"Life in a Box"

"Box, Past Tense"

"Outside the Box"

Hmmmm.

OK, it occurs to me that I don't usually suck at this.

I have a page in my notebook with several of those written down, verbatim. Also a badly-drawn copy of the lid of my Dick Tracy lunchbox. And my math homework.

Sounds like the sort of notebook I used to keep in high school, except for the math homework, which, well, never mind. I, er, just didn't, is all.

Would an incredibly simple title ("The Compact" or somesuch) ring more bells, d you think?

I liked it, Holli -- what kind of thing do you want us to say about it?

Just a note though, that:

wondering is she had just moved in

is surely a typo for

wondering if she had just moved in

Thanks, John. My typing skills often... aren't. That's why I like as many people as possible to see something I've written before it's handed in anywhere-- less potential embarrassment.

Second draft of the box story. I didn't make a lot of changes-- fixed the typos and bad grammar, and added detail to a few thing. Here's the link. Other stuff on that page may be old, badly-written, and embarrassing.

Ok. this is another thread I didn't find back on WX. I am very picky about who I want to test things out on because I know if I don't respect someone's opinion I don't listen to their critisism or I don't think they were critical enough. I trust you guys though, so I think I'll give it a go. I have an ettiquite question before I post this thing though. It's 4 pages in Word. Is that too long?

That's only about 3-4 posts, so I don't think it's too long.

I'm going to try this again.

The first house I remember was the one I lived in when my parents were still married. I remember it like I remember my parents together, in bits and pieces. I can't picture the whole layout, how you got from one place to another. I only remember rooms or an event that happened in them.

It was so normal and middle class suburban. A two-bedroom house with attached garage in the south part of town owned by a former football player and a former member of the pom-pom squad. My room was small with beige carpet and a small window too high in the wall for me to reach. I had green painted furniture made by my grandfather, a bed, desk, and dresser, Kelly green with a dark glaze. I had a Holly Hobby bedspread with matching patchwork print sheets.

There was a small living room with a velveteen sofa and loveseat in gold, brown and red. A dining area was off the kitchen and was filled mostly by a heavy, rectangular oak table with matching benches and chairs. These sat in front of a window that looked out into our back yard where my father had built a sort of tree house on stilts and my cocker spaniel, Owen, played.

Mom made the garage into a large family room. Tile replaced concrete and a wall of windows replaced the garage doors. The windows angled out and met a long brick ledge. Dozens of leafy green plants filled the window-wall and lined the ledge where I played pretend that I was in a thick, lush jungle.

I only remember being in my parent's room once. I had had a nightmare and came in crying.

In the dream, a man in a suit came to our house. My mother was on her knees in the family room, the cut of her blue nightgown exposed her back to the man who stood behind her scraping her back with a large knife. He didn't draw blood but drew the knife horizontally down her back peeling away flaking skin. My mother cried but quietly and made no move to get away and didn't flinch. My father watched from the doorway, obviously unhappy, but not stopping the man either.

I climbed into bed while my mother slept and my father tried to hug and comfort me. I pushed my father's hands from me saying, "No, I don't want you! I want my mom!" I snuggled close to her back, which was still turned to me.

My mother says that when they told me about the divorce I told them I wanted things to go back to the way they were. I don't know how they were, now.

My parents sold the house and moved into apartments. In appearance they weren't that much different. Both had bare white walls, brown matted carpet and linoleum floors. The cabinets were dark fake wood with fake marble or fake butcher-block tops. The furniture was essentially the same too. The same mix of familiar and different. Mom got the sofas. Dad got the oak table. Mom bought a small glass and metal dining table. Dad bought canvas covered wooden folding chairs.

The feel of the apartments were different though. Mom had me during the week, and Dad had me on weekends and during the summer. Mom's apartment was early bedtimes, loneliness and dreary, gray days. Dad's was sunshine, sleepovers and night swims.

I rode the bus home on weekdays, walked down the street I was not allowed to cross, up the few feet of sidewalk to the concrete stairs to our apartment that overlooked the parking lot and the highway behind it. My grandmother would be waiting, and I would be expected to sit quietly and read until my Mom got home from work.

On weekends Dad would pick me up, sometimes in a car borrowed from Driver's Ed. He would take me to football practice where I played on the bleachers or the tackling dummies. Sometimes we went to his girlfriend Brevard's house.

It was in the nicer older part of town. The doors were all thick and solid and some had etched glass. There was a separate kitchen and breakfast nook, dining room. Some rooms I didn't have names for and so I called them by the color or content. Brevard had a dressing room where her daughter, Katherine and I would sit and watch Brevard braid our hair.

I thought Dad would marry her and we would live there. Katherine and I would walk to school together in dresses with smocks embroidered with our names or initials like the ones that filled Katherine's closet and the few Brevard had made for me.

But, in the summer after third grade, Dad was offered a job coaching at Ole Miss and I was offered a trip to visit a friend who moved to Oklahoma. When I came back, my father and the apartment of light and fun were gone.

My mom remarried when I was in fourth grade and we moved to a townhouse. Most of the house reflected my stepfather who was a bit cold but not unkind. Everything was neat and tidy, matched with very little fuss. All of my green furniture and my Holly Hobby bed linens were gone and replaced with brass and a rust colored comforter with tiny white flowers. Sliding mirrors the full length of the far wall opened into a large closet.

The neighborhood was filled with children, and I made friends quickly. My friend Angie taught me cheerleading, her older sister Nicole taught us about MTV, and a girl from another subdivision taught me what it felt like to be punched in the face. I made my first boyfriend, Jeffery, who took me to a minor league baseball game where we shared ice cream out of a miniature cap.

I still stayed with my dad during the summers and on some holidays. During those times, I lived in the football dorm. My cinderblock cube had bunk beds and a desk built into the wall. It felt like a tiny apartment I had all to myself. The nearly empty campus during the summer felt like my own town of red brick and stately homes.

Dad's new girlfriend, Annabelle, was a runner-up for Miss Mississippi. She let me dress up in her hoop skirts and tiaras. I ran around the campus like a blond Vivian Leigh. The Greek houses were my Taras and Twelve Oaks, and I sat in front and