Day 17: 13 Days of Writing Prompts

Two things, before I launch into something that will probably knock your socks off.

1. I changed my blog layout! I'm really proud of it. That sassy lady you see in the header is a character from my favorite graphic novel (I'm pushing up my imaginary glasses as I say this in a really nerdy voice, FYI) Ghost World by Daniel Clowes. The character's name is Enid Coleslaw, and, if you can't guess by the name, she's pretty much the epitome of cool. I want to be her when I grow up (so...a fictional teenaged girl who has an awesome record collection?)

2. I really want to keep up with this blog, but I don't always have something interesting to say. I feel like talking about my daily adventures would put people to sleep, so I'm reduced to talking about dysentery and my fascination with everything about the 90's. Also, if I try to force the intellectualism, it turns into pretentious junk, like this. Barf-o-rama.

So, in light of not droning on and on about the sassafrass middle school children I work with or my lame homework, I've taken on the challenge of responding to one of these Mcsweeney's writing prompts for the next 13 days. They're better than your average writing prompts in that they are nonsensical and silly. Here goes day 1!

Prompt:
Write a scene showing a man and a woman arguing over the man’s friendship with a former girlfriend. Do not mention the girlfriend, the man, the woman, or the argument.

I am made from the soft earth of South America, mixed with hand fulls of the Amazon river. 1,000 years ago, I was leaves on a Brazil Nut tree. I was bits of sweet fruit and carcasses of beetles and snakes. I was once a living organism with cells and a nucleus - producing, reproducing.

I was molded by brown hands caressing me as I spun around and around in an endless cycle of evolution. All of the living parts inside me melding together, dampened and smoothed by more drops of the Amazon - all of the living parts taking shape into a new, rounded, hollow object.

I was thrown into flames. I hardened as the living parts of me died. I glistened blue and black in the sun. I was filled and refilled with water. Some days, it felt like I was full of pride instead of gallon after gallon. I enjoyed these days.

Then, there came a day when I was no longer an object of purpose. I retired from my job of carrying precious goods inside of my hollowed center. I was placed on a shelf where I did not shine as brightly as I once had.

And there I stayed, occasionally holding flowers less beautiful than the ones I remembered from the rainforest. Red, small flowers whose perfume paled in comparison to the wild orchids that helped create my clay body.

I realized I had become an object of beauty. Pretty, but essentially useless. I wondered if I would ever be filled with pride, water, anything ever again.

And then, today, my purpose changed once more.

In an instant and without pain, I was hurled against the stained wall adjacent to my shelf home. Bits of myself scattered over the maroon carpet. I have traveled many miles for this moment.

This is my life cycle: purpose, beauty, violence, burial. I am back in my dirt home. Perhaps I will one day be found: crushed and mixed with water, remade into clay, remolded into a pot, repurposed once more. Or maybe I am an object of time now. A relic to be dug up and put on display for future eyes. I do not know. But, I will wait. And I will see.

That was a tough prompt. In case my response was too convoluted (probably), I took the POV of a vase or pot that one of the angry lovers I'm not supposed to mention threw against the wall in the argument I'm not supposed to mention. I'm pumped for tomorrow's prompt... but you'll just have to wait. And see!

The 90's: A Decade of Hotties

The 90's were a decade of unparalleled hotness in the department of male celebrities. Let's reminisce together!


Macaulay Culkin: The Real Inventor of the "O Face".

So maybe Macaulay Culkin wasn't a hottie in the traditional sense of the word - but he was the one who, when I was the tender age of 7, taught me how to feel. Inexplicably, he was the first person I ever had a legitimate crush on. This only solidifies one true fact: love makes no sense!



Jonathan Taylor Thomas (JTT!!)

This fellow was the original Justin Bieber. He made floppy hair cool way before the Biebs was even a thought in God's pocket. He was the heart and soul of Tiger Beat.

