Writing Prompts

#1


#1 start a story with:  And it was at that exact moment the power came back on.

And it was at that exact moment that the power came back on. The electricity that just moments before had coursed between them was gone, now transferred to the appliances humming around them. How stark things looked in the blinding fluorescence of the artificial light. What once had been muted and mysterious was now obvious and mundane.

She cleared her throat and looked away. He rose from the threadbare couch, knees popping and busied himself resetting the clock on the microwave on the counter. Squinting at the digital readout, mouth slightly open trying to focus on the numbers, he hit each button slowly, drawing out the task as long as possible to salve his frayed nerves.

“….What..,” trying to start the beginning of a question, his voice caught in his throat and upon trying again, his voice creaked like a rusty hinge. Embarrassed, he tried once more and was successful. “What time is it?”

No answer came. He swiveled and saw she was gone. Only a slightly concave spot on the worn couch, a rumpled crease of fabric where she had sat proved that she had ever been there at all.

Sh*t I gotta do

The Proverbial Bucket List
In no particular order

1.  Finish Bachelor's Degree
2.  If that doesn't kill me, finish Master's
3.  Be an even 150
4.  Find a legitimate hobby
5.  Find a couple more legitimate friends
6.  Write one original short story.  Just one.  A short one.  Why is this so difficult?
7.  Go to a really amazing New Year's/Christmas/Whatever party in an equally amazing dress
8.  Visit all 50 states, 40 more to go!
9.  Go to a Broadway play (not necessarily on Broadway, but a "BIG DEAL" play)
10.  Debate someone and win
11.  Do something aggressive, on purpose
12.  Go to a jazz club
13.  Take another Spanish class
14.  Travel around Europe
15.  Home exchange!
16.  Visit NYC
17.  Get a really nice camera
18.  Have an incredibly meaningful conversation with a total stranger
19.  Tell someone exactly what I think
20.  Dance

Older, Wiser, Cynical-er

It's been a long while since I posted.  Not a lot has changed externally in my world.  A lot has changed internally though.  It seemed like the change from 30 to 31 was a big (dare I say it) paradigm shift for me.  I am beginning to understand why people say that they'd never want to relive their 20's and prefer their 30's and beyond.  Now, mind you, my entire 20's were spent married, working and having babies, so it's not like I have this huge, embarrassing adolescence to look back on while cringing.  No, in fact I'm damn proud of everything I did in my 20's, but it wasn't until now, until 31 that I fully realize what I am capable of achieving.  I'm doing pretty good, working in a career, not just a job, having two incredible boys, a nice house, etc, etc.  But I'm missing something.  I'm not sure what it is yet, or maybe I do and I don't want to know.  I'm not sure.  I do know that I'm going back to school to finish my bachelor's degree in psychology and no amount of shit from my husband will stop me.  I think what might quell this weird void is to make out a list of what it is that I still want to do in life and accomplish some.  See if that makes the ache stop. 

Death and Taxes

Death is the only certainty, the only true constant in life. So why is it then, that the most constant thing in the universe, shoud be the one we seldom speak of? The control freaks try to plan for it. Cheat sheets are left for a spouse, funerals are prepaid, but can you ever really plan for it? The disadvantage is its success can never be measured, nor can lessons learned be brought back to the surviving. You can plan for a Caribbean cruise because it's been done before and advice can be given on what to expect. Except for a few John Edwards and Sylvia Browne types, there is no Frommers or Fodor's for death and its after effects.

Neither can you prepare the surviving for what it feels like when a heartbeat you loved is no longer with you. It's different in every situation. Why do we get so attached to others in the first place? It seems like a flawed system. We know every person we love will leave us at some point, or we will leave them. Wouldn't it be safer to keep all at an arm's length?

The human heart, for most of us, doesn't operate like that, flawed as it may seem to the logical. Maybe this is the meaning of life or maybe it's our cross to bear. Perhaps the meaning of life is that even though we intrinsically know that each person we love will leave us, still we love. Still we entangle our lives and our hearts with others, knowing that it will end sadly. I find this fascinating.

