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...)

( continues...) cute Spaniel she always wanted. And Marco.

I get it. I really do. For too many years, Tina was my go-to girl. While Colette got married our last year of college and Marta was bouncing from one committed long-term relationship to the next (and then spending 2 years in business school in London, having fabulous affairs with men with accents while Matt pined and masturbated frantically to her photos back here), Tina and I were going out with highly inappropriate people that we met in gyms, bars and (once) an alley, getting drunk on weeknights and trying to find out One True Love.

Didn’t happen. And it sucked. I mean, not all of it sucked – we had a lot of really, really fun days and nights, from what I remember (and some of it’s as fuzzy as an angora sweater) but there were also plenty of long, fraught phone calls and intense conversations in stank bars about just being tired of the grind, of watching other people be so goddamned happy and (ostensibly) fulfilled, while we staggered along in our cheap, Payless-wannabe lives, looking for Mr. Right and only finding Mr. Schlong.

Take Marta. Oh, Marta. I love her. She’s great. I mean, really awesome, one of my best friends. She’s bright, thoughtful, cute. She’s always, always been there for me and Tina and Colette. And it’s not like her life has been pansies and puppy and Prada. Girl has had some intense fucked-upedness happen to her, and yet, she’s stable, compassionate and, well, just a good person. She truly deserves every moment of happiness that she has.

So it’s not surprising that I have had some intense moments of poison-green schuaudenfraude focused on Marta? I mean, really. Just because you want someone’s else’s happiness doesn’t mean that you can’t be blindingly, hideously jealous? Right? It doesn’t make me a bad per…ok, well, I guess it does make me a bad person. But only randomly bad. I don’t go around all the time thinking “Marta! Argh! Bitch! With your long legs and your great ass and happy marriage and fulfilling business! HATE!” I really don’t. And actually, even in my more evil moments, that’s not what I think at all. It’s not really what about Marta has – it’s about what I don’t.

That’s the worst part about being smart. It’s harder to lie to yourself. Oh, it can be done – believe me, it can be done – but, at least for me, it’s kinda hard to not see the truth about yourself.

Doing something about it, on the other hand…now, that’s real easy to avoid. I’ve been doing it all my life

The Photo drabble is now closed.

The new prompt is closer

Erin, this is a really intriguing piece-- is this the whole of it or is it a springboard for something bigger?

Anyhow, I like the stream-of-consciousness nature of it-- has a very "sitting on the windowsill ruminating" or as if she's watching the last of her girlfriends get married-- as if she's having this internal monologue while some moment of note is happening in RL.

When do we become women? Is it just easier to consider myself a girl, to abdicate responsibilities with this claimed title?

Wonderful line and really ties in beautifully with the final line. The only complaint I might have is that if this is the whole of the piece, a little too much of it is dedicated to Tina and blowing Marco-- it almost becomes more about her than about your narrator.

Doing something about it, on the other hand…now, that’s real easy to avoid. I’ve been doing it all my life

That line alone. Lines. Ouch. I mean, OUCH. That's way too familiar to me. To everyone who says knowing is half the battle? Nope, it's 5%.

Allyson, I'm sorry I haven't been around. I have a window tomorrow--send me whatever you need me to look at, I'll get it back to you by COB tomorrow. Will that be soon enough?

I should have some time later in the week, too, if it's not that urgent.

Erin, that's really powerful stuff.