This is it. The first day of the summer's National Writing Project. I'm here now, it's 8:36 a.m. and getting out of bed after a week off, after a long school year, after committing to join the writing project...waking up this morningnwas painful! It's been way too easy for me to slip into my night owl status.
Now there's a question on the board, a warm up question. Hello, flipside! Usually I'm the one posting the warm up question, while students file in, while I sip caffine and they sit in the seats and struggle for brain cells to collide in a meaninful way (or do they just try to look busy to avoid the Hrin Hassle?)
The question, fair reader? What do you hope to "accomplish" at the Summer Institute?
Does getting out of bed, on time every day count? I say yes.
Does losing a pound a week, by escaping the chocolate zucchini cake in the 'fridge, count? I say yes again.
But seriously, selfishly, I just want to write for myself, to think about writing and then actually write, then edit, then rewrite and to crave writing and have the ideas churning all day, all night, seeming out my pores, sneaking through the tears in my awareness and into my dreams.
Any other questions?
Monday, June 29, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Tear Up This Message
The email from nycmidnight.com arrived shortly after 4P.M. I had to write three more Tweet Stories using the word tear.
The coolest thing about this word is that it has two main meanings: 1. the salty stuff that comes out of your eyeballs when you are crying and 2. a rip or to rip something.
The contest gave me five hours to submit - but as any busy woman knows, it's got to happen faster than that. I planned to run on the treadmill, shower at the gym (John shut the main valve of our water main off last night due to a huge sprinkler leak/crack we discovered last night just before going to bed - FUN!), write the stories, eat dinner and meet Jill at the movies to see Star Trek - all in less than three hours. I was a bit rushed but here's what I came up with:
1. Jon: Here’s your eggplant! Tear right in! I gotta run back to the grill for my juicy, medium-rare sirloin! Me: Rethinking this vegan thing.
2. small dark tear in her pale wedding dress/not an omen for success/a million private tears, already cried/no one should be a mail-order bride
3. tiny flies float/over fruit in a bowl/the sun edges/through a tear in the dirty screen/and the flies are the thoughts/of the three wilted pears
Again, remember, the stories must use the word exactly and must be less than 140 characters including spaces. So, whats the word? I will keep ya'all posted! Oh, and by the way, the Star Trek movie rocked. Go see it.
The coolest thing about this word is that it has two main meanings: 1. the salty stuff that comes out of your eyeballs when you are crying and 2. a rip or to rip something.
The contest gave me five hours to submit - but as any busy woman knows, it's got to happen faster than that. I planned to run on the treadmill, shower at the gym (John shut the main valve of our water main off last night due to a huge sprinkler leak/crack we discovered last night just before going to bed - FUN!), write the stories, eat dinner and meet Jill at the movies to see Star Trek - all in less than three hours. I was a bit rushed but here's what I came up with:
1. Jon: Here’s your eggplant! Tear right in! I gotta run back to the grill for my juicy, medium-rare sirloin! Me: Rethinking this vegan thing.
2. small dark tear in her pale wedding dress/not an omen for success/a million private tears, already cried/no one should be a mail-order bride
3. tiny flies float/over fruit in a bowl/the sun edges/through a tear in the dirty screen/and the flies are the thoughts/of the three wilted pears
Again, remember, the stories must use the word exactly and must be less than 140 characters including spaces. So, whats the word? I will keep ya'all posted! Oh, and by the way, the Star Trek movie rocked. Go see it.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
How to Write Like You Mean It
I'm suppossed to write a poem now. That's my self-assigned assignment. This poem is to help me prep for the next round of the "Tweet Me a Story" competition on NYCmidnight.com (a great site for creative people wanting to write competitively.) I've made it through three rounds, now I'm a finalist. Yippy!
Before I write my poem, here is the story that made it to the final round. (The story had to be less than 140 characters including spaces and punctuation and contestants were placed into groups and each one given a word that must be used. I had to use the word flavor.)
Shawna drives me home from the beach. We are blonde with sun and coated in a fine, white powder. I lick my arm tasting the salty flavor.
So, that's it.
I was allowed to submit up to three stories. Here are the other two:
1. Two black figures on the road. One a cat, the other a crow. Crow jerks; a broken wing. Cat grins; envisioning the flavor of blackbird pie.
2. I kneel into the Mediterranean, watching as ships fall into Africa. Now the flavor of red cumin pervades and prayers sink into a grey sea.
I'm not sure why they picked the "Shawna" story over the others, but would be interested to know your thoughts, dear reader.
