"Everything she liked was either illegal, immoral, or fattening" (writing exercise)

Everything she liked was either illegal, immoral, or fattening.  Some of the things she liked were all of the above.  For some reason she'd conveniently left this crucial information off of her online dating profile.

I was trying to maintain my svelte two-hundred fifty-eight pound, five foot eleven inch figure so I took personal offense to her love of all things fattening.  I was trying to drop the weight.  I don't see the one-hundred seventy pounds I listed so much a lie as a personal goal.

I didn't mind that she suffered from a mild case of kleptomania.  It saved me a lot of money on dates after all.  She may have been immoral but she was really good at it and that's something.  Isn't it?  I mean we all have to be good at something.

Our first date was at a coffee house and she'd somehow managed to procure two super large white chocolate Macadamia Nut cookies from behind the glass (hey, I told you she was good!) before I arrived.

On our second date we went out for German food.  I never realized there were so many different types of delicious sausage before that night and the latkes we had as an appetizer had been deep fried. . .  in bacon grease.

As our dates progressed I noticed my weight creeping further away from my goal.  I knew I had to draw the line somewhere.  But other than the issue with the fattening foods and my rapdily escalating weight and rapidly decreasing health (not that it was great to begin with) we got along famously.

I loved her red hair. When she'd fall asleep in my arms while watching TV I'd start looking for constellations in her adorable freckles.  I wasn't sure whether or not to be alarmed when I noticed Orion the hunter on her left arm.  In the end I let it go though.

I'm still wondering why she never made issue of the discrepancy between the weight listed in my profile and the reality.  I let that go as well.  She was willing to forgive my wishful thinking and goal-setting.  Who was I to nitpick about her extra-cirricular shoplifting and her wholly unhealthy diet.  The difference between us, she could get away with it.  She had the kind of metabolism where she could burn off a jelly donut and a four egg omelet between the breakfast table and the loo.  I honestly don't know where it all went as her body lied far more about her diet than she actually did.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The prompt was a framed vintage ad that read simply "Everything she liked was either illegal, immoral, or fattening."  While I wasn't inspired by the picture on the ad, I was inspired by the text.

Premonition (writing exercise)

As soon as I see the flashing red and blue lights in my rearview mirror, I have a premonition... I'm about to get a speeding ticket. It's almost like that time I spilled a glass of water on my pants at work and had a premonition that I'd theretofore be THAT guy. I'd have to tell people that no, I did not have an accident, that I merely spilled a glass of water... but despite my protestations I would endure a barrage of playful ribbing about my bladder control or lack thereof.

But now, here I am, about to get pulled over. I KNOW I'm about to get a ticket and all I can think about is how I ended up with the nickname "Puddles" and how wouldn't it be ironic if this time I actually earned the nickname.

So I start thinking about deserts, towels and other things that are dry. Anything at all to prevent my premonition and my history from colliding in some weird karmic way that will end up with a speeding ticket and a trip to the local car wash to have my driver's seat shampooed. Heaven forbid my friends find out as then I'll forever be known as "Puddles." Oh and this time I'll actually have legitimately earned the nickname!

*TAP*TAP* The officer gently knocks on my window.

"License and proof of insurance, please."

"What seems to be the problem, officer?"

"Do you have any idea how fast you were going?" I wonder if the officer realizes that yes actually I DO know exactly how fast I was going, that I DO realize I was speeding. Figuring I have nothing to lose, I decide to play the honesty card.

"Yes, I was going approximately twenty miles over the speed limit."

"Yes that sounds about right." The officer replies somewhat surprised with my honesty. "Is there a reason you felt the speed limit did not apply to you this afternoon, sir?"

"Oh I know it applies to me the same as everyone, but please officer could we please move this along? I understand I deserve the speeding ticket but if we keep talking I'm not only going to have to pay for the speeding ticket and probably a larger insurance bill every month for the next few years, but I'll also be spending the rest of my life known as Puddles."

He didn't need to know that I already had earned that nickname through no fault of my own.

The officer looks at me quizzically.  I'm not sure if it's that my face is red and grimacing in pain from holding it far longer than I anticipated needing to do so or if it has to do with my unconventional responses to his questions.  At this point I don't care about the ticket.  I just want to find the nearest McDonald's, Gas Station, shrubbery, potted plant... whatever, wherever I can end this torture. 

