This wagon is different from most wagons. The sides are wooden panels a foot high. We could remove them if we wanted to, but we don’t want to. The bottom is plain wood. It differs from the sides in the fact that it is not painted bright red. Bryan wheels the wagon into the middle of the street with me right behind him.
“Get in,” he says as we reach the center of the road.
“What?” I say. I’m not going to get in an old wooden wagon aimed down a steep hill.
“Get in,” Bryan says again. He pulls one of the helmets out of the wagon and hands it to me.
“This is so dangerous. I’m not getting in. Let’s go home, Bryan,” I say. I grab his hand and try to drag him back to the house.
“Amma, relax, it’s not that dangerous.” He lets go of my hand and gets the other helmet out of the wagon and slips it on his head. “We have helmets. We’ll be safe.”
I’m still hesitant as I watch him straighten out the wagon so we’ll go straight down.
“Get in,” he says again. I slowly crawl into the wagon. It wobbles whenever my weight shifts.
“Don’t kill me,” I murmur.
“Relax,” Bryan says, “trust me.” He grabs the handle and pushes it back hard against the front of the wagon. “Get back,” he says to me so I scrunch myself into the back panel of the wagon, grateful that Bryan will be in the front.
Bryan gives a slight push and jumps into the wagon. He grabs the handle and pushes it from left to right until we have finally been straightened out. I am hugging myself in the back of the wagon, pulling my knees closer and closer to my body.
“Relax!” Bryan yells to me. His voice seems to stumble with the bumpy road. I close my eyes in a refusal to relax but without sight there is nothing to be afraid of and my entire body calms down. We hit a larger than normal rock and are airborne for one second.
This came out of a story which revolved around the main character (again named Amma) taking a road trip to find someone. Instead of finding the person that she is looking for, she finds a number of other people, including a free spirited young man named Bryan.
My freshman year of college I was doing a lot of things that young people do their freshman year of college. For me, even more so than having the general new experiences, I was making a whole new set of friends. I felt like I had been completely abandoned by the people that I used to know when I got up to University. It wasn’t that they weren’t around. They were. It was just that it had become apparent that we were heading in different directions in our lives. I have always wanted more than to just hang around the same town forever and to start a family right away. I wasn’t working on a career that was conducive to that. It’s not that I don’t think it’s absolutely lovely that they wanted families and that they were working on what they wanted, it just wasn’t for me. I have never wanted the career that I felt half-assed about so that I didn’t feel bad when I quit to have children.
Anyway, I was making new friends and one of them was this wonderful guy named Bryan who had a lovely deep voice and beautiful eyes and who listened to reggae and compared joining fraternities to joining gangs. He skated, which I thought was fantastic because it was something that I always wanted to learn how to do. I thought he was fantastic, so I wrote him into my stories as a person who teaches the main character a lot about herself. The first exercise was an exercise in trust. I think that trusting people is something that I struggle with. I never know who to trust and when I’m supposed to start trusting them. Should I trust that most people are good right away, or should I hang back and watch? I made the character of Amma the same way. She was worried about trusting people and then she goes on this fantastic cross country adventure in search of some guy and along the way she finds all of these people that she has to trust because they know her destination and she does not.
It’s an interesting situation. I still find it difficult to trust people, but I’m trying harder and I see my efforts making a difference in my own life. A positive difference, so that’s a good thing.
(Oh, and the wagon that I'm describing in the beginning is called a Radio Flyer Town and Country. We had one when I was a kid and I hadn't seen anyone else with one like that for years so I thought it was unique to my family. Kids are self-centered like that. Of course there were other wagons like it. The company wouldn't have made just one.)
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Smoking in the Bathroom and Other Revelations 3/1/08
Caleb does not like it when she smokes in the bathroom. It doesn’t matter now. This is not his bathroom. She is in Mike’s bathroom and if he dislikes her smoking he has not mentioned it yet. She is always resting cigarettes on the edge of the sink, leaving them there as she fixes her hair or touches up her make-up. The ashes grow long and eventually fall off. She never bothers to clean them up, preferring instead to leave them for the next person who comes along and has some desire to wash their hands. Right now, her hands are on top of her head rearranging her hair and a length of ash has just fallen off of her cigarette and into the sink. The movement of the ash falling into the ivory abyss beneath her causes her to look down. As if seeing her cigarette for the first time she reaches down to it with her right hand as the left one remains on top of her head, holding her hair in place. She takes a quick drag from the cigarette and sets it down again. Both of her hands return to the top of her head and continue their work on her hair.
“What’re you doing?” Mike asks from the bedroom. She turns and looks at him. He is still sitting in the bed, propped up with pillows. She closes the door.
“I’m fixing my hair,” she shouts through the door.
This story came out of a first line that I really love. “Caleb does not like it when she smokes in the bathroom.” I love that first line. I love it so much that I haven’t given up on it yet and the truth is that nothing is coming out of it. I try and I try to write this story about how much Caleb dislikes it when his girlfriend is smoking in the bathroom but it never turns into anything that I like.
In nearly every version of the story that follows this first line she is not in Caleb’s bathroom and therefore doesn’t have to worry about him as much as she would have if she were. In this particular version she is in her lover’s bathroom. He lets her smoke in the bathroom. The smoking in the bathroom doesn’t even seem to be something that this particular character enjoys. She is always smoking in bathrooms but she does it more to get away from people than she does because she really wants a cigarette.
