The Novel-less Novelist

Taylor Made

2012-01-22T18:37:00.000-08:00

I haven't been writing lately.
It's tough.
It's a bit of an identity crisis, actually.
Who is a writer who isn't writing?

But at the same time, my need to be creative is finding new and interesting outlets.
I've made my way into the wedding industry.
Yes, you heard that right.
I'm designing and creating wedding invitations through my new business venture, Taylor Made.
Plus all the extra goodies that a beautiful wedding will have.

The artist in me really enjoys it.
I love contributing to someone's special day, and making a small piece of art that represents someone's feelings. It's a tangible reflection of one of life's great intangibles.
And what a lovely thing to be so surrounded by love.
To be approached by brides bubbling over with excitement, to be so full of happiness in the pursuit of the first perfect day in their long, loving marriages.

I am fortunate.

I run my studio out of Ottawa, Ontario but that doesn't stop me from meeting with brides from all over the world over email. The creative process knows no boundaries.

http://www.taylormadewithlove.com

Elegy

2009-04-28T17:04:00.000-07:00

I was sitting at the bar in a club in Montreal. My friends danced around me, pulling on my arm, trying to get me off the stool. I faked a cheery smile and shooed them away with a gesture of my drink. I swallowed tears.

Four surgeries and nearly a year of convalescence had gone by, and I was changed. Bed rest had left me fat, scalpels had left me scarred, medication had left me swollen and despondent. It was my first night out in 14 months and I would have given anything to be back in my bed, safely under sheets where my self-consciousness wouldn't have mattered. I didn't recognize myself - not in the mirror, and not my heart. I couldn't dance, not like this. For the first time in my life, I sat through an amazing set, and I barely even jiggled my foot.

And then, for a split second, the music stopped, and I looked toward the dj booth. He smiled at me, and he announced the next song: "For the pretty girl who just won't dance, maybe this one will get her up."

He winked.
I danced.

Robbie had a way of knowing what we needed before we knew it ourselves.

He was always there for me, with a hand on my back and a whisper in my ear. His amazing heart was generous to a fault. He gave and he gave, and he made you feel like you were the gift.

It was impossible for me not to fall in love with Robbie. That such a talented man could in turn be so passionate about supporting my humble pursuits always left me feeling breathless. He never asked for much. He was surprisingly quiet, and thoughtful. He made me feel safe.

We aren't really here today to say goodbye to him, we're here to love each other through our shared sadness. We are lucky to have known him, because it's brought us into this circle of friends and family who all really care for one another. Robbie was a handsome flirt, covered in tattoos, who loved fast cars and thick steaks and expensive shoes. But he knew that life was good because of the people in it, and he loved us all, every day, sometimes more than I, at least, deserved.

I've struggled this week knowing that I couldn't at the time give him what he wanted, and I've regretted some of the things gone unsaid. It was his mother, Cecilia, who gave me some comfort. "He died happy," she said "because he died with you in his heart."

I hope that is true. I hope he knew he always had my heart, as much as I could give.
Today I give a little more.
And so do we all.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

2008-05-10T13:28:00.000-07:00

I remember the beginning of the end, back before I knew that it would end, back when I still thought that he and I were inevitable, inseparable, back when I still believed in happy endings and that tough times would only make us stronger, back when I believed that it all meant something, back when I still believed.

I wish I had the grace, the easy nobility that allows people to want happiness for others, even at their own expense.

I wish I could say my own happiness wasn't still occasionally tainted with thoughts of what should have been.

I wish I was as unruffled as I pretend to be.

I wish I could go back six months and curl up beside my fetal-positioned self, the one so badly in need of a confidante, stroke the hair of a girl I would barely recognize as myself as she cried herself to sleep in unfamiliar surroundings.

I wish I could skip ahead six months and whisper in my own ear as I dance in someone else's arms that it's not so scary, that the past doesn't necessarily repeat itself, that this guy shouldn't pay for someone else's mistakes, that forever is still possible.

I wish I could convince myself right this very moment that everything is going to turn out okay, that I haven't missed my only chance, that good gets better, that I do deserve the things I once imagined for myself, that I shouldn't disbelieve.

I wish that I didn't wish, in a tiny corner of my heart, that he has regrets.

I wish I wasn't so disappointed in him. I wish the good times weren't obscured by the bad, and that he had been more worthy, and that I didn't have to think of him as a mistake.

I wish that I wasn't so overwhelmed by my own striking ability to move on. I wish I wasn't so surprised at how quickly I forgot his voice, how easily I went to bed with someone else, how much I've grown and changed and laughed and lived.

I wish I didn't at moments feel guilty for having abandoned vows that I truly meant with all my heart, for giving up on dreams we shared, for turning my back on a future so lovingly mapped-out, for waking up this morning with a smile on my lips and a heart unshadowed by sadness.

I wish I could forget, at least a little.

I hope I can forgive, at least with time.

I believe that life is different, but good;
that I bent but didn't break;
that he was my first love, but not my only;
that he was good but not good enough;
that I am strong and getting stronger;
that there are always better days ahead;
that dancing cures a lot of ills;
that good friends are indispensable;
that bruised hearts will heal;
that tears dry up;
that life is beautiful, and so am I.

Long Road To Ruin

2008-04-30T18:57:00.000-07:00

Because he hit me, or because I stuck around for him to do it again?

Because he fucked me, or because I liked it?

Because I let things go too far, or because I didn't even regret it?

Because he wasn't the first, or the last?

When does it become official? When am I damaged goods?

Dear Ex-Lover:

2008-04-18T12:24:00.000-07:00

I still remember some things. I remember the golden hair on your arms, the way you held a fork, your ineptitude with hair product, your crappy taste in music, your cocky driving, your favourite spot at the zoo, the hoodie I bought for you but always stole for myself.

I remember some things very well, but it's the things that I don't remember that matter the most.

I forget what it was like to kiss you, really kiss you.

I forget what you sound like. I can't remember your voice.

I forget how listening to our song used to make me feel, how it was to dance in your arms.

I forget why I thought you were the one;

why we'd always be together;

why I loved

so.

damned.

hard.

I'd meant to stay in love with you, together or apart. I had such good intentions. But life gets in the way. I've lived. I've lived so much without you that it takes my breath away. I kept going; life kept going. It swept me away. I've been swept away, and not by you. Not this time. Not anymore.

I'm forgetting you little by little.

It's sad in a way. Terrifying. Healing. Soothing. Empowering.

I'm saying goodbye.

I'm gone.

...

I guess you don't get to break my heart after all.

4am Love Song

2008-04-12T04:00:00.000-07:00

I will never say these words to your face:

I felt something.
I felt something beyond your tongue on my throat, your hands on my hips, your hardness pushing up inside me.
I felt something else.
I felt like maybe I knew you.
Like maybe the first time didn't necessarily have to be the last.

I stood outside on the concrete step, wrapped in only a sheet, watching you drive away. I didn't wave, I didn't want to. I just leaned my naked shoulder against the post and watched the stars instead of your brake lights. Unseasonably cold for April, I saw my breath in the air and felt the chill of a gentle wind prickle my skin where not long before it held the heat of your stroke.

I could have asked you to stay. You would have stayed, I think, if I'd asked.

I didn't.

I don't do that. Not in a long time. But tonight my bed feels empty. I can still smell your aftershave on the pillow, lingering like our goodnight kiss.

Goodnight or goodbye? I said neither. I merely licked your bottom lip, kissed the corner of your mouth, squeezed your hand and moaned when you brushed my breast with your fingertips.

That said enough.

It said:

come back
be in my life
do that again
don't let go...

don't let go.

Dear Bella

2008-02-04T22:28:00.000-08:00

You were so beautiful.

I was drunk, of course, but not just on the rum. I was intoxicated with the freedom of an international vacation, with the thrill at having travelled independently for the first time in my life, with the luxury of my foreign surroundings. And from the moment we locked eyes, I was heady with your vision, and then your scent, and eventually, your taste.

You were beautiful, as I said. You smelled like coconut. You tasted of pineapple, and later, of me.

We danced without talking, without even exchanging names.
We attracted quite a lot of attention, your black hair floating around you, my blonde locks twisting around your fingers. You were tall and graceful and your dark brown skin was smooth like rich chocolate while I was pale, just barely pinked by my two or three days in the Mexican sun.

Our lips were either the first thing to touch, or the last thing to touch. I can never remember. Either way, it was a kiss that left every man in the bar aching to go home with either you, or I, or both, and it was that kiss that inspired us to leave only with each other.

I remember snatches of that night: the roundness of your belly; my legs spread like the wings of a butterfly; the smell of the crisp hotel sheets; the sound of the waves gently lapping at the beach just outside; the way the shadows kissed your curves; the salinity of your skin; the way your name felt in the back of my throat.

