No, you don't. Especially after Aimee gets all heart-felt and everything.

Awww. Aimee, that's fabulous.

Aww. Very nice.

touched

Soft blankets, the dog's fuzzy head, the door handle. The moon is resplendent in her pale blue sky. I shiver, and make a cup of tea.

Bowl of rice? Burlap sack? I don't even know. Are there ropes at the wrists of the four hostages?

Meals Ready to Eat? Military issue canvas? I know even less. Detainees wait to be questioned. Should they, like the Japanese Americans, answer, "Yes, yes?"

Cedar rough in my hands, I build a fire for comfort. But in Iraq, they build a fire to survive—electricity the price of their liberation.

My tea tastes bitter.

maybe...

I don't know what it was, so don't bother asking, okay? Lord knows, I have no clarity to spare.

I can tell you it kept contradicting itself - that much is definite. One moment it was sharp, hard edges, a voice coming out of it, taunting me: no he didn't, dream on, bitch. But a second movement of my heart against it and the edges went soft, silken, the stuff of perfection, the voice saying yes oh yes he did, he loved you.

Maybe it was memory; maybe it was certainty, or truth. You'll know as soon as I do.

...aaaand once again deb broke me.

Ailleann, there were a couple of possibilities that didn't make it in because of the 100-word restriction.

Delusion. Fantasy. Plain old wishful thinking.

I'd prefer truth.

Somehow I think this one misses what I want to say, even though I've written it twice, but it is actually spare and drabble-length.

Sometimes I feel like I want to touch you with my words because most of you won’t let me really touch you. At least not your naughty bits, anyway.Maybe I’m like Whedon that way and if I’d gotten any in high school, you wouldn’t even be seeing this. Maybe in a different world, I’d save my writing to send my daughter cute messages at camp. My Christmas letter might be the shit, the absolute bomb, except that me would not be as jazzed by inner-city metaphor.(Probably not.) Maybe I’d be the office wag , writing the newsletter full of quotes and clip art, dreaming about a novel I never had time for. In this life, my fondest wish is to touch hearts and minds.

Keep writing stuff like this, and you get your wish.

You know?

Working with Cats

Fur, soft creamy tabby stripes. Bright golden eyes. Rattly purr.

"Goddamnit Farrowen stop sucking my hand I'm trying to work!"

purrrrrr sucklesuckle

Fingers on the keys. Okay: Chapter Ten. Tense scene, JP realising there's a connection to the whole race hate group thing back in 1979. Concentrate, Deb. JP understands that the detective, Patrick Ormand, has a personal connection with this race hate group. If he -

purrrrrrr CHOMP

"#%#$%%$ cat! STOP THAT!"

Not a chance. In a head-to-head between the needy kitten and the need to write, the kitten can't lose.

I sigh, and close out of the novel.