My favorite part of this excerpt from the story is the end, when she closes the bathroom door so that she doesn’t have to see Mike but continues the conversation with him through it. Closing a door on someone so that you can shout through it seems like something a person would do in a relationship that they aren’t exactly comfortable with. Maybe they don’t actually want to see the person so that they can imagine being with someone else or talking to someone else. I don’t think that my main character in this story really likes Mike. I think that she is just cheating on Caleb with him so that she doesn’t have to confront the commitment that he represents.
The truth is that people do things like this all the time. They become scared of the relationship that they are in and instead of confronting the issue head on by talking it over with their significant other, they decide to cheat or find some other way to sabotage the relationship, that way it will fall apart. It’s easier to destroy a relationship for an obvious reason (infidelity) than it is to worry over someone maybe leaving you for a reason that may not be so obvious (some kind of inherent character flaw that you never knew about but which is so obvious to everyone you attempt to enter into a long term relationship with). The main character in this story doesn’t like herself very much and does everything that she can to push the people that she cares about further and further away so that she doesn’t have to worry about them not liking her because she is simply who she is.
I understand her completely. Maybe that's why I'm so scared to write a final version of this story.
“What’re you doing?” Mike asks from the bedroom. She turns and looks at him. He is still sitting in the bed, propped up with pillows. She closes the door.
“I’m fixing my hair,” she shouts through the door.
This story came out of a first line that I really love. “Caleb does not like it when she smokes in the bathroom.” I love that first line. I love it so much that I haven’t given up on it yet and the truth is that nothing is coming out of it. I try and I try to write this story about how much Caleb dislikes it when his girlfriend is smoking in the bathroom but it never turns into anything that I like.
In nearly every version of the story that follows this first line she is not in Caleb’s bathroom and therefore doesn’t have to worry about him as much as she would have if she were. In this particular version she is in her lover’s bathroom. He lets her smoke in the bathroom. The smoking in the bathroom doesn’t even seem to be something that this particular character enjoys. She is always smoking in bathrooms but she does it more to get away from people than she does because she really wants a cigarette.
My favorite part of this excerpt from the story is the end, when she closes the bathroom door so that she doesn’t have to see Mike but continues the conversation with him through it. Closing a door on someone so that you can shout through it seems like something a person would do in a relationship that they aren’t exactly comfortable with. Maybe they don’t actually want to see the person so that they can imagine being with someone else or talking to someone else. I don’t think that my main character in this story really likes Mike. I think that she is just cheating on Caleb with him so that she doesn’t have to confront the commitment that he represents.
The truth is that people do things like this all the time. They become scared of the relationship that they are in and instead of confronting the issue head on by talking it over with their significant other, they decide to cheat or find some other way to sabotage the relationship, that way it will fall apart. It’s easier to destroy a relationship for an obvious reason (infidelity) than it is to worry over someone maybe leaving you for a reason that may not be so obvious (some kind of inherent character flaw that you never knew about but which is so obvious to everyone you attempt to enter into a long term relationship with). The main character in this story doesn’t like herself very much and does everything that she can to push the people that she cares about further and further away so that she doesn’t have to worry about them not liking her because she is simply who she is.
I understand her completely. Maybe that's why I'm so scared to write a final version of this story.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
A Catalogue of First Lines
Today I'm changing my format for a moment to bring you a catalogue of first lines. I think that first lines are important to a story and I'm sure that a lot of people would agree with me. They need to pull the reader in and tell something important. I hope that I acheive that with my first lines. Here are a few of them and a bit about the stories that they come from:
Meredith Sampson always has exact change.
From “Touch.” This is a story about a young woman who suffers from severe burns over half her body. Because of this she has chosen to cut herself off from the world around her. However, life is never that simple and as much as we want to be islands there are very few people who ever are. Meredith craves affection and touch, but she doesn’t believe she is worthy of it. I like this story enough, but I think I read it and reread it too many times. Its shine has worn off, for me at least.
Exhibit A: She is facing the camera, looking annoyed, one hand on her swollen belly.
From “The Proof.” This story is interesting because I tried a different format. The story is told almost completely through a series of photographs that the narrator finds hidden in her boyfriend’s desk. The story came from a very personal and kind of ugly place for me. It’s harsh, and the copy that I sent out to people was toned down a bit from the first draft, which was almost unreadable because of the anger it reflected. I like this story a lot because it defines a feeling for me and it reflects a situation so well. It hasn’t been accepted anywhere yet but one of the editors from Willow Springs Literary Magazine sent me an email to tell me that it made it to the editor’s meeting and that I should email him if I send something else. I thought that was very nice of him and encouraging.
That Guy and What’s-Her-Face met in college.
From “The Tragic Yet True Love Story of That Guy and What’s-Her-Face.” This is another story that hasn’t been accepted by any magazines yet. I’m really not sure if it will be. As a writer, you want to be confident in all the work that you send out and I like this story, I really do, I just think that it might be a little too fable-ish. It came out of a Facebook page I saw of a person that I used to know. (I try to not be that cyber stalking person but, admit it, you do it too). In high school he was boring, but he thought he was the shit, and looking at his profile years later I could tell that he still held that opinion of himself. The thing is, his life wasn’t all that great. It was just really predictable. This story is about predictable lives and the way that it is that some people chose who they are going to love based on the people around them and not on the person that they truly are. It’s tragic and yet so true. These relationships don’t always fail, but what comes out of them doesn’t seem to be authentic.
It makes me sick. Absolutely sick.