The Spanish Inquisitors have nothing on this guy.  He's taking his time.  I still can't tell if he gets it, if he really understands what I'm going through right now or if he's really that oblivious.  With some people it really is difficult to tell. 

He walks back to his car... And I'm sure it's just my imagination but he seems to be walking especially slow and his car for some reason seems to be about 100 yards further away from mine than it was when he first pulled me over. 

I turn the radio back on while I wait.  I try to pay attention to the radio, to the birds in the trees, to anything but the unbearable pressure. 

Then I check my rearview mirror...  Is he flossing his teeth?  Is that a can of Barbasol?  Is he about to shave? 

Eventually he gets out of his car and I feel like a dam about to burst.  He has my driver's license and proof of insurance in one hand and a disposable razor in the other hand and a towel around his neck!

My seat starts getting a little wetter and the pressure rapidly subsides.

"I'm going to let you off with a warning this time, Mr. Puddles-" he stifles a laugh as he dabs some shaving cream off his cheek with his towel, "but be more mindful of your speed in the future."  He hands me my license and proof of insurance and walks away red in the face, tears rolling down his cheeks and a deep belly laugh.

I almost wish he'd just given me a damn ticket.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Write about a premonition.  I lost what I'd originally written from this prompt.  The first 2 paragraphs were re-written from memory... and the rest of it is where I went with the story after my writer's group.

"You are standing in a doorway..." (writing exercise)

You are standing in a doorway. It feels almost like an Edward Hopper painting. The bright light from inside casts a warm glow on the car lined street. From the glow you could almost read the license plates-- that is if you had better eyesight.

If you were in a classic movie this is the part where you'd light a cigarette and slip into the shadows to share secrets with Jimmy Cagney types. But there's nothing quite so glamorous here.  Life is not film noir.

You're in the doorway with light fading and casting shadows outside. There's more than a slight chill painting a scent of fresh air against your nose. You're sure you're creating a draft, but not sure you really care. The wait will be over soon and you feel paralyzed by the ambivalence-- torn between the sense of finality and the hope for a new start.

Things ended months ago. You're about to make a fresh start but not until these last few loose ends get tied up. You suppose you should be angry. For some reason you're not. When all is said and done life is just too short to carry a grudge. Besides she couldn't help that her feelings for you had changed any more than you could help that yours hadn't. But that was then. You'd both since moved on. For you at first, reluctantly. You were the jilted one after all. For her it came a bit easier.

Enough time had passed that the fog of numbness had lifted. You'd started seeing someone else, long distance. In a few weeks you'll be joining her. Then you can close this chapter of your life, completely.

But here you still stand in the doorway waiting for this ghost from the past to arrive, to give just a little more closure. Truth be told, as long as you've stayed here you've remained tethered, albeit increasingly more loosely to the past.

When she arrives, you're taken aback. She's blonde. The whole time the two of you had dated she'd been a redhead.

"I dyed it red but we've spent so much time outside this summer the sun bleached it." She noticed your curious expression. A pregnant "we" had been uttered, insinuating all manner of new familiarities and intimacies.

There's an awkwardness hanging in the air as you invite her in. It all seemed so stiff and formal after the intimacy the two of you had once shared. You know that your new girlfriend is understanding of the situation, even if she's not exactly happy about it. You're guessing the new boyfriend involved shares your girlfriend's sentiments. As the two of you share idle chatter and small talk it's evident neither of your respective others have anything to worry about. The cordiality and friendliness is present but the heat that had once burned between the two has completely burned out.

It's not like old times, more like ships passing in the night. The two of you wishing each other well as your lives continue on their divergent paths.

So you show her to the door and part with a friendly but vacant hug before she walks away. Once you pack and are on your way you know you'll finally be able to shake this feeling of a life lived in limbo. Your heart was already packed and shipped to its new location. Now it was time for the rest of you to join it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the product of an exercise from my writer's group.  Write a story with "You are standing in a doorway" as an opening line or just write a story about standing in a doorway.

Could You Give Me Directions To... (fiction)

Her lips pursed, a soft airy snore rhythmically echoed the cadence of night as I listened to music of a bygone era. I was coming to terms with the reality that home was anywhere except for where I was at at that given point in time. Then again maybe home always is a place on the horizon-- a place we're always traveling towards but never really get any closer to, no matter how long we're on that road.

So we keep traveling, keep roaming-- always hoping our next address will be more permanent than the last. We long and ache for the soft ground where our roots will take, so a more solid and firm foundation can be built.

