Too funny AmyLiz. I was coming in here with a topic in case we didn't have one yet. My choice: Fall.

but I did bruises...

At work more than two asked, “is everything OK at home?”

The one girl I’ve actually had drinks with after a shift took me aside, serious concern wrinkling her brow. “Did Dave hit you?” It came out a sharp whisper. At this point I laughed, “No really. I swear to god I walked right into the bedroom door. I was looking back over my shoulder at the dog.” “But what about?” “I really did trip up the stairs.” I say, “and I really did walk right into that parking meter.”

Dave did leave bruises, just not in ways that showed.

ulp!

Hurt in a Skirt

Each team plays six members. The pack consists of the pivot and four blockers. Then there’s the jammer. Small, light and fast, she fights her way through the pack to score points. It’s a fast moving, hard hitting game requiring elbow, kneepads, mouthguards and helmets. They push, slam and trip each other, bodies crashing, sliding and tumbling across the hard wooden floor, wheeled boots and limbs flailing. The uniforms are scanty, lots of girlflesh on display for the crowd to admire. Bruises are the merit badges of their game. They display them proudly and call it hurt in a skirt.

Niiiiice, Sail!

Machines beep and pulse and tock against the background sound of air being pumped with metronomic precision. There are no windows here; the room is twilit, harsh glare damped, glancing off painted cinderblock, trying to resemble a place for sleeping, for rest.

The one who is not sleeping lies still at the center of the machines, large capable hands odd and subtly wrong idle and at rest, the corded forearms lax, the wiry hairs springing clean and healthy from pale, waxy skin. Eyelids shut over sea-green, coveted lashes curve like painted lines, and the hollows beneath are deep and dark as bruises.

Oh, Bev. That just hurts.

Hurt in a Skirt

Derby!!!

Neil Gaiman has joined the staff at the Clarion Writers Workshop.

ooh! I'd meant to mention it, but I picked up a book of verse edited by Neil Gaiman and ... someone whose name I don't remember ... called "Now We Are Sick". There's an advisory on the back that it's not for children.