Batty easily pushed the dirt out of the bottoms of her stiletto sandals. People hovered around her, handing her tissues, giving words of advice. Helping. As she removed her curvaceous arm from an equally luscious leg, the thin silk of her dress brushed pleasantly against her face. The party wouldn’t be over for hours. She had almost forgotten where they were, and had to remind herself that she was on a boat. Planting her feet firmly, she stretched until her… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Blog
Monster Culture, Part 3
Reasons people over the course of my life have said I’m a monster: An incomplete list. (or, alternatively, why I’m “always the worst”) I did not want to go halvesies on the purchase of a bidet for the bathroom. I never use dryer sheets. I refused to stay for the encore because I was tired. If I open the mailbox and there’s only one piece of mail in there, and it isn’t for me, I just close it as if… Read more »
Monster Culture, Part 2
Last year I was talking with a friend about what monster categories we and our friends/relatives/significant others would fit into. We ended up talking less about who was a vampire, who was a werewolf, etc., than we did about what the categories should be in the first place. Vampire, Ghost, Werewolf, Zombie, and Mummy seemed like the big five, but is there some overlap between Zombie and Mummy? Are they the same idea/metaphor/creature, just in different places in the world… Read more »
Monster Culture, Part 1
I have a really difficult time suspending disbelief enough to buy into the idea–on The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead–of a Romero-less universe, where not only the term “zombie” but the concept of the dead returning is totally foreign. At the least, I thought when I watched the first mini-season of FTWD, wouldn’t you figure that you should run from or incapacitate someone who was ill and trying to attack/bite you? …I appreciate the impulse to try to… Read more »
Orphaned Secrets
What happens to something you told someone in confidence once you no longer care if anyone knows? Especially if, to their mind, you still want it locked away. I’m thinking of secrets I’ve told people in the past (high school, college) that I wouldn’t care at all, now, if people knew them. Or things that people told me that I doubt they care about keeping private anymore (not that I would chance it…I’m no monster). If you’re the keeper of secrets… Read more »
The Walls Have Ears
Overheard in living rooms, mine and others’: “I’ve got to be honest…and honestly, I don’t think that the orcs will punish them for that.” “Don’t I have that portable exsanguinator handy?” “Well, what are your thoughts? …On what? On the infinite blood coming out of this snake.” “Use it. Make us look like snake people.” “Also, we’re going to be holding up a giant eyeball.” “I like to ingest small businesses” (It took me a moment to realize that he… Read more »
Flash Fiction // 02
We didn’t have any potatoes. The rain had fallen in patches that year, pressing its fingertips into rows of beans, fields of corn, the tomato plants and the peppers. The layer of soil over the potatoes stayed dry and pale as we stared and waited; little holes appeared in the dirt where the plants tried to suck the moisture out of the ground. In the evening we threaded fistfuls of beans through our fingers to boil on the stove for… Read more »
Technicalities
As soon as I posted about my current and past stitches, I got messages from my relatives across a variety of media. My cousin commented on Facebook in response to my blog post, “Maybe you should not have dove into the shallow end of the pool…. Just saying” (thanks for the support!) while my mom texted me to say “Did you also have stitches for wisdom teeth…? I’ll never tell” (thanks for the…subterfuge?). I don’t remember much about having my wisdom… Read more »
Perma-
I currently have stitches in my tongue, due to a minor procedure to remove a fibroma from biting the side of my tongue/scar tissue forming (I think of all of the times I’ve bitten my tongue without this happening…and then I think about how counterintuitive it is that cutting my tongue intentionally would not just create more scar tissue–I guess it’s like resetting a broken bone so that it’s done right). The stitches are the dissolvable kind (I’m not totally clear… Read more »
On Generalities and Specialization
There’s a pharmacy in my neighborhood that I would describe as either an old-school drug store or a magical font of whatever I happen to need at a given moment. I’m sure I could tempt things by going there looking for something really outlandish, but to date I’ve gone there–sometimes on the same day–looking for compression tights, an international outlet converter, face oil, a specific and uncommon hair dye, a zebra hat, and a computer case, and have found ALL of them…. Read more »
