Calisthenics, Week 10

Character Development:


Asparagus

1.  I think sometimes, when you smile, you hate me.
2. The way others would see your asparagus-colored eyes glitter with enthusiasm, I see the spark of fiendish malady.
3. I know this becasue your left eye goes crooked (like one of those glue-on googly eyes you get at craft stores) when you look at me; like there is so much power processing inside your brain that you can only focus one eye at a time.
4. Your laugh is as commanding as as witches cackle.
5. Whn no one is looking, though, you retreat into a world of little girls who sit on the curb making mudpies, collecting spiders and talking ot the other characters in your head that understand you much better than I ever can.
6. You are a chameleon of temperment.
7. I watch through the second story window as you bounce around, pigtails flapping, lifting your shirt up to show the boys how you are all the same.
8. Instead, I wish to show you how rermarkeable you are.
9. You bend down, pick up a hairy caterpiller, and place it on a stick - chasing the new girl on the block around the parking lot, delighting in her shrieks.
10.
11.
12.
13.
15.

Improv, Week 10

The 4 o’clock drive thru line at Starbucks on a Sunday afternoon

Line 1:

Behind the old man with a sixty thousand dollar jaguar, she waits.

Members only jacket, a tire fills with air.

Gritting, his sharp yellow teeth match Ralph Lauren shirt.

She wonders what a man driving a sixty thousand dollar car can be so upset about.    

Later:

The car drinks its own milk, purring and content.

Happy as its owner who doesn’t rush to fill her day with nicotine and energy drinks

Instead, the driver sits deep in the woods of Montana feeding sticks into a fire,

Waiting for the speaker to ask its questions with muffled voice and purposeful pleasantries

She fishes and watches baseball games in dugouts constructed of synapses,

Electrical impulses whisk her away to the Middle Ages- all monk robes, dirty sex, chain link and wood.

An impatient honk forces her up two inches.

Scribbling thoughts as she tosses two ripped dollars into the tip jar, happy to pay for the pleasure of waiting, the man behind the counter wants to appease her

“Busy scribbling, so busy” he remarks. “Oh yes, very busy” she says, relaxed.

and wonders if anyone notices

How warm it is in the car with the afternoon sun beating down through the windshield

Breaking the freezing wind outside

Free Entry 1, Week 10

A Bottle of Jack Daniels mixes with Norwegian blood she didn’t know she had

Until two months ago

Now she has a bubble blowing grandmother

Who cried when they met after 31 years

Even though the grandmother, with curly blond hair and a tired look,  

didn’t know who she was.  She grinned with yellow teeth

and the corners felt fakely upturned; forced by antidepressants

and the instinct of someone who has lost recollection

to instead fake a smile.  

Still, she believed somewhere deep inside those tears

Falling down wrinkled pale skin

Lied a memory of her love, long sought

And all this strange grandmother could say is how much this young woman meant to her

How beautiful she was, and sweet

and how the cats outside love flower arrangements and soda.

Junkyard Quote 4, Week 10

Cold War Kids
We Used To Vacation lyrics

I kissed the kids at noon
Then stumbled out the room
I caught a cab
Ran up a tab
On 7th and flower

Best recital I had to ruin
Missed my son's graduation
Punched the Nickles boy
For taking his seat
Gets all that anger from me

Still things could be much worse
Natural disasters on the evening news
Still things could be much worse
We still got our health
My paycheck in the mail

I promised to my wife and children
I'd never touch another drink
As long as I live
But even then
It sounds so soothing
This will blow over in time
This will all blow over in time

I'm just an honest man
Provide for me and mine
I give a check to tax deductable
Charity organizations
Two weks paid vacation won't heal the damage done
I need another one

Still things could be much worse
Natural disasters on the evening news
Still things could be much worse
We still got our health
My paycheck in the mail

I promised to my wife and children
I'd never touch another drink
As long as I live
But even then
It sounds so soothing
To mix a gin
And sink into oblivion

I promised to my wife and children
That accident
Left everyone a little shook up
But at the meetings
I felt so empty
This will blow over in time
This will all blow over in time

Junkyard Quote 3, Week 10

"GOD IS.... (fictional)
Man may be fiction and life and illusion but God will always belove ignoringhim changs nothing."

Gotta love random bathroom stall quotes.

Junkyard Quote 2, Week 10

hmmnn...what is this message, next to my car??

"Nice parking Job asshole
-Santa Claus"

Junkyard Quote 1, Week 10

"dreamless cemetary"

my son came up with this as we left the reading on Wednesday night. Brooke was saying how downtoen Carrollton looked like a dark, spooky graveyard...which prompted out discussion that those words seems "available." So I challenged the kids to think of ways to describe a graveyard that was maybe a little more different or unique. And Aidam came up with dreamless, which I thought was pretty darn cool.