You left on a plane home the next morning.
I'd never been with a woman before, nor have I since, nor am I likely to again.
You were enough.
I loved you briefly, but hard.

And sometimes I love you still, but only in dreams.

Dear Joshua

2008-02-01T10:49:00.000-08:00

Fuck butterflies.

I'm thinking today of that night, that first, perfect night.
I'm thinking of your purple shirt that smelled of detergent and street party and you.
Of the way you held both our drinks in one hand so your other could be low enough on my back to not really be on my back anymore as you guided us to the badly-lit booth in the back.
The feeling of your hand on my leg as you leaned in closer to hear my stories, the way you looked at my throat when I tilted my head back to laugh, then looked down the deep vee of my dress with greed and without embarrassment.

It was a seedy bar with sticky tabletops and gritty floors. I remember the tinkle of the bell when we walked through the door as friends, and the tinkle of the bell as we left it as more. From the moment you touched my hair, the inside of my wrist, I knew our friendship was doomed. Over before it really began. It wasn't butterflies you gave me that night. Fuck butterflies. It was a pack of wild stallions stampeding around in my stomach, a feeling so intense and so urgent there was no question that I could or would ignore it.

Husband? What husband?

I remember that you held my hand, sweetly. I remember how our limbs brushed together repeatedly as we walked along too closely. I remember standing in front of a hoover store, the St Clair crowds slowly thinning in the lateness of the hour, and you wrapping your arms around me as if it were some romantic spot. It wasn't, and it was.

It all happened so fast, didn't it? Only a couple of hours from near-strangers to...to this. To you pointing out stars to me that we could barely see. To me asking if you wanted to come up. To you saying yes, desperately.

And so it was.

xo

Excerpt.

2008-01-13T02:30:00.000-08:00

It’s a scorching summer day, the kind with tangible heat hanging about and fat, humid droplets practically suspended in the air. I am sitting on top of the picnic table, picking at the flaking coat of paint, piling brown paint chips on the skirt of my yellow sundress. My father stands beside me, barefoot in the freshly mown grass, pushing hotdogs around on the barbecue grill. He is wearing the cheesy apron we gave him last month for Father’s Day.

“How many can you eat?” he asks me. “You look pretty hungry today, do you want four? Five?” He winks at me.

“No Daddy!” I squeal. “Just one, with lots of mustard.”

“Yes, yes, I know” he says, “extra ketchup for my little girl.”

“No! Ew, no Daddy, no ketchup!” I know he is teasing; he always teases me. I love it when he teases me.

“Okay, no ketchup, just relish. Now that you’re seven, you must learn to love relish!” he proclaims, gesturing wildly with his tongs.

I giggle, and spring up from my perch, dumping my carefully collected paint chips to the ground. I scurry under the picnic table to pick them up, and I enjoy the feeling of the soft grass tickling my knees. The cut grass smells so good and the table above me gives me shelter and shade. I spy a ladybug crawling up a leg of the table. I pluck a blade of grass and offer it to her; she climbs aboard. She is more orange than red, with only a few of the characteristic black spots ladybugs are famous for. I decide she is curious and friendly, and I scoot out from under the table to show Daddy my treasure.

“Look Daddy, a ladybug! Her name is Marlene!”

“How do you know it’s a girl?” he asks, dutifully studying the bug. “Not all ladybugs are girls,” he says, ruffling my hair. Daddy tells the silliest jokes.

I put Marlene back into the grass, and she spreads her wings and flies away. I watch her go until the speck in the sky becomes indistinguishable. The sun is so high and bright in the sky that I have to look away. The sky is blue and cloudless, and I am conscious of the heat all around me. Sweat has begun to pool behind my knees and down the small of my back but I'm not uncomfortable, only thirsty. July is a thirsty month, but luckily there is a tall pitcher on the picnic table, and Daddy has poured me a glass full almost to the top. I lift the sweating glass of ice-cold pink lemonade to my lips. It is tart on my tongue. A little stream makes its way down my chin and onto the front of my dress, but I don’t care. I drink and drink, hearing the ice cubes clink together, hoping to drain the glass all at once like Daddy can. Finally I can take no more, and I set the glass down, realizing it is still two thirds full. I pant to regain my breath.
Daddy picks up the glass and drains it in one big gulp. Little pieces of pink pulp are trapped in his mustache and he lets me brush them off with my fingers which are sticky from where I have spilled. We sit down to eat.

Mom and Vivi have gone to town this afternoon to shop, so it’s just him and me for lunch. He lets us have chips with our hotdogs, and he tells me it will be our little secret. He tells me great stories about all the dogs he had on the farm as a kid, all 8 of them named Bob, and how all the Bobs were jealous of his pony Bud, which he rode every day until he outgrew it.

“I want a pony, Daddy!” I say, as though it has suddenly occurred to me. As if I haven’t told him as much at least a half a dozen times already that day.

“I know you do, Sweetie, and as soon as we move to the bigger property, we’ll get you one. Do you promise to take care of it?” he asks.

“Yes Daddy! I will ride her and love her and brush her hair and feed her apples and sugar cubes every day.” I think about the plastic ponies I have in my toy chest, and how lovingly I braid their silky rainbow hair before I go to bed at night.

We finish our meal in the sunshine. I am careful not to drip mustard onto my dress, where the lemonade stains are quickly drying. I beg Daddy for more stories; I love to hear his deep voice filled with laughter just for me.

“Please just one more story” I say, throwing myself around the bench in restless anticipation. “Tell how you and Mommy met!” I ask of him, already hearing the story ringing in my ears because I knew every word of it by heart.

He tells me about meeting my mother, whom he calls Suzie just to hear me squeal with delight over the implied intimacy of calling her by the name she had before she was a Mommy. He tells me how he fell in love with her at first sight, and how the same would happen to me one day because my eyes are just as pretty as hers.

Shitty Poem

2007-07-03T19:28:00.000-07:00

There is a reason I write prose instead of poetry: my prose is often bloated, self-indulgent and derivative, but my poetry is just plain BAD. However, Eclecta has challenged me to silence my inner-critic, and we've both taken 30 minutes to jot down the first "shitty poem" to come into our heads. Here's mine -

Transition is a shade between black and blue
Darkness gradually becoming less dark
Stars twinkle their retirement
The moon winks its adieu

There is a sacred space where nighttime meets morning
Where orange peeks over the horizon
Burning with the passion of possibilities
Shedding golden light on corners bathed in shadow

Suddenly, the sky melts into a soft, inviting pink
A hopeful hue that holds no burdens
With unassuming grace, it declares to the world:
A new day has dawned.

Here's hers.

And if you happen to see my inner critic, feel free to give her a kick in the balls.

Am Not

2007-05-20T10:15:00.001-07:00

I am not the things that have happened to me.

I am not my father's angry fist.

I am not the small town where I grew up.

I am not the box they tried to put me in.

I am not the whispers that followed me.

I am not my mother's despondent neglect.

I am not the lies that have been written.

I am not the diploma hanging on the wall.

I am not the dollars and cents in my bank account.

I am not the words that have been published.

I am not a victim, or a stranger, or a ghost.

I am not your punching bag.

I am not your biggest mistake.

I am not the receptacle of your hatred.

I am not the sadness in your eyes.

I am not a regret, or a memory, or a boast.

Hi. My Name is Stereo Mike.

2007-05-08T04:48:00.000-07:00

(A love letter to Ed.)

The music is slick on my skin, sealed in by a thin coat of sweat. It's hot in here, the sultry kind of hot; the sticky kind of hot; the best kind of heat I know.

Cigarettes will kill you. I think this when you take a drag. I wish I was a cigarette, that your lips were on me, drinking me in. I wish I was the cloud around you, that I was the scent you carried.

You always have a drink in one hand, and one for me in the other. So I'm sipping on a juice and gin and it awakens my kaleidoscopic mind. Red is the vision. Red is the feeling pulsing all around us.

You have a pretty mouth, you say. A dirty little mouth. The hairs stand up on my body, I lean in close. You haven't touched me yet.

There are people all around us, long legs and big tits, and you never take your eyes off mine. I'm the prettiest mess you've ever seen.

You tell me you don't dance, but we do. Close. And I want a TV embrace. I want you to push me against the wall and kiss my neck. Your hand touches my arm and I ignite. Friction is turning to fire.

Tell me where you'd hide, you whisper in my ear. Your hot tongue darts out and licks my lobe, searing my skin, marking me as yours. I am.

I tell you how I wish I was in your apartment tonight. I bite my bottom lip. I see you watching; you grab me and pull be close. My breath a tickle on your neck, I whisper I want to see your clothes beside, your clothes beside your bed.

I guess I'm just a fool who never looks before she jumps.

