Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Creeper Peepers

Leah's prompt today is another picture:



Initially I felt really ambiguous about this picture because my mind automatically went to peeping toms, which creep me out, but it’s an older gentleman paired with a younger boy and there’s nothing sinister about that, right? I don’t know. I’ve never had a good enough relationship with my grandparents to understand how a shared experience like this would play out. 

So I added another element by randomly selecting a feeling out of the Emotion Thesauruses: Impatience. Which I have a lot of experience with.

And this is where my 10 minute free-write meandered from there:

I am a creeper. I am a peeping tom. So many times I’ve looked through the fence of life and watched someone else doing something, being something, and I’ve thought, “Ooo! I want that!”

People old and young join me at this fence, which helps me justify my peeping, because it’s okay if our individuality is swallowed up in the mass and everyone’s doing it. It’s really cathartic to get swallowed up in that unthinking mass. We ogle others and want. And want. And crave. And become impatient for the outcome without really processing all the work it takes to get there. 

Patience is a virtue. Thus quoteth the mass. But the difference is that patience is something that has to be shaped by the individual, regardless of who’s toting the most up-to-date proverb. I’ve never known a patient mob. 

Mobs crush in their rush.

Patience is a really hard virtue to develop. 

I know this more as a mom than I did as a…whatever I was before. (Don’t get stuck in that loop of thought. Redirect.)

A mom. Yes. My kids ask for things and I see there is a process to attaining that thing but they must have milk NOW! They don’t even begin to understand the process, and how many individuals are involved in that work. 

Which all means something, I’m sure, but in this moment all I hear is crying and so I putter off without anything being resolved. Or perhaps it is? I’m not impatient to find out. 


Sunday, September 21, 2014

Heart Space

Leah is continuing the prompts through the weekend. What? I know! So I'm running behind on this one, and so many others, just don't think about it! Here's the prompt:

Make a list of places you don't go anymore

And here's my 10 minute list:
original link

dark room
the greenbelt
jungle run
table rock cross
simplot’s hill
bogus basin
orchestra practice
mandarin garden
basement of the business building
laundromat
the quad
beaver mountain
swing café
mike hams
the raven
security office at the theater
employee lounge
on the bart
the underworld
the gym
path by the canal
green studio
the owl
the loop drive
secret orchard at Red Butte Garden
that one greek restaurant
Bryant Middleschool
smoke shops

And just because, here's a song place I used to visit frequently but don't much anymore:

 

What unvisited places fill up your heart spaces? 



Thursday, September 18, 2014

Head and Hart

Today's prompt from Leah is a picture that lead to a mighty argument in my head:

Writer Deb: [pensive look with nose close to picture, then sits back in chair] Yep, so, I’ve got nothing.

Reader Deb: Wait, what? You can’t do that.

WD: Actually I can. I’m in charge.

RD: [snorts] Yeah. And my name is Ozymandias, otherwise known as Awesomeface: the mighty look on my works with despair.

WD: Nice reference Stumpy.

RD: [shrugs] Reading rocks.

WD: I’ll leave you to that, then. I have this other thing I’m working on.

RD: [in whiny voice] But you promised me something to read. You mentioned shapeshifters earlier. What about that?

WD: [looks back at picture; long pause, then shakes head] Yep. Nope. I just keep thinking about this other thing.

RD: No.

WD: No?

RD: [wriggles deeper into chair and folds arms firmly] No.

WD: I’m in charge, remember?

RD: No.

WD: [moves to edge of seat and thumbs toward kitchen] Okay, well I’m just going to go over here and warm up some water for tea and…

RD: No.

WD: That’s what I do to prep…

RD: Shapeshifters, shapeshifters, shapeshifters, shapeshifters.

WD: Stop it.

RD: SHAPESHIFTERS, SHAPESHIFTERS, SHAPESHIFTERS!

WD: Oh my gosh fine! 