From “Jasper.” Okay, so this is two sentences and not one, so shoot me. “Jasper” is about a man who works at a company that does something that is morally questionable to him and the way that he retaliates against it. It is also about the strange role that text messaging plays in our lives. I first went to college right out of high school, which was in 2000. I dropped out, went back, dropped out again, went back for the last time in 2007 and now I’m about to graduate at the end of 2009. It is amazing the technological advances that have been made in that small amount of time. I know that there were cell phones back in 2000, but very few college students had them. I never remember class being interrupted by a phone ringing. When we left class we had time to ruminate over what we had just learned because we weren’t immediately on our phones the second that we walked out of the classroom. Things have changed drastically since those days. This story came out of an introductory level Zoology course that I took in 2008. I was amazed by the amount of people texting during class. Some would even get up during class to take calls outside the door. It was kind of jarring. I didn’t understand who they were texting because I honestly couldn’t think of anyone who would want to receive a text from me that simply said “In science. Did you know that Watson and Crick discovered DNA in 1953.” I didn’t understand who they all had to be in contact with at that exact moment. It just seemed strange to me. Then I thought, what if they aren’t really sending texts to anyone? What if it was just a computer that pretended to be interested in their petty drama? It was an interesting idea and I turned it into this story. The only problem is that I don’t know how it ends. I’m close, I’m just not there yet.
On a Tuesday morning Muriel dreams of a bathroom covered in blood.
From “The Year of Dead Babies.” This is, undoubtedly, the story that I am most proud of (so far). I’m not at all ashamed to say that I love it. It also came from a very personal place, which is where all the best stories come from. It’s about two couple who both experience the loss of a child (one through miscarriage and the other through SIDS). One couple comes together and the other falls apart. I submitted it for workshop in my senior creative writing course and my professor’s response is full of praise, which made me very happy. One of my classmates said that it seemed as though I, more so than any of the other students in the class, had a clear understanding of the human condition and because I actually liked his stories, I took it as a complement. Now that I’m done bragging I’ll tell you what I like about the story. I like that I was able to create a story that was third person omniscient. I think that it is a very difficult thing to do and that there are very few people who do it well. Typically what we see and what I write is third person close. I wanted to break away from something that I was comfortable with and I think I did it well. As with “Proof” I like how much this story reflects a time in my life. When I read it I can see a lot of hopes that I had and a lot of pain that I was feeling. It moves me and it is good of me to be moved by my own story. I like the characters that I created in this story, even Isabel, who many of my readers seemed to be conflicted about. This story has received a lot of positive feedback from the places I have submitted it to. It hasn’t been accepted yet but I’m waiting to hear back from the Black Warrior Review still and my fingers are crossed.
Meredith Sampson always has exact change.
From “Touch.” This is a story about a young woman who suffers from severe burns over half her body. Because of this she has chosen to cut herself off from the world around her. However, life is never that simple and as much as we want to be islands there are very few people who ever are. Meredith craves affection and touch, but she doesn’t believe she is worthy of it. I like this story enough, but I think I read it and reread it too many times. Its shine has worn off, for me at least.
Exhibit A: She is facing the camera, looking annoyed, one hand on her swollen belly.
From “The Proof.” This story is interesting because I tried a different format. The story is told almost completely through a series of photographs that the narrator finds hidden in her boyfriend’s desk. The story came from a very personal and kind of ugly place for me. It’s harsh, and the copy that I sent out to people was toned down a bit from the first draft, which was almost unreadable because of the anger it reflected. I like this story a lot because it defines a feeling for me and it reflects a situation so well. It hasn’t been accepted anywhere yet but one of the editors from Willow Springs Literary Magazine sent me an email to tell me that it made it to the editor’s meeting and that I should email him if I send something else. I thought that was very nice of him and encouraging.
That Guy and What’s-Her-Face met in college.
From “The Tragic Yet True Love Story of That Guy and What’s-Her-Face.” This is another story that hasn’t been accepted by any magazines yet. I’m really not sure if it will be. As a writer, you want to be confident in all the work that you send out and I like this story, I really do, I just think that it might be a little too fable-ish. It came out of a Facebook page I saw of a person that I used to know. (I try to not be that cyber stalking person but, admit it, you do it too). In high school he was boring, but he thought he was the shit, and looking at his profile years later I could tell that he still held that opinion of himself. The thing is, his life wasn’t all that great. It was just really predictable. This story is about predictable lives and the way that it is that some people chose who they are going to love based on the people around them and not on the person that they truly are. It’s tragic and yet so true. These relationships don’t always fail, but what comes out of them doesn’t seem to be authentic.
It makes me sick. Absolutely sick.
From “Jasper.” Okay, so this is two sentences and not one, so shoot me. “Jasper” is about a man who works at a company that does something that is morally questionable to him and the way that he retaliates against it. It is also about the strange role that text messaging plays in our lives. I first went to college right out of high school, which was in 2000. I dropped out, went back, dropped out again, went back for the last time in 2007 and now I’m about to graduate at the end of 2009. It is amazing the technological advances that have been made in that small amount of time. I know that there were cell phones back in 2000, but very few college students had them. I never remember class being interrupted by a phone ringing. When we left class we had time to ruminate over what we had just learned because we weren’t immediately on our phones the second that we walked out of the classroom. Things have changed drastically since those days. This story came out of an introductory level Zoology course that I took in 2008. I was amazed by the amount of people texting during class. Some would even get up during class to take calls outside the door. It was kind of jarring. I didn’t understand who they were texting because I honestly couldn’t think of anyone who would want to receive a text from me that simply said “In science. Did you know that Watson and Crick discovered DNA in 1953.” I didn’t understand who they all had to be in contact with at that exact moment. It just seemed strange to me. Then I thought, what if they aren’t really sending texts to anyone? What if it was just a computer that pretended to be interested in their petty drama? It was an interesting idea and I turned it into this story. The only problem is that I don’t know how it ends. I’m close, I’m just not there yet.
