Happy Halloween!

This is Dr. Uranium wishing you a safe and Happy Halloween! Write Like A Rock Star Mad Scientist! Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahaha!

Fan Girl Friday: Christopher Pike

I saved my favorite for last!

Where do I begin? I love Christopher Pike so much! More so even than R.L. Stine. I always preferred a series that had some continuity and Pike's series certainly delivered. My favorites were Spooksville and The Last Vampire which I must say was much more mature than I probably should have been reading at the tender age I was reading it at. 

I digress. The fact remains that Christopher Pike was and is a master of the teen thriller and it's a real shame that more of his works haven't received the mainstream acclaim of some of his contemporaries like R.L. Stine or Bruce Coville. In my opinion, Christopher Pike beats them all.

So what has Mr. Pike got to teach us about writing? I think his #1 lesson is: "Don't be afraid to take risks." He's killed off protagonists, had sex scenes in teen novels, and kids whose parents were MIA. 

He even had a character in The Last Vampire who was dying from AIDS. 

Seymour, was just like everyone else which was so important and powerful in a book from 1994 when there was still a huge stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS. This character was just a normal kid who caught a terrible disease and the readers were are able to relate to him and empathize with him. Christopher Pike does not pull punches and it makes his stories awesome and relatable. 

So too, should we strive to make our stories awesome and relatable by not pulling punches. Write about the characters and situations you think you shouldn't. It will make your writing more raw, vivid, and fearless. Someone out there reading your work will be glad that you did. I'm sure glad that Christopher Pike did.

Now go! Write Like a Rock Star! 

#ThrowBackThursday: The Drive Home

I wrote this poem on my way home from Perdido Key one morning in March of 2008. I had spent the night out there visiting an old friend. This part of my life was strange and complicated but Perdido was gorgeous. It's still one of the prettiest places I've ever been.

The Drive Home

It’s 6 am
She’s driving back
To where she’s going
From where she’s been
Along Blue Angel ParkwayShe’d never been to Perdido
But where she’d been last night
She’d been one hundred times before

She drives
And watches the sun rise
The first fuchsia rays lighting the sky before her.
She’d had 2 red bulls
Sugar free to watch her figure
Not that it mattered
She was the type of woman
Charles Bukowski would have raped.

And it's a wonder no one had -
All the arms she’d been in
The lips she’d tortured
All the looks over glasses of Drambuie
Not because she liked it
But because it was exotic, dark,
It was something different
Like her.

"You're different," they all say
Always the same breathy lines
“I feel comfortable around you” and
“I’ve never told this to anyone” and
“You and I were made for each other”
They swoon. They whisper
“I’ve never met anyone
Quite like you before”

-          You’re smart
-          You’re pretty
-          You’re interesting
-          You’re pretty
And I only want to be with you.
Their proclamations tend always
To raise her eyebrows in disbelief
I only want to be with you . . .

She's not buying it anymore
She drives with heavy eyes
It’s all so tiresome
Men she kissed years ago
When she was still a little girl
Have clung to the memory
Of her lips & eyes & thighs - All lies
“I love you,” they say. “I always have.”

She weaves the car in and out of turns
Watching the sun rise
Wondering about all the lies
Flowing forth from behind
Such sincere eyes – his and hers
Between her lily fingers burns
A clove cigarette, smoldering
Like the desire she left in the boy

On the beach - a fire that won't
Be quenched by the morning tide
She takes a drag – the cherry burns bright
Like his hope and desire – denied
She recalled her words
“What do you want – to love me?”
His reply
“Yes – I always have.”

She sighs and rolls down the window
The sky was light – the sun up
It had all been so stimulating at least
Watching him burn in the water
Like an effigy on the beach
Drowning in her fire
He was papier-mâché melting
Going up in flames.

She drives on - passing housing developments
Wishing for normalcy -A thing
Like those white washed facades
Labyrinth streets and lamps
Now shutting off in the morning light
That was nothing more than
A notion fabricated in the cold war
The Naval Air Station was to her right.

Morning
Normalcy
Heavy eyes
Normalcy
Cold War
She looks at the houses – rows and rows
Did they hide horror shows of normalcy?
Madness inside

Cold Wars
Love triangles
Rapes
Silence
Children crying in corners
Women with white washed facades
A fabricated notion
Normalcy

Black Eyes
Given by guys
Not men
Guys
Wife beater stained by beer and fear
Sad faces peering out kitchen windows
A coffee pot clicks on
2 cups on a table

"I'm sorry baby,"
Whispered over steaming mugs
Of decimated dreams
No response
Silence
“That’s right bitch”
Silently fills the air
Louder than the jet engines overhead.

She drives, arrives
The sun rises
Her eyes heavy
Her mind races
A hundred different places
Faces, conversations
They’re all the same
Mundane – yet glamorous.

She has them on strings
Her eyes pull this way and that
They dance like marionettes.
She is Svengali,
Pulling words from their lips
Glamorous “I love you.”
She closes her eyes
She’s was only talking to herself.



I typed this up the morning I wrote it after not sleeping back in 2008, so I think there's something wrong with it. I'll give it another look and maybe you'll find a revision on here in the future. I really like where I was going with this poem. In the meantime, here's a picture of me and my friend Stephanie from around the same time.

Honors Formal 2008

Thow Down Tuesday #5

It's time for Throw-Down Tuesday! I give you a prompt and we all  free-write about it for 250 to 500 words. If you want, you can leave your free-write in the comments and on Thursday I will post the best ones of the lot. There might even be prizes involved. Sounds fun, right? When you're finished, please leave your word count at the bottom of the post in parenthesis. Thanks!

Are you ready?

Because today marks two years since the world lost the genius of Lou Reed, our prompt comes from a Lou Reed song: 

It's such a perfect day, I'm glad I spent it with you. Oh just a perfect day. You're going to reap just what you sow.

English Major Monday: Why #WriteLikeARockStar?

Southern Writers Selfie

It was brought to my attention while I was at the Southern Writers Symposium on Saturday that I am not the only person out there encouraging people to Write Like a Rock Star. Apparently, one of the presenters at the symposium uses this as her tag line as well. I'm not sure about what her meaning is exactly since I didn't get to see her presentation, but finding out that I'm not that original got me thinking about what I mean when I say Write Like A Rock Star.

I mean several things.

First of all, I mean for you to be fierce and bold when you write. I mean "Rock Star" hyperbolically. I want you to be larger than life. I want you to believe in yourself and your writing. Have confidence. When you write, pretend you are Steven Tyler, or Mick Jagger, or Marilyn Manson even. Do whatever it takes to get your story on the page. Write Like a Rock Star.