You take me by the hand and lead me through the crowd. I know people will talk. I know just what they'll say. I wish I could say that everyone was wrong. I wish everyone was wrong. I know they're not and I don't care. I will only regret the things I don't do. I don't have many regrets. Who'll risk their own self respect in the name of desire? Lovers will.

We sit close in the cab; the city speeds by under stars I can't see. You tell me you're too old for me. I tell you I'm older than my years. Your hand is on my thigh. I am so alive I could die. You are the fire brought to my babylon, you tell my shoulder, so intimate the words lick me and leave me wet.

Every time I play an ace my partner always trumps.

At your place, we walk into this room and fumble in our haste. Clothes are quickly discarded. We lay it down. You devour me with taste. You stretch me with your hands. You love to watch me beg. You offer a la carte. It must feel good to stand above me while I worship at your alter and watch the ripples fade away.

I wake up in your twisted sheets the next morning, your hand still holding my breast. I find bruises on my thigh; souvenirs I will take home with me. So this is goodbye. This isn't for madder love. This is goodbye.

I guess I'll go through life just catching colds and missing trains.
Everything happens to me.

Time passes, I see men come and go. And how I wish I was in your bed tonight. To taste the salt upon, the salt upon your neck. To feel your body press, pressing down on me.

You are an indellible imprint on my mind; a sensation I can't forget. I know that life is for the taking. I still want that TV embrace.

God of Wine

2007-03-29T04:51:00.000-07:00

"Vintage" Jamie, originally found at Kill the Goat.

The Lamborghini races along the old highway, going nowhere in particular, but going there fast. The road traces the contour of a familiar river; the car becomes a red blur along this road. I am unimpressed by the car. I think it's ugly, but there aren't many like it in the area, indeed there are not many people from a certain income bracket in the area, which makes the car, and its driver, conspicuous.

Strands of my hair whip around my face, threatening to mar the cerise lip gloss I have carefully applied. The wind is strong, but the sun is hot, and it feels good. The flowers on my skirt ruffle with the breeze. My toes, painted red for the summer, are up on the dashboard. Any oncoming cars would have quite a show, but there are none. It's just me, and Justin, and Linda. Linda is the car. He named the car. I try not to judge him too harshly for this.

Unlike me, he is tanned. When I am close enough, I can smell the sun in his skin, as if he's marinated in it. He looks over, and smiles. One eyebrow is raised cockily over his Raybans. God he's good looking, and damned if he doesn't know it. It’s that smile, so disarming, that got me here in the first place. He is charming and aloof, and irresistible to women. He is sure of himself, and sure of me.

At his house, we sit out on the patio, indulging as the night brings cooler air. Wolf Blass, Yellow Label. My toes are in the grass, my sandals long forgotten. We talk of the Mordecai Richler I am currently reading, and sip the wine, wine that will forever taste like summer evenings to me. I am 17, and impressionable. I don't know it yet of course, I feel worldly and sophisticated when I'm with him, but the fact remains that I was young, and a lot of what happened that summer shaped me in ways I am still discovering today.

We sit in 2 scooped canvass chairs; we hold hands between them, watching the sky turn orange, then burn into pink, glare briefly in red, and then go out in a convoluted blue. There is music playing somewhere, it goes well with the wine, intermingling somewhere between my tongue and my heart. He pulls me to my feet. We dance in the grass; there isn't dew on it yet, but it feels cool between my toes. We don't dance cheek to cheek, that only happens in the movies; we dance cheek to chest since in my bare feet I am a good foot shorter than he is. His shoulders are so broad that I get lost in them when he holds me tight.

He tells me I have beautiful collarbones, then leans down to trace their contour with his tongue. Finally, he reaches my mouth. He controls his desire, taking his time, driving me crazy. He leaves me breathless in the moonlight with his kisses, and then leads me back inside.

A little while later, he is tending to my carpet burns. We laugh, and languish, and polish off a second bottle of Yellow Label. I sit between his legs, leaning against his chest, and I feel him stiffen with excitement, ready to go again. He may be a decade older, but he’s as eager as any boy I’ve ever known, just far more deliberate.

As he takes a nipple possessively in his mouth, I think to myself, So this is growing up.

Unanswered Prayers

2007-03-16T03:10:00.000-07:00

I used to pray for company. For another heart that bled like mine. Someone who felt as deeply as I did and knew both the blessings and the curse. I prayed from selfish, impure motives, without care for consequences. I tried to pray away the loneliness.

I used to pray for peace. For the walls to stop shaking and my bones to stop quaking. To stop the tears, or the blood, or the fear. I prayed from lack of faith, not knowing that strength grows out of weakness. I tried to pray away the pain.

I used to pray for protection. From the knowable and the unknowable. From the sadness that surrounds us, the unseen enemies and the isolation. I prayed without humbling myself, not trusting in the greater good. I tried to pray away the insecurity.

I used to pray for understanding. To know my own fortune and find a path that I could follow unafraid. To win without having gambled. I prayed for my own will to be done. I tried to pray away the peril.

I used to pray for salvation. To deliver my friends from the clutches of their addictions. To save them from themselves. I prayed without confessing my own sins. I tried to pray away the suffering, the stigma, and the guilt.

I used to pray.

Song For A Muse

2007-03-05T16:11:00.000-08:00

I wipe the page clean
Or fill it up with absurdities
I sit with pen to paper
Or wear the carpet thin with pacing
And the muse, she does not come.

I could see new people places faces
I could drink my weight in gin
Inject liquid creativity into my vein
Cut myself just to see me bleed
And still, she would not come

If I broke and saddled the beast within
If I scissored open the silver lining
Fucked over all my inhibitions
Unshackled the savage inside my head
Even then she would not come.

Be a dirty girl or straight and chaste
Travel the world or live in solitude
Starve myself or stuff my face
Vulnerable or showing only strength
She doesn't care; she will not come.

I may seduce the ink
I may open my mind
Find the sweet spot
Chase the elusive thought
It makes no difference to the muse.

Engaged or disengaged
Celebrating or lost in grief
Capable or emptied out
Alone or with my shadow
The muse, she does not come.

She's Lump

2007-02-27T09:14:00.000-08:00

There's a lump in my bed.
I can't sleep; there's a lump in my bed.
The sheets tangle around my waist as I scramble for sleep, as I perform my night-time dance, first on my back with my arms spread wide, then on my stomach with legs akimbo, then on my side crumpled up tight. The lump is my shadow in the darkness, not to be evaded. I feel it once under my hip, next behind my knee. It is a soft but persistent distraction.
I will not sleep tonight.
It will not let me sleep tonight.

There's a lump in my throat.
I can't sleep; there's a lump in my throat.
The tears well as I ache for escape from this day, as I perform my night-time ritual, first taking stock of my sadness and failures, then contemplating the disappointment and the emptiness, then indulging in the inevitable self-pity. The lump is my punishment after dark, not to be avoided. I feel it in the back of my brain, and sharply in my heart. It is a choking, melancholic distraction.
I will not sleep tonight.
It will not let me sleep tonight.

There's a lump in my breast.
I can't sleep; there's a lump in my breast.
The panic creeps in as I plead for sleep to save me, as I recite my night-time prayer, first asking for solace, then begging for compassion, then sinking into a frantic anger because it's the safest emotion in my arsenal. The lump is my secret shame, not to be ignored. I feel it under the softest skin, skin of deceit, pressing up from underneath my treacherous flesh. It is a burning, anguished distraction.
I will not sleep tonight.
It will not let me sleep tonight.

The lump in my bed, the soft distraction that keeps me from sleep, is a sock caught in the sheet, easily removed, wrinkles ironed out.

The lump in my throat, the melancholy that keeps me from sleep, is a fleeting sorrow, easily shed in a flow of tears, happiness restored.

The lump in my breast, the anguish that keeps me from sleep, is harder to shake. My fingers keep returning to the site of the betrayal, never quite believing, but always confirming that it lurks somewhere beneath the quiet surface. Tonight, I will not sleep.

Father For Sale

2006-11-01T05:46:00.000-08:00

SWM seeks new family because we don't want him anymore.

Enjoys solitary drives, NASCAR, the Dixie Chicks, and alternating between abusing and neglecting his children.

Bald, fat, and lazy, he'd do best in a home where no one ever depends on him, because when he finally shows up after an unexplained 5 day absence, he makes promises just to break them.

Comes with plenty of baggage but no assets besides the money he stole from his daughter's piggy bank. Uncommunicative and lacking a sense of humour, he's best suited to a woman with extremely low expectations. Loyal like a leach.

Priced for quick sale; his expiration date is fast approaching.

Sketch

2006-10-22T01:37:00.000-07:00

I couldn't write better characters than my real-life maternal grandparents if I tried, and believe me, I've tried.