On a Tuesday morning Muriel dreams of a bathroom covered in blood.
From “The Year of Dead Babies.” This is, undoubtedly, the story that I am most proud of (so far). I’m not at all ashamed to say that I love it. It also came from a very personal place, which is where all the best stories come from. It’s about two couple who both experience the loss of a child (one through miscarriage and the other through SIDS). One couple comes together and the other falls apart. I submitted it for workshop in my senior creative writing course and my professor’s response is full of praise, which made me very happy. One of my classmates said that it seemed as though I, more so than any of the other students in the class, had a clear understanding of the human condition and because I actually liked his stories, I took it as a complement. Now that I’m done bragging I’ll tell you what I like about the story. I like that I was able to create a story that was third person omniscient. I think that it is a very difficult thing to do and that there are very few people who do it well. Typically what we see and what I write is third person close. I wanted to break away from something that I was comfortable with and I think I did it well. As with “Proof” I like how much this story reflects a time in my life. When I read it I can see a lot of hopes that I had and a lot of pain that I was feeling. It moves me and it is good of me to be moved by my own story. I like the characters that I created in this story, even Isabel, who many of my readers seemed to be conflicted about. This story has received a lot of positive feedback from the places I have submitted it to. It hasn’t been accepted yet but I’m waiting to hear back from the Black Warrior Review still and my fingers are crossed.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Magical Realism 4/5/01
There was something wrong with the house. The wind was pushing a tree against the outside north wall of the room. Thumping, thumping in an always quiet house. Below Jason and Amma, in the kitchen, there was creaking. It sounded as if every cabinet and drawer was opening and closing on its own. Creaking, clacking in an always quiet house. Something scurried across the attic above them. A mouse, a rat, possibly a chipmunk. Something alive that wasn’t there the night before. Scurrying, scurrying in an always quiet house.
Amma groaned and rolled over. Jason got out of the bed and stomped his foot on the floor. “SHUT UP!” he yelled. The house silenced itself. No more scurrying, no more creaking, and no more thumping. Jason crawled back into the bed. He snuggled up next to Amma. Something isn’t right, Amma thought as Jason’s arms slid around her.
“Something isn’t right,” Amma said. Jason cocked his head.
“What’s not right?” Jason asked.
“Something.”
“The house is quiet now. There’s nothing wrong.”
“But something isn’t right.”
Jason grunts and pushes himself against Amma, begging her for warmth and affection. He closes his eyes and relaxes. Something isn’t right he realizes. His eyes snap open. “Brian.”
“What?” Amma murmurs.
“Brian didn’t wake up when I yelled. Something isn’t right.” Jason sat straight up in bed. Amma rolled over and snapped on the lamp next to her head. They fly out of bed at the same time.
Amma gets to the crib first because the crib is by her side of the bed.
Brian is lying peacefully on his bed. Amma stares at him. Jason stumbles over and stares at him. His fists are clenched. His chest is not moving slowly up and down. Amma and Jason hold their own breath in order to hear the breaths that aren’t coming out of Brian’s small mouth and nose.
“Call 911,” Jason says. But Amma is frozen. She grips the side of the crib so tightly that her knuckles turn white. “CALL 911!” Jason yells, he himself frozen. Tears begin to flow down Amma’s face. Her cheeks become red apples, shiny from the wetness of the tears. Jason hears her whimper and he takes a dive for the phone where he dials the three numbers that mean help.
Oh, this story. Oh, this story. I don’t even know where to begin. It was part of my first novel which was written in parts all over my notebooks. It’s something I always return to because I do love it so much. I’m sure that you noticed that the name of the woman is the same name as the character from my last post. They are not the same person. Sometimes I just get really attached to names.
I must tell you that I was surprised to find this part of the novel in my third notebook. I don’t like the third notebook very much because it reflects a very awkward period in my life. I like this part of the story. I like what I did with it.
This [unfinished] novel is incredible to me because I was so young when I started working on it but it was so well-defined. I knew the characters and I knew what they wanted. The main character in this story is not Amma or Jason. It is the house. I was trying to bring to life something that is normally not a living being. I’m sure that it has been done before, especially with houses. Ander Monson said in one of his beautiful tweets “A family, often itself contained by a home, is a mechanism for containing: secrets, pain, stories, beauty, the seeds of its own undoing.” I think, in the case of this story, I wanted to make a home that, not only contained a family, but reflected it as well.
It was my first attempt at magical realism. I think it might have also been my last. Magical realism is a tough thing to create and to put into a story for the same reason that I think stories that are written in genres such as Science Fiction and Fantasy are tough to write well. I don’t write Science Fiction and Fantasy because it too often relies on plot twists instead of character arcs. In magical realism you have to create a story in which the characters are believable. Despite what is going on around them and however crazy it may seem the characters have to behave in a way that any normal person would behave. They have to react correctly. It’s tough.
I remember submitting a draft of the beginning of this story my freshman year of college in my first ever creative writing course and I remember how my professor reacted when we read it in workshop. He opened the workshop by saying that I had created something really wonderful and that we have to take into account when reading magical realism that, so often, it is something that is used by writers who are describing characters who don’t live in the most ideal of situations. He asked us to consider whether or not we thought that magical realism worked within the realm of suburbia. He thought that it did. His comments made me feel both embarrassed and proud.
