A few last words to thank my friends on Vox for the joy, interaction, kindness and stimulation you have provided me over the last few years. I have gotten a lot from this little experiment and I hope you have, too. I will most probably move my blog over to Wordpress (when I figure it out - I'm a little technically challenged) and I'm looking forward to reconnecting with you there. The very best to all of you
09/14/2010
07/01/2010
Infiltration
My life in Magnolia, Texas has been mostly without meaning just like every other life living cooped in the confines of this ½ horse town. The streets are a bone-yard filled with the debris of fractured hopes, suffocated promise and crushed dreams. Dogs don’t bark. Rain never clears the air. There is no living thing that hasn’t been affected by the Infiltration. Some of us know it, most of us don’t. I do. I had hopes, promise and dreams once.
Maybe the whole world is like this now; small pockets of soulless automatons, going about their business as though there were some purpose, some overriding need or significance to their actions. Really, in some ways, here in Magnolia, there’s almost no difference between before the Infiltration and after, certainly not for those who don’t remember.
I think I’ve got it figured out. It’s the moon. No, no bear with me, I know how this sounds but it’s different now, the moon, I mean. It has clouds. It’s ringed with a fuzziness. I think it has an atmosphere. I suspect everything will really go off kilter soon. See, I think what’s happening is that the solar system is a living being and that the moon is trying to become a planet with an atmosphere and that it’s sucking the souls of living beings to create it. Right. I know how this sounds…
If I honestly believed there was somewhere to go that was different from Magnolia I’d leave here. I’d slap leather, I’d be like a gun discharging a bullet. But the bullet never leaves the barrel so I don’t go. Even if I could find other people who remember, even if we banded together, what would we do? Howl at the moon?
08/29/2009
Flash Fiction Contest!
FLASH FICTION
Dim the lights, put on some slow-burning jazz, and loosen your tie as
you take the craft of flash fiction writing and apply it to the seedy,
crime-riddled world of noir fiction. Your job is to present an engaging
story in 500 words or less
in that grand tradition of Raymond Chandler, Patricia Highsmith, or Jim
Thompson. This contest is a fundraiser for p:ear, a program for homeless and transitional youth, and will be judged by
Kevin Sampsell, editor of the bestselling anthology, Portland Noir (Akashic Books). The
top three stories will be read at p:ear noir
the fundraising event on October 7th from 7-9p, benefiting p:ear, and
located at 338 NW 6th Ave. Author of the winning story will receive a
$50 gift certificate to Powell's Bookstore (available on line), a
signed copy of Portland Noir, and a chapbook from IPRC containing the top 10 flash fiction entries.
Entry fee: $15, a mighty portion of the proceeds benefit p:ear.
Deadline: please submit Flash Fiction entries by September 11th online at
www.pearmentor.org or
wordstockfestival.com or mail them with check to Flash Fiction, p:ear, 338 NW 6th, Portland OR 97209
07/06/2009
Be right back...
I feel badly that I’ve neglected my Vox friends and I owe an explanation.
At this time a lot of folks are struggling financially. This is especially true for small (and large) non-profits that depend on the generosity of their communities for survival. No, this isn’t a pitch. But most of my time the last few months has been absorbed by the needs of p:ear, the program for homeless youth I work for. As things are, I foresee being immersed in all things non-profit for the next several months. It’s not that I’m not thinking about you or that I don’t want to play, I’m just committed to the time this program is going to take to survive. And I'll be back.
05/16/2009
The Food Diary
This quick fiction explores the seasons of food as they trace through a relationship. Feed-back welcome!
The Food Diary
January– Oranges and Avocados
Orange and avocado salad is in the top ten of my favorite salads, although no one else seems to like it. Actually, it’s not so much a salad as a litmus test. This is the idea: if I find another person who likes it as much as I do that person is certain to be my soul mate.
It’s a simple salad: separate the peel from the oranges and the dust of white pith bursts into the air followed by the sharp scent of citrus. Slice the oranges into rounds, cut the avocados in half, gently remove the dark, mysterious seed with a soup spoon and cut the creamy, pale green flesh into slices with a sharp knife and the avocado still in its skin. Scoop out the slices with the soupspoon. Then set the plate with orange and avocado slices placed on a bed of mixed greens and drizzled with a creamy French or Catalina dressing.
I made it for Ryan. His eyes lit up. Forkful after forkful made it’s way into his mouth and finally he sighed, “That’s the best salad I’ve ever had.”
February – Brussels Sprouts
It’s an ongoing battle. I’m convinced that if I find just the right recipe, the proper combination, my Brussels sprout hating date will like them. Ryan is dutiful. He tastes every attempt and rejects it. He says, “How can you eat those things?” I say, “The question is how can you eat those things?”
