justwrite 6 november

Someone else right now, among others, is Aden. Aden is ready for a nap. Aden is having a really good day. He got to take a long jog in the morning, lunch was really good, and the sun seems just about right for a perfect hour or so of sleep before something else important happens, like dinner. Aden stretches out on the living room carpet in the big patch of sunlight and curls up without a care.

Someone else without a care—or at least without the right care—is Jamie. Jamie has suddenly realized that she has no ice cream and she therefore needs to go to the grocery store immediately. As a backup explanation, she also needs cheese, milk, yogurt, and bananas. Who is going to ask her for this explanation? This much is unclear. What is clear is that her hurried striding across the living room means that she’s about to trip over Aden.
She does.

"Watch out!” barks Aden, jumping up.

“Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie! I didn’t see you there!”

“Yeah, that’s likely,” frumps Aden into his whiskers, shaking off the shock. Really, what is her big rush? So she’s out of ice cream, right? Big deal. Some of us are trying to have a good day here.

Jamie kneels down on the carpet and scratches Aden gently behind the ears. As if that’ll make a difference. As if it’s so easy to make a dog happy.

justwrite 5 november

It’s bok choy, is what it is. Why does Ryan know this? He just does, okay.

The crazy lady drizzles some more soy sauce into the pan, and then spreads some flowery garnishes along the side of the platter. A few more toss-ups in the air, for good measure, and the stir-fry is apparently done. With a huge, somewhat forced smile—or maybe her face naturally looks like that? It’s hard to tell—the woman slides the colorful compilation from the wok to the great blue open with the rice-white clouds.

Does Ryan think this bit about the clouds? No, that’s me again.

As the credits start to roll, the woman carries the platter to a table set for two just to the edge of her kitchen set. She seats and serves herself, and then deftly picks up a bite of bok choy with black lacquered chopsticks. Even as this bite passes her lips, she is nodding vigorously as if to confirm that by the time any of her tastebuds actually meet with this morsel, they will be well pleased. The camera zooms in close on her face and her lips seem impossibly huge as she chews and smiles at the same time. Try it right now. How easy is it to chew and to smile at the same time? It’s not. It takes practice. Ryan practices.

justwrite 4 november

The old blue Toyota lurches uphill into the driveway and Harry puts it in park and sets the parking brake before getting out to open the garage door. There used to be a garage door opener. Now it’s Harry. That’s fine. It makes his daughter crazy, but it’s not like she lives there anymore, so there. Elsewhere, so to speak.

The rickety garage door doesn’t always stay up, so Harry wastes no time pulling the car onto the grease spot slightly to the left of the center of the cement floor. For your reference, this car used to be called Turtle. Harry’s daughter called it this some time ago, though mainly because she wanted a turtle as a pet and Harry’s wife had said no. The fact that turtles are rarely blue had not interfered with Andrea’s decision to name her father’s car Turtle. The last time she referred to this car as Turtle was two years and three months ago. At the time, she had a boyfriend who had a pet turtle. His name was Josh. Josh was now a thing of the past, along with his turtle. Or was the turtle’s name Josh? It really doesn’t matter at this point, I’ll just point out.

Actually, it was the turtle who was named Josh. The boyfriend was Steven. Don’t get hung up on this. I just wanted you to know.

justwrite 3 november

In fact, this is not a story about Maureen. Having peered in closely at her habits, we’ll backtrack to a wider angle, or at least try. But why not Maureen? You probably think now that she’s some kind of unclean deviant or a completely uninteresting walking potted plant. While that’s setting up a complete either/ or fallacy, I can’t agree with either option. Have you no logic? The truth is, Maureen’s a very nice person. You probably are, too, but this novel isn’t about you, either. Sorry.

Lindsay, though—she’s somebody. Please don’t be offended. You’re somebody, too. So is Maureen. So am I. There are only so many words here, though, so we all have to take our turns. Lindsay’s going first. This doesn’t mean that she’s better than any of the rest of us, but at least she’s doing something.

As it turns out, as she burns out, Lindsay is scanning. Lindsay is making that confirming beeping noise to indicate that yes, this is an item, and yes, it is being purchased. Not only is it being purchased presently, but perhaps it’s being subtracted by the inventory and sorted onto a slowly evolving receipt. With full disclosure here being a must— at least at this point, we’ll say— it is true that Lindsay isn’t making that noise. It’s actually the whole contraption between the register and the laser scanner thinger that makes the noise. Even Lindsay doesn’t know exactly where the speaker is. Do you? The beep just pops into existence at exactly the right split second for the split pea and the not-spilt milk and their ilk, swiping their bars like cars on a giant slalom solving their disparately weighted proportions by sorting out north and south on the way to the house but first a bag— sort of a drag after all of that beeping, really—

justwrite 2 november

In this case this space is full of shoppers like a hopper full of popcorn a Sunday morning and a little after straight from the lurch of lunch after church, for the cupboards are bare and families are staring straight into the working week to which they may or may not be welcomed but it’s helping itself to their time which is no crime but a calendar already subscribed to whether you hide through a fallback hour or spring beyond ahead full of sleep creeping into the creep-out savings of daylight a hayride up the hill to mounting concerns unearned through turns churning up the altitude—but not to be rude: you’ve brewed your cup and you’re ready to drink up the rest of the thought so I ought to resume the tune I started singing before leaning into a different key and stumbling through an unlocking door once more and reaching through the breach, dear friend and King Henry, too. Anyway, to peer past those great shakes, please pardon my mistakes. So Sunday it is and this seems to be the day of creation, though investigating the situation leads to the conclusion that this could be confusion for isn’t that the seventh day and god rested or bested whatever was left of the schedule? In that case, the first day was Monday, so it’s not too surprising that this was tucked away as a fact and packed into the second slot on most calendars ever bought—But in this case, our story traces its origin and its species to a Darwin-like dawning, to the survival of those rivals and friends extending their reach to the beachwide sunrise of Sunday.

justwrite 1 november

Just like your last meal, this more or less starts at a grocery store. I don’t mean it’s your Last Meal as in like The Last Supper and someone painted you and your friends waiting to eat food for hours while the details were worked out with all the clothy folds and the soup got cold. It probably wasn’t your Last Meal as in you’re going to be put to death shortly because the likelihood of you reading this book in that small interval is very very slim and even if you’re in that general situation there are lots and lots of chances that you’re in some state where enough judges and lawyers and doctors have read enough tenth-grade persuasive research papers that the date of your execution has been postponed indefinitely until all of the MLA formatted citations are checked for accuracy because they make a good point. Plus, if you’re reading this at all, you’re probably not ever going to die anyway, so let’s just relax.

justwrite 31 october

in the non-fiction world the unfurling is too predictable the ridiculous supposition that someone talks when you're ready to listen is laughable the graphable probability is a bowtie crossfiring down the amazon and to the left two doubledoors on the right send fright through your horror movie mind and the well-defined reminders the cliches the re-animes the space between acting and retracting the shots from a short there's a certain hurting beyond the measurable unjustifiable three trials full of no waiting though the jury's out to lunch and they're not coming back they're suddenly all losing track of their fields of vision initiating collisions with immovable objects in their schedules like chicken salad residential regulars down at the corner there there's a store as you might guess though you must dress like you're nobody and act like you're something if you want anything to be made of your order the leastof which to mention is the gift of pickles tricking brine through teeth caught and released from the barrel unsterilized and ready for some tricks sticking to molars and rolling on regardless a card messing full of names exchanged for credit or for a dubious sort of series of worlds at war with their dials and crying out for turning in with answers made of static