I am fairly proud of this little bit of writing in a notebook that I find difficult to read.
Amma groaned and rolled over. Jason got out of the bed and stomped his foot on the floor. “SHUT UP!” he yelled. The house silenced itself. No more scurrying, no more creaking, and no more thumping. Jason crawled back into the bed. He snuggled up next to Amma. Something isn’t right, Amma thought as Jason’s arms slid around her.
“Something isn’t right,” Amma said. Jason cocked his head.
“What’s not right?” Jason asked.
“Something.”
“The house is quiet now. There’s nothing wrong.”
“But something isn’t right.”
Jason grunts and pushes himself against Amma, begging her for warmth and affection. He closes his eyes and relaxes. Something isn’t right he realizes. His eyes snap open. “Brian.”
“What?” Amma murmurs.
“Brian didn’t wake up when I yelled. Something isn’t right.” Jason sat straight up in bed. Amma rolled over and snapped on the lamp next to her head. They fly out of bed at the same time.
Amma gets to the crib first because the crib is by her side of the bed.
Brian is lying peacefully on his bed. Amma stares at him. Jason stumbles over and stares at him. His fists are clenched. His chest is not moving slowly up and down. Amma and Jason hold their own breath in order to hear the breaths that aren’t coming out of Brian’s small mouth and nose.
“Call 911,” Jason says. But Amma is frozen. She grips the side of the crib so tightly that her knuckles turn white. “CALL 911!” Jason yells, he himself frozen. Tears begin to flow down Amma’s face. Her cheeks become red apples, shiny from the wetness of the tears. Jason hears her whimper and he takes a dive for the phone where he dials the three numbers that mean help.
Oh, this story. Oh, this story. I don’t even know where to begin. It was part of my first novel which was written in parts all over my notebooks. It’s something I always return to because I do love it so much. I’m sure that you noticed that the name of the woman is the same name as the character from my last post. They are not the same person. Sometimes I just get really attached to names.
I must tell you that I was surprised to find this part of the novel in my third notebook. I don’t like the third notebook very much because it reflects a very awkward period in my life. I like this part of the story. I like what I did with it.
This [unfinished] novel is incredible to me because I was so young when I started working on it but it was so well-defined. I knew the characters and I knew what they wanted. The main character in this story is not Amma or Jason. It is the house. I was trying to bring to life something that is normally not a living being. I’m sure that it has been done before, especially with houses. Ander Monson said in one of his beautiful tweets “A family, often itself contained by a home, is a mechanism for containing: secrets, pain, stories, beauty, the seeds of its own undoing.” I think, in the case of this story, I wanted to make a home that, not only contained a family, but reflected it as well.
It was my first attempt at magical realism. I think it might have also been my last. Magical realism is a tough thing to create and to put into a story for the same reason that I think stories that are written in genres such as Science Fiction and Fantasy are tough to write well. I don’t write Science Fiction and Fantasy because it too often relies on plot twists instead of character arcs. In magical realism you have to create a story in which the characters are believable. Despite what is going on around them and however crazy it may seem the characters have to behave in a way that any normal person would behave. They have to react correctly. It’s tough.
I remember submitting a draft of the beginning of this story my freshman year of college in my first ever creative writing course and I remember how my professor reacted when we read it in workshop. He opened the workshop by saying that I had created something really wonderful and that we have to take into account when reading magical realism that, so often, it is something that is used by writers who are describing characters who don’t live in the most ideal of situations. He asked us to consider whether or not we thought that magical realism worked within the realm of suburbia. He thought that it did. His comments made me feel both embarrassed and proud.
I am fairly proud of this little bit of writing in a notebook that I find difficult to read.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Things I Never Knew I Always Wanted 2/28/01
He sees her at a bookstore outside of Tallahassee flipping through a book of Monet’s greatest works. He watches her from behind a bookshelf because she’s not supposed to be there. She’s supposed to be in Oklahoma City at Oklahoma State University getting an Oklahoma worthy education. Of course she looks up and of course she sees him.
He pretends to be engrossed in a book he picked up from the shelf in front of him. He feels her next to him. She’s breathing on his shoulder. She’s warm. He puts down the book quickly, unable to take the silent presence any longer. “What do you want, Amma?”
“When did you start reading ‘Claudio’s Passion’?” she asks picking up the book he just put down.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Why not?” Amma looks up at him with her big green eyes. She is innocent.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was reading and I saw you so I thought I’d come over.”
“No here. Here in Florida.” He grabs the book out of her hands and sloppily reshelves it.
“You don’t want me here?” She asks. “I can leave if you want. It was just for a vacation but if you can’t stand being in the same state as me I understand.” She’s walking away now. He’s watching her go.
“Amma, wait.” He catches up to her. “I’m sorry.” She smiles and takes his hnd and drags him out of the store.
“What are you sorry for?”
“I was rude.”
“I love you.”
“Don’t say that.” But it’s too late because she already said it and she’s pressing her body against his and she’s kissing him and he’s kissing her back.
“Can I stay with you a while?”
“Whatever you want.”
Wow, this is old and because it’s old it tells a lot about the kind of person that I was when I was younger. I think that there’s a difficult period for everyone when they leave high school and have to make new friends. I had an especially difficult time because the roommates that I had weren’t exactly the greatest people. I wrote a lot of what could really be considered fan fiction. It’s just that instead of writing fan fiction about other people’s stories I wrote fan fiction about my own life. I think that I really felt trapped at that point. I was in a place I didn’t like, with people that I didn’t like.