I’ve tried Brussels sprouts sweetened and glistening with maple syrup, Brussels sprouts made savory with blue cheese and bacon, potatoes and Brussels sprouts mashed and formed into pancakes then lightly browned in butter (a personal favorite), and I’ve roasted carrots, turnips and Brussels sprouts until they were caramelized and tender – no use.
I’m not sure why it’s so important to me. Maybe Brussels sprouts represent what I love about myself, earthy, small without being delicate, and a little nutty. I want him to accept this, ingest it, celebrate it.
April – Water and Alcohol
I don’t drink enough water – who does? Except maybe those plastic bottle toting wateraholics, who always seem to be taking a swig?
We’ve been camping on the coast – the wettest camping tip in the history of the Oregon Coast. Not really. But it’s been raining, rain poured down the sides of the camper, pummeled the roof, soaked the pine trees until they rained themselves, water slipping from their needles to the spongy ground. I was drinking wine, lots of wine and Ryan was drinking orange juice and vodka. It rained and rained and we just kept drinking and drinking. There was an argument. I can’t even remember what it was about. It turned mean. The park service came. We almost got kicked out of the park.
I’m dehydrated, demoralized and hung over but no longer drunk. This much I’m sure of: we can’t drink anything stronger than water together and one of us needs to quit drinking. I think it’s us.
June – Chicken Dinner
Cooking for one is not so much an art form as a discipline. I can do it. Ryan can’t. Well, the fact of the matter is he can’t cook for two either, but he won’t eat by himself, he’d rather not eat. Inconceivable. I roasted half a bone-in chicken breast with onions and rosemary, tossed a salad of field greens, dried cranberries and toasted pecans in a sherry vinaigrette. I set the table using the good linen and silverware, poured myself a glass of sparkling water, lit a candle and have never been more lonely in my life.
September – Salmon on the River
September - time for fresh starts. As a kid I remember how excited I was just before school started. New clothes, new books, new pencil case. I’m ready to give it the old school try again.
Ryan and I drove down the Columbia River Gorge, one of the most scenic gorges, to the biased anywhere, intent on purchasing fresh salmon. We saw a sign that advertised “fresh caught salmon - will not accept drugs or alcohol as payment”. Intrigued, we took that exit down a dirt road that paralleled the river and came to a trailer with the same sign outside. When we got out of the car we were greeted by two friendly dogs of undeterminable breed and a Native man in his mid to late 30’s.
He had three gleaming salmon on ice he’d caught that morning. Even dead their scales shone in the sunlight like silver filigree or black pearls. We took the smallest one home in an ice chest and spent about an hour laughing our heads off at our exploratory efforts at determining fish anatomy and somehow making acceptable salmon steaks for the freezer. I can almost taste salmon roasted on a cedar plank, gravlax with tarragon and juniper berries, baked salmon in Hoisin sauce, salmon smoked with tea… Anything that goes into a freezer is a statement about the future.
04/26/2009
Five Word Challenge - Girls Love Horses
This
is how it works: you get 5 words and with these 5 words you have to
write an entry. The words might or might not be related. You decide how
to combine them, and how long your entry will be. You tag your entry
with 5wordchallenge
and whatever other tags you like. Finally, you put the words in bold. This is fun! Take up the challenge and see what you can make with these five words: sweep, air, beach, crane, water
Melanie was furious. It was the old fury – boyfriend screwing someone else. But he’d make a mistake, a big one, well, he’d made two. He’d left a set of keys at her house. She didn’t care about his apartment but the keys to his 1983 Mustang GT 5.0, were a godsend. He loved that Mustang more than he loved her and honestly, she probably loved it more than him, too. It was classic shiny-red with a large, black stripe running down the hood - light, quick and strong. She had run her hand down the sweep of that long hood dozens of times and never tired of the smooth, cool surface containing the promise of power in 175 horses at 4200 rpm.
It was simple to go over to his apartment that night and slip the key into the ignition (he slept like the dog he was). She felt the nearly sexual thrill of a V-8 engine, all horses alive and straining, 3,000 pounds of power and the deep, hoarse breath of a four-barrel carb sucking air like a racehorse.
She headed out onto the open road feeling exhilarated, negotiating turns, agile as a fox. This was no random joy ride, though. She knew exactly where she was going and headed for Ryer’s Cove with each banked turn supported by a sporting suspension and a 3.08:1 rear axle, adrenaline flowing as freely as gasoline through a fuel line.
She drove past the parking lot, on to the beach and stopped at water’s edge taking in the view for a few minutes. She watched a crane, pale gray, silhouetted against the first light, fishing in the shallow water. When she got out she caressed the hood, hiked to the top of Look Out Point, and waited for the tide to come in.