But I also mean something else. I want you to literally Write Like a Rock Star. I want you to consider how Rock Stars write their song lyrics. What makes them memorable and catchy? What stories are they telling? What is capturing the attention and the imagination of the listening public? Are these things that you could incorporate into your writing wither in content or style?

What do I mean? Maybe you could get neat story idea from a song. For example, "Janie's Got a Gun" is a short story looking for a place to happen. There are plenty of narrative songs that could be springboards for interesting writing exercises. Similarly, there are less narrative lyrics such as Oasis' "There are many things I would like to say to you but I don't know how," or Duran Duran's "Come on over to my place, we're playing with uranium and when it blows up in my face I'll see you on the other side," that are vague and yet evocative enough to inspire a writing exercise.

Conversely, one might look at the structure of a song for poetic or narrative devices. I have said it before and I will say it again: song writers are WRITERS and we can learn a lot from them. I would argue that they are the most widely read writers on the market in the world today because everyone listens to music. Their work is ubiquitous and prolific. As writers or poetry or prose we have a lot to learn from them.

An unlikely friend I made on the way to the symposium.

Sunday News: Sixth Edition

Brings the dawning . . .

Hello Dear Friends and Gentle Readers!

I did it! I read at the Southern Writers Symposium and I think that it went really well despite the fact that I felt like I wanted to crawl out of my own skin all week long. I thought last week was long. It had nothing on this week. With everything going on with husband and Army, I was a nervous wreck by the time Friday rolled around but I managed to pull myself together long enough to do my reading and I even answered a question about it.

Questions are a thing that I had not considered when preparing for this event. I don't know I thought this, but I assumed that I would read my little excerpt and be done. Nay, nay. There was a question and answer period afterward which has led me to realize that I need to think of some answers to questions that could potentially be asked of me about my work an my process. Thankfully, the question that was asked of me was a real softball: "What was your relationship to Eleanor?" Answer: "She just lived next door to us." Easy. But heaven help me if anyone had asked me a really probing question. I would have been all "Uh-uh-uh." Because I don't think well on the spot.

The breakout sessions I attended were interesting. The first one was about using social media to write poetry. Specifically, integrating guerrilla art found online with poetry on social media. I don't know how much I will use this concept in my own writing, but maybe I will give it a try. I feel myself resisting because I don't identify as a poet. I could be a poet though. I might just need to try harder.

The second session I went to was about  blogging and how it can be a "gateway to opportunity" for writers such as myself. I came away from the session feeling like I am more or less doing this blogging thing right at the moment, I just need to be more engaged online. I find that to be a real struggle. I want to be engaged, but that sort of thing is such a time commitment and there just aren't enough hours in the day. Thankfully I now know that I am on the right track. I still don't understand Twitter though. I'm beginning to think that's a lost cause.

The blogging session also providing me with a platform to say some smart things about literacy that speak to my ideas about the validity of pop music as literary texts and that was really exciting. When asked to talk about the statement,

"The internet is this generation's defining technology for literacy."

I said that the internet is redefining what it means to be literate because people no longer read in the traditional sense of the word. Most people do no sit down with a book and engage with it. They skim blogs and news items online, they watch t.v. shows, and music videos, essentially they passively consume words. They are not illiterate but they participating in passive consumption without critical engagement - and the professor was really impressed with my assertion!

!Geek Moment!

 After the blogging session we had lunch and enjoyed a reading by Nathan Poole from his book Father Brother Keeper which you should really take a look at if you have a chance. The story he read was called "Silas" and it was just gorgeous. I don't read a lot of fiction anymore, so the only thing I can say it reminded me of was Nick Cave's novel And the Ass Saw the Angel. I told Mr. Poole as much. I can't wait to read the rest of his work. He may have turned me back on to fiction for a time.

All in all, I had a pretty good time at the Symposium, even if I was walking around looking like I wanted to suck up into myself. I am going to blame this on not being around adults all that often anymore and not knowing how to act. If you get the chance, I think you should take the opportunity to attend a writers conference or symposium. Submit your work for the contests and readings. You'll meet a lot of people and make some connections. Even if you're shy like me, I bet you'll come away from the experience inspired. I certainly am. I'm going to try to start a short story today.

Eleanor: Part 6

When the paramedics took her temperature on the way to the hospital, it was 108 degrees. The health department was concerned about meningitis. The trailer had been under quarantine until the autopsy proved that her death was caused by nothing more than heat stroke, brought about by the June sun beating down on a metal oven with no ventilation.

Somehow, two of the doves outlived her. We found the others, the dead, during the expedition to save those that remained and to unearth long forgotten papers – titles and wills and all those things that are only important when someone has ceased to be.

When my mother breached the threshold of the Airstream called home, I thought I was there just because I didn’t want to miss anything. I wanted to be part of the story. I couldn’t have known at the time that I was trying to make sense of Eleanor’s story. I was so excited when my mother pulled out that blue tub full of tenderly wrapped parcels. In my experience, treasures were wrapped and stored in that way. Porcelain knick knacks or glass trinkets. Christmas ornaments. Fine china. Family heirlooms. I looked on expectantly. What was dear to her? Birds. Dead birds – individually wound in death shrouds made of toilet paper in the way that I wrapped my favorite fragile things.

Other than dead things, garbage, and the legal papers that spurred our intrusion in the first place, there was nothing left of this woman except some books, her notebooks and papers, and the flag from her husband’s casket. These are the things that I pulled from the black garbage bag on Christmas Eve 2012. I suddenly needed some answers as to why. This bag that had been occupying my floor space and perfuming my home with the smell of decay contained the last remaining pieces of her consciousness – of her life – yet I could not find the words to explain why this thing that looked like garbage was so important to me. Maybe I thought if I could find one piece of paper that made some sense I could say “Look! There was a reason!”

If you have ever handled something that has sat derelict for a time, you are familiar with the particular odor that paper acquires. Musty books are famous for this – handling them leaves your hands feeling chalky and unclean, as my hands did when I looked through what was left of Eleanor’s life. I waited more than half my life to find the courage for this moment. I thought I might find some insights on her offbeat interests, some reflections on her relationship with my family, or some vaguely logical reason for her dying the way she did. I needed a reason why she stayed in that gleaming metal tube long after the electricity and plumbing had stopped working. Why she stayed even as smoke hung heavy in the air from the fires that threatened to consume us all.

I pulled out a notebook and began to read and in that beautiful, delicate hand there were pages and pages of the same things.

Over.

And over.

And over.

 “A woman on Star Trek – not ever part of me.”

“The Jews are behind the AIDS virus.”

“To live this way, one must have faith in God”.

There were around 20 or 30 thoughts or variations on those thoughts. They were written repeatedly, frantically, obsessively on page after page of tablets, notebooks, and various sundry scraps of paper. I dug through the bag, searching for some coherent thought. Some idea as to why she chose to live the way she did. There was none.

