Tag: 100 words

How to Survive High School

©Universal Studios

Watch The Breakfast Club a minimum of five times.

Cry a lot.

Laugh a lot.

Care a lot less about what other people think.

Keep a journal, but tear out the pages and discard. Burn them, if necessary.

Read something provocative.

Sing in the shower.

Make something cool.

Make a sound track for the following situations: heartbreak, euphoria, failure, disillusionment, creative foundering, despondency, envy, stupid people, kicking ass, revenge, and staring at the ceiling.

Be a good friend to your good friends–including you.

Avoid all long-term consequences: pregnancy, herpes, jail, death, and dismemberment.

Whoever you are, be more so.

****

A shout out to Mr. Maher and his high school class in San Diego. Every November, he challenges his students to write a 100-word story every day for 30 days. He lets them brainstorm suggested topics, and then writes accordingly throughout the entire month. No exceptions–because he is awesome. I can’t help but be inspired to write a few 100-word stories myself. Surviving high school was yesterday’s topic. Feel free to chime in with your own advice in the comments.

A Thanksgiving Lament: How can anyone possibly focus when the house smells this good?

I’m sure I’d be writing something witty or poignant except that I can’t stop thinking about those artery-clogging potatoes in the oven.

I’m thankful for so much. Friends, family, readers, good books, music, walks up my small mountain, cranberry sage stuffing.

My cup truly runneth over, except for writing ideas, which I still have to claw from a big box of nothing I keep next to my blank screen.

Thought I might drag something out between stuffing the bird and stuffing myself, but I’d rather hang out with my loved ones.

And rescue the wine from the freezer.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Porcupines

From Moth-Eatn Productions.
From Moth-Eatn Productions.

It sounded like someone sawing a hole in the cabin—which was, in fact, the case. The corner outside my parents’ bedroom was the tastiest.

“Art,” my mother would say, interrupting his snoring. “They’re back.” She’d toss on a robe and march outside, waving the vacuum hose, my father right behind her.

“There’s only one way to negotiate with porcupines,” our neighbor finally said, sliding a cigar box across our table like the scene from a movie.

But no one used the gun.

Instead, we continued to sic mom on them in hopes they would soon tire of the Hoover.

I STILL HAVE NIGHTMARES

From www.tasteofcinema.com
From http://www.tasteofcinema.com

I was the youngest of four in a house with a cat and a dog, plus the occasional hamster, hermit crab, and a series of chameleons who would disappear and mysteriously wind up in the dryer. Despite this, my mother tried valiantly to keep tabs on me. At nine, when I was caught trying to read Sybil and Go Ask Alice, she repeatedly warned against inappropriate reading material.

Instead, I filched my sister’s copy of The Shining. I propped my social studies textbook on end and hid it inside, reading voraciously while Mrs. Denevan tended to the more flamboyant rulebreakers.

Mean Girl

Jolene was the sprout of every girl who had ever hurt my feelings, reincarnated as a preschooler.

Yet my daughter was inexplicably devoted.

Ever hopeful, she would greet her wee frien-emy warmly.

Jolene would shriek and hide under the table. She would ignore–then punish cruelly if my child played with anyone else.

When confronted, Jolene would blame her actions on her delicate emotional state. “I’m really missing my mom today,” she would say, copping a sad face. “That’s why I’m making bad choices.”

But she would look me in the eye in a way that tipped her tiny hand.

 

Six of one; half a dozen of the other

Travel holds:

Adventure

The pleasure of discovery,

of not knowing what to expect

A shift in perspective

A jolt to the senses

New landscapes—both physical and psychological

New stories, and new threads to old stories

A chance to reevaluate,

To find oneself

To lose oneself

***

Arriving home holds:

A roof

The ease of familiarity

The right pillows

A sense of belonging

The comfort of predictability,

A less tangible sort of baggage

A heating pad

An electric toothbrush

A grocery store stocked and organized in a familiar way

shelves of books

And a cat, curled around my neck while I read

The End

I had waited for this moment for years.

First with dread, of course–the inevitable fear of the inevitable.

Then I began to pray for it.

I prayed for some relief, some closure, a chance to worry about something completely different.

I punished myself for spawning such blasphemous thoughts, but they came all the same.

 

When it was time, I was ready.

I sat there all night, watching, breathing, waiting.

How did I miss it?

When had the last puff of air passed her lips and dispersed?

In the end, it was impossible to tell when it was. It just was.

Why did I wish for this–

this hole of nothing? This abyss?

****

Random stab at fiction inspired by artist Sophie Calle (long story), and A Night of Writing Dangerously.

 

 

Baggage

From www.zdnet.com
From http://www.zdnet.com

I had one job:

Bring the bag.

I was asked twice.

Of course, I said.

No problem, I said.

I thought a lot about the bag.

I determined a suitable size and shape.

I planned its contents.

I discussed possibilities.

I made lists.

Piece of cake.

I was reminded once more, which was a little annoying.

Even so, I wrote it on my hand.

I laid everything on the bedroom floor, then arranged it neatly in the bag.

Now what?

I added a few items.

I put the bag in a prominent place.

I put a note on my bedside table, and set a reminder on my phone.

I passed the bag six or seven times this morning…

Guess what?

Medicine Head

From www.farm3.staticflickr.com
From http://www.farm3.staticflickr.com…Oh, how I wish I had taken this photograph myself.

My brain is lodged in the trash compactor,

unmoved by children’s Tylenol.

I stare, glassy-eyed, at a blank and patronizing screen

wondering

will I ever coax this contraption to do my bidding?

Saliva snags the back of my gullet, and travels like a barbed mouse through a snake.

Thick rivers of mucus dislodge all thought from rational moorings

and press angrily against the inside of my face.

One more attempt to form a sentence and I’ll erupt–

Vesuvius-style–

without Pliny to document my self-destruction.

Dreams

From www.identifont.com
From http://www.identifont.com

I no longer recount my dreams to the spouse because one morning he said,

“What is the matter with your head, woman?”

To which I had no response.

Last night I was urinating in a restaurant, hovering off the side of my chair, hoping no one would notice.

I was giving a dying rat sips of water by squeezing a damp paper towel over his freakish gray face.

I was wandering, lost, lugging my severed leg.

But one perfect night I was in Italy, at a little restaurant on the side of a cliff. I was watching the light change, and laughing, laughing, laughing.

I keep hoping for another night like that.