When I was 8, my friends and I wrote a love letter to him and put it in the mailbox to be sent. Unfortunately, that was before we knew the importance of labeling an envelope with more than just a person's name on it.

Hey, it had always worked for Santa!



Blink 182 - specifically Mark Hoppus.

Who doesn't love a 12 year old trapped in a 23 year old's body? With lyrics about boobs, farts, and an entire song called "I Want to Fuck a Dog in the Ass", these men stole my middle school heart.



Brandon Boyd

The inventor of pelvic cleavage gives new meaning to the term "happy trail".



Gavin Rossdale: there are no words, except...

Is it possible for a picture to cause early-onset puberty? Because I'm pretty sure that would have happened if I saw this one back in the day.



And...finally...the face that launched a thousand ladyboners:

Leonardo DiCaprio!

He was number one in the hearts of just about every female except for myself. I found him attractive, but I wasn't one of those girls who saw Titanic 10 times before it even went to video. No, I was NOT one of the masses who were quite literally obsessed with Leo's lady-like features.

Also, curiously, this guy has not aged well. Unlike a fine wine, his features have become distorted. Gone are the notes of sandalwood and vine ripened berries; this vintage is rather more of a mediocre grape juice now.

If only Inception were real

so this face could capture America's heart once more!

Day 9: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Barfy

Jonathan Safran Foer, you are a god among men. Moreso, I would say, than that Tebow guy who apparently plays football. (I just learned that today!) So, it pains me to give this post such a sacrilegious title. But, I must, because your movie has U2 in the trailer and that alone is enough to inspire nausea...

Simply put, there is no possible way this movie will do the book justice. I know that's a cliche said about pretty much every cinematic attempt at a book. And usually this cliche is valid. But, I think for this book, the validity of this statement is even more poignant. The things that make this book beautiful: the pictures, the visual dynamics of the text, and the subtle nuances of Oskar Schell's character - are impossible to replicate in a film.

Before I fully launch into my manifesto, let's rewind to the first time I encountered this novel...

Fall, 2008. I had just moved to Boston and begun my time with City Year. While I spent my weekdays at school, I spent my weekends working at Starbucks or wandering aimlessly around Boston. Up until that point, I had spent the majority of my life in the same 50 mile radius in southern New Hampshire. I had always dreamed of living in a city - New York, San Francisco, Seattle? - it didn't matter where. So, as soon as I graduated college, I made that dream come true by moving to Boston.

In those precious hours of free weekend time, I would often end up at the Boston Public Library. This was the typical city library of my dreams - some halls dirty and dingy and with stained carpets, other halls pristine and marble and intricately designed. On one such trip, I stumbled upon the book in question. After reading the first sentence to test out the feel of the book (a trick I learned from a high school English teacher, who stressed the utter importance of that first sentence. Thanks Mr. Dutton!) - I was hooked:

What about a teakettle? What if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or just crack up with me?

These first few sentences tell you all you need to know about Oskar: he is a boy who is deeply sad and probably has Asperger's. I mean, turning a teakettle into a replacement father figure? This is not your average quirky kid. This is a kid who invents elaborate contraptions and gives himself bruises to battle his emotions about what happened to his dad.

Anyway, after finding this book on the shelf, I spent the next couple hours at the library that day, sitting in a sunny spot and falling in love with the character of Oskar Schell. The next day and the next, I read this book on the T as I rode to the school in the morning. I read it during lunch in the teacher's room. This book accompanied me everywhere!

In a way (this is a big stretch), I felt like I could relate to Oskar. He was having an adventure throughout New York City, just as I was having an adventure in Boston. Similarly, after 9/11 happened, Oskar saw his city in a new and potentially ominous light. As someone who grew up around apple orchards and a bunch o' white folk, Boston became my own ominous landscape. I wasn't sure how nervous I should be while riding the T by myself. I clutched my bags and the handrail every time I was on the T. So... Oskar and I, two little people with big imaginations having an even bigger adventure in the city.

