This is what happens!

Oh, how I hear my mother's voice. Maybe not my mother's voice--any mother's voice! You don't listen and this is what happens!

Of course I'm talking about my writing and why it's so hard to sit down to this screen now when just a month ago I was itching to get to it. Now I open a prompt and stare at it and want more than anything to close the screen and walk away. Can't. Timer's set for 10 minutes.

Today's prompt is interesting, and I may be able to include it here. Let's see if it works. ["No, no, no! You should write first instead of looking for excuses. Try to upload the photo later!]

Okay. Here goes....


See America they said. Rent a car with a GPS system, fill it with gasoline and make a trek. Get off the beaten track. Get away from the tourist traps. Make memories.

What the heck do they know!

Here I am, stuck in the middle of nowhere, praying the GPS emergency system is working because I don't have a cell phone that they can reach me on. I don't reside in this country, though I am considered an American by birth. I'm on an adventure. Next thing you know they'll think I'm a terrorist or something and I'll be staring at worse than what I'm faced with at the moment.

Well, I guess I could take pictures anyway. Yes, this would make a terrific terrorist haunt and if something happened here it would put a whole in the very fabric of the world's entire financial set-up [not]. Someone's thriving enterprise is no longer thriving however. I just can't for the life of me figure out who took the time to paint the end of this shack taxi-cab yellow and then letter "Boiled" in blood red letters and underneath that "Peanuts" in large black letters and even draw a couple peanut shells on either side of "Boiled." It looks like a recent job. Not in the least faded or chipping. The door is partially painted yellow also--lots of it is missing there, though, and there is a bit of what looks like fresh white paint, trimmed in aqua, but good heavens! I don't think a dog could live comfortably in what's left of the building. The roof is sagging, there's a new piece of plywood on the front which leaves only "ED" in red and "UTS" in black alongside a fairly decent drawing of a black cauldron, flames licking it's sides and masses of steam rising out of the top. Now I'm getting curious. There's a note tacked beside the front door. If it says "Out for Lunch" I'm going to stick around long enough to find out how they stay in business in such a run-down rickety shack.

Like I have a choice how long I stick around. Shoot I hope someone does come around. I wonder how long I should wait before I set out on foot to try to find my way back. I wonder if there's any peanuts to be had....I can tell you right now they're not locked up tight if there are. The big bad wolf would only need one huff-and-puff to blow this thing over.

Ding, ding.

Didn't even get on half a roll. O well. See ya tomorrow! Couldn't upload the picture either. I tried to put a link to it. It's an interesting photo, courtesy of my brother Scott....

Prompt Work

The first thing she did was put her face in the plate to smell it. Anywhere else I would have been appalled of course, but I'm sure odor was the preeminent way of determining how much of it she dare put in her rumbling belly.

She looked surprised as the scent of it registered, but didn't smile. Nor did she look at us. At this point she was wholly involved in the round flat circle of bread before her and it must have seemed a luxury just to have the time to examine it without worrying that it would be ripped from her hand by someone else intent on having a bite.

Her small bent index finger inched forward and touched it right in the middle where it gave under the slight pressure and sprang back when she lifted her finger. Convinced that it wasn't too hot, she put her hand flat on the top of it. Gary reached forward to pull her hand away, but I caught his wrist and winked at him. "Let her explore," I said with my eyes, and as was his gift he understood and let her be. I was thankful I had the forsight not to drown it in butter and syrup first. But I was pretty sure she was used to eating with her hands when she could find something edible.

When she picked it up, she bit it hard even though it flapped in her hand. Being light and easy to eat the morsel dissolved in a flash--sooner than she wanted it to be gone. Curious, she turned the rest of it over in her hand, looking at the different texture of the underside and touching it once again to be sure it was something of substance. The next bite she took was smaller, chewed delicately and this time she enjoyed the flavor of it with her eyes closed and the rest of it squished in a death grip. It wasn't until the last bite was thoroughly enjoyed that she finally looked up at us and smiled. It was sheer joy for me to watch her eyes widen and water when I put another on her plate.

Prompt: Write a scene in which a refugee child eats pancakes for the first time.

Workshop Write

Well I tried mailing this in, but I must have done something wrong. Unless of course it shows up twice.

I'm trying to get back here, folks. I really am. I have written quite a bit with pen and paper but it just doesn't show up here for some reason! :) Still working to get my modem problems fixed.

Meanwhile, this is from today's workshop. The prompt was: And I thought the tundra was cold.

And I thought the tundra was cold.

Of course that's a figure of speech. I've never seen the tundra. The closest I've come was the top of Pikes Peak way up there above the vegetation line with a wind chill and all that. But tundra, no. All you have to do is study a little and you know the tundra is cold, though. You don't have to be there.