If we are logical enough to guard ourselves from ever truly loving another person, it is seen by others as a failure, a life wasted. Wouldn't it be more convenient for the populous if we died alone without a soul to mourn our passing? We would not have caused anyone any grief and in our life, we would not have had cause to grieve. It would seem that this would be the most effective way to live and die, the greatest use of time and resource.

In my black and white way of reasoning, you might think I would subscribe to this school of thought. Sometimes I think I do, but my body makes decisions for my brain without ever asking its opinion on the matter. My body responds to my spouse and my children without my brain's approval. My brain would like to keep them at a distance. To observe and admire them like paintings in a museum. I would appreciate their beauty and marvel at their detail, but certainly not become a part of them.

My body, my heart, I suppose is immutable. My body hugs and snuggles and kisses, it cries at the very thought of my family all before my brain has a chance to send a warning signal. My body wins over my brain almost every time and for that I am grateful.

Evil Begins with Candy Land

At what point in a life does one develop the capacity for evil? Or maybe not evil so much, but at least the capacity for doing something that you know to be wrong, but you really don't care. We are all born selfish, simply on an evolutionary level, because we had to be to survive. Of course, we are all born with the capacity for love, sympathy and cooperation, again purely for survival. But at what point do we consciously learn to channel those attributes to gain an edge over the competition? For me anyway, it was around the age of 4.

This is when I figured out, of my own volition, that I could subtly mark cards and stack the deck in order to win at Candy Land. No one suspected me, I was unstoppable and mad with power. Eventually my mom caught onto me and told me I was cheating. So, it was that day that I learned what I was doing had a title, but other than that, I failed to see how it was a problem.

I further honed my cheating skills by mercilessly beating my elderly neighbor at UNO. Little did she know I could see the reflection of her cards in her giant trifocals. I was on a power trip of Kim Jong Il proportions. I was a good kid with good grades, the rules of the world didn’t actually apply to me. Rules were created to keep the “others” in line. I felt a kinship with the rulemakers, the teachers, the grownups. I imagined we had kind of a secret society relationship. A nod-in-hallway type camaraderie.

I don’t think that cheating at Candy Land or UNO actually made me any different than any other kid, but it was the way I went about it and how good I was at it that makes me a little worried about my capacity for sociopathic tendencies. That and this little stunt that I pulled in first grade: the neighbor girls were a year older and a year younger than me. They had some doll toys that I felt were very important for me to have. Namely a small baby bottle that had pretend milk in it that disappeared when you turned it up (amazing!) and a pink and white rattle. Rather than steal them, demand they give them to me or beg my parents to buy them like most first graders, I decided to hold a birthday party for my stuffed cat instead.

It’s not that my stuffed cat was that important to me, but this particular stuffed cat was a baby cat. No, not a kitten. A cat-baby with a diaper, a pacifier and a bib. What this cat lacked was a bottle with magical disappearing liquid and a sweet-ass pink rattle.

How could I market this so it was a win-win situation? A birthday bash for said cat was the perfect solution. Everyone wins, especially me! I created birthday invitations with a hand drawn picture of the cat in question. Inside I wrote the time and location of the party (tomorrow afternoon, my bedroom) and just a general list of what the cat might like for a present, just something little, maybe a bottle or a rattle or something, nothing major.

My mom helped me make Kool-Aid and we had some Little Debbie snacks for treats. The girls came over at the proper time clutching small presents. We adjourned to the party suite. The stuffed cat was very excited to receive such thoughtful presents, namely one magic bottle and one rattle. The cat displayed the proper amount of enthusiasm and gratitude and a wonderful time was had by all. My diabolical scheme had been successful.

Subsequently I bent the rules on many occasions and never once got called on it. I plagiarized reports, made up books and authors for a bibliography, even going so far as to make up fake Library of Congress numbers. That scored me another A in 5th grade.