There were thoughts on faith, rants on esoteric religious orders, and musings on new age philosophy. There was little to no variation in the sentences; the same sentence written in 1979 would appear in a notebook dated 1991. One sentence would repeat until it filled an entire page, or several pages. Letters were written and re-written, and written again, with almost no variation. I had seen this in movies, but I thought it was exaggeration. Artistic license. Cinematic hyperbole.
This cannot be real.

But there it was.

I dug through and began to scrutinize everything I found that said “1998.” Maybe there was something. There had to be. In April or May she apparently ran out of paper and took to writing notes on a 1998 calendar. There was very little at this point, and as time went on the writing deteriorated in both substance and style. What was once merely mental illness had, through the heat and living conditions, deteriorated into something else - dementia? My name was a footnote across the twelve years I had existed. L. Ron Hubbard’s Dionetics (a copy of which I found in the bag with her writings) got more mention in her notes than I did. My name appeared once.

Throughout the years I must have thought that when I finally found the courage to look through the bag I would find some sort of justifiable reason for her actions. Maybe it was a religious thing, like the Christian Scientists. She put her faith in God, but she forgot that He only helps those who help themselves. I thought that in solving the mystery of her life and death, I might have some closure, and that I might also learn something about myself.

Conceited though it may be, I wanted to see myself through her eyes. I was the only person who did not shy away from her – the only person who genuinely enjoyed and even sought out her company, and I barely warranted a mention in her delirious compositions.

***

I sat in the floor for hours that night, moving paper, reading, leafing, searching, and soon I was surrounded by the remnants of a lonely life tragically ended. All that was left of her are words and the smell; these remain with me. I was surrounded by words, and yet I could find none to express what this all meant to me and what it should mean to anyone else. She listened to me when I spoke, and I listened to her – but in sitting among her thoughts I realized that perhaps we had both listened without understanding. I thought I knew her best and I found that I knew nothing.

Eleanor:Part 5

The rest is a blur. 911 was called. A first responder arrived. I remember being there, just outside the door when he found only a small piece of twine holding it closed. That fact alone would be enough to haunt my mother for the rest of her life.  I remember seeing him cut it with a pair of medical scissors.

This memory of being there conflicts with my memory of the ambulance. Maybe after the first responder found her on top of the trash my mother sent Heather and I back to the house? I almost remember being told to leave – why don’t I remember being made to stay at the house in the first place? Was I really there, or is this a creation of my overactive imagination? My mother is the only person who could say for sure, and we don’t talk about this day.

By the time the ambulance arrived, the yard was chaos. When you call 911, you get police, paramedics, first responders, and firefighters. They all bring their own service vehicles. A rainbow of flashing lights littered the scene as I watched. It was like a silent movie. A tableaux projected onto the silver screen of the afternoon sky, her naked body the only bit of black and white in this colorized presentation. The stretcher was a liter carrying her to her chariot, her jet black hair the only bit of darkness on her pale grey body.

The chaos departed as quickly as it had descended, and soon I found myself alone with Usher and my own multi colored silk thread. I had a safety pin attached to a pillow on my bed and I was knotting the colors into a chord with rib spiraling up one side. My head was down, my jaw was set. My actions belied my anxiety, but my brain was set on convincing the rest of me that it was all going to be alright.

My mind raced. “Her sister, Dolores will come down from Baltimore. While Eleanor’s recovering we’ll get her house fixed. Eleanor will finally let us come in her house after this. We’ll watch science fiction movies and I’ll tell her all about all the boys I like. She’ll finally get to hear me play my trumpet. It’s all going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay . . . “ All the while, making tiny and precise knots out of colored string like her life depended on it. However, campfire crafts do not save lives.

She died in the ambulance.

Eleanor: Part 4

When we took her grocery shopping it was easy to see that the refuse on the floor of the Airstream was at least knee deep throughout the entire place. More came into the tiny structure than ever came out of it.  She slept in the living room because the bedroom was too full of trash. Conditions had deteriorated gradually over the years. By May of 1998, the septic line was backing up and exposed. She no longer had running water. The electrical system was faulty, only supplying enough power for an oscillating fan and a small portable television which itself eventually gave up the ghost.

As summer approached there was a draught and wildfires raged throughout the state. The temperatures reached record highs nearly every day. One by one, the doves she kept were dying in the heat, their little tongues hanging out of their beaks desperate for water and cool, fresh air. She told us all of this, weeping, through the door on nights when my mother would beg her to come out and accept some help. Despite the heat and the inadequate living conditions, Eleanor chose to remain sealed up inside that aluminum sarcophagus, all alone except for the birds. My mother sought to have her involuntarily institutionalized via the “Baker Act” but this course of action failed. The Sherriff declared that she was neither mentally ill nor a harm to herself or someone else in the eyes of the State of Florida. She was a grown woman and free to remain in her own home if that was her choice.

Never mind the fact that she had blocked out all light and air with a combination of black garbage bags, newspaper, and tinfoil over all the windows. We worried that the wildfires would reach our neck of the swamp and she would refuse to leave even as the flames threatened to engulf her entirely. For weeks, we pled with her to at least come sit with us in our trailer for a little while - to enjoy the air and a nice shower. Even as the temperature rose, each day she politely and steadfastly refused.

Eventually, my mother gave up. No one was concerned about the situation, least of all the woman herself, so what more could my mother do? She stopped walking over to talk to Eleanor through the door. Throwing her hands up in despair, Mom took to her chair to silently worry while chewing on the remnants of her nails.

The tension in the house was palpable. I lived for Tuesday and Thursday mornings when marching band practice provided me with my only means of escaping the house. I was twelve years old; it’s not like I could drive. On those afternoons I did my best to use up the rest of my day in the company of my best friend Heather. At her house I could escape the scene that had grown unmanageable. At my house, I felt safe in her shadow.

June 18, 1998 was a Thursday. Heather had come home with me. I thought I was safe. We were doing what middle school girls did in Crescent City – chatting about high school boys and listening to Usher. That day, in addition to what I can only assume was yet another discussion of boys, Heather was teaching me some new techniques for making friendship bracelets. She had been making them for years, her graceful fingers deftly weaving differently colored silk threads into flat, geometric patterns. Works in progress were always pinned to her purse for easy access, leaving the unwoven threads to trail behind her as she walked. I could not seem to learn the technique that Heather was trying to teach me. That afternoon, as the seventh grade loomed before me, my greatest concern was that I only knew how to create a rudimentary style with a rib running in a spiral up the side of the rounded chord.