This story comes out of that. The main character, Amma, has the mobility that I lacked. She has someone who loves her. She is able to bring these two things together.
I wrote a lot of stories around this time with similar themes. The biggest one was the ability of my characters to travel. They had no commitment to the things around them and, in a way, I thought that was really nice and really liberating. I did realize at the time that I had the same kind of freedom. I could have gone off and done the things that I really wanted but there was something holding me back. I think that from a very young age I was taught to worry about the world around me. Instead of feeling like I could just go out and fly by the seat of my pants, I felt that I had to create an itinerary that planned out every moment. I didn’t have to do this for my sake, but for the sake of the people around me.
The biggest change between the person that wrote this and the person that I am now is that I don’t do things simply for the sake of people around me. I will help out the best that I can, but when it interferes with my own life I just don’t think that it’s worth it anymore.
I’m about to embark on a really great adventure. It’s the first time in my life when I don’t have even the vaguest idea of what happens next. There are certain things that I want, but time will tell if I get those things or not. I’m okay with that.
He pretends to be engrossed in a book he picked up from the shelf in front of him. He feels her next to him. She’s breathing on his shoulder. She’s warm. He puts down the book quickly, unable to take the silent presence any longer. “What do you want, Amma?”
“When did you start reading ‘Claudio’s Passion’?” she asks picking up the book he just put down.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Why not?” Amma looks up at him with her big green eyes. She is innocent.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was reading and I saw you so I thought I’d come over.”
“No here. Here in Florida.” He grabs the book out of her hands and sloppily reshelves it.
“You don’t want me here?” She asks. “I can leave if you want. It was just for a vacation but if you can’t stand being in the same state as me I understand.” She’s walking away now. He’s watching her go.
“Amma, wait.” He catches up to her. “I’m sorry.” She smiles and takes his hnd and drags him out of the store.
“What are you sorry for?”
“I was rude.”
“I love you.”
“Don’t say that.” But it’s too late because she already said it and she’s pressing her body against his and she’s kissing him and he’s kissing her back.
“Can I stay with you a while?”
“Whatever you want.”
Wow, this is old and because it’s old it tells a lot about the kind of person that I was when I was younger. I think that there’s a difficult period for everyone when they leave high school and have to make new friends. I had an especially difficult time because the roommates that I had weren’t exactly the greatest people. I wrote a lot of what could really be considered fan fiction. It’s just that instead of writing fan fiction about other people’s stories I wrote fan fiction about my own life. I think that I really felt trapped at that point. I was in a place I didn’t like, with people that I didn’t like.
This story comes out of that. The main character, Amma, has the mobility that I lacked. She has someone who loves her. She is able to bring these two things together.
I wrote a lot of stories around this time with similar themes. The biggest one was the ability of my characters to travel. They had no commitment to the things around them and, in a way, I thought that was really nice and really liberating. I did realize at the time that I had the same kind of freedom. I could have gone off and done the things that I really wanted but there was something holding me back. I think that from a very young age I was taught to worry about the world around me. Instead of feeling like I could just go out and fly by the seat of my pants, I felt that I had to create an itinerary that planned out every moment. I didn’t have to do this for my sake, but for the sake of the people around me.
The biggest change between the person that wrote this and the person that I am now is that I don’t do things simply for the sake of people around me. I will help out the best that I can, but when it interferes with my own life I just don’t think that it’s worth it anymore.
I’m about to embark on a really great adventure. It’s the first time in my life when I don’t have even the vaguest idea of what happens next. There are certain things that I want, but time will tell if I get those things or not. I’m okay with that.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Relationships 5/4/06
I like falling in love with the wrong kind of man. I know I’m doing it, in the way everyone always knows what they are doing, regardless of what they might say to themselves. Thus far, I have put behind me two alcoholics, one pot-head, and five republicans. These are serious men. They are serious about the jobs they lose due to their hangovers. They are serious about the clothing they wear. They are very serious about their political affiliations. They are not, however, serious about me. I am sure that I amuse them at first. They shake their serious heads at my clumsiness, they complement the passion of my kisses, and they openly admire the way my legs pop out of vintage skirts. They like me, I hope, but they are too serious and eventually they remind me that I should be as well.
Where once my laughter made them smile, it begins to annoy. “Do you think this is a joke?” they ask, their faces wrinkling at the brow. We are required to have serious talks regarding the nature of my activities. “Don’t walk outside barefoot,” they chide. “Are you really wearing that?” they ask. Finally, and with the most anger, they merely say “No.” Then it is over and I must say goodbye, an event always harder for me than it seems to be for them.
I spend a lot of time crying. I write desperate poems and letters. Things that never reach their intended audience but instead remain half written on tear stained pages of my notebooks. Eventually, I muster up the courage to be honest with myself. I finally come to terms with what I always knew, that it would never work.
I’ve been doing this for years, and my problems don’t seem to be going away. The only difference is that where before I believed that there were no problems, now I allow myself some concessions. If now I know his drinking is excessive, I imagine we’ll have it under control soon. If his close minded right wing supremacy is driving me crazy, I take it upon myself to open his eyes. Before I just thought that my loving him was enough to keep up together, now I imagine my love is enough to make him change so that we can stay together. It is a minor difference, but even that is progress.
