Toothpaste drippings

I don't really know if this will lead to anything, but I wrote it over the last couple of days. The narrator's name might be William or Jasper or something. I'm trying to use a voice that's different from what I've tried before, but I'm worried that this particular voice is too pedantic.

  

You know, it’s hard to say how quickly it actually happened. By the time I rolled out of bed the sky was almost gone. All I saw were these edges on the horizon, a thin colored band of orange that disappeared as my eyes were still trying to adjust. Then it was gone. All of it. But it was so early I didn’t really understand what was happening—I didn’t know what we had lost.

I remember scratching my head while Agnes went about her business. Then, we went inside, I took a shower, and I was getting dressed for work before my brain said, “Wait a minute.” So, I looked out the window again, and all I saw was the white curtain stretching over the entire place. I made a cup of coffee, hooked Agnes back up, and we went and sat on the porch. I thought about everything. I thought about my grandmother. I thought about going to church. I thought about my life and how everything I ever went through led me to where I was at that moment. It was sort of a peaceful feeling, like a quiet inside my soul. That was maybe the quietest moment in my whole entire life.

Marvash screamed. It was blood curdling. I looked up and saw her head sticking out of the window. She dropped something from her mouth—I think it was a toothbrush, but I don’t remember. I saw the thing fall down against the white backdrop. I heard her husband ask what the hell was going on, and then Marvash’s high-pitched voice started to describe it all quickly. I couldn’t really make out what she was saying, but she used a lot of words, and I remember wondering how she could take so many words to describe a white sky.


So, there you go.

What's Peanut eating? Seed pods, I think.

Friday Frecipe!

A childhood (serves 1)

Total prep and cooking time: 23 years


Ingredients:

1 video cassette of Staying Alive starring John Travolta, Cynthia Rhodes, and Finola Hughes
1 pale green baby blanket
1 straw hat
3,650 Ziploc bags with the yellow-and-blue-make-green seal
25,550 cans of Budweiser


Directions:

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl and slowly add in Budweiser until dough starts to pull away from the sides. Let rest for ~15 minutes under a crocheted tablecloth topped with burning paper girl (optional). Bake at 425 degrees F until the inside is tender.

Tea

I've been rereading Yasunari Kawabata's book Thousand Cranes. It's about a man and his relationship with his father's two mistresses after his father dies. And, there's a birthmark involved.

Tea ceremonies are also involved, and the book references some Shino wares. So I looked them up, and they are quite beautiful...

I've always had a thing for ceramics. That's really all I wanted to say. But, really, what I wanted to say is that I am unveiling a new weekly blog feature tomorrow because I miss Scott G. F. Bailey's Friday Fillers. Don't get too excited. 

And for those of you who think that you can't eat tea, you should try my Grandma Sophie's tea. Bring your extra pair of teeth.*

*Okay, I really don't have a Grandma Sophie.

What's Peanut eating? If you're familiar with Miyazaki's animated feature Spirited Away (one of the DVDs I used to play over and over and over again when I wrote), then you may remember this disgusting-looking black blob that the river spirit gave to Chihiro after she pulled a bicycle out of his side. Well, Peanut ate something that looked like that this morning.

Breakfast

Hey, I started writing again after far too many weeks!

Here's another section of "1, 3, 2, 4." If you've forgotten what that is, I can't say I blame you. If no one sees this because my blog is far too inactive, I can't say I blame you. I'm not sure if I will finish this story, since I (at least partially) blame it for putting me into a funk in the first place. Damn art! Damn emotions! Damn soul that I don't really believe in!


The building used to be a toy factory. That’s what everyone still called it, especially the hipsters in their V-necks and plaid shorts and thick-rimmed, turtle shell glasses. Benjamin wondered how those young kids could afford to live here—he and Leo barely could afford it themselves, and both of them had decent jobs, jobs earned after years of dedicated servitude.

The floors were polished concrete, something Leo had loved in the pictures online. They showed the old cracks and stains from the 1920s when the place was first erected. Wide pillars stood near the Eastern wall, supporting even more concrete above them. The building was officially designated an earthquake shelter in the eighties, and the inspector had assured them that a place like this would never collapse unless a nuclear bomb were to land directly on top of it. At the time this had given Benjamin a sense of security, but later, after Leo arrived, the weight of the building seemed to sit on his chest, making it hard to breathe sometimes as they lay together, side by side, in bed. When they were considering places to live in the U.S., Benjamin had suggested they move back to this neighborhood, but Leo was the one who finally told their real estate agent they were ready to make an offer. He had been fed up with Benjamin’s wishy-washiness.


And, AND, I should also say that my buds Scott and Michelle are both offering up their books to the world soon. Scott. Michelle. And, I've been reading Robynne Rand's Who Are You?, which you should check out. There's also J.B. Chicoine's Uncharted and February Grace's Godspeed on my list!

What's Peanut eating? Pumpkin, after a rather festive carving party that included spider web decorations, a pie, and only one injury.

Can you guess which one I did?