At some point we foolishly decided that we might venture out of my bedroom into the living room. I can’t imagine why. Maybe we heard my mom and dad talking about Eleanor and our emergence was an attempt to diffuse what was sure to become a tense situation. Even if that was not the reason – it became the subject when my dad asked us to run next door to check on her. We gladly accepted.

While I was intensely uncomfortable with the climate the Eleanor situation had wrought under my roof, I was still intrigued by the situation itself. I had no idea how serious it really was. Eleanor would be fine. She had always been there. Eventually someone would get her to come out. Why shouldn’t it be me and Heather? We would be heroes.

The afternoon hot, but cooler than the morning had been. The sky was overcast, threatening to deliver much needed rain. The air was wet and thick with smoke from the fires. We bounded over the Airstream with light hearts. If nothing else, it would be fun to talk to Eleanor for a moment, and I felt some sort of pleasure in performing a job from which my mother had informally resigned. We leaned our heads into the hot metal and I knocked on the door.

Silence.

I knocked again. “Eleanor? Are you okay?”

Silence.

Heather and I looked at one another. Fear began to creep upon us. I knocked louder. “Eleanor, it’s Joyce and Heather. You remember Heather? Her boyfriend is George?”

Silence.

I pounded on the door and waited, holding my breath. I heard a faint cough. I waited. Speech was usually precluded by these faint coughs. She was like a bird in that way, cooing before she spoke. I looked at Heather. She looked at me. Then we heard a crash.

We hauled ass back to the house, swearing panicky oaths under our breath.

Eleanor: Part 3

When Eleanor wanted to go to town she would come over late the night before to ask if my mom would drive take her the following day.  Eleanor would always emerge from the Airstream after dark; she considered herself a night owl, mostly because it was cooler at night. She slept during the heat of the day with tinfoil and black garbage bags blocking out any light from the outside - an effort to keep the interior of the Airstream cool.

Conversely, my parents were the type of people who didn’t leave the house after dark. If I needed something from town, I had better tell my mom about it before 5 o’clock or I could forget about it until the next day. I used to be very on top of school projects. I’d buy all my poster board and supplies the same day a project was assigned to avoid needing something at 8 PM the night before it was due. As an adult I have learned that my parents’ stance on leaving the house after dark was not the norm. My husband’s mother had been known to take his sister to Wal-Mart at all hours of the night for that one “must have” item for a project due the next day. My mom would have let me fail.

The only time my mom could be found in town after dinner time was on nights she had taken Eleanor to the store. They would leave the house at a reasonable enough hour, usually after I got out of school. Once or twice Eleanor was with my mom when she picked me up from the bus stop.

“Hey Joyce, is that your grandma?”

“No, that’s my neighbor.”

If I’m being honest, I wished she was my grandma even she wasn’t much older than my mom. There was something about her that I struck me as youthful. She was as good a candidate for grandparent as any, though. I didn’t have any. My Pa-Pa died when I was three and the rest of my grandparents had been dead since long before I was an accident waiting to happen.

On the nights she came over to ask for a ride to town, my parents would often leave me to deal with her while they went inside to get ready for bed. Her visits could be at any time between 7 and 10 PM and I was the only person in the house who didn’t seem to care. I liked when she came over. I liked talking to her, and I liked how adult I felt when my mom and dad foisted her off on me.

Mom and Dad can’t handle her, but I can.

She would stand and talk to me under the glow of the porch light about anything from alien theories to the morning show on the radio. If it was a week night, I would have to go to bed around 10, but if it was a weekend, we could talk for hours.

“Don’t you need to go to bed, Joyce Ann?” The way she said my name sounded so different in her Baltimore accent, which to my North Floridian ears was nearly alien.

“No, it’s Saturday. I’m staying up for Tales from the Crypt at 12:30.”

“When I was a little girl,” Eleanor would tell me, “I used to sneak out of bed and watch scary movies after my parents had gone to bed. I used to have terrible nightmares from that. Don’t you ever get nightmares?”

“No, not really,” I’d reply. “I like scary stuff.”

On the nights my mother took her to the store, she would keep the supermarket open for hours after closing time. The management dreaded seeing her come in, but they were always very polite to her. Everyone at Miller’s called her “Rainbow Brite” after the rainbow colored clips she wore in her jet black hair and her brightly colored attire. I always liked the way she dressed, even if it was dated and a bit garish. One of her dresses was beige with great big floral arrangements all over it. I looked like it might have had another life as a couch.

When my mom would finally pick her up from Miller’s, close to midnight, Eleanor would have two carts full of food. She shopped for the entire month all at once and she would always buy more than she could accommodate in her tiny home. The mornings after Eleanor went shopping were like Christmas for me. She would send home all sorts of things my mom never bought, like real Pop Tarts, Basic 4 cereal, and Bryer’s Natural Cherry Ice Cream. She was the type of person to have given away everything she had to help someone in need. God would have wanted it. The trouble was, we weren’t in need. My mom and dad would try every way in the world to get her to keep the groceries she forced on them, but she would insist that they take several bags in return for helping her.

Eleanor: Part 2

When I was in the first grade we upgraded to a doublewide mobile home that was closer to her property than the red house had been. I would often walk over to her Airstream and talk to her through the door. As far as I was concerned, her yard was my yard. There were no fences, and Eleanor had no problem with me playing around the semi-trailer and derelict cars that littered her un-mowed lawn. Anytime I was in her yard I could hear the multitude of doves she kept as pets cooing from inside her trailer.

My parents were usually less than thrilled with me whenever they caught me over there; this was Florida and rattlesnakes were a realistic fear. When they told her they would cut her grass, “I like my jungle!” she would say.   My mom and dad didn’t want her snakes inevitably migrating into our yard and when out of desperation they mowed it anyway she would insist on giving them some money for their efforts.

Eleanor didn’t seem to have any problems with snakes, or any form of life for that matter. They were all God’s creations as far as she was concerned. Once, a tiny scrub pine began to grow right next to the window of the Airstream’s back bedroom. My parents offered to cut it down as it would eventually cause structural damage to the trailer. Eleanor wouldn’t hear of it. “It’s my lonesome pine. It’s like me. I love it.” Maybe she felt that her life was worth less than that of the snakes, trees, and grass. Or, maybe she didn’t anticipate being around long enough for the nature she let grow up around her to cause her any real problems.

I found Eleanor more interesting than most of the kids at school. Through the door of the Airstream we would talk about Unsolved Mysteries, space aliens, and science fiction movies. She was the only person I knew (aside from my best friend Heather, another Unsolved Mysteries fan) who thought there might actually be aliens and ghosts. I loved hearing all the old science fiction movies she’s seen and couldn’t wait to see them myself. The Day the Earth Stood Still was each of our favorites.