I wondered what she was dreaming, what far off land she was calling home-- What corner of imagination she'd been lucky enough to escape to. I glanced at her briefly and returned my eyes to the road. It was late, my mind was starting to mire itself in the cobwebs that are a symptom of staring at a never-ending patch of asphalt illuminated only by a pair of headlights.

I knew at that point I should pull over and nap, find a motel, or even an all-night service station with plenty of caffeine on hand. However, I was running short on reason, having traded it in for my overwhelming desire to get home. The trouble was, I wasn't sure where home was any more.

I pulled over slowly ans softly. She stirred slightly, opening her eyes to tiny oriental slits.

"Where are we?"

"It's okay, go back to sleep." She was too tired to pursue it further. Her eyes closed and once again she was gone, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I stepped out of the car as the curtain of clouds pulled away exposing the glow of a full moon. A patchwork of flat farmland and asphalt was all I could see-- an ocean of infinity in all directions.

Even though I knew exactly where I was-- I suddenly understood what it meant to be lost. I no longer had any idea where I belonged or where I wanted to be.

Literary photography

A few years back when I was still living in Ohio, I had this idea-- Literary "photography", a series of short well written vignettes with pictures to accompany them. I never got around to the photography portion of this project but below are the results of the literary portion I was working on:

First Kiss

Standing on a curb she kisses him deeply. Their tongues mingle and dance with each other. In that single moment they are the only two people on Earth. Everyone else disappears into the periphery. You stand off to the side, glancing over at them occasionally. A part of you is jealous; remembering your own moments of total happiness that never lasted, but while they were there, nothing else compared. You walk away, not interrupting. This is their time.

You remember your first kiss. You had never met her before, you knew from the moment you saw her… you knew it was her. While the elation passed, it put you on cloud 9 briefly. You felt you could surf through her long red locks, swim in the soothing blues of her eyes. That feeling slipped away in the ensuing months. But at that moment, the cars rushing by behind the two of you, the street lamp reflecting in her eyes, eyes that closed slowly as you leaned in to kiss her. Her fragrance lost in the filing cabinet of your memory until it’s rifled out by another woman with the same scent at some, as yet, undetermined moment. The taste of her lips on yours with the sound of passing cars and errant conversations you weren’t a part of fading deeper and deeper into the background.

I believe this was written late in the summer of 2000. I witnessed 2 people kissing after work one night. I was in a rather unhappy relationship at the time and seeing 2 people in a happy relationship made me smile and remember when I had once experienced the emotions I'm guessing they were feeling some semblance of.

Summer Campfire

They had the fragrance of vacation on them; the subtle perfumes and colognes of bug spray, sun-block, and campfire. With just one whiff you were taken back on a magic carpet of memories. You remember talking over the pale orange glow of the fire and the soft white from the pin pricks in the sky, the local classic rock station playing Blue Oyster Cult in the background as you reminisced about times past and played the all too familiar game of “catch-up” with brothers and sisters who’d become more like strangers passing on the street with the passage of time.

I wrote this either in the summer of 2000 or 2001. I had stopped at a convenience store to buy a pop and these 2 young girls and their dad came into the store. I could smell both the insect repellent and suntan lotion on them. Those scents hit me with a wave of nostalgia so I wrote it down.

Sunset on the Bay

"Where did you go just now?" she looked at you with that look located somewhere between concern and curiousity.

Come again?" not quite understanding what she means, you reflect her curiousity back at her.

"You got that distant look in your eyes again."

"Oh." She's right but a part of you just wants to stay in that place alone. The sun setting as the waves gently lap the shore, the occassional call of a seagull or splash of a fish coming up to figure out what the rest of us are looking at. The sun slowly turning from its afternoon yellows to its evening reds and crimsons as it dips into the water. Sailboats pass by, massaging your calm serene mood... This is your sanctuary. A sanctuary you enjoy sharing with the special people in your life but can't wait to enjoy alone... to get lost in the peace and to drown yourself in the sunset's embrace.

"Yea, I s'pose you're right." You smile at her with a look that says that's all she's getting from you.

This was written in the summer of 2002. My then girlfriend (later fiancee and now wife) had come to visit me in Ohio. We'd driven from my home in Elyria to Sandusky where I'd lived for 2 years before moving to Elyria. We went to a park overlooking Sandusky Bay and had a conversation similar to the one above.