Nanny and Pa are not easy for me to describe; they have been everything from the best to the worst, sometimes helpful, sometimes hurtful, not always easy to love, and yet always loved.

Nanny and Pa are what cause me to continually reevaluate my definition of 'old'; since Pa has recently turned 75, I can now say with certainty that 75 is not old. I might say that they are what I aspire to be at their age, but in truth, I often think that their social life rivals my current one, age be damned. Nanny and Pa are members of the Moose - Pa is an officer, he has a maroon blazer and everything. He spends a lot of his time (too much of his time, if Nanny is to be believed) cooking breakfast and bartending for his fellow Moose members. They also bowl in a league, and play sandbags, and darts. They volunteer at Meals on Wheels. They enjoy gambling my mother's inheritance at various casinos. They often go out on Saturday night - spaghetti dinner (or roast beef!) at 4:30, and then dancing all night long (or until approximately 9pm, whichever comes first). They say they like traveling, but really, they don't. A 3 day bus tour is a lot for them; once out of the house, Pa starts cursing and complaining, and Nanny is filled with regret that even a cooler full of beer and numerous naps cannot assuage. But they never learn.

They have been married for 55 years, and to see them dancing together is like watching love. As for 'in love' - the romantic in me wants to say yes, but honestly, I don't know. I don't know if they were ever in love. I don't know if we can ever really know that about another couple, but I do know that I hope they were, and I hope they are. I hope they are happy,and I believe that they are. They met on a blind date, fixed up by one of my Nanny's sisters. My Nanny is tall and my Pa is short, but luckily he had a sexy motorcycle, and the rest is history.

My Pa seems to me a fairly straight-forward man. He's definitely on the short side and has a large pregnant belly that forces him to always wear suspenders if he hopes to keep his pants up. When we were little, he used to entertain us at the supper table singing songs with lyrics such as "there once as a dog named Jack, he pooped all over the track". We thought it was great. He always tells the same story about me: how he used to get me tap-dancing in the front hall, because the tiles in there were appropriately clackety and I loved the accoustics. My favourite time spent with him was out fishing early in the morning. Nanny would make us sandwiches and tell us to dress in layers, and out we'd go to catch us some delicious perch. He always thought that I should bait my own hook, and I always assured him that it would never happen (it never did). Nothing reminds me of him like a bamboo fishing pole with a red and white bobber on the end.

He worked in the same mill for years and years; he would always bring us home stacks of old-fashioned computer paper, the kind with perforated edges that we would tear into strips and fashion into jewelry. He tells bad jokes and he lives to tease - occasionally taking things a bit too far for senstive teenage girls. He is also known for "The Claw!", which consists of him digging his fingers into your neck when you least expect it, while yelling "The Claw!". After a good meal (he defines a good meal as one in which he convinces Nanny he is sticking to his diet, but has actually snuck in at least 2 helpings of everything), he likes to sit in his recliner, unbutton his pants, and snore for about 20 minutes. He's a meat and potatoes kind of guy, with the exception of chinese buffet and pizza, which he only discovered in his 60s. As a little girl, I was fascinated with the fact that he wore dentures - sadly, he has worn the same set for decades and now refuses steak because it's too hard to chew. He can be incredibly stubborn when it suits him.

He burns black in the summers from all the time spent on the boat, but his legs are always lilly-white. He wears slippers for driving and shoes with a heel when he's taking his tall wife out dancing. Of course, my sisters and I were always angelic, but he would often tell our rowdier cousins they'd "better settle down or I'll fix your wagon." In 25 years, I have never seen him fix a wagon. But he did build us a Barbie house once. Unfortunately, never having seen a Barbie, the dimensions were too small for Barbie to stand up in her home, so it became the My Little Pony house instead. As a grandfather, he has changed more diapers than he ever did with his own kids. Apparently, he has really mellowed out in his old age, and when I see him playing with the babies in the family, I find the stories about The Strap a little hard to believe. But then, my family is known for its unlikely stories.

The story about Nanny tying my uncle up to a tree and chasing him down with a lawn mower is slightly more believable. Not that Nanny is mean, but she does have her moments. She is a perfectionist without knowing what a perfectionist is. She has instilled pimple paranoia, body issues and bad parenting complexes in anyone who gets within 10 feet of her. I remember my mother occasionally avoiding my Nanny's house when I was younger, although she likes to believe that my Nanny isn't necessarily being hurtful on purpose.

Nanny is tall, slim, and made up so that her face is orange and her neck white, with a clear line of demarcation between the two. She speaks poor English and poor French, but mysteriously, these are the only 2 languages that she knows. She is obsessed with keeping her home immaculately clean. My mother remembers a pristine home growing up, where if she accidentally entered the off-limits living room, she'd have to tip-toe out backwards, erasing the footprints left in the perfectly vaccuumed shag as she went. My Nanny always insists "It wasn't that bad" but my mom and her brothers look at each other in a way that says that it most certainly was. Although we are now allowed into the hallowed living room, evidence of her obsession is never far from view: her dining chairs all have booties on their legs so they don't scratch her hard wood flooring. She knitted the booties, of course. And she crocheted the doilies, and the table cloth is all her own needlework.

I like to think of Nanny in her lighter moments, like her famous machine-gun farts over a rapid-fire game of cards. Or the time the Macarena craze hit the Moose and she bought a fridge magnet that played a clip of the song so she could practice the moves in her kitchen. Or when she first taught me how to make her superb apple pie, but now insists that I'm the much better cook. Nanny loves to receive letters from me, but doesn't like to write back because her "spelling isn't good" (which is true, she even misspells my last name, but I find it endearing and wish she'd write anyway). But she's also an incorrigible gossip, and so when she has juicy news to impart, she'll write me a little note on those tiny pieces of stationary meant for grocery lists. Sometimes I'm a bit surprised at the tidbits she offers up about my Mom or sisters, and I can't help but wonder what she might be telling them about me.

In the memory book I have, her values are listed as home life (blech), family (blech), and religion (blech). Her dream is to see her grandchildren marry - woops, no wonder she complained so much when I eloped. Her fears include that one of her children should divorce or live out of wedlock (my mother, guilty of both), and seeing the world end (good old catholicism for you). Her favourite book is apparently Gone With the Wind, which surprises me because her favourite writer is Danielle Steel, and I didn't know she had it in her. Then again, she might be thinking of the movie. I remember we took her to see Titanic when it came out in theatres, and the last time she'd been to the movies was to see Porky's, which astounded me for all kinds of reasons. The one thing about the memory book that saddens me is the 'passions' section - it's left blank. I wonder about my Nanny, I really do.

Her one area of expertise is hostessing. She still has a hard time letting anyone else cook the big family dinners - no one else will make the requisite 6 kinds of meat and 87 desserts, including the lemon squares that only she can make. She can ramble off every kind of pie possibility, but she still can't get our names straight. But she's always there when we need her. Every time my mother went into the hospital to have another baby, I got to stay with Nanny ( a real treat, because Nanny had chocolate milk). I remember once my father picked me up to go home for a bit, and in the 3 seconds he wasn't watching me, I sat on a catepillar and he had to drive me back to Nanny's so she could tweeze the pricklies from my backside.

This is not an obituary, it only sounds like one. It's hard to write of memories without memorializing them. It's hard to think of them without thinking of myself. It's hard to admit that the next time I visit, it will probably be for a funeral - one of theirs.

Short Story

2006-09-24T10:48:00.000-07:00

When she opened her eyes, she was sad to see that the lemon tree was still rooted firmly in the ground.

2006-08-15T02:23:00.000-07:00

Every Day Is a Blank Page Waiting To Be Filled

I take my time getting up in the morning. I savor the taste of sleep on my tongue, and try to catch the last fleeting glimpses of my dreams, evaporating in my mind like the morning’s dew on the grass. A creative mind is a well-rested mind, and I take that to heart. I grope for my writing pad, waiting patiently on the nightstand. There is a fifty-fifty chance that I have scrawled something there during the night, a small idea in the darkness, written in barely legible cursive. Those small gifts from my nighttime muse are better than jolts of caffeine in the morning. They motivate me to leave behind my luxurious Egyptian cotton sheets and join the land of the living. Without them, I must fertilize the grounds of my creativity myself.

A day in the life of this writer starts with stretching. I like to feel my life’s blood coursing through my veins, feeding my energy and jump-starting my day. My fuel of choice is usually orange juice, and I gulp it down greedily. I might peruse the local newspaper or flip on some morning television, but most mornings I am content with music. I dance around the house until I am feeling fully awake but fully relaxed. Only then will I sit down to write.

I fill a crystal goblet with ice and water, and set it on my writing desk. I flip open my legal pad to an unused page, and line up several mechanical pencils and the nub of an eraser. These are my tools; this is my craft.