I am the worst kind of person. A terrible person wearing the face of a completely normal one. If you fully acknowledge the awful facets of your personality, does that make them ok? I’m inclined to think it does not. It’s like those heinous bumper stickers that fill me with rage, you know the ones “100% Bitch” or “I’m not a bitch, I’m THE bitch” etc. If you are fully accepting that you are a difficult person, that doesn’t necessarily make that behavior fully acceptable. I fully acknowledge that I’m a snarky, pretentious and judgmental know it all, but I don’t expect other people to think it’s ok and I sure as hell don’t welcome those traits in others (which is awful, I know) It’s ok for me of course, but not for anyone else.

Can you ever really know another person? I don’t think so.

Differences Between Elvis and Me

Elvis once said, "I never thought I'd be anybody important." I, on the other hand, had no doubt that I would grow up to be a big deal. I had no reasons for these delusions of grandeur. I was not an attractive child, had no talent for music or sports, lacked basic social skills and wasn't a genius by any stretch of the imagination. What I did have going for me was an encyclopedic knowledge of television, movies and books, year-round allergies, scoliosis and bifocal glasses in the classic style of Sally Jessy Raphael, all by the age of 10. Houston, we have a nerd.

I always felt an unnecessary superiority to others, even in pre-school. The silly games and songs were always beneath me, as were the dummies that I was forced to sit with and nap next to. I was offended by Red Rover and children's menus.

I was told I'd be taller

When I was in Kindergarten I was the "tallest girl." Labels and categories are very, very important to a kindergartner. When you don't really understand life yet, everything is black and white, good guy and bad guy, Ken and Barbie, right and wrong. Anyone who has ever been around a kindergarten-age child will tell you there is no such thing as subtlety, sarcasm or gray areas for this age group.
In the hierarchy of Kindergarten there was the oldest, the youngest, the tallest, the shortest, the loudest, the quietest, etc. Being the tallest girl was a BIG DEAL, pretty much VIP-level stuff.
It became even a bigger deal at our Kindergarten graduation in the spring of 1987. My hair was freshly crimped, my gray and neon green sweater dress was clean and my cable-knit tights were not yet bunching around my knees. I had my pink, construction paper graduation cap with the "Class of 2000" tassel (this is also when it first occurred to me that I would graduate in 2000, another REALLY BIG DEAL since obviously I'd attend high school on the moon and drive there in my flying car--natch!). As our class stood up to sing "Down By the Bay," I scanned the crowd for my parents and grandparents. I found my grandpa videotaping me with his giant (and super modern) camcorder. As soon as the pomp and circumstance had died down my grandparents rushed over with flowers to congratulate my stellar achievements. "You're the tallest girl!" my grandma gushed. I humbly acknowledged this fact. "She'll grow up to be a basketball player," my grandpa exclaimed, "lots of colleges will want her!" "Or a model!" my grandma predicted. Yes, yes, the world was my oyster, I'd be a basketball playing model, accepting positions at top colleges on the moon. But soon the glory faded and by the time the leaves began to change and I became a card-carrying first grader--to my horror I discovered I no longer wore the coveted "tallest girl" crown. How could this be? I was somewhere in the middle. I was mediocre. No longer special. This was bullshit! Not only was this bullshit, this was only the first of many times I was told I'd be something that I didn't turn out to be.
Looking back now, with all the fluff my head was filled with by family members, I should be a 6 foot blonde model, who went to college on an athletic scholarship and eventually cure cancer. They failed to tell me that blonde hair turns mousy, skinny bodies turn curvy, school gets harder and just because you get good grades, doesn't mean you're smart.
I didn't go to high school on the moon, I was a completely inept at basketball and never again did I don the crown of tallest girl. If 6 year old me saw adult me's statistics on paper, she would have dubbed me a complete failure. But then again 6 year olds don't appreciate gray areas and life is pretty much a total gray area.