Cereal: Not part of the challenge, but we just had a discussion in my seminar class about antiquarianism/antiquaries* and it prompted me to write a parodic poem (something that, since I took my editing job hasn't happened for me...). Anyway, there was an anecdote in a reading about some antiquaries who showed up at the house of a Scotsman or as they referred to him "the one who wears the plaid!", and were flabbergasted to find that he had books! Our prof responded with, "Well, yes the English felt that the Scots were savages in their own backyard " which lead me to write, the following:

My Backyard Savage


by Captain Andy Q. Aryan Esq.

so quaint
in his plaid
Hark!
Yon books?
must be
wordless
catalogues of
ripped tartans
Oh!
pressed.
Shelved.

Possibly only funny/resonant if you've studied 18th Century English Society...

• English 18th Century aristocratic society who preserved relics and and/or also went around knocking on the doors of commoners and documenting their customs/folksongs etc in scholarly catalogues, basically treating them as if they were aliens in their own country due to their class/locale.

Passage of time drabble: 100 words

It is Saturday, November 27, 2004. Yesterday it was Friday, the 8th, October. August was eaten by September. It was 1994 last week.

If I drew a self-portrait, I would be ten years younger. I don't see the wrinkles around my eyes or the mouth when I look in a mirror. I still think I'm too young to be a teacher; I still wonder if I'll get carded every time I go out.

I imagine I will write a book and be a prodigy, the cover of Time: Promising new author! Prolific beyond her years!

I am always late.

Shit, Kristin. You made me mist up.

This is a hard topic. So damned wistful, if you're over about 18.

Thanks Deb. I needed to hear that. I've been having serious identity issues lately about myself and about my writing in particular. Totally unlike me.

Am I too young to be having a midlife crisis? Could it be the whole turning thirty thing?

Kristin, the mid to late twenties are the second of the Big Three crises: it's one reason why teenagers have such a high suicide rate, but the last I looked, late twenties wasn't that far behind. I actually was fine in my late twenties, but I wasn't typical of the syndrome; I'd packed so much into the first quarter century that, experientially, I might as well have been fifty by then.

So frustrated...wrote a lot this whole week, but it's like I can picture what I want to say and I'm not saying it yet. Damn it.

Hey, Brynn! I don't know how we missed each other either, esp. since reading back over the thread I see you mentioned the U of W a few times. I must've assumed you were in Washington state. We should definitely get together for lunch - send an email to my profile addy and we'll make plans to hook up. (Kids optional.)

Still mulling over a passage of time drabble, hopefully to be posted tomorrow.

Kristin, the mid to late twenties are the second of the Big Three crises: it's one reason why teenagers have such a high suicide rate, but the last I looked, late twenties wasn't that far behind.

True. I'm just irritated because I've done that already. 28 was a big crisis for me, relationship and career-wise. Got over that, got better. Now it's just shy of 30. Argh.

Anyway. Back to writing.

Holiday Photos

We sit on the couch, grinning uselessly. Our eyes are open, but we cannot see what you can, our future.

Here we sit, all four of us, she and I are children still. We cannot see that next year there will be two more figures on the couch and we will be adults.

Here we sit, all six of us. We do not know that after struggles, next year there will be seven, one very small.

Here we sit, all seven of us. No way to tell there will be eight. Her family, four, like ours when we were children.

Passage of Time drabble:

You were 16 when you met him. Almost immediately you knew that you had met your match. He was the first person (though by no means the last) to make you feel ignorant, despite your 4.0 GPA.

You loved him for 5 years. Five long years in which you never once believed yourself to be his intellectual equal. Five long years in which you were willing to make yourself into whoever he wanted you to be, just to get him to love you back.

You've been considered an adult, chronologically, for 15 years now. He's married, and you're a vastly different person than you were so long ago.

He walks in the room and you open your mouth to speak, only to stammer and stumble through something that isn't quite what you had intended to say.

You are 16 again.