Some writers find a blank page to be daunting, but I feel quite the opposite about my empty yellow paper. Each page is a field of possibilities just waiting to be cultivated. Therefore, I don’t wait for inspiration, I go looking for it. When I begin writing, I will write anything just to get the process started. I will write a journal entry, or a book review, or a grocery list; anything so long as it gets the words flowing. Before long, I will have hit a sentence that I feel strongly about. I sit back, and determine what it is about the sentence that speaks to me. Sometimes I am drawn to a theme, or a character. Sometimes the sound of the sentence just sounds right to me. Sometimes I find that there is a story behind the sentence, just waiting to be told. I feel the neurons and synapses in my brain firing furiously, and it’s all I can do to hold on tightly as my hand dashes across the page, trying to capture every thought, every inkling, every idea that comes to mind. It’s an exhausting and thrilling prospect to find such an abundant crop of ideas within myself.

When I write, I write with complete abandon. I turn the ringer off the phone, I don’t answer the door or turn on the TV, and very seldom will I even listen to music. I have a small carafe of water on my desk, and that sustains me until I come to a natural pause in my writing. I prefer to write without any distractions, not because I’m afraid to lose my train of thought, but because I am excited to see where the day’s story will lead me. Words, whether my own or someone else’s, continue to fascinate and amaze me.

Inevitably, I will hit a rough patch. Eventually, the words just stop coming, and I know it’s time to take a step back from the work. If I need a breather, I help myself to fruit and I take long, hot shower. I keep a scrap of paper and a pencil on the other side of the shower curtain, just in case lightning strikes while I’m shampooing. More often than not, the warm water and a brisk toweling off have revitalized me for another writing session. The bulk of my writing is done in the morning, at a frenetic pace. Afternoons are spent more leisurely, editing and revising. I often spend the entire afternoon agonizing over one word, pacing back in forth as I consult the dictionary and the thesaurus. I allow myself the extravagance of perfectionism in the afternoon because the hour of 12 marks the divide between quantity and quality. I often read certain passages aloud to get a feel for the narrator. I play around with the words, saturating each one with intention until all words lose their meaning, and I know it’s time to stop.

I put my projects away for another day, but I never really stop writing. My mind is always chewing on things, working out dialogue, and searching out new ideas. I carry notebooks with me everywhere, and find myself constantly scratching in them, giving myself seedlings for a barren day. Life is lush with new ideas, and it drains me each day to bring each one to fruition. I go to bed exhausted and fulfilled, and awaken the next morning, ready to go again.

851 words about Rock.

2006-05-26T02:10:00.000-07:00

His mother named him Benjamin, but at the age of 17, he feels he's outgrown it. He despises equally all variations – Ben, Benny, Benji. His mother pouts at him for it, but he insists on being called Rock, a nickname he picked up on the playground years ago. His friend Alex still has a scar on his right temple from that day.

Rock is not a morning person. According to his mother, he's not an afternoon, evening, or night person either, but his mom just doesn't get him. Maybe no one does. He stays up late at night, listening to music that makes his parents quake. He studies liner notes the way he should be studying for school. He holes himself up in the room he has painted black and adorned with posters of musicians who wear more eyeliner than most drag queens. He has stacks of milk crates filled with CDs, most of which bear parental warnings that have apparently been sold to him despite his varying degrees of minority. At least, his mother hopes they've been sold to him. She doesn't know where he would have gotten the money for them, but she doesn't ask. She's afraid of the answer. She's afraid of her son.

On the mornings when Rock is successfully ripped from his bed, he ambles out of his room dressed like a pauper. His mother is horrified at his constant state of fray and unravel, at the greasiness he carefully applies to his hair, and the boots he bought used, already older than him. The clothes she has bought him from the plethora of catalogues for the upper-middle-class she receives hang in his closet, still tagged and unworn.

Rock doesn't eat breakfast, makes it a point to never eat any meal with his parents. Although it looks like he's just rolled out of bed when he heads out the door, he is already late for another day of algebra and gym socks. Rock has the most impressive collection of tardy slips his school has ever seen. The vice principal keeps giving him stern final warnings, and Rock keeps proving them to be useless empty threats.

Rock takes 2 buses to school; the #86 collects him a few blocks from his house in the suburbs and deposits him on the outskirts of the east end of town, where property values are a fraction of what they are in his own neighbourhood, and the people living there reflect it. This is where he feels most at home. From here he boards the #14 to the last public school that will still accept him. But since he's late anyway, and he's pretty sure there's a chemistry test he couldn't possibly be prepared for and doesn't give a shit about at any rate, he crosses the street and gets on the #34 instead.

Rock is barely conscious during his bus ride. He closes his eyes and listens to another multi-millionaire raging against the system. If other passengers are bothered by the noise seeping from his earbuds, Rock doesn't notice. The bus takes him past the college where he'll never be admitted because he'd never apply, and even if he did, his permanent file, now well over 3 inches thick, would mean an automatic rejection. It also eases through a series of towering office buildings where drones wearing 3-piece suits walk briskly in expensive Italian leather shoes, jostling each other with their briefcases, too hurried to apologize or care.

Rock stays on until the end of the line, where he disembarks in the section of town that time and progress have forgotten. Rock would like to be forgotten as well. If he thought no one would come looking for him, he would be tempted to stay away for good.

He sits on the sidewalk, his back against an old brick building that has windows of plywood instead of glass. The cement is cold beneath him, the sunshine is weak and intermittent. Over the course of the morning, many people have walked around or over his legs, which are stretched out on the sidewalk. Of these, there are people of two kinds: the first don't notice him at all, the second acknowledge him with a series of grunts and nods. This is the language of the street. Without words or much eye contact, a transaction is made. Money is exchanged for the tiny plastic bags of illegal flowers Rock has stuffed in his pockets. These are the people Rock considers friends. They do not know his name, or where he comes from, or that he should be in school. Nor do they care.

Occasionally, Rock will catch the impression of a gun or a knife in someone's pocket or waistband. Weapons tend to have a distinctive glint. It leaves him feeling largely apathetic.

Rock is angry, and he doesn't know why. He'd trade in his life in a second, all of it, he'd take poverty and crime and oppression if it gave him a reason to feel the way he does.

No one understands him. Not even himself.

873 words about Molly

2006-05-25T06:36:00.000-07:00

She waits at the bus stop, unaware of her surroundings. She is absorbed in her shabby copy of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, reading it as if completely captivated, reading it as if she hadn't already done so 37 times. You might say the book is well-thumbed, except her thumbs rarely touch the pages. In fact, she drags her right index finger below each line as she reads, and then uses the same finger to hastily turn the page as she reaches the bottom. She treasures the sense of freedom, of escape, of exploration.

She has never been more than 50km outside of her home town.

When the #34 bus arrives, she climbs aboard and deposits her fare without so much as glancing up. She takes a seat close to the front, but not too close, and sighs a little to herself when she reads the part about living events "too fantastic not to tell." She wonders when her time will come.

The bus has picked her up fairly close to the dingy complex where she shares a tiny 2 bedroom apartment with a roommate who drinks her pineapple juice on the sly and wears little other than the track marks on his arms. She has learned not to ask questions. He is often behind in the rent, not to mention the utilities, and since the lease is in her name, Molly J. Reynolds, this responsibility is a source of more problems than pride.

Dressed in jeans and a hoodie, a backpack propped in the seat beside her, and her interest completely fixated on the paperback in front of her, she looks like all the other students headed to an early morning class, but she isn't. Isn't on her way to class, isn't a student.

Too poor, too dumb: this is what she tells herself. She doesn't give herself nearly enough credit.

She's actually on her way to work, a copy centre not far from a buzzing college campus. She spends her days copying students' homework, collating theses, and if she's lucky, she'll get to handle a blueprint. She loves the feel, she loves the smell. She wishes she knew more about them, anything really, other than how to carefully roll them up when they're done.

Molly makes minimum wage. Her chequing account is nearly always overdrawn. She still carries a pink nylon wallet although it rarely contains more than a few quarters and a picture of the parents she hasn't seen since she left home. She is always eager to pick up extra shifts, but the copy business just isn't that demanding. She economizes by eating only every second day. She has long ago forgotten whether that feeling in the pit of her stomach is hunger or unhappiness.

She could probably find another job if she tried. If she worked at the mall, she might earn an extra fifty cents per hour. She might even make it to assistant manager one day, if she really applied herself. She knows the copy place is a dead end.

But she doesn't try; she doesn't want to leave. She doesn't want to get any further away from the college life.

Molly is a pretty girl, but doesn't know it. She's also very lonely, but she doesn't know that, either. Not quite. She saves herself from loneliness by being aloof. She believes her isolation is a choice, almost. And who is there to make friends with, anyway? Her coworkers are fat and forty. Her roommate is too paranoid to be social. And the students, the smug, superior students, are the recipients of her contempt. She scorns anyone who has caught better breaks in life than she.