As I got older I told her about the boys I liked although she would often get their names confused.

“I saw your boyfriend, Brady at Miller’s last night.”

“No,” I would laugh. “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s just a friend in the high school band. He’s too old for me to date. I want to date William.”

“Oh yes, William, George’s friend?”

“Yeah. If we were together, we could double with George and Heather.”

Eleanor seemed to be interested in what I was saying and she didn’t have any compunction about the fact that I was 12 years old and talking about going on double dates with boys in the tenth grade. Her husband had been 37 years older than her. In her eyes, William and I were practically the same age and in my childhood, this view of age differences was the norm. My dad was 29 years older than my mom. I never considered that there was anything unusual about setting my sights on high school boys while I was in the sixth grade. Just not Brady; he was a senior, after all.

“It’s kind of funny, George plays the trombone and Heather plays the clarinet, so they are in different sections: brass and woodwinds. I play the trumpet and William plays the saxophone, so I’m brass and he’s woodwinds. It would make more sense for me to date George and for Heather to date William, but Heather and George are in love and I love William whether he likes me or not. He’s got the most beautiful eyes.”

Such is the logic of a sixth grade girl, and Eleanor never questioned it.

Eleanor: Part 1

In 2012 the only thing I wanted for Christmas was the black garbage bag that held the diaries of my childhood neighbor, Eleanor. I don’t know why I wanted it after all this time; for twelve years it had been left to rot in the storage building behind my mom’s house. It sat in the corner of my living room for more than a week after Mom dropped the bag off at my house in Georgia on her way to Tennessee for Christmas. Eventually, my husband grew tired of tripping over it. Fearing that he would throw it out - or worse, begin looking through it - at 4 PM on Christmas Eve, after several days of frantic cooking, cleaning, crafting and panicking about the upcoming holiday, I opened the bag to commune with the dead.

I had forgotten the ivy-like curls of her letters. I used to think it looked so graceful and elegant when I was a child. Now I could see that what I once found elegant was nothing more than mimicry. It was the writing of a child who had seen the beautiful script of some long dead relative in a family album and attempted their own scribblings in the same fashion. Each letter was meticulously written and re-written over and over until each word was boldly etched into the paper that still smelled like her.

The woman, her home, and now so many years later, these papers held a particular sweet and acrid odor. My whole life, I had known that scent and while it might sting the nose of anyone else, it held for me a strange yet comfortable familiarity. Everyone has a unique and personal odor. This is neither bad nor good – it simply is. A person’s home will take on their odor, but sometimes the house is the source of scent instead.

Eleanor had not lived in a house at all – but then again, no one I knew did at the time. At least, not anyone I was close to. Single-wides, double-wides, modified trailers, and RVs; these were the status quo. She was the only person I have ever known to live in an Airstream trailer. A great silver bullet glistening in the sun, it had always been there, just to the right of my life. I assumed it would be there forever.

Widowed with no children, no driver’s license, and no telephone, Eleanor relied on the assistance of my parents who saw her as both an obligation and a burden. If they didn’t look after her, who would? She hadn’t had a driver’s license since I was a very small child; the cars in her yard had been sitting, gathering rust for as long as I could remember. When I was in the second grade the county decided that we had to clean up our yard which was littered with appliances in various stages of assembly. My dad was a handy-man by trade and he made a decent living off of repairing washers, dryers, refrigerators, and air conditioners. One of my favorite toys as a child was a washer drum which I could hid inside, roll on top of, or roll down the hill toward the swamp and chase. I saw our yard as an ever changing playground, but the county saw it as an eyesore and made up clean up or face what was sure to be a crippling fine. Eleanor’s derelict cars were included in the order but later removed when the county realized that she wasn’t going to clean up her yard no matter what they threatened. Meanwhile, my dad had a heart attack in the process of cleaning up ours.

She would only come out at night, and then, only around the time her widow’s pension from Social Security check came in the mail. All month I watched her door from my bedroom window with rapt attention for signs of her eminent emergence. Rarely did anything of interest happen in my drama deprived childhood. It was a good day when the cows escaped from the pasture at the end of the dirt road and made a break for the paved county road. They never made it; cows are slow and the dirt road was half a mile or more. For a small child though, there’s nothing more exciting than to find your yard host to a dozen head of cattle who at any moment may have decided to charge at your home. The red house we lived in until I was six was built by hand from a pole barn and salvaged materials my dad was able to cobble together into a livable construction. I’m not sure that it could have withstood the barrage of a disgruntled bull. Sadly, cattle escapes were even more infrequent than the visits from our neighbor.

Sunday News: Fifth Edition

Brings the dawning . . .

Hey there Dear Friends and Gentle Readers! Hello to all the new faces and the old ones alike. I hope you are well on this brisk Sunday Morning. I am here and that's an accomplishment in and of itself. This has been a long week for me.

I did not Tweet this week and yet I saw the same level of adds that I saw when I was tweeting, so I don't know what to think of that other than what I'd previously surmised: Twitter is a nothing but a lot of lone voices screaming into a void. I will resume with my attempts at Twitter this week in order to see if I can actually get some engagement, but I've yet to become a believer.

I also didn't do much with my Facebook page this week. This professional Facebooking thing kills me. I feel like I am pretty good at Facebook on a personal level. I engage. I talk to people. And I enjoy it! But when it comes to getting people excited about my business and the services I can provide? I haven't cracked the code yet. This week, it's back to the drawing board.

Sadly, I received a rejection letter from on of the publications I submitted to on Wednesday. This doesn't really surprise me as the piece was fiction, but I did feel that it was strong enough to have been published. I guess they didn't feel the same. I still have 3 pieces out though, so I have hope that something will be accepted somewhere. Either way, I hope to start submitting again soon.

On a positive note, I bought my domain name this week, so you are now reading this blog post on www.joyceannunderwood.com! How's that for some legitimacy? Soon the revamped site will be live and we'll really be cookin' with Crisco. Speaking of legitimacy, my big reading is next Saturday. I am really excited and a little nervous. Over the course of the next week I will be sharing my piece on here in its entirety. I hope you like it!

Shame

Fan Girl Friday: R.L. Stine

Anybody would look creepy at this angle.

R.L. Stine was a staple of my childhood. Every kid read Goosebumps, and later, we all graduated up to Fear Street. Even persnickety, contrarian kids like me read a R.L. Stine, whether we wanted to admit it or not. His books were everywhere. He was inescapable. You could not be a kid in the 90s without having read at least one Goosebumps book. My first one was The Haunted Mask and believe you me - it was terrifying for a kid of 10. And you are all aware of how I feel about Slappy the Dummy. Slappy the Dummy can just go. He can go far, far away.

So, what can we learn from R.L. Stine?

