I got a chill when Mom took away the postcard. It implied to me that there was something sinister about the whole affair that your Mom thought you weren't old enough to comprehend.

Boy, I wish I did those sorts of things consciously.

Chilling is the juxtaposition between what you wrote and especially, with the second picture, how she appeared, running on the beach, but in a sensible suit, with her purse, tight against her, as if she's protecting the contents.

Boy, I wish I did those sorts of things consciously.

I'm right there with you, connie. I'm always surprised at what other folks pull out of my words. Sometimes, I want them to go there and I'm pleased I achieved it and other times, not even what I intended, but I'm still pleased because there should be more levels of meaning the more people who read it. I enjoy it when a reader opens my eyes about my own writing, it makes everything richer and adds to my internal literary repertoire.

Photo ten.

Marti Gris

"Why so serious, Marti?"

I looked over at Papi. He was sitting on the sofá, a cigarette between two fingers. Mami was going to be mad, not all the ash was falling in the cenicero. She said Papi would burn the house down with his smoking, if he kept falling asleep on the sofá with a lit cigarette. Papi told Mami "en tus sueños." He said Mami just wanted new muebles or maybe a new husband, whichever was cheaper to find.

"I am sad, because everything will be grey when it is all covered in ashes and Mami will cry."

Re-reading and revising the manuscript eventually ends, right/ I mean, they have to, because it's getting sent off on Monday. But it seems never-ending.

photo drabble (#7)

She can hear them, dry grass whispering as they come closer. Their voices carry on the breeze, too loud in the silence, sliding up and down so quickly her long ears twitch where they’re flattened against her head.

The smallest kit nuzzles at her, nose poking at her belly to get at her teat. She slaps at him with a front paw, pushes the others behind her with a strong back foot, into the grass nested in the rusty metal.

They’re bleating, squirming, when a shadow slides over their hiding place, but she’s frozen, heart thumping wild. They’ve been found.

Amy, that is awesome!

ugh. I think I'm going to need to take a vacation day tomorrow to finish chapter 6 and head into 10.

Deadline is staring me in the eye. Desperate need for Beverly's beta skills.

Send reinforcements.

Thoughts? ----

As shitty as my finer moments have been, I have been lucky enough to always have this certainty about my life. Except when it’s been uncertain. But could always fall back on some rock-solid things: my family’s love, my friend’s affections, and not least of all, my own unwavering and slightly arrogant belief in my own intelligence. But, lately, things are beginning to waver, break down around the edges and lack cohesiveness. One of these certainties – a mainstay, a rock to clutch, to fall back on, and sometimes, to cower behind – are my friends. A ballast against the sucking maelstrom that’s always swirled around me -- slowly, breezily, some days, and viciously, howling for meat and marrow and mind on others.

I’ve always been the odd woman out, the kinda-sorta-really crazy girl, the solo in a chorus of harmonies. How has it turned out that everyone else is crazy, too?

It’s soothing, in a way, to no longer be the only nut at a table overflowing with gaily decorated cupcakes, the squat tumbler of Scotch on a tray of matched champagne flutes. But there’s also comfort in the surliness of sticking out, whether it be for mental inacuity or romantic deficiencies. The Last Single Girl. Yes, it’s my role. I am The Last Single Girl in the group. I am also The Fucked-up Girl, The Girl Who Can’t Get to Work in the Morning through Depression, The Girl Who Takes Too Many Pills to get through the days of wandering.

Right now, I’m the Girl Who Can’t Get a Job. This is rather galling, because I’m also The Smart Girl.

I notice now – girl. Girl. Girl. Girlgirlgirlgirl. Why do I not describe myself as a woman? I am 36, after all. Surely I have entered the Shadow of the Valley of Womanhood. I have an apartment, a car, a job (usually), several advanced degrees. Why do I not apply the moniker of “woman” to myself? It is a quandary. When do we become women? Is it just easier to consider myself a girl, to abdicate responsibilities with this claimed title?

Anyway. My friends, my rocks, my soupcon of sensibility in a sea of sorrow. We go way back. Take one: the husband and wife – bubbly, gregarious Tina and stoic, stolid Marco. Tina wants a baby – always has. And after 3 years of marriage, Marco is not sure he wants to be a father. Marco pursued Tina relentlessly for years as she ignored him, looking for the perfect mate, a man that would complement her bubbly, gregarious nature. Actually, mostly, she wanted a man who could dance and give good head. Marco dances like a spastic on Quaaludes and although Tina is pretty open and raunchy about sex in general, I don’t think she’s ever alluded to how good – or bad – of a cunniliguist Marco is.That’s pretty telling right there, because if he were especially talented with his tongue, I’m sure it would have been juicily and openly exposed in some late-night vodka and marijuana session.

But it hasn’t. Mostly, she talks about giving Marco begging for head in some baby-talk voice. It seems one of Marco’s not-so-secret fantasies is Tina giving him head while he eats a giant meat pizza. If that’s not Freudian, I don’t know what is, but Tina likes to complain about it. Although she keeps giving him head. It’s like a weekend honey-do list, only in reverse.

1. Wash sheets and comforter

2. Pick up soy milk, pizza crust, pepperoni and tuna

3. 6.34 minutes of giving Marco head in front of “Dancing With The Stars.”

I know part of the deal is that Tina gets to pick what’s on TV while she’s on her knees in front of the couch.

Anyway, Marco is not her dream man. But he pursued her diligently, if not romantically for several years, and finally, she gave in. I think she was tired of giving almost-strangers blow jobs at 2 a.m. on Saturday nights, and decided that if she was going to be on her knees with her lips wrapped around some pulsating cock, it might as well be with a diamond on her finger, in her own house on a Sunday, and with a cock that she knew where it had been in the last 6 months. So. She got the puffy white dress, the little bungalow, the (continued...)