So when a young man routinely uses his laundry money to make copies he doesn't need, Molly doesn't notice. She meets his warm smile with only a cursory one of her own. She gives him the minimum customer service required by company policy, and spends more time looking at his accounting text book than at him. Fifty-six unnecessary copies later, he still hasn't worked up the courage to ask her out.

She washes the smudges off her hands before she leaves for the day. The cheap soap in the dispenser smells funny, but it's free. Her hands are rough and chapped; her right index finger alone, the one she uses for reading and page turning, has 4 paper cuts. One of them looks infected. She has 3 quarters in her wallet, enough for a snack out of the vending machine, but it's not her day to eat. She knows she'll need those quarters even more tomorrow, and so she saves them. She gulps greedily from the water fountain instead - a vain attempt to subdue the grumbles in her stomach.

And with only water sloshing around in her belly, she crosses the street to her favourite place in the world - the library. No one questions her right to be there, and she doesn't try to check out books. The library is warmer than her apartment, and far more comfortable. She curls up in an over-stuffed chair and devours one book after the other. This is how she spends her free time. This is how she spends her life.

769 words about Neal

2006-05-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

Neal is 36 this year but says he's 35. It's not vanity; Neal is forgetful. He works in an office, the kind with cubicles and posters of kittens on the wall. He has a fern on his desk. It's plastic.

He is tall. His legs are long, very long, and his torso disproportionately short. He's never had a good haircut in his life. The whiskers of a thin mustache more strawberry than blond tickle his thin upper lip.

He always wears a button-down shirt two sizes too big for him. The shoulders droop off his frame. He rolls up his sleeves nearly to the elbow. He tucks the shirt in, showing off a worn brown belt that doesn't match his black loafers. He wears a cheap watch and always has pens in his shirt pocket, always blue ink, usually Bic.

He keeps a jar of hard candy on his desk to offer to coworkers should they stop by. They never do. He eats lunch from a brown bag every day; tuna on rye for nearly eleven years. It has never occurred to him that he might be boring. He eats slowly, chewing thoughtfully as he flips through a magazine about model airplanes. He doesn't build them, but he's a faithful subscriber. He likes to think that he might build a model plane one day. One day.

He takes the #34 bus home at night, his knees knocking the seat in front of him. He stares out the window with a mild, almost pleasant smile on his face. He never fails to wish the driver a good night.

He waves to his neighbours but doesn't stop to talk. They think he is a nice man, a quiet man. And he is.

His home is modest, his yard is neat. The lawn is newly mown.

The key to his front door is on a Mickey Mouse key chain in his pocket, a souvenir from someone else's vacation, awarded to him for cat-sitting. He doesn't need to unlock the front door; someone is already home.

It's his wife, Martha, who is home. She is at the stove, stirring a pot of something that smells good. Her cheeks are rosy from the heat of the kitchen. She hears him come in but doesn't turn.

"Hello, Martha" he greets her, as he has greeted her every weekday evening since they were married 12 years ago. "Another day, another dollar" he adds, out of habit, as he grabs his beer out of the fridge. Home from work, one can of beer is his allotted reward for surviving 'another day in the jungle,' as he would put it. He savours it from his favourite green armchair, worn almost bald in some spots but still the site of all his best sitting.

He watches his wife prepare dinner. He watches her scurry from the chopping board with a diced onion, to the pot on the stove where she dumps it, then over to the sink where she washes some tomatoes, and to the fridge where she retrieves the milk. She is shapeless even beneath the apron and the flower print dress, but Neal doesn't mind; he watches with fondness.

They eat in silence, mostly. Even after a dozen years in this this country, Martha's English isn't good, and it's Neal's only language. But they don't have to speak; when Neal cleans his plate with a last slice of bread, Martha knows he is sated, that the meal was a success.

In front of the glow of the television, they watch game shows while Martha works on some embroidery and Neal does some crosswords. He fills in the tiny squares with the blue ink pens from his shirt pocket. His printing is small and precise. He is particularly good with the history clues, and weak on the pop culture. He feels immense satisfaction when he completes a puzzle. He sighs audibly so his wife can congratulate him. When she does, he smiles, pleased with himself, and grunts.

Before Neal goes to bed at 9:30, he gives his cheque book a nice, leisurely perusal. He figures out his earnings for the day and adds it to the tally. He goes to bed dreaming of his savings account, of the exotic places he'll visit (Sudbury first, he thinks, he's always wanted to see the big nickel in person), of the lavish gifts he'll buy his little wife (a new toaster, possibly, the kind with wide slots for bagels), of the model planes he'll build and be much admired for by faceless new friends.

One day.

Happily Ever After

2006-05-05T10:21:00.000-07:00

Pick up the phone.

I told you to leave, to never come back. I threw the vase I love, the violet one, and we watched it shatter against the wall. I screamed my insecurities at you, all of them, and you turned around, stormed up the stairs, and slammed the door as you left.

I crumpled and I cried.

I didn't mean it. I didn't mean any of it. Come back.

I tell you to leave because I want you to stay. I want you to stay and not hurt me anymore, but I want to hurt you back a little first. I want you to crumple; I want you to cry. But you didn't – you just left. I told you to leave, and you did. You left. You left me.

I picked up the purple pieces of the vase, and imagined that they were the jagged pieces of my heart. I let a shard pierce my thumb to see the blood, but I didn't feel it. I don't feel when you're not here.

I layed in bed, our bed, the bed that we have shared, that still smells like you. The sheets are still rumpled with our last embraces. They don't know that you are gone. I feel tears welling up again, but then I tell myself you don't deserve them, and will myself tobe angry instead.

My anger is familiar. It boils up inside of me and I know how to let off the steam: I rip photos out of frames, I tear your clothes from their hangers and I am violent with a pair of scissors. It feels good.

I collapse on the couch, wrapped in a blanket that doesn't remind me of better times. When I am too tired for tears and tragedy, I sleep. But not peacefully.

When I awake, it is dark in the house, and outside of it. I know that I am alone, but still I check for you. You aren't there.

I tell myself you'll be back soon. It's just a fight, just another fight. You'll come back. I give it an hour, and then two. I pick up the phone to call you, and before I can even dial I slam it down again. You should be calling me, not the other way around. But you don't call. I pace and pace in front of the phone, but you never do call.

A day goes by, and then two. My eyes are rimmed in red; tissues overwhelm the room. I told you to leave, but I didn't mean it. Not forever. Why aren't you here? Why haven't you come to apologize? I call your cell, and leave another message, and another, and another, until your voice mail is full.

By the third day without a word from you, I imagine you lying in a ditch somewhere. I imagine car wrecks and muggings. I imagine that the worst has happened to you, because it's easier than believing that you stay away by choice. I wonder if I should call the hospitals.

Instead, I reach for the phone and call you again.

Pick up the phone.

Making Your Story Less Sucky 101

2006-04-20T04:44:00.000-07:00

The story posted down below (What I Did On My Summer Vacation) is yet another one of my famous "stories in progress" which basically means that it's been around for a while, probably been untouched for a while, and yet I am not quite satisfied with it to the extent that I can call it finished.

Despite its unfinished state, it was published by a small Nordic literary journal in May/June 2005. The editors assured me it was fit to be published, and against my better judgment, I signed the release forms. I have since suspected that they were simply pressed for material.

Currently, I am working on decreasing the suckage of the story with the jaunty and talented V. I don't plan on ever re-submitting it for further publication; I guess this particular editing process is more for my own peace of mind.

V and I are new at working together. I have always been leery of sharing my work, so it was only after assuring myself that this mysterious person was the very finest make and model of Muse that I sent this story with more than a little trepidation.

Between the two of us, V and I are armed with a psych degree and a philosophy degree, neither of which is currently in use other than for our witty repartee. We enjoy huge egos, Tenacious D, and a disdain for the filet o'fish. You can already tell that we are a writing partnership made in heaven.

Anyway, the consensus was that there was no "choking of the vomit" after reading the story, which I take as a positive sign. If you're interested in the other comments, read the story, and check the section further below.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

2006-04-20T04:27:00.000-07:00

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

The teacher wrote this on the blackboard and looked at us expectantly. Her name was Miss March and she seemed nice enough, with her warm smile and fluttering hands. We rustled our papers nervously as our legs swung beneath our desks. It was the first day of the 3^rd grade, and we had been assigned our first ever essay. We were to write 100 whole words about our summer vacations and turn them in first thing tomorrow morning. The task seemed monumental to me at the time, I wasn’t even sure if I knew 100 words, and on top of which, it meant homework on the first day!