But that's not the point is it?

What do you call it when your best friend just decides--on the word of someone who she doesn't know well, doesn't even like that much--that you're not worth hanging out with anymore? I call it cold. Colder-than-Tundra cold.

This is what happens when you stretch. I have spent this entire year stretching out of my comfort zone, coping with situations that--my goodness, how do you describe it? If anyone would have told me in advance how this school year would progress, I would have laughed and moved right on into it anyway. I'd have never believed it.

Long story short, in the midst of the chaos one of my long-standing opposers. It's hard to choose a word there--"rival" sounds like I'm trying to compete with her for something, and she has nothing I want or need; "enemy" sounds like we hiss at each other in the halls and cook up harrassment schemes for off-campus entertainment. What we really had an avoidance relationship, if that makes any sense.

At any rate, horrible things happened to us both. And as a result I reached out. At someone else's urging I extended a truce; that means I did it against my better judgment. But that was the only time I was a victim. The rest of it I did to myself.

I worked to get her her life back. More than her life really. She was always cute and popular but not so smart--even though she had it in her to be smart. With the time she had on her hands during her recuperation, we fixed it so she got in touch with her academic side, and voila--she was earning grades she didn't think possible. She became part of our world for a little bit and I was foolish enough to believe she would see the wisdom in it. That she could have it all.

Well, that's exactly what she took. She's a shining star among the sports crowd and the academic crowd. More popular and showered with more attention than she had before she landed in her wheelchair. And please understand that I was so happy for her. I felt that her life took on a new aspect, because mine certainly did. There are lessons here that I wouldn't trade for the world.

But now she wants to keep everything she's gained, but deny me any part of it. Can you believe that? We haven't been back to class for two days and she's told my friends such stories that they don't know what to think. They don't know who to believe. Can I count on them to come to me to find out the truth? At the beginning of the year I would have said, "Certainly!" Now I just stand here and shiver in a vast unknown plain that is colder than the tundra. I know it is, because when the chill comes from inside, there's no blanket to cover it with, no heater to turn on--it just freezes you inside, particularly your heart.

Workshop Write

Well if I understood properly I can mail in my blog for the day, so I'm testing this out here with the bit I wrote for today's workshop. Hope I got the address right.

Prompt: And I thought the tundra was cold.

And I thought the tundra was cold.

Of course that's a figure of speech. I've never seen the tundra. The closest I've come was the top of Pikes Peak way up there above the vegetation line with a wind chill and all that. But tundra, no. All you have to do is study a little and you know the tundra is cold, though. You don't have to be there.

But that's not the point is it?

What do you call it when your best friend just decides--on the word of someone who she doesn't know well, doesn't even like that much--that you're not worth hanging out with anymore? I call it cold. Colder-than-Tundra cold.

This is what happens when you stretch. I have spent this entire year stretching out of my comfort zone, coping with situations that--my goodness, how do you describe it? If anyone would have told me in advance how this school year would progress, I would have laughed and moved right on into it anyway. I'd have never believed it.

Long story short, in the midst of the chaos one of my long-standing opposers. It's hard to choose a word there--"rival" sounds like I'm trying to compete with her for something, and she has nothing I want or need; "enemy" sounds like we hiss at each other in the halls and cook up harrassment schemes for off-campus entertainment. What we really had an avoidance relationship, if that makes any sense.

At any rate, horrible things happened to us both. And as a result I reached out. At someone else's urging I extended a truce; that means I did it against my better judgment. But that was the only time I was a victim. The rest of it I did to myself.

I worked to get her her life back. More than her life really. She was always cute and popular but not so smart--even though she had it in her to be smart. With the time she had on her hands during her recuperation, we fixed it so she got in touch with her academic side, and voila--she was earning grades she didn't think possible. She became part of our world for a little bit and I was foolish enough to believe she would see the wisdom in it. That she could have it all.

Well, that's exactly what she took. She's a shining star among the sports crowd and the academic crowd. More popular and showered with more attention than she had before she landed in her wheelchair. And please understand that I was so happy for her. I felt that her life took on a new aspect, because mine certainly did. There are lessons here that I wouldn't trade for the world.

But now she wants to keep everything she's gained, but deny me any part of it. Can you believe that? We haven't been back to class for two days and she's told my friends such stories that they don't know what to think. They don't know who to believe. Can I count on them to come to me to find out the truth? At the beginning of the year I would have said, "Certainly!" Now I just stand here and shiver in a vast unknown plain that is colder than the tundra. I know it is, because when the chill comes from inside, there's no blanket to cover it with, no heater to turn on--it just freezes you inside, particularly your heart.

--
Carolyn
http://www.carolyndekat.com