Now what I really want you to know is that each story is based on something that really happened. I did see a black cat and crow in the road coming home from the gym and the crow really did have this broken wing and the cat was skinny, it followed the crow into the middle of the road.
The one about ships and Africa is based on a poem I wrote when I was in Spain. Poetry is very easy to write in Spain. Or Italy. Or on airplanes. It's not so as easy to write at home, I don't know why.
The Shawna story is just what happened. We went to the beach, she was driving, I noticed I was covered in salt; took a taste. Then, of course I was so tickled that I tasted like the ocean I kept doing it. The real part of the story is that Shawna made me go into the ocean for the first time in, like, 15 years. We were out there wading around and she just keeps swimming out father and farther and I didn't want to follow her and she was confused until finally I told her. This is all very strange becuase we live in San Diego. What normal woman in her 30's who has always lived near the beach doesn't go in?
That's a story for another post. It's time for the poem...here goes...
Before I write my poem, here is the story that made it to the final round. (The story had to be less than 140 characters including spaces and punctuation and contestants were placed into groups and each one given a word that must be used. I had to use the word flavor.)
Shawna drives me home from the beach. We are blonde with sun and coated in a fine, white powder. I lick my arm tasting the salty flavor.
So, that's it.
I was allowed to submit up to three stories. Here are the other two:
1. Two black figures on the road. One a cat, the other a crow. Crow jerks; a broken wing. Cat grins; envisioning the flavor of blackbird pie.
2. I kneel into the Mediterranean, watching as ships fall into Africa. Now the flavor of red cumin pervades and prayers sink into a grey sea.
I'm not sure why they picked the "Shawna" story over the others, but would be interested to know your thoughts, dear reader.
Now what I really want you to know is that each story is based on something that really happened. I did see a black cat and crow in the road coming home from the gym and the crow really did have this broken wing and the cat was skinny, it followed the crow into the middle of the road.
The one about ships and Africa is based on a poem I wrote when I was in Spain. Poetry is very easy to write in Spain. Or Italy. Or on airplanes. It's not so as easy to write at home, I don't know why.
The Shawna story is just what happened. We went to the beach, she was driving, I noticed I was covered in salt; took a taste. Then, of course I was so tickled that I tasted like the ocean I kept doing it. The real part of the story is that Shawna made me go into the ocean for the first time in, like, 15 years. We were out there wading around and she just keeps swimming out father and farther and I didn't want to follow her and she was confused until finally I told her. This is all very strange becuase we live in San Diego. What normal woman in her 30's who has always lived near the beach doesn't go in?
That's a story for another post. It's time for the poem...here goes...
tiny flies float
over fruit in a bowl
the sun creeping
through the dirty window screen
flies are the thoughts
of week-old pears
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Fakes on a Train
The easiest way to explain this is just to say that by the time the second Valium kicked in the train was well its way to its second stop.
Now, this is not a blog about a junkie. But, that being said, when I do get the chance to legally get buzzed on a train, who am I to question the Universe?
The boring part of the story is that I needed dental work. Gum work. Serious gum work that involved needles and pain and...most of you have stopped reading here. No one will read about dental work. No one even wants dental work. Including me, hence the Valium. It's the only way to get me in the dentist chair.
Now, the Valium is meant to be taken the night before the procedure and then again one hour before. The caveat? - I am not allowed to drive under the influence and no one could take me. But, lucky me, I live about two miles from a train station and my dentist's office is about two blocks from one of the stops along the route. Trust me, as a semi-rural, suburb, So. Cal. resident, this is lucky.
I walk to the station around 8:20, arrive by 8:50, buy my ticket and, as my appointment is at 9:40, I take my pill. All is fine. In fact, all is Groooovy. My train arrives on time, there are plenty of seats. I take one in an empty row that's slightly elevated above the others, providing me with a clear view of many of the other passengers in front and behind me. And I feel fine. "Life is fine. Fine as wine. Life is fine." (You get bonus points if you can name that poet.)
I like this spot because I'm a people watcher. The middle-aged Asian woman sitting across from me never opened her eyes. She wore pristine black tennis shoes, matching socks, and clutched a box of Kleenex in one hand and a single tissue in the other. She dabbed her nose as rhythmically as a metronome and I am still hard pressed to tell you whether she was ill or inconsolable. And as the drugs in my system began to present their affects, I had the urge to inquire about her dilemma. In my mind's eye I pictured the scene..."'Scuse me, ma'am. You ahwright?" Her dark eyes would blaze open and in Korean whisper-spell her ailment. And me, well, I'm not that good of a speller in English let alone...
