s more important. The plot comes out of the character’s desire for something and the character’s need for a change.
I guess my stories are just more character driven. That’s just something that works for me. I like devices such as counting down and if I could ever figure out a way for it to work in a story without the story actually suffering I might use it someday.
I wonder about that situation as I walk away. My husband and I were married when we were merely twenty-one. “So young,” my mother had said at the time. “It will never last.” I thanked her for her unwavering support and went ahead with my wedding plans. Mike and I were married on the twentieth of June. The date was convenient because it was the only day the church was free that month. Things have been fairly uneventful since then but these old women had me wondering about the next nineteen years. Would Mike leave me for a younger woman? I found this unlikely as he hadn’t married me for my youth or beauty in the first place, or so I liked to think.
I ponder this for eighteen blocks at which point I relies that I have been walking aimlessly, doing nothing but avoiding the noise that was formerly coming from above me. Seeing as that is not far behind me I take the next few blocks much slower. I have no destination, just a seemingly endless supply of street before me. There is a bookstore at the corner of 17th street and Miller Avenue. I walk inside in hope of sitting down and resting for a while.
Sixteen minutes later I am back on the street. In the bookstore I found a book on the statistics for people who marry young. I grew morose as I flipped through it and quickly left.
Back on the streets I wonder if Mike has the same doubts as I do. It was unlikely seeing as he hadn’t heard the conversation that I had earlier. If he had been there would he have grabbed my hand and given it a light squeeze to reassure me that it would never happen to us?
Us. We. We had met on our fifteenth day of our freshman year at college. He thought it was magic that led me to him. I knew that earlier that night I had had too much to drink and wandered up to the wrong dorm room. When my key didn’t work for the obvious reasons I banged on the door yelling for my roommate to open it. Instead, I got Mike. Half asleep and barely dressed he agreed to let me sleep n his couch in the hopes that I would better recognize my surroundings in the morning.
Ah, numbers. I remember this story coming from a prompt which makes up the first sentence. I think that after that I just started counting down because it was happening fairly naturally after I had come up with the character’s age. I think that I was doing a lot of work out of a book of prompts at this time because I wasn’t writing all that much. I felt very stifled and when I feel stifled I have a difficult time expressing myself. I knew that I needed to write and so I was turning to prompts to help me through it. I still use prompts sometimes because they help me get ideas going when I think that I have none left.
I particularly liked this prompt because it gave me the chance to mix letters and numbers. It was a very interesting idea for me and I thought about expanding it, but I figured that if I were going at the rate that I was going I would have to start at something like 10,000 to get a novel and I couldn’t think of what I would use for 9998 or really any other number before I got down below one hundred. I also don’t like having to rely on devices like this. It would be one thing if I could write a story like this and make it work and make the characters compelling, but I’m not sure that I could. I think I would be too distracted by the act of counting down.
This brings me to an important point. There are a lot of times when I think it would be easier to rely on something other than my characters to move the story forward. I know that there are times when there are things other than my characters involved in the story. While I think that plot is important, I don’t want it to move forward simply for the sake of moving forward. Maybe this is why I don’t write mystery novels. I wouldn’t want the characters to suffer just so that they can solve the mystery. I think sometimes when writers rely on devices and plot they miss out on creating a character arc. I wouldn’t write a story without a plot but I also wouldn’t want to write a story where someone didn’t change something about themselves from the beginning to the end. To me that’s more important. The plot comes out of the character’s desire for something and the character’s need for a change.
I guess my stories are just more character driven. That’s just something that works for me. I like devices such as counting down and if I could ever figure out a way for it to work in a story without the story actually suffering I might use it someday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)