Still here

It’s been a long time since I’ve been on this blog. I blame this on my instructor asking me to write about my crazy job experience this summer. I’ve been writing that instead of writing this. The good news is I have an amusing currently 70 page story almost ready for submission. The other good news is that I quit that crazy job last week.

I also started a new blog dedicated to my short short fiction at http://32wordstories.wordpress.com.

I’m also working on getting my website up and starting an online publication. Whew. I think it’s nap time…

Home work

Can you guess the assignment?

Blood

I used to have a fear of vampires, blood sucking, soulless creatures of the night. I’m not sure when it began but I am sure I was quite young and watched a movie that if I had had more observant parents, they would not have let me see. I had nightmares as a child of vampires chasing me, cornering me in my bedroom and attacking.

It’s been a phobia that I’ve kept to myself most of my life after getting reactions like, do you think vampires are real? And then I saw some. In Boulder, Colorado. They were a pack of about 10 walking towards me. They seemed odd, out of place. They wore dark clothes of leather and ripped blue jeans and they were a range of ages – from 40’s to a young teenager.

I was scared but didn’t want to make it obvious by crossing to the other side of the street. So I continued to face my nightmare. I looked straight ahead as they surrounded and then passed by me. One of them laughed, a full laugh and swung his head back with his mouth open wide. He had fangs.

Later a Goth friend told me that there are people who actually want to be vampires and they get some kind of cosmetic surgery done to have fangs. This would explain why my demons were walking around in broad daylight, a big no-no for real vampires.
What I feared most about vampires was not that they would suck my blood and kill me (unless, of course, they wanted me to join them for eternity), but rather that they could have complete control over their victims. Not once in all those movies did I see anyone resist the seductive and manipulative mind control. The vamps always got people to let them in the house.

As I’ve grown older I fear real death more than that of the living dead. But I think the issues are the same. I don’t know if I will ever be able to accept that life, my life or anyone else’s, is out of our control.

I’ve been writing…

These are 32-word stories inspired by the theme of ‘dreams’. Not everything you read is true.

The subway station is empty. I put two quarters into the machine. A movie ticket pops out for Grease. I laugh and wonder how this will get me to wherever I’m going.

I have to finish the filing before I can leave but when I look at the stack of papers, it hasn’t gotten any smaller. I look at the clock, hours have passed.

I see my friend ahead of me. I call her name. She turns around and starts speaking to me in Japanese. I’m upset because I was the one who studied the language.

It’s me and my iguana, Iggy Guava. We are surrounded by darkness. How can I make you happy? I ask. Banana Squash, he says. I love to eat Banana Squash. I smile.

It’s like rolling down a hill. Floating in the ocean or swinging upside down. Laughing so hard you can’t breathe or turning your head upwards and letting the rain tickle your face.

We are several people standing around a table having a discussion. I can’t speak. The man standing next to me tells me, You can say anything you want. This is your dream.

42.5 pounds

And I’m not talking quid. Biggest turkey I’d ever seen and the most delicious keeping in mind that I was a vegetarian for many many years.

This year’s holiday turned into a family reunion of sorts. There were 20 some people at dinner and 40 some for dessert. I have to admit it, I love my family. And to see the extended ‘greats’ and second cousins was good times. And to top it off, my great-aunt and her husband presented a power point presentation of the family tree. I love the idea of a family tree. I have a number of old black and white photos in my hallway and now I know who those people were. Names and everything.

What lacked was the stories. But of course, who wants to taint the family tree with sordid truths but me? I have to say, I ached for the tales, wondered how one could be remembered without them. It’s been a goal of mine to record my grandparents stories. I have yet to make this a reality and I have a ton of excuses for not doing so.

Watching the PPP gave me a selfish idea. I’m going to write the stories of these people inspired by factual information I have. The result will be purely fiction from my over-active imagination.

desire, #elching*

I gave you my future where I knew it wouldn’t survive. How could you selfishly take my existence only to shit it back out? I want to suck the life out of you. I want to suck you so dry that only I can relieve your thirst. And you will beg me for it, parting your lips and rolling your tongue as you tell me to kiss you. This is true desire.

*Disclaimer: It doesn’t surprise me that this word was suggested by my dear and close friend but I fear that if I spell it out, I’ll start getting the wrong kind of hits.

Whew! And that’s the end of the week-in-writing-exercises. Thanks for the inspiration. Aside from the blog I am happily (at the moment) working on a new short story. And I got a job! But more on that later….

Hopelessness

My feeling hopeless has manifested itself into pure hopelessness. I can not, for the life of me, figure out to fix the time on this blog. At first I thought it was funny. But now it’s freaking me out. I already feel like there is not enough time in the day and now when I log on to WordPress in the early evening it tells me that it’s the next day. It’s just not fair, you can’t go around stealing time from people.

Ambition

Mamma told me I had no ambition. So I knocked her in the side of her head. How’s that for ambition? I been wantin’ to do that for years. I think I’m beginning to understand when all those people told me how I was not living up to my full potential. I like the new me. Now I’m gonna go talk to daddy.

Gluttony

“You have a big glut.”

“What?”

“A big glut.”

“You mean, gut?”

“No, I mean a glut man. Like gluttony.”

“Dude…”

Grace

“Grace, hurry up!” yelled her older sister.
Grace knew that if she was being called for that meant the entire family was downstairs waiting for her.  Aunts, uncles, cousins and other relatives related by marriage. This wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. She hated her mom for inviting everyone here and hated her even more for naming her Grace when she had spent the last fifteen years stumbling through life.