Related events: In 1983 US Steel closed all or part of 29 mills; the largest manufacturing shut-down in American history. In that same year Ford and GM failed to meet the mandated CAFE standards.
04/24/2009
Give this some thought...
Please consider supporting this very special event in any way you can. p:ear provides the needed education, artistic and recreational opportunities that homeless youth need so much to move on in their lives.
03/25/2009
Roland - 5wordchallenge
This
is how it works: you get 5 words and with these 5 words you have to
write an entry. The words might or might not be related. You decide how
to combine them, and how long your entry will be. You tag your entry
with 5wordchallenge
and whatever other tags you like. Finally, you put the words in bold.
Roland
Dumpster diving hadn’t yielded much today – a half burrito with beans, rice and corn and something that might have been an eggplant. It was discouraging; what with the recession, even the dregs were getting worse.
Roland stroked his red bulbous nose, pulled another swig from the bottle in his pocket and tried not to think about it. If he hurried he might hit the end of the food line at Sister of Mercy but hurry had left him a long time ago, just after hope.
He sat down in the alley, most of his attention captivated by a once blue shirtfront. The alley was between commercial buildings, a taqueria, convenience store and warehouse. Light sneaked in like a first time intruder nervously looking over it’s shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye Roland caught a glint of something coming up in a crack of pavement, something green and alive. He let gravity carry him to get a closer look. He was pretty sure it was a tomato plant, green and fierce. A damn tomato plant! He’d heard that tomato seeds could go through the digestive tracts of birds and still be viable. Those tomato seeds, they could survive anything.
02/02/2009
Five Word Challenge: twilight, crush, brazen, remind, favor
Remember
Elaine and Josh were sitting in separate but equal rockers on the porch letting the years seep by, letting the summer sun die of old age and the old moon rock the new moon gently into the half-lit sky. They never nodded off – life was too precious.
In the soft twilight Josh asked, “Do me a favor, will ya, Elaine? Remind me what we had for Easter dinner in ’05 and who was there.
Elaine sipped her orange Crush laced with a little whiskey and watched the “sweat” erase on the inside of the glass where she had drank. It was a game they played. He would ask a question about something they had done, somewhere they had been, someone they had known and she would try to remember. They would piece work it back to whole, they would string the pearls of their memories back together.
“We had lamb.” It was a statement but she really wasn’t sure if she was remembering or if it was simply that they often had lamb on Easter. She bit her lip.
Josh saw and smiled, “No, I think we had ham that year.”
Uncertain, then it flowed back, “No, no it was lamb. Remember? We had Easter here that year, the last one with all the kids, and we wanted it to be both special and traditional. I cooked for days preparing that one and it was worth every minute of it.” Time was sometimes a sneak thief and sometimes a brazen robber but with a little effort moments could be reclaimed, savored and re-celebrated.
“Yeah, yeah, I remember now, Elaine.”
12/17/2008
The Grilled Cheese Sandwich - Part Three
The Cheese Sandwich is a rough draft experimenting in linking the evocative properties of food experience with psychology. This is the final part, part three. Let me know what you think.
On her hands and knees, she crawled down the sinewing body of the hall, thankful for the clean cement floor, as it dog-legged its way past canines calling her name in voices that were a familiar failure, a fond non-forgiveness, a memoir without memory of men who she had met and left or had left her empty, alone and caged by her own fears and requirements.
She went past a chihuahua mix, high strung, sensitive, possibly loving like Renaldo who needed her strength and was not disappointed when he found out it was only discipline. But she couldn’t tolerate the nip and snap of being reminded her strength was a faux, a fox, too clever to admit to weakness, too weak to find real strength. Crawl, crawl past the next few cages and into the bay that would let her out. Past the Rottweiler, the roiling wailer, the Rastafarian, the last of Roger, who might have actually balanced her tightness with an honest affection and fierce passion.
A few more feet and she could grasp the doorknob, and pull herself up.
The knob bobbed like an apple in a barrel of monkeys, like a fake dog in the back of a car nodding yes, yes, to the no, no of the road, like a non-homogeneous inconsistency in the cream of life.
It was all intolerable.
Her hand went up for the doorknob, missed and made a large slapping sound on the table, spilling her tea and making the unacceptable cheese sandwich jump, startling herself, the waitress and a few people closest to her.
“Is everything all right, miss?”
She’d been going to this deli for two years and the waitress didn’t even recognize her.
“No…, yes, yes, everything is fine.” She picked up her grilled American cheese sandwich with both hands, smiled and purposefully took a bite.
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