I think that his story teaches us that what looks like a bad idea can actually be a really good idea. My only criticism of Stine seems to be his biggest strength: The fact that all of the stories in his series stand alone. As a kid, it frustrated me that there was no continuity of characters from book to book, but apparently I was the only one who had a problem with this. Stein has made a career off of writing what the spirit moves him to and he's made a mint in the process. As an adult, I can do nothing but stand in awe of his tenacity and genius.

Speaking of his tenacity, how many people were writing horror for kids when he came on the scene? I'm going to say not many. While horror film was marketed to kids as early as the 1950s, R.L. Stine pretty much created the genre in kids literature. He was groundbreaking! I can't help but love him. Horror was my bread an butter as a kid. R.L. Stine paved the way for all the guys and girls who came after. Love her or hate her, without Stine there would be no Stephanie Meyer. True story.

He's also another one of those writers who made a career out of his craft and convinced me that I could do the same. Without his smiling face on that poster in my local library, I wouldn't be sitting here tip-tapping away at 7 AM on a Friday morning trying to make something of myself. The man has sold 400 million books, and 80 million copies of Fear Street alone. He is a publishing icon.

How did he manage it? Through hard work and perseverance. So can I. So can you. We just have to keep tip-tapping. We have to keep persevering. We have to keep our chins up. We can't quit. Rejection is going to happen. We have to keep going. Success will come, and if it doesn't, at least we'll know we gave it our best shot. How's that for a Friday morning pep talk? :-D

So go! Write Like a Rock Star!

#ThrowBackThursday: Candace Gingrich

The summer before my senior year I spent two weeks in Washington D.C. with the NYLC where I got to schmooze with all sorts of big movers and shakers in the political world. Being a budding gay rights activist, the person I wanted to meet most was Candace Gingrich, who was then the head of the Human Rights Campaign. I was lucky enough to do so and later that day to write this very bad poem about the experience. Enjoy!

This photo was definitely in my senior yearbook.

7-15-03

Candace Gingrich 

I met a goddess today 

You would never know her

If you saw her on the street

But it was my fortune to meet

A goddess today.

She did not radiate light

She radiated strength 

She radiated power

I saw my dream of an hour;

A goddess today.

Word Nerd Wednesday: "Dilate"

It's Word Nerd Wednesday! This week's word is:

DILATE
verb
1. to make wider, larger, or more open.
2. to speak or write at great length on (a subject).
"Until your wife has dilated to 10 centimeters I will dilate on the joys on fatherhood."

[VIDEO]

Too Much Information

Destroyed by MTV, 
I hate to bite the hand that 
Feeds me so much information
The Pressure's on the screen 
To sell you things that you don't need
It's too much information for me

Hey TV Child look into my eyes
Here by intervention I want your attention

Promotion Boy in a suit and tie
He wants you to use it
You're too shot to loose it

It's pumpin down the cable
Like never seen before
A COLA manufacturer is sponsoring the war

Here comes the news with love from me to you

Destroyed by ABC 
I hate to bite the hand that 
Feeds me so much information
The Pressure's on the screen 
To sell you things that you don't need
It's too much information for me

Turn on the tube
Hits you with the Groove
Advertizin muzik
We want you to choose it

These teeth are white trainers ULTRA BRITE

This band is perfect just don't scratch the surface

We covered all the angles
The survey people said
Just put us on the cover we'll be smilin anyway

This video was made with LOVE to you

Destroyed by BBC 
I hate to bite the hand that 
Feeds me so much information
The Pressure's on the screen to 
Sell you things that you don't need
It's too much information for me

Destroyed by MTV 
I hate to bite the hand that 
Feeds me so much information
The Pressure's on the screen to 
Sell you things that you don't need
It's too much information for me

Dilate your MIND
Dilate your MIND
Dilate your MIND

Got to give it to me
Got to listen to me
Got to give in to me
Now I'm on the line


I try......

Throw Down Tuesday #4

It's time for Throw-Down Tuesday! I give you a prompt and we all  free-write about it for 250 to 500 words. If you want, you can leave your free-write in the comments and on Thursday I will post the best ones of the lot. There might even be prizes involved. Sounds fun, right? When you're finished, please leave your word count at the bottom of the post in parenthesis. Thanks!

Are you ready?

In the spirit of yesterday's post, and in the overall spirit of the blog, today's prompt comes from a song lyric:

Who do you need? Who do you love when you come undone?

English Major Monday: In Praise of SongWRITERS

Both the Old English word "scop" and its Old Norse counterpart "skald" refer to the bard-like minstrels who entertained the thanes and liege lords in the mead halls of old. These guys were the rock stars of their day. They sang poems of battles and made immortals of heroes with their songs. While the existence of the scop is held in question, the skald was a very real historical figure, the Beowulf poet was very likely one of these rock stars. 

So, if we pore over the likes of Beowulf, and the sagas of Grettir and Njal, why do we not take the tales of our contemporary scops so seriously? Contemporary pop music gets absolutely no respect for its literary merit no matter how well written a song may be. This is a great disservice to all the incredibly talented lyricists in the music industry and the literary canon. What is pop music if not lyrical oral poetry?

Consider the following lyrics from Duran Duran’s recent release Paper Gods:

"Hey, you're gonna want it all" the talking man declares

Go running to be first in line for what, nobody cares

The next thing you must have

Find peace with matching bag

It's nothing to be glad about or sad when you forget about it

Lebon is making a comment on the emptiness of the modern consumer culture with these lyrics. You cannot buy "peace with matching bag." What an absurd notion, but it is just this level of absurdity that Lebon is trying to show us. Deep and heady stuff, no? If it were in a poem, everyone would stand up and pay attention. Papers would be written. Talks would be given. But since this is a song, the lyric is thrown away.

Why? Songwriters have been making commentary on contemporary issues since time immemorial. What do you think the Beowulf poet was doing? He wasn't writing a tome for us to pore over with the intent of being impressive for posterity. He was commenting on the issues that were effecting his society in that moment. He was culturally relevant. He was writing pop music.

The Beowulf Poet was an Original Gangster.

So why does pop music get such a bad reputation? Is it because it is manufactured for mass consumption? I would argue that there is nothing wrong with that. The more people who can relate to a literary work, the better. I can tell you this - more people have listened to Lady Gaga than have read Cormac McCarthy. This is a fact. Who, therefore has more cultural influence? Who is able to create greater cultural change? Go on, I'll wait.

I believe that rock stars, specifically pop lyricists deserve a place in the literary canon. They are writing works that are being consumed by the public. They are creating ideas. They are changing the world. Maybe print is dead. That's to say nothing of lyrical poetry. The masses aren't reading poetry. The don't seem to be reading much at all, if polls tell us anything. But they are buying and listening to music, so why not include song lyrics and their writers as a part of "literature"? It can only serve to deepen and enrich the discussion. What have we got to lose?