Crimson Love

The flicker of the strobe, the soft glow of black lights as your hands are clasped with hers. Your lips dance together as your bare skin feels the electricity of hundreds of lightning bolts with each caress. The soothing and dark tones of King Crimson syncopate every kiss, every caress, every moan from her lips and yours. Your bodies crashing into each other like waves against the rocks. The smell of her perfume and shampoo fills you just as your musk overwhelms her. Your bodies are beyond thought, pleasure echoes through you. Every synapse; taste, touch, smell, and even the sight of your own eyelids clenched tight in exquisite pleasure is amplified. Your nerves short circuit as the music crescendoes and your bodies reverberate, shudder, and shake. As quickly as it hits, it's over. The music fades in the background as you lie next to each other. Aftershocks of pleasure course through your bodies as the soft flutes and vocals lull you both to sleep, smiling in each others arms-- your heartbeats in sync with each other, a metronome to the soft music dancing you into your dreams.

Given the nature of this one, I'd rather not go into specifics. I'll just say that King Crimson (thus the title) isn't normally a band one would think to listen to during life's more amorous moments; but somehow the song Starless from their Red album fit this particular experience quite beautifully.

Awake at Sunrise

The sun pierces the blinds and your eyelids as you journey back to reality. One by one morning invades your five senses. The soft glow of dawn, the smell of the morning dew hanging on the grass, the sound of morning traffic rumbling softly at first, growing with intensity with each passing moment.

A foul dryness penetrates your tongue, jarring it awake, and the feel of her bare skin against yours and the light weight of the bed sheet resting over you pulls you back from the journey of your dreams. You feel her stir in your arms, the morning overcoming her as well. You look into each others eyes and smile.

I could be wrong but I believe this last one is actually in reference to the subsequent morning (where the previous piece left off).

Hot Summer Day

The shrill hum of the cicadas creating a sonic backdrop, a soundtrack of a summer. The stale air latches on to you, hugging tightly, bogging you down and caressing you with a soft sheen of sweat. You attempt to play hide-n-seek with the sun but you're at a loss with no clouds to hide behind and few healthy trees to find respite under. The songs of summer play out in your head, a seductive reverie of times and people past, lost smiles, forgotten punchlines to lost jokes told on a chaise lounge with the erotic sensual application of sunscreen. The joke and punchline were irrelevant, she had laughed anyway. Your heart took a snapshot of the moment for posterity. Unfortunately, the curse of time has faded the photograph leaving its edges yellowed and her laugh muted and fading slowly.

And unfortunately the curse of time has faded this "photograph" to the point where I no longer recognize it.

Misplaced Opportunity

She smiled at you with her eyes as if to ask you your name. Your heart answered her eyes with a flush of the cheeks and a nervous laugh. Your faces continued the dance of non-verbal flirtation. There was something about her, the light freckles on her nose, her sun-bleached hair, and lightly burnt and peeling skin. Or maybe it was her dimples, or the way she was able to laugh without actually laughing.

You remember your first date with her; she was in a floral print sun-dress and sandals. She was blushing nervously at you. You had a bottle of wine, a box of crackers-- Triscuits, and brie in the picnic basket in your left hand; a pair of empty wine glasses and a single perfect pink rose in your right hand. You fed each other cheese & crackers as you laughed away the afternoon under the soft warmth of the sun.

The date only happened in your imagination. Too shy to actually talk to her, every word, every joke, every flirtation stuck in the back of your throat without a road map to her ears. A missed opportunity-- an almost perfect relationship that got lost between fantasy and reality in the land of regret known as "Shoulda."

No, she really got up and walked away before any words were exchanged, leaving you only with the memory of the single perfect moments you shared with her and a sly flirtatious smile you never answered as she left.

This one was one of my favorites. I believe it was written either in April or May 2001 or possibly sometime between February and March 2002. I don't recall exactly other than to say I was between relationships when I wrote it.

Hangover

Sunlight blinding at the crack of dawn
Jackhammer pounding from the inside out
Gastro-Intestinal Gymnastics scoring a perfect ten
Last night's drinking binge, a work of art
Painted on a canvas of porcelain

This one was written from memory and largely for fun. I'm not a heavy drinker for the most part. And I can count on one hand the number of times I've reached the state of inebriation that would have led to the above poem and all of those ocassions ocurred at least 2-3 years before I wrote the above poem.

I hope you've enjoyed these.