These men are not so kind to me. They do not see my compromises. They never see the things I am giving up, the things I don’t talk about. All they see is that it isn’t going to work. Perhaps they are more sensible than I. Maybe their serious dispositions have served them well in this regard. I think that it is perhaps the reason I so admire them. We both know from the beginning that it won’t work, that I am not the right kind of girl, but they don’t let their emotions get in the way of this. For them, when it is over, it is over. My smile no longer causes theirs. My clumsiness is an annoyance they must live with. They are exhausted by my old tricks, while I retain my fascination with theirs. I lag behind as they move on to some simple blonde who has no expectations beyond a diamond in a year or two.
I am wondering why I subject myself to these most certain heartbreaks. I wonder why I chose these men, when there are so many reasons why I should not. Now I say this. Now, when these men are locked inside some drawer in a faraway corner of my mind. Now, when my memories of them contain more sorrow than they do fondness. I know that sometime, most likely in the not-too-distant future I will meet another one of these men and I will forget the lessons taught to me by those that came before him. I will fall in love with his serious countenance and slowly creep towards heartbreak once again. After all, men don’t fall in love with girls who laugh when everyone else is straight-faced. They cannot actually be with someone who appreciates the fell of grass between their toes. Even the most passionate of kisses is not enough to bind him to me.
I wrote this post after a bad situation with a guy, which I’m sure you could have figured out. I think that writing it was very therapeutic for me. The part about me finding another guy I wasn’t compatible with in again in the “not-too-distant future” didn’t really work out. I actually didn’t meet someone I was even slightly interested in for two years after this. It might have had something to do with the fact that I had just recognized a pattern for myself. I think that I still fall into patterns. We all do.
At the time I wrote this I was going through a period where I was trying to write creative non-fiction. I wrote a few essays and was actually really big into blogging on myspace (I deleted the profile, so don’t bother trying to find me). This was my favorite essay at the time because I meant the things that I said. The other ones seemed really forced. I think that creative non-fiction is a hard thing for me to write because I tend to focus on themes and life just keeps on moving ahead so I don’t have a lot of endings. You need endings with essays. You need them with life too. I’m very bad with endings.
Where once my laughter made them smile, it begins to annoy. “Do you think this is a joke?” they ask, their faces wrinkling at the brow. We are required to have serious talks regarding the nature of my activities. “Don’t walk outside barefoot,” they chide. “Are you really wearing that?” they ask. Finally, and with the most anger, they merely say “No.” Then it is over and I must say goodbye, an event always harder for me than it seems to be for them.
I spend a lot of time crying. I write desperate poems and letters. Things that never reach their intended audience but instead remain half written on tear stained pages of my notebooks. Eventually, I muster up the courage to be honest with myself. I finally come to terms with what I always knew, that it would never work.
I’ve been doing this for years, and my problems don’t seem to be going away. The only difference is that where before I believed that there were no problems, now I allow myself some concessions. If now I know his drinking is excessive, I imagine we’ll have it under control soon. If his close minded right wing supremacy is driving me crazy, I take it upon myself to open his eyes. Before I just thought that my loving him was enough to keep up together, now I imagine my love is enough to make him change so that we can stay together. It is a minor difference, but even that is progress.
These men are not so kind to me. They do not see my compromises. They never see the things I am giving up, the things I don’t talk about. All they see is that it isn’t going to work. Perhaps they are more sensible than I. Maybe their serious dispositions have served them well in this regard. I think that it is perhaps the reason I so admire them. We both know from the beginning that it won’t work, that I am not the right kind of girl, but they don’t let their emotions get in the way of this. For them, when it is over, it is over. My smile no longer causes theirs. My clumsiness is an annoyance they must live with. They are exhausted by my old tricks, while I retain my fascination with theirs. I lag behind as they move on to some simple blonde who has no expectations beyond a diamond in a year or two.
I am wondering why I subject myself to these most certain heartbreaks. I wonder why I chose these men, when there are so many reasons why I should not. Now I say this. Now, when these men are locked inside some drawer in a faraway corner of my mind. Now, when my memories of them contain more sorrow than they do fondness. I know that sometime, most likely in the not-too-distant future I will meet another one of these men and I will forget the lessons taught to me by those that came before him. I will fall in love with his serious countenance and slowly creep towards heartbreak once again. After all, men don’t fall in love with girls who laugh when everyone else is straight-faced. They cannot actually be with someone who appreciates the fell of grass between their toes. Even the most passionate of kisses is not enough to bind him to me.
I wrote this post after a bad situation with a guy, which I’m sure you could have figured out. I think that writing it was very therapeutic for me. The part about me finding another guy I wasn’t compatible with in again in the “not-too-distant future” didn’t really work out. I actually didn’t meet someone I was even slightly interested in for two years after this. It might have had something to do with the fact that I had just recognized a pattern for myself. I think that I still fall into patterns. We all do.
At the time I wrote this I was going through a period where I was trying to write creative non-fiction. I wrote a few essays and was actually really big into blogging on myspace (I deleted the profile, so don’t bother trying to find me). This was my favorite essay at the time because I meant the things that I said. The other ones seemed really forced. I think that creative non-fiction is a hard thing for me to write because I tend to focus on themes and life just keeps on moving ahead so I don’t have a lot of endings. You need endings with essays. You need them with life too. I’m very bad with endings.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Lists 10/5/08
Things I Like
-Old people that smoke
-Highlighters
-Those little orange monkeys at the zoo
-Giving people presents
-Presents in general
-Notebooks
Things I Don’t Like
-People who are mean for no good reason
-The sound of vacuum cleaners
-The smell of cleaning agents
-When boys I care about do cocaine
-People who treat me like I don’t have feelings
I can’t sleep and therefore am looking up lists in my notebooks. These lists came out of a lot of things that I was going through at the time. I was having trouble trying to find friends in the town that I live in. I always seem to be having trouble finding friends. That is where the stuff about people being mean comes from. I think that my biggest problem is that I really, really want people to like me and so I make an extra effort to be nice. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the world who will take advantage of that sort of thing. There are other problems with it as well. It seems that once you start off being really nice you always have to be nice. You never get to have days where you aren’t feeling so great and you need time to yourself. People will always want a piece of you and they expect certain things out of you. It’s not like they always come knocking when they need something. It’s a strange sort of dependence, as though they know they can come to you because you aren’t very good at saying “no.” I need to learn how to say “no” more often. I need to set more boundaries.