Sunday News: Fourth Edition

Brings the dawning . . .

Hello there Dear Friends and Gentle Readers! How are all you fine people out there in interwebs land? I hope you are well and I'm sure that there are a lot of new smiling faces as I've got a lot of new followers on Twitter this week. That is the first news item, so let's jump right in, shall we?

Twitter. I'm not a fan. It is not at all intuitive. It is a mysterious creature that I can't even begin to understand. But I unlocked part of the code this week and doubled my following. #amwriting is the Golden Ticket it would seem, so I am sticking that hashtag on everything I post from now until eternity. Unless of course it's not about writing. That wouldn't be right, now would it?

The work on my website is going well. I saw the first bit of concept art and it's going to look very different from how it looks now, but it's going to look so much more professional. I must admit, I'm going to miss my garish pink and black color scheme, but I have to keep telling myself that change is good and to embrace it. The designer, Jacklyn, is doing an excellent job.

Oh! And if you don't already know, I figured out how to invite people to like my page over on Facebook! I doubled my likes in less than 24 hours! This is great! The problem is that once this happened, the likes slowed to a halt and no one is following through to my actual website. I am still working on revamping my Facebook and website, so I guess this isn't so bad at the moment, but I'd still like to see more smiling faces around here. I'd like some engagement with my posts. It starts to feel like I'm doing all this work for no reason. I can't feel like that though. I have to feel like I'm doing the work for the sake of doing the work.

Still no new publications to report, but I will have a new post up on SchanEllis.com tomorrow, so I hope you will check that out.

Writing lately has been really hard. Things have been very up in the air. My husband is in a transitional period with his job and as such he's off work indefinitely. That puts him at home, in my work space, all the time. It's stressing me out. I didn't realize it was stressing me out until Friday when I had a mini break down and started sobbing over the fact that the members of Duran Duran will someday die and I will probably not be able to attend their funerals. Nevermind the funerals. The members of Duran Duran will someday die was enough to set me to blubbering.

This is a very irrational thing to cry about, but since I attended the Hank Hill School of Emotional Management, I tend to suppress things until something unexpected sets me off. I cried it out and told my husband how I was feeling and hopefully the situation is resolved. Furthermore, I like to think that the boys have another good 20 years in them, at least. They aren't shuffling off this mortal coil any time soon.

They're way too young and beautiful yet. I am just a anxiety ridden worry wort.

Quiet People

True Story.

Fan Girl Friday: Anne Rice

Hey there dear friends and gentle readers! It’s #FanGirlFriday and today we are talking about one of my favorite authors, spirit guides, and personal heroes: Anne Rice.

I read my first Anne Rice book when I was in the fifth grade. It was The Witching Hour and I have to be honest; I never finished it. It seems that her The Vampire Chronicles series was more my speed. The Vampire Lestat is still one of my favorite books. As I mentioned on Sunday, Anne Rice was the first author that made me think that writing could be a job. When Pandora came out in 1998, my mom taped her appearance on The Today Show for me since I was in school when she came on. That afternoon I watched her talk about writing her trip to Greece off on her taxes and thinking “Yes. This is what I want to do.” I haven’t made it to Anne Rice levels of success yet, but I’m working on it and I remain a true fan.

Not only did Anne Rice teach me that writing can be a job, she bestowed upon me the knowledge of how to make first person narrative work in fiction. The woman is the master of the first person narrative and the wraparound story. Every one of her books that I’ve read is told in first person, a technique enabled by her use of the interview. All these vampires and witches are just telling the stories of their (immortal) lives and it works brilliantly. She is able to get into their heads and tell their stories from their eyes. It’s kind of the best. 

Every great author needs a kitty. Maybe this is what's holding me back . . .

Meanwhile, if it weren’t for Anne Rice, I might not have such an appreciation for Tom Cruise. She was hesitant about his being cast as Lestat in Interview with the Vampire but I think he did a fabulous job. He is The Brat Prince. I can’t even imagine anyone else in the role, although Julian Sands would have been interesting. I should note that I have never read Interview with the Vampire all the way through because I can’t get over how different it is from the movie. Maybe one day I will overcome this issue, but for now I remain a philistine. 

Rice is also the master of social media engagement. I don’t know how she has the time to be on Facebook as often as she is, but I think it’s great and I have a lot to learn from her. She’s always been ahead of the curve when it comes to engaging her fans. How many authors sell t-shirts of their brain scans? Such a clever idea – I wish I had one. Sadly, I don’t think they are available anymore. And then there’s the Vampire Lestat Ball and Undead Con; two events I hope to attend someday. How cool would it be to have such an event based on your works? Anne Rice is the master.

What about you? Who do you think is just the greatest? Let me know in the comments! :-D

#ThrowBackThursday: Jeanette

When I was a senior in high school I was hanging out with a crowd that was significantly older than me. Of this group, Jeanette was my favorite. I wrote this poem about her shortly before my senior prom. When I was home last weekend I didn't think to ask about Jeanette. It was quite a whirlwind trip, after all. I hope that wherever she is, she's happy. She was such a beautiful soul.

For this week's #TBT photo, you're just going to have to check out the Facebook page.

Jeanette

Her name's Jeanette

And she's a stripper 

I think I'd trip in her shoes

If I had to walk a mile.

She's a stripper 

And I push heart attacks

Through the window at

The local Dairy Queen.

She's a stripper

While I'm tucked away in bed

My head full of heaven and hell

She's for sale off 207.

She's a stripper 

I'm a walking, talking lie

So you cry anymore

When he compares you to Jezebel?

Are you scared 

When you twist around the pole?

Was your innocence stolen?

Your pride and your shame?

Her name's Jeanette

And she's a stripper

She supports him

Though he doesn't date "her kind."

Her name's Jeanette

And she's a stripper.

I want to save her 

From what I see as a crime.

When her nail polish flakes

And she's dozing off over there, 

The light and the night make her beautiful -

I just can't do anything but stare.

Word Nerd Wednesday: "Maudlin"

It's Word Nerd Wednesday! This week's word is:

MAUDLIN
adjective: self-pityingly or tearfully sentimental, often through drunkenness.

"When I've had too much to drink, I get all weepy and maudlin."

I first heard this word used in a Velvet Underground song. I'll post the lyrics below. Be sure to check out the Facebook page for the recording. It's totally worth a listen!