I walked home after the 3 o’clock bell had rung, skulking, watching my patent leather Mary Janes travel over the gravel. I had scuffed them already. Mother would be mad. My knee socks that actually came just short of my skinny, scraped knees were grass stained, and she would be mad about that too. The ribbons in my hair, the ones that matched the plaid jumper I was wearing, had come loose during recess and I knew when I got home my mother would say (if she said anything to me at all) “Sarah, can’t you go one day without making a mess of yourself?” I was what mother called “a hopeless case.” I never got anything right.

I took the long way home, buying myself time, but also digging the hole deeper because if my older sister Jody arrived home before me, I would be berated for “dawdling” as well. I marched past the park, past the church, past the neighbours’ homes, my plastic lunch pail grazing my hip with each step. And then it happened. My lunch pail landed on my hip with a dull thud, hit just a tiny bit harder than the others had, but the clasp broke open, spilling the contents onto the side of the road. Before I could stoop to scoop them up, the bruised apple and the plastic thermos rolled down the ditch and splashed into the dirty water below. They sank out of sight.

I walked up the steps to our home with as much trepidation as a little girl could muster. I pulled up my slouching socks and smoothed my tousled hair as I walked through the front door, but mother was nowhere to be seen. I let out the breath I had been holding for some time. I felt a moment’s worth of relief before the look on Jody’s face wiped it away. Mother was in her room again with the door shut tight, emitting only the slightest of muffled noises. She was having another one of her ‘headaches,’ which meant Jody and I would be left to fend for ourselves, maybe for the night, maybe for longer. I hoped not too much longer.

Jody and I made some grilled cheese sandwiches, and took them to our separate rooms. I sat at my big wooden desk, formal and imposing in its size, dwarfing the other furniture in my room. I took out some paper and sharpened a pencil, watching the curling wood shavings drop off the blade and onto the pristine white paper, already making the first of many smudges. I wrote the title – What I Did On My Summer Vacation – followed by my name, in my massive, halting cursive. I was especially proud of my capital S. I had practiced it all summer long, and I hoped Miss March would notice it. She could hold my paper up in front of all the class and say “Look how Sarah has written the perfect cursive S,” and my classmates would pat me on the back and look at me with envy.

After the S, I was uninspired. The rest of the page remained blank as I stared dejectedly out the window. Some neighbourhood kids were out playing in the last of the sunny summer weather, chasing each other into the sunset and waiting for their mothers to call them in to dinner. I looked for my father’s car, nervous that he might be on his way home, and nervous that he might not. Lately, he had taken to disappearing for weeks at a time, and neither he nor Mother ever told us where he went. At any rate, I hoped that if he did come home, it would not be until I was fast asleep in my bed.

I couldn’t think of a single thing to write about. I knew my friend Janet would probably write about riding horses and going to visit her grandmother in Cape Breton. And even though I had never talked to him in my life, I also knew that Bradley across the street was likely to write about his trip to Disney World and meeting Mickey Mouse. His mother had asked my mother to ‘keep an eye on the house’ while they were away, and my mother had dutifully sent me across the street each morning to collect their mail and newspapers.

I couldn’t very well write about collecting newspapers. I couldn’t write that my mother had spent a lot of the summer locked in her room. I couldn’t write that Daddy spent most of the summer sleeping at someone else’s house. I couldn’t write how Mother drank too much wine with supper and then fell asleep on the sofa, with the glow of the television casting sickly colours on her skin, or else phoned her friend Bernice and sobbed about how she could have married a dentist and had perfect blonde babies. I knew that above all, I could not write about the camping trip.

Jody and I knew enough to dread the yearly camping trip, and we did. Here it was only early September, and I was already dreading the next year’s. Jody and I knew that we were not like other families, and that spending ‘quality time’ together, as Mother called it, was not a good thing. But mother insisted, cried over it, and gave Daddy the silent treatment every year until he agreed to it, for as far back as Jody or I could remember. This year had been different. Daddy piled the camping gear into the back of the station wagon, tucked Jody and I in amongst all the trappings and luggage, and off we went, toward nature, toward the mountains, and toward a long week that all four of us would unfailingly come to hate.

The first hour of driving started out cheerily enough, like it had many times before. It was a false sense of security, but we enjoyed it while it lasted. Mother turned on the radio, Jody read her Judy Blume, and I coloured and played with my dolls. It was almost nice. But then Jody read aloud to me some outrageous line from her book that set both of us to giggling, and Daddy shot us a stern look in the rearview mirror. That was the first warning. We sat silently for a good while, watching the trees speed by through the window, feeling the hot wind on our faces, but then I forgot myself and shouted that I had seen a deer, and a license plate from Alberta, and Daddy’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. That was the second warning. Jody and I could not and would not relax again until the car ride was safely over and done with. We sat stiff and uncomfortable in our seats for the duration. I was hungry, and hot, and tired, and probably Jody was too, but we kept it to ourselves. It was Mother who broke the code of silence, mumbling something about needing a rest stop or grabbing a bite to eat. I felt beads of sweat on my brow, and it wasn’t just from the heat. Daddy predictably got off the highway at the next chance he got, and Jody and I rolled up our windows and braced ourselves for what was to come. He stopped the car in a parking lot, unbuckled, and turned in his seat. He yelled at us until he turned red in the face and little gobs of spit came flying out of his mouth. We knew better than to talk back. We didn’t cry or look away, that would only make things worse. We sat there, all three of us, and waited until he tired of yelling. Then he left to get himself a cold drink before finishing the drive to the campground. We were all dead silent for the rest of the trip.

The rest of the week was much the same. We were slapped for getting too dirty, yelled at for just sitting around and ‘wasting’ the trip, hit for straying too far away, belittled for not playing quietly enough, punished for making a sloppy bedroll. At the campsite, there was no reprieve from Daddy. I tried to hide in the tent to play with my cut-out dolls, but there was no safe place. He found me eventually, dragged me out of my quiet corner, and screamed.

“Look what you’ve done, you’ve tracked dirt into the tent again, you little brat. You’re worse than your good-for nothing mother.”

He grabbed me by the shoulders and rattled me until I felt ready to fall apart. Jody looked at me with her sad eyes and wisely stayed out of the way, and Mother, in the only way she ever chose to acknowledge these scenes, said simply “Tom.”

Just “Tom.” Just his name.

More often than not, this would earn her a slap from him, but all the same, I wished she would say more. I wished she would say “Tom, stop.”

Or “Tom, she’s just a little girl.”

Or “Tom, you’re hurting her.”

Or “Tom, leave her alone.”

I hated her for not saying more, for not sticking up for me, as much as I hated him for hurting me in the first place. I likewise hated the vacations we took, hated the unforgiving stretches of summers, hated my life. And I hated how the other campers stayed away, asked to switch sites, and how the children played elsewhere and the grownups gave us pitying looks.

No, I couldn’t write about the camping trip, that’s not the kind of thing teachers want from their students. I sat at the big desk and wrote about a lovely trip to Ottawa instead. It wasn’t true, it was a pack of lies, and I felt bad about making it up, but I hoped Miss March would like it all the same. I hoped Miss March would like my first essay. I hoped Miss March would like my fancy cursive S. I hoped Miss March would like me.

V's Feedback

2006-04-20T01:47:00.000-07:00

So first off, the title and first paragraph implied (to me) a lighthearted romp; after all, it's the title of the Tiny Toons' magnum opus, and so many third-graders' assignments -- and I guess that's the point being made here. But I was taken by surprise when the story started detailing the main characters difficult childhood. I rather enjoy being surprised like that -- not knowing where the story is going or going to -- so found your story compelling.

I found the little girl's situation to be pretty sad. A few lines moments really stuck out for me:

I like the simplicity of her mom's comment to the father; maybe it shows the way abuse both paralyzes and numbs us.

After the S, I was uninspired. The rest of the page remained blank as I stared dejectedly out the window.

For some reason -- and maybe this is something that anyone who has had to write anything for a deadline can relate to -- I could really picture the little girl at her huge desk, proudly writing her perfect "S" and then stopping, dejectedly, with nothing else to say.

Also, I was thinking (and over thinking) about the title. Was this piece once a response to the question "what did you do on your summer vacation"? The title really makes it seem like something for submission. I almost thought this would be the little girl's submission until she opts for handing in "a pack of lies". Then again, for you the author, this story could just as much be a pack of lies as well. There is something ironic going on here, but oh man, my head hurts.

----

It's eerie how a pair of fresh eyes can encourage you to read your own story in a new way. Words do not change; interpretations do.

I think it's safe to say I will continue to prostrate myself before this story, searching for the words that will make it right. I'm not sure that I will ever feel that anything I write is as perfect as it should/could be. I think part of my problem is not knowing the right time to let a story go and not trusting myself to the best of my abilities. I hate shoving this into the world, worrying that it's not ready yet, anticipating the reader's every criticism...but never quite arriving at the point where I can enjoy a small success.

