Peculiar, Not Ha-Ha

Words and mins not counted

It’s funny – and funny probably is not really what it is – that what’s all-in-a-day’s-work for one person [vet tech and vet] is a-really-sad-day or heartbreak for others [me, Lex, mommy, daddy, and Alex]. Max was part of our family for 15 years, and, in the time it took me and Brian to walk around the block, now he’s not. Funny ‘bout that. Funny and a real pain in the ass.

Max:Neph ::
Siebzehn and Zenobia:Me and Lex

Breakin up is hard to do

Deleting him from her life took longer than telling him it (the he/she thing) was over:
1st. Erasing numbers from SIM card
2nd. Blocking on Ichat
3rd. De friending on Myspace
4th. Cancelling as a Flickr contact
5th. Unfavoriting her favorites of his flickr pics
6th. Taking off friendster [Friendster. That's how long they dated.]
7th. Removing from email address book
8th. De-hyperlinking his blog from the what I'm reading list on her's
9th. Scratching his link from De.li.cious
10th. Un-RSSing his website and the aboves that Feeded her
11th. Casting him from her Facebook network
12th. Changing the "ring" on her phone to someone else's voice
13th. Telling her friends — flesh and virtual - to do the same, which was made a bit easier by all the technology of the above.

Welcome Back

108 words, 4 minutes
It’s as though she expected to walk back into the same life she left behind. Each new restaurant or shop was remarked upon with surprise. Transformations among people, in their relationships with each other or individually, were disregarded or observed slyly, curiously. There was no room for anyone else. Change was irrelevant. We were to pick up where she left off. Same paint colors, same favorite bar, same routine. Familiar patterns of dialogue that were tired even before she was gone. That there were births and deaths and meetings and partings meant nothing to her. For some of us the blindness was irritating; for others devastating. Perspective dependent.

Another email

125 words, 12 minutes
It’s expected yet still comes as a surprise. The frisson of the new, the giddiness and anticipation -- the hope and enchantment of perfection and possibility and rebirth -- gives way to reality and disappointment, compromise and routine. Comfort takes the place of shadows and mystery. Often, magic turns to mundane. Some [i, you, he, she, we, they] prefer the vastness and sparkle of the unknown for the intimacy of the regular, looking over and over again for affirmation by starting with someone or something new. Or they play with the line, touching a toe here and there over it but never committing to a full step across. The ego’s gratified and the conscience clear. They flirt with risk, believing they are committed to safety.

One is Foot; Two is Feet

168 words 11 minutes
Looking lost, like a the vegan in the butcher shop she was, J asked “Where might I find a pig’s foot.” She wasn’t prepared for and was perplexed by the butcher’s chuckle when he said “Pig’s foot?!” Then the guy behind her let out a loud laugh before telling his wife “She wants a pig’s foot.” Still not getting it, and she probably never will, J looked puzzled as she explained that “The recipe calls for pigs feet but I am halfing it so as to make a vegetarian version and a meat version.” The butcher clearly enjoyed the growing audience as the word spread among other customers that “She wants a pig’s foot.” He pointed to a freezer. “Lady, I’ll sell you a pig’s foot. Sure!” J took the pig’s foot leaving behind the crowd buzzing with delight that “The lady over there wanted a pig’s foot.” Three years later, the butcher still waves when she walks by as he shakes his head and remembers “Pig’s Foot!”

Room of Her Own

114 words 7 minutes. Not finished
The pages of the cookbook fell away as she leafed through it. She was vaguely aware of Jim Lehrer’s newsman’s timber coming from the corner of the kitchen. The television always reminded her of a hospital room, the way it was affixed high on a swivel platform, hovering above everything. “Take it off the counter. Make room for your cookbooks,” Jeff said. The television was the only thing he requested of the new kitchen and the only thing in which he ever took an interest. She didn’t care much at all but kept it on anyway. The nuggets picked up were enough to keep the conversation going on her daily walks with the ladies.

All in a Day

149 words 5 minutes
He’s probably seen thousands of piles of underwear. Probably doesn’t even notice. Probably seen worse. He’s a cable guy and as such has entré into the very personal space of very many strangers. Everyday. Bedrooms, offices, living rooms, even bathrooms. Nevertheless, she covered the pile on her bed with a towel, making small talk while he drilled and connected and sliced and braided. His responses were half-hearted at best. Finally giving up, she went downstairs for ice water. Placing the ice water on the bureau, she told him to yell if he needed her. Which he didn’t. He had it down. It was his work. The underwear went unnoticed. In fact, she saw him a few days later, high on a ladder leaning against a telephone pole, installing someone else’s cable. She said hello in recognition. He said hello to be polite. No recognition. Probably didn’t even notice.