The Velvet Underground - "The Gift"

Waldo Jeffers had reached his limit. It was now Mid-August which meant he had
been separated from Marsha for more than two months. Two months, and all he had
to show was three dog-eared letters and two very expensive long-distance phone
calls. True, when school had ended and she'd returned to Wisconsin, and he to
Locust, Pennsylvania, she had sworn to maintain a certain fidelity. She would
date occasionally, but merely as amusement. She would remain faithful.

But lately Waldo had begun to worry. He had trouble sleeping at night and when
he did, he had horrible dreams. He lay awake at night, tossing and turning
underneath his pleated quilt protector, tears welling in his eyes as he
pictured Marsha, her sworn vows overcome by liquor and the smooth soothing of
some neanderthal, finally submitting to the final caresses of sexual oblivion.
It was more than the human mind could bear.

Visions of Marsha's faithlessness haunted him. Daytime fantasies of sexual
abandon permeated his thoughts. And the thing was, they wouldn't understand how
she really was. He, Waldo, alone understood this. He had intuitively grasped
every nook and cranny of her psyche. He had made her smile. She needed him, and
he wasn't there (Awww...).

The idea came to him on the Thursday before the Mummers' Parade was scheduled
to appear. He'd just finished mowing and etching the Edelsons lawn for a dollar
fifty and had checked the mailbox to see if there was at least a word from
Marsha. There was nothing but a circular from the Amalgamated Aluminum Company
of America inquiring into his awing needs. At least they cared enough to write.

It was a New York company. You could go anywhere in the mails. Then it struck
him. He didn't have enough money to go to Wisconsin in the accepted fashion,
true, but why not mail himself? It was absurdly simple. He would ship himself
parcel post, special delivery. The next day Waldo went to the supermarket to
purchase the necessary equipment. He bought masking tape, a staple gun and a
medium sized cardboard box just right for a person of his build. He judged that
with a minimum of jostling he could ride quite comfortably. A few airholes,
some water, perhaps some midnight snacks, and it would probably be as good as
going tourist.

By Friday afternoon, Waldo was set. He was thoroughly packed and the post
office had agreed to pick him up at three o'clock. He'd marked the package
"Fragile", and as he sat curled up inside, resting on the foam rubber
cushioning he'd thoughtfully included, he tried to picture the look of awe and
happiness on Marsha's face as she opened her door, saw the package, tipped the
deliverer, and then opened it to see her Waldo finally there in person. She
would kiss him, and then maybe they could see a movie. If he'd only thought of
this before. Suddenly rough hands gripped his package and he felt himself borne
up. He landed with a thud in a truck and was off.

Marsha Bronson had just finished setting her hair. It had been a very rough
weekend. She had to remember not to drink like that. Bill had been nice about
it though. After it was over he'd said he still respected her and, after all,
it was certainly the way of nature, and even though, no he didn't love her, he
did feel an affection for her. And after all, they were grown adults. Oh, what
Bill could teach Waldo - but that seemed many years ago.

Sheila Klein, her very, very best friend, walked in through the porch screen
door and into the kitchen. "Oh gawd, it's absolutely maudlin outside." "Ach, I
know what you mean, I feel all icky!" Marsha tightened the belt on her cotton
robe with the silk outer edge. Sheila ran her finger over some salt grains on
the kitchen table, licked her finger and made a face. "I'm supposed to be
taking these salt pills, but, " she wrinkled her nose, "they make me feel like
throwing up." Marsha started to pat herself under the chin, an exercise she'd
seen on television. "God, don't even talk about that." She got up from the
table and went to the sink where she picked up a bottle of pink and blue
vitamins. "Want one? Supposed to be better than steak, " and then attempted to
touch her knees. "I don't think I'll ever touch a daiquiri again."

She gave up and sat down, this time nearer the small table that supported the
telephone. "Maybe Bill'll call, " she said to Sheila's glance. Sheila nibbled on
a cuticle. "After last night, I thought maybe you'd be through with him." "I
know what you mean. My God, he was like an octopus. Hands all over the place."
She gestured, raising her arms upwards in defense. "The thing is, after a
while, you get tired of fighting with him, you know, and after all I didn't
really do anything Friday and Saturday so I kind of owed it to him. You know
what I mean." She started to scratch. Sheila was giggling with her hand over
her mouth. "I'll tell you, I felt the same way, and even after a while, " here
she bent forward in a whisper, "I wanted to!" Now she was laughing very loudly.

It was at this point that Mr. Jameson of the Clarence Darrow Post Office rang
the doorbell of the large stucco colored frame house. When Marsha Bronson
opened the door, he helped her carry the package in. He had his yellow and his
green slips of paper signed and left with a fifteen cent tip that Marsha had
gotten out of her mother's small beige pocketbook in the den. "What do you
think it is?" Sheila asked. Marsha stood with her arms folded behind her back.
She stared at the brown cardboard carton that sat in the middle of the living
room. "I dunno."

Inside the package, Waldo quivered with excitement as he listened to the
muffled voices. Sheila ran her fingernail over the masking tape that ran down
the center of the carton. "Why don't you look at the return address and see who
it's from?" Waldo felt his heart beating. He could feel the
vibrating footsteps. It would be soon.

Marsha walked around the carton and read the ink-scratched label. "Ah, god,
it's from Waldo!" "That schmuck!" said Sheila. Waldo trembled with expectation.
"Well, you might as well open it, " said Sheila. Both of them tried to lift the
staple flap. "Ah sst, " said Marsha, groaning, "he must have nailed it shut."
They tugged on the flap again. "My God, you need a power drill to get this
thing open!" They pulled again. "You can't get a grip." They both stood still,
breathing heavily.

"Why don't you get a scissor, " said Sheila. Marsha ran into the kitchen, but
all she could find was a little sewing scissor. Then she remembered that her
father kept a collection of tools in the basement. She ran downstairs, and when
she came back up, she had a large sheet metal cutter
in her hand. "This is the best I could find." She was very out of breath.
"Here, you do it. I-I'm gonna die." She sank into a large fluffy couch and
exhaled noisily. Sheila tried to make a slit between the masking tape and the
end of the cardboard flap, but the blade was too big and there wasn't enough
room. "God damn this thing!" she said feeling very exasperated. Then smiling,
"I got an idea." "What?" said Marsha. "Just watch, " said Sheila, touching her
finger to her head.

Inside the package, Waldo was so transfixed with excitement that he could
barely breathe. His skin felt prickly from the heat, and he could feel his
heart beating in his throat. It would be soon. Sheila stood quite upright and
walked around to the other side of the package. Then she sank down to her
knees, grasped the cutter by both handles, took a deep breath, and plunged the
long blade through the middle of the package, through the masking tape, through
the cardboard, through the cushioning and (thud) right through the center of
Waldo Jeffers head, which split slightly and caused little rhythmic arcs of red
to pulsate gently in the morning sun.