Well, there's always next time.

For Betty

2006-04-12T01:43:00.000-07:00

I wrote this last summer, for Jason's grandmother.
Words are sadly inadquate.

Lying in bed mid-morning on a Tuesday, I listen to the rain assault the roof in sheets, then trickle sexily down the window. I make a mental note - treadmill today. Jason stands beside the bed. His hair is slick, his shirt is dotted and translucent from fat rain drops accumulated on his dash from the car to the house. Something's up. Jason should be at work for 11 more hours. I resent the imposition. He prods me and I pretend to still be sleeping.

I am angry at him for some infraction from the night before. Angrier still that he went to bed without apologizing. Angry that he values sleep above my feelings. I am not going to make this easy on him.

"Jamie, will you come to Ottawa with me?" he asks his angry, pretending-to-be-asleep wife, and my mind snaps to attention. There is a catch in his voice.

"What's wrong?" I ask. Something's wrong. That's rain in his hair, on his shirt, but those are tears in his eyes. Jason does not cry.

"My dad called me at work." His dad never calls him at work. His dad never calls him. "Grandma is in the hospital. They don't think she's going to make it. He said I should get up there quick."

"Do I have time for a shower?" I ask, already going through a mental checklist: gas, directions, flowers, card. He tells me yes, but declines my offer to join me.

"I'll just slow you down," he says, and this is true. I only thought he might not want to be alone.

In the shower, I wash and rinse quickly. I don't want to arrive at the hospital 10 minutes too late, so I cut corners. Goodbye is more important than my apricot facial scrub.

As I am toweling off, Jason says "Visiting hours are 3pm-8pm, do you think they'll let me in?"

I think:Of course they'll let you in. They make exceptions in the ICU. You'll get to say goodbye before she dies.
I say: "I'm not sure. Maybe you should call." We are not using the word death yet.

On the drive up, Jason is nervous. I have no hope for him, no rosy affirmations. I offer him the only comfort I have: information. I tell him about the other-worldly experience of the ICU. I prepare him for the worst. I coach him on having a meaningful visit with an unconscious, unresponsive person. I suggest ways of dealing with the even more daunting task of consoling his grandfather. Jason takes this all in, and the 2 tears that spill on to this cheek tell me it is registering.

Briefly, something flares up inside me, and I realize that it is jealousy. I wish he had tears to spare for me. I wish that he showed traces of regret, or recognition for my hurt, and then I take this feeling that I am having on the 417, and I shove it back into the dusty recesses of my mind. I shelve it with other shameful secrets, and I am so overwhelmed with my failings as a compassionate human being that my own eyes overflow with sadness. Jason misinterprets my tears.

"We'll get there in time," he tells me, and all I can do is nod.

We meet with construction at the hospital. The parking garage is a concrete maze, and Jason eases the car through a complex series of obstacles before being rewarded with a narrow parking space in the last possible crevice, deep in the bowels of this monstrosity. I get out of the car and gulp down air greedily. I am feeling claustrophobic before I even step foot in the hospital, and for this harrowing pleasure, I pay $12.50.

A nurse must identify his grandmother for Jason; she is unrecognizable. She has so much equipment plugged into her it is hard to tell where machine ends and human begins - except they do not; they are inseparable. Her chart reads like a medical multiple choice: aneurysm (chest), open-chest surgery, artery replacement, aneurysm (brain), CAT scans, stroke, cardiac arrest, jaundice, dialysis, ventilator, paralysis. Jason is reeling with grief.

I try to focus him - I tell him to touch her, talk to her, and when he does, his face floods with relief.

His grandfather enters the room, and I am struck by how much these two men separated by 50 years can look alike. They both stick out a hand in greeting, but the handshake quickly dissolves into an embrace.

Neither grandson nor grandfather can bear to be by the bed for long, so they circle it, trapped in an anguished dance

His grandfather's voice is hoarse when he confesses "What bothers me most is that she can't see me. Her eyes will be open but empty. She doesn't even know that I'm here." I want to tell him that she does know, somewhere, but this is his wife, his grief, and my words are too small.

When it's time for Jason to go, he touches her hair, her cheek, and tries not to say "goodbye."

The thing about the dying is that they're living. Dead is dead, but the dying are still alive. Betty has 5 children and 9 grandchildren. She likes her cigarettes, her JD, and her convertible. She will celebrate her 54th wedding anniversary in a month and a half if she lives that long. The odds are against her. Her children are bracing themselves for The Call. They are making their peace. Her husband still clings to fractions of percentages of hope.

On the way home, the road looks gray and bleak. My mind wanders to the inevitable: I need to pick up pantyhose; I'll have to get Jason's black suit dry-cleaned; I can start freezing squares and casseroles now.

Jason catches me looking pensive and asks me what I'm thinking.

"Oh, just about how lucky we'd be to have such a long and happy marriage," I tell him, as I give his hand a squeeze. After all, these circumstances are what little white lies are made for.

The Power of Please

2006-04-09T01:49:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that I wrote this story nearly a year ago, it is still a work in progress.

I am lying in the soft dirt; it gets under my finger nails and in my hair. It cakes the backs of my knees and the tiny hollows of my ears. The ground is somewhat wet from recent rain. The smell is not unpleasant; it's familiar, and I cling to it. I try to concentrate on the dirt, the way its heady scent fills my nostrils, the way it crumbles as I dig my fingers into it. This helps me not think of the pain as a man lies grunting on top of me.

I can picture my mother in the kitchen, watching the minutes tick by on the oven's clock. She is wearing an apron and a frown. The table is set and the kitchen is warm because the oven's been on all afternoon. It's Tuesday, so a pot roast awaits, drying out and shrivelling with every passing moment. She is probably annoyed that dinner will be over-cooked. She's probably thinking up lectures and fitting punishments to dole out when I come bursting through the door, late again. I imagine her pacing back and forth on the kitchen's linoleum floor, watching for my outline in the growing dusk outside the window. Impatience and annoyance reign for now; it will take many minutes more before concern begins to seep in. No one's even looking for me yet.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a scrap of pink. Pink, the pink of my dress, torn from my shoulders, discarded with my favourite blue sweater with the buttons that look like small pearly white elephants. I blink back tears at the thought of my sweater getting dirty and damp. I must not cry. He has told me not to cry, not to make a sound. The only sound comes from him, a mixture of wheezing and guttural noises that reminds me of a class trip to the zoo. I will not cry.

He touches my cheek, my hair. He smiles at me, but there is no happiness in his smile. Obscenely, I think that he is as repulsed by his actions as I am, but he keeps on, thrusting and sweating and grunting. He forces himself inside me, and it feels like he's trying to rip his way out. The pain between my legs is unbearable. Well, not unbearable because I am bearing it. I believe it is the worst pain I could possibly live through but not die from. I wish I would die, and not have this pain. I whimper, and his eyes flash cruelly. He sinks his teeth into my shoulder, biting as though hungry, and when he raises his head I see that his mouth is smeared with my blood.

When he is done, he stands up and straightens his clothes. I shiver on the ground, and sit up though my head is spinning. I wonder how I will find my way home from this place. There is blood on my thighs, and I watch it trickle down to the earth below me. It looks black as it pools on the ground, and I tell myself that it's not real, that my pain is not real, that this is not really happening.

I try to brush the leaves and twigs from my hair. The ponytail that my mother so carefully crafted that morning is now crushed beyond redemption. I wince as I shift my weight to stand.

Where do you think you're going? he asks, and I see he is holding a knife larger than any I've ever seen before. Has he always had that knife? It glints in the last fleeting rays of sunshine that poke in among the trees.

Please, I say. Please. And even to my 8 year old ears, it sounds ridiculous. 'Please' is a magic word, my mother has told me. 'Please' is polite. 'Please' is a way of showing respect to your elders, and I know that I do not respect this man, and that even my mother would not object to its absence.

I could say No!, or Don't, or Stop, but I don't say any of these. I say Please, and it infuriates me when the word leaves my lips. And when I say it out loud, softly, pleading, I know that I am not alone. I hear voices, thousands of voices all pleading at the same time. I hear little girls, and grown women. I hear all these voices saying the same strange word, Please, and none of us really mean please when we say it. We're all hurting, we're all begging, and I don't understand anything other than this is not going to be all right.

Please, I say, as he slices into me. I watch the knife disappear inside of me as he himself did, not long before, and I feel detached. I feel as though I am floating away. Please, please, I say, long after I know it is useless. Please, I say, as I am leaving my body. Please, as I drift away, not even sure anymore that I am speaking. Please, I say, along with all the other voices. We form a choir, and with all of our pleading, despite all of our pleading, we all still suffer. Please, please, we say. And I am gone.

A wastebasket is a writer's best friend.

2006-04-04T12:35:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my wastebasket.