That'd be a cute story...maybe she could love the janitor that picked them up. My first ever romantic comedy...

Deb, that's a drabble of its own, right there. Maybe not in strict adherence to this week's topics, but still. I love the idea of Venus's internal monologue.

What, as an exercise? Sure, why not? You want to write it, or should I?

Here. A prezzie for Tep. Lightweight, I'm afraid.

Unheard

She mutters to herself, head gracefully inclined toward the endless stream of visitors.

"Wow, she's really something, huh?"

stupid little foreigner, you know nothing at all

"Mama, how did her arms come off?"

ill-mannered brat, how dare you point at me

"Papa, kann ich ihre Nippel sehen!"

dirty-minded imbecile

No one hears her. The crowd moves on, is replaced by more gawkers: Japanese, American, Argentine. She longs for saliva and air, so that she might spit.

Later, when the museum closes for the night, the muttering fades beneath the soft dust of time, settling on her cold white shoulders, her truncated arms.

Oooh, nice.

Art education drabble:

Diners, bedrooms, and barbershops take on mythical stature as they are bathed in such glorious light that you think that you should be looking at Tuscany, not a Pennsylvania mining town.

The few people in these paintings all seem to be seeking refuge in the light. Some may even have found it.

Whatever his intent, the artist has taught me this: things do not have to be pretty to be beautiful, train yards and old hotel rooms are sacred spaces, and the tired woman sitting at the diner counter is every bit as magnificent as Venus rising from the sea.

I thought y'all might appreciate this quote from an interview with Tom Russell, one of my favorite songwriters.

You've had a fairly rambling and diverse life. If a teenaged songwriter came to you for advice, what would you tell her?

All the road dust eventually shakes itself off into a rhyme. It's the Gnostic process. Everything you bring forth will save you; everything you do not bring forth will destroy you. Young singer-songwriters? Advice? Go get a job in a bar and learn ten Hank Williams songs. Get lost in Mexico. Do your homework. Learn to walk on the ground before you get up on the high wire. Forget about all this bullshit about folk alliances, conferences and Songwriting For Dummies books, and magazines and technology.... where has it led us? Has all this bullshit created anything better then The Beatles and Dylan and Hank Williams? Hell no. Songwriting is about building on your roots then finding out who you are. and writing down to the blood and bones. You wanna sell out and stand in line with all the other zombies? Well there's buses leaving for Nashville and Austin and Toronto every hour. Get on board little chillen! The promised land? It's the dead fucking the dead. in a vacuum, to quote Bukowski. But then I digress..

DAYUM, Ginger. I loved that...

Anne, that was very thought provoking.

...Still thinking. Nice.

OK, there was going to be a "Miniature, Part Two," but it ended up just not working in drabble form. Suffice it to say I'm now including it as a plot point in the story, because it just fits. But here's my second effort, also fitting what I thought the topic was going to be rather than what it actually was. Hmm...is it Mary Sue-ing if I work out my own childbirth issues through my characters?

Motherhood

James moved their mother’s portrait to the landing. A new one, of Lucy with Baby Meg, now has the place of honor over the mantel in the drawing room.

Each time Anna climbs the stairs now, she has to stop at the landing to catch her breath. She clutches her gravid belly and gazes upon the mother she never knew, the mother who died not a week after she was born.

Anna has lived too long among the brave not to despise cowardice, all the more so in herself. Yet when she looks at her mother’s portrait, the horror and dread swallow her up. She’d run from this battle, if only she could.