Everyone was on board for the show. They had their fly gear and their hats. I, of course, forgot my sunglasses.
"No problem," mama said, "just squint!"
As we lined up, I squinted at the audience. It never ceased to amaze me that the entire population of a town would stop what it was doing to watch our show every week. But they did. All fifty-four of them, including the dogs.
I was getting antsy. This week, I was the leader! Never before had a child led the show! I wasn't nervous; there's no room for nerves in show-biz. However,...
Bocci. Bocci ball. Bowling on a lawn. That's what I was doing in that old photo. But strange. Usually you bowl with other people. Usually there's markings on the ground, a target ball to shoot from. In the photo, I'm just standing there in the middle of the lawn, facing the house. My house? God, I don't know whose house that is. It could be a field house, or a club house, and I'm playing bocci, a game I don't know how to play, have never, as far as I'm aware, ever played before in my life, and I'm hunched...
The following is excerpted from IrishAbroad circa 2000:
Flashback .Sunday morning 11am...Woke up to the sound of me oulwan bawlin up the stairs..."Will ye get bleedin up, and go and get me the News of the World outside the church for jaysus sake, out til all hours last night"....Me head was bleedin spinning...I could never handle those rock shandys. I was rackin me brains tryin to remember what happened with Suzie, Phil, and Mags, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember...The waft of Kearns` sausage’s wrapped in batch loaf smothered in lashings of grease was what greeted me...
I was an optimist. I thought that I, like Hemingway, could weave my influence between countries, live in the welcoming limbo between a government I believed in and one that spoke my language. I stopped trying to return to the United States thirty years ago. I am an airplane steward now. Sometimes I write in imperfect Spanish for a newspaper named after a boat named after a nameless elderly woman half a century dead. I believe every word I write. I am happy.
But the days I spent in the narrow land come back to me every day. They knew...
Freewrite had been studying the whole damned week.
It was a chaotic week, filled with dark-roast coffee and cotton sweaters, self induced wakefulness like a ritual. Now, it was Thursday, and Freewrite still hadn't completed his research. He sat groggily, frustrated, hunched over a dark cup of coffee with a pen in his hand and a book to his left.
On the other side of the desks were threescore discarded books that had offered little relevance to him. Friday was tomorrow. Freewrite looked at his wristwatch. It was already 9:58 pm.
Freewrite realized that his thesis was due the morning...
Quantum leaping isn't always fun. Not when I end up as a woman. Find it unnerving especially as all I was hoping to do was to channel the skills from one of my parallel selves.
I needed to cook a three course romantic dinner and knew that there must be a Galloping Gourmet self somewhere out there, expert on wines, the best cut of meat and good at table decoration.
Jasmine, was not at all what I wanted, especially as she was a concubine to an extremely ugly Prince, even though she did know how to cook. She was his...
Time to empty his pockets. Small knife worn ebony handle, three cheap plastic lighters, one engraved silver lighter, crumpled receipts, loose change, reading glasses, two cell phones (one pink). Notebook of newspaper clippings, photos, poems, doodles. He didn't know what to do about it. Recalled the shivery feeling when he looked through it, read the threats within the pages.
Kleptomania could be an interesting condition to have. Usually he was thrilled by his daily haul. Not today. Wondering if his conscience would make him warn the subject of the notebook.
She looks beautiful. Innocent. Unaware..
"Following up from the fight we had last night Darren"
"I don't wanna talk about it Judy"
I can see the fear in Darren's eyes, i know he wants to tell me something, I just don't know what. His hands are trembling, while peeling the potatoes preparing for dinner. The look on his face is getting worrying. He suddenly falls to the floor, the peeler is down there with him. What did he do? What did I do? 911. PLease..
I was going to the store to buy some Golden Grahams and mushroom soup. I was with Meadow, my kid sister, who was 11. Meadow had developed an infatuation with cole slaw. She wore it under her armpits. She danced a lot too. Her favourite fictional character was Smurfette.
We got to the store and the clerk, Mr. Didd, told us that we could have the Golden Grahams for free if we would do him a favour.
"Wassat?" asks Meadow.
Mr. Didd hands her a pouch of golden dust. "Take this into the woods and dispose of it," he says....
Fault. Not a good word. Not a pleasant word. It conjures up the idea of blame. If someone’s at fault, someone’s to blame. The same thing.
Plus it makes me think of faulty. Broken. Useless.
Like you, really. It’s your fault. You’re faulty. It’s not me, it’s you.
I can tell you now I never appreciated the blank stares, the monosyllables, the selfishness, the way you sit there every morning drinking your coffee and reading your paper, or tapping away at your laptop, or doing whatever it is you do with your phone. Facebook, maybe? Or are you on Twitter?...