summer blockbusters

And I don’t mean the Transformers sequel kind. You and I will bust through my writer’s block this July. We will do this together! All you need to do is give me a prompt, and I will use it to write at least 100 words each day of July. Send your prompts via comments here or via Twitter. If you are similarly blocked and want to play along, you are cordially invited to do so. Let’s have some fun!

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Posted on 30 Jun 2009 | 8 comments

bridge from sunday

I dream of being late for work, drenched in sweat, catching a cab to my home and not having enough time to shower. I wake up before my alarm goes off. The tick of a cat’s tail is at my chin. The heavy curtains gap near the top, a knowing wink of light: not yet, but soon. Without my glasses, the bedpost is a smudge and not a sphere. Cat’s tail ticks. To call the weekend “brief” would do a disservice to all we packed in: our house show, our gardening, our quiet talks and unquiet laughter. Monday mornings are difficult for me in the most cliched way: I struggle to stay motivated in my job, because one half of it requires me to be the heavy, the other half requires me to be the martyr, and both halves require me to take all of it with...

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Posted on 30 Jun 2009 | Comments Off

fifteen in fifteen

This sort of meme makes me both crazy and happy. The instructions are as follows: “Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me because I’m interested in seeing what books my friends choose.” The list is in order of how I thought of it, not how I read it. Reply in a comment if you so desire. (Thanks for the tag, Jen!) 1984 by George Orwell Brave New World by Aldous Huxley The Bridge by Iain Banks Justine by Lawrence Durrell Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll Demian by Hermann Hesse Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham Watchmen by Alan Moore...

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Posted on 13 Jun 2009 | 1 comment

the sprouts of despair

Angsomnia: when, due to angst, one cannot sleep. I should have had a perfectly lovely evening. Before that, I should have had a perfectly lovely day. All of my problems were no more than minor irritations in actuality, logistical tangles to untie quickly and cleanly. Why, then, do I only fumble them? The dish I promised to make for tonight’s pot-luck supper has a time-intensive component: shredding 2 pounds of brussels sprouts by hand because we don’t yet own a food processor. I decided to buy all of the ingredients Thursday night so I could easily make the recipe Friday night, then send it to work with FunkyPlaid on Saturday morning so I didn’t have to carry it on the bus. By the time Friday night cooking time rolled around, I wasn’t in...

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Posted on 7 Jun 2009 | 4 comments