"Work, Lately" or "melodrama" or "heart in my throat and knot in my stomach"

139words, 5-7 minutes
The computer stared blankly back. The words won’t write themselves, she said. Just fill the paper with anything. Go back and edit later. Still mockingly blank, torturing her, the white page. It’s in my head, a jumbled mess. If I could only find the starting thread, then I’d be able to undo the knot, working carefully until it’s one continuous thought, stretching from end to end. The words would flow and the thoughts unravel.

Starting words: If only; there was a time; since the beginning; it happened; once upon a time; until the time; in a fog; permeating the air; with a glance; until that moment; across the room; in a train shed; under the boardwalk; the sticky glass; watching the ant; moving from here to there…so many beginnings.

So easy.But no middle. And no end.

Blah blah blah.

Lady in Waiting

135 words in 10 minutes
“This time,” she raged in her head. “I’m going to let that motherfucker really have it.” The fish, at first a beautiful slick filet, now looked tired lying next to a pile of wilting scallions. Tomatoes, picked fresh from the garden just this afternoon, sat in a soggy pile, juice leaking into hill of droopy basil. “Fuck him. Fuck this dinner. I’m done.” Two hours late without even calling. A meeting, no doubt. Got caught up on X. A last minute phone conference with the West coast. “Who fucking cares,” she yells at the door, behind which a car is pulling up in the driveway, the engine drowned out by her voice. Two minutes later the door opens and he walks through. “Honey,” she exclaims with delight. “I was just putting the fish on.”

Laughing

202 words, 10 minutes or longer

People looked at him and thought: Lonely. It’s a shame, they’d say and shake their heads, he has no one. Not a living soul to talk to. To them, the headshakes were an expression of caring. Christian compassion. To Honesty, they were an expression of judgment and difference. In their minds, empathy was enough. They cared so they could stay away from him. Maybe, they would never admit to thinking, his weirdness is contagious.

He looked at them and thought: Silly. They just yap away their days, he’d think – that is when he stopped to think about them at all. To them, the world is small, limited to each other and their disregard for the unknown. To him, the world is boundless, swollen with beauty: words, movement, breath, touch, fire and ice, sea and sky, soaring eagles and marching ants, music and mourning, fields of cotton and bricks and mortar, endlessness and end. At times, the beauty, the extraordinariness, is unbearable. At times, it makes him cry. But it never ever makes him lonely. Maybe, he’d think – those times he stopped to think of them at all – wonder and awe of the world is contagious. Maybe, I will stop and say hello.

The First Two

Climb to the Top
108 words in 5 minutes
The bumper sticker is taped to the inside rear left window of the mini cooper. It’s forest green; the mini, not the sticker. The color of the car doesn’t matter much to this story, and it matters not at all to the body that was just a few short weeks ago stuffed in its trunk. It’s just that it’s a nice color. The sticker says: This car climbed Mt. X. Other drivers reading the sticker think: “Fun adventurer!” For the little man driving the car, the souvenir of his mountainous climb to bury the body that was once his wife is his small personal joke on the world.

Eye of a Needle
110 words, written in 5-10 minutes
The curious little nose poked its way through the thin opening between the floor and the trim. Its body followed shortly behind, pressing itself flat as a board to make the trip. Keeping up the rear was the long gray tail. (Those mice. Their little bodies can squeeze into any space their little nose does.) Now through the hole, the mouse, like a sponge or piece of squished Wonder bread, sprung back to his original state just in time to see the paw-shaped shadow descending. By the time he made it to the cat's mouth, it didn't matter whether he was flat or fat, because he was about to be dead.

Once upon a time

The night of the mouse -- or was it the night of Realms of the Unreal -- Brian suggested journaling/writing about all that stuff in my head about all that stuff like death and aging and worry and fear. So I did. And now I do. The first thing I wrote was about the mouse, I think. Maybe it was the thing about the guy in the mini with the bumper sticker who killed his wife and buried the body. In any case, they are all written in 10 minutes; average 100 words; and are unedited (for the most part). Some are from something my head is dwelling on; some are from something I see; some are just my desperate attempt to do anything but work. Fiction and fact and thought and feeling. With endings or without.

Anyway, sometimes I'll put them here.