RD: [smug grin]

WD: Once upon a time there was a man who was in love with a shapeshifter but then she broke his heart and left in the form of a deer but then he tracked her down which was easy enough because he was a hunter and he shot her and bled her out and ripped her heart from her chest and ate it which was only fair because a heart for a heart. 

RD: Um.

WD: And she was a hart! Ha! See my wittiness?

RD: [dark frown] That was not okay.

WD: What?

RD: Now I’m going to have that stuck in my head all day.

WD: [huge sigh] Well if you’d just let me…

RD: I know, I know, the other thing. But now I’m going to have that image stuck in my head all day. 

WD: Go away.

RD: But I want a good story.

WD: Go away.

RD: You’re rude.

WD: Go away.

RD: You smell.

WD: I am in charge now go away!


RD: You are not Awesomeface.

WD: [primal roar] MY NAME IS WRITER DEB, QUEEN OF QUEENS: LOOK ON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR! 

RD: Well at least you have the despair part right [gets up to find something else to read]

WD: [smug grin] Now for some tea.



Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Written On the Sky

Today's prompt is lost, so here's this instead:

Written On the Sky

“Don’t do it," a warm voice said, startling Ella. 

She looked up from the crumpled cash she was placing on the counter. She blinked at the guy snapping a lid onto her coffee cup. Small silver hoops winked against his dark ears. She tilted her head in surprise at the sky-blue of his eyes. How had she missed those before? He flashed a grin and handed over her cup.

“Um,” she mumbled, distracted from her morbid thoughts by an unexpected dimple. “Don’t do what?”

He shrugged. “Whatever it was you were thinking just then. Don’t do it.”

“Oh, right.” She flushed and lifted her cup as she turned. “Thanks for the joe.”

“Hang on,” he said when Ella’s hand pressed the door to leave. She paused and watched him call to his coworker, “Ester, cover me for a sec?”

A couple customers huddled at their tables around the small shop, reading or sipping silently. Slow evening. The redhead drying mugs at the counter lifted her chin, glanced up and down Ella once, then shrugged and returned to her drying.

The guy stepped around the register and met Ella at the door. When he pushed it open a bell dinged. Outside he took off his green apron and folded it on the curb of the tiny parking lot.

Ella frowned and shook her head, unsure what to do. He gestured for her to sit on the green square of apron, then sat on the cement next to it. He pulled a pod with earbuds out of his back pocket and scrolled to a song as Ella sat cross-legged. Handing the pod over, he tucked one of the buds into her ear, one into his. When the music started, she couldn’t help but close her eyes to listen. 

It wasn't what she’d expected.

It finished much too soon.

When she opened her eyes again she was immediately distracted by that dimple. She looked away as she pulled the bud from her ear, fumbled it back to him, and fiddled with the top of her cup.

“So?” he asked.

“Nice.” 

He chuckled soft. “Here,” he said as he took the cup from her hands and leaned slightly toward her. Ella held her breath, again unsure what to do. He pulled a Sharpie out of his back pocket and hunched over the cup.

Ella let out her breath with a huff. “Do you have a Mary Poppin's pocket back there or something?”

He didn’t look up, but dimpled. “Is it sad that I get that reference?”

No, not sad. Not at all. 

When he handed the cup back a line of black digits was scrawled under the word ‘Chase’ in typical guy scribble. 

Ella quirked one brow. “Is that your name or a suggestion?”

“You’ll have to call the number to find out.”

original link
She smiled for what seemed the first time in forever. A small smile, but a definite uptick in her lips. A small uptick in her life. 

He took her hand and lifted her to her feet, then grabbed his apron and tied it low around his hips as he walked backwards toward the door. 

“You should do that,” he said.

“Do what?” she asked, rubbing her thumb over the writing on her cup.

He paused, something indistinguishable written on the sky of his eyes. “Whatever it was you were thinking just then. Do that instead.”



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