The last few pages of this novel are not text, but images. I've never before or since seen images used so effectively in an adult fiction novel. These last couple pictures are simultaneously heartbreaking and uplifting. Simply put, Jonathan Safran Foer used these pictures in an Extremely Clever and Incredibly Imaginative way that will NOT transfer over into the film. There's just no way.

In conclusion to my manifesto: this book made me feel things I didn't know I knew how to feel (the grammar in this sentence is cray-zay!) And the movie makes me angry. And I want to marry JSF.

FIN

Those hands are extremely small...

...and incredibly Photoshopped.

Day Three: In Which I Listen to and Love 90's Rock

Last night, I decided to add yet another random station to my already long list on Pandora. I don't usually build by songs, but rather choose stations based on a particular artist or band. I have everything from Kesha to Yeasayer to Marvin Gaye (which I never listen too, but you know...just in case...)

It's been a while, Marv.

Anyway, my new addition is definitely my favorite, by far. It is.... 90's Alternative/Grunge!!! And it seriously completes me in a way I cannot fully explain, though I will try. I am overcome with emotion just thinking about it, so bear with me as I try to sift through unimaginable joy, nostalgia, and heartache. Ok...let's start at the beginning... when my brain first acknowledged music and began to have preferences. So: 6 or 7 years old.

When I was a youngin', my momma did a good job of exposing me to the drug-addled rockstar world of Nirvana, The Pixies, and Liz Phair. While other kids were playing Red Rover or some shit, we were cruising in her cherry-red Honda civic (a color I chose, probably because I knew it was bad ass), listening to Smells like Teen Spirit. As a 6-year-old, I could only imagine what teen spirit smelled like. I had not an inkling that it would resemble the stench of sweaty armpits and humiliation after having failed the gym teacher's torturous mile-dash.

As I got older, I briefly went in a new direction. In 2nd grade, I developed a love for TLC, which I learned was not an acronym for Tender Loving Care. So deep was my avoidance of chasing waterfalls! I even recall a childhood musical argument (in preparation for those pretentious "My Music Is Better Than Yours!" conversations sure to come later in life?) over the merits of TLC vs. Mariah Carey. While Mariah Carey sung tunes about sweet, sweet, false fantasies, T Boz, Lefteye, and Chili crafted philosophical (but melodic!) scores reflecting on AIDS. They were clearly superior, for they were music with substance.

Crazy, Sexy, Cool Role Models!

Sometime after this affair with the world of R&B and whatever was on JAM'N 94.5 (usually Salt 'N Pepa), I rediscovered alternative rock. This time, I explored Green Day, Everclear, and No Doubt with all of the gusto that a 5th grade girl in rural New Hampshire could muster. I'll be honest, I did not have a lot of friends during this time. So, I guess I understood Billy Joe's angst-ridden songs in Dookie. In a way, we both suffered from a lack of love and admiration; we were both trapped in the doldrums of white-bred America. I was 10 years old. I could relate to that.

Then middle school happened and everything changed again. The hormones that flooded my brain also clouded my judgement. Suddenly I was all about Hot Topic and baggy jeans. I actually ENJOYED Korn and Limp Bizkit. How I thought that was viable music is a mystery that remains. All I can use to explain away this severe lack of musical standards is the switching on of my pituitary gland. That bastard in my brain did not think Fred Durst was literally the worst human being in the history of the world. It thought quite the opposite, which is just...ew.

But, I digress. Last night, I was reminded of my musical history when I found that gem of a Pandora station. I was suddenly transported into a world where I knew the words to every single song. Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Everclear (which I now realize was a seriously underrated band. They were so good!), Lit, Eve 6. These were the musicians that defined me when I was growing up. What I lacked in friends and a social life was made up for in time spent listening to WFNX and building up a library of lyrics that is still accessible to me today. I can proudly say that I do not regret my choices!

I do, however, really, really regret ever listening to something called "Freak On A Leash" - and not hating it.

Our hair is as long as our unhappiness is deep.