Passenger two was a very thin Hispanic man in his early 40's. His dress was a throwback from MC Hammer days. Baseball hat on backward, purple parachute pants, tan tank-top, gold chain. He boarded at that second stop, Buena Creek, when the Valium made it seem as if the train were still moving, the world seeming to move in and out, not side to side and not stopping to let this new fixture on. He kept his hands in his pockets the whole time and looked around nervously. When the train cop (marshal? security? rent-a-cop? well?...in my defense, he did have a gun. I know, I stared at it a little too closely, leaned into the aisle as he...) walked passed both of us, MC's eyes followed him to the back of the car. As soon as the cop(?) moved to the other side of the train, MC moved to a seat directly opposite of where he had been sitting, he kept his hands in his pockets this whole time.
Eyes-closed Asian lady and Hands-in-Pocket MC and I all arrived at the next station, Palomar College. I see a stocky man, thirty-something, wearing a hooded navy sweatshirt, walk past the window, to the other side of the platform. He had white ear-buds in and immediately pulled his hood to cover his ears and the back third of his head. Not the whole head, nor the face. At this point, to me the face blurred and I tried to focus on my own ear buds, the pod cast of This American Life detailing the story of a cop who had to arrest a chimpanzee. The hooded man faded into a dream of himself.
And I guess the easiest way to end this is to say that it's lucky the walk from my stop to the dentist's took very little time, even though I shuffled there. Also easiest and kindest not to mention the next two hours, the two hours that the valium was actually intended for.
Now, this is not a blog about a junkie. But, that being said, when I do get the chance to legally get buzzed on a train, who am I to question the Universe?
The boring part of the story is that I needed dental work. Gum work. Serious gum work that involved needles and pain and...most of you have stopped reading here. No one will read about dental work. No one even wants dental work. Including me, hence the Valium. It's the only way to get me in the dentist chair.
Now, the Valium is meant to be taken the night before the procedure and then again one hour before. The caveat? - I am not allowed to drive under the influence and no one could take me. But, lucky me, I live about two miles from a train station and my dentist's office is about two blocks from one of the stops along the route. Trust me, as a semi-rural, suburb, So. Cal. resident, this is lucky.
I walk to the station around 8:20, arrive by 8:50, buy my ticket and, as my appointment is at 9:40, I take my pill. All is fine. In fact, all is Groooovy. My train arrives on time, there are plenty of seats. I take one in an empty row that's slightly elevated above the others, providing me with a clear view of many of the other passengers in front and behind me. And I feel fine. "Life is fine. Fine as wine. Life is fine." (You get bonus points if you can name that poet.)
I like this spot because I'm a people watcher. The middle-aged Asian woman sitting across from me never opened her eyes. She wore pristine black tennis shoes, matching socks, and clutched a box of Kleenex in one hand and a single tissue in the other. She dabbed her nose as rhythmically as a metronome and I am still hard pressed to tell you whether she was ill or inconsolable. And as the drugs in my system began to present their affects, I had the urge to inquire about her dilemma. In my mind's eye I pictured the scene..."'Scuse me, ma'am. You ahwright?" Her dark eyes would blaze open and in Korean whisper-spell her ailment. And me, well, I'm not that good of a speller in English let alone...
Passenger two was a very thin Hispanic man in his early 40's. His dress was a throwback from MC Hammer days. Baseball hat on backward, purple parachute pants, tan tank-top, gold chain. He boarded at that second stop, Buena Creek, when the Valium made it seem as if the train were still moving, the world seeming to move in and out, not side to side and not stopping to let this new fixture on. He kept his hands in his pockets the whole time and looked around nervously. When the train cop (marshal? security? rent-a-cop? well?...in my defense, he did have a gun. I know, I stared at it a little too closely, leaned into the aisle as he...) walked passed both of us, MC's eyes followed him to the back of the car. As soon as the cop(?) moved to the other side of the train, MC moved to a seat directly opposite of where he had been sitting, he kept his hands in his pockets this whole time.
Eyes-closed Asian lady and Hands-in-Pocket MC and I all arrived at the next station, Palomar College. I see a stocky man, thirty-something, wearing a hooded navy sweatshirt, walk past the window, to the other side of the platform. He had white ear-buds in and immediately pulled his hood to cover his ears and the back third of his head. Not the whole head, nor the face. At this point, to me the face blurred and I tried to focus on my own ear buds, the pod cast of This American Life detailing the story of a cop who had to arrest a chimpanzee. The hooded man faded into a dream of himself.
And I guess the easiest way to end this is to say that it's lucky the walk from my stop to the dentist's took very little time, even though I shuffled there. Also easiest and kindest not to mention the next two hours, the two hours that the valium was actually intended for.
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