I really don’t like the smell of cleaning agents or the sound of vacuums. It makes cleaning things a really tedious job for me, maybe more than most. I have switched to using Dr. Bronner’s to clean everything. The smell of peppermint isn’t so bad.
I still don’t like it when boys I care about do cocaine. It really is a horrible drug that sucks the life out of people. I don’t care what anyone says about it, it’s something that I will never try. I wouldn’t even want to. I’ve seen it destroy a lot of people. I’ve seen it become something that they need. Interestingly enough, I once found an article in a magazine that talked about it. They were doing studies on rodents. There were some rodents that were given cocaine as part of their diets. The other group was given a choice of whether to drink water that either had cocaine or didn’t. When they took the cocaine away from the rodents that were given a choice those animals went through withdrawal. The other ones didn’t seem to mind the change. What the scientists were figuring out was that it wasn’t actually that addictive of a drug. It is one of those drugs that a person only becomes psychologically dependant on. I thought that was interesting. I don’t have enough people to tell these things to.
The list of things I like stays pretty much the same throughout the years. I think that we all find things that we like and stick to them. Old people that smoke became something that I enjoyed after going to Bingo. I used to play a lot of Bingo and, back when they allowed smoking at the Bingo hall, there were always a ton of old people there who knew just how bad it was for them but had been doing it so long that they didn’t care anymore. The little orange monkeys at the zoo have also always been one of those things that make me extremely happy. They are called Golden Lion Tamarins. I like their tails that they use to get from tree to tree. They used to have a whole bunch at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, but then they started having fewer and fewer. Last time I went I think that there were only two or three. It was very disappointing to see the little orange monkey population decrease in such large numbers. (I just found out that they are endangered. I shouldn’t do research on these sorts of things so late at night. It just makes me depressed).
The fact that notebooks are on the list is pretty self-explanatory.
-Old people that smoke
-Highlighters
-Those little orange monkeys at the zoo
-Giving people presents
-Presents in general
-Notebooks
Things I Don’t Like
-People who are mean for no good reason
-The sound of vacuum cleaners
-The smell of cleaning agents
-When boys I care about do cocaine
-People who treat me like I don’t have feelings
I can’t sleep and therefore am looking up lists in my notebooks. These lists came out of a lot of things that I was going through at the time. I was having trouble trying to find friends in the town that I live in. I always seem to be having trouble finding friends. That is where the stuff about people being mean comes from. I think that my biggest problem is that I really, really want people to like me and so I make an extra effort to be nice. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the world who will take advantage of that sort of thing. There are other problems with it as well. It seems that once you start off being really nice you always have to be nice. You never get to have days where you aren’t feeling so great and you need time to yourself. People will always want a piece of you and they expect certain things out of you. It’s not like they always come knocking when they need something. It’s a strange sort of dependence, as though they know they can come to you because you aren’t very good at saying “no.” I need to learn how to say “no” more often. I need to set more boundaries.
I really don’t like the smell of cleaning agents or the sound of vacuums. It makes cleaning things a really tedious job for me, maybe more than most. I have switched to using Dr. Bronner’s to clean everything. The smell of peppermint isn’t so bad.
I still don’t like it when boys I care about do cocaine. It really is a horrible drug that sucks the life out of people. I don’t care what anyone says about it, it’s something that I will never try. I wouldn’t even want to. I’ve seen it destroy a lot of people. I’ve seen it become something that they need. Interestingly enough, I once found an article in a magazine that talked about it. They were doing studies on rodents. There were some rodents that were given cocaine as part of their diets. The other group was given a choice of whether to drink water that either had cocaine or didn’t. When they took the cocaine away from the rodents that were given a choice those animals went through withdrawal. The other ones didn’t seem to mind the change. What the scientists were figuring out was that it wasn’t actually that addictive of a drug. It is one of those drugs that a person only becomes psychologically dependant on. I thought that was interesting. I don’t have enough people to tell these things to.
The list of things I like stays pretty much the same throughout the years. I think that we all find things that we like and stick to them. Old people that smoke became something that I enjoyed after going to Bingo. I used to play a lot of Bingo and, back when they allowed smoking at the Bingo hall, there were always a ton of old people there who knew just how bad it was for them but had been doing it so long that they didn’t care anymore. The little orange monkeys at the zoo have also always been one of those things that make me extremely happy. They are called Golden Lion Tamarins. I like their tails that they use to get from tree to tree. They used to have a whole bunch at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, but then they started having fewer and fewer. Last time I went I think that there were only two or three. It was very disappointing to see the little orange monkey population decrease in such large numbers. (I just found out that they are endangered. I shouldn’t do research on these sorts of things so late at night. It just makes me depressed).
The fact that notebooks are on the list is pretty self-explanatory.
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