In Susan's honour, I think my word will be: procrastination.

In honor of moving, my word is: chaos.

Okay! Thanks for the list of words, people. In my writing class, my teacher will have us each write down a word, and then she collects them, reads them out loud, and has us write for 10-15 minutes, and we have to use all the words. (Not that anything bad happens to us if we don't -- it's just an exercise, y'know?)

Someone always contributes some utterly befuddling or really porny word. Once, it was "fur pie." One woman didn't know what a "fur pie" was -- in fact, she thought it was one word, and pronounced it "furp-ee." (I ended up being the one to explain what a fur pie is. I believe my explanation included the words cooter, beaver, and "hair, damn it, HAIR!")

Anyway.

Here's the list of words, for the record:

Caroming.
Perfect.
Absorb
Avocado.
Gecko.
Classic
ocean
Spin
winter
deadbeat
gloaming
waste
Withered.
anhedonia
procrastination.
chaos.

I am NOT asking you to drabble something with all these words. Not at all.

I *am,* however, asking you to do the following:

Challenge #14 is revenge. (Thanks, Deb!) What I want you to do is use *2* words from the list in your drabble (and they're oddly suited to the topic, actually -- it's like you guys knew what the topic would be).

Got it? Revenge, 2 words from the list, drabble drabble drabble!

Anhedonia is awful feeling, but a beautiful word. Much like when Natalie Goldberg said one of her favorite sounding words was "Bulimia"

Professor Tep's *such* a hardass!

Professor Tep's *such* a hardass!

Darling, if I were a hardass, I'd make you use ALL the words....

This one's a piece of my history.

In the Family

She waits behind the stairs.

Everything about the hallway is dark; low-wattage bulb, dull green-painted walls, dark wooden risers.

Some adolescents are afraid of the dark. She's not. Besides, she's armed; the bow is cocked and ready, primed to let the arrow fly.

He tried to hurt her, to show her who was in charge. In her mind, this is simple: he gets to pay.

The loud ratchety snick! of the door, as he lets himself in. The spin of the arrow. His scream, caroming off the walls as it shears through his right bicep.

A moment of perfect darkness.

Huh. I accidentally used three of the words.

Assuming that's OK? Or did you want two and only two?

Three is okay -- in fact, should anyone be moved to use all of the words, I say go for it.

I just picked 2 because it seems less daunting than using all of them.

I feel like I've been given a total kick in the pants to write this week.

Here's the thing- I've wanted to write about my family for a while, but couldn't find the right way to structure it until the past week. My grandmother (a total matriarch and pretty clearly the pivotal character in this story) was dying, and my extended family collected in the house for days to wait it out. The whole experience was exhausting and sad, but at the same time so remarkable and quirky and vivid, that I feel like now I can write what I've been wanting to write. My grandmother's last gift to me has been an amazing frame story.

There are a lot of holes I'm going to be filling in- ideas that got sparked by little whispers of my family's history I've heard growing up. So what I'm really looking at is an "inspired by" kind of piece, I guess, since I'm sure I'll take off on my own tangents quickly enough.

Ok, sorry to ramble...but it's just been so